You Might Be Able to Watch Bojack Horseman Without Paying for Netflix

Good news! Soon, everyone may be able to be as sad as the titular character from Bojack Horseman!

The Netflix animated series, featuring the voice of Will Arnett as an alcoholic horse who is also a TV star, is currently being shopped around to cable networks for syndication, reports Variety. "But wait," you say, "Aren't Netflix series wholly owned by Netflix in order for the streaming giant to retain exclusive rights to them?"

In most cases, yes. But Bojack Horseman, which premiered in 2014 and has been renewed for a fifth season, was one of Netflix's first original series, and in the frenzy to build up its portfolio, Netflix grabbed up Bojack but let producer Tornante Co. keep off-network rights for syndication, hence the rare opportunity to shop it to a syndication-happy network such as TBS or Comedy Central.

Don't expect many, if any, other Netflix shows to appear anywhere else but Netflix, though. Netflix's whole business strategy revolves around retaining exclusive rights to series in order to keep subscribers. Though initially big fans of licensing other series, Netflix is slowly shifting away from being the home for classics -- allowing plenty of series as of late to jump over to competitors Hulu and Amazon -- and focusing more on originals.

The deal shines a light on the future of syndication as studios and networks understand the importance of retaining content while television shifts from live broadcasts to streaming and on-demand services.

Bojack Horseman is currently streaming on Netflix.