8 Niche TV Streaming Networks That You Didn't Know Existed
1. Hayu
Focus – Reality TV
If there is one media trend that has been omnipresent throughout the entirety of the 2000s and 2010s, it is reality television. Countless careers have been launched or extended and selected individuals have even become billionaires solely by having carefully edited segments of their everyday lives broadcast to the public. You can call the genre and its fanatical viewer base mindless, but regardless of individual opinions we can all collectively agree that neither are in any danger of going extinct any time soon.
For those who can’t get enough of the E! channel or any of its counterparts that are heavily geared around reality programming, Hayu offers more than 200 different shows on demand, including heavyweights such as Keeping Up With The Kardashians and its various spin offs (which are in fact the only things currently advertised on the homepage of the service’s website), numerous iterations of the Real Housewives franchise and Jerry Springer.
The library is mostly American in origin, but plenty of British series have also found a home on the service, giving it international appeal and allowing Americans to lose themselves in ‘classics’ such as Desperate Scousewives and The Valleys (or the likes of Made in Chelsea), though they’ll have to go elsewhere if they wish to expose their brains to Geordie Shore or TOWIE.
Reality TV thrives because people seek escapism from the mundaneness of their own lives. With Hayu they can access enough of it to last an entire lifetime.
Which niche streaming service is your favourite? Let us know down in the comments.