Despite being one of the most beloved and popular television shows of all time, Seinfeld has been conspicuously absent from legal streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix, which is especially strange considering sitcoms are some of the most bingable shows out there. That’s all going to change soon, however, as Sony is currently in talks to sell reruns of the show to an online video service.
“Seinfeld” is about to become master of a whole new domain: the Internet. Sony Pictures Television, a unit of Sony Corp., is in advanced talks to sell reruns of the hit 1990s NBC sitcom to an online video service, and expects to have a deal wrapped up in the next few weeks, people familiar with the situation said. Among the bidders chasing the rights to the “show about nothing” are Hulu, Amazon and Yahoo. The deal could fetch a price well north of half a million dollars per episode, the people said. There are 180 Seinfeld episodes. Netflix, which last year took a hard look at “Seinfeld,” is taking a pass on the show, a person familiar with the matter said. Reruns of “Seinfeld have been on local TV stations and the cable channel TBS for years, but the buyers believe it has potential to continue that run for another several years on the Web. There, it could hold appeal for a generation of cord-cutters who can’t catch Seinfeld episodes on cable, and will allow users to search for their favorite episodes on-demand.
