Cognition Dissemination: Disney Plus Not Much Else

Disney, in recent weeks, joined competing streaming services like HBO Max and Paramount Plus (with Showtime) in removing shows and movies from their Disney Plus and Hulu services. Among those vanished into the Disney Digital Vault were shows that launched with the former service, and others that concluded not even half a year ago. It’s a dire turn of events for media preservation, but it’s much worse when they’re coming from a company that’s refused to release most of their newest content, including every original work made for Disney Plus, on home video.

It’s noticeable that no animated content was removed as part of this culling, a revealing move regarding what this is all really about: Their desire to no longer pay residuals for shows that weren’t massive performers in terms of streaming views. Animated shows and movies have considerably lower residuals for the talent who worked on them, something their unions have been seeking to address.

Direr is how Disney and CEO Bob Iger have teased how they’re far from done. Variety reported that Disney will take a $1.5 billion write-off by the end of the second quarter of 2023 (which ends on June 30th) after removing the content, according to their SEC filing. They also ominously stated that “it’s continuing to review content on streaming platforms and ‘currently anticipates additional produced content will be removed from its DTC and other platforms, largely during the remainder of its third fiscal quarter.’” They, as the potential result of another search for content to remove, “may incur further impairment charges of up to about $400 million related to produced content.” Disney CEO Bob Iger stated how this is one reason why he’s “confident that [Disney is] on the right path for streaming’s long-term profitability.”

Don’t get too attached to anything on Disney Plus or Hulu, and expect several more shows and movies to vanish with only about a week’s notice again, perhaps during the next quarter. The combination of this and Iger’s confirmation that the company plans to increase the price of Disney Plus’ ad-free tier again (after just hiking it by $3 last December) should paint a frightening picture of the streaming future we’re in for.

These content removal decisions will undoubtedly factor into the choices of future shows and movies they plan to green light. Several Disney Plus shows removed were either brand-new original works or revivals of older franchises that didn’t entirely work out, like The Mysterious Benedict Society, Willow, Diary of a Future President, and The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers. Similar shows that survived the first culling round are unlikely to survive the second time around, like the also-recently-finished National Treasure: Edge of History, a fate it doesn’t deserve despite its middling reception.

This couldn’t be a bigger clue to watch American Born Chinese sooner rather than later, an actually-solid show that received a great critical reception. The lack of buzz surrounding it is disappointing, in a rare full-season drop from Disney Plus, despite it featuring a semi-reunion of Oscar winners from the similarly Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Disney will likely still take a few risks in the future, but they’ll be stricter in what they green light. Any shows and movies they believe could be grounds for removal in the near future are unlikely to be produced at all. Disney Plus in particular has already been criticized for having too many Marvel and Star Wars shows among its brand-new content, and that will only get worse. They may not increase the number of shows in both franchises, considering Iger previously discussed reducing the number of them provided throughout a given year — from Marvel in particular. But this could mean less content overall coming to the service. That semi-merger with Hulu in the United States is coming right on time.

This alone serves as a reminder of why physical releases remain important. It would be nice to still have options to watch shows like The World According to Jeff Goldblum and Willow without pursuing torrents. Another issue fortuitously manifested through the current version of The French Connection, which watchers discovered was recently censored. Even if it involved editing the n-word out, this involves the removal of content that provides critical context for certain scenes in a film, alongside the reminder of the time in which it was made. (The movie was released over 50 years ago.) Worse yet, digital versions previously purchased have been censored, an issue content preservations once warned everyone about. The movie is unfortunately out of print on Blu-ray, but it’s possible to obtain an inexpensive copy from the second-hand market… for now.

This is hardly the first time Disney has done this, considering what happened with an utterance of foul language in Adventures in Babysitting or brief nudity in Splash. But it’s another reminder that streaming services cannot be trusted to preserve content.

It’s difficult to see how any of this will improve. Content will continue to disappear from streaming services, and most companies will further tighten their belts when it comes to green lighting riskier content. But the business format isn’t leaving us anytime soon. We’ll just have to hope they won’t take away our preservation options either.