‘The Office’ is leaving Netflix. Here’s how much NBC is paying for it and how Twitter reacted

SALT LAKE CITY — “The Office” won’t be on Netflix forever.

NBC announced on Tuesday that “The Office” will leave Netflix in 2021 and will instead be on NBC’s own streaming service, which is set to launch in 2020 with ad support.

Netflix confirmed the news in a tweet:

“We're sad that NBC has decided to take The Office back for its own streaming platform — but members can binge watch the show to their hearts' content ad-free on Netflix until January 2021,” according to Netflix.

Cue panic on Twitter:

“The Office” will be on NBC’s new streaming service for five years, according to NBC News.

An unnamed source told NBC News that Netflix made an offer of $90 million a year to keep the show. NBC topped that offer with $100 million. There was even one idea to split the rights between NBC and Netflix.

“The Office” was produced by Universal Television, which is a division of NBC Universal.

• "'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," said Bonnie Hammer, Chairman of NBCUniversal Direct-to-Consumer and Digital Enterprises in a release. "We can’t wait to welcome the gang from Dunder Mifflin to NBCUniversal’s new streaming service."

“The Office” debuted on NBC back in 2005 and ended in 2011. Since then, it’s received a massive viewership on Netflix. For example, it was streamed for about 52 billion minutes in 2018 alone, according to CNN. In April 2019, it was the most watched show by almost double the amount of views as the second most watched show on Netflix.

Read more: ‘The Office’ is ‘not likely’ to be removed from Netflix for NBC’s new streaming service