Most seasons of 'The Office' will require a monthly payment on Peacock

[December 15, 2020]  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Starting in January, most seasons of popular workplace comedy "The Office" will be accessible only with a monthly subscription to Comcast Corp's Peacock Premium streaming service, the company announced on Monday.

Seasons one and two will be available for free on the basic tier of Peacock, a new streaming service that is offered in the United States at no charge with advertisements.

Viewers who want to watch seasons three through nine of "The Office" must pay the $5-a-month charge for Peacock Premium, which offers a broader range of programming, or $10 a month for Peacock Premium Plus, which removes all ads.

Paying subscribers to those two plans also will have access to previously unreleased behind-the-scenes footage and deleted scenes from "The Office," according to an announcement from series creator Greg Daniels.

The series starring Steve Carell as a manager at the Dunder Mifflin paper company ran on the NBC broadcast channel from 2005 to 2013 for 201 episodes. In recent years, it has been one of the most-watched shows on Netflix.

NBCUniversal had announced in 2019 that it planned to pull "The Office" from Netflix in favor of its own streaming offering, but the company had not given details about how consumers could watch various seasons.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

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