Exactly two months to the day from when we reported that The Office would be staying on Netflix until “at least” 2021, NBCUniversal has announced that The Office will actually be dumping Netflix just like how Jim dumped Karen—off-camera and in between seasons, so Rashida Jones can go off and make Parks And Recreation. According to Variety, The Office will be leaving Netflix once the current contract expires in 2020, which is exactly what the streaming service said would not happen, and then all nine seasons will become exclusively available on NBCUniversal’s upcoming streaming service a year later in 2021.
Netflix offered up a very tongue-in-cheek response when the possibility of losing The Office last popped up in April, and this time it’s reacting to the news by throwing some very obvious shade in NBC’s direction with a reminder that you can still watch all of The Office “ad-free on Netflix until January 2021" (that probably means January 1, which is why these years don’t seem to add up). It also makes sure to say that NBC is taking the show back, so fans know who to blame if they’re not happy.
On the one hand, it’s kind of fun to see the company that canceled Daredevil take a hit like this, but on the other hand, it sucks for consumers that the movement to embrace streaming in favor of costly cable packages has led to a world where you have to subscribe to multiple streaming services in order to get the shows you want—which are just costly cable packages that look a little different. Basically, this is just bad for everybody, unless you’re someone who stands to make money off of NBCUniversal’s streaming service. If that’s the case, good for you. Enjoy your yacht.
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“so Rashida Jones can go off and make Parks And Recreation”Season 3 of the Office ended in 2007, Parks and Rec didn’t premiere until 2009. So your timeline is off here. I’m pretty sure Karen was always supposed to be a one-season character, the final obstacle for Jim and Pam to finally get together.
Rashida left the Office to star in a one-season TV show on Fox called “Unhitched” which suffered (in part) because of the WGA strike. Whether or not Karen would have lasted longer on the show if not for that, who knows.
It would have been pretty awkward for her to stick around after getting dumped by Jim, and her character was never all that funny to begin with.
So you’re saying all these notes I’m mentally taking might serve a purpose when someone eventually reboots Heroes again since NBCUniversal streaming will need content
If NBC/Universal wants to enjoy some of that loss-leading goodwill Netflix has done a few times, they’ll pony up some cash for that Community movie.
I’m waiting for someone to eventually reboot Hogan’s Heroes. It will happen.
Well it will be modernized and I’m not sure that either “Sergeant Achmed!” or “Sergeant Kim!” have as good a ring as “Sergeant Schultz!”
I’m waiting for someone to eventually reboot Hogan’s Heroes. It will happen. Got it. It’ll take place in modern times, and will skew toward the youngsters, so Hogan will be like 17. He and his buddies will be detainees in a Texas, um, gosh, what are we supposed to call them? Oh well, concentration camp. Hijinks will ensue each week as Hogan fools the bumbling …Sorry, goddamnit, I just can’t do it. I was on board for it when it was WW2 and the Nazis were more recognizable. And more bumbling.
Heroes is like The X-Files and Star Trek in that it’s probably in better hands away from its creator. I say go for it.
I’m currently doing a Heroes rewatch.There are good ideas behind the arcs.But pretty much every plot decision that Kring made to move the story forward, every gut decision, is wrong.Like bafffingly so. Having Kring around would be a total non-starter. But a good writer, that can watch the series and remix what’s there can make something good out of it.
I guess I will just continue to binge The Office for another year and a half, then I will move onto another show. The trend for all of these separate streaming services is terrible, I currently have Netflix, Hulu, MLB.TV, and HBO Now, I will add the Disney service when it releases but I am not looking to add many more. I might need to jump back into the Plex world.
Guess I’m taking those DVDs of The Office out of storage in a couple years. I’ve already subscribed to Netflix, CBS’s service (just for Star Trek), and Hulu (after 30 Rock switched services), and I’ll be subscribing to Disney+ (I’m annoyed about it, but with the MCU shows and Star Wars shows, it’s a “go ahead and take my money” thing), but this is a bridge too far. I’m not signing up for anything else at this point (and I might even give up a couple of the existing ones after this year).
Sir and/or madame:I hate to break it to you, but they got you. They got you good.
To be fair, I share the netflix and hulu subscriptions with my sister, so I’m basically only paying for two right now – I think my total streaming cost is about $15/month.
Hulu, Netflix and Amazon here and I use a friend’s super Hulu (premium channel ad ons). I pay very little compared to cable plus it’s a whole lot easier to cancel if I ever felt the need. I may try DC for a month or something eventually, but a big no on CBS ever.
I’m back with cable. Actually Spectrem’s life style tv. I found it’s cheaper then paying for Netflix, Prime and HBO now. Also since I like Lifetime movies I save $6.00 on not getting their app. Plus I get Showtime. Not to mention TCM. Someone else paid for the Netflix and Prime. I’ve kept Hulu because it’s only 99cents till November.
I wish I could get Spectrum. I’m one of those poor unfortunate souls who only has Comcast as an option.
I always hear bad things about Comcast. I had to buy a Roku because I can never get the app to work on my Samsung TV. So now I have three streaming devices. Spectrum’s customer service has gotten worst though. I was on the phone a whole hour. They kept connecting me to the wrong person.
Yea, Comcast won’t allow me to get rid of their cable and go just Internet. I wouldn’t have minded that normally except they took one of the few channels I watch a lot (Cartoon Network) and dumped it into a Premium tier.
After AT&T bought Time Warner, aren’t Spectrum and Comcast essentially owned by the same folks? I can never keep the mergers straight. I started out 6 years ago by a small regional provider that was great and relatively inexpensive. It got bought by something bigger that got bought by time warner, which changed its name to spectrum. The service has gotten worse with each consolidation and I’m now paying 2.5x what I was 6 years ago. I had hopes of cutting the cord entirely when Google fiber came to my city about a year and a half ago, but, after many lawsuits against them and the city by the existing providers, they’ve pulled back out.
This seems like a good opportunity for me to continue ignoring the Office.
Good for NBC! I’ve been meaning to see what else is on Netflix.
P.S. how am I supposed to lull myself to sleep with the familiar sounds of Dunder Mifflin? DVDs? Sign up for a millionth streaming service which is against my principles as a consumer?
Yeah, DVDs. Ebay has them for like $5 a season, or go to the goodwill.
You still have Parks and Rec
Oh, I just assumed they’d be grabbing Parks too.
People meme and quote The Office so much that it put me off watching it. Should I give it a gander anyway?
The first few seasons are good! Ignore the memes and quotes
I’m at a point in my life where I’d rather spend my time watching a movie or series that I haven’t seen before instead of rewatching something multiple times. I’ll watch The Office if I catch it on TV but if I’m streaming I’m usually going with something new.
You sound like a lunatic.
Your comment says “no” but your watched history says “yes”.
I still watch the office fairly regularly, it’s comfort food in TV form, like mac n cheese for the eyes and ears.
Sorry NBC I will never subscribe to this. It’ll suck when you take Parks and Rec back too, but whatever.
This moves NBCUniversal from 12th on my Streaming Service Wish List to 11th.
All of these services are adding up.
And they can’t all be successful. Eventually, that list will become smaller again
If you want to “have” a specific show forever, you buy it on physical media. This concept of “My monthly streaming services must give me 24-hour instant access to this one show I want” seems really stupid, on a consumer’s part.
Looks like nbcuniversal has decided to #fucknetflix
Who the hell is ever going to subscribe to an NBC/Universal streaming service (besides the people who will actually subscribe *for* the Office)? So they can watch Tom Cruise’s Mummy reboot?
The Office will be the new lynchpin in Universal’s Dark Universe.
The Office is revealed to be one of the many neighborhoods of The Bad Place.
To be fair, if it were a streaming service that contained nothing but Mike Schur projects and they called it the “The Schurvice” I’d probably pay like $40/month for it. Half of that would be for the name alone.
Give me $20 a month for the name, then, i’ll get it to you by post.
I think a lot of companies are going to be very disappointed in what they make off streaming services. They look at Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu and say “Gimme some of that sweet streaming moolah!” But those services have big bases mostly because there are not many options and they all have a lot if content. Fewer people will sign up for smaller services. They aren’t going to make Amazon money by offering just their back catalog.On the other hand, it probably doesn’t cost much to put every “Law & Order” episode on a server and create a half assed app to stream it with. So they won’t lose money and so won’t be killed. They will just languish, probably with bad user experiences.
I think HBO and Game of Thrones provide a comparable model – a small movie selection with 3-4 original shows doing okay at any one time. Then when they hit one something really buzzy, like GoT, three times as many people pirate it as watch it legally. This definitely isn’t an ideal situation, but it does seem like it’s going to be the future for the next little bit here.
Funnily enough I just purchased three years of a VPN service for entirely unrelated reasons.
I bet Disney pulls it off on the strength of it’s name and back catalog, but, all these other channels trying to pull it off won’t. I miss the days when the broadcast channels all had a stake in Hulu. The idea of a single place to subscribe for current shows and a second for other stuff (and amazon because you needed prime anyway) made sense. Even if the big 4 networks all only charge a quarter of Hulu, I just don’t see myself springing for it.
I am going to gleefully pirate this entire series. NBC can miss me with their bullshit streaming service.
Maybe I’m a crazy person but I just don’t find old shows going to another streaming service as reason enough to sign up for it. I’ve got a pretty decent dvd collection that I don’t mind adding to and I’ll only have to pay for it once.
It’s almost like those of us who bought the physical copies of media don’t have to worry about chasing our favorite shows from service to service.
It’s almost like those of us who bought the physical copies of media don’t have to worry about chasing our favorite shows from service to service Heh. Yeah, shows switch platforms or disappear, at very inopportune times. But I’ve got my Firefly, my Orphan Black, Middleman, Jeeves and Wooster, Blackadder, and even GoT up till last season, on DVD. Other stuff too. I don’t throw them all into a room and swim in them like Scrooge McDuck, but I understand the impulse.
I actually ended up getting cable again. I was sick of chasing streaming services, and I was paying as much for decent internet and all these packages anyway. By the time my 2 year contract is up, maybe the streaming market will have sorted itself out, and I’ll know which services are worth subscribing to again.
I actually ended up getting cable again. I was sick of chasing streaming services I’m not there yet but it’s understandable. I pay for Netflix and Prime, have a borrowed HBO login. No Hulu or whatever else, even though there are shows I want to watch on other services. Just can’t afford it. The networks’ sites and apps are generally badly run as far as I can see. Still, I get to watch a lot of stuff, and wait for stuff I want to become available… somehow. I checked out the dvd of the first season of Legion from the library, and loved every depraved second of it.
Someone needs to drum it into NBC/Universal, WarnerBros, and Paramount’s heads that THEY DO NOT HAVE A BRAND. They have a random collection of shows with no reason to subscribe to their service unless they have a specific, must-watch show. (Star Trek-level specific and must-watch.) Disney has a brand. People will subscribe to Disney’s service because they have an idea what will be available beyond the specific shows they initially want to see. If I subscribe to NBC/Universal for The Office and Parks and Rec reruns, I have little reason to expect that there will be other stuff on there I will like. (And Disney’s acquisition of the Fox properties seriously dilutes their brand.)
Who’s to say that new episodes of these beloved shows won’t be brought out to gain new viewers? “Subscribe to NBC streaming to see the new season of The Office” basically sells itself, no?Of course, I’m only assuming that’s the endgame here.
I agree with you, but I’d argue one step further that while Star Trek itself is a brand, one single new untested show wasn’t and thus it wasn’t enough to get me to subscribe to a whole new thing there either. Pure hubris.
nbc absolutely has a brand
NBC: a network about nothing.
nbc absolutely has a brand It does! It’s shaped like a peacock and seared into the flesh of every cast member in a series that goes past a season. And THAT’s why you never see the cast of Friends naked.
Its funny, the more for-pay streaming services multiply (and they’re multiplying like bunnies) the less TV I’m watching. And I used to be a BIG TV watcher. I’ve renamed ‘CBS All Access’ ‘CBS No Access”. “The Good fight” could be airing only on the moon for all I know. Now excuse me why I go back online and resume binge-watching my 2016 Korean TV series.
So you’re the other person watching Man to Man!
looks like little MikeD is growing up <3
IIRC, there was a report released a while back that said The Office and Friends were the two most watched things on Netflix by a wide margin.I’m curious how many people will outright cancel their subs once those two shows leave.
Not sure where that report would have come from, since Netflix doesn’t release its numbers, and absolutely would not release that information (as it would give NBC a ton of negotiating power).
Found it: https://www.vox.com/2018/12/21/18139817/netflix-most-popular-shows-friends-office-greys-anatomy-parks-recreation-streaming-tvIt measured only using browser data rather than Netflix as a whole, so it’s only a small sample, though.
Yeah, but like the article says, “it’s reasonable to assume that people who watch Netflix via browsers and people who watch on Rokus or Xboxes tend to watch the same stuff.” Thanks for taking the time to find this. I learned!
in my country it’s on Prime tho. together with Parks and 30rock. I win I guess
The company that cancelled Daredevil?I thought Netflix had no choice in cancelling all of the Marvel shows because of Disney?
You wanted writing based on facts?
*takes long drag of cigarette*
Forget it Jake….it’s Barsanti
All reports have said it was Netflix’s decision to cancel their Marvel shows.
i have a feeling this is just going to affect americans.
effect?
affect
People will just pirate your shit again, morons.
If only there was a way to have The Office in my library permanently.
I refuse to pay for more than three services at any given time. I decided that was my limit. Right now I have hulu, netflix, and hbo. It just isnt financially worth it to keep paying for every network to have their own service. I did pay for CBSAllAccess so I could watch the twilight zone but next year when it comes back, I will likely wait until all the episodes air and buy one month and binge it. It is NOT financially worth it at this point to buy a streaming service for every single network and I wish they would see that.
I’m going to miss The Office so much. It is my all time favorite show, but this makes me upset enough not to subscribe to NBC just out of principle.
This sucks. First they take Top Gear UK and soon The Office! The Office is my go-to when my brain is fried from work. You can buy the complete season from iTunes for 69.99. Least we have time, 2021… Furthermore, these streaming services are getting out of control. Bye bye Netflix 2021.