Disney has disclosed new filings with the SEC detailing the massive writedown on content they pulled off Disney+ and Hulu last month.
In the new Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Disney disclosed a writedown of around $1.5 billion on content they removed from streaming last month, like “Willow” and “Harmonious Live.” Deadline reported the filing earlier today.
During their May earnings call, CFO Christine McCarthy said “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,” and decided to take steps to remove content as part of CEO Bob Iger’s plan to cut costs across the Walt Disney Company. These cuts also included three sweeping rounds of layoffs which just completed last week. “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.”
Disney said it expects more programming to be removed from direct-to-consumer and other platforms, largely during the rest of the company’s fiscal third quarter. About $400 million in further impairment charges will result. The filing also says “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. The company currently expects that any such charges and payments related to licensed content would be meaningfully less than the impairment charges related to produced content.”
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