New York (AFP)

Some $ 500 million for "The Office", 425 for "Friends", and soon more than $ 1 billion for "The Big Bang Theory": at a time when online video platforms, engaged in a merciless battle , compete new, the old series are still worth gold.

In 2018, Netflix has produced 140 new and different programs. The most watched series? "The Office", an American adaptation of the British series of the same name, produced by NBC and whose last episode dates back to six years.

The series is largely in the lead, according to the firm Nielsen, followed by "Friends" (1994-2004), far ahead of the series "house" of Netflix.

In 2021, the streaming giant will have to do without the drone streaks of manager Michael Scott (played by Steve Carell) and his team, who will move to the new video platform of NBCUniversal, for $ 500 million over five years.

Beginning next year, the California ogre will also have to give up "Friends", which will supply the offer of the new platform HBO Max WarnerMedia (AT & T group), for 425 million, also over five years.

Since 2010, when Netflix switched to online video, it was generally the policy of channels and studios to use the platform as a third window, after the initial broadcast and reruns on conventional channels, to make the program even more profitable.

But with nearly 160 million subscribers worldwide, Netflix today threatens the actors of historical television, pushed to counter-attack as soon as possible.

As of November, Apple and Disney will launch their own platform, then WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal in the next 12 months. And they have committed billions of dollars to acquire and create content that will attract subscribers and compete with Netflix.

"Sharing programs that appeal to people is not a good model," said Kevin Reilly, head of WarnerMedia's new streaming platform, HBO Max, in February, in response to the transfer of "Friends." "They must be exclusive."

Disney has adopted the same strategy for its future Disney + platform, where it will broadcast exclusively all Marvel, Pixar and + Star Wars + movies, while some were so far visible elsewhere.

- "Feel like laughing" -

This is a fundamental change for these historical series whose loop reruns on some cable channels had diluted the value somewhat.

"Netflix is ​​going to feel it," says Dominic Caristi, a professor of communication at Ball State University in Indiana. "They will always be number one, for a moment yet, but they will lose market share."

And the platform Hulu will have to do without the cult series "Seinfeld", which she will lose the rights in 2021.

No one sees the iconic series of the 90s and 2000s as likely to attract subscribers, but, for platforms, "it's about making sure there's enough content that interests you ", says this expert.

In this catalog, nothing beats a comedy, not even the huge successes that were "X-Files", "Breaking Bad", or "Mad Men".

"You do not have to watch them in order," says Dominic Caristi. "You can watch an episode at random" and enjoy it, he says.

Paradoxically, the platforms are ready to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for these series but hardly produce them themselves.

By 2020, no streaming service should produce old-fashioned "sitcoms" recorded in public.

"No one seems to know how to make comedies," says Michael Lembeck, who has made dozens of episodes of famous sitcoms, including "Friends".

The current series "are provocative, alternative, and you're looking at it from a distance," whereas in the case of the "Friends" type of historical series, "we love to get carried away," he says.

"I think the platforms have not used this format because streaming, by nature, is done to present people stories that happen in a linear way, like a movie," says Dana Coen, screenwriter and professor at the same time. University of North Carolina.

All agree on one point, the sitcom will never die.

"It's like everything else in this industry," says Dana Coen. "It will be enough for a (new) sitcom to walk on a platform for others to follow."

"People want to laugh," insists James Michael Tyler, who played Gunther in "Friends". "More so today."

© 2019 AFP