Netflix and Hulu are releasing competing documentaries on the Fyre Festival debacle, but Netflix is dominating Google search interest
- Hulu released a documentary on the disastrous Fyre Festival on Monday, days before Netflix is set to release its own.
- But data from Google Trends shows that Netflix has been leading Hulu in search interest on the subject.
The streaming war is heating up, with Netflix and Hulu releasing competing documentaries on the exact same subject this week.
Hulu surprise dropped a Fyre Festival documentary on Monday called "Fyre Fraud," days before Netflix is set to release "Fyre," its own documentary on the disastrous music festival that drops on January 18.
But data shows that Netflix has been dominating search queries on the subject.
A quick look at Google Trends for "Fyre Festival Hulu" and "Fyre Festival Netflix" shows that the latter has piqued people's interest far more than the former's, even during Monday morning when Hulu debuted "Fyre Fraud." Graphs showing the search trends are below, where Hulu is blue and Netflix is red.
Past 30 days:
Past seven days:
January 14, 8 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Hulu declined to comment on the record on releasing "Fyre Fraud" ahead of Netflix's film. Netflix did not immediately return a request for comment.
The Fyre Festival was a 2017 event on a private island in the Bahamas coordinated by entrepreneur Billy McFarland, who is currently serving six years in prison for wire fraud. Attendees paid up to $25,000 for elaborate accommodations, but when they arrived, they found little food, no concert stage, and none of the artists that were promised, including Blink-182 and Migos.
Hulu's move to unexpectedly drop "Fyre Fraud" shows the urgency to compete in the age of streaming, and how easy it is to release content to audiences. But the Google Trends data also highlights Netflix's streaming domination, and how competitors struggle to keep up.
The Monday results were still early, though, and maybe "Fyre Fraud" will catch on.
Hulu is now at 25 million subscribers, and gained ground on Netflix in the US 2018. But to reach Netflix, Hulu will have to sustain subscriber growth (without promotional discounts), especially as more companies like Hulu majority owner Disney and AT&T release their own direct-to-consumer streaming services in 2019.
Netflix dropped the first trailer for "Fyre" on January 10, while Hulu released the first trailer for "Fyre Fraud" on Monday, the same day the film became available to stream.
You can watch both trailers below:
"Fyre Fraud" - Hulu
"Fyre" - Netflix