‘Community’ Season 6 Apparently Lost Yahoo About $42 Million

Streets way, way behind. If ever we had doubts that Yahoo would continue Community into a seventh year after its Season 6 rescue from NBC, the Greendale Gang is going, going, gone now. A new report suggests that Yahoo’s venture into original programming lost the corporation an astounding $42 million, with Community and two others fingered as the culprits.

Per Variety, Yahoo CFO Ken Goldman revealed during a third-quarter earnings call Tuesday that the company took a $42 million (or rather $41.699 million) hit with its original series, failing to effectively monetize Community, Sin City Saints or Other Space. Yahoo had attracted Honda as a launch sponsor, even humorously centering an episode around the concept of product placement, though Community failed to garner long-term committments from advertisers.

Said Goldman of the debacle:

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 … We’re not saying we’re not going to do these at all in the future. 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.

News of Community’s financial blunder also arrives weeks after series creator Dan Harmon expressed doubts about the series’ future, noting its greatest champion in Yahoo executive Kathy Savitt had since left the company behind. At the very least, insiders reportedly claim a Community movie is still possible, with or without Yahoo.

When last we heard of future Community, Yahoo Screen was reportedly pushing for digital distribution of a feature film, though series star Joel McHale had some confusing back-and-forth about the possibility, before Dan Harmon would even write a script. There’s also the already-stretched availability of Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs,  Ken Jeong, Jim Rash, Yvette Nicole Brown or even Donald Glover.

There’s always hope when it comes to Community, but a $42 million price tag, even coupled with two other series, will undoubtedly stain reputations. Was Season 6 worth Yahoo’s embarrassment all the same?