Audiences have learned some tough lessons from streaming networks over the last few years. The most painful has been never to get too attached to a show in its first season, as even if it’s considered a hit, the various streaming giants won’t hesitate to bring the cancellation hammer down.
But now Showtime has gone one step further. They’re not simply canceling shows after their first season, they’re scrubbing them from the platform altogether. This includes American Gigolo, Let the Right One In, Kidding, Super Pumped, On Becoming a God in Central Florida, and American Rust are all heading into the void. Poorly performing purchased content will meet the same fate, including The End and Wakefield.
You may be wondering why Showtime is deleting shows it’s already paid for. After all, a small audience is still an audience. Well, some of these, like Let the Right One In, are being shopped around by the rights holders to other networks, who’d presumably get the first season included in the deal. Others may be sold by Showtime to third-party buyers aiming to bolster their own catalogs.
The majority have disappeared for an altogether more depressing reason. The Hollywood Reporter explains that deleting shows from the service allows Showtime to take a tax write-down on them, with the bean counters calculating that they’ll make more money from putting them in the virtual archives than they’d ever generate in subscriber revenue.
We just hope that none of these shows end up lost for good. Most of these will never land on physical media, so we’re running the risk of entering a new dark age of lost media as shows and movies are unexpectedly yanked away from viewers.
