It’s a bitter blow for Netflix: The direct competitor Amazon has secured the rights to one of the world’s most popular series for its streaming platform “Prime Video” via an exclusive deal.
The popular sitcom “Friends” is in many ways one of the company’s most valuable formats for the streaming giant Netflix. At Netflix alone, the cult comedy from the 90s has more than 32 billion streamed minutes, which makes it one of the most popular series worldwide. In the course of this, the entertainment group also had the license for 2019 cost a whopping 100 million US dollars last year.
As early as November next, however, Netflix will end with “Friends”: In future, the series will be available on the rival Amazon platform after the e-commerce giant was able to secure the exclusive rights to the series – a coup, Netflix Has consequences. Because through Amazon’s sole broadcasting rights to the sitcom, Netflix is obliged to remove all ten seasons from its program.
This is not the first time that Amazon has stolen a series from Netflix “Friends” will appear on Amazon’s Prime Video streaming platform from November 14th. All 236 episodes should then be available in both English and German dubbed versions. Amazon customers with an existing Prime membership watch the series for free. The loss of “Friends” is not the first license setback for Netflix. The streaming provider had to remove the popular science fiction series “The Expanse” from its program after Amazon saved the series from being discontinued by the producing broadcaster SyFy. And the hot from Trekkie fans awaited new series “Star Trek: Picard” is exclusive to Amazon to be seen, although Netflix already holds the broadcast rights to several Star Trek series.
