DC Daily Cancelled At DC Universe; Final Episode To Air July 3
by Erik Amaya
DC Universe, at least in its current form, may be setting its Doomsday Clock closer to midnight.
As Collider confirmed, DC Daily, the DC Universe streaming platform’s daily chat show, has been cancelled. The program launched along with the service back in September of 2018 with a rotating panel including Tiffany Smith, Hector Navarro, Clarke Wolfe, Samm Levine, Sam Humphries, Whitney Moore, Amy Dallen, Harley Quinn Smith, Brian Tong, Markeia McCarty, John Kourounis, and John Barrowman. Across the first year or so, a core group of Wolfe, Levine, Humphries, Navarro, and Moore emerged with Dallen joining later on. Both Smiths would continue to make scattered appearances, but the main team would convene each day to talk about various comics books, movies, and television shows available on the service.
The jovial book club atmosphere won it many fans even as the platform’s own relative success saw the show occasionally re-positioned as a “lifestyle” program centered on DC Comics products. That said, watch-alongs of key Batman: The Animated Series episodes or discussions of the recent Birds of Prey film made the program an enjoyable, YouTube-style presentation with the sort of geeky people you might invite to your own house for a bad movie night and better production values.
Of course, those YouTube shows are built more on more passion than money and with DC Universe’s long-term health as a streaming platform forever in question, it easy to see how axing DC Daily (apparently the cheapest show the service produced) will save money. Also, as it is the one show which cannot be repurposed into other parts of the WarnerMedia empire — The CW airing Stargirl, for example — cutting it now makes a certain, mercenary sort of sense.
Naturally, the impending end of the program will no doubt leave many wondering if DC Universe, as a streaming service, is long for this world. Looking at HBO Max’s bizarrely barren DC Entertainment hub, it is easy to imagine Batman: TAS and odd curios like the 1970s Shazam! series DC Universe offers moving over there. Some, like The Beat, suggest it will live on as a comics-only service. Boasting something like 20,000 individuals issues of DC Comics content, that would not be a bad future for DC Universe; particularly if all of its successful video content lands elsewhere and DC Daily remains archived there.
As for the service’s other original programs, another season of Titans is expected to be produced — although COVID-19 delayed their start date — but it could always end up HBO Max, which will stream the second season of Doom Patrol alongside DC Universe. Swamp Thing now exists as a single 10-episode season which will, in an odd twist of fate, re-air on The CW this fall. And though it is unclear if the animated Harley Quinn and Young Justice programs will return for more episodes, both could easily be on HBO Max.
DC Daily‘s final episode is set to stream on July 3rd.
