Disney+ Removes Multiple Originals Including “Togo” & “A Small Light”
Over a year ago, Disney made a massive purge of original programming, pulling shows such as “Big Shot”, “Willow”, and “The Mysterious Benedict Society” from its streaming services around the world. While many of the films removed have been made available to purchase or rent digitally through stores like Amazon, very few shows have been made available elsewhere.
Those titles were removed as part of an “impairment” charge, basically writing off them as underperforming assets. Disney was able to write off almost $2 billion worth of failed content from its streaming division.
Disney has also even sold some original shows like “Nautilus” and “The Spiderwick Chronicles” to other streaming services to claw back some revenue rather than release it themselves.
Unfortunately, today, Disney has once again removed over a dozen original shows and films from its streaming platforms, including Disney+ and Hulu worldwide.
Some of the removed shows and films include:
- A Small Light
- Genius MLX/X
- Top Ten: 80’s
- Living For The Dead
- Love & WWE: Bianca & Montez
- Love In Fairhope
- Superhot: The Spicy World Of Pepper People
- Science Fair: The Series
- Science Fair
- Togo
- Farm Dreams
- Home In The Wild
- Never Say Never with Jeff Jenkins
- Wicked Tuna
- Wicked Tuna: Outer Banks Showdown
- Freeks
- Going Fur Gold
- Locked Up: Abroad
- Saturdays
- Pretty Freaking Scary
- Cesar Millan: Better Human, Better Dog
- Narco Wars
- America’s Funniest Home Videos: Animal Edition
- The Biggest Little Farm: The Return
- Hailey’s On It
This list of shows and films will likely continue to grow in the coming days, as we’ve seen in the past that Disney sometimes takes a few days to do these global removals. Especially as it’s been slowly cancelling some shows, so I could see more titles heading off the platform in the days ahead.
There are some excellent originals on this list, such as “A Small Light” and “Togo,” which is very disappointing to see have been removed from Disney+.
Hopefully, “Togo” will be available to purchase and rent through other digital retailers in the future, as many former Disney+ Original films like “Crater” and “Clouds.” Also, if you are in the UK, “A Small Light” is still available to stream on UK TV Play, so hopefully, this show will get licensed to other platforms outside the US.
It’s also worth noting that the end of September marks the end of the Walt Disney Companies’ financial year, and it looks like Disney is clearing house to write off some underperforming assets to help get Disney+ into profitability. Disney set out to make its streaming division profitable by the end of 2024, so these additional cuts will help them with that total.
Other streaming services, including Paramount+ and Max, have made similar removals in the past. Plus, prior to streaming, it would be normal for unsuccessful shows to merely be put aside and never rebroadcast, but when so many view Disney+ as their own personal video library, people do get upset when things are removed, especially without warning.
Roger’s Take: It’s very disappointing to see Disney once again write off movies and shows that have likely underperformed and remove them, without notice, from their streaming services. Many might point out how physical media is important to stop this type of thing happening, but sadly, these titles aren’t available on physical media either, leaving only piracy as a way for some fans to enjoy them.
Over the past two years, we’ve seen over a hundred original shows and films removed from Disney+, which might help Disney’s bottom line, but it does undermine subscribers’ faith in the platform on so many levels. Audiences are getting fewer original programs released as part of the slowdown in production to save the company money, but customers are having to pay more to subscribe. However, no matter how you look at it, these titles have only been removed because not enough people are watching them.
What do you think of Disney+ removing these titles? Let me know on social media!
Thanks to DrewsClues & GuiaDPB for additional information.
Roger Palmer
Related Article
A&E Content Being Removed From Disney+ (UK/Australia/Canada)
“Because Of Winn-Dixie” Removed From Disney+ (US)
