Netflix just paid somewhere near $500 million (the exact terms have not been disclosed) to acquire Seinfeld streaming rights beginning in 2021 after Hulu’s right to stream the series runs out.
It’s been more than 21 years since the series finale of the breakthrough NBC sitcom Seinfeld aired it’s highly anticipated finale episode in May of 1998, but Netflix just paid somewhere near $500 million (the exact terms have not been disclosed) to acquire Seinfeld streaming rights beginning in 2021. The Hulu streaming service – which is majority owned by the Walt Disney Company – will continue to own the rights to Seinfeld until then.
Netflix previously paid $100 million dollars for the rights to broadcast the 1990’s other most popular sitcom, “Friends” for a single year, but lost that show – as well as “The Office” – earlier this year.
With Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO, Showtime and new streaming offerings from Disney and Apple coming soon, the race to acquire the content that viewers will keep paying between $5 and $15 a month to consume is heating up… Original shows are the holy grail for streaming services, hooking customers on binge-watching storylines that can’t be found anywhere else, but old classics like Seinfeld also keep viewers coming back for their favorites from the past.
MacDailyNews Take: Thanks to low-priced entries like Disney+, with a huge library that, ahem, dwarfs Netflix’s and the quality-over-quantity Apple TV+, prices for services like Netflix (top-level plan costs $16/month) will be put under competitive pressure, likely driving down prices for cord-cutting consumers as competition heats up!
Just exactly how rich are Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David? Unreal.
There’s SO much “exclusive” content. Will “cable-cutters” actually save money…? 10 bucks here, 5 bucks here, 7 bucks there… Just to get the few exclusive shows I want and have time to watch. Wasn’t that sort of the complaint about cable, hundreds of channels, and I mostly watch less than 10 of them? Too expensive! This streaming may eventually add up to more that evil cable did before 🤦🏻♂️
Yep.
Saw this crap coming years ago. Even $4 is expensive if you need to subscribe to 20 different services. To me the best way to play it is subscribe to Netflix. I just get iTunes movies from Apple for the rest. AppleTV Plus is a waste. If certain services have something you want to see like, wait until you can binge it, subscribe, binge it, cancel the subscription.
For me it is the opposite. Netflix doesn’t offer anything I want, save for the old shows, like Star Trek and Friends. I’m really specific about what I like, and all Netflix original offerings haven’t appealed to me. If I like what Apple Plus offers, I will subscribe to that. If I like the new Picard show on Amazon, I will subscribe to that. Same for Disney. And when I don’t like anything, I won’t subscribe to anything (anymore). What I don’t like is that Netflix is constantly raising the price, and I don’t want to pay the current price for watching a show that I do like. In the end, I think Disney, Apple, NBC, etc. streaming services will do just fine, and eventually will take away viewers from Netflix.
Buying that DVD with one season don’t sound so bad now…..buy them and you are over and done with, I have 300 of them won’t be throwing any of them out.
Yes. I saw this was coming 5 years ago when shows started to become exclusive to one streaming service instead of on all the popular ones.
Pirated downloads and streams will see a resurgence soon as stuff gets yanked off Netflix.
Just bought all of the DVDs for $60. When I saw this story yesterday I thought it was a new series coming out. $500M for reruns??
Seinfeld: The Next Generation!
It could work.
I think I must have seen every Seinfeld episode about three or four times over the years, so it’s not something for me. However, I’m probably the exception and new viewers should really enjoy binging on Seinfeld. It has to be high up there in classic TV comedies.
The most overrated show in TV history. Subversive snark mouthed by repulsive neurotics. A twisted projection of the degenerate psyche of Larry David. Decades of poisonous “entertainment” like this has eroded the morals and values of millions of Americans. At least Tim Cook is smart enough to avoid garbage content like Seinfeld.
Exclusive deals always make me wonder how much less they would make if it weren’t exclusive. For example, if the studio charged Hulu and Netflix and others to stream Seinfeld, would it be significantly less than $500 million total? Because it would be significantly better for the average consumer. I see the appeal for a Netflix to have exclusivity, but I wish the studios would instead just do what’s right for customers and try to get their content everywhere.