The Duke and Duchess of Sussex really screwed the pooch with their Netflix deal, Variety chief correspondent Matt Donnelly told The Royalist Podcast.
On March 17, Donnelly published a bombshell report in the trade magazine about the Sussexes’ disastrous business relationship with the mega streamer, just over a week after Netflix dropped its investment in Meghan Markle’s jam and tea brand, As Ever.
Netflix was a major backer of the consumer-products brand that launched last April alongside her series With Love, Meghan, which was canceled after only two seasons.
According to a Page Six report last month, the media company had been sitting on an excess of unsold As Ever products—such as tea and baking mixes—and had been “just giving it away to employees.”
“The sense seems to be that the brand actually hasn’t worked out either, because despite all these claims from their office that they’ve sold $60 million worth of jam and more than major jam manufacturers, the truth is, it’s hard to imagine that Netflix would have split from them if that was the case,” The Royalist Podcast‘s Tom Sykes said.
“It defies common sense,” Donnelly agreed. “Netflix is a publicly traded company, so if they’ve decided to take a huge gamble and invest in an experimental field, like consumer goods, as they did with As Ever... Ted Sarandos told this to me on the record in a cover story we did with him last March: He said that this model, this business, this venture for them was a huge discovery model for Netflix.”
“And I can tell you personally from sources and from my prior reporting, Netflix paid everything,” Donnelly continued. “Netflix paid for the manufacturing, Netflix paid for the shipping, Netflix paid for the branding.”
“This is a massive investment, so if they are going from success to success to record-breaking jam haul to record-breaking jam haul, why then, after a year, does Netflix bail? Doesn’t that contradict the responsibility they have for shareholders, which is to provide value?” he asked. “It defies common sense.”
Markle, 44, and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, 41, first struck a five-year deal, reportedly worth over $100 million, with the media giant in 2020, shortly after they stepped back from their roles as working royals.
Their production company, Archewell Productions, failed in its mission to produce bingeable content for audiences of all ages and took a back seat to Markle’s lifestyle venture.
Donnelly reported that Netflix had supposedly grown tired of the California transplants’ monotonous retellings of their royal exit, their company’s lack of professionalism, and the disappointing ratings for the With Love, Meghan series.
One Netflix insider told Donnelly: “The mood in the building is, ‘We’re done.’”
Sykes reported for the Daily Beast that Markle’s team attributed the breakup to Netflix being “cautious” and that she wants to branch out overseas.
However, the couple still has a multi-year “first look” deal inked with the streamer that they signed in August, which, although it is “in practice, a downgrade” from their 2020 deal, according to The Hollywood Reporter, proves that Netflix hasn’t cut the royals off completely just yet.
The Daily Beast reached out to Netflix and a spokesperson for the Sussexes for comment.
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