Obi-Wan Kenobistayed to the end, felt sad and then got
on with their lives. Jed Mercurio has
cornered the market in pulp fiction
shows like Line of Duty that have big
finales, but he won’t put his shows on
iPlayer until after they go out. I really
like The Good Place; its finale was Janu-
ary 2020, and I watched it two weeks
ago. Endings are not an event if you can
watch whenever you want.”
This may explain why Mandabach is
sanguine about Peaky’s ratings. “The
ratings have nothing to do with any-
thing,” she explains. “Ninety per cent
of Peaky’s audience don’t live in the UK,
and the depth of feeling an audience
has for a show doesn’t match numbers.
It’s not how many but who and how
much do they feel for Tommy Shelby.
It’s not a ratings economy — it’s an
attention economy.”
In 2017 Netflix’s Reed Hastings
summed this up when he said that Net-
flix’s No 1 competitor was sleep. “And
we’re winning,” he claimed. “It’s 8pm,
you’re next to your TV — which remote
control do you pick up: PlayStation?
TV? Or Netflix? If you get a show you’re
really dying to watch, you end up stay-
ing up late at night.”
The attention economy is measured
online by companies such as Parrot
Analytics, which tracks the behaviour
of 300 million viewers a month — the
UK audience measurement system
BARB uses 50,000 — and scores pro-
grammes according to the time viewers
spend discussing or researching shows.
Peaky Blinders was one of the high-
est scoring shows in the UK during its
run, 40 times more popular than the
UK average, which is considerably
above the No 2 show, Doctor Who. The
audience was young and slightly more
female than male. Line of Duty may
have scored higher numbers in 2021,
but most of its viewers were over 40,
with a high percentage in their sixties.
Parrot’s system doesn’t register the
difference between love and hate, so
people flocking to Twitter to fume
about Emily in Paris rank the same as
enthusiasts praising the sensitive por-
trayal of family drama in The Split.
The attention economy is impor-
tant, Featherstone says, because a
series budget tends to go up as the
show progresses while viewing tends to
go down. “When the two lines cross,
that’s when broadcasters end the
show,” she explains. “But with more
shows on subscription, curated fan-
dom — shows with passionate fans who
love the show enough to renew their
subscription every month — means loy-
alty is going to be much more impor-
tant than numbers. That’s going to
make for a future where producers are
no longer creating falsely over-the-top
finales to generate interest.” She
pauses. “Although there’s no way of
avoiding at least some of the audience
being outraged. It’s just hard to satisfy
all of the audience no matter how per-
fect it is.” c
I
s the streaming boom about to
come to an end? People are
ditching their subscriptions in
their droves, the number of UK
homes with Netflix, Amazon and
Disney+ falling by 215,000 in the
first three months of this year. We
are facing a cost-of-living crisis as
inflation soars, and streamlining your
streamers is an easy way to cut back.
It’s a change from what happened
during the pandemic, when
streaming services were more
popular than ever.
A case in point is Netflix. Its
subscriber numbers fell for the first
time in more than a decade, dropping
by 200,000 in the first quarter. Now
the streaming service has revealed
plans to introduce adverts as a way of
making a cheaper subscription plan
available to viewers. But deciding
which streaming service to ditch
isn’t easy — to help you to decide,
here are the big shows coming up.The Offer
How was the best gangster film
made? This ten-episode series
follows the making of Francis Ford
Coppola’s 1972 film The Godfather.
Miles Teller stars as Albert S Ruddy,
who is hired as the producer for the
film adaptation of the bestselling
novel by Mario Puzo, alongside Juno
Temple as the showbiz agent Bettye
McCartt. Thursday, Paramount+Obi-Wan Kenobi
Ewan McGregor’s eagerness to return
to the Star Wars franchise has long
been documented. Now, almost 23
years since he first played the Jedi
master, he will return in a six-part
series about his adventures in the
galaxy. May 27, Disney+Conversations with Friends
The 12-part adaptation of Sally
Rooney’s bestselling debut novel
about navigating relationships is just
as compelling (and sexy) as Normal
People. It’s the story of Frances, a
young woman who falls in love with
a married man, played by Joe Alwyn.
Jemima Kirke, of Sex Education and
Girls, is his wife. May 15, iPlayerAtlanta
After nearly four years off air, the third
season of Donald Glover’s unique
comedy-drama will return. This series
is set in Europe as Brian Tyree Henry’s
Alfred embarks on a tour with his
cousin and manager Earn (Glover).
June 29, Disney+Only Murders in the Building
Steve Martin’s whodunnit about
three true crime obsessives becamememoir has been turned into a
seven-part series starring The
Morning Show’s Bel Powley and
The Witcher’s Emma Appleton.
Prepare for a nostalgic dive into
growing up in the early Noughties
and an unflinching account of
surviving your twenties. June, iPlayerUnder the Banner of Heaven
Inspired by the true crime bestseller
by the American writer Jon Krakauer,
this seven-part series follows the
events that led to the 1984 murder of
Brenda Wright Lafferty (Daisy
Edgar-Jones) and her baby daughter
in a suburb in the Salt Lake Valley,
Utah. The Oscar nominee Andrew
Garfield stars as a detective and
devout Mormon, and the series is
written by Tom Daley’s husband,
Dustin Lance Black. Summer, Disney+House of the Dragon
Game of Thrones ended its
award-winning run on a low note,
but a new prequel series will try to
make amends. Based on George RR
Martin’s Fire & Blood, it will follow a
civil war that took place 200 years
before the events of the original
series. Matt Smith (Doctor Who)
stars alongside Paddy Considine.
August, NowThe Lord of the Rings: The Rings
of Power
In 2017 Amazon made headlines
for buying the global rights to The
Lord of the Rings for $250 million
(£191 million) with plans to make a
television spin-off. Fans were in
raptures when a teaser of the series
was released during the Super Bowl
in February. Set thousands of years
before JRR Tolkien’s renowned trilogy,
the new series will follow the origin
story surrounding the rings of power.
September, AmazonA Spy Among Friends
Based on Ben Macintyre’s Cold War
history, this six-part drama traces the
defection of the British intelligence
officer and KGB double agent Kim
Philby (played by Guy Pearce). It also
stars Damian Lewis as a friend of his,
the MI6 officer Nicholas Elliott.
Autumn, BritboxTed Lasso
After two brilliant seasons, the Emmy
award-winning show returns for a
third, with Jason Sudeikis’s American
college coach turned football
manager, and his brilliant moustache,
taking centre stage once again.
And there’s a new character, a
“charming venture capitalist” played
by Jodi Balfour. Late 2022, Apple TV+NEW TV SHOWS TO LOOK FORWARD TO By Jake Helm
a surprise hit, collecting Golden Globe
nominations for Martin and his co-star
Martin Short. Now it will return for a
second series. It’s good-hearted family
fun. June, Disney+Everything I Know About Love
The author and agony aunt for The
Sunday Times Style magazine Dolly
Alderton’s funny and heartbreakingA Spy Among FriendsHouse of the DragonAtlanta24 April 2022 13