Line of Duty suddenly vanished from multiple regions of Netflix overnight as negotiations over the license expired according to Deadline with a company that has since gone bust. Here’s the latest.
The British series that’s a police procedural is a staple of British television. To date, five seasons of the show have been produced thus far with a sixth season already produced expected to air in late 2020 in the UK.
Netflix has had problems with Line of Duty in the past including several years ago when episodes were dropped but now, as of April 4th, 2020, the series has been removed in its entirety.
Why has Line of Duty been removed from Netflix?
According to a report from Jake Kanter, the series has been removed thanks to Netflix terminating contracts with the distributor of the show, Kew Media.
Kew Media is a company that recently went into administration (ie, it went bust) and as a result, its assets and previous contracts have been revisited.
The story of the collapse of the company is well worth reading and TBI Vision has an excellent roundup here.
Netflix in most international regions carried Line of Duty including the United Kingdom and Australia. Notably, the US and Canada didn’t carry the show where it streams on Acorn TV.
Netflix in the United Kingdom only had seasons 1 through 4 and we predicted that Netflix would be getting season 5 in October this year. However, with this new turn of events, that now seems increasingly unlikely.
Will Line of Duty come back to Netflix?
Whether Line of Duty will make its way back onto Netflix in unclear at this point until the situation is resolved.
For Brits, the good news is that you can still easily access all the past seasons (including season 5) through the BBC iPlayer. Although it’s obviously worth noting, you need a TV license to do so.
Do you want to see Line of Duty come back to Netflix? Let us know in the comments.
