Netflix deal, looking like it may be over for H&M

[Thedom]

The rumours have been doing the rounds for a while, but Puck News now reporting it, which means it is very likely that their contract with Netflix will not be renewed.

"The streamer is not expected to renew its five-year, $100 million deal signed in 2020 with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Meghan’s passion project, the animated kids show Pearl, has already been canceled, and the unscripted cooking and polo offerings didn’t connect the way the royal couple’s Harry & Meghan did. "

puck.news/the-best-and-worst-deals-of-peak-tv-part-1/

If they know they are going to lose Netflix then I will put money on there being some kind of reality show in the offing. Bravo and Andy Cohen…

The only polo series I can see happening is on Disney + and Jilly Cooper's Rivals being a success and they do Polo as well.

Meghan still has this Lemonada thing to do hasn't she?

Yes I thought that was a done deal and Netflix had recruited a team to run the ARO sales operation and were currently negotiating with suppliers etc.

Wait, what? Harry was going to interview Trump and Putin about their troubled childhoods? Batshit.

Well, I'd be very happy with $100M and nobody would ever see me again!

The interest alone would be ridiculous.

Yes, it all got very Alan Partridge and ‘monkey tennis’ at that point.

Along with talking bins and toilets and foxes and singing seals and his wife hugging his ma’s tombstone and Entonox and Nando’s and lord knows what.

A perfectly straightforward Princely weekend.

Netflix doesn't have the time or money to spend on a jam business. They want to focus on entertainment.

I cancelled my Netflix subscription earlier in the year due to a lack of new, decent content. All the best new drama seems to come from other streaming platforms now. I also think that Sky/Now have better documentaries.

I’m not surprised that Netflix are not renewing H & M, their only selling point is the royal connection but that only exists historically now. I do think that Meghan is articulate enough but not someone I’m interested in watching/listening to (too fake/not genuine), unfortunately Harry is bitter and has been eaten up by his hatred of the press. Of course, what happened to his mother was awful but lots of people learn to live with their trauma and they don’t have extreme privilege. When I see Harry he just seems really sad and bitter, again not someone I would be keen to watch on Netflix.

There’s no way they’ve received $100m. Netflix aren’t daft enough to have given them the whole amount upfront. It will have been paid in tranches and dependant on content so they’ll have been lucky to have got $20m so far.

Your comment did make me laugh.

It looks from what you’re saying op as if this is a credible source whereas until now just rumours. I think Netflix denied the rumours some time ago. Unless we hear otherwise, I take it we are to presume this is latest news is correct?

In the Tom Bower book, it says that Meghan tried out for a cooking show but she was found to be unsuitable. This was before she met Harry.

😂

Neither of them are particularly skilled. Perhaps it was always a stretch. As pp have said, their income has been based on dishing royal dirt and that can't continue indefinitely.

Ted Sarandos said back in March that "they are great at getting attention and the public devour everything about them"

I thought at the time it was a bit of a double edged thing to say.

Also there could be an issue with who would take part in this. Already super wealthy polo players in that elite inner circle, lots of connections with the royals and all that. Would they really start dishing the dirt? And why?

They have a huge mortgage on their home to service and because of the market where they live (mansion tax etc) it’ll be tricky to sell right now. You would get the LTV they have unless a) you didn’t have the cash to buy it outright or b) you are just clueless with money. Their mortgage is reported to be $9.5m on a house they paid $14.65m for.

They do have skills - she’s a trained actress and he has skills learned in the military. The trouble is, both of them seem to appear to consider actual work in these areas beneath them. They both seem fixated in living the life of a royal providing ‘service’ where they see it is needed - whilst seemingly not understanding that the RF exchange their service for money from the public purse.

I like cooking but do I think I deserve a tv show like Angela Hartnett? No. Because I’m not trained as a chef and who wants to see some ageing, slightly tubby woman from the Home Counties explain how she makes carbonara? And I’m neither famous nor have a famous DH. H&M don’t want to accept that people watch sleb shows because we are curious to see what their actual kitchen looks like. But they can’t show off their marvellous taste (and let’s not forget Meghan had an entire website dedicated to her pre-Harry taste/style) because they then negate their insistence of privacy being essential to them.

Harry is perilously close to emulating his great-great uncle’s behaviour- making the choice to leave the RF and then desperately wanting to stay relevant and eventually wanting to come back…and given the company he kept, no one would consider it.

I agree that they took a lot of money from Spotify and Netflix. But it was in exchange for services which haven’t materialised beyond a couple of dirt-dishing docs and some irrelevance. It was Life-changing money for most normal people. Combined with Harry’s huge inheritance from both the Queen Mother (due when he turns 40) and his own mother, he has had more than enough money to fund a lovely lifestyle without lifting a finger for the rest of his life. Except a bit like Justin Bieber, he has found out that if you allow your spouse to spend money like water and have no plans to earn any more, it will eventually run out.

Me too, in-fact most people but then there is no way I want to replicate and outdo someone whose income is generated from a billion pound asset who has state funded security. Even if it was 100 million profit tax free that’s 4/5 years salary for William. An entourage of over nine for an awards ceremony and rumoured 22 for Colombia. They have Archewell staff, house of Sussex staff, security and then personal staff. They are going to find it difficult to create generational wealth that a lifestyle is interest funded.

I cross posted with @Netaporter whose given much better detail

They want the fame though.

I think they’re finished, tbh. They’ll be small time; they’ll never go away, but their star has waned. People don’t really want to be associated with them now, they’re a bit toxic for brands.

Their Colombia tour didn’t even get much publicity really.

Personally, I think her next move will be to ditch him, to try to save herself

You can see from their speeches why Netflix hasn’t worked. People want to learn something new when they give their time to watching something, but M&H have never had anything to share.

They’ve had a long time now to learn and inform themselves in the areas they see themselves operating in, but there is absolutely no depth to what they say at all, little content and nothing more than sound bites. I think the mistake they made was taking a scattergun approach to seeking celebrity stardom. They never really knew what they were or pinpointed their area of focus, meaning they’ve never had anything to focus on making their own and becoming their brand.

Archewell wasn’t exciting enough for them as it didn’t make enough money or status. Podcasting didn’t work as they didn’t have long enough to learn any meaningful content and made it about themselves. The book didn’t work because she’s not a writer. The cartoon didn’t work because she’s not a producer. Cooking hasn’t worked because they’re not cooks. Polo hasn’t worked because it’s too niche and elitist. They don’t want to do a reality show that lets people learn about them because privacy (they know it would be hypocrisy).

The only thing they know more about than other people is Harry’s family. And people are bored of listening to the victim narrative. They can’t spend the rest of their life yapping on about the same thing.

I think Harry is slowly coming round to realising that the whole thing is a fraud. He knows what the “real” tours feel like, he knows they were used by Colombia for its own PR, and by his wife to promote herself. He actually looked embarrassed in most of the pictures and you can tell when he’s unhappy as she does the double hand thing on him.

I agree with PP who say it looks like he’s starting to regret things a bit. Netflix not renewing would be a major humiliation for them but why would they renew? They’ve had five years and never landed anything.

It’s interesting. DD’s generation seem to think mine is quite harsh on Harry. However, I’m old enough to remember Princess Diana, her relationship with the press in this country and it wasn’t solely one-way traffic (I’m in no way condoning the actions of the press in Paris). William was older and able to understand /recall more clearly what went on. Indeed, when Piers Morgan wrote his original diaries he was very concerned at the time that PW was being exposed to too much too young by his mother - and he had witnessed that first hand when visiting them at KP. I think that is why PW has always been more sanguine about his relationship with the press than Harry who has blamed all of his woes on it. After DD read the diaries this dinner she was genuinely surprised by the relationship/meetings PM had with both the RF and members of the government.

I think Harry looks deeply unhappy. There were more reports in the Sunday times that friends are concerned about him. I feel sad for him but hope at some point he understands that most people would be reluctant to get involved with him now he has form for spilling the beans about absolutely everything. He’s cool when he does it - bringing other people like the poor woman who he had dalliances with in the grounds of a pub as a teenager - but apparently it’s not cool when the beans are spilled about him. He can’t have it all ways.

Also, the longer he remains estranged from the RF the fewer beans he has to spill

So have H&M lol.

Will they get the full $100m though? Surely that was based on them producing a certain amount of content? Same as the book deal.
Will be interesting to know what they've actually earned so far.