What's Next for Meghan and Harry After Netflix?

0:00This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Meghan and Harry's Netflix contract nears its end. The king gets a taste of what a Trump state visit could be like, and William and Charlotte Bond over football. I'm Jack Royston, Newsweek's Chief Royal Correspondent, and this is Newsweek's Royal Report.

0:38Hello listeners and welcome to the show. Prince Harry and Meghan's multi-year Netflix contract is due to end in September, which raises questions about whether it will be renewed. The Duke and Dutch of the Sussex signed the, it's often called the Megabucks, five-year Netflix deal. They signed it back in September 2020. This was just months after they first moved to America. And obviously, it was a massive, massive moment for them because it wasn't really known at the time whether they would be financially successful or not. Those with long memories might remember that actually at the point they quit in January 2020, they said they would work to become financially independent.

1:17so even they didn't actually know for sure that they were going to pull off, kind of freeing themselves from Charles's bank balance, and being able to bankroll their own lives. So the Netflix deal was the moment where it became clear that they were going to be able to be financially independent. Now, though, five years has passed, and the deal is up in September, and at present the contract has not been renewed as yet. It is, of course, only July, meaning there is still time. But The Sun and People magazine both report that Netflix are not planning to renew it. There is no particular sense that Netflix are angry or unhappy.

1:57The things have wound up their course. But they feel that they've made the money that's there to be made. And it's time to call an end to things, or at least that's how it's reported. The Sun does suggest there's some kind of irritation with Megan over perhaps focusing so much energy on As Ever, which is her online shop. But that's a slightly odd line to me because Netflix owns a stake in As Ever. And that makes me wonder whether maybe this is a case of Netflix being just a huge company with different divisions. And perhaps there could be a really different view of Megan in different parts of the business.

2:37because that's the other oddity is that Ted Sarandos, who is the co-chief executive of Netflix, has been so overwhelmingly positive about Meghan and unnecessarily gushing about her. So I was just slightly surprised. And really recently, as recently as March, I'll go more into his comments in a bit. But how do we read all of this different bits of information then? So it's interesting to me that this has come out in both The Sun and People, and it shows it's not just, you know, someone who hates the Sussexes doing a hatchet job on them or at least that's my gut feeling because people you know they obviously don't do that kind of thing if they did they wouldn't get celebrities signed up to you know do front covers with them you know that's kind of what people is people is the friend of the stars that will you know give them a really kind of like glowing gushingly positive coverage in exchange for getting access.

3:32It's the people formula. And fair play. I'm not saying that to criticise it. Everyone has their own formula and the media is diverse that it needs to be. You have people doing what people do and then you have Newsweek doing what Newsweek do. So there's clearly a real industry source, I guess, is what I'm really driving at, who is really briefing the media to expect an end to the Netflix deal. Now, one option is that this is all a negotiating strategy, i.e. show the Sussexes where the cliff edge is in order to focus their minds on striking a financially realistic deal. Because let's be honest, there is literally no way that Netflix can expect the same audience from the Sussexes for the next five years as they got for the first five.

4:16There was one massive hit from the original Harry and Meghan documentary, the one with all the royal bombshells, and then everything since has been quite bland and quite vanilla. So if the deal does get negotiated, the Sussexes will need to be willing to accept a substantial pay cut, like a mega pay cut. And if they're not willing to budge on pay, then yes, I do think that the Netflix deal is dead. And they may not want that out of pride. They may not want to see it die. But there's complicated issues here. If the deal does sink, what happens to Netflix is staking as ever because they are an equity partner, which means they own an actual share.

4:59They're a passive partner, which means they're not necessarily getting involved with all the day-to-day decision-making, but they will get a, you know, they're guaranteed a slice of the profits. So Netflix could sell their stake. You know, they could try and sell their stake in as ever and, you know, have a clean break, which I think would be a massive blow to Megan. I mean, she's talked so positively about how big a deal it was to have Netflix come on as a partner. So it would be humiliating if they did do that. Or they could keep their stake in As Ever, but just cut and run on the TV side of things, i.e.

5:33the original contract that was signed in September 2020 had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the commercial partnership between Netflix and As Ever. So As Ever, obviously, just to be really clear, is the online shop. So Megan has her cooking show, which is With Love Megan. That's her lifestyle show. She has an associated partnered online shop as ever, where you can buy some of the stuff that you see in the Netflix show. And Netflix, it wasn't the original vision when Megan created as ever, but then Netflix at some point, they came on as a partner. And so now it's a joint venture and they've got a stake in the company.

6:11So coming on as a partner obviously took place quite recently in the last year or so. So it was not envisaged anywhere in a million years back in September 2020 when the original contract was signed. So the original contract coming to an end does not have to actually directly have any knock-on consequences for the As Ever deal, which is separate. But would it make sense for Netflix to tank or pull out of the TV deal if they're continuing with the As Ever partnership? I mean, the whole original concept was As Ever and With Love Megan would be tied together. And With Love would be marketing, would be promotion for As Ever.

6:50So, you know, their ability to make money out of the online shop, out of the business, out of the company, would be enhanced by just, you know, continuing to do a couple more series of With Love. You know, if you throw them together on a shoestring budget, Megan could maybe call in a few favours from her celebrity friends who might do it for free because it's her. and then it just becomes in-house marketing for a potentially lucrative part of the business. And more on that lucrativeness later. But essentially, if Netflix does intend to keep its stake in As Ever, it probably makes sense for them to keep some kind of deal with Meghan.

7:25After all, The Sun's story suggests Meghan and Harry could pursue a deal with Paramount Plus instead of Netflix. But that would be kind of weird if it was for With Love, Meghan, because Netflix is staying on with As Ever, but Paramount Plus are doing the TV show. It's a weirdly undermining thing. It's not really a huge vote of confidence in them. Paramount Plus makes sense from a Harry and Meghan point of view, because the parent company, Paramount Global, the chief executive is Brian Robbins, who's good friends of Harry and Meghan. He's part of their Montecito community. But it would just be really strange for Netflix to then have this vote of no confidence.

8:03And if Paramount Plus can see the value in Megan, why can't Netflix? Also, again, like the threat of Megan having to continue with that awkward relationship could focus Harry and Megan's minds on the need to just be realistic about what deal they can strike. But then, you know, on the other hand, Harry and Megan are well accustomed to doing things in strange ways. So take, for example, you know, with Love, Megan, they didn't film it in their real home, as obviously people probably know. They filmed it in a rented property because they didn't want the film crew in the house while the kids were trying to come home from school or whatever.

8:40And I mean, any PR in the world would say that that's a bit bonkers and that if you're trying to sell this as a lifestyle show, people are going to want an insight into your real lifestyle. And that means that it has to be your real house. But they didn't. They just ripped up the rule book and did it their own way. And ditto, you know, they built an entire episode around preparing for a kids party, but never actually showed any of the children, which robbed viewers of the very obvious payoff of watching the whole episode, which was getting to see the children, you know, having a lovely and amazing time with all the things that Megan had built.

9:14So they do do things in a bonkers way. So never bet against them doing something that sounds crazy. And this is the other thing is that even if they moved to Paramount, they'd still have to negotiate that deal. And And that would probably involve offering Paramount some really exciting shows, because at least Netflix do know that they had a massive, massive commercial success out of the original Harry and Meghan documentary. And so they have a higher tolerance threshold for vanilla, lukewarm content from everything else, especially alongside the fact that they have their stake in As Ever. Whereas if they were jumping ship to Paramount, they would have to really earn their keep.

9:48And that would mean offering Paramount way more exciting content than what they've been producing for Netflix in the years after Harry and Meghan. So, you know, they are friends with Brian Robbins, the chief executive, but any company does also like no matter how rich Brian Robbins may be, he's the chief executive. He's not necessarily the owner and he's not the shareholders. And the company has an obligation to its shareholders and has no doubt promised them all, you know, huge amounts of growth as companies tend to do. Insurance isn't one-size-fits-all. That's why customers have enjoyed Progressive's Name Your Price tool for years now.

10:25With the Name Your Price tool, you tell them what you want to pay, and they'll show you options that fit your budget. So whether you're picking out your first policy or just looking for something that works better for you and your family, they make it easy to see your options. Visit Progressive.com. Find a rate that works for you with the Name Your Price tool. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. So where does all of this chaos leave us, basically? Well, I had a chat with Nick Eade, who is a UK-braced brand and culture expert, and he actually offered another possible alternative, which is that Netflix strikes something called a first-look deal, which means that they would basically get the first refusal on any ideas Megan came up with for future shows.

11:09And that would not necessarily commit them to paying her any money if they didn't like those shows. But if they did like them, they would get an opportunity to snap up anything that looks good before it got pitched elsewhere. So that could be a good option, a sensible option for both sides. But honestly, I think Meghan and Harry have shown that they're not actually going to be sensational TV producers short of having some kind of eureka moment where they suddenly stop playing it so safe and become risk takers, for example. But actually, you know, most people in life operate through the path of least resistance and Harry and Meghan have been plugging away at Netflix for five years and there are no real signs that they're about to crack the formula.

11:53So I could definitely get behind the idea that the best option for both sides is that they agree some kind of new contract that massively reduces the amount that Netflix pay the Sussex Izzy each year or maybe even doesn't obligate them to pay anything unless it's tied to a show doing well. but then like they just do just enough to market as ever and then that becomes like the core of the partnership and then you know Megan would need to really work on significantly increasing the supply chain for the for as ever the online shop and particularly I think the wine and this is where I want to bring in Ted Sarandos's past comments on Megan because I think that's really just jar a little bit with what's been printed in the sun and people.

12:43Because as recently as March, he was absolutely gushing about her. And that was, you know, it was after With Love, Meghan got panned by TV critics in both Britain and America. So he knew that that was, you know, he knew whether that was a success or failure by the time he said this. And Ted Sarandos said, I think Meghan is underestimated in terms of her influence on culture, key phrase. He said, when we dropped the trailer for the Harry and Meghan doc series, so that's the original one, everything on screen was dissected in the press for days, right? You may think, of course it was, you may think all the things she said about Kate and William, you may think the curtsy she did, you know, the mock curtsy she recreated of the time she met the Queen.

13:29That's not what he's talking about. Ted Sarandos said the shoes she was wearing sold out all over the world, The Hermes blanket that was on the chair behind her sold out everywhere in the world. Note there that he's not talking about the commercial success of the TV show at all, and that was the commercially successful one. His interest here is in how quickly Meghan sells products, and that's not Netflix's traditional business, but it is an area that Netflix is moving into. He said, people are fascinated with Meghan Markle. She and Harry are overly dismissed. And he added, we're a passive partner in Megan's company, and it's a big discovery model for us right now.

14:15So in other words, Netflix wants to do a lot more selling products off the back of their successful TV shows. And they're using Megan and As Ever to work out the best way of doing that so they can roll out those lessons across other parts of the business, other brands, other franchises that they own. And so this is where I want to go back to my earlier point that the picture can look totally different depending on which part of a massive capitalist business you are currently working in. So let's say, for example, that you were working on Meet Me at the Lake, which is a adaptation of a successful romance book that Harry and Meghan were supposed to be adapting for TV.

14:53And maybe it is still going to happen, but we've really not heard a peep out of it. and so I'm completely ready for it to simply never emerge. And if you had been involved in trying to broker that or work on it, I think actually Netflix bought the rights to it in the hope of kind of foisting it on Harry and Meghan. So if you were part of that, you'd be fuming. You'd be absolutely furious. And then all the messages that you were getting back from the company would be on the lines, oh, well, don't hold your breath. The deal's up in September anyway. It's not been renewed or renegotiated yet. And, you know, obviously you would reach the view that Netflix had given up on Megan because you were in the TV bit where they're not making a huge amount of money.

15:34But you might feel completely differently if you were operating in another division of the company. So let's say you were working on the rollout of product lines linked to Netflix shows. You might feel that Megan was the test case for a hugely important project. And, you know, this was do or die for you because this was what you were working on. And if it's going to fail, then you might be out of a job. And so you might have a radically different impression of Megan. And so really it's, you know, the people at the very top who oversee the whole thing, who sometimes are the most illuminating and the most instructive.

16:07And so that's why Ted Sarandos's comments are so interesting. And when he's talking like this, I do struggle a little to see Megan and Netflix completely parting ways. And I do think there's a huge potential for Megan to earn loads of money for both sides out of as ever, if she can fix the problems with it. And this is not me saying that there aren't problems with it that need to be fixed, but it is potentially possible to fix those problems and then come out with something better one year on or whatever. So this week, I actually did a deep dive into the kind of money that Megan might be able to make based on the metadata from her site in the week of her second product launch, which we've been given at Newsweek.

16:49So obviously, the full story is on Newsweek. But essentially, asever.com chalked up half a million page views in the week she did her second product launch in June. So those products sold out in minutes, meaning she made a fraction of what she could be making from this website. So we don't think that for a minute that everybody who wanted to buy something from her got a chance to buy it. There wasn't enough supply. So most people left empty handed. So what could she bring in? Well, there's no way to absolutely definitively know. I don't have a crystal ball. Nobody does. But I wanted to just give a general indication of like rough ballparks.

17:30And this is indicative. It's a very, very rough guesstimate basically just to show that ballpark. So if you assume that every page view translated into a$9 jar of jam, that would mean she could have made$4.5 million in a week. Now, obviously I can already hear the chorus of dissent that it is very unlikely that every page view would. But then it's also unlikely that everyone would buy her cheapest product or that they would only buy one product. In fact, her most expensive food item is a$28 jar of limited edition honey. Now, we don't know how many she put on sale, but they did all sell out for what that's worth.

18:16And I'm told, you know, again, this is something that Nicky stressed to me, and he's an expert who I do value his perspective. And he says, the wine is the real money spinner. And that tallies, and it makes sense to me because of another example that I'm going to talk about a bit more. But the wine, she's debuted one bottle so far at the point of recording this podcast for$30 a bottle with a minimum order of three bottles, giving an overall price tag of$90 per customer. They have to pay postage and packaging, but we don't need to worry too much about that for our calculation. So obviously, each single customer for the wine, and that sold out really fast, is paying way more than$9 for a jar of jam.

19:02They're paying 10 times that much. So if she can really massively increase the supply of wine, and obviously Megan does not own a vineyard. She is not making this wine. It's being made by professional wine suppliers. Again, And we've done it separately in the past, a deep dive into the actual production, you know, the supply chain for her wine in the past. So check out Newsweek's website for that. But, you know, they're professional winemakers like they didn't come to winemaking yesterday. They've been doing it for years and years and years. So it's entirely possible that as time goes by and the wine that's really sold out was actually a 2023 vintage.

19:42So that wine was produced as ever was but a twinkle in Megan's eye. She soft launched it in 2024 as American Riviera Orchard and there was no talk about wine until after the first batch of her home farm style produce had launched in April. So if she can embed and get into place a proper deal with companies that know at the point that they're growing the grapes, that they're growing the grapes and they're making the wine for Megan, and it's like that from scratch, and she can get a really decent amount of supply, then she could make mega bucks. And how do we know that? Well, one example is George Clooney, who set up Casamigo's tequila with two other people, and him and his co-founders sold it to Diageo in 2019 for a billion dollars.

20:39That is a mega amount of money. Nick Ede also likes to cite another example, which is Kylie Minogue, who also has sold 21 million bottles of wine. So 21 million bottles is absolutely no laughing matter. And Kylie Minogue is a big star, and I actually love her music. I don't know if people know her or don't know her. She's fantastic, so go out and listen to her. But either way, Megan is massively famous all over the world. And if she can go global with the distribution, then there is clearly potential that she could sell mega amounts of wine if she can get that supply side there. And Kylie Minogue's wine, you can buy it in supermarkets.

21:17So if Megan could get to that level where even if it's not in supermarkets, if it's in hotels or if she can increase the distribution so it's not all through her website, then I think there is huge potential for her to make mega amounts of money. And she doesn't actually need to get to George Clooney's$1 billion figure. She doesn't even need to get, you know, if she can make personally even, let's say, you know, she got to$500 million and half of that went to Netflix, you know, they would have easily recouped all of the money that they invested in Harry and Meghan as TV producers with a whole chunk of profit on top of it.

21:54So, like, there is potentially serious money to be made here. and I just really struggle to see Netflix walking away from that, because as Ted Sarandor said, they are trying to learn the lessons to work out how to do this elsewhere in their business. So it's not just the profit that they stand to make from as ever growing and selling loads of product and making loads of money, it's also the lessons that they stand to learn that they can then roll out for. I know they've done some stuff with Bridgerton, but any other TV seasons that we don't even know about yet that are coming down the pipeline.

22:31So Megan does, in my view, need to massively, massively increase the supply. She will not want to compromise on the quality. Obviously, that can be a huge challenge, but I can see no reason why she shouldn't be able to do this. I think she's under pressure to do it quite quickly, and that might be a challenge. And it could be that if she leaves it too long, then the whole thing will go stale and people will just accept the reality that they're not going to have a chance to buy her products because they sat out too fast and lose interest and go elsewhere. But it's obviously an if, but if she can fix the problems with as ever and make it better and just stop mucking around and just nail it basically, then I see no reason why she shouldn't make a lot of money.

23:14Now, for some people who are on the anti-Megan side of the fence, they might scoff at that and say, Megan's a disaster. No one would want to buy her products because they're overpriced and they're terrible. And honestly, I do think some of her products are significantly overpriced. I'm not about to go out and buy edible flowers, but people buy all kinds of random stuff. This is the thing. People buy all kinds of nonsense and they sometimes buy stuff that's horribly overpriced. That's life. This is capitalism. This is a thing that happens in the world. and I think basically those people who are anti-Meghan are yearning for a kind of justice to be inflicted on Meghan for the crime of tarnishing the reputation of the monarchy.

23:59But let me just tell you one thing. In a capitalist economic system, it's not about justice. It's about money and people spend their money on crazy stuff. It doesn't have to be worth the price tag. People are paying for her name and to say that they bought it off royalty, to say that they bought it off a real princess, and Meghan is still a princess. Royalists might hate her, and members of Harry's family, including certainly the next king, if not the current one, may well hate her. But you don't stop being a princess just because you're not a working royal, and you don't stop being a princess just because your brother-in-law doesn't like you.

24:38All the negative reviews and all the articles in the media attacking Meghan just help to whip up curiosity. I know loads of people who watched With Love Megan just because they wanted to make their own minds up. And there's no way they'd have watched the show if it wasn't for all of those bad reviews and criticism. So do not bet against people buying this stuff just because it's overpriced. Some of it really is overpriced, but people who have loads of money will think nothing of paying over the odds. They'll think nothing about$9 for a jar of jam. Honestly, they won't. and capitalism has never been about justice and honestly I'm not convinced that it ever really will be like sometimes capitalism can improve social justice largely by happenstance and sometimes it relentlessly tramples on everything that people hold dear and you know there's no real rhyme or reason it just does what it does because it's driven by profit and economic growth and you know never bank on it to deliver justice because that's not what it's for And on that note, I'm going to take a quick break.

25:45But before I do, remember to rate and review The Royal Report on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your favourite shows. And when I'm back, Donald Trump has given King Charles a glimpse into the future.

26:01Hello and welcome back to the show. Donald Trump is in Scotland, but not to see the royal family. Instead, he gave British Prime Minister Keir Starmer one of the more awkward moments of his political career to date with just a whole series of jaw-dropping remarks, all of course on camera at a press conference. This particular one took place at Donald Trump's golf course up in Scotland. And it's obviously, you know, first and foremost, this is a political story. King Charles obviously wasn't there. And we're not expecting the king to see the president. And but this is just a chance, I suppose, for aides at Buckingham Palace to get a sense of what version of Donald Trump might turn up for the state visit in September.

26:45And Trump really made Keir Starmer squirm on issues like immigration, on the kind of alt-right leader of the Reform Party, Nigel Farage, on trade, which he said, you know, all of the trade deals should go to Scotland. all kinds of things that you know just basically goaded starmer into making a decision you know do i stand up to this man and risk wounding his fragile ego and therefore provoking a retaliation from him or do i passively accept being monstered basically and humiliated in front of the world's media in which case you know it's like it's a challenge that's the challenge do you show weakness or do you show strength?