Chicago Med just recently joined Netflix and if you’re wondering if Chicago Fire and/or Chicago P.D. will now follow suit and come to Netflix US, we hate to potentially be the bearer of bad news.
Both shows mentioned come from Dick Wolf who is a prolific television producer who is known effectively for three franchises all of which call NBC home. Those franchises include Law & Order, the FBI franchise, and of course, the Chicago franchise.
Wolf notably renewed his overall deal with Universal in 2020 meaning that the idea Netflix could get Dick Wolf content exclusively anytime soon is out of the picture.
All set in Illinois’s Chicago city, the three respective shows tells stories from the various emergency services in the city. Chicago Fire was the first show to release all the way back in 2012 and will be heading into its tenth season this year. Chicago P.D. began airing back in 2014 and goes into its ninth season this year.
Will Chicago P.D. or Chicago Fire be on Netflix?
So let’s get into the main question, will these two other shows join Netflix.
The answer is we don’t know but we can provide a few hunches in that we don’t expect the series to join Netflix.
Why Chicago Med was licensed to Netflix is unknown. NBC nor Netflix released a press release and in fact, we only learned of the series arrival on Netflix less than 24 hours before it dropped.
What we suspect is happening here is similar to ViacomCBS’s strategy in licensing to Netflix. Their strategy in recent years has been adding content to Netflix which could then easily lead viewers into their own streaming platform. Case in point, last year ViacomCBS licensed Evil to Netflix and the second season is now exclusive on Paramount+. They also did a similar strategy with iCarly.
The idea for Chicago Med in our view is that NBC Universal has licensed to Netflix to get fans hooked to then jump over to Peacock which has season 6 (it’s unclear when season 6 will come to Netflix) and then explore the other shows which regularly crossed over too.
If anything changes, we’ll let you know here but for the moment, only Chicago Med is on Netflix and only in the US. International regions are not carrying the series or expected too.
Where is Chicago P.D. and Chicago Fire streaming in the US?
As we mentioned, both shows are available on Peacock (in both the free and premium tiers). Hulu also serves as a catch-up service for the new seasons too.
One exception is Chicago Fire which was also recently licensed out but not to Netflix. In that instance, IMDbTV (owned by Amazon) also carries the show albeit ad-supported.
Those with a Netflix DVD subscription will also find the majority of the back catalog of Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D.
