(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.)
Based on Hollywood’s general content pullback—call it a post-strike correction or the end of the streaming boom or “the new normal”—you might expect that we’d see fewer flops, bombs and misses in my semi-annual round-up of what’s not working in Hollywood in the first half of 2024.
But you’d be wrong.
In fact, there were nearly twenty more scripted flops than the strike-impacted second half of 2023—going from over 80 to over 100 misses—but interestingly that’s about the same as the first half of 2023. As I wrote during the strike last year, this level of failure is normal: going back to the broadcast days; only 80% of new shows in the 1990s made it to a third season.
The difference is that people don’t know what flops these days.
Which brings us to part two of my bi-annual “Flops, Bombs and Misses” column, focusing on TV show flops. If you want to read the full methodology for how I assemble this list, check out last Friday’s article on film flops. In short, this article is…
…scripted and unscripted TV shows,
…from the eight major streamers,
…in the US (using US-only ratings),
…made for adults (unless a kids show has strong IP origins),
…excluding true crime and foreign-language shows,
…that got no/poor ratings.
Unlike the film list, the TV show collection is more relative. I have to take a bunch of factors into account, like the size of the streamer and its usage. As for how I determine what “wins/loses” for each streamer, it’s subjective, but only a bit. Price matters. If a TV show costs north of $100 million, then it needs to get lots and lots of streaming viewership to justify that budget. Some definitions:
- A “miss” is any TV show or film with below-average ratings. Literally, the bottom 50% percentile (or so) in the ratings.
- A “flop” is a TV show or film that either seemed expensive and had middling ratings, a kind of expensive show or movie with below-average ratings, or a less expensive TV or film with terrible ratings.
- A “disappointment” is a TV show that disappointed its streamer.
- A “bomb” is a TV show or film that was expensive and did terribly in the ratings.
As with past editions, I ordered this list by streamer, going from best (least number of flops) to worst (the most misses), taking the size of the flops into consideration. As I wrote in my article on film misses, while Luminate now publishes a public top ten list, we only have it for part of the year, so I only partially integrated it into my analysis. 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.
Overall, I love putting together this longer, deeper dive that looks at a big chunk of time (the last six months), compared to the week-in, week-out pace of the Streaming Ratings Report. This summary is a great way to find the signal among the unending cacophony of noise that are the day-to-day headlines in entertainment, providing a snapshot of how each streamer performed in the first half of the year.
Finally, an appeal to you. Yes, I’m going to ask you to subscribe, but in the context of today’s article, it matters. You see, most Hollywood entertainment media is funded by FYC (“For Your Consideration”) ads, a.k.a. ads to win Emmys and Grammys and Oscars and, I guess, Golden Globes. 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.
So please subscribe.
Paramount+
- The Challenge: All Stars (S4)
- Dora
- The Family Stallone (S2)
- RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars (S9)
- SkyMed (S2)
- Sexy Beast
Honorable Mentions: Ark: The Animated Series, Behind the Music (S3), The Changemakers, Chopper Cops, How Music Got Free, Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza, Never Seen Again
It’s hard to judge Paramount+. As a service about 50% (in terms of subscribers) or 14% (in terms of usage) the size of Netflix, it’s much harder for even their biggest shows to rack up the viewership of a Netflix series. (That said, unlike one other smaller streamer, they still regularly accomplish that goal.) Halo was one of their most successful shows—it made the Nielsen charts for six weeks—but Paramount cancelled it, probably because it was so expensive.
I don’t think anyone has “won” the streaming wars, but if you want to make the case that a streamer has lost it, that’s the case you would make.
Paramount+ seems to get this, hence why they seem to have pulled back on big-budget Original shows. Two of their misses are all-star spinoffs of successful cable reality shows (The Challenge: All Stars or RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars). SkyMed is a Canadian import. With Dora’s failure, two Nickelodeon shows (don’t forget SpongeBob’s latest film on Netflix failed to open too) have missed in a row. Of all of Paramount’s missteps over the years, the decline of the Nickelodeon brand might sting the most.
Winner: Sexy Beast
As their only major scripted miss, Sexy Beast sort of wins by default, but also, why was this obscure movie made into a TV show? Sure, I knew what Sexy Beast was, but how many other people did? Clearly not enough.
Peacock
- Couple to Throuple
- Eurovision Song Contest 2024
- In the Know
- Love Undercover
- The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys
- Orlando Bloom: To the Edge
- Vigil (S2)
- We Are Lady Parts (S2)
Honorable Mentions: Action, Bronx Zoo ‘90: Crime, Chaos and Baseball, The Dirty D, Kings from Queens: The Run DMC Story, Hart to Heart (S4), Love Island: All-Stars (UK), Megamind Rules, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, The Traitors (UK) (S2)
In terms of outright flops, Peacock had an okay first half of the year. They had some new unscripted reality shows stumble (Couple to Throuple, Love Undercover, The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys, and Orlando Bloom: To the Edge) and their scripted flops tended to come from the UK (We Are Lady Parts and Vigil), or Europe (the Eurovision Song Contest 2024). As you can see with the honorable mentions, Peacock had a ton of docu-series miss the charts.
I’m more conflicted about The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which looks pretty expensive, but only made the Luminate top ten charts for two weeks (peaking at 5.3 million hours), but missed the Nielsen top ten.
Winner: In the Know
As their one scripted show from the US that didn’t make the charts, In The Know gets the win/loss of the year for Peacock. This probably isn’t a huge miss…except that it comes from Mike Judge.
Max
- Clone High (S2)
- Conan O’Brien Must Go
- The Girls on the Bus
- Jellystone! (S3)
- The Jinx-Part Two (S2)
- Justice, USA
- On the Roam
- Pretty Little Liars: Summer School (2)
- The Regime
- Sort Of (S3)
- Tokyo Vice (S2)
- Velma (S2)
Honorable Mentions: Chasing Flavor With Carla Hall, The Dog House: UK, Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?, Serving the Hamptons, Thirst with Shay Mitchell, Trixie Motel: Drag Me Home
Max had a lot of shows go straight-to-Max and many of them didn’t resonate, including celeb travel docu-series (Conan O’Brien Must Go, Jason Momoa’s On the Roam, Thirst with Shay Mitchel, and Chasing Flavor With Carla Hall), adult animated flops (Clone High and the almost-universally-despised Velma), some low budget scripted fare (Sort Of from Canada), and a lot of cheaper unscripted content (Justice, USA, Trixie Motel: Drag Me Home, Serving the Hamptons, which moved to Max for its second season, The Dog House: UK, and Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?)
I included The Regime, even though it’s an HBO show, because it starred Kate Winslet and really should have done better. I’d also highlight Jellystone!, even though it’s a kids show, mainly because I’m one of the few parents whose kids watch Max—Teen Titans Go! nearly every day—and the algorithm never recommended this to me!
Before we get to our winner, Max’s The Girls on the Bus and Pretty Little Liars: Summer School, get the bronze and silver medals for Max’s misses so far this year, mainly because both are scripted, US productions from fairly prominent IP (a Hilary presidential campaign memoir and the Pretty Little Liars franchise), yet neither made the charts.
Winner: Tokyo Vice
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