• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, January 25, 2024

Is everything old new again when it comes to licensing of TV shows on streamers? 

Netflix is seeing a return to its roots -- to an extent, in its ability to license shows from the legacy TV and movie-based media companies that gave it its initial footing over a decade ago.

Remember that Netflix had library products -- such as “Friends,” a Warner Bros.-produced show, and “The Office," an NBCUniversal show -- before those companies started up their premium streaming services a few years ago.

That changed starting around 2019, when legacy media companies took back library airings of those shows and many others and placed them on their soon-to-be-launched premium streamers such as Max (a Warner Bros. Discovery connected TV (CTV) platform and Peacock (a NBCUniversal streamer).

Now legacy media companies are looking to return to those days -- attempting to gain more revenue and cut losses, especially in connection with its streaming businesses. They have opened their doors again to selling to direct competitors like Netflix.

Speaking to analysts during its fourth-quarter earnings conference call, Ted Sarandos, co-chief executive officer of Netflix, said: “You have to remember the studios have always been in the business of selling their content to others, including direct competitors for years. I believe because of our distribution heft and our recommendation system that sometimes we can uniquely add more value to studios' IP than they can.”

“We've got a rich history of helping break some of the TV's biggest hits like ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Walking Dead’ or even more recently with ‘Schitt's Creek’. Because of our recommendation and our reach, we can resurrect a show like ‘Suits’ and turn it into a big pop culture moment.”

Still, I wonder if those legacy TV-based media companies feel a bit defeated when they now have to knock on the doors of Netflix and wheel and deal to get the best dollar results.

Perhaps new program sales executives need to be reminded big hits like ABC’s “Modern Family” were produced and bought from 21st Century Fox. 

These decisions often came around specific types of shows for a particular network at a certain time.

As a more or less straight-ahead comedy, “Modern Family” really didn’t fit on Fox Television Network at the time -- which could be found airing racier or edgy dramas and other content. Sometimes the issue was that a comedy would need to exist as a island with no companion show for viewers to watch. That’s a difficult program scheduling move for a network.

Sarandos is correct. There has always a "frenemy" mindset prevailing in Hollywood. Forget about long-term big TV network original hits like “Suits” or “Breaking Bad.”

Wonder if any of this will result in new wrinkles -- especially when it comes to digital-first streaming content.

Is there a market for a premium streamer like Netflix to take a failed, short-lived original streaming program and bring it back to life?

Hey, can we still be friends?