Netflix will be fine without The Office and Friends as it can now reinvest in even more shows with the money it saves

Vulture

Netflix has spent years preparing for the day it would lose its most popular shows like The Office, Friends and The CW shows it doesn't own by bolstering its own library with original content, says Josef Adalian. And without The Office and Friends, it'll have more money available for TV shows and movies. "Consider: WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal’s streaming services reportedly paid $425 million and $500 million, respectively, to wrest away streaming rights to Friends and The Office for five years," says Adalian. "Netflix will surely miss the billions of minutes that subscribers spent watching those titles, but some of the pain will be eased by having roughly $200 million more per year — almost $1 billion over five years — available for new content investment....And then there’s the 2011 deal Netflix struck with the CW: The streamer is estimated to have paid well over $1 billion over the course of the agreement for rights to every new drama CW put on the air, including buzzy shows such as Riverdale and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. While Netflix isn’t losing those hits, the old deal expired last month and wasn’t renewed, in part because CW co-owner WarnerMedia wanted to put upcoming CW shows (such as the Riverdale spin-off Katy Keene) on its new HBO Max platform. While it’s impossible to know how much a new pact might have cost, Netflix will likely save hundreds of millions over the next five years by not having access to CW’s creative output." ALSO: Netflix still has international rights to Friends after 2019, which it can use to boost foreign subscriptions.