Netflix Lands 'Seinfeld' Rights in $500M-Plus Deal After Losing 'Friends' and 'The Office' (hollywoodreporter.com) 115
Seinfeld will be master of a new domain starting in 2021. From a report: Netflix has landed worldwide rights to the iconic sitcom in a five-year deal with distributor Sony. The show will move from current rightsholder Hulu when its deal is up in 2021. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that the new Seinfeld streaming deal is worth more than $500 million and covers global rights. By comparison, The Office and Friends moved to NBC's streaming platform and HBO Max, respectively, for similar valuations that only covered domestic. The deal, sources stress, was competitive with Netflix beating out rich offers from the likes of Amazon, NBC's streamer, HBO Max, Hulu and CBS All Access. The acquisition of Seinfeld for the streamer comes after Netflix lost rights to two other classic NBC comedies: Friends, which is moving to WarnerMedia's HBO Max in 2020, and The Office, which will be part of Comcast's streaming platform starting in 2021.
This show has been in rerun for years (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This show has been in rerun for years (Score:4, Interesting)
Have to wait to see what Netflix's next rate increase looks like before we know how much money will be in play I suppose.
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This is a battle for market share, not revenue increases.
Netflix wants to choke off all these baby streamers before they grow up.
Locking down content is the best way to do that.
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Between Disney pulling the rights to most of their stuff for their own service, and the massive number of other services doing the same, Netflix is in trouble...
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True, but there's going to be a cost somewhere.
They're gonna have to recover that money somehow and I don't see how Seinfeld can really pay back like that.
I'd really prefer they invest in new content than spend such enormous sums getting 20-30 year old content.
I suppose having some name recognition in the catalog has an effect in itself. I really disliked how hard Netflix was pushing their own titles.
The REAL question is... (Score:2)
Who will end up with the rights to The Cosby Show? Those must be worth A LOT.
6 Emmys, 2 Golden Globes, a Peabody, 3 NAACP Image Awards, 11 YEARS of People's Choice awards...
More than 60 women accusations of attempted assault, rape, drug-facilitated sexual assault, sexual battery, child sexual abuse, and sexual misconduct...
3 counts of aggravated indecent assault and sentenced to three to ten years in prison...
It's almost like whatever the show was worth once it's not worth diddly-squat now.
I wonder if that
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Re:This show has been in rerun for years (Score:5, Interesting)
I still watch The Office and Seinfeld regularly.
When I get to the end, I just start over again.
I throw it on as filler, or when I don't know what else to watch.
I also do this with Star Trek (STTNG and Voyager).
Sometimes I just don't want to seek out new content and give my time to something untested. I just want to relax and enjoy a known quantity.
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I throw it on as filler Filler for what? To be fair, I know a lot of people who do this sort of thing and I've even done it in the past. It really is terrible behavior and overall significantly degrades the quality of your life.
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I throw it on as filler, or when I don't know what else to watch.
Last year over 11500 hours of new serialized TV content was created, significant because you wouldn't be able to get through it even if you didn't eat, sleep or take a dump without having a second TV next to you for at least 7 hours every day showing a second show in parallel.
And you're watching reruns over and over.
Every time I think I understand people ...
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Last year over 11500 hours of new serialized TV content was created, significant because you wouldn't be able to get through it even if you didn't eat, sleep or take a dump without having a second TV next to you for at least 7 hours every day showing a second show in parallel.
Taking a dump on that content is a fine way to express an accurate opinion of it all; 10,000 hours of that was "reality" television.
Watching reruns over and over is understandable under the circumstances.
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Last year over 11500 hours of new serialized TV content was created, significant because you wouldn't be able to get through it even if you didn't eat, sleep or take a dump without having a second TV next to you for at least 7 hours every day showing a second show in parallel.
And you're watching reruns over and over.
If the reruns are better than the new content, why not?
I would rather watch Babylon 5 or SG-1 or Firefly than Star Trek or anything produced by Disney.
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I still watch The Office and Seinfeld regularly.
When I get to the end, I just start over again.
I throw it on as filler, or when I don't know what else to watch.
I also do this with Star Trek (STTNG and Voyager).
Sometimes I just don't want to seek out new content and give my time to something untested. I just want to relax and enjoy a known quantity.
You should try picking up a book. Preferably one you haven't gotten to the end of and started over again.
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And before that, people used podcasts for the illusion of conversation.
And before that, people used radio to give themselves the illusion of social activity.
I'm not pissing on "faux socializing", there's a physiological effect when your senses have the impression of human activity in your vicinity. And spoken dialogue moreso. It definitely evokes alertness, and with participation moreso. You can push off sleep (at risk of the compromising effects) quite strongly that way - even digitally conversing. Posts i
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I still watch The Office and Seinfeld regularly.
When I get to the end, I just start over again.
I throw it on as filler, or when I don't know what else to watch.
I also do this with Star Trek (STTNG and Voyager).
Sometimes I just don't want to seek out new content and give my time to something untested. I just want to relax and enjoy a known quantity.
Your life in C code:
While(true)
{
waste_life_on_couch();
eat_snacks();
if(heart_attacik_from_too_much_junkfood()) { exit(EXIT_FAILURE); }
}
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I throw it on as filler, or when I don't know what else to watch
When there's nothing to watch, I don't watch anything. I'm not a 5 year old who needs to be constantly entertained. And I've already seen every Seinfeld episode a few times. Enough is enough.
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Seinfeld really holds up, and there's always a new crop of young people who haven't seen it. We used to watch I Love Lucy in the 70s. I can't stand to watch those now. I suspect that at some point Seinfeld will become so dated that it's hard to watch, but we're not there yet despite the fact that cel phones only appeared late in the series.
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Yeah, my wife and I found some episodes of Laugh-In. We loved that show when it was on, but now it's just so fucking stupid.
It's dated as hell and a person would have to be a goddam historian to remember all the comical references in context.
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Every episode of Seinfeld could have been solved with a cell phone.
I beg to differ. Sure, Elaine could have googled the "war what is it good for" reference, but she may not have bothered or she just might have found some stupid site that confirmed the troll. In fact, Testikov might have just thrown her *phone* out the window instead of her stupid beeping organizer. Sure, some re-writing would have to be done if they were re-made, but maybe not as much as you think.
What? The phone is where? It was a m
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You answered your own question. Decades later and it's still being re-run.
Shows like Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier and The Office are what people turn to when they want to fill some time. When there is nothing else on. And once they start working through them there are 7+ seasons to keep them coming back.
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Plus (Score:2)
Well, that's definitely a gain.
Re:Plus (Score:5, Funny)
Well, for me at least. I thought Friends was insipid, whereas Seinfeld willfully rejected any notion of sentimentality. The main characters started as self-absorbed assholes, and stayed true to that all the way through until the end. My kind of people!
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Ya, but if I want that, I can watch CSPAN, and read various Twitter feeds, for free ... :-)
Lost promise... (Score:5, Interesting)
The promise of cord-cutting looks to be dead. The streaming market is becoming so fragmented that to watch a few favorite shows, one winds up paying as much for multiple streaming services as cable costs.
dead on arrival most likely (Score:2)
The exclusive distribution rights is the real flaw here. We'd be closer to the originally proposed utopia if streaming were about the quality and reliability of the service and not about locking in customers. I think there was a misunderstanding that content is just another commodity like electricity and bandwidth. The reality is that each purchase is an intense negotiation between well paid lawyers.
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The promise of cord-cutting looks to be dead. The streaming market is becoming so fragmented that to watch a few favorite shows, one winds up paying as much for multiple streaming services as cable costs.
I was just thinking how good, inexpensive, streaming services had real taken a bite out of movie and TV piracy. Well this fragmentation will bring it right back. Thank Dog TPB is still around.
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the original cord cutters were people who didn't really want TV but had no other option for cheap passive entertainment. Netflix filled the niche along with original Hulu.
cancelling expensive cable to buy expensive streaming with the same choice wasn't the original idea because many people like me don't care about TV anymore
cord cutting is more alive with free and low cost options like Netflix and youtube
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The promise of cord-cutting looks to be dead. The streaming market is becoming so fragmented that to watch a few favorite shows, one winds up paying as much for multiple streaming services as cable costs.
the original cord cutters were people who didn't really want TV but had no other option for cheap passive entertainment.
The original concept of cord-cutting never existed in the first place. The "cord cutters" were people who exchanged one cord for a different cord.
If you wanted to cut cords, you want back to the TV model of the 20th century: broadcast TV. No cords but the power cord.
You can cut that too, and get to the TV model of the 19th century: none.
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I have an OTA (over the air) antenna connected and stuffed behind the TV. I have Dish® and it goes down on weather from the South. I simply view recordings stored locally or, if the "big three" national networks are working something like news updates, Survivor, Amazing Race, Big Brother ... I switch TV inputs from HDMI1 to TV.
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didn't really want TV but had no other option for cheap passive entertainment
I don't think that is true, or at least not for me and other people I know who cut the cord 10+ years ago. We wanted some small slice of TV but weren't wiling to pay $100+ per month to subsidize the other absolute garbage to get it. We maybe also recognized that putting on the TV had become habit, and we were not watching things we liked just the best thing that was on. That meant we were spending time doing or at least being distracted by something we did not actually enjoy. Honestly if you have 10+ shows
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"We wanted some small slice of TV but weren't wiling to pay $100+ per month to subsidize the other absolute garbage to get it"
Bingo! This is why Sling is mostly a scam. Yes, their basic packages are cheap, but there's always a few channels you want that are in an add-on bundles full of shit you don't care about.
Does anybody really subscribe to CBS All Access for anything besides Star Trek Disco? Who in their right mind would pay for NCIS reruns? Most streaming services still cram advertisements down your
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The promise of cord-cutting looks to be dead. The streaming market is becoming so fragmented that to watch a few favorite shows, one winds up paying as much for multiple streaming services as cable costs.
What promise was that? What was the ideal scenario that you either had before or were hoping would come about? I just don't know what the alternative was. You either have big, expensive bundles (cable), or many a la carte offerings that add up if you can't live without particular things.
Re:Lost promise... (Score:4, Insightful)
You cut cord if for no other reason but to not have to watch 15+ minutes of ads every hour.
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You cut cord if for no other reason but to not have to watch 15+ minutes of ads every hour.
And it's getting worse.
During one commercial, I have time to pee, go outside and feed the birds, empty the dryer and get a beer.
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And to put an end to appointment television, as Jim Gaffigan put it. Watch what you want, when you want.
If only that worked (Score:2)
I can't browse Netflix without trailers auto-playing and shows start while I am trying to read the description. It is frustrating to browse and I give up.
I tried going back to Prime to watch Man in the High Castle and they started episodes with trailers for their other shows with no option to skip.
Exactly what I am not interested in paying for.
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The promise of cord-cutting looks to be dead. The streaming market is becoming so fragmented that to watch a few favorite shows, one winds up paying as much for multiple streaming services as cable costs.
If it really is "a few favorite shows", buy the DVDs/Blu-Rays and rip them, then use any old computer you've got laying around to set up a Plex (or whatever your software of choice is) server. It doesn't take a lot of horsepower... we were using a 2006 MacBook Pro as our streaming server until it dies a couple months ago.
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Re: Lost promise... (Score:2)
I lead a youth organization and there are parents who have no time to spend with their kids but they've seen every episode of shows x, y, & z.
It's somewhere between maddening, astonishing, and deeply sad. They also want me to pay for their healthcare instead of exerciaing and of course train their kid to be a competent member of society because "they don't have time". Not sure how this isn't in the DSM.
Personally, I can't ever get through every interesting piece on YouTube, so I don't see why I'd buy
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The promise of cord-cutting looks to be dead. The streaming market is becoming so fragmented that to watch a few favorite shows, one winds up paying as much for multiple streaming services as cable costs.
Excellent point. My wife and I priced out what we'd have to pay to both cut the cord AND have access to the stuff we enjoy, and it's way more, and we'd have to keep a play book to keep track of moving content.
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My wife and I priced out what we'd have to pay to both cut the cord AND have access to the stuff we enjoy
Maybe you wouldn't miss all the things you think you would.
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My wife and I priced out what we'd have to pay to both cut the cord AND have access to the stuff we enjoy
Maybe you wouldn't miss all the things you think you would.
Maybe we would.
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thepiratebay.org
A VPN setup of your choice.
Something like showrss.info .
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thepiratebay.org .
A VPN setup of your choice.
Something like showrss.info
I'm a retired IT guy.
Something like infect_yer.ass
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Because Netflix and others never promised you a la carte programming. Amazon Prime customers (100 bucks a year) can pick and choose what to watch, but they have to pay 2-3 bucks for everything that's not included with Prime.
cutting the cord and now cutting the stream... (Score:2)
...and before that the antenna post...yup. Time to do something more productive.
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i'm sure each service has enough shows to pick from that can become your new favourite.
Probably about the best one of the three (Score:4, Informative)
Friends I don't think has much re-watchabiltiy value. Not because of recent complaints about the show, I just think it was more tied to the time.
The Office a lot of people still love, would probably be on par with Seinfeld for desirability.
Seinfeld itself has a lot of timeless gold in it though, Feel like people could go back to particular episodes quite a few times and enjoy it. That was probably a pretty good deal to help convince people to stay subscribed to Netflix, that on top of many other originals which they have.
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Seinfeld itself has a lot of timeless gold in it though, Feel like people could go back to particular episodes quite a few times and enjoy it. That was probably a pretty good deal to help convince people to stay subscribed to Netflix, that on top of many other originals which they have.
That's your opinion. I always felts that Seinfield was a bunch 3 whiney people who always complained about everything. And Kramer was the only person who actually had the guts to follow his beliefs. :D
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I always felts that Seinfield was a bunch 3 whiney people who always complained about everything
I think that's the explicit premise of the show: what can three comfortable/successful people find to complain about, and what can one ne'er-do-well get excited about?
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Friends I don't think has much re-watchabiltiy value. Not because of recent complaints about the show, I just think it was more tied to the time.
The Office a lot of people still love, would probably be on par with Seinfeld for desirability.
Seinfeld itself has a lot of timeless gold in it though, Feel like people could go back to particular episodes quite a few times and enjoy it. That was probably a pretty good deal to help convince people to stay subscribed to Netflix, that on top of many other originals which they have.
My wife and I go back to the pilot or first episodes of Human Target, Instinct, The Hallmark Mystery shows, etc.
Even though we watched them all in real time, we don't remember hardly a goddam thing.
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Friends I don't think has much re-watchabiltiy value.
Tell it to the binge watchers who run it on repeat. As for Seinfeld, personally I prefer comedies, not sad dramas.
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Ugh (Score:1)
Three boring shows I'll never waste any time watching in the future. Don't care.
Re: Ugh (Score:2)
Blog it.
wtf is wrong with people? (Score:4, Insightful)
Somehow these streaming platforms convinced people to pay them >$100 a year for 20 year old shows. People can just buy the box set for less money.
Convenience wins again.
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Somehow these streaming platforms convinced people to pay them >$100 a year for 20 year old shows. People can just buy the box set for less money.
Convenience wins again.
You know that Netflix will have more than Seinfeld reruns, right?
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And its only in the North American geofenced area as well - I have Netflix and have never had Friends or The Office on it down here in NZ. So we lose nothing here, and we probably wont gain Seinfeld either.
So I laugh at most of the comments under this story.
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People can just buy the box set for less money.
For starters the Friends complete season boxed set costs $150, more than a full year subscription to Netflix. But let's assume for a moment that it costs half that. How much is owning a boxed set worth to you? At $75 / boxed set and a total of 198 shows on Netflix, are you willing to pay $14,850.00 just to cut the virtual cord?
Yeah didn't think so.
I agree with you, there's something wrong with people. They post on Slashdot without ever using their brains.
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They have lots of original and more recent content too. It's not just for 20 year old shows.
I know Seinfeld is popular (Score:2)
I suppose they had to do something after losing Friends though. It apparently accounts for quite a bit of the time people spend on Netflix.
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Netflix has 151 million subscribers. They just need to increase the cost of the service by $5 per person per year to get it back. My guess is Netflix will increase its rates by $3-$5 per month again soon.
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The Seinfeld deal is for North America only. They don't have 151 million NA subscribers.
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The article says the deal is for global rights.
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It's ~$500m over 5 years. With ~150m subscribers that's ($500m/150m)/60months = $0.06/mo per subscriber. It doesn't look like rates will need to go up.
Waste of money (Score:3)
Re:Waste of money (Score:4, Insightful)
For $500M they could've created 5 really good movies instead of the low-budget crap their studios usually spit out.
Or, more likely, two beautiful-but-brain-dead movies, all action and effects with no coherence or characterization.
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Too soon?
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Or they could have purchased rights to Titanic and filmed Titanic 2.
Too soon?
Just don't spoil the fucking reboot, OK?
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I recently got a new car. The Sirius/XM people are relentless in their emails and snail mails, trying to get me to subscribe. My old car had a 3 year subscription paid by the previous owner (apparently your subscription says with the car) and I listened to the satellite radio maybe 3 times. Horrible audio quality for music and Howard Stern. They paid that dope $400M several years ago. He's interesting if you're a 12 year old boy, or maybe Donald Trump, but I can't understand why anyone would want to li
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For $500M they could've created 5 really good movies instead of the low-budget crap their studios usually spit out.
Or, more likely, two beautiful-but-brain-dead movies, all action and effects with no coherence or characterization.
Kinda like Friends but in smaller portions than two big bites and stuff.
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I agree. If you count fake laughter in Seinfeld (180 episodes) times number of fake laughter track played (say 15 times per episode) that translates to netflix paid $185K for each time Seinfeld episode played canned laughter!
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For $500M they could've created 5 really good movies
A whole 5! I'm sure that will make such a big difference to the 208 Netflix original movies already produced not counting documentaries. Mind you what makes you think that spending money makes a good movie? They sunk $100M into Bright, and look at that piece of crap.
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For $500M they could've created 5 really good movies
A whole 5! I'm sure that will make such a big difference to the 208 Netflix original movies already produced not counting documentaries.
Well, if they're actually good it'll make a big difference. Netflix doesn't have much worth watching anymore and some really good original content would go a long way in fixing that. Some of us don't use Netflix just for binge watching because we actually have lives and just want to take in a good sub-two-hour movie on a weekend.
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This is really importnat news! (Score:3, Insightful)
When do we get Gilligan's Island?
Re:This is really importnat news! (Score:5, Funny)
Soon little buddy, soon.
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EXCELLENT!!
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EXCELLENT!!
Sorry, Disney owns The Simpsons now.
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Forget Gilligan... when do we get Mary Ann?
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Half a billion dollars? (Score:2)
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Wish I could make half a billion for a show that wasnt even around this century
Re: Half a billion dollars? (Score:2)
This century has been shite. I predict another 1000 superhero movies before the collapse of society.
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Perception of large numbers (Score:3)
Randall Munroe seems spot on with his take on the perceived value of large numbers [xkcd.com] where he indicates that 100 million might be perceived as larger than 10 billion.
When I first saw his drawing, I thought "That explains so much in politics" but now I'm thinking it applies even more to executives. This deal is about $1 per English language TV viewer and most won't ever watch the show again.
Maybe the Romans had it right by making large numbers look very complex.
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Yeah, because we're so stupid that it doesn't matter what we get to vote on, as long as we get to vote on something...
Another random sitcom (Score:1)
If you have to remind your audience when to laugh, the jokes are probably not very good.
fuck that and fuck you netflix (Score:1)
Everyone knows you can just type '123 movies Seinfeld' and watch it for free. 500 million? That's how your spending your customers money? You've jumped the shark, bro.