The BBC's future may depend on rival Netflix
For a good decade plus now people have been referring to Netflix as the future of television. Certainly hyperbole, but it may increasingly be getting close to being accurate.
Co-CEO Greg Peters has given an interview with The Telegraph in the UK where he spoke about Netflix’s interest in streaming BBC content.
“Our job is to think about this from not only the BBC’s perspective, but a lot of broadcasters.
“How can we help them actually connect with audiences that they’re not really connecting with? We’re eager to do that.”
There has recently been a lot of talk in the UK about the need for the BBC to distribute content outside of its iPlayer and follow audiences where they actually are. It led to a deal announced recently to make original programming for YouTube.
At the end of last year, UK ratings measurement agency Barb reported that YouTube now has a greater audience reach than BBC’s channels, with Netflix just behind at third.
While Peters quoted remarks in the Telegraph article doesn’t explicitly say it, the article suggests that Peters is talking about a model similar to the deal signed with TF1 in France where Netflix would carry its linear channels and take a cut of advertising revenue. It would also offer TF1’s programming on-demand.
During the Netflix bid to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, Peters colleague Ted Sarandos was regularly heard talking about the increased dominance of YouTube as a competitor, stating that they were a much bigger streaming service.
“When you think about what a BBC production or a Netflix production costs, it’s not really supported by the YouTube model,” he said.
“The most important thing about YouTube is that their model does not sustain the type of content investment that we’re talking about.”
These comments by Peters are in line with Sarandos’ talking points. Clearly Netflix is looking for ways to even further build up users time on platform, even if it means becoming a town square for third-party broadcasters.
The BBC is looking for a new Director General with Tim Davie expected to exit on April 2. It’s unlikely that either Davie or interim DG Rhodri Talfan Davies would make such a deal with Netflix, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume that this will be an issue the new hire will have to address very early into their tenure.
A Warner Bros aside…
The main focus of Greg Peters interview with The Telegraph was the failed Warner Bros deal. On this topic, he made some noteworthy points.
First up, here is is talking about the Paramount deal not being a sure thing:
“Remember this is a deal that will have to be approved in 50-plus jurisdictions, so there’s lots of jurisdictions that will have a particular perspective on this,” Greg Peters, the co-chief executive of Netflix, tells The Telegraph in his first interview since the auction was decided.
The way Peters and Sarandos have been talking in their respective interviews makes it seem like both would be willing to take another swing at Warner Bros if they can get it at a cheaper price. When Sarandos concluded his interview with Bloomberg, it ended on this note:
If you feel like this is a rare asset, that also means that an asset like this may not come up again anytime soon, right?
Possibly. Or if you look at the history of Warner Bros....
A lot of the post-game chatter surrounding the Paramount deal has focused on the very large mountain of debt that Paramount will now have to pay off. Debt that, I suspect, will limit the combined company from being able to spend all that much for a couple of years as it starts paying that debt down – not dissimilar to the reduced HBO output in recent years as WBD worked on paying off its own debt following Discovery’s reverse takeover of what was then WarnerMedia.
Conversation has since moved on to the sovereign wealth funds investment in the Paramount deal.
But what I am hung up on is that once the company combines, it’s ultimately not going to look all that different from if, for example, HBO Max just licensed a number of Paramount titles. I just can’t see what is going to really feel different about the experience.
Greg Peters spoke a bit about this:
“A lot of our model was based on our ability to connect the content Warner Brothers had with a bigger audience,” he says. “I don’t think Paramount has that bigger audience. I don’t know how they make their model work.”
The value this deal delivers Paramount Skydance… or whatever the new company will be called… I just don’t see it.
Related: Zaslav cuts risk
David Zaslav, the president and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, has just filed to sell just over $114 million worth of stock in the company ahead of the merger. Read: Variety
No, Peacock is not coming to Australia
There’s an ongoing rumour in Australian media about local broadcaster Seven signing a deal to bring Peacock down under.
It has seemed to me for quite a number of years that this style of international deal is on its way out with US streamers doing it on their own. The biggest one of these that remains is SkyShowtime, a partnership between Comcast (which owns Peacock) and Paramount. It operates in European territories where Comcast doesn’t have a local presence. Of course, with Paramount set to scale up with the Warner Bros deal, one wonders how much longer SkyShowtime continues.
Maybe it is time to put aside the Peacock dream, with Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh, speaking at the Morgan Stanley Investors Conference, saying that Peacock is not pursuing a global strategy and will remain focused on the US market.
“Others are doing it. Clearly, they have different strategies for different players. But in our case, domestic is our path,” he added after Peacock recently got to 44 million subscribers at the end of its fourth financial quarter. Cavanagh also talked about Peacock’s path to profitability.
“One of the roads ahead is to look at taking the benefit that Peacock creates in terms of a full portfolio and seeing places where through bundles and partnerships with others we have a path to ongoing growth,” he argued.
I appreciate that running Peacock in Australia may be different than just licensing the brand and content to Seven, but even that still feels like a stretch. And also:
How much appetite is there in a relatively small market like Australia to launch yet another streaming service (YASS)?
Does the average Australian care about, let alone even know about, Peacock as a brand? Seven may as well just go and brand a subscription service ‘Ollie’ if it is so intent on taking on rival broadcaster Nine in the streaming space (which operates SVOD ‘Stan’) – it would have just as much meaning.
In the US, Peacock growth continues to be stagnant, growing subscribers by just 8 million in 2025.
News Desk
This news is not groovy. Actor Bruce Campbell says he has been diagnosed with a “treatable, but curable” cancer and will be withdrawing from work. Read: The Guardian
Netflix’s Squid Game reality show is launching a celebrity version. And in the spirit of all celebrity reality game shows, it features a bunch of people you’ve never heard of and one Spice Girl. It’ll be called Squid Game: The VIP Challenge. Read: Variety
Jim Gaffigan (My Boys), Dallas Roberts (The Good Wife), and Elizabeth Marvel (Presumed Innocent) are joining the cast of The Gilded Age for its fourth season. Is this show being produced exclusively for me now? Read: Deadline
Ari Aster, director of your favourite movie and mine: Beau is Afraid, has signed a deal with studio Media Res to develop and produce series projects. Read: THR
Beau Willimon (House of Cards, Andor) will write a screenplay for a Game of Thrones film. The same story is also in development for a rival TV series, which just seems like a waste of resources. Read: Indiewire
Before season one has debuted, Netflix has greenlit a second season for its reboot of Little House on the Prarie. More shows should be doing this to get on annual release cycles. Read: Variety
Jimmy Carr’s Am I The A**hole?, Iain Stirling’s Roast the Internet and Stupid Central have been recommissioned by Comedy Central UK. Read: World Screen
BBC‘s chief operating officer Leigh Tavaziva is stepping down in September. Read: Deadline
Richard Osman is stepping down as host of Richard Osman’s House of Games. Presumably, in addition to a new host, the show is going to need a new name. Read: Radio Times
Following the success of The Rip on Netflix, Ben Affleck & Matt Damon’s production company Artists Equity has signed a multi-year streaming first-look deal. Read: THR
A new six-part adaptation of Treasure Island is on the way from MGM+ (US) and Paramount+ (UK). David Oyelowo and Hayley Atwell will star. Read: thefutoncritic
Palm Royale has been canned by Apple TV after two seasons. Read: THR
Zootopia 2 will debut on Disney+ March 11. Read: thefutoncritic
UK charity Tourettes Action has slammed the perpetually unfunny SNL for its gross Tourette’s sketch over the weekend. Read: The AV Club
Wrexham AFC owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac will live call a Wrexham game for Paramount+ in the US/Sky Sports in the UK. Read: THR
Trailer Park
The Audacity debuts on AMC April 12. This looks exceptionally good.
Set inside the bubble of Silicon Valley, The Audacity takes on the warped dreams, outsized egos, and ethical lapses of the self-styled inventors of the future. In a world of jaded billionaires, psychiatrist-gurus, bio-hacked tech bros, AI labs and disillusioned teens being optimized in elite private schools, an audacious data-mining CEO Duncan Park (Billy Magnussen) strives to turn insight and influence into profit and power. Sarah Goldberg stars as Dr. JoAnne Felder, a poorly compensated therapist to the tech titans of Silicon Valley, while Zach Galifianakis portrays Carl Bardolph, a former idealist pioneer of Silicon Valley who made his fortune off spam. The darkly comedic drama confronts reality, privacy, and the delusions fueling our ever-changing world.
The Miniature Wife debuts on Peacock April 9.
THE MINIATURE WIFE, based on the short story written by Manuel Gonzales, is a dramedy examining the power (im)balances between spouses Lindy (Elizabeth Banks) and Les (Matthew Macfadyen) after a technological accident induces the ultimate relationship crisis.
Radioactive Emergency debuts on Netflix March 18.
Physicists and doctors race to contain a massive radiological disaster and save thousands of lives in this drama series inspired by true events.
My Dearest Señorita debuts on Netflix April 17.
Adela, a solitary only child from a conservative family, spends her days between the family antique shop and the catechism classes she teaches, marked by her mother's protectiveness and the silence surrounding her intersex condition, which she is unaware of but which shapes her life. An unexpected and beautiful friendship with a newly arrived priest, the return of a close childhood friend, and the arrival of a woman, Isabel, trigger a chain reaction that takes Adela on a journey of self-discovery, from Pamplona to Madrid, where her identity will need the love and support of others in order to be revealed.
Born To Bowl debuts on HBO March 16.
Set within bowling’s blue-collar culture, the series examines a familiar American family pastime that evokes myriad pop cultural references and reveals a quirky sport with ancient roots shaped as much by personality and persistence as by skill and precision. Every season, members of the PBA Tour travel from tournament to tournament with their balls in tow, fighting for victories from Akron to Reno, often needing to share budget hotel rooms along the way. At different stages of their careers, each man balances their ambition and love of the sport with the uncertainty of a profession built on week-to-week performance and earnings that often require them to take day jobs to make a living.
That’s the newsletter for the today.
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