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Netflix acquires the global streaming rights to 'Seinfeld'
- Medicalidiot 7y agoI wonder how much losing The Office made them go after Seinfeld.
- jedberg 7y agoOr how much of it was "Let's make sure the new NBCUniversal streaming service doesn't get this since we have a chance to stop them".
- WorldMaker 7y agoSeinfeld's distributor is Sony Pictures, so perhaps the closer to home competition would be from PlayStation Vue. Maybe a few more adults might buy PlayStations if they moved Seinfeld there.
- nailer 7y ago'Friends' seem to have acquired a second life amongst Gen Z folk who never saw it on TV when it first aired, there's nothing stopping Seinfeld from having the same kind of comeback.
- jedberg 7y agoIt'll be a big question of whether the plots still play well. I was watching Seinfeld the other day, and I'd forgotten how many of the plots revolve around someone missing a critical phone call, because they all had land lines. Kids today won't understand those plots. :)
- ErnestedCode 7y agoThey still teach Romeo and Juliet in schools, right? Couldn't their deaths have been prevented with a quick text message?
- coldtea 7y agoThey could modernize the play by making the death the result of a typo in the text message. E.g. Juliet cried / died
- saidajigumi 7y ago"Oh, I am autocorrect's fool!"
- jedberg 7y agoDid you see the Baz Luhrmann take on R&J from the 90s? The missed message was represented by a FedEx "Sorry we missed you" note.
- magashna 7y agodrinking poison brb
- wccrawford 7y agoOnly if their parents hadn't taken their phones away from either of them, and the SMS went through immediately without fail. It's rare, but the latter still happens to me sometimes even when the network appears to be working fine otherwise.
- skyyler 7y agoDo you genuinely believe that kids don't know what it's like to not be near a phone? Kids are going to understand those plots just fine. You should spend some time reassessing your understanding of today's youth.
- tjr 7y agoI (and many other people at my company) still have a phone at my desk. There are still phones in hotel rooms, and restaurants, and sundry other places. Most people may no longer have land-line phones at their houses, but the concept certainly still exists.
- jedberg 7y agoSure but how many important calls are you expecting on the hotel phone? Or even the desk phone? The only thing I every used the desk phone at work for was outbound calls. If someone wanted to get a hold of me they called my cell, because they knew the chance of finding me at my desk was almost nil. The desk phones at work were so useless they didn't even bother to hook them up for new employees unless you specifically asked for them.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- magashna 7y agoConsidering many have always had a mobile on them, yes.
- partialrecall 7y agoYou've never missed a call sent to your mobile phone?
- jedberg 7y agoI was mostly be facetious, so no. And in fact I'd say I'm pretty in tune with today's youth. I have lots of teenage family, as well as friend's kids to talk to about these things. I make it a point to ask them questions about how things are different today than when I was a teen, so I can have a better understand. My first question is always, "How do you learn about new music?" As a teen, they way I learned about new music was from the radio: the DJs would tell us what the cool new songs were. But that curated experience is missing today. Spotify sort of gets there, but it's not really the same. My second question is always, "How do you talk to your friends?". And surprisingly, the number one answer recently has been "In person". Today's teens are starting to have a backlash against social media and actually like to connect in person, which was refreshing to hear. But number two is usually Snapchat or similar "erase after consuming" media. "Facebook is for grandma" and Instagram is for "only the good stuff that I want everyone to see". Texting is often in the mix too, but they are very aware that texts cane be easily saved and monitored. Although directly to your point, kids experience missed phone calls a bit differently. Mostly it's more like "I was camping this weekend with my family and they didn't have cell service!".
- DanBC 7y agoBut there are plenty of younger people who hate Friends because it hasn't dated that well. https://www.nme.com/news/tv/friends-criticised-sexist-homophobic-netflix-2219739 https://www.nme.com/news/tv/friends-criticised-sexist-homoph... https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scaachikoul/friends-anniversary-bad https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scaachikoul/friends-ann... https://www.cbr.com/friends-hasnt-aged-well/ https://www.cbr.com/friends-hasnt-aged-well/
- coldtea 7y agoVery relevant for 2019. Next they should announce "All in the family"...
- jedberg 7y agoSeinfeld is on TV every single day of the year right now through syndication. I don't think you could find All in the Family on TV at all. I think one is slightly more popular today than the other.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoAntennaTV has been running All in the Family and Archie Bunkers Place.
- coldtea 7y ago>Seinfeld is on TV every single day of the year right now through syndication. So the last thing to be enthused about as some kind of "exclusive" offer on your on-demand service?
- jedberg 7y agoOne demand lets you watch the episodes you want on the schedule you want. Linear TV lets you watch they episode they choose to show you at the time they choose to show it, with commercials. I mean sure, a bike and a Ferrari will both get you from one place to another, but saying they're equivalent is a bit of a stretch.
- coldtea 7y agoNo, but a series is a more limited use resource than a vehicle. Once you have been swarmed with Seinfeld for 3 decades it's pretty difficult for it to be a big deal that you now also have it "on demand".
- jerf 7y agoSpeaking at least for my area (Detroit television market), a lot of local channels use their digital allotment to run a "Whatever I Can Syndicate For The Cheapest" channel at SD quality. It looks a lot like the UHF syndicated content when I was a kid. I wouldn't be surprised All in the Family shows up there, a lot of contemporaneous stuff does. Not that you're wrong about Seinfeld being, oh, let me guess, somewhere between two to six orders of magnitude more popular, depending on how many dozens of people are watching the "Cheap Syndication" subchannel at any given time.
- j9461701 7y agoI find it strange the competition around Seinfeld was this intense actually. Certainly in its day it was the 900 pound gorilla of sitcoms, but modernly? The sitcoms that seem to be doing well are either feel good stuff like Parks and Rec or Friends, or stuff that took Seinfeld as a jumping off point into the cesspool like Always Sunny. In 2019 Seinfeld seems like it's not hard enough to run with the modern cynic comedies, while still too dark to be classified as a positive show. Also most of the episodes seem very much of their era, and it's been 20+ years. Will episodes that relied on their extreme relatability still work when the target audience has never actually experienced that situation? In Chinese Restaurant when George is desperate to get access to a pay phone - how does that play with Gen Z?
- luckydata 7y agopeople will be wasting time in front of Seinfeld for centuries to come. It's so empty of actual content it's timeless.
- arcturus17 7y agoA show about nothing!
- gnulinux 7y agoI don't like Seinfeld (among my least favorite shows, along with Friends) but I wouldn't say it's empty of actual content. It's empty of plot; but it's a show about human interaction. Human interaction in the midst of awkwardness, love etc.
- devoply 7y agoLots of 30 and 40 somethings wish to relive their youth. Also Jerry Seinfeld needs a new Yacht.
- codyb 7y agoI saw Seinfeld perform recently at the Beacon in NYC. He’s doing stand up basically because he’s bored and doesn’t have much else to do. It was quite clear money was not his motivating factor for being there. He’s also doing that Coffee and Cars with Comedians thing and I’m certain that a name as big as Seinfeld isn’t getting screwed on his contract there. Seinfeld is certainly among the wealthiest individuals but he doesn’t strike me as greedy. Also, show was fantastic, truly a master of his craft. And the creators of the show Seinfeld deserve there rewards for such an outstanding contribution to our culture. But copy write laws are borked and things should enter the public domain earlier.
- crossman 7y agoIn my experience my non-american friends never really seemed to get Seinfeld or find it very appealing. Seems like the global part of this isn't that significant from that perspective
- yarrel 7y agoTell them it's just "Hancock's Half Hour" but in New York.
- mindrunner 7y agoDepends on what demographic your friends are. If they are predominantly English speaking from young, there's a higher chance they grew up on a lot of US TV.
- misiti3780 7y agoI didnt realize netflix lost the rights to the office - does anyone know when it is disappearing ?
- elmrunner 7y agoThe Office will leave Netflix in Jan. 2021
- alienreborn 7y agoEnd of 2020. https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/25/20727317/nbc-universal-streaming-service-launch-date-2020-comcast https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/25/20727317/nbc-universal-st...
- nickthegreek 7y agoApparently this is getting a 4k treatment. I wonder if its just a lazy upscale or an actual remastering.
- joezydeco 7y agoSeinfeld and Friends were actually remastered off the original 35mm film for HD conversion back in the day. Seems like going 4K isn't going to be much different, especially at the price they're paying.
- whycome 7y agoAnd if I remember correctly, the big challenge wasn't the scaling up, it was the reframing - 4:3 vs 16:9. That challenge has been overcome for the most part in that HD remaster. (It's hard to reframe some scenes when they were deliberately spaced out in a certain way to reflect the frame that the director had to play with - it has the potential to fundamentally change the narrative intentions.) A video that addresses some of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFIrsitJW5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFIrsitJW5M
- jlmorton 7y agoIt's strange that we accept a copyright system that allows a show like Seinfeld to remain outside the public domain over twenty years after it ended. Intellectual property exists to encourage science and the useful arts. It doesn't exist to extract every last penny of value out of a show for its owners. In a world where copyright existed for twenty years, rather than 95-120 years, Seinfeld still would have been made. No one is green-lighting a television show with the expectation of huge distribution agreements decades later. I'm not generally one to bash corporations, but US copyright law is among the clearest examples of corporations writing our laws to the detriment of consumers.
- ww520 7y agoThank Mickey for that.
- bobbylarrybobby 7y agoThe insane amount of time that copyright persists is almost surely due to Disney. Every time their copyright is about to expire, congress extends the duration. You can be pretty sure that the copyright duration will always be today’s date minus the date Disney first copyrighted something.
- whamlastxmas 7y agoI hate supporting Disney with annual trips to Disney World because of shit like this, but it means a lot to my family :(
- brokenmachine 7y agoI've been to Disney World exactly once and I plan to keep it that way. Not because it was bad per-se, it was an experience but I don't need to repeat that experience. With so many great and interesting places to visit in the world, why would you want to go over and over to a tacky manufactured landscape like that?
- 7y ago
- nscalf 7y agoJust going to note in here, everyone in this thread is saying no one cares in 2019 where Sienfeld streams. I’m 26, and I can tell you this show is one of the best ones ever made and I will be able to more easily peddle episodes that are brilliant to my friends and roommates.
- BeefySwain 7y ago23 years old, Seinfeld is my favorite sitcom by far and is in my top 5 favorite shows in general. I have a Hulu ad-free subscription purely for watching it, which I will be cancelling as soon as Seinfeld moves over to Netflix.
- neutogouln 7y agoThis definitely deserves to be on the front page more than any discussion involving Snowden. /s #HNPropaganda
- blang 7y agoI am a little surprised consumers are not buying: Seinfeld, Parks & Rec, and Friends. They can be had on DVD or digitally for less than a year of a streaming service, and it would free you from worrying about when the show will leave your particular streaming service of choice.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y agoI used to do that - I have a pile of old TV show DVD's. When I bought a new TV last year I never bothered to hook up the DVD player - if it's on the service I'll watch it, and if it's not, the need isn't there for me to watch it, there's so much other content available.
- nightski 7y agoI think consumers got burned out rebuying content on the vhs -> dvd -> bluray -> 4k ultra hd transitions.
- mrguyorama 7y agoI think for your average person, nice DVD masters are still perfectly acceptable content
- asdff 7y agoUntil you try and watch them on a 4k screen. Somehow the same discs come out looking worse than they did on the 1080p I had just couple months ago. I blame the high refresh rate and questionable upscaling.
- awad 7y agoAnecdotally, I sense consumer preference has changed pretty heavily to streaming first, with the occasional renting or purchase of a movie or sports event via VOD. Another commenter posted about media format fatigue, and that's likely a contributor but there's also something to be said about frictionless consumption available on a single subscription.
- 7y ago
- zxcvbn4038 7y agoThe article talks a lot about worldwide rights - does Sinefeld make sense to people not familiar with all the quirks of New York City? I love Monty Python but I’ve met plenty of people that just don’t get it - I imagine that Seinfeld would be the same.
- bluetidepro 7y agoI've only ever been to NYC (as a kid) once, and it still makes sense to me. Granted, I live in another major city (Chicago). I think the "quirks" you are referring to are probably more just general US/American quirks, more than anything that specific to NYC. Kind of like the humor in the US version of The Office vs the English (UK) version.
- mindrunner 7y agoI'm not American, but grew up watching Sienfield / Frasier / Friends. Well, there are definitely times when I did not "get it", but repeated exposure to US culture via TV makes you sort of understand whenever certain issues come up i.e. correlating the various facts that crop up over different programs :) edit : Sienfield is also one of my all time favourite shows
- asdff 7y agoThe show may be set in nyc but is about interpersonal relationships that can apply anywhere.
- mrbonner 7y agoGreat, now I have something else to watch after Cheers!
- tibbydudeza 7y agoI wonder if Peacock (what a stupid name) is going to stream the Cosby Show ????.