And Scoob and The Nevers and Chad and…well we could go on and on with this for a while.

Hopefully Our Flag Means Death eventually pops up on another network when WBD inevitably cancel it.

This show did not have a lot of fans here on Reddit but I was one of the few so I’m happy to see it getting renewed. Definitely not one of Apple’s top shows but I still found it watchable nonsense with that typical slick Apple production quality.

Nice to see an early renewal. Season 3 has not even aired yet so this is a real vote of confidence in the show. It might not be Emmy winning stuff but Miss Scarlet and The Duke is a fun weekly procedural!

They were offered a bundle deal with Peacock. They should absolutely think about taking that now it is clear that AMC+ is a complete bust.

Does seem weird that Amazon have not yet tried to revive Stargate for Prime. Maybe they are waiting to see how The Peripheral does before committing to another sci-fi show?

As the new Head of MGM US Scripted TV, Lindsay and her team will develop projects for Amazon Studios, as well as continue to take projects to the external market.

Interesting to see Amazon are still open to MGM selling shows to outside distributors.

To be fair Paramount do the same with multiple services and so do Disney. I’m sure Amazon will bin MGM+ as soon as the cable revenue drops to the point that it is no longer profitable. Which is likely not that far off.

”There will be belt tightening,” said Winograde, referring to the global cost-of-living crisis that will no doubt impact TV over the coming years. “Nobody wants to reduce the amount of content they are doing so hopefully people will find creative ways.”

That is something at least. Not like Showtime were high volume to begin with. You are lucky if they have one or two shows airing weekly as it is!

In season 2 they will be nude. Probably boost the ratings as well as getting the costume budget down to a more reasonable $0!

They have been burning through leaders over the pandemic. They will likely keep that up in the coming years as AMC Networks are in an awful position. Incapable of competing in streaming and most of their revenue is made via cable (which is in the process of terminal decline). It is a bad job when stockholders are unhappy every quarter no matter what you do!

Hard to say if these numbers are disappointing or just typical for The Crown. We will get a better idea of the season drop via the Nielsen US numbers. They had numbers for The Crown s4 so we can compare them with what The Crown s5 does. It will not be totally fair though as Neilson does not breakdown the numbers by season like Netflix do meaning the lack of viewership of previous seasons might diminish the numbers compared to what s4 did on Nielsen.

There other thing worth noting about The Crown was that it got a Wednesday release rather than a Friday release which can hurt the week two numbers (we have seen that for Raising Dion, Locke & Key, and Umbrella Academy this year) but I was still expecting The Crown s5 to rise despite that. Guess I was wrong!

I’ve no numbers for Dark. Netflix have only been releasing the data for the last 14-16 months.

I calculate the numbers from Inside Job via the 10th place numbers. Those numbers can be used to calculate that Inside Job missed the list by having less than 5.3 million equivalent complete viewings. It could have done anything between one view and 5.3 million views but it did not do more than that or it would have appeared on the top 10 list!

They have already renewed it for a 7th season but I’m definitely expecting them to announce it as the final one now that we have seen these numbers. Hopefully the creatives have time to wrap the story. 7 seasons is an epic run on Netflix! Even the big hits tend to only go 4-6 seasons.

I did spot Elite pop up in the UK top 10 list for a single day but it has definitely not made the impact previous seasons did that is for sure.

That is an interesting observation. I’ve a theory on that one. The Queen only died a couple of months ago and The Crown did appear in the charts and the daily top ten lists in many countries for weeks afterwards. It is possible folks already caught up with The Crown then so do not need the refresher before jumping into s5.

Warrior Nun s1 has got numbers almost as good as s2 which is interesting. We will see if that helps its week 3&4 legs. I think it does not really matter. Warrior Nun has done less than 10 million in its opening two weeks in the chart. It is probably trending for a 16 million 4 week run. Fate: the Winx Saga got axed with 25 million. That does not bode well for Warrior Nun!

Manifest was only ordered as a final 20 episode season by Netflix. Which makes sense now we see the numbers. Netflix are just splitting the final season into two parts. The second part of the 4th season will no doubt arrive early in 2023.

The two big shows of the week are The Crown and 1899. The first thing worth noting is that Netflix have categorised 1899 in the English language list rather than the foreign language list.

1899 debuted with the equivalent of 10.9 million complete viewings. A solid number. Only half what big hits such as The Witcher do but still solid. Only Vikings Valhalla has had a better opening week in the charts of the new genre shows for Netflix in 2022.

A bit of a disappointment for The Crown s5 on week two. It managed 9.6 million (down from 12.3 million on opening week). I thought The Crown would grow viewership in week two so this is definitely quite disappointing. Be interesting to see how this hold in weeks 3&4. Looks like The Crown is only a modest viewership hit!

The other big releases of the week were Dead to Me s3 (5.7 million) and Elite s6 (5.4 million). Dead to Me charted so that is something as most Netflix comedy shows do not manage that. Elite is down 35% on the s5 opening week numbers so that is also a tad disappointing.

Inside Job (less than 5.3 million) and One of Us Are Lying s2 (less than 3 million) failed to make the list. As did ultra-weird Korean show Somebody (less than 0.75 million). Hard for Inside Job to chart with its low runtime! One of Us is Lying s1 charted last year with a 2.4 million opening week but it was tougher to make the cut this time around. Also worth noting the series does not release in the US where it airs on Peacock.

Somebody is just the latest Korean original not to make much of an impact. The year opened very strong with All of Us Are Dead being a massive hit but most of the others have really struggled. Only Narco Saints and Money Heist Korea made much of an impact on the charts and the rest are sinking without a trace like Somebody. The Squid Game boost, sadly, seems long gone. On the plus side the licensed weekly K-Dramas like Little Woman and The Queen’s Umbrella are still impacting on the charts.

Warrior Nun did 4.8 million. Up slightly from 4.5 million last week. Feels like these numbers will not be enough for a third season.

Ancient Apocalypse did chart this week with a very solid 5.9 million.

Cabinets of Curiosities ended its four week run with 14.2-16.8 million. Looks DOA. Half Bad: The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself missed the charts for 2 of its 4 weeks and looks DOA as well. Pity as fans and critics enjoyed both series if the RT ratings are anything to go by. I really enjoyed Half Bad. Thought it was one of the better YA fantasy adaptations.

Not much else worth noting this week. Next week we have Wednesday arriving and some smaller stuff like First Love, Khakee, and Blood & Water s3. I expect only Wednesday will make an impact on the charts. Though I guess docuseries Blood, Sex & Royalty could get a rub from the success of dramas like Bridgerton and The Empress on the service!

In the end, Nexstar was paid $54 million to take The CW off of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery’s hands.

Oof. Bet they are regretting saying no to that Netflix billion right about now. One of the dumbest decisions in broadcasting history!

The CW had its flaws but it was always a solid content provider. They were also ahead of the curve with making the CW app completely free and very easily accessible.

With the switch to news and reality the network is basically dead.

Totally disagree. The Direct TV deal was an absolute disaster that cost AT&T tens of billions. AT&T made back most of the money they spent on WarnerMedia either through the divestment or via revenue through the ownership period. The two deals are totally different. Neither good but only one an outright disaster.

Stankey’s vision for programming was cheap and short-form content? Funny how none of that was what happened under his leadership. HBO got their budget increased and delivered more volume and awards quality shows than any other period in their history. It was the same story in terms of budget and volume at the broadcast network The CW. It was a similar tale at Warner Bros TV where output was at an all time high. You can criticise the money spent by Stankey but one absolutely cannot question the commitment they made to producing scripted content throughout the company. Hell, Zaslav’s main criticism is that the company was spending far too much on content! His reasoning being they could make a similar revenue and far more profit producing significantly less content.

AT&T dumped Warner to get rid of debt and boost short term quarterly numbers. It was an easy choice as media companies transitioning from linear to streaming is proving expensive in the short term and even long term it has become clear to all that thanks to Netflix, Amazon, and Apple being players in the market that the profit levels in streaming are just not going to be the same as they were in linear. AT&T cut WarnerMedia as it was only ever going to be a declining asset. Nobody can change that.

I just read a great article that tagged House of the Dragon averaging 14 million over its run via Nielsen. For comparison Rings of Power did 14.5 million via Nielsen and She-Hulk did 12.2 million. Netflix’s bigger shows of late The Watcher did 14.9 million while Dahmer did around 15.1 million in similar Nielsen metrics.

Andor is not done yet but is only averaging around 4.5 million. Around a third of what both Boba Fett and Obi-Wan averaged.

Credit to Frédéric Durand’s newsletter for the data.

One thing with noting with House of the Dragon is those are the streaming numbers only. It averaged another few million per episode on linear HBO.

Still not profitable for Paramount though despite the fact it has practically zero originals.

I struggled a bit with the early episodes. Felt like they were a weird mix of dull and confusing but I’m glad I stuck it out as the final few episodes were really good and absolutely tied things together in a pretty cool way. I’ll absolutely watch a second season if it gets one.

Are you one of the few folks left watching US broadcast TV? Turn the lights out when you go…

Yet being the key word. All scripted originals are done. The CW is done.

Walker: Independence is done. Only two shows with a shot of survival are Walker and All American (top shows in viewership and demo) and even their chances are slim.

It will be reality, reruns, cheap imports, and maybe some right wing news. That is the new CW.

The Wire is a great show. Any younger skewing male platform like Reddit or IMBb will rate it highly. It appeals more to that demo than a show like Mad Men or some thing like The Crown. Seems to me the Emmy Awards mean a bit more than IMBb ratings or wiki citations.

Even then Mad Men would be quoted by most critics before The Wire. As reflected in the Emmy Award wins.