Trying to create some original shows didn't work out too well for Yahoo, according to a new report.
During a recent earnings meeting, Yahoo CFO Ken Goldman announced the company lost $42 million in its third-quarter, according to Variety. Goldman specifically named Community, as well as their original shows Sin City Saints and Other Space, as being to blame.
So what happened? Goldman said Yahoo was simply unable to figure out a good way to monetize the streaming of these shows.
“We thought long and hard about it, and what we concluded is (for) certain of our original video (series), we couldn’t see a way to make money over time,” he said.
Yahoo revived the cult sitcom Community after it was cancelled on NBC, and it aired the sixth season on its Yahoo Screen streaming service back in April.
Unlike Netflix and Hulu, Yahoo Screen is a free service, only making money from ad revenue. The service also attempted to integrate some corporate sponsorship into Community itself, such as in the Season 6 episode which heavily promoted Honda cars.
On Twitter, showrunner Dan Harmon reacted to the news by writing, "Oh man. Yahoo lost a lot of money by loving Community. Now THAT makes me remorseful. They were so supportive I hate that it wasn't rewarded."
Up until now, it had been pretty unclear whether Yahoo considered Community Season 6 to be a success. Now that we know it lost so much money, does this pretty much rule out Season 7 or a Yahoo funded movie? Neither of those seems very likely at this point, but Goldman went on to say this loss doesn't mean they're completely out of the streaming game.
"We’re not saying we’re not going to do these at all in the future," he said. "But what we are saying is, in three cases at least, it didn’t work the way we had hoped it to work, and we’ve decided to move on.”
Meanwhile, Harmon recently said he thought Community's future was looking pretty bleak, and this news only makes that future seem even bleaker.
Community Season 6 is now available on Yahoo Screen.