Streaming services have been bulking up their original content for years now, but the most consistent performers on sites like HBO Max, Netflix and Peacock are reruns of old sitcoms. A large swath of the audience prefers familiar comfort food to flashy new series. HBO Max is now reaping the benefits of this with the consistent performances of Friends and The Big Bang Theory, both having debuted on the streamer in Spring 2020.
The price being paid for these and similar shows has climbed steadily since proving their worth on Netflix. Both The Office and Friends were top performers for Netflix -- which plunked down $120 million for a four-year deal to be the exclusive streaming home of Friends in 2014 and then another $100 million for just one more year in 2018. After that, HBO Max won a bidding war, paying $425 million for the streaming rights for five years, according to NextTV. In 2020, HBO Max claimed Friends was the number one streamed show on the service (per Variety).
The Big Bang Theory is the current champion of deals, with HBO Max having reportedly shelled out upward of $1 billion for the rights to stream the show for five years. That billion-dollar bet also appears to be working out, as The Big Bang Theory has been battling the Marta Kauffman co-created Friends for the top spot on HBO Max, per AdWeek. The money paid out for streaming rights has skyrocketed as everyone looks for their own classic sitcom.
Netflix paid $100 million for multi-year streaming rights to The Office. When that contract was up, a bidding war ensued and Netflix lost out to Peacock to the tune of $500 million, as reported by THR. That means Peacock is paying a year what Netflix paid for the whole run. It should be noted that since moving to Peacock from Netflix, The Office has completely dropped out of the Nielsen streaming rankings. That likely says more about Peacock's comparably smaller subscriber base than it does about The Office's value to a streamer.
Netflix paid more than $500 million for the rights to stream Seinfeld, and many critics predicted that would be a losing bet. So far, Netflix is winning that bet, as the consistently great Seinfeld has remained in Netflix's top 20 since its debut on Oct 1, 2021. The amount of value a select number of older shows have accrued in such a short time is staggering, especially considering most of them still air in syndication regularly across cable and broadcast networks. Friends and The Office saw their streaming value basically quintuple in the course of just five years. Those are numbers that can't simply be chalked up to inflation.
Many media watchers' eyes bulged out when the bidding wars for sitcoms reached numbers only lottery winners could dream of, but as budgets get tightened for original programming and shows are given less time and leeway to succeed, it seems the big bets on old sitcoms were the safe bets. Other than familiarity and comfort, all of the aforementioned series ran for a long time, giving robust libraries to their new hosts. Friends has 236 episodes, The Big Bang Theory boasts 279 episodes, Seinfeld clocks in at 180 episodes, while The Office supplies viewers with 201 (as well as some quirky characters). Having such a deep bench of episodes only bolsters their value.
People have a habit of coming back to the same sitcoms. They know what they like and streaming services have been willing to spend big bucks to acquire it. Between The Office, Seinfeld, Friends and The Big Bang Theory, billions of dollars have changed hands -- but that's not surprising for series that are streamed for countless hours, keeping viewers on the hook.