TV personality and climate activist Bill Nye on Thursday filed a suit Thursday claiming that the Walt Disney Company and its subsidiaries improperly claimed more than $37 million in revenue generated by “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” a children’s science show that aired on PBS from 1993 to 1998.
According to the suit, Nye and his producers signed a distribution deal with Buena Vista Television, a Disney subsidiary, in 1993, entitling the show’s creators to 50% of net profits from the show. In 2008, Buena Vista issued Nye a check for $585,123 for his share of that year’s profits. But within months, Buena Vista, claiming it had made an accounting error, demanded most of that payment be returned.
In the course of the ensuing dispute, Nye’s team discovered that Buena Vista had made huge and “suspicious” expense deductions against the show’s $26 million in gross revenue, vastly reducing profits owed to Nye.
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After four years of seeking clarification from Buena Vista, Nye hired outside auditors in 2013. Nye’s suit claims Buena Vista was uncooperative in the audit, but the auditors were still able to find a variety of unreported royalties and improper deductions. The suit also claims that the sale of “Science Guy” streaming rights to Netflix was improperly classified as a “video device” deal, which paid out to the show’s creators at a much lower rate than other forms of revenue.
The suit concludes that Nye is owed at least $9.35 million more than he has been paid by Buena Vista, and that Disney and its subsidiaries received $28 million in “ill-gotten profits” through various accounting tricks. The suit seeks restitution for money owed to Nye, with the final amount to be proven in trial, in addition to punitive damages.
The suit has been posted in full by Deadline Hollywood.
Fortune has reached out to Disney for comment.
