One of the saddest/funniest things to watch is all of the royal reporters with exclusive “Netflix sources” have to admit that Netflix is really happy with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Almost everyone is in agreement at this point: Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos is a huge fan of Meghan in particular, and Sarandos is still finding ways to monetize the Sussexes’ projects. Netflix is invested in As Ever, and they are super-supportive of With Love, Meghan. To the point where even NewsNation admits that WLM is getting a THIRD season. At least.
This week, Meghan Markle bizarrely announced on her “Confessions of a Female Founder” podcast that she was putting her As Ever line of food products on pause before “restocking” to ensure everything was “stable” — telling guest Tina Knowles, “I’m looking at it, saying, just pause. That happened. Let’s wait until we are completely stable and we have everything we need.”
As I reported (and people are now just picking up on) earlier this year, Markle had only a “limited supply” of products — jams, dried flower sprinkles, crepe mix, etc — ensuring they would sell through quickly, a common marketing gimmick.
As I also reported, the “second season” announced immediately after the first dropped, was a turn of phrase as the shows had already been shot, and it gave editors time to edit in As Ever products. It is the first time Netflix has fully produced a product line and, like QVC or Home Shopping Network, sees it as a new cash cow for them (doing shows and selling products from these shows that Netflix manufactures).
The new line of As Ever products is said to include tablecloths, linens, silverware and everything one would need to make a pretty table scape… something Markle, a visualist, is very keen on. And a third season of the show will focus on the new As Ever products — and how people at home can buy them.
Markle, whose show “With Love, Meghan” dropped off Netflix’s top ten in less than a week, may have alienated her agent, her coworkers and the royal family, but she has one big supporter in her corner… Netflix head Ted Sarandos. In an interview with Variety (which called the show a “forced march”) Sarandos said, “I think Meghan is underestimated in terms of her influence on culture. When we dropped the trailer for the ‘Harry & Meghan’ doc series (in 2022), everything on-screen was dissected in the press for days. The shoes she was wearing sold out all over the world. The Hermès blanket that was on the chair behind her sold out everywhere in the world. People are fascinated with Meghan Markle. She and Harry are overly dismissed.”
I hear that while most people are “done” with the Sussex crew at Netflix, this third season will be a Hail Mary to try and see if commerce and entertainment really can be combined for a profit at the streamer. A rep for Markle didn’t return emails.
Yes, this is what corporations worth $532 billion do: they make “Hail Mary” decisions to greenlight a third season of an inexpensively produced lifestyle show with a famous, popular and charismatic woman. Everyone at Netflix clearly despises the Sussexes too, which is why the billion-dollar corporation invested in As Ever, as some kind of Hail Mary! This is how Meghan’s biggest haters admit defeat: grumbling and lying all the way. Five years from now, they’ll be swearing that the tenth season of With Love, Meghan will be the last, and any day now, Netflix will be super-tired of supporting the extremely lucrative As Ever line!
Photos courtesy of Netflix.
