'30 Rock' Reportedly Leaving Hulu Soon
Each episode of the show just got the dreaded "expiration" tag on Hulu, with 13 days left at the time of this writing.
It looks like 30 Rock will be leaving the Hulu catalog later this month, and fans are not pleased. At some point, the streamer added a tag to the series that says "expires in 13 days" on its app. As the news reached social media, many mourned their favorite sitcom to binge.
It's unclear when Hulu revealed that 30 Rock would be leaving the app, but a post on the 30 Rock subreddit picked up a lot of steam starting on Monday morning. Many commenters guessed that NBCUniversal had decided not to renew its licensing agreement with Hulu in order to keep the show exclusively on Peacock. All seven seasons of the show are on Peacock at the time of this writing and have been for quite some time. Now, fans who want access will only be able to get it there, giving Peacock a small leg up on the competition.
Studios and streaming services have been making moves like this for the last several years as most entertainment companies now have an in-house streamer to profit off of. However, it has not always been such a straightforward process. The deals between these companies are often made years in advance and sometimes the moves can seem baffling. Keeping track of where certain shows or movies are available at any given time has become a major chore, while the streamers are counting on a title or two to justify the price of a monthly subscription.
Some fans on the 30 Rock subreddit said that they could no longer leave access to their favorite show up to chance. A few had bought the entire series on DVD and others had purchased it digitally. However, even digital purchases on stores like Prime Video, Apple TV or Google Play can be subject to licensing deals. That means fans who want the assurance of a DVD with the convenience of a streaming interface are left with one pricy option: a local media server.
For now, 30 Rock fans can take the much easier step of moving their binge or re-watch over to Peacock at some point in the next two weeks. The streaming service starts at $5.99 per month and has an annual subscription option, which saves money for those planning on using the service often. You can stream 30 Rock there, but it will leave Hulu in 13 days. 30 Rock is available in a DVD box set that retails for $89.98, but is often on sale for half off or more wherever DVDs are sold.