Why King Charles ‘Better Hope’ Prince Harry and Meghan Get a New Deal With Netflix
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle signed a multi-year, mega-deal with Netflix shortly after stepping down as senior royals in 2020. That announcement led to many fans expecting a good amount of content from the duke and duchess to be released on the platform. As time passed though, questions arose about when and if the Sussexes were going to release any content at all for fans to stream.
Finally, in July 2021, Archewell Productions announced that Meghan was working on a children’s animated series. But in April 2022, Netflix axed that program titled Pearl while it was still in the development stages. However, in December 2022, the docuseries Harry & Meghan was released and became one of Netflix’s most-watched documentaries. Two more Sussex-produced programs Heart of Invictus and Life to Lead followed but failed to generate buzz or pull in numbers anywhere near what their docuseries did.
The prince and former Suits star are reportedly working on new content at the moment including Harry’s documentary about the sport of polo and Meghan’s cooking and gardening show. Their contract is set to end in 2025, but a royal expert claims that King Charles “better hope” they get a new deal.
Expert says there’s reason for King Charles to hope the Sussexes’ deal gets renewed
While there haven’t been any reports or announcements made that Netflix would renew Harry and Meghan’s deal after their current one ends, royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams broke down exactly why King Charles should hope the company does.
He told The Mirror: “After the Oprah interview, the Harry and Meghan Netflix documentary, and the publication of Harry’s memoir Spare, as well as the interviews he gave promoting it, the popularity of the royal family suffered and the Sussexes were considered to have gone rogue. The biggest casualty was trust. It is unsurprising that King Charles and Prince William no longer trust Harry and Meghan.”
Fitzwilliams continued: “If they lost [the Netflix] contract, Archewell, their business and charitable foundation having so few donors, they might well be in financial trouble. Since their exposés of royal life have made megabucks, but little else has made money, the royal family better hope that this unpredictable and ruthlessly ambitious couple stays with Netflix.”
After Spotify ended its deal with Prince Harry and Meghan, Netflix stuck with them
In 2023, the duke and duchess’s other big deal with Spotify came to an end when the company canceled Meghan’s podcast after just one season.
Bill Simmons, who is The Ringer’s founder, managing director, and the head of podcast innovation and monetization at Spotify, called them out on his podcast saying: “I wish I had been involved in the ‘Meghan and Harry leave Spotify’ negotiation ‘The F****** Grifters.’ That’s the podcast we should have launched with them.”
Questions swirled then about whether Netflix would follow suit and pull the plug on its deal with Harry and Meghan. But the company did not and said it “values its partnership with Archewell Productions.” A new deal, though, doesn’t seem likely given how long the Sussexes took to produce any content and how little they actually put out over the last four years.
According to public relations Mark Borkowski, Netflix would also have to decide if there’s still an appetite to hear from them when they’re not talking about the royal family. He told The Wrap: “Do people want content from them unless it is revealing something extraordinary [about themselves or the British royals]? I don’t know how much more they can reveal.”
