Community, Dan Harmon’s acclaimed sitcom that developed an avid cult following both for its quality and equally intriguing backstage politics, will be coming to Netflix on April 1st. The series, which ran for 110 episodes over six seasons (five on NBC, and then its final one on the short-lived online platform Yahoo! Screen), had already been streaming on Hulu, as well as Amazon Prime in some international areas, but Sony has sold non-exclusive rights for the series.

The reason for this is because, in this day-and-age of high stakes streaming bidding, it often seems like the most profitable route that studios can take for selling shows to certain platforms is to go with exclusive deals. It’s believed that Netflix bought the rights to Seinfeld for $500 million, which will leave Hulu in 2021, and NBCUniversal bought the rights for The Office from Netflix for its upcoming Peacock service at a reportedly similar amount. Netflix and Hulu were both very satisfied with the more modest price that Sony offered them to stream Community. So why did Sony opt to go a potentially far less lucrative route with a non-exclusive deal for Community?

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Well, first off, Community isn’t quite the hot ticket as some of the aforementioned series are. While the show attained a loyal and consistent following throughout its run, it hasn’t become a household name. It just isn’t realistic to imagine Community garnering a Friends-esque price tag to it, so it probably made sense for Sony to estimate that it could see more profits from talking to multiple platforms. Another Dan Harmon series, Rick and Morty, inked a similar deal recently that allowed it to continue to stream on Hulu, while also be concurrently available on HBO Max.

Asides from the business end of things, though, there’s also likely a few other reasons why Sony elected to go with a non-exclusive streaming deal for Community, and it reflects the show itself. It just seems fair (and in the show’s generous nature) for it to have a home at Netflix when one looks at the cast and crew. Alison Brie (Bojack Horseman, Glow) and Gillian Jacobs (Love) both went on to star in Netflix original series, and the service has had a continuous relationship with Marvel Studios, the place Community producers Joe and Anthony Russo rose to stardom. On top of that, given Communitys self-aware ethos (which frequently referenced film, television and media in endlessly subversive ways), perhaps the show’s owners felt it apropos that the series should be widely available throughout the streaming sphere.

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Alison Brie Community

That said, the series’ most loyal fans are going to think of this first and foremost: What does this mean for the movie? The series had a mantra that it would last for six seasons and a movie, and Dan Harmon has teased that it could indeed happen one day, even going so far to say that a “movie” can mean several different things these days. This non-exclusive streaming deal, however, makes it murkier as to what platform a Community film could air on, and it may be even harder to produce now due to licensing reasons. Whatever the case, Community fans should be grateful that the show will be more widely available than ever before, and perhaps an upswing in its viewership might be exactly what’s needed to make a movie happen.

Community stars Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Yvette Nicole Brown, Alison Brie, Donald Glover, Ken Jeong, Chevy Chase and Jim Rash. The full series arrives on Netflix April 1.

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