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The news of Schitt’s Creek streaming moves first came on April 28th when a Hulu press release stated that they had acquired the exclusive (although they labeled it “dedicated”) streaming home of the show come October 3rd, 2022.
Hollywood trades then later confirmed that the move would indeed signal Schitt’s Creek‘s removal from Netflix, although they didn’t confirm exactly when the show was leaving.
For those unaware, Netflix added the final sixth season of Schitt’s Creek on October 3rd, 2020. That’d mean that the day Hulu receives the series is exactly two years after Netflix got the final season. Given this and previous removals we’ve covered on What’s on Netflix, the show will leave Netflix on the same day it flips over to Hulu. That means you have until October 2nd, 2022 to watch Schitt’s Creek on Netflix, at least in the United States.
For those unaware, Schitt’s Creek is the hit-comedy series that first aired on CBC back in 2015.
The series also starred Dan Levy, Emily Hampshire, Noah Reid, Chris Elliott, Jennifer Robertson, Karen Robinson, and Dustin Milligan.
Netflix was a key driver in the show’s rise to success in the latter half of the show’s life. Internationally, Netflix has been streaming the show since 2016 although it didn’t hit Netflix US until 2017 with seasons 1 and 2 arriving in January and season 3 arriving in October later that year. New seasons then came every October thereafter.
IMDb MovieMeter data (which tracks incoming traffic to pages on IMDb) shows the incremental rise in popularity the show had with each passing season although popularity has now dipped to season 5 levels.
Comedy sitcoms, particularly popular ones, are in short supply and have played a big part in the streaming wars over the last few years. High-profile titles like The Office and Friends fetch big premiums and as legacy media companies look to bulk their own services, we’ve seen them depart Netflix.
At the moment, the removal of Schitt’s Creek only applies to Netflix in the United States. Netflix outside the US received new episodes of Schitt’s Creek much earlier (in fact we’re coming up to the two-year anniversary later this month) and for the moment, there are no removal plans that we’re aware of.
Why is Schitt’s Creek leaving Netflix?
Ownership and money are the two main reasons why the show is leaving Netflix in the United States.
According to Puck News, Hulu is paying around $1.2 million per episode to stream the show for three years. That’s around $96 million just to stream the series in the US.
For comparison, Netflix paid around $500 million for the global streaming rights to Seinfeld for five years.
Lionsgate Television owns the distribution rights to the show and reportedly ran a bidding war but according to Netflix sources, they weren’t interested in paying the high premium the show demanded with the argument being that those who want to watch it already have.
Indeed, most metrics do seem to support that the show hasn’t managed to keep up the same sort of popularity or momentum that the likes of The Office or Friends did.
Will Schitt’s Creek be on Hulu forever?
According to reporting from the aforementioned Puck article, the show will be exclusive to Hulu for two years before being shared between Paramount+ and Hulu for year three.
It’s unclear where the show’s streaming home following this three-year period (lapsing in October 2025) will be. The rights reportedly are handed back to ITV and the Levys at this point.
Of course, we’ll be seeing more of Dan Levy on Netflix after he signed a lucrative overall deal with Netflix last year. Elsewhere Levy is currently working on a new series for HBO Max called The Big Brunch.
