“The Good Wife” scores a good deal

The Good Wife S4 iTunesFor CBS’ The Good Wife, life is good… and about to get better.

CBS Television Distribution scored a syndication mega-deal for reruns of The Good Wife, with a multiplatform off-network rollout staggered between today (yes… today! This very day!) and September 2014. Good Wife was not only sold to traditional platforms who are regular customers (cable networks and local stations) – but also to non-traditional, emerging platforms Amazon Prime Instant Video and Hulu Plus.

Here’s how the deal broke down:

Beginning Thursday – and that’s today – Amazon Prime members can stream the first three seasons of Good Wife. Viewers can stream the episodes through numerous devices including all major game consoles (XBox 360, PS3, Wii and Wii U), Roku, and all Apple iOS devices. The fourth season (2012-13) is expected to be rolled out sometime this fall.

Good Wife becomes available to Hulu Plus subscribers in September 2013, using the same streaming devices mentioned above.

Hallmark Channel gets exclusive cable rights to air The Good Wife beginning in 2014. The show will run as a five day-a-week strip.

And in September 2014, local broadcast stations get their turn to air The Good Wife in weekend syndication, which is cleared in 85 percent of the country, including the CBS Television Stations. Locally, Good Wife reruns are likely air in late night weekend time slots over CBS-owned WBBM-Ch. 2.

Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed, but projections of revenue form the deal are estimated around $2 million per episode.

Now in its fourth season, The Good Wife has been a part of CBS’ Sunday Night lineup for two seasons. However, the Chicago-based drama has had difficulty luring younger viewers to watch as the show often ranked fourth among adults 18-49, finishing behind Family Guy and last season, behind Desperate Housewives.

The Good Wife sale is notable because this isn’t the usual syndication deal and on-demand viewing factors in heavily due to the series’ serialized nature as viewers can watch several episodes back-to-back (known as “binge-watching”.) The deal also signals a shift in selling content into syndication – for the first time, online viewing platforms such as Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix are now in the same league as cable networks and local stations as more and more viewers are watching content through these alternative platforms.

Earlier, The CW (part-owned by CBS), struck a deal with Netflix to stream back catalog episodes of its series, including the recently-canceled 90210 and Gossip Girl.

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