Netflix’s 10-Year Window on Top Originals is Expiring. Studios Smell Blood
‘House of Cards,’ ‘Orange Is the New Black’ and 130+ shows are set to hit the market as FASTs, rival streamers and yes, cable, muscle in
I cover TV from L.A. I talked to Sony TV chief Katherine Pope and Wiip CEO Paul Lee, wrote about USA Network’s return to scripted originals and interviewed the directors of Netflix’s megahit KPop Demon Hunters. I’m at lesley.goldberg@theankler.com
You’ve seen it before: the dreaded “Last day to watch on Netflix” notice that pops up on the platform and informs subscribers that some of the streamer’s top programming is leaving the service. For many TV series, it’s because licensing agreements with the studios behind such hits as Friends and The Office were reclaiming their beloved titles. For Netflix originals, however, there’s more to the story.
In 2012, when Netflix launched its first scripted originals, the former DVD-by-mail company was looking for a way to attract new subscribers by offering viewers something they couldn’t find elsewhere — it offered up new series including Lilyhammer, Hemlock Grove, House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black. For these shows and the hundreds that continue to come through the streaming giant’s pipeline, Netflix is credited with creating a new deal point to ensure that the often-pricey programs would remain exclusive to its subscribers.
As part of its deals for early originals, Netflix and its studio partners — eager to capitalize on a new buyer in town — agreed to what’s known as the 10-year worldwide exclusive hold. This means that a show like Orange Is the New Black would stay exclusive to Netflix for a decade, starting from the moment the very last episode of the show was released. The Lionsgate TV-produced Emmy-winning prison dramedy is scheduled for a “Last day to watch on Netflix” notice come July 26, 2029, exactly 10 years after the final season dropped on the platform.
At the time this deal point was introduced, TV studios in the U.S. were learning how to work with the new streaming kid on the block, and Netflix needed only domestic rights to its new originals. But as Netflix expanded into the global streaming giant it is today, the studios needed to figure out a way to offset financial losses that came with taking worldwide sales off the table. That’s when then-Sony TV head of business affairs Jeff Frost and Netflix’s then-content chief Cindy Holland landed on the 10-year worldwide hold. The idea is simple: At the end of Netflix’s original 10-year term, studios could reclaim the show and further monetize it by either extending its stay with Netflix or selling it elsewhere.
“Nobody knew what this would evolve into,” Frost tells me. “There was a back-and-forth negotiation for how long the worldwide deals would be. The streamers wanted these shows in perpetuity. Sony wanted three or four years, and we landed on 10 years. The streamers felt they needed exclusivity to create dominance in the space and keep shows on their platform and thought if they were available somewhere else, they wouldn’t watch on streaming.”
Over the next couple of years, scores of originals will see their 10-year worldwide exclusive holds expire, and Netflix — as the first streamer with scripted originals — will have to make some tough choices: Spend some of its $18 billion content budget to keep shows exclusive to its platform, or remove them and let their studio partners sell them elsewhere. If Netflix were to release Orange Is the New Black — one of its most iconic foundational shows — Lionsgate could sell the show to a rival streamer, broadcast or cable network or a FAST channel like Tubi. If Netflix were to decide the Jenji Kohan favorite is too valuable to lose (and the streamer has the data to know just how valuable the series is), it could negotiate a new exclusive term with Lionsgate.
As negotiations continue across the streaming landscape, the 10-year worldwide exclusive hold — like the streaming landscape itself — is also evolving. Platforms including Amazon, Apple, HBO Max and Hulu have been truncating that term as part of a concerted effort to reduce the costs associated with making scripted programming. (Netflix, multiple sources say, continues to ask for 10 years but has become more flexible in recent months.)
“It’s a policy that’s much more negotiable than it’s ever been in the past,” says Frost, who now runs production company Bristol Circle Entertainment after spending five years atop Sony TV before his 2022 exit. “As streamers try to save more money, it’s more negotiable than ever.”
Today I’ll tell you about:
The coming battle for 130+ shows, from House of Cards to Orange Is the New Black, as Netflix’s decade-long holds expire
The bellwether title already being negotiated that Hollywood is watching
What Netflix keeps vs. what it lets go — and the billions those decisions could swing
The shockingly high percentage of English-language Netflix originals that will be impacted
The FASTs, rival streamers and even cable circling for the kill — and what’s in it for them
How streamers are rethinking these pacts overall today, and why studios have more leverage now
How this affects the high-stakes future of SVOD dealmaking
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