Production of any show is a “write off”. You can write off any business related costs. Cancelling a show doesn’t change that.
Cancelling does stop the current spending on that show, and promote other shows above it. That’s the only savings they get. Spending $200 million and cancelling a show after a month is a boneheaded chain of decisions.
Maybe that’s why they are on this kick of annual price increases, under the guise of “rising costs” due to “inflation”.
Marketing for Hollywood shows and movies is normally a huge fraction of the budget. If they spend $200m to make the show and realize it’s shit, if they cancel the marketing budget the loss might be smaller than if they spend $150m to market the shit out of it and it flops like they expected.
What sucks is when they remove it from their own streaming services. I can’t see how that helps anyone. It costs next to nothing to add it to the catalogue and make it available to anybody who happens to find it. That way all the hard work of the actors, directors, gaffers, best boys, and everyone else involved isn’t just thrown away.
I’m pretty sure it’s for tax deductions as it’s a loss if they cancel it. The cost to host the show would be completely negotiable as people would just watch something else.
It’s not an extra write off just because it doesn’t make money. The tax effect is the same as a successful show.
I’m pretty sure that’s not the case and that they can’t write it off as a loss unless they cancel it. I’ve specifically read about that happening with HBO, Disney and Netflix.
To chalk it up to stupidity when it’s a reoccurring thing among big businesses is stupidity; they’re doing it for a reason and typically that reason is money.
