After 20 years of faithful broadcasts, the U.K.’s Channel 4 is dropping The Simpsons from its schedule. Maybe it’s making room for a TV adaptation of The Big Book of British Smiles.
Specifically, Channel 4 is moving The Simpsons off of its usual “teatime” slot of 6:30 p.m. on their flagship network and sticking the series on one of their subsidiary channels, E4, which will begin airing reruns of Season 32 starting in January 2025. Channel 4 announced this Simpsons restructuring today on the 35th anniversary of the show’s premiere (on American television), and the network also revealed that, though Disney+ will be the exclusive streaming platform for new episodes of The Simpsons, British fans will be able to watch more recent Simpsons seasons on the E4 and C4 streaming platforms at some indeterminate time after Disney+ releases the episodes.
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All that is to say, starting in January, there will be no way to watch new Simpsons episodes on linear U.K. television as they’re released in the U.S., and any unlucky Brit without a streaming subscription will be stuck multiple seasons behind the rest of the Simpsons-watching world. With The Simpsons coming up on the end of their current Fox deal, is this the model American viewers can expect to see going forward, or will the English approach to The Simpsons be about as attractive to the American market as their waitresses and showgirls?
To be fair to Channel 4 and Disney U.K., they’re actually not the first regional market to break the seal on making The Simpsons a streaming-first show. That was us, unfortunately. In fact, today marked the release of the first-ever streaming-exclusive Simpsons episode when Disney+ premiered the two-part holiday special “O C’mon All Ye Faithful” this morning.
This first-ever Fox-free Simpsons episode is just the beginning of Disney’s four planned streaming exclusives, and, this past August, the company revealed that upcoming Disney+ episodes “The Past and the Furious” and “Yellow Planet” will be part of the current Season 36.
Obviously, the model for TV entertainment worldwide has already shifted toward streaming, but given the complicated economics of streaming shows, there’s a frighteningly possible eventuality for The Simpsons where a shift in focus to streaming leads to a drop in profitability, and, therefore, a decreased investment in the series. In the traditional TV format, The Simpsons has mostly stuck to the increasingly rare 22-episode sitcom season (with a scale-back to 18 episodes in Season 35, due to the writers’ strike), and the demands of the Fox seasonal schedule necessitates that The Simpsons will begin each new season every single fall.
A full-on migration to Disney+ could mean that new Simpsons episodes become fewer and further between, but a switch to streaming could also be a blessing in disguise. Rather than feeling like they have to tackle each new (or embarrassingly old) topical issue in almost-real time, the Simpsons writers’ room could scale back and focus on storytelling rather than relevance-chasing.
Right now, The Simpsons‘ contract with Fox only runs through the end of the current season, but it’s hard to imagine a version of the show that doesn’t air on their favorite punching bag. Similarly, it’s hard to believe that The Mouse will allow The Simpsons to bite the hand that feeds them in the same way Fox has let so many classic burns slide. The end of The Simpsons on television could mean the end of The Simpsons‘ irreverence — ain’t no way the “evil corporation” will let them tell the true history of Itchy & Scratchy Land.