A staple of cable’s reality TV landscape is moving to streaming.
In a surprise move, Peacock has landed rights to Married at First Sight in a deal with the show’s producer, Kinetic Content. The agreement includes a multi-season commitment for the show, which has aired more than 300 episodes in the past decade, primarily on Lifetime.
Married at First Sight will join the likes of Love Island — which became a breakout on Peacock last summer — and The Traitors in Peacock’s unscripted lineup, which is now under the purview of Frances Berwick following a restructuring of NBCUniversal’s TV business. The move is also a blow to Lifetime, which has been home to the show since 2017 and typically aired two seasons per year.
Married at First Sight — which, as its title suggests, pairs up couples who agree to marry when they first meet and then follows their relationships — premiered on FYI in 2014 and was simulcast on A&E beginning with season two. In 2017, the show moved to Lifetime for its fifth season (all three channels are part of A+E Networks), where it has aired ever since. The series, based on a Danish format, has also produced several spinoffs and a host of reunion specials and other programming.
It has been Lifetime’s most watched series for much of that time, with recent episodes averaging about half a million same-day viewers — a solid figure for entertainment programming in the current cable environment.
Kinetic Content also produces Netflix’s Love Is Blind and The Ultimatum and ABC’s Claim to Fame. Married at First Sight’s executive producers are Kinetic CEO Chris Coelen, Cat Rodriguez, Eric Detwiler, Erica Kessler, Kenda Greenwood Moran and Montre Burton.
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