Global TV Demand Awards to Honor Friends Co-Creators

David Crane and Marta Kauffman, co-creators of the TV comedy series Friends, are set to be honored with the Global Iconic Award at Parrot Analytics’ second annual Global TV Demand Awards.

Taking place on January 21 during the NATPE Miami 2020 Marketplace + Conference and held at the Fontainebleau Hotel, the Global TV Demand Awards honor the most in-demand shows of 2019, based on empirical global TV demand data. With Friends having celebrated its 25th year in 2019, the Global Iconic Demand Award is being awarded to Crane and Kauffman based upon their outstanding achievement in creating one of TV’s most consistently in-demand series.

Friends debuted on NBC on September 22, 1994, and ran for ten seasons before the series finale, which aired on May 6, 2004, was watched by 52.4 million viewers in the U.S. alone. Starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer, the series was nominated for 62 Primetime Emmy Awards during its run, winning the Outstanding Comedy Series award in 2002 for its eighth season.

Syndication deals, including those with TBS and Nick at Nite, amplified Friends’ popularity over the years. High-definition versions of all 236 episodes were made available to local broadcast stations beginning in 2012. Netflix added all ten seasons in HD to its platform in the U.S. on January 1, 2015. (The series left Netflix on January 1 of this year and will begin streaming on HBO Max in May.) Comedy Central began airing Friends reruns in October 2019.

Internationally, Friends was a huge hit in the U.K., as well as in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Greece, the Philippines and India, where it is the most-watched English-language show in the country. Today, it is available in most countries around the world.