If you purchased any Discovery shows from the PlayStation Store, Sony has some bad news for you to discover.
The company recently announced that all Discovery content purchased on the PlayStation Store will be erased before 2024. The brief notice, signed by the PlayStation Store, says:
As of 31 December 2023, due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library.
We sincerely thank you for your continued support.
PlayStation Network started selling TV shows and movies with 2008’s PlayStation 3, and at the time you were allowed to transfer content to different Sony devices, Kotaku noted. That feature went away with the PlayStation 4. With the growth of streaming TV apps, many of which could be accessed through a PlayStation, the PlayStation Store stopped selling movies and TV shows in 2021.
But there were users who had already purchased stuff from the PlayStation Store and, believe it or not, expect to be able to watch it when they want, since they paid money to buy (rather than rent) it. I admit that I haven’t heard a lot of the shows being deleted post-purchase. Shows getting axed from user libraries include Wives With Knives, An Idiot Abroad, Evil Twins, and Body Bizarre. And when it came to deadly docuseries, PlayStation Store offered plenty, whether you were after Deadly Affairs, Demands, Dentists, Devotion, Sins, or, of course, Women.
I’m having fun with some of the most bizarre titles, of course. But there are also plenty of more well-known titles on the list of purchased content being revoked, including American Chopper, Cake Boss, MythBusters, Shark Week, and Say Yes to the Dress.
While some of the content listed sounds, shall we say, a bit niche, there are in total 1,318 seasons of shows listed for deletion. That means there’s a good chance numerous users will be affected by Sony’s announcement.