21 Problems Only Friends Fans Will Understand

7. When It Moved From E4 To Comedy Central

NBC

One very much for UK audiences, this. The original run of Friends was broadcast on these shores on Channel 4 throughout the 90s and early 00s, with a brief period where it was on Sky1 as well. However, after it ended in 2004, re-runs began to air on E4, and it's here that generations would discover the show. Every weekday, from 17:00-18:00, the channel - which crucially is available on Freeview - would air two episodes of Friends. If you missed them, or just wanted to watch them again, they were repeated from 20:00-21:00 (and also on the +1 channel, obviously).

This was the case for a number of years, and when they got to the end of the series, they'd start all over again the very next day. It was a glorious time to be a Friends fan, but then in October 2011 the rights were purchased by Comedy Central. If you have the channel then it's been great, because they show it even more than E4 did, with countless marathons in order, or days dedicated to the best of certain characters, or love, and so on.

However, it does sadly mean that there's no Friends on free-to-air TV, and a huge amount of people will be missing out on their fix. Plus, there was definitely something of an affinity with it being on E4, a comfort in knowing exactly when and where to find it. When it moved, well, it was the end of an era, you might say.

Contributor
Contributor

NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.