‘The Office’ Officially Leaving Netflix in 2021

The Office’s days on Netflix are numbered.

NBCUniversal will be pulling the beloved comedy series from the streaming giant in the beginning of 2021 and will be made available in its upcoming streaming service exclusively.

“The Office has become a staple of pop-culture and is a rare gem whose relevance continues to grow at a time when fans have more entertainment choices than ever before,” Bonnie Hammer, Chairman of NBCUniversal Direct-to-Consumer and Digital Enterprises said in a statement published by The Wrap. “We can’t wait to welcome the gang from Dunder Mifflin to NBCUniversal’s new streaming service.”

The show is reportedly the number one series on SVOD. It was streamed over 52 billion times and was viewed nearly twice as much as the next most-viewed show.

Netflix addressed the show leaving the service on Twitter, writing: “We’re sad that NBC has decided to take The Office back for its own streaming platform — but members can binge the show to their hearts’ content ad-free on Netflix until January 2021.”

NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke first brought up the fact the Steve Carell-led show would be leaving Netflix in an interview in January. At the time, he revealed the contract with the streaming service runs through 2021.

“The Office is often the No. 1 show on a monthly basis on Netflix,” Burke said at the time. “Netflix has The Office through 2021, and when the time comes we’ll look at our existing direct-to-consumer service and what kind of volume it has and how much we could expect to make if we moved it over, and we’ll have a discussion with Netflix and we’ll decide what’s right for the show.”

Netflix has addressed the show leaving the service itself in the past, even sending out a playful tweet back in April.

“Hello it’s me with your regularly scheduled reminder that The Office will be on Netflix until 2021 — at least!” the streaming giant said when the decision was not official.

Netflix is also set to possibly lose sitcom Friends, at the end of the latest contract in which the platform paid $100 million to keep the show. WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal are set to release their own services soon.

Back in April, a Netflix spokesperson said that while licensed content performs well, their original content is still among the top titles.

“Looking at overall watch time skews towards titles with many seasons. Most Netflix originals have three or fewer seasons at most. It’s why we focus on the individual shows or films members watch, as opposed to how much time they spend on one series versus another. And if you look at most watched titles, Netflix originals accounted for 10 out of 10 in the last quarter, or 21 out of the top 25,” they said at the time said.