A trend of TV shows that have finished their seasons just getting cut off and having no finale has become common in the last few years. Most recently, The 100 had its eighth season cut off with no final episode or even a press release.
In the past, when a show would get cut off, there would at least be some kind of finale, but lately that is no longer the case in today’s TV. In reality, there is a reason that most TV shows are cut off, and it has nothing to do with the show itself.
Why Are Networks and Streamers Running Low on Cash?
While streaming services are slowly (but surely) learning to monetize their user bases, the big conglomerates behind them are still scrambling to turn a profit.
This has led to a wave of cost-cutting measures, with production being the first to take a hit. And since the number of subscribers isn’t growing as fast as they’d like in many markets, the only thing left to cut is content. New shows and movies don’t bring in any immediate returns, so it’s easier to just can them and write off the loss.
How Budget Cuts Actually Hit Your Favorite Shows
Canceling a show can be a lot faster for a company than continuing to produce it. As a rule, companies tend to cut the “mid-tier” shows. These are the shows that have a dedicated but not huge enough audience to generate a lot of money from advertising and licensing.
They are also more likely to be canceled than shows from big franchises with huge dedicated fan bases. As a result of these cost-cutting measures, many shows now have fewer episodes per season and larger gaps of time between seasons.
Also, what used to take weeks to make a decision on whether to renew a show for another season now can take months.
When Shows Disappear Without Warning
There is a worse form of this phenomenon than cancellation.
Sometimes a show is removed from distribution rather than canceled. There are a number of reasons a studio might remove a completed show from distribution. In the past year, Warner Bros. Discovery removed a number of completed titles, including finished shows, from HBO Max as part of tax write-downs related to the 2022 merger between Discovery and Warner Media. CNBC reported the studio saved tens of millions of dollars in tax write-downs by pulling titles such as those.
The write-downs allow the studio to recognize a loss on the titles and thereby reduce what the studio owes in taxes on those losses, even if the studio has already spent millions to produce the titles. Disney has removed a similar number of titles from its own streaming platforms in the last year for similar reasons, reported Kiplinger.
This is not a normal cancellation, and why your finished physical media or downloads have value today, and why there is a growing and healthy trend towards people purchasing or downloading to own physical media today instead of renting it on platforms like HBO Max, where your finished copies of their programming can be pulled at any time, for any reason.
The pattern of cancellations of TV shows on streaming services due to their parent companies accounting for losses in order to reduce their tax liability has recently become apparent to the public and to streaming services’ subscribers.
The latter have recently come to realize that their subscription to a streaming service no longer guarantees them access to all of the content that the service once offered.
What Happens During a Merger
In between mergers, things get even more chaotic as the new merged company gets its respective production libraries in order. Many broadcasters manage this transition using a CMS for broadcast media to consolidate metadata, rights, and scheduling into one system. The redundant shows and movies get cut, development teams get merged, and/or fired.
Shows that had been greenlit under the prior regime are put on hold as the new regime’s strategy is worked out by the new executives, who never ordered the shows in the first place. And when the dust settles, the new network will have a very different slant to its development efforts and schedules.
Can a Canceled Show Come Back?
The odd occasion where a TV show that has been canceled is brought back. This can be for a number of reasons, typically for a show that has gained a large amount of fans whilst on a streaming service, or for financial reasons.
Once a show has been canceled for the first time, it can be moved to another TV network or streaming service. There are also a number of TV shows that have been revived after being canceled, for example, for financial reasons, a show that already has a large fan base can be brought back to TV, rather than investing in a completely new show and idea.
What This Means Going Forward
So, for now, big financial swings for original content are out. In their place, expect to see more of established franchises, reboots of successful shows, and more proven concepts and IP. In short, the TV industry is slowly but surely figuring out how to make streaming, well, sustainable.
So there you have it. If your favorite TV show was “pulled” without warning, it’s not your imagination. It’s happening everywhere in the media, and it’s all due to the same reasons.
Lynn Martelli is an editor at Readability. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and has worked as an editor for over 10 years. Lynn has edited a wide variety of books, including fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, and more. In her free time, Lynn enjoys reading, writing, and spending time with her family and friends.
