In early April, Netflix announced that it had reached a deal to stream the hit AMC television series Mad Men. Now, here in late July, the company has announced that it’s now available.
The deal was for the first four seasons, and additional seasons will be available after they’ve aired on AMC. Estimates around the time of the original announcement had the deal pegged at about $1 million per episode. There are expected to be at least three more seasons of the show.
“Mad Men has been and continues to be a representation of TV at its best and Netflix is proud to be the syndication home for this acclaimed series,” said Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer at Netflix “This deal secures long term instant access to an iconic show for Netflix members for years to come.”
Of course, a lot has changed at Netflix since the time this deal was announced. A lot of members have been quite vocal about their disdain for recently announced price hikes, though CEO Reed Hastings indicated this week that they expected the backlash to be even greater. These voices are still present on today’s blog post from Netflix announcing the availability of Mad Men, though some are also defending Netflix’s decision.
Here are a few of the comments:
“One reason to keep Netflix.”
“That’s wonderful news. I’m sure that the 10 subscribers left will be thrilled that because of this exclusive, their streaming price will be going up another $2, Netflix will tell their 11+ year loyal members to eat one, and then the CEO will say “we expected more to cancel and the heck with the subscribers that cancelled”. And yes, I am one of those that cancelled.”
“Sorry, but give me netflix anyday. $16 a month is still ALOT cheaper than cable and dish. I guess I’m one of the few who understands that things cost money and that the only way for netflix to add more movies is to help them pay for more stuff. I don’t think $5 is too much, heck I’d pay a $20 hike to their streaming service alone. It’s still the best one out here.”
“What happened to the wonder years we were promised back in april?”
“Wow! I’m sure all 10 of the customers you’ll be left with after your dishonest price hike goes into effect will just love it!”
“I was pretty crestfallen to discover that there were no captions/subtitles available for Mad Men. So I could pay 7.99 a month for inaccessible content…or 15.98 to make sure I can watch everything I try to stream (for DVDs in case there are no captions online). Deaf/Hard of Hearing folks are forced into paying more so they can be sure they will enjoy the streaming content offered. Sad.”
“At last, something positive in the stream of negatives lately. I been wanting to watch this show for a while now, and finally can.”
According to a new survey from The Diffusion Group, about 12% to 15% will cancel their memberships. 34% are likely to cancel streaming and keep DVD service, and 44% are likely to cancel DVD service and keep streaming. 37% are still trying to figure it out.
Facebook also announced today that it has reached a deal to stream content from Showtime and CBS in Canada and Latin America.