Forbes Pulls Article Titled ‘Blackfish Documentary Diminishes SeaWorld’s Popularity’

Currently on the front page of reddit, a Forbes article titled “Blackfish Documentary Diminishes SeaWorld’s Popularity” is returnung a 4-0-Forbes link, a punny indicator that the article has been likely removed from the website.

The article described that in the wake of the documentary, “Blackfish,” SeaWorld had encountered major problems.

Perhaps to that end, SeaWorld, in what Kirby calls “a desperate move,” recently took out a full-page advertisement in seven major newspapers condemning “inaccurate reports” while reiterating its purported advocacy for killer whales and their humane treatment. Whether or not these ads will save SeaWorld’s sinking stock price, which has dropped as much as 25 percent in the wake of “Blackfish,” remains to be seen.

You can view the article as cached by Google here or as a single image on Imgur.com here.

While aspects of the article are certainly true, including the full page ads, it remains unclear whether or not SeaWorld has suffered financial hardship at the hands of “Blackfish.”

Redditor, LostInTheStar made several claims regarding why the article may have been removed by Forbes editors saying:

– blackfish was out at a maximum of 100 theaters and has made about 2 million in half a year
– seaworld owns 11 parks and reports a record year of revenue and attendance
– it went public only a few months ago and the stock price is still above the IPO valuation, though a bit below the highs it temporarily reached.

Anecdotally-speaking, it does seem that the allegations of the article, namely that SeaWorld was negatively affected by Blackfish, seemed implausible, or at the very least, overstated. Here is a comment on the Forbes article:

Another redditor, however, responded saying insightfully:

Yea, but [Blackfish] is now on Netflix and the story has received a lot of media and social media attention that extends the information to millions more people. As of December 30 it has been viewed over 490,000 times on Netflix…[SeaWorld has] only released Q3 financial statements that cover the period following the release of the documentary (July 2013), but this is before it began to receive real attention on media/social media due to its Neflix release (Dec 13, 2013).

The story continues to gain traction on reddit, and is currently the top post on the r/movies, the movie-specific subreddit.