Viacom Extends 'The Office' and 'Parks and Recreation' Rights

   By Maria Armental 
 

Viacom Inc. will continue to show re-runs of "The Office" through 2025 and "Parks and Recreation" through 2024, the company said Friday.

Under the terms of the deal, with Comcast Corp.' NBCUniversal, Viacom's Comedy Central would continue to air the 125 episodes of the political satire television sitcom "Parks and Recreation." Comedy Central would also have exclusive cable rights through 2021 to "The Office," an adaptation of an original BBC series by the same name.

Financial terms weren't disclosed.

In September, Viacom signed exclusive cable rights for the 180 episodes of "Seinfeld" beginning in October 2021.

The deals come as older media companies like Viacom, whose business model centers around cable television, face fiercer competition from streaming giants like Netflix Inc., which holds exclusive streaming rights to "The Office."

Viacom's then-booming cable-networks division was carved out from CBS Corp.'s more mature TV business. ((( https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB115353261435314387?mod=article_inline&mod=article_inline)))

But as the media world spun again, the companies decided that their future was better together. The merger is expected to close by the end of the year.

"We can compete with the best of them-not only do we create a quantity of content, we actually create content people actually want to watch," said Shari Redstone, president of National Amusements Inc., the holding company that controls Viacom and CBS, speaking at the WSJ Tech Live conference in Laguna Beach, Calif.

Write to Maria Armental at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 15, 2019 19:38 ET (00:38 GMT)

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