Only 10 episodes of The Gordita Chronicles were produced before HBO Max canceled the comedy last summer amid a pullback on live-action kids and family programming. But at least creator Claudia Forestieri felt good knowing that new viewers could still find the show on the streamer.
“I got several DMs from people who saw it in-flight on American Airlines, where a few episodes are still available, and they ended up finishing the season on HBO Max,” Forestieri told Deadline.
But the consolation prize of keeping the show on the platform was short-lived: less than five months after The Gordita Chronicles was canceled, all 10 episode were removed as part of a library purge that impacted dozens of programs on HBO Max.
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At least Forestieri wasn’t alone in getting the boot. In the last few months, scores of shows have been yanked from various platforms, including Westworld, Raised By Wolves, The Time Traveler’s Wife, FBoy Island, The Nevers, Love Life, Minx and Gordita Chronicles by HBO Max; Dangerous Liaisons, Becoming Elizabeth and Step Up by Starz, and Jordan Peele’s reboot of The Twilight Zone, along with Real World: Homecoming, Interrogation, Coyote, No Activity, Guilty Party, Kidding, Super Pumped, On Becoming A God In Central Florida, American Rust and The Harper House by Showtime and Pantheon, 61st Street and Moonhaven by AMC+.
The library content slim-down is probably not over yet; speculation is that Disney could be next. Just last week, CEO Bob Iger said Disney is targeting $5.5 billion in cost savings, including $3 billion in non-sports related content. It is unclear whether the $3 billion would involve removing library titles on Disney+ or Disney-controlled Hulu, but that’s considered a possibility.
Netflix may get into the act, too. So far, the streamer has been removing titles when license agreements expire as was the case with the news yesterday that Netflix will be bidding farewell to the 20th TV/Disney-produced Arrested Development. Otherwise, there has been no mass cleaning of library content.
But that could change.
“There’s billions of dollars that is sitting there in the Netflix library not doing a thing; shows come and go and then they just sit there,” speculated one industry insider. “I think the one thing we’re all realizing as an industry is this whole idea that everything you produce, you could put it in one place forever and ever for $15 a month, it’s not possible to make a viable business there because the numbers don’t add up.”
Removing titles may offer an attractive write-downs for media companies, but it’s creating plenty of ill will with creatives who have grown frustrated with the underwhelming size of streaming residuals – a key negotiating point going into the upcoming WGA, DGA and SAG-AFTRA contract talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers.
“I understand the nature of the business and how everything is consolidating and changing and so forth, but it’s just really affecting the creative process. That’s the most upsetting and frustrating part of it,” says one heavy hitter agent. “It’s not like my clients are doing these streamer shows and making huge money on residuals. It’s about an opportunity to have exposure and do their best work.”
“We got to a place, thanks to streaming, where people felt like their show might get canceled but at least if it got sold to, say, Netflix, it was always going to be there,’” adds another high-ranking agent. “At least what they did still existed in the world.’”
So who decides which shows should get the boot? Bean counters, mostly, who consider the cost of carrying library content based on how much is paid toward residuals, participations and royalties. That is weighed against viewership and a title’s ability to lure more subscribers — like The Office on Peacock, for example — and create less churn. Ahead of Showtime dumping titles, Chris McCarthy, President/CEO, Showtime and Paramount Media, said that “we will divert investment away from areas that are underperforming and that account for less than 10% of our views.”
That describes the vast majority of series that have been taken off streaming for write-off purposes. With the exception of Westworld, most of the removed titles were short-lived, having been canceled after one or two seasons. Westworld, in contrast, ran for four seasons but was very expensive, with HBO still reportedly on the hook for paying hundreds of millions of dollars when the decision was made to take the series off HBO Max as costs are amortized over time. (For HBO/HBO Max parent Warner Bros. Discovery, which set the tone for the current streaming content removals, there was an additional incentive, a one-time restructuring charge the company could take in the year after the merger to reset valuations.)
“They look at the quantity of eyeballs watching, when and how long and if that title somehow plays into the subscriber deciding to stay or not cancel a subscription,” explained one longtime business affairs exec about the selection process. “They may also look at the quality of the eyeballs. Maybe it’s a demo that would be better served by putting the title on an AVOD (advertiser-based on demand) or FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV) platform and monetize it by getting ad revenue.”
That’s definitely what happened with WBD shows that were yanked off HBO Max. Westworld, along with The Nevers and F-Boy Island will join The Roku Channel in the spring through Warner Bros-branded channels, while Fox Corp-owned Tubi will launch 14 WB-branded channels and 225 titles on its platform. Westworld, Raised By Wolves and F-Boy Island are among them. (WBD also is exploring launching its own FAST service.)
While airing on a FAST channel may not be as sexy as streaming on a platform that carries reruns of Game of Thrones and The Sopranos, it still brings in revenue. That leads some industry observers to speculate that other streamers, including Netflix, may consider exploiting FAST channel distribution for shows that cost hundreds of millions to produce and are currently sitting in libraries gathering dust (and almost no eyeballs).
Ending up on a FAST channel also means that someone’s hard work can be seen.
“The creatives will potentially participate in the downstream revenues from licensing and residuals, as opposed to the title sitting in a back catalog on a streamer that no one is watching,” says the business affairs exec. “Where did those meh titles used to live in the old days anyway….on the shelf in the company library. So anything is better than nothing, I guess.”
That may not be good enough for some creators, particularly those whose new series have been yanked before they even had the chance to stream. “I’ve had a couple of clients in the last few weeks ask about basically negotiating a provision. Like, if production is completed, there has to be some guarantee that it has to be exhibited within a certain period of time,” said the high-powered agent. “I haven’t seen that deal yet but it’s gotten to the point where people are so put off by this notion, they’re like, ‘we’ve got to try to figure out some kind of guaranteed exhibition.”
“That’s going to be a difficult ask and a difficult get,” responded the heavy hitter agent. “But there has to be something, or why are we working for the streamers?”
As for Forestieri — who was among the creators who recently joined WGA West in blasting WBD over the cancellations of programs from women and people of color — she would prefer not to focus on how The Gordita Chronicles and its unique brand of storytelling has come to an end.
“I remain hopeful that we can follow in the footsteps of one of my all-time favorite comedies, Freaks and Geeks, another show gone too soon,” she said of the ’90s sitcom that was eventually picked up by Hulu in 2021. “Gordita Chronicles gave audiences a rare, light-hearted look at what the American dream looks like for a Latin family. It was also unique in showing the coming of age experience from the eyes of a BIPOC girl who also defied the traditional standard of beauty.”
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