The shift of digital media
streaming from universal platforms accepting stuff from multiple sources, to
numerous streaming services exclusive for each major content producer has been
going on for the past few years now. As a result, binge-watchers of catch-all
streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu tend to feel down as major studios
like Disney, or Warner Bros., or Paramount, gradually take their media off
those services to hoard them in their own digital playgrounds: Disney+, HBO Max
and Paramount+ to name a few. The last one is making its own move soon, taking
two Nickelodeon series currently on Netflix off that online library,
permanently.
Indeed, sooner or later the teen
sitcom “iCarly” (2007-12) and the phenomenal animated epic series “Avatar: The
Last Airbender” will in the future depart from Netflix, as The Hollywood Reporter would have it. This news comes from Brian
Robbins, President and CEO of Nickelodeon, the network where these programs
originally aired before streaming became a common thing. Sooner or later they will
be pulled from Netflix and moved to Paramount+, where content from Paramount
Pictures, CBS and Viacom (the latter two after re-merging as ViacomCBS) will
eventually make their streaming home, alongside expected original productions.
"It's not like this is some
secret we're pulling the wool over anybody else's eyes on other services,” says
Robbins. “They're happy to have the content and they understand the strategy.
We're very upfront about it." As it turns out, having completed
Nickelodeon programs be licensed to third-party platforms like Netflix was a
marketing move by now-CEO of ViacomCBS, Bob Bakish. Once these programs found a
wider audience on streaming than they did on one TV channel, they would be
pulled back as exclusives once the company’s own in-house streaming service was
up and running.
And it looks like Nickelodeon and
its parent ViacomCBS will be keeping these franchises and their creative teams
close to the vest moving forward. Already, “Last Airbender” creators Brian
Konietzko and Michael DiMartino have been given a bigger role as head of Avatar
Studios, to create more media to expand the world of “Avatar” for Nick and
Paramount+. Speaking of which, that streaming service is also home to a revival
of “iCarly,” which premiered last June 17. But for the moment, fans of both
shows who have Netflix subscriptions better binge-watch them now while they are
still available there, because eventually they will not be.
Image from Comic Book Resources
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