Some of the most popular sitcoms of our generation, from “The Office” to “Friends,” could be leaving Netflix, the Wall Street Journal reports.
As NBCUniversal prepares to launch its own streaming service, it has “begun internal discussions about removing ‘The Office’ from Netflix” after Netflix’s contract to air the show expires in 2021, according to the Journal.
When they aired, the shows were tentpoles of NBC’s primetime comedy lineup, and the network that birthed them may want to bring them home.
CNN reported in January that NBCUniversal will launch its own streaming service in 2020. At the time, NBCUniversal had said it would continue “to license content to other studios and platforms while retaining rights to certain titles for its new service.”
NBCUniversal is launching its own streaming service in 2020 https://t.co/AYylj2flLW pic.twitter.com/pFG8fYpWaq
— CNN (@CNN) January 14, 2019
That statement implied the popular NBC shows could remain on Netflix, but now that outlook may be changing.
Netflix is notoriously tight-lipped about releasing its metrics on how many viewers are binging on any particular show, but “The Office” and “Friends” are the shows fans spend the most time watching on the platform, according to the Journal story, and “The Office” wins that numbers race by a long shot.
Even the second-place show is incredibly valuable: Netflix landed the rights to “Friends” at the reported price of $80 million or $100 million, according to the Hollywood Reporter and The New York Times.
Why it’s difficult for Netflix and “Friends” to go on a break https://t.co/xnbvWYrGQB pic.twitter.com/DqmBc7JMTM
— CNN Business (@CNNBusiness) December 5, 2018
The Coming Streaming Wars
The high stakes discussions over “The Office” and “Friends” are just one more chess move as media giants set up their own streaming services.
Disney is launching a streaming service this year and WarnerMedia, the parent company of CNN, plans to launch its own service by the end of 2019.
Disney announced the launch date for its upcoming standalone streaming service Disney Plus, amid other details about the service outlined in its Investor Day 2019 livestream on April 11 (PDF).
Disney Plus will launch in the United States on Nov. 12 for $6.99 a month—around half of Netflix’s standard $12.99/month plan—or $69.99 when paid yearly. The company plans to expand Disney Plus to major regions around the world in the two years following its U.S. debut.
The company is hoping to have 60 to 90 million subscribers by the end of 2024, two-thirds of which would be from outside the United States, Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said. She also said that the $6.99 price is an “initial” price, and the fees may rise over time.
When asked why the price was set at $6.99, Disney CEO Bob Iger said, “This is our first serious foray in this space, and we want to reach as many people as possible with it.”
The ad-free video streaming service will be available on a number of devices, including phones, computers, smart TVs, streaming media players, and gaming consoles, the company announced, and Roku and Playstation 4 will be included.
They also announced that all its content would be downloadable for offline viewing.
Disney already owns streaming services as the majority stakeholder of sports ESPN+ channel and Hulu, thanks to its acquisition of 20th Century Fox, as well as Hotstar, an Indian streaming platform owned by WDC.
Disney content will mostly disappear from Netflix by late 2019.
Epoch Times reporter Margaret Wollensak contributed to this report.
