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What’s interesting about this batch of programs is that most — though not all — come from 20th Century Fox TV, one of Hulu’s Disney siblings since 2018. But Hulu insiders say these shows aren’t leaving because of some corporate mandate to cut costs or gain some quick tax write-down money, something that did happen at Hulu and other streamers earlier this year as part of the overall streaming correction. Instead, these shows simply reached the end of their licensing agreements, and Hulu programmers opted not to continue investing the money needed to keep them on the service. Streamers, including Netflix, regularly weigh how many viewers shows attract on average versus how much they cost to license, something they call “content efficiency.” If shows don’t perform well enough over time, they can sometimes get the boot — even when they’re part of the same corporate family (like the 20th shows).

If there’s an upside here, it’s that many of the booted titles — especially ones from 20th such as Arrested, The Bob Newhart Show, Ally, and 90210 — are streaming on Prime Video or other services. (Indeed, Netflix’s deal to continue carrying the original Fox seasons of Arrested included a clause giving it complete exclusivity to all seasons of the show once Hulu’s deal was up this month.) So most of these titles are not disappearing from streaming altogether, though viewers who enjoyed watching on Hulu are now out of luck. Still, a few others, including Speechless, Dollhouse, and Better Off Ted, do not appear to have other streaming homes, at least at the moment. It wouldn’t be surprising, however, if those series quickly find life on either another subscription streamer or a free streamer such as Tubi.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the MTM produced shows like Mary Tyler Moore and Bob Newhart shows move over to Prime or Freevee. I believe Amazon now owns the rights to those shows when they acquired MGM.

Remington Steele, another MTM show, started streaming on Prime and it’s the first time I’ve seen it streamed anywhere in recent years.

I have noticed over the years that there is a rather small universe of movies and TV programs that circulate among the various streaming services. It is sort of like the same movies and reruns showing over and over on cable channels.

If/when they leave one service, they usually either get renewed by that service after a few weeks or show up on a competing streaming service.

I do like watching some of the 80s/90s TV series I missed during my work years. Several of them have been remastered in high def and widescreen. That makes them very watchable once one overlooks the hair and clothing styles and vehicles.

Some services (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu) are having more and more movies/TV programs from foreign sources. Many of those are dubbed in several major languages. Once one gets used to the lips not matching the language, the movie/TV program can be very watchable — and usually has less politics. However, they do seem to have as much wokeness.