Jerry Seinfeld first comedian to sign deal with Netflix

Netflix and HBO have been going head to head in the war for exclusive stand-up comedy specials but Netflix may have finally beat its adversary. On Tuesday it was announced that Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee would be moving from Crackle to Netflix and the deal would also include two new stand-up specials. 

At the end of 2017, Netflix will have added 24 new episodes of Seinfeld’s Emmy-nominated series and, according to the press release, “Seinfeld will help develop scripted and non-scripted comedy programming for Netflix, with additional elements of the deal [to] be announced later.” 

Netflix is definitely a step up from Crackle which is not as accessible or popular as Netflix. However, Hulu still has the exclusive streaming rights to Seinfeld but after negotiations with Amazon, Netflix, and Yahoo. Hulu only got Seinfeld because Netflix turned it down even though it paid a similar amount to get the streaming rights to Friends. Seems like Netflix may have had a change of heart. 

“When I first started thinking about ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,’ the entire Netflix business model consisted of mailing out DVDs in envelopes,” Seinfeld said in a statement. “I love that we are now joining together, both at very different points. I am also very excited to be working with Ted Sarandos at Netflix, a guy and a place that not only have the same enthusiasm for the art of stand-up comedy as I do, but the most amazing technology platform to deliver it in a way that has never existed before. I am really quite charged up to be moving there.”