The Roku Channel Is Dumping Many Quibi Refugees
Even over a year later, Zaslav's precedent still pervades the industry
Welp, guess Roku’s decided it’s their turn to remove programming to save money on residuals. In tandem with a third round of layoffs in a year, one felling more than 300 staffers, the streamer has pulled 37 shows from its platform, The Roku Channel, many of them having been acquired from the fall of Quibi in January 2021. Shows were affected whether they were licensed or produced by them.
According to Roku’s 8-K filing, it will take a content-impairment charge estimated to be $55 million-$65 million. The removed shows are allegedly unpopular and not attracting new viewers. An odd perspective considering it’s not one of the more popular streamers in the first place.
What were these titles? It starts with the Reno 911! revival but also includes wacky sex-doll comedy Dummy starring Anna Kendrick; plane-crash drama Survive starring Sophie Turner; an adaptation of The Most Dangerous Game with Christoph Waltz; the Singled Out reboot hosted by Keke Palmer; the animated The Andy Cohen Diaries chronicling the life of the Bravo host and producer; the remake of The Fugitive starring Kiefer Sutherland; stunt-racing show Elba vs. Block where Idris Elba and professional rally driver Ken Block did head-to-head competitions; and Tye Sheridan-starting survival drama Wireless.
Also removed were the Tituss Burgess-hosted cooking competition series Dishmantled, the plagiarism-accused Memory Hole, and series such as Murder House Flip, Cup of Joe, a travel series featuring Joe Jonas, The Newsreader, Panhandle, Slip, Moving the Needle With Dr. Woo, Surprise We’re Pregnant, Eye Candy, Let’s Roll With Tony Greenhand, Barkitecture, Big Rad Wolf, Murder Unboxed, Gayme Show, Iron Sharpens Iron, Squeaky Clean, Fierce Queens, Benedict Men, Nice One!, Run This City, The Sauce, Ten Weeks, Poly, Mind/Trip, Gone Mental With Lior, Tempting Fortune, and Veena Sud’s psychological thriller The Stranger.
If you’ve heard of any of these, it was probably from the last time they were endangered. Nearly all of these titles were produced as originals for the short-lived mobile streaming service Quibi, with Roku acquiring these series in early 2021. However certain ex-Quibi originals like Chrissy’s Court and Die Hart have found some significant success by their metrics, whatever they are.
Another series removed by Quibi are the two seasons of Canadian sitcom Children Ruin Everything, which has found a linear home on The CW in their swath of acquisitions, making an all-sitcom night. The first season’s first eight episodes have made their way thus far streaming on the network’s app. Even when the network has already dropped four series from its summer schedule, they’re still streaming on that app. In addition, this removal news came as Reno 911!’s first Quibi season was added to Paramount+ on Wednesday, so season 8 shouldn’t be too far behind and most certainly won’t be lost.
Following Warner Bros. Discovery’s example from their infamous August 2022 purge on then-HBO Max, Roku is just the latest, after Disney on Hulu and Disney+, Paramount, and even AMC on AMC+, largely to avoid paying residuals. As for what’s left, Roku Channel still has plenty of titles that will continue to be available, including about 350 linear streaming channels and more than 80,000 TV shows and movies.
