Now you see them...
Paramount+ is the latest streamer to cull shows in a bid to look profitable.
Something strange is happening to television.
Perfectly good shows with high production values, great acting talent and neat scripts are simply…disappearing. One minute you’re watching a domestic thriller with a lasagne on your lap, the next you’re wildly scrolling the on-screen menu to find the next episode, feeling like you’re going mad.
This article from Geek Town tries to make sense of it. And it lists the more than 20 Paramount+ shows which have been zapped from existence in the last couple of days.
Among them, two of my absolute favourites: The Serial Killer’s Wife starring Annabel Scholey and The Doll Factory featuring Esmé Creed-Miles. Nicely adapted stories of women triumphing over adversity, thoughtfully produced and yes, possibly buried on a streaming platform which only a small percentage of the population actually subscribes to.
But they were good. And had they been screened on ITV or BBC One or Two, they would have been talked about and admired and well-reviewed because they easily surpassed the quality threshold for most of the drama we’re offered.
But now, just a few short months since they were launched, they’ve puffed out of existence, possibly never to be seen again. They’re not on DVD or available anywhere else. There’s a possibility that Paramount+ will sell them on to another broadcaster.
But as things stand, they’ve gone. All of that work and love and endeavour and the sustained belief of the creatives involved, not to give up when most of us would because these things can take YEARS to reach the screen. Snuffed out.
Why do they do it? Well, as mentioned in that Geek Town piece and elsewhere, the model for most streamers isn’t sustainable. They cannot keep making and showing the quantities of stuff they’re pumping out to the relatively small number of people who currently subscribe and expect to make a profit.
Something’s got to give. And right now, that’s the content. It is disposable to them the minute it doesn’t achieve the spike in subscribers they’re hungrily hoping for. They’d rather ditch solidly good shows and have a pitiful back catalogue than continue to pay for something that isn’t earning its keep.
They pay vast sums to get these shows made. Sometimes they even pay themselves to make them. The money has to flow from production arm to acquisitions department to show up on their balance sheets. Then they pay to license the shows while they remain on the platform.
Removing them, even so soon after release, is a way of cutting costs when a show hasn’t immediately performed how they’d like it to.
I’ve been very fond of my Paramount+ subscription for exactly the kinds of show mentioned above. I just went looking for Minx (starring Ophelia Lovibond) because I remembered I wanted to watch the second series and that brought up the dreaded 404 error. It’s gone too.
The message is, essentially, don’t get attached. Because some of these shows have the life expectancy of a highly strung mayfly. Maybe the streamers are hoping the potential scarcity of some shows will make them more of a “must watch”.
But I think what they’re actually achieving is a growing ill will among audiences who want to know their subscription buys them the leisure to watch shows at their own pace.
They’re not thinking long-term approval for their brand because most of these brands don’t have a long time left.
I’m one Paramount+ subscriber who’s cursor is hovering over the CANCEL SUBSCRIPTION box.
Have any of your favourite shows been ditched? Let me know in the comments.
It has been infuriating to watch Paramount+ cut so many great shows. A close friend of mine is the creator of the Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies series that was recently cut despite a huge fanbase and it's heartbreaking to watch these incredible shows disappear. Thanks for your perspective on this.
I had also been saving up the second season of Minx! This practice is so awful for both creators and viewers. And it’s like the streamers WANT us to go back to acquiring shows through less than legitimate means via what my friend Sarra calls a “kindly American uncle”.