I don't think that Hobbits are going to be a big deal in the series unless the showrunner goes out of his (her?) way to shoehorn them in. A lot of this is likely to depend upon the time period of the show; before the second third of the Third Age, all Hobbits seem to have lived east of the Misty Mountains. It's too bad that we know nothing of their history before they came to the Vales of the Anduin.
There are great big anacondas, pygmys, alligators, spiders, harpys, kinkajous, and even jaguars. But nary a Hobbit has been encountered on or near the Amazon River.
The first two Ages of Middle-earth had no hobbits. And even in the Third Age, if they were to do some episodes on Aragorn's life in disguise while serving in Rohan and Gondor, for example, I'd hate for them to feel forced to insert cameos of hobbits as some sort of checklist.
On the flip side, they could do hobbit-centric stories about the Shire that could be quite entertaining with no Elves, Wizards, or other races. I hope they mix it up a lot.
