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All 236 episodes of the popular NBC 10-season series, one of
the most-watched U.S. shows of all time, will be available for
streaming on the subscription service beginning Jan. 1, 2015.
The show launched the careers of actors Jennifer Aniston,
Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer and
Lisa Kudrow, and made them household names.
Netflix announced the deal with a music video of the show's hit
theme song "I'll Be There for You" performed by pop duo the
Rembrandts at the show's local coffee hangout, Central Perk. The
cafe was installed as a pop-up in New York this month to
commemorate the 20th anniversary of the "Friends" premiere.
"Friends," which aired its final episode on May 6, 2004, has
previously only been available in broadcast and cable television
syndication in the United States.
The agreement is the latest step taken by Netflix to attract
subscribers in the premium-TV market as its main competitor,
Time Warner's HBO, also announced Wednesday that it would launch
its own stand-alone streaming service.
Netflix, like HBO, began as a subscription movie service, but
has also branched out into high-production TV series, talk shows
and original movies.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and
Bernadette Baum)
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'Friends'
will 'be there for you' in Netflix streaming deal
