Comedy fans in the UK have had to wait several months for the returning comedy series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia season 16 to become available to watch in the country, but now it's finally on Netflix, and it's proving a hit... except for the subscribers who are finding it locked to them.
The longest-running scripted TV comedy in the US, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia follows "The Gang", a group of ill-mannered friends and relatives who own an Irish pub in Philadelphia, as they get into ridiculous predicaments and situations. The show was made by Rob McElhenney (who's now also the star of Welcome to Wrexham) and stars him alongside Charlie Day, Danny Devito, Glenn Howerton and Kaitlin Olson.
IASIP 16 landed in the US on Wednesday, June 5, and here in the UK we're used to waiting for US comedies a lot of the time. So it was with bated breath that we anticipated the UK release date, which turned out to be Friday, September 15.
And only a few days later, the show is proving a hit. At the time of writing it's the eighth most-watched show on the platform, which may not sound high, but it's the only non-Netflix Original on the list. And it's pretty rare for a non-Original to hit the top 10 at all.
That's even more surprising because not all Netflix UK subscribers can even watch the show. People on the £4.99-per-month ad-enabled plan were gutted to see that the show isn't available to watch if you're on this cheapest tier.
When the Netflix ad-enabled plan was announced for the UK in late 2022, the streamer confirmed that certain non-original shows on the platform would be unavailable to people on this affordable tier. These were shows with licensing restrictions, which didn't allow for advertising, though very few shows were affected
Promotional material for Sunny's UK release neglected to mention that it would be locked to Standard with Ads subscribers. Plus, many Netflix subscribers assumed that the blackout wouldn't extend to new shows, as the streaming giant would presumably be able to work out new licenses for them.
Evidently, this didn't turn out to be correct, though, leaving It's Always Sunny fans high and dry for season 16. The only options are to pay extra for a month to watch the show, or just hope that it becomes available to watch on the ads plan in the future.
People who've watched lots of IASIP are used to things being hard to watch — episodes like 'The Nightman Cometh' or 'Chardee MacDennis: The Game of Games' certainly take some fortitude — but it's something different for the show to be outright impossible to view!
The fact that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is proving a hit on Netflix despite being locked to many fans is just a testament to how popular the cult comedy is, 18 years on from its debut.
