The Hub In Trouble?

It seems that Hasbro and Discovery Communications hopes for The Hub is not (yet) quite working out as planned. Deadline is reporting that Discovery Communications filed a $500 million debt notice to the SEC in part because of the lackluster audience the network has been getting with an average total day audience of only 23,000. I doubt The Hub is the cause of all that debt, just a portion of it. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Discovery "amended its agreement with Hasbro Inc. regarding The Hub to revise the license fees paid by The Hub for animated programs. This amendment creates a trigger event for purposes of intangible asset and goodwill impairment testing." While all this is out of my realm of understanding, my reading of it indicates that to offset the losses Hasbro has to pay more for its programming to air on the network. The more Hasbro has to pay (especially if doesn't get that in return with increase in toy shelves) will likely start impacting what airs on the network. Most new networks (even those that just rename themselves) have growing pains but it seems this move after less than a year of existence indicates that Discovery has real doubts about the future of the collaboration. Read More »