I say the movie but I never really watched the show. Sorry.
"‘Simpsons’ reruns sold to FXX in first cable deal" by Bill Carter | New York Times, November 16, 2013
NEW YORK — In one of the biggest television syndication deals in history, “The Simpsons” will finally be moving to cable television — and, not too surprisingly, the longest-running family show in TV history is staying in the family.
The 21st Century Fox family, that is, which owns the studio that created “The Simpsons,” (20th Century Fox Television); the network that broadcasts it (Fox); and now the cable network, FXX, that has acquired both cable and streaming rights to the more than 500 episodes.
Terms were not disclosed, but bidding for the highly coveted “Simpsons” library was reported to be intense, rising toward the $1 billion range.
After the television unit announced the sale, analysts estimated a purchase price of between $1 million and $2 million an episode, putting the overall value in the range of $550 million to $1 billion-plus.
The shows will begin airing in August 2014.
These rights include not only the exclusive exposure on the FXX cable network, the new comedy offshoot of the FX Network, but also video-on-demand and streaming rights. That means, for the foreseeable future, the episodes are likely to contain some form of advertising and not find their way onto increasingly popular ad-free subscription services like those offered by Netflix or Amazon.
The sale came after what was officially described as a “vigorous bidding war,” which is something of boilerplate language for Hollywood deals, but which in this case was almost certainly true.
Other cable networks, especially the Turner networks, TBS (which is based on repeats of hit network comedies) and “Adult Swim,” which has carved out an identity substantially on reruns of other Fox network animated comedies like “Family Guy” and “American Dad,” had intense interest in acquiring the enormous package of “Simpsons” episodes.
When Gary Newman, chief executive of 20th Century Fox Television, announced the prospective cable sale in September, he called the show “the greatest television asset of all time,” emphasizing that with 530 episodes completed (and at least one more season of original shows scheduled), “The Simpsons” could run as a nightly entry on a cable network and not have to repeat an episode for more than a year.
In addition, Newman noted, a network could turn the month of October into an all-Halloween-theme month using just the series’ famed “Treehouse of Horrors” episodes.
Of course, “Simpsons” episodes have not been locked away in a closet, like prized baseball cards. For two decades, repeats of “The Simpsons” have been widely seen on local broadcast television stations. But every other sitcom hit of recent vintage, from “Seinfeld” to “The Big Bang Theory,” has been made available in multiple sales to broadcasters and cable networks. Studios rarely leave such opportunities on the table.
But “The Simpsons” was locked into a unique — and now vintage — deal. The show was first sold into syndication in the first year of the Clinton administration, 1993.
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