Jerry Seinfeld and the Gang is Going to Netflix in 2021

Netflix just signed a massive contract to get the show

The streaming wars are heating up, Netflix may be losing Michael Scott (The Office) and Chandler Bing (Friends), but it’s gaining Jerry Seinfeld, Elaine Benes, George Costanza and Kramer.

 

Seinfeld will be available to stream on Netflix beginning in 2021, the company announced. That’s when the show’s contract with Hulu comes to an end. (Walt Disney might be concentrating on their new Disney Plus.) Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but Netflix paid far more than the $500 million NBCUniversal paid for “The Office,” and the $425 million WarnerMedia shelled out for “Friends,” people familiar with the deal said. Both of those five-year deals were for streaming rights in the U.S. only while Seinfeld has global rights.

 

A lot of things happen in showbiz, Legacy media companies like Disney (DIS) and WarnerMedia, CNN’s parent company, are pulling some of their most beloved shows from Netflix in an effort to draw subscribers to their own streaming services.

 

Nabbing the rights to “Seinfeld” is a big boost for Netflix, which has suffered the losses of two popular licensed shows in “Friends” and “The Office” in recent months. “Seinfeld is the television comedy that all television comedy is measured against,” Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, said in a statement. “We can’t wait to welcome Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards to their new global home on Netflix.”

 

Netflix is already the streaming home for Jerry Seinfeld’s current series, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” and his stand-up comedy specials. The relationship was not a determining factor in “Seinfeld” going to the service, sources said. Even 20 years after “Seinfeld” left NBC, the show’s repeats remain a popular attraction on local TV stations and cable network TBS and have generated billions of dollars in revenue worldwide. Reruns of TV sitcoms are still generating large sums of money as younger generations discover them on streaming services. It is a show about nothing that follows the day-to-day lives of four anxiety-induced New Yorkers have been streaming on Hulo since 2015.