Good morning.
Harry and Meghan’s self-titled docuseries has dominated the attention of the public, the media and the British establishment for the past week, with a mix of frenzied condemnation and support. Countless column inches have been dedicated to the documentary itself, what it means for the future of the monarchy and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex themselves – now a fully fledged celebrity couple in their own right.
But there’s another figure who has unequivocally come out on top from all this: Netflix. The streaming giant said that 28m households have watched the series so far, making it their most watched documentary. Viewers spent 81.55m hours watching the first three episodes in the first four days of its release. Whether this has translated into an increase in subscribers is a question that is yet to be answered, but it is clear that, after a rocky start to the year, Netflix’s slew of smash shows in 2022 (Stranger Things season four, Dahmer and Tim Burton’s spin on the Addams Family, Wednesday) has allowed the company to regain momentum.
I spoke to the Guardian’s media editor, Jim Waterson, about what this series could indicate about the future of Netflix, and streaming more broadly. That’s right after the headlines.
Five big stories
Russia | In an interview with the Guardian, Ukrainian defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, has said that Vladimir Putin is preparing for a major new offensive, despite a series of humiliating setbacks on the battlefield in recent months.
UK news | The four boys who died after falling through ice into a lake in Solihull have been named as brothers Finlay and Samuel Butler, their cousin Thomas Stewart, and Jack Johnson. Their parents have said: “As a family we are devastated at the loss of our beautiful boys … We would like to thank the emergency services for all they did.”
Politics | Labour has held onto the Greater Manchester constituency Stretford and Urmston in a byelection called after the sitting MP quit to become Andy Burnham’s mayoral deputy. Andrew Western won with a majority of 9,906 and has pledged to fight for properly funded services.
Dominic Raab | A civil service survey shows that a third of staff in ministerial private offices at Dominic Raab’s department have claimed to have been bullied or harassed while working in their current roles in the past year.
Twitter | Journalists who reported on Twitter and its new chief executive Elon Musk were suspended or banned from the platform without explanation on Thursday. Reporters from CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times were among those suspended.
In depth: ‘Has this brought in subscribers? What Netflix wants is growth’
After an incessant promotional tour, Netflix got me. I too have watched all six episodes of the Harry & Meghan documentary (if my editor is reading, I finished the final three after writing the bulk of this newsletter). While they perhaps were not the most revelatory hours of documentary film-making, it was an interesting insight into the lives of these royals turned celebs. It’s success is an indication that Netflix still has some of its hit-making magic. And so, even though many have been sounding the streaming company’s death knell, it seems pretty clear that it is not going anywhere any time soon.
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Is Netflix reliant on a few big hitters?
Netflix, which has historically been guarded about its viewing figures, has recently begun sharing the numbers, opening their ratings up to scrutiny in the same way traditional TV does. While it’s not quite at the Princess Diana Panorama interview levels of viewing figures, Jim says, it “still puts it up there with what you’d expect a major TV channel like ITV or BBC One to get on a weeknight”.
And it’s not just this docuseries that has lifted Netflix out from under its early-year horror show: there was the release of a new season of its fantasy behemoth, Stranger Things, the crime-thriller series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, and, its latest massive hit, Wednesday. But these shows are few and far between: this year Netflix was set to release 398 new original titles and most of them have simply fallen into the ether, quietly hidden away (like an embarrassing godmother) in the dank recesses of the site.
“The important question for Netflix is whether this has brought in any new subscribers, because what they want is growth,” Jim says. “An enormous number of people already have access to Netflix in the UK – well over half the population – but whether that translates into growing revenue is another thing. Once you hit those sorts of numbers, it’s quite hard to get more people to sign up because there just aren’t that many to convert.”
To tackle this problem, Netflix has suggested that there will be a crackdown on password sharing early next year. But it’s unclear how this would work and how effective it will be.
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Ads are back
After a decade of avoiding intrusive and, frankly annoying, ads while watching our favourite films and shows, they seem to be making a comeback, because, ultimately, the success of documentaries like Harry & Meghan are hard to replicate and very expensive to make. The era of cheap, high quality content for us consumers is over – streaming services are saying that we either need to cough up the money or suffer through ads.
“It’s a sign that there’s a weakness in the business model and that you need supplementary levels. Ads make money because advertisers still want to reach mass audiences, and video ads are where you can make real money,” says Jim. And it’s not just Netflix – almost every player in the industry has started to embrace the advertising model, from Amazon, with its Freevee service, to HBO in the US, which is shifting a chunk of its back catalogue off its paid for service, and on to free, ad-supported channels broadcast by the network’s owner, Discovery.
Like many other industries that boomed during the digital takeover, the message is clear: the party is over. “These rapid growth areas are starting to end for streamers,” says Jim. “They’re becoming boring old companies that need to start showing they can make a profit.”
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A new era
For several years now, customers have been complaining that there are simply too many streaming services, competing for a dwindling subscriber base. “I think the end game is consolidation, where you end up with one subscription giving you access to a lot of things – it feels like consumer pressure will start to build towards that,” Jim says.
And that seems to be already happening: Disney has bought up Hulu and 21st Century Fox in recent years. In the UK, you get Paramount+ with a Sky subscription. And the merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery has already had huge implications for HBO and DC (which controls superhero franchises like Batman and Superman), from the aforementioned shows shifting off the platform to completed films being cancelled before release as a tax write-off. This consolidation process doesn’t look like it is slowing down. The future is a few companies, owning much of the content we watch, moving away from binging and back to weekly drops, and forcing us all to watch advertising. Streaming is beginning to look an awful lot like the old-fashioned analogue TV it was supposed to replace.
But the impact of the Netflix era has irreversibly changed the way content is made and consumed. Bingeing may go out of fashion, but the idea of having to be on the sofa at 9pm to watch your favourite show seems horribly outdated. And Jim points out that old-fashioned TV would not have aired something like the Harry & Meghan documentary.
“Netflix paid them to make something that is not pretending to be anything other than their side of the story, there’s no nuance or balance, and that’s an interesting change,” Jim adds. “You couldn’t have got away with that a couple of decades ago.”
What else we’ve been reading
Zelda Perkins tried to sound the alarm on Harvey Weinstein two decades ago and it cost her her career. Perkins explains how NDAs have been weaponised to protect or hide abuse and calls on the government to put an end to the use of these confidentiality clauses. Nimo
I’ve interviewed the great green amphibian, and let me tell you, grilling Kermit the Frog is no walk in the park, so it’s good to see our readers do a much better job at the assignment than I ever could. The secret to his enduring good looks? Pond scum. Toby Moses, head of newsletters
Lucianne Tonti spoke to the designers who are bringing back a playful, warm and nostalgic fabric: the terry cloth. They’ve turned material that would have been wasted into beautiful, desirable products that are also sustainable. Nimo
You might not have noticed, but it’s nearly Christmas, and Ranked! has celebrated the time of year by counting down the Top 20 Christmas albums. The no1 is unarguable – but the omission of Christmas with the Chipmunks is a crime against the festive season (I have a thing about anthropomorphised animals, OK?). Toby
This visual guide of the last three years of Covid in China by Virginia Harrison, Carly Earl and Michael Wade exposes the human toll of the country’s zero Covid policy in clear and comprehensive detail. Nimo
World Cup
Former England footballer Karen Carney is looking ahead to the World Cup Final this weekend and has some advice for France: “All the focus is on Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi but if Argentina want to win the World Cup final, the man they will need to stop is Antoine Griezmann.”
Carney writes that Griezmann’s performance has been outstanding, that he links everything together for France – and if Argentina is to stop him, they will need to get physical.
Meanwhile, Portugal have sacked manager Fernando Santos after their World Cup quarter-final defeat to Morocco. Santos had been contracted until after Euro 2024, but the Portuguese Football Federation said now was the “right moment to start a new cycle”.
For all the latest on Qatar, from the scandal to the scores, sign up to Football Daily – our free, sometimes funny, newsletter
The front pages
The Guardian leads with ongoing strikes and the headline, “Tories join calls for Sunak to open pay talks with nurses”. The Mirror carries an image of striking nurses leaving the picket to help a man after he collapsed, saying “This is what compassion looks like….”
The i reports “NHS crisis puts every ambulance trust under ‘extreme pressure’”, while the Telegraph says “NHS on high alert for flu outbreak”.
The Sun looks at the final part of Netflix’s Harry and Meghan documentary with: “The traitor & the dutiful” alongside a full page picture of Prince William and Kate with their children. The Mail carries the same image with the headline, “Dignity in the face of treachery”. The Times says “Harry deepens rift with ‘screaming’ William jibe”.
The Financial Times reports “ECB and BoE interest rate rises signal resolve in tough fight against inflation”.
Something for the weekend
Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read and listen to right now
TV
Children of the Taliban (Channel 4)
This thought-provoking film follows four children living in Kabul after the Taliban regained power in 2021, and deserves all the attention it can get. It is about hopes and dreams, faith and power, family and love, and the absolute necessity and privilege of education. To see conflict and strife through the eyes of children offers a different perspective. Rebecca Nicholson
Music
Little Simz – No Thank You
The sudden arrival of No Thank You, less than eight weeks after she won the Mercury prize for its predecessor, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, seems to mostly involve Little Simz (above) getting things off her chest. What she has to speak about largely revolves around music business and mental health, and it is punchily, powerfully and – occasionally – wittily done. Alexis Petridis
Book
Bad Data by Georgina Sturge
Sturge – a statistician at the House of Commons library – explains how the ways in which we count, measure and record things are very often just not fit for purpose. What happened, for instance, after Tony Blair pledged to end child poverty in 1999? “You can take your pick of answers: either ‘We don’t know’ or ‘It depends’.” Katy Guest
Podcast
Before Me
Lisa Phu’s mother left Cambodia in 1980 and didn’t know where she was going or whether she would make it. When Phu had her first baby, her mum came to help and she spent those three weeks telling her daughter more about her life. Hearing about the cruelty the Khmer Rouge inflicted on her family is heartbreaking. Hannah Verdier
Today in Focus
The ‘prince’ and the plot against Germany
The Guardian’s Berlin bureau chief, Philip Oltermann, tells Michael Safi how an alleged plot to bring down the German government was cooked up and how it came crashing down. The alleged coup failed, but its very existence tells us something about the new power of far-right conspiracies to radicalise people – and not just in Germany.
Cartoon of the day | Lorna Miller
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
With three lost species of Magnolia tracked down in the Dominican Republic in recent years, and another in Haiti in 2011, just one remained missing – until now.
Conservation photographer Eladio Fernandez has sniffed out (quite literally) the Magnolia emarginata, which hadn’t been seen in nearly a century, retracing the steps taken by Swedish botanist Erik Leonard Ekman in 1925. “Imagine the privilege of smelling a wonderful perfume that no one else alive on Earth has smelled before,” he said.
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until Monday.
