(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.)
Just two articles to go in my 2024 viewership recap. I tried to cram everything together into one long article, but that initial draft was way too long, so I’m splitting it up.
This go around, we’re starting with the misses. Yesterday, right after I published my take on Formula 1, I read another Substacker’s missive from a few weeks back on what’s wrong with the film industry today, and they mentioned, in passing, that Netflix made Formula 1 really popular. Obviously, I don’t think the data backs that statement up.
I sort of realized, even though I highlight the TV show and film flops each week in the Streaming Ratings report, most of that content lives behind my paywall, so most people still don’t know what flopped and what didn’t. Thus, today, I’m starting with the (unkindly named) “Losers of the Year” in TV.
And man, there are so, so many TV shows that flopped…
Streaming Losers of the Year: Television
Let’s start with the biggest flops. Basically, I took every TV show from every streamer that got nominated for miss of the half year, then added in other (mostly scripted, but all not inexpensive) shows that got little to no ratings.
Here’s that list:
- A Very Royal Scandal (Prime Video)
- American Rust: Broken Justice (Prime Video)
- Arcane (Netflix)
- Based on a True Story (Peacock)
- Before (Apple TV+)
- Bel-Air (Peacock)
- Bookie (Max)
- Citadel: Diana, Citadel: Honey Bunny (Prime Video)
- Clipped (Hulu)
- Constellation (Apple TV+)
- Criminal Record (Apple TV+)
- Dark Matter (Apple TV+)
- Dead Boy Detectives (Netflix)
- Death and Other Details (Hulu)
- The Decameron (Netflix)
- Disclaimer (Apple TV+)
- Doctor Who (Disney+)
- Echo (Disney+)
- Expats (Prime Video)
- Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist (Peacock)
- Franklin (Apple TV+)
- Girls5eva (Netflix)
- Heartstopper (Netflix)
- Interior Chinatown (Hulu)
- Kaos (Netflix)
- Lady in the Lake (Apple TV+)
- Life & Beth (Hulu)
- Loot (Apple TV+)
- Manhunt (Apple TV+)
- Mr. Throwback (Peacock)
- The New Look (Apple TV+)
- The Outlaws (Prime Video)
- Pachinko (Apple TV+)
- Ripley (Netflix)
- Say Nothing (Hulu)
- Senna (Netflix)
- Sexy Beast (Paramount+)
- Star Wars: The Acolyte (Disney+)
- Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (Disney+)
- Starting 5 (Netflix)
- Sugar (Apple TV+)
- Sunny (Apple TV+)
- Tell Me Lies (Hulu)
- That ‘90s Show (Netflix)
- Them (Prime Video)
- Time Bandits (Apple TV+)
- Tokyo Vice (Max)
- Unprisoned (Hulu)
- The Upshaws (Netflix)
- Unstable (Netflix)
- The Veil (Hulu)
- We Were the Lucky Ones (Hulu)
Misses of the Year – That ‘90s Show, Girls5eva
Unlike the shows that are coming up next, these shows aren’t huge misses because of their budgets, but because of the narratives that they defied. Just a year ago, many pundits made the argument that Netflix could turn any show into a hit. Girls5eva (and some other recently rescued shows like The Tourist) defied that narrative.
On the other hand, That ’90s Show debunked one of my arguments: people love sitcoms. I mean, just look at the acquired charts!
And yet, after a successful first season, viewers stopped tuning in to That ’90s Show. This genre is struggling to make the transition to streaming.
Flops of the Year – Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, Time Bandits, Kaos, Senna
All of these shows had big budgets, but almost no streaming viewership to show for it. Just look at that cast for Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist and the huge promotional push during the Olympics; one week at 5.8 million hours (according to Nielsen) is not enough. Time Bandits is a big fantasy adventure, but it got cancelled after one season after negative publicity and low viewership. Kaos has already been cancelled, and I’ve heard that it was really expensive. And Senna reportedly cost $170 million.
I could only guesstimate the total losses from these series, but it has to be mid-hundreds of millions of dollars. (Or one Rings of Power.)
Bomb of the Year – Star Wars: The Acolyte, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew
The good news for Skeleton Crew is that it reportedly only cost $136 million, which isn’t low, but at least it’s less than The Acolyte’s ginormous budget north of $200 million.
One of the major strategic takeaways of 2024 is that Disney has lost its way with its biggest franchises: Marvel and Star Wars. (Echo didn’t have the budget of either of these shows, but it flopped at the very start of 2024.) If you want to know why Kathleen Kennedy lost her job, this is it.
Streaming Winners of the Year: Television
We’re just getting started with this issue, but the rest is for paid subscribers of the Entertainment Strategy Guy, so if you’d like to find out…
- …the top TV show, returning TV show, half-hour TV show, cable show, kids show, and more…
- The streaming film losers…
- What film won the year…
- The most puzzling TV show…
- And a lot more…
…please subscribe! We can only keep doing this great work with your support.
