Netflix chasing podcast library for early 2026 launch
Netflix’s push into podcasts isn’t just a ‘dipping their toe in the water with The Ringer’ deal - they’re moving pretty quickly to strike licensing agreements with other established shows.
But, as Lucas Shaw writes for Bloomberg today, Netflix’s efforts here are following the standard Netflix playbook: license hit shows, then build on that with original commissions:
Netflix is looking to commission original video podcasts, and plans to tweak its product to ensure the shows get better promotion in its app, according to several people familiar with the company’s plans. It’s the clearest sign yet that the streaming service is getting serious about podcasts as a new form of programming.
The company has reached out to talent (and their representatives) about making original shows that would be exclusive to the service. The streaming service is also looking to license existing shows from networks. This mirrors Netflix’s approach to TV and film programming: It licenses extant hits and funds original exclusives.
Netflix will launch a marketing campaign to support the podcasts and make adjustments to its app to ensure users know about them, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are still being developed. The company is also going to adjust the user interface for its mobile app next year, including the addition of vertical videos, changes that aren’t specific to podcasts.
A few weeks back in the newsletter I pointed out that Netflix has a pretty major user experience issue in that users engaging with video podcasts often do it with the screen locked. When you lock your screen using the Netflix app, it shuts off the audio. But from what Shaw has written, it does sound like there are podcast functionality shifts coming, which will likely address this issue and others.
The podcast industry has faced paywalls and issues related to exclusivity before - notably when the Spotify strategy was about signing talent like Joe Rogan to exclusive deals. Talent got antsy and wanted to have the greater exposure that free access on a platform like YouTube offered.
But, we all know that being locked behind a paywall on a platform like Spotify feels different than being locked behind a Netflix paywall. Will podcasters feel that same itch to be on a more widely-accessible platform, or is the general vibe that most of their audience have a Netflix account, so it isn’t such a concern?
Podcast listeners are generally used to the idea that all the shows they want to listen to are available in the one app. Expect to hear the same complaints about fragmentation of the experience as you hear from people now who complain about needing apps beyond just Netflix.
My eyes are on platforms like iHeart which have been trying to set up their own gated podcast/audio platforms in recent years. I sense that the attention economy will not be in their favor.
Hubbl lives… uh…
I genuinely like my Hubbl streaming box. It is underpowered and doesn’t quite deliver all of the apps I want to use, but it does provide some quick and easy access to streamed linear channels.
The problem with the box is that those aforementioned issues are dealbreakers for a lot of users. It wasn’t a huge surprise to read recent reports, kickstarted by friend of ABW
in an interview with Patrick Delany a few months back, suggesting that the DAZN-owned Foxtel was set to reduce its activity in the Hubbl business.Today there’s news that supports the retreat, highlighting the reduction of resources being put into the platform.
As per Channel News, Hubbl will see a software upgrade that will remove the ‘Stack & Save’ functionality (allowing subscribers to bundle what are pretty much just Foxtel products to save some cash each month).
Hubbl has signed an extension of its deal with Comcast to continue supporting Hubbl with the upgraded software.
BBC DG Tim Davie has stood down. As he should… but maybe not in this instance
I was listening to (if memory serves) a Bulwark podcast over the weekend where someone was defending government bureaucracy. The person (I feel it may have been Jonathan V Last…) was something to the effect of “bureaucracy is what makes it possible to send a 19 year-old to war.”
That comment rang in my ears a bit as I read news this morning that BBC director general Tim Davie and BBC News chief Deborah Turness have both resigned following a week of scrutiny following a report into supposed bias at the BBC.
As per Variety:
BBC’s director general Tim Davie and the CEO of News Deborah Turness both resigned on Sunday. The shock decisions came after the BBC’s flagship documentary show Panorama was accused of doctoring a Donald Trump speech to make it seem like he encouraged the January 6 Capitol riot.
“This is a sad day for the BBC. Tim has been an outstanding Director-General for the last five years. He has propelled the BBC forward with determination, single-mindedness and foresight,” said BBC Chairman Samir Shah. “He has had the full support of me and the Board throughout. However, I understand the continued pressure on him, personally and professionally, which has led him to take this decision today. The whole Board respects the decision and the reasons for it.”
The Guardian has a good explainer on it, along with a timeline of events that is worth reading.
I have some conflicting thoughts on this. The head of the BBC (and the head of news) should lose their jobs over incidents of bias, which was kinda-sorta clear with this incident. It is what keeps the BBC running as a bureaucratic institution with the integrity needed.
But it is also BS, as this comment fairly illustrates:
The British journalist Adam Boulton, a former political editor of Sky News, said on X that he thought claims of bias on this occasion were “BS [bullshit]”, adding it was “fake news to suggest Donald Trump did not egg on what happened on 6 January”.
Context is always key. Simply suggesting that the BBC omitted a crucial line where Trump told everyone to go and protest peacefully completely overlooks the widely reported information about Trump further stoking the riots throughout the day and doing nothing of substance to bring the riots to an abrupt halt.
30 years of ‘Hell & High Water’
I’ve talked about it a bit in this newsletter, but one of the all-time great TV shows is ER. There’s three top-tier episodes of that show that are the must-watch episodes (though, I do note that there are then probably about 50 second-tier episodes which are still better than almost anything else ever made for TV). They are:
24 Hours (the pilot episode)
Love’s Labor Lost (season one, episode 19)
Hell and High Water (season two, episode 7)
Today (US-time) is the 30-year anniversary of Hell & High Water, having aired Nov 9, 1995.
One can’t make the argument that Hell & High Water did anything to further cement ER as MUST-WATCH TV or elevated the audience experience with the show exactly… all of that was happening pretty early in on that first season (if not the first episode… this is a show that was born fully formed).
But it was the episode that completely transformed break-out star George Clooney into an absolute superstar. The show until that point hadn’t really done episodes that had such a spotlight on a single character like this. It’s also just a tremendous hour of TV that is genuinely thrilling to watch.
TV Insider has a great interview with episode director Christopher Chulack:
You said you already knew the show was a hit, but did you know what a big hit it would become after this episode? Because I feel like it elevated it to another level when you had episodes like this.
I knew it was already a hit because when I was prepping “Hell and High Water,” the Today Show was following us. We were such a big hit. So they had cameras and they watched the prep, and they filmed a little office scene that I walked into John Wells’s office and the door was open. We were talking about the show, and then I turned around, and the camera is filming me and John. I’m like, “What the hell? This is a private meeting.” So I knew that the show was already a hit. That episode got 45 million viewers. The next day, this is a true story — the next day, Bob Daley and Terry Semel, who were the presidents of Warner Bros. Television, came down and knocked on George’s dressing room door and told him, “You’re going to be the next Batman because of the heroism of that episode.” So I figured it’s just going to go up from here, and it did.
South Park isn’t chasing politics - it chases where the culture is
Back when the show first debuted, I was wild about South Park.
The Simpsons had just started to lose its mojo (Homer visited New York in Sept 1997, ordering crab juice from a street vendor… the episode I deem the last good episode of that original great run of the series) and along was this edgy, funny, and very good animated show ready to offer me something different. It was exactly what 17 year-old me was after at the time. The film, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, released in 1999, had me laughing harder than any film had at the cinema. I still don’t think I’ve laughed that hard at anything.
But soon my interest waned. The show never went away… it hummed along in the background, driving a large viewership the entire time. I’d check in with it from time to time, usually laughing along with it, but it never quite held my interest.
In recent years, I’ve found it to be pretty flat. I thought the show was done. But then, these past few months it has been must-watch TV. As South Park went all-out against the nutso MAGA culture, the show suddenly felt relevant and vibrant again. And I’m not alone - the show has doubled its viewership and has re-entered the zeitgeist in a pretty major way.
The New York Times today has a feature interview with creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker. It was helpful to understand why the show suddenly got political in a way that it has avoided traditionally. This quote is succinct in explaining the new philosophy:
“It’s not that we got all political,” Mr. Parker said in an interview. “It’s that politics became pop culture.”
I’d argue that has been the case since the former host of The Apprentice came down that escalator and announced his intention to run for President.
Later in the article:
Unlike many other comedy shows, “South Park” has never had a consistent political orientation. Its creators have long been described as “equal opportunity offenders,” skewering both the left and the right. In recent years, “South Park” has criticized liberal hobbyhorses.
“We’re just very down-the-middle guys,” Mr. Parker said. “Any extremists of any kind we make fun of. We did it for years with the woke thing. That was hilarious to us. And this is hilarious to us.”
The creators also regularly had conversations about returning to traditional “South Park” high jinks and abandoning MAGA, until they realized that “there’s no getting away from this,” Mr. Parker said.
“It’s like the government is just in your face everywhere you look,” he continued. “Whether it’s the actual government or whether it is all the podcasters and the TikToks and the YouTubes and all of that, and it’s just all political and political because it’s more than political. It’s pop culture.”
News Desk
Sony Pictures Television and CBS Media Ventures have ended their legal squabble surrounding distribution of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Read: Deadline
An American version of French show Call My Agent has been announced for HBO in the US. The twist on the US version will be that it will be set in a sports talent agency. Always Be Watching notes that 90’s HBO sports agent comedy Arli$$ still isn’t available on HBO Max for whatever reason. Read: Variety
The upcoming Mass Effect TV series will offer a new story and be set after the original video game trilogy. Read: Dark Horizons
Ignore the haters, who are completely justified, but All’s Fair debuted as Hulu’s most successful original scripted show in the past three years with 3.2M views globally after three days of streaming. Hulu… let me know what the viewership is like on episode 2… Read: Deadline
That’s the newsletter for today.
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