Alaska Daily and The Company You Keep are to be removed from Hulu early next month. Both shows were canceled at ABC after one season.
The move comes from Disney pulling off a number of series from Disney+’s and Hulu’s wider plan to cut streaming costs. The company revealed last month in an SEC filing that it would take between $1.5B and $1.8B in write-downs associated with removing streaming programming from its platforms and expects to remove from more its direct-to-consumer platforms in the third quarter with another $400M in impairment charges.
Deadline reports that going forward, series canceled after one season, as well as specials, will likely fall under a similar strategy. The series won’t disappear completely, however, as episodes will still be available to buy via iTunes and Amazon.
This is the latest batch of series to be pulled from Hulu, which, earlier this year, took off series including Y: The Last Man, Dollface, The Hot Zone, Maggie, Pistol and Little Demon, while sister streamer Disney+ removed the likes of Willow, Big Shot, Turner & Hooch, The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, Just Beyond, Diary of a Future President, The Mysterious Benedict Society and The World According to Jeff Goldblum.
In Disney’s SEC filing, it said, “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.”
From the mind of Tom McCarthy, “Alaska Daily” stars Hilary Swank as Eileen Fitzgerald, a fiercely talented and award-winning investigative journalist who leaves her high-profile New York life behind after a fall from grace to join a daily metro newspaper in Anchorage on a journey to find both personal and professional redemption.
Alongside Swank, “Alaska Daily” stars Jeff Perry as Stanley Cornik, Matt Malloy as Bob Young, Meredith Holzman as Claire Muncy, Grace Dove as Rosalind “Roz” Friendly, Pablo Castelblanco as Gabriel Tovar, Ami Park as Yuna Park, and Craig Frank as Austin Teague.
In “The Company You Keep,” a night of passion leads to love between con man Charlie and undercover CIA officer Emma, who are unknowingly on a collision course professionally. While Charlie ramps up the “family business” so he can get out for good, Emma’s closing in on the vengeful criminal who holds Charlie’s family debts in hand – forcing them to reckon with the lies they’ve told so they can save themselves and their families from disastrous consequences. The series is based on the Korean Broadcasting System series entitled “My Fellow Citizens.”
The series stars Milo Ventimiglia as Charlie, Catherine Haena Kim as Emma, William Fichtner as Leo, Tim Chiou as David, Freda Foh Shen as Grace, James Saito as Joseph, Sarah Wayne Callies as Birdie, Felisha Terrell as Daphne and Polly Draper as Fran.
Source: Deadline