Lionsgate is exiting the direct-to-consumer business with its Comic-Con HQ SVOD channel, which stopped producing original content earlier this year and did not add video from Comic-Con 2017, according to Variety. It no longer offers browser-based subscriptions through its own site, and has removed its apps from the Google Play and Apple stores. 

Comic-Con HQ continues as an Amazon Channel, offering library content from Lionsgate and more than ten other sources, and with new pared-down free ad-supported versions on Roku and Tubi TV. 

Lionsgate partnered with Comic-Con International, the organizers of San Diego Comic-Con and WonderCon in Anaheim, to launch the channel in May 2016 (see "Comic-Con, Lionsgate to Launch SVOD Channel"). Comic-Con HQ hosted video content generated during Comic-Con 2016 and original scripted and unscripted content, including Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion’s Con Man, Rob Benedict and Richard Speight Jr.’s Kings of Con, and Mark Hamill’s Pop Culture Quest.

After the channel stopped producing original content earlier this year and Lionsgate began relying solely on catalog movies and series to program the channel, consumers increasingly expressed their displeasure in online reviews and cancelations.

This isn’t the first time a geek SVOD channel streaming con-based content has failed to deliver as hoped. Wizard World attempted a similar channel in partnership with Cinedigm in 2015, resulting in over $1 million in losses (see "New Shows, CONtv Drag on Profits at Wizard World").  

[This article was corrected at 2:40 p.m. CT October 31 to clarify that Lionsgate is continuing to operate the channel with a different model. -- ed.]