The write off is based on the cost of creating the show. I think the article is wrong/sloppily phrased in its line about the value of the company. If they remove a show then it will never generate any future revenue so they can write the cost of producing it off as a loss.

The real scandal here is how little viewership streaming shows get and how little revenue they generate off of that viewership. Particularly for how expensive these shows are.

I wrote a couple of comments elsewhere in the thread about some specifics and consequences. But the takeaway is that the last decade+ of super expensive “prestige” shows on streaming has been a huge bubble that isn’t supported by the underlying revenue generated by the shows. In 2022 Netflix spent $16 billion on producing shows [https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/netflix-content-spendi...] to generate shockingly few viewing hours (which is why they will never agree to WGA demands to release viewership numbers in order to pay writers residuals; their stock would go to 0 if those numbers ever became public). The future of streaming is ad-supported cheaply produced reality TV, ie exactly what niche cable looked like in 2008.