It's going to cost Disney at least $20 million to scrap The Bachelorette

Which, besides raising a bunch of recurring questions about the nature of “drama” in reality TV, has also brought to light some practical and economical ones. To wit: How much does it cost to dump an entire planned, filmed, and edited season of a reality TV show? THR did a deeper dive into that question this week, and came up with a number somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million. Which is, as noted, not actually that seismic, in terms of TV budgets: One of the reasons ABC has deployed more than 50 seasons of this franchise since it kicked off back in 2002 is that it’s relatively cheap to make, with budgets of about $2 million per episode.

In terms of straight-practicalities, one key part of this is that Warner Bros. is getting paid, no matter what: ABC has already agreed to cover the license fee for the series, which pays for its production costs. (Essentially, ABC already bought the season, and it’s on them whether they want to try to air it.) Meanwhile, the timing of the decision to yank the series—arriving just three days before it was set to air—means that the show also had all its ad sales already set for at least the Sunday night debut and probably more besides, and will now have to adjust or make good on those sales in order to appease advertisers who thought they were getting $100,000 a minute ad time on The Bachelorette, and will now be airing commercials alongside a rerun of American Idol. That could bring the total price tag for the pull up to about $30 million (for an entertainment division whose annual revenues are in the $11 billion range—although you don’t get to those kinds of numbers by not worrying about stuff like this.)

The big question here is whether ABC will, at some point, try to actually air this thing, which would allow them to recoup some of the losses they’re eating here. Personally, we find it hard to imagine—watching the video makes it pretty hard to get into any semblance of the “romantic fantasy” mindset this entire franchise is meant to coast off of and promote—but, on the other hand: Thirty million dollars.