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By Bloomberg

After seven years online and two turns on the auction block, Hulu is looking for its first original hit.

The video-streaming service, owned by 21st Century Fox Inc., Walt Disney Co. and Comcast Corp., offers an array of popular shows that first aired somewhere else. In the past year, it has gobbled up online rights to “South Park,” “CSI” and TV’s biggest new hit, “Empire.”

Now Hulu’s top executives are searching for an original show to define its brand, and to help the Hulu Plus paid service compete with big spenders Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Armed with some of the $750 million supplied by its co-owners two years ago, Hulu will show off new series like Stephen King’s “11/22/63” to advertisers Wednesday in New York.

“It is a hit-driven business, regardless of the platform or regardless of the era you’re working in,” Craig Erwich, Hulu’s head of content, said in an interview. “Our viewers might watch ‘Empire’ in droves, but that’s not a story that will get talked about week in and week out. Originals are a chance to weave yourself into the fabric of the conversation of pop culture.”

It’s worked for Hulu’s competition. While Netflix customers spend more time watching other networks’ TV shows, Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings credits the original series “House of Cards” and “Orange Is the New Black” with driving the subscriber growth that has sent its stock to highs.

For Amazon, the success of “Transparent” precipitated deals with Woody Allen and Spike Lee.

Break Out

Hulu is betting on TV veterans to break through.

“Lost” co-creator J.J. Abrams’s company is producing “11/22/63,” an adaptation of King’s 2011 best-seller about a teacher who goes back in time to prevent the Kennedy assassination. James Franco will star in that effort. Jason Katims and Jessica Goldberg, who worked together on the NBC hit “Parenthood,” are reuniting on “The Way,” a family drama.

Hulu was founded in 2007 by NBCUniversal, now part of Comcast, and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The owners saw an opportunity to generate ad sales and stem piracy by streaming shows free to computer users. Disney came aboard in 2009, and the Hulu Plus service, with a deeper library and availability on mobile devices and TV sets, was introduced in 2010.

The push into original programming began under founding Chief Executive Officer Jason Kilar and his successor, Andy Forssell. They saw a need to insulate Hulu from the potential loss of programming, including from its owners.

Disney and 21st Century Fox, which split off from News Corp., held operational control and had disagreed at times over the direction of the service. They almost sold Hulu in 2011 and sell shows to competing services.

Big Budget

What Hulu didn’t have was a mandate to spend large sums.

That changed in mid-2013, when Disney and Fox pulled Hulu off the block for a second time. They, along with Comcast, gave the company $750 million to invest in its future. Fox executive Mike Hopkins was made CEO in October of that year, and Erwich, a Warner Bros. executive, joined in March 2014.

“Today the challenge for Hulu is deciding if you’ll be last night’s TV or original programming,” Forssell said in an interview. “It’s really hard to do both. Being last night’s TV is expensive and so is original programming.”

Hulu can do both, Erwich says. Its board and owners are supportive, provide relative autonomy and have given them more than enough money to spend.

Hulu isn’t spending as much as Netflix, which has a five- year budget topping $9 billion, nor is it producing enough originals to lure lots of new customers. The company hasn’t premiered a new show yet this year.

Hulu Viewers

And Hulu is still way below Netflix’s 41.4 million streaming customers in the U.S. Its free online service has an audience of 10 million users on computers, according to ComScore, and its $7.99 a month Hulu Plus, which also carries ads, has increased subscribers by 50 percent in the past year to 9 million, according to the company.

“As an original program platform it has not been as successful as its peers,” said Ben Silverman, chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp’s Electus division, which makes shows for Netflix and Amazon. “We hope they invest more so it can become a competitive original programming outlet.”

That would require the blessing of Hulu’s owners, which declined to comment.

Erwich is confident that talent, money and time will deliver the kind of hit fans talk about the next day at work.

“We’re getting into business with talent that has a marquee level track record and recognizability,” Erwich said. “We’re supporting their vision with bigger budgets. And taking bigger shots increases your chance of getting a hit.”