‘Alaska Daily’ & ‘The Company You Keep’ To Be Removed Early From Hulu As Streamer Pulls Off More Licensed Series As Part Of Billion-Dollar Write-Down

Peter White
·2 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: Hulu is joining the latest round of programming purges.

The streamer is pulling off a number of additional series from its service as part of Disney’s wider plan to cut streaming costs.

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The company revealed last month in an SEC filing that it would take $1.5B-$1.8B in write-downs associated with removing streaming programming from its platforms and expects to remove from more its direct-to-consumer platforms in the third quarter with another $400M in impairment charges.

Deadline now can reveal some of those titles.

They include Alaska Daily and The Company You Keep, which were both canceled at ABC after one season. Both shows would normally have stayed on the service until September, or later if Hulu had struck a longer deal, but are to be removed earlier next month.

Deadline understands that, going forward, ABC series canceled after one season, as well as specials, likely will fall under a similar strategy.

The series won’t disappear completely, however, as episodes will still be available to buy via iTunes and Amazon.

The impairment also includes a raft of licensed content. This includes Angie Tribeca, the Rashida Jones comedy co-created by Steve Carell; NBC crime drama Blindspot; road trip comedy The Detour from creators Samantha Bee and Jason Jones; and TNT drama The Last Ship.

These shows are set to be removed on July 1. Many of them were not set to expire until between 2024 and 2026.

This is the latest batch of series to be pulled from Hulu, which last month took off dozens of series and specials including Y: The Last Man, Dollface, The Hot Zone, Maggie, Pistol and Little Demon, while sister streamer Disney+ removed the likes of Willow, Big Shot, Turner & Hooch, The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, Just Beyond, Diary of a Future President, The Mysterious Benedict Society and The World According to Jeff Goldblum.

Disney said in its SEC filing, “The company may terminate certain license agreements for the right to use content on its platforms, which would result in the removal of licensed content from its platforms and lead to impairment and/or contract termination charges as well as cash payments.”

It comes after outgoing CFO Christine McCarthy said during the May earnings call, “We are in the process of reviewing the content on our [direct-to-consumer] services to align with the strategic changes in our approach to content curation. As a result, we will be removing certain content from our streaming platforms, and currently expect to take an impairment charge of approximately $1.5 to $1.8 billion. The charge, which will not be recorded in our segment results will primarily be recognized in the [fiscal] third quarter as we complete our review and remove the content.”

Streaming Analyst Drew Ryan contributed to this article.

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