After making such a big deal about acquiring the streaming rights to The Office back from Netflix, you’d think NBCUniversal would have been willing to pay what it took to have the show in reserve when it launched its own streaming service. But no. Variety reports that when NBCUniversal launches its new service in April of 2020, The Office will soon be on Netflix.
This is what some might call a bold strategy. It’s not like NBCUniversal will have nothing on the service, but … The Office is a big deal, accounting for as much as 5% of Netflix volume per Neilson research.
Let’s compare this to Disney’s launch strategy for its streaming service, Disney+, which is out on November 12. There will be tons of new and old content for that thing, including the live-action Star Wars show The Mandalorian, to entice fans to subscribe. NBCUniversal will launch five months later, which seems like it might still be in the Disney subscribers’ honeymoon period. If they’re already happy with their new service, why would they add another one?
Of course, NBCUniversal could wait until after Disney+ has actually launched to announce some of its most compelling original content, or more details on what its Day 1 will even look like. The Mandalorian alone has been taking up plenty of space and attention without a trailer released to the general public, and then Disney dropped its Marvel schedule at San Diego Comic-Con. (Sure, you’ll have to wait until 2020 for those new Marvel shows on Disney+, but the anticipation is already building.)
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Variety notes that A.P. Bio‘s third season will be airing on NBCUniversal. It might not immediately inspire confidence, but it was apparently more popular online. Still, that’s … about it, except for The Office, which, again, isn’t even going to be there until 2021. You can see where this is looking pretty sparse right now, especially when pretty much every other streaming service is loading up on big, splashy, original content meant to draw people in.
April 2020 will be here before we know it, but will that be a good thing or a bad thing for NBCUniversal? And keep in mind that the NBC’s streaming service won’t have Friends, the other iconic NBC sitcom that’s been on Netflix for the past several years. That show is going over to WarnerMedia’s new streaming service HBO Max.
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