Streaming giants are banking on our love of shows like Friends to keep us watching... and paying

Overwhelmed by the multitude of new shows and films released on streaming platforms fighting for our attention, viewers like Clémence Michallon can be left craving the familiar. And platforms such as Netflix, HBO and Disney will pay millions to be your ‘comfort food’ television

Friends has changed hands in a deal believed to be worth $425m (Warner Bros Television)

When Reed Hastings, the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Netflix, sat in front of an audience at King’s College in Cambridge in September, the myriad of challengers to the company’s streaming market crown was likely to be a hot topic. After all, the event took place weeks after it was officially confirmed that Friends, the same sitcom that reportedly prompted Netflix to spend $100m (£81.4m) to keep it in its catalogue throughout 2019, would leave the streaming platform in 2020 for WarnerMedia’s HBO Max, in a deal believed to have reached $425m. Hastings’s keynote address also took place just three days after NBC’s unveiling of its own streaming platform, the upcoming Peacock, which will yank The Office and Parks and Recreation, two legacy shows, from Netflix in the US.

Yet, based on what Hastings told the crowd, he doesn’t seem too worried. “Sometimes you do your best work when you’re really challenged,” he said. “We’re really about trying to find great stories.” However, this was coming from the same man who admitted that Netflix got outbid for Fleabag, the Phoebe Waller-Bridge show that went to Amazon Prime and won four Emmys two days after Hastings’s address.

A number of insightful pieces have been written about the fight to find the right price point – with some services looking to undercut Netflix – as well as companies such as Disney looking to steal a share of the market. Hastings himself is sure that producers like Waller-Bridge – who reportedly banked $20m from Amazon – should benefit from the impending bidding wars that are sure to erupt when studios can take their shows to a multitude of platforms.