There seems to be a bit more of this happening: licencing your service’s programming in a “second window” to either a broadcaster, or now more commonly, a streamer.

This week I read that ITVX is licencing Suspicion, an Apple TV+ original for its service. This seems to be the first time that an Apple TV+ show has ended up somewhere else. Now Suspicion was something of a rarity for Apple, in that it was cancelled after a single season, having aired in 2022. It was also a remake of an Israeli series called False Flag which had aired in Britain on Fox UK in 2017.

In the past, we’ve seen Disney+/Hulu originals end up with ITV (e.g. Extraordinary, Under the Banner of Heaven) and the BBC (e.g. Dopesick, Love, Victor).

But I’ve noticed Netflix, in the UK at least, an awful lot of other broadcasters’/streamers’ shows coming onto the platform. While Netflix has long acquired shows from the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, and of course sometimes is a co-production partner of those shows, it now seems to be doing many more deals with Sky and even Paramount+.

Sky shows like Brassic, Riviera, Gangs of London and Resident Alien have all been showing up on Netflix in recent months, even as they continue, in some instances, to be series that are continuing to be made.

Meanwhile Yellowstone and 1883 have come over from Paramount+, where they are often thought as being a cornerstone of the Paramount+ offering.

In one sense, none of this is really unusual. TV has always been a licencing business. Evergreen series like Friends move around the TV landscape on a continuous basis, earning their original studio (Warners) and profit participants (the creators and stars) millions of dollars in the process.

And going back to Breaking Bad and many of the CW Network’s DC Universe shows, putting older seasons on Netflix delivered new viewers to the originating service when the latest season came along. In the US, AMC has done this in recent times with its numerous entries in its Walking Dead franchises available in a special section for a limited time.

But what’s interesting is that Netflix itself, is incredibly reluctant to licence its own older shows to other platforms, even many years after series concluded. Episodes end up hidden deep within the Netflix catalogue, unlikely to ever surface on a carousel, and mostly only available via search. According to BARB, in Q4 2024, 58.2% of UK household had a Netflix subscription. That compares with 45.5% having Amazon Prime Video, 26% having Disney+, 9.1% having Paramount+, 8.9% having Apple TV+ and 10.7% having Discovery+. (NOW TV is in 6.7% of homes, but that excludes Sky or Virgin Media satellite/cable subscriptions).

So even though Netflix is the biggest of the subscription video on demand (SVOD) services, somewhere around 40% of households don’t have access to it, and do not have access to its shows. (Yes, there is some churn, meaning that some of that 40% may have had access to Netflix for a period of time in the past).

One way or another, these catalogue titles sitting on Netflix could be earning them money if they licenced them out. But that’s not the Netflix way. They still like to drop boxsets rather than do weekly releases (except when they release series as “part 1”, “part 2” etc), they don’t put their big titles in cinemas (unless you’re called Greta Gerwig, in which case you might get a limited IMAX-only release of your upcoming movie), they don’t do sports (except the NFL games they broadcast at Christmas, the “sports adjacent WWE”, an influencer fighting a convicted rapist, and a just-announced boxing rematch) and of course they don’t do advertising.

There are, it should be pointed out, some idiosyncrasies in the non-licencing business. Sometimes, even though a show is presented as a Netflix-original, it’s really only licenced by them for a period of time from a third-party studio. House of Cards is an early case in point. Originally put together by MRC, at the time it launched there were many countries where Netflix wasn’t then operating, so MRC was able to sell rights to the show in those countries. For example, in France, early seasons aired on Canal+. Depending on the precise agreement with Netflix, production and distribution companies may also be able to sell DVD and Blu-ray discs, or offer shows on premium video on demand (PVOD) platforms.

With some shows, there may also be something like a “life of series plus ten years” clause in contracts before the originating producer is able to sell those shows. But take The Crown. It started in 2016, and the final season aired in 2023. That could mean that Sony Pictures Television/Left Bank would only be able to sell the show to another broadcaster/streamer from 2033! (Assuming ten years was in the contract). The Crown notably is very much available to purchase in a DVD/Blu-ray boxset from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

I do sort of understand Netflix’s position. If you want to watch The Crown or Stranger Things then you must come to Netflix. On the other hand, in a couple of years’ time, when both those series have ended, will the value still be there, or will there be “easy” money to be had licencing out those shows to someone else? As Hollywood has always done?

It’s interesting that basically everyone else is doing it. Except Netflix…

Image created with Adobe AI with the prompt: “The inside of a room with hundred of video cassettes and DVDs sitting on shelves stretching off into infinity. In the middle of the room there’s a TV screen showing static, that sits on a desk. There’s also a chair there, but there are no people. The room is dark and moody.” It didn’t do a great job since the AI doesn’t seem to know what physical media looks like!