Friends is bidding bye to Netflix as the sitcom goes home to WarnerMedia. The sitcom which showed in NBC from Septemeber 1994 to May 2004 for a total of 238 episodes in 10 seasons was available to stream on Netflix and in one time became its most streamed show, 25 years later.
If you were planning to binge-watch the show as part of your 2020 resolutions next year, you’ll have to change the platform where you were planning to stream from. As of 1st January 2020, the sitcom won’t be available to stream on Netflix and any other major streaming platforms for five months.
To catch up, you’ll have to purchase the seasons or individual episodes or collections through digital retailers such as iTunes($140 – completer series), Amazon($70 -physical collection) and YouTube($200 – complete series; $19.99 per season). Friends is heading to HBO Max($14.99 a month) where it will premier in May as the streaming wars get intense.
We are all going to miss the time where Netflix hosted all our favourite shows as they now move to their parent streaming platforms and we go back to face the same issues people had with cable tv.
The Office will leave in 2021 as it heads back to Comcast’s Peacock. The West Wing is heading to HBO Max too. Other smaller titles will also leave over the next few years. Seinfield will be available on Netflix. Other alternatives include The Ranch, Grace and Frankie, Friends from College, Wet Hot American Summer and Parks & Recreation.
Critics are now saying that we are back to a point where pirated content will be the most convenient.
Worth noting is that Friends is disappearing from Netflix US. Netflix Canada and the UK will still keep the sitcom for the time being.
It’s now time to cancel all your New Year’s Eve plans and binge-watch all episodes of Friends one last time tonight.
