It's official: The folks at Dunder Mifflin are moving out.
As hard as it is to hear, the beloved sitcom The Office is leaving Netflix.
The streaming giant confirmed the news on Tuesday, June 25th, tweeting that The Office
will remain in its content library until January 2021.
Then, it's gone from Netflix for good.
"Why am I so sad?
Am I doing the wrong thing?
Absolutely not.
It's just that sometimes, goodbyes are a bitch."
Before you start sobbing into your "World's Best Boss" mugs, you should know that it's
not all bad.
Viewers who fell in love with The Office can still binge the series from the comfort of
their own homes.
They'll just have to do it on a different streaming platform.
Starting in 2021, The Office will be available to watch on NBCUniversal's yet-to-release
streaming service.
The Office's quirky cast of characters and its witty storylines have found a place in
millions of viewers' hearts over the years.
In 2018, Netflix subscribers spent more time watching The Office than any other television
series available to stream on the platform, so as hard as the show's departure will be
for viewers, it may be even harder for Netflix.
"That's what she said!”
The reason why The Office is leaving Netflix is because NBCUniversal, which owns the series,
has decided to remove it from the steaming platform and bring it to its own service.
NBCUniversal previously licensed The Office to Netflix, but now that the series' current
deal with the service is about to expire and NBCUniversal's yet-unnamed platform is expected
to launch in the middle of 2020, it isn't advantageous for NBCUniversal to continue
granting streaming rights to Netflix.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the company has secured exclusive domestic streaming rights
for all nine seasons of The Office in a five-year deal, paying a staggering $100 million per
year to stream it on its upcoming platform.
"Man, that is a lot of guacamole.
Lot of the green.
Lot of green."
NBCUniversal executives are incredibly excited that The Office is shifting from Netflix to
the impending streaming service, with the company's chairman of direct-to-consumer and
digital enterprises Bonnie Hammer saying,
"The Office has become a staple of pop-culture and is a rare gem whose relevance continues
to grow at a time when fans have more entertainment choices than ever before.
We can't wait to welcome the gang from Dunder Mifflin to NBCUniversal's new streaming service."
When Netflix addressed the situation, it took a slight jab at NBCUniversal in mentioning
that Office fans can continue watching the series ad-free until January 2021.
By contrast, NBCUniversal's streaming service is "ad-supported."
The move to have The Office leave Netflix has been in progress for some time now.
In April 2019, it was reported that NBCUniversal brass were engaging in, quote, "internal discussions
about removing The Office from Netflix when the contract expires in 2021" and subsequently
loading it onto the new streaming site.
This is exactly what happened with Friends, another much-adored sitcom that originally
aired on NBC.
Warner Bros.
Television produced and distributed Friends, and Netflix paid a pretty penny to keep the
series in its library year after year.
Though it was briefly believed at the end of 2018 that Friends would leave the platform
in January 2019, the truth is that it's sticking around until sometime in 2020, when WarnerMedia's
new streaming site enters the arena.
WarnerMedia intends to use Friends as a major selling point for the new platform, and it's
likely that NBCUniversal wants to do the same with The Office.
With The Office and so many other wonderful shows getting plucked from Netflix, the platform
is going to have to ramp up its original content to keep subscribers around.
Netflix has great original series like Stranger Things, BoJack Horseman, GLOW, The Crown,
and more in its catalogue - but it remains to be seen whether those shows will ever be
able to fill the void The Office will leave behind.
All we can do for now is enjoy it while it's here, and remember what a wise man once said:
"WHERE ARE THE TURTLES?"
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