If you want to get your horror fix, American Horror Story is just what you need! The horror anthology TV series has long been considered one of the best shows for any horror fan.
You probably tried to look it up on Netflix once you read the title and the first sentence. Some of you weren’t able to find it, so does that mean the show isn’t on Netflix?
Not at all. American Horror Story is available on Netflix, but only in a few countries. You can use StreamCatcher from ProPrivacy to check Netflix’s whole library to see which regional libraries have this show.
When we looked up the show, we saw that you can only watch it in:
- France
- Germany
- Hong Kong
- Japan
- Singapore
- South Korea
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Thailand
- The UK
- The US
Quite a small number of countries, to be honest – especially when you consider that Netflix is available in over 190 countries. What’s more, some countries don’t have all the seasons. For example, Sweden only has season six. And South Korea, Japan, the UK, and Germany don’t have the last season.
Why, though?
We’ll try to answer that as best as we can in this article. We’ll also show you how to quickly unblock American Horror Story on Netflix so that you can watch it anywhere in the world.
Why Is American Horror Story Only Available in a Few Countries on Netflix?
Because Netflix only bought the licensing rights for those regions. Don’t forget – this isn’t a Netflix Original. The company can’t just decide to broadcast the show worldwide on their site. They need to buy licensing rights to do that.
In this case, Netflix was only able to get the rights for the countries we mentioned above. So they’re not legally allowed to stream the series anywhere else. If they were to do that, they might end up getting sued.
Why Didn’t Netflix Get Global Rights for American Horror Story?
It’s hard to say. There’s no exact information about this, so we can only speculate. We believe the copyright holder either wasn’t selling the rights for other countries, or they already sold them to other streaming sites and TV networks.
There’s also a chance that Netflix wasn’t interested in buying global rights.
Why?
Because their data mining might have showed them that people in other countries aren’t interested in American Horror Story. If that’s the case, they wouldn’t be able to buy the rights because they have no clear way of knowing if they’d be able to generate a positive ROI. Basically, get new subscribers, convince old ones to renew their subscriptions, and stop customer churn.
It doesn’t sound very fair, we know, but consider this – licensed content is actually one of the biggest expenses for Netflix. In 2019, it apparently accounted for around $14.7 billion out of their $24.5 billion content assets. So making investments that don’t pay off isn’t something they can afford to do just to please people.
How to Unblock American Horror Story on Netflix Anywhere in the World
Just because Netflix is bound by licensing agreements doesn’t mean you have to be too. Sure, you can wait until they manage to get the rights for your country, but who knows how long that will take?
Instead of wasting time, you should use a VPN – an online tool that hides your IP address and encrypts your traffic.
By routing your traffic through a server that sits between you and Netflix, the VPN can trick the site into thinking you have a different geo-location. Basically, Netflix will only see the VPN’s IP address (and any geo-data associated to it).
So as long as you use a VPN server in a country where American Horror Story is available (like the US, France, Switzerland, or Singapore), you’ll be able to binge the show as much as you want. To do this, make sure to read the reviews of the VPN services you’re looking at (such as reading the ipvanish vpn review) in order to learn more about the services they offer and how they can be useful to you.
How to Find a Good Netflix VPN
It’s not really enough for a provider to just say they “unblock Netflix” to convince you to buy a subscription. They also need to meet other requirements to offer you an enjoyable streaming experience.
First of all, the VPN has to be able to actually unblock Netflix. If it doesn’t refresh its servers IPs often enough, Netflix will eventually detect and blacklist them. If that happens, you’ll see the Netflix proxy error very often.
In our experience, ExpressVPN and CyberGhost VPN were always able to bypass Netflix’s detection algorithms. CyberGhost VPN in particular did an excellent job since they have Netflix-optimized servers (they refresh their IPs more often).
Other Requirements
- Fast servers & unlimited bandwidth – The last thing you want to do is deal with lag and buffering or keep an eye on how much data you use before you start watching the next episode.
- Tons of servers – A large server network (1,000+) means you can easily find servers that aren’t overcrowded, and which are near your geo-location (for optimal speeds).
- User-friendly apps – A clean, easy-to-use UI is exactly what you need. You want to watch Netflix, not read countless tutorials to learn what you need to do.
- Cross-platform compatibility – You’re not just planning to watch American Horror Story on your PC. You probably want to watch it on your smartphone and smart TV too. So VPN apps for most operating systems are mandatory.
- Split tunneling – This feature isn’t a must, but it definitely helps. It lets you force the VPN app to only route Netflix traffic (from the browser or app). That way, you can optimize your VPN speeds to be faster since there’s less data to encrypt and decrypt.
- 24/7 support – If you ever encounter any issues, you need to be able to reach out to customer reps at any time of the day. If the VPN isn’t working with Netflix at 2AM on the weekend, you don’t want to wait until Monday to find a solution. Live chat channels are preferable.
The Bottom Line
American Horror Story is available on Netflix, but only in a few countries. It’s due to licensing agreements, so Netflix doesn’t have much control over that. But you can bypass their geo-blocks by using a VPN. Just connect to a server in a country where the show is available, and you’re good to go!