Hulu paid $180 million just so it could stream Seinfeld

Hulu is serious about streaming television shows. You wanna know how I know? The company just dropped $180 million to secure streaming rights for a single show. Now, to be fair, that show is Seinfeld, but Hulu is still paying nearly a million bucks PER EPISODE for the right to stream it. 

If you ever thought Hulu was only half-heartedly committed to winning the streaming TV wars, think again: the online service just slapped down “just under $1 million per episode”, securing the rights to every minute of Seinfeld ever aired. According to a report from Variety, Hulu cut a deal with Sony Pictures TV the rights to NBC’s enduring comedy, seemingly beating out competing offers from the likes of Amazon and Yahoo. An official announcement is expected on Wednesday. All the talk with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video might be about original content and new-release movies, but if this deal — and Netflix’s deal to get Friends — is anything to go by, it seems that the hottest property in binge-watching is still ‘90s sitcoms.