Get ready, fans of 90s shows about nothing: Reports suggest a deal to stream all 180 Seinfeld episodes across the Web is close to being struck. The only question is who will win the bidding war, with Amazon, Yahoo and Hulu all said to be interested in bringing the hit sitcom to our devices.
The latest rumors come courtesy of The Wall Street Journal, which says that Sony is in “advanced talks” to bring the show to the internet masses. Insiders say a deal could be in place within weeks. Despite the fact that Seinfeld has been repeated endlessly on cable and local television, the WSJ hints that the asking price could be in the region of $500,000 per episode — or $90 million for the whole lot.
Seinfeld’s owners have obviously been shopping the show around for some time: Back in July, Netflix considering buying the rights to stream the comedy, according to Jerry Seinfeld himself. The WSJ says Netflix is now out of the running, perhaps because it recently splashed out to bring every episode of Friends to its platform.
Maybe one legendary 90s sitcom is enough for CEO Reed Hastings.
Video platform Crackle, also owned by Sony, has streamed a select number of Seinfeld episodes in the past, but this would be the first time the series was available for binge watching in its entirety, and that’s a big deal: Seinfeld is one of the most valuable properties in television history as far as syndication rights go.
So, if you want to be able to watch Jerry, George, Elaine and Cosmo on-demand anytime, anywhere, then it looks like you won’t have much longer to wait. In the meantime, you might want to try Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee.
