Sony Pictures Television is in advanced talks to sell reruns of the 1990s NBC hit sitcom “Seinfeld” to an online video streaming service, and should have a deal in the next few weeks, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Hulu, Amazon and Yahoo are bidding, and the price is rumored to be somewhere around half a million dollars per episode—and there are 180 episodes in those cans.
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Netflixis passing, according to the same report, a choice which should be considered seriously, seeing as Netflix has been pretty good at figuring what sells.
Despite the Netflix decision, and despite the fact that “Seinfeld” reruns have been shown on local TV stations and on TBS for close to two decades, the bidders believe the show can go on attracting paying viewers online forever and not grow old.
Listen to Netflix…
The speculation is that Hulu, Amazon and Yahoo are looking to distinguish themselves from the much bigger Netflix by offering “Seinfeld.”
In cases like that I always ask myself what my own, personal behavior would be as media consumer. Would I bother to add a paid Hulu account to my Netflix account to watch an episode of “Seinfeld, ” or would I look for the same episode on YouTube instead?
You get the idea.
Last year, though, Netflix bought “Friends” from Warner Bros. for four years, for more than half a million per-episode, the WJS noted, and Sony believes their “Seinfeld” is worth more than “Friends.”
“Seinfeld” creators Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David stand to get their share from the streaming deal. Back in 2010, Warner Bros. said the show had generated $2.7 billion in syndication revenue.
