RIP The OA. For good! ALSO: The new Lost. AND: Too. Many. Popes.

It is time to end the hunger strikes. The OA is not coming back. There will be no movie to wrap the series up.

September 12 is when new Netflix binge-fest The I-Land will debut on the platform. The series is billed as “Lost, with influencers”.

One of the most interesting streaming stories of the past year has been the demise of NRATV. This was a streaming service established in the US that would carry magazine-style and opinion shows that promoted gun culture and the ideologies shared by gun enthusiasts. It was produced by an advertising agency, Ackerman McQueen, for lobby group the National Rifle Association.

NRATV was shut down for good in June, after three years of embedding itself into the US culture wars. Now Ackerman McQueen and the NRA are in court, suing each other. This week Ackerman McQueen told the court it had to close its office in Alexandria, Virginia, after the NRA stopped paying its invoices and declined to extend it a $3 million line of credit.

There are concerns now among gun enthusiasts that with the NRA’s attention diverted by this case, the NRA won’t be fully focused on fighting against the introduction of stricter gun access in the US.

Tragic.

Source: The Daily Beast

I’ve noticed this sentiment being expressed a few times on Twitter over the past week or two. A reminder that Netflix really need to start curating content to list the level of perceived value people have of the service.

In July I published an article about Netflix being at risk of being the next Blockbuster Video. The article was published for paid subscribers of Always Be Watching, but I’ve just released the article from the archive for anyone to read.

Netflix don’t want customers to behave like Paul. They want customers to quickly make a viewing choice and get cracking on watching a show or movie. But, viewers need to be pushed in helpful directions and Netflix’s platform is just not quite achieving that anymore. It is time to curate content. I wrote:

But, if a subscriber doesn’t feel like they’re getting value from Netflix content… if Netflix doesn’t remind us that it has genuinely great titles in its library… if Netflix just feels like a library of general entertainment stuff to watch… subscribers are going to start looking elsewhere for their TV needs.

You can read the full article HERE.

Amazon original film The Aeronauts will arrive on Prime Video December 20th following a fortnight-long theatrical release. It’s a period-set ballooning disaster film. I’m there for that!

Israel continues to be a source of inspiration for US TV producers, with several shows every year being adapted. Coming soon is the Bryan Cranston show Your Honor, and there’s also the comedy The Baker & the Beauty. This year saw Euphoria launch on HBO, based on an Israeli series by the same name.

Talking about the new wave of Israeli TV, Keshet’s Karni Ziv suggests that these shows are grabbing the imaginations of audiences not just in their own land but worldwide precisely because “these creators are writing and living in a conflict zone—a society that is torn between Orthodox people, secular, Palestinian, Jews, Jews from different countries, a lot of immigration. It’s a very segmented society.”