‘Mad Men’ Will Be Looking for a New Streaming Home in 2020

Right now, every season of Mad Men is situated at Netflix, but the worldwide streaming rights to the AMC drama about a New York ad agency in the 1960s will be available for purchase in 2020. But will this create the same kind of bidding war among streaming services that shows like Friends, The Office, and The Big Bang Theory have created? Find out what the possibilities are for the Mad Men streaming rights below, which includes a surprising option.

The Hollywood Reporter has word of the Mad Men streaming rights becoming available in 2020. The worldwide rights will revert back to Lionsgate, as revealed in a recent investors conference call with vice chairman Michael Burns. The title was mentioned when Burns was talking about the potential of selling off streaming rights to certain properties. He said:

“We retain a tremendous amount of rights. For example, in 2020, Mad Men is coming back to us, with worldwide rights available.”

Back in 2011, Netflix signed a deal with Lionsgate for the streaming rights to Mad Men, paying around $1 million per episode. But the competition for streaming rights has increased significantly since then, and all the new streaming services are trying to grab as much content as they can, so that price could increase significantly.

Netflix just recently paid $500 million for the exclusive global streaming rights to Seinfeld, WarnerMedia bought the complete series of Friends for $425 million and the streaming rights to The Big Bang Theory for $600 million for its new upcoming service HBO Max, and NBCUniversal grabbed The Office for about $500 million for the forthcoming Peacock streaming service. But does a drama series like Mad Men have the same kind of appeal as the easier-to-binge comedy shows that people love to rewatch over and over again? While Mad Men may have been a success with critics and audiences, it’s not exactly a show that you hear about people rewatching repeatedly. But it’s the kind of show that people could see in a library and end up watching for the first time if they still haven’t watched it after all these years.

While Netflix, HBO Max, and Peacock seem like the big competitors to snag Mad Men, there are rumblings that Apple TV+ may want to snag the show in order to help beef up their previously established intellectual property available on the service. Apparently there’s even a chance that Starz could end up getting the show. The cable channel and streaming service is owned by Lionsgate, who is keen on expanding the platform to possibly rake in more subscribers, and they hope to do that by holding onto the rights to certain shows and movies.

It’s early days for the Mad Men streaming rights, but Lionsgate is just trying to get its ducks in a row so it can quickly sell the show off to one of the many streaming services out there. It’ll be interesting to see what else it offers up in the future as the streaming wars continue to heat up. Stay tuned.

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