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It’s time for part two of my bi-annual “Flops, Bombs and Misses” series: the TV show flops!
Overall, I love putting this longer deep dive together, looking at a big chunk of time (the last six months of 2024 or “H2”), compared to the week-in, week-out pace of the Streaming Ratings Report. It’s a great way to find the signal among the unending cacophony of noise that are the day-to-day entertainment headlines. Plus it gives us a great snapshot of each streamer’s content and how they performed in the second half of the year.
If you want to read the full methodology for how I assemble this list, check out the end of the last article. In short, this list is…
…scripted and unscripted TV shows,
…from the eight major streamers,
…in the US (using US-only ratings),
…excluding true crime, kids and foreign-language shows,
…that got no/poor ratings,
…from Jul-2024 to the end of Dec-2024.
In past years, I took the size of the streamer into account. This year, for the most part, I held everyone to the same standard, which benefited Netflix mostly.
Reminder: price matters. If a TV show costs north of $100 million, it needs to get lots and lots of streaming viewership to justify that budget. As with past editions, I ordered this list by streamer, going from best (fewest flops) to worst (the most misses), taking the size of the flops into consideration.
Reminder: this article does not represent my personal opinion—many of these shows are great!—but I follow the data and a miss is a miss and a bomb is a bomb.
This article summarizes the second half of 2024; you can find the recap of the first half of the year here.
Finally, an appeal to you. Yes, I’m going to ask you to subscribe, but in the context of today’s article, it matters. As I wrote last year, most Hollywood entertainment media is funded by FYC (“For Your Consideration”) ads. And you know what the people who run those ads hate? Criticism. Want to know why a list of all the flops in town doesn’t get published in any of the trades? FYC ads. So you know who doesn’t get FYC ads? Me.
Also, I really want this series to go faster, and to make that happen, I need more subscribers so I can expand my staff.
So please subscribe.
Disney+
- Star Wars: Skeleton Crew
Honorable Mentions: Dream Productions, Prince William: We Can End Homelessness
Where are all the Disney+ shows at? Seriously, Disney+ just didn’t put out all that many TV shows in the second half of last year—just four TV shows for adults, depending on how you classify Dream Productions, which was just four episodes long.
And their two Marvel shows (Agatha All Along and What If…?) made the Nielsen charts, so overall, that’s not a bad hit rate for the second half of the year.
Winner: Skeleton Crew
Having had no competition, Skeleton Crew wins by default, but don’t let it off the hook just yet: it reportedly cost $136 million to make, which isn’t as large as some other TV shows these days…but that’s still really expensive! Not making the Nielsen charts doesn’t cut it.
Paramount+
- Colin From Accounts (S2)
- Frasier (S2)
- Ink Master (S16)
- RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars
- Star Trek: Lower Decks (S5)
Honorable Mentions: as1one: The Israeli-Palestinian Pop Music Journey, FBI True (S5), Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken, Nothin’ But a Good Time: The Uncensored Story of ‘80s Hair Metal, PD True, SEAL Team (S7)
All in all, not a bad run for Paramount+ in the second half of 2024. They really only had one scripted miss from the US, Frasier, while everything else was unscripted (Ink Master, RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars), animated (Star Trek: Lower Decks), or came from overseas (Colin From Accounts).
But they had a whole bunch of hits (mainly coming from one person, Taylor Sheridan). Reminder, off the strength of those originals, Paramount+’s usage is growing on the Nielsen The Gauge charts, up 30 to 40% since June of 2023.
Winner: Frasier
I wouldn’t have predicted that this show would do as poorly as it did, not making the charts at all. Even its first season’s broadcast ratings were lackluster, which is hard to do for a CBS show. This show is allegedly being shopped around to other streamers; color me skeptical. (I wonder if this is a thing that agents tell their important clients these days to keep them happy.)
Max
- Bookie (S2)
- Creature Commandos
- The Head (S3)
- Get Millie Black
- Kite Man: Hell Yeah!
- The Sex Lives of College Girls (S3)
Honorable Mentions: Call Me Ted, Coming From America, Fast Friends, Human vs. Hamster, Roller Jam, Second Chance Stage, Unbelievably Vegan With Chef Charity
The fate of Max is now mostly intertwined with the fate of HBO, since fewer TV shows go straight to Max these days. Max only had two scripted Originals from America flop: Bookie (from Chuck Lorre and starring Sebastian Maniscalco) and The Sex Lives of College Girls (from Mindy Kaling). And two animated DC shows: Creature Commandos (which takes place in James Gunn’s new DC universe) and Harley Quinn-spinoff Kite Man: Hell Yeah! The Head comes from HBO Asia. Get Millie Black is a UK-Import from Channel 4.
As for hits, the data is mixed for the HBO shows. The Penguin and Dune: Prophecy weren’t huge hits according to HBO’s data, at least not in the ballpark of The Last of Us or House of the Dragon. They did well on Samba TV, but not on the Nielsen Acquired charts.
Overall, especially compared to other streamers below, that’s a solid hit rate.
Winner: Bookie
Bookie comes from, literally, one of the greatest TV show creators of all time, Chuck Lorre, so it gets the win. Based on recent announcements, David Zaslav at WBD wants more flexibility in where shows go, and I think that’s a great idea. Would this show have benefitedt from a run on HBO (probably) or, dare I say it, TNT? (If edited for basic cable…) I say yes.
Prime Video
- A Very Royal Scandal (S3)
- Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?
- Citadel: Diana
- Citadel: Honey Bunny
- Cruel Intentions
- The Devil’s Hour (S2)
- Faceoff: Inside the NHL
- Game 7
- The Legend of Vox Machina (S3)
- The Pasta Queen
- Pop Culture Jeopardy!
- Sausage Party: Foodtopia
- Secret Level
- The Sticky
Honorable Mentions: Batman: Caped Crusader, Buy It Now, Elisabeth Rioux: Unfiltered, Evolution of the Black Quarterback, Glitter & Greed: The Lisa Frank Story, It’s in the Game: Madden NFL, The Money Game, Pokemon: Trainer Tour, One Shot: Overtime Elite, Top Class Tennis, Wish List Games
Very quietly, Prime Video had a horrible second half of the year; they had exactly three shows that did “okay” or better: one genuine hit in Cross, then two very, very expensive sort-of-hit shows in Rings of Power and Beast Games. (I had to write separate articles debating whether they did well because they cost so much.)
But I mean, look at that list! That’s a lot of misses for one hit show and two maybes. There are live-action scripted flops (A Very Royal Scandal, Cruel Intentions, The Devil’s Hour, The Sticky), and animated flops (The Legend of Vox Machina, Sausage Party: Foodtopia, Secret Level, Batman: Caped Crusader), not to mention a ton of sports docu-series (Faceoff: Inside the NHL, Top Class Tennis, One Shot: Overtime Elite, The Money Game, Evolution of the Black Quarterback) and game shows like Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? (hosted by Travis Kelce), Buy It Now (hosted by JB Smoove), Pop Culture Jeopardy! (hosted by Colin Jost), and Wish List Games (hosted by Nick Cannon).
The wider Hollywood press hasn’t really noted Amazon’s recent struggles but then again, until I compiled this list, neither did I! Prime Video’s biggest hit is Thursday Night Football, but those sports rights don’t come (or stay) cheap, and they’re not converting football fans into viewers.
Winner: Citadel: Diana, Citadel: Honey Bunny
These shows weren’t the biggest, most expensive misses of the quarter, and you could argue that this was kind of an interesting experiment, trying to launch a global franchise like this. But if you’ve been reading me for any length of time, you know: most content does not travel overseas very easily. At all. And Prime Video just found that out with the Citadel franchise.
Netflix
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