Hulu BBC Deal: A Positive Step After Some Cloudy Times

Thanks to a deal with the BBC Worldwide North America, the video-streaming website “Hulu” will bring as many as 2,000 episodes from 144 different BBC titles to a wider American audience.

The deal, which will include shows such as Sherlock, Torchwood, MI-5, Luther, and Doctor Who, but further shows will be added in due course.

Most of the content are destined for subscribers of the $7.99-per-month Hulu Plus subscription service, but some BBC programming will be available on the free portion of the site, ad-supported service.

Hulu Plus service has more than four million subscribers.

“We’re kicking back into action,” Andy Forssell, Hulu’s acting chief executive, said in an interview at The Wall Street Journal. “This is us doing a bunch of stuff that we’ve really wanted to do and had been put on hold for a while.”

Mr. Forssell also said original programming will grow to 10% to 15% of Hulu’s viewing in the next few years from 5% now. “The Awesomes,” an animated show for adults, was the first of 20 new shows expected to launch this year on the service.

After entertaining bids from potential suitors that included DirecTV, Hulu’s owners — 21st Century Fox, NBCUniversal, and Walt Disney — took the site off the market and announced a cash infusion of $750 million “in order to propel future growth.”

BBC Worldwide has similar arrangements with Netflix and Amazon.