Yahoo’s decision to shut down the flailing Yahoo Screen doesn’t mean the company is abandoning its video properties.
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Yahoo said in a statement that the various videos available on Screen would be “transitioned” to other parts of Yahoo, specifically its digital magazines. However, Yahoo struggled to compete with heavy hitters like Netflix and Amazon despite licensing deals with Viacom for Comedy Central shows and NBC for Saturday Night Live.
First reported by Variety, the end of Yahoo Screen happened in December, with a company spokesperson telling the publication: “At Yahoo, we’re constantly reviewing and iterating on our products as we strive to create the best user experience”.
Unfortunately, Yahoo’s foray into original programming actually turned out to be a disaster, as it was forced to take a $42 million write-off on those shows.
Yahoo Screen, which launched in 2011 and offered up original series, short clips and licensed content, now redirects to the Yahoo homepage. Perhaps that won’t really matter soon, though, as the company announced last month it was going to attempt to sell all of its assets and liabilities, other than its stake in Alibaba, in what it called a “reverse spinoff”.
After 3 years presiding over Yahoo’s media push, Ms. Savitt left the company in September for a job with STX.
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However, Yahoo Screen has failed to impress beyond these two enterprises. “We thought long and hard about it, and what we concluded is … we couldn’t see a way to make money over time”, company CFO Ken Goldman told investors at the time. Streamed concerts from Yahoo Screen’s Live Nation channel, for instance, can now be surrounded with content from Yahoo Music.
