As I said yesterday, I’m more interested in hearing what the trade papers and industry sources are saying about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Spotify mess, as opposed to hearing whatever hysterical and deeply unserious sh-t is coming out of the British media. This week, the Hollywood Reporter did a lot to lower the temperature around the Sussex/Spotify story, putting the whole thing in a much bigger context of what Spotify has done wrong, what market adjustments the company is making and how there are lots of high-profile people fleeing Spotify too, they just don’t have the bright, white, hot spotlight of the Sussexes. Well, Vanity Fair has also done an interesting piece called “Is the Air Coming Out of Harry and Meghan’s Content Balloon?” It was written by Joe Pompeo, one of VF’s journalists on the media/streamer beat. Meaning, his sources are within WME, Spotify and Netflix, not Camilla Tominey’s ass. Some highlights:

Whether Meghan conducted interviews for Archetypes: A source familiar with the Archewell deals said Meghan conducted all of the primary-guest interviews, like those with the Mariah Careys and Mindy Kalings of the world; interviews with secondary voices for certain episodes were handled by a producer, which is not an unheard-of practice.

The Sussexes pitched plenty of other projects: I’m told Harry and Meghan pitched show concepts and acquisitions that Spotify didn’t move forward with; the Obamas, as I previously reported, shared a similar frustration before they left Spotify for Audible.

The state of the Sussexes’ Netflix contract, according to the UK papers: The end of Spotify’s Sussex experiment has of course kicked up speculation about the future of Harry and Meghan’s $100 million deal with Netflix. The Sun’s US website says the deal is “unlikely” to be renewed, with a source suggesting, “The feeling is that the lemon has been fully squeezed.” Of course it was only weeks ago that The Sun’s UK newsroom suggested Harry and Meghan were set to produce more content from “behind the Netflix cameras” now that the tell-all “period of their life is over—as there is nothing left to say,” in the words of an “insider.” Which is it?

The reality of the Sussexes’ Netflix deal: “The Netflix deal is in better shape than it ever has been,” according to my source familiar with the Archewell deals, who said Harry’s Heart of Invictus documentary is slated for later this summer, and that there are “various projects in development that haven’t been announced that all parties are really excited about.” (Requisite caveat: Anything can happen.)

Again, they’ve got WME on their side: To be fair to Harry and Meghan, their haters are legion and the schadenfreude runs deep. It’s also not as if they’re chugging along without capable representation to negotiate future contracts. On the contrary, Meghan and Archewell Productions are, as of April, represented by WME, the powerhouse talent firm that will now explore “film and television production, brand partnerships, and overall business-building” with the Sussexes, according to Variety. Responding to the Spotify news, a WME rep told the Journal, “Meghan is continuing to develop more content for the Archetypes audience on another platform.” (WME had nothing to add.)

The future of Brand Sussex: And yet, the $100 million question remains: Does the world really want any more content from Harry and Meghan, let alone content that isn’t about them? I found one possible answer to that question in a Tuesday column from The Guardian’s Marina Hyde. “Experience and ratings continue to reveal that where the Sussexes are concerned, people want to watch them complain about their lives and their treatment by the royal family,” she wrote. “That is the sole genre in which Meghan and Harry truly pull in the eyeballs—which, considering they are literally the only people working in it, still feels like theirs to dominate.”

[From Vanity Fair]

“The Netflix deal is in better shape than it ever has been… [there are] various projects in development that haven’t been announced that all parties are really excited about.” Well, that’s good. There’s so much “but what have you done for us lately” about the past week of gloom and doom – the Sussexes delivered a popular podcast, a hit Netflix docu-series and a massive bestseller memoir, and all of those successful projects came out within a six months time-frame, a period which also saw Harry’s grandmother keel over right after she met Liz Truss. It’s been… a lot. Anyway, looking forward to Heart of Invictus and looking forward to what feels like the Sussexes signing on to Audible or some other podcasting platform.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.