The long-running Australian soap Neighbours has been cancelled – again, just two years after it was revived by streaming giant Amazon.
“We are sad to announce that Neighbours will be resting from December 2025,” read an official statement from the show on Friday morning.
Production on Neighbours will wrap in July, its producer, Fremantle, confirmed. New episodes will continue to air on Amazon Prime Video globally and Australia’s Channel Ten four times a week until the end of 2025 – “with all the big soapie twists and turns that our viewers love”, the statement read.
Neighbours first ended production in 2022, capping off a record 37-year run, when Fremantle failed to secure another UK broadcaster after Channel 5 withdrew support. The subsequent outpouring of affection for the show after the cancellation led to Amazon announcing a few months later it would reboot Neighbours for its now-defunct Freevee streaming service, with Neighbours: A New Chapter launching in 2023.
Channel 5 backed out for financial reasons, but the show had continued to rate well in the UK’s busy soap market, attracting 1.5 million UK viewers a day in 2022.
Amazon confirmed it was withdrawing from Neighbours, with a spokesperson saying, “Forty years is an incredible milestone and we are proud that Amazon MGM Studios was able to have a small part of bringing further episodes to Freevee and Prime Video customers over the last two years, spanning over 400 episodes.”
With Amazon backing out now, Neighbours is yet again dependent on locking in another international sale or streaming deal to save it, as Ten has previously said it was not commercially viable for it to fund production alone.
Neighbours, which launched the international careers of a number of stars including Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Margot Robbie and Guy Pearce, is still the longest-running drama series on Australian television, having been filmed in Melbourne since 1985.
Within Australia’s television industry, Neighbours is also regarded as an important training ground for crew and production workers, with many in the industry having learned on the job there.
“Audiences all around the world have loved and embraced Neighbours for four decades and we are very proud of the huge success over the last two years,” Neighbours’ executive producer, Jason Herbison said, citing its continued popularity in the UK and its first Daytime Emmy nomination last year.
“As this chapter closes, we appreciate and thank Amazon MGM Studios for all that they have done for Neighbours – bringing this iconic and much-loved series to new audiences globally. We value how much the fans love Neighbours and we believe there are more stories of the residents of Ramsay Street to tell in the future.”
Ten thanked the cast and crew for their work, as well as “the Australian fans and audiences for their continued support of the series”.
“It is a mighty achievement that the series will reach the 40-year milestone next month,” the spokesperson for Ten said. “The program will be missed by the fans and the people who have been part of this amazing journey. We wish them well.”
