Sussex media empire contracts as streaming deals shrink and royal intrigue fades

Six years ago, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrived in California with what looked like a blueprint for reinvention. They had just severed ties with the royal family in 2020, and within months they signed a reported $100 million deal with Netflix. A $20 million podcast contract with Spotify followed. The ambitions were sweeping: scripted dramas, unscripted series, children's programming, documentaries. They were not just leaving the palace—they were building a media empire.

But as the couple now prepare to return to the United Kingdom, those deals have either expired or been drastically reduced. The Netflix contract has been narrowed to a "first look" arrangement. The Spotify partnership ended in 2023 after producing just one podcast series. The question hanging over their departure from California is not whether they succeeded, but whether the American media dream was ever sustainable for them at all.

The story of their six years in content production is instructive about how the entertainment industry has transformed. When the Sussexes signed their Netflix deal in 2020, global streamers were in a feeding frenzy for big names. They were competing fiercely to lock down celebrities who could draw subscribers. The Sussexes had their pick of suitors—Disney, Apple, and others were all interested. They chose Netflix, and the timing appeared perfect.

Their 2022 documentary series, "Harry & Meghan," delivered exactly what audiences wanted: an intimate account of their relationship with the royal family, told from their perspective. It set viewership records for a documentary debut and became one of Netflix's most successful series ever. Everything that followed, however, struggled to replicate that success. A polo documentary featuring Harry failed to crack Netflix's global top 10. The second season of "With Love, Meghan," a cooking and lifestyle show, saw ratings collapse—it ranked as the 1,217th most watched title on the platform in the second half of last year. An animated children's series called "Pearl" was cancelled. Netflix ended its partnership with Meghan's lifestyle brand, As Ever, after just seven months.

The pattern was unmistakable: content that had nothing to do with royal intrigue could not sustain an audience. Evan Shapiro, a former US media executive and analyst of the creator economy, explained the brutal shift. "Just being famous is no longer enough," he said. The media landscape has transformed entirely. Where once studios could push content out and expect viewers to watch simply because a celebrity was involved, that era has ended. "The competition is literally every human on earth. Eight billion people with phones who are all competing with Meghan Markle."

The Spotify podcast deal met a similar fate. After producing Meghan's "Archetypes" series—which featured interviews with Serena Williams and Mariah Carey—the partnership ended by mutual consent in 2023. Meghan launched another podcast, "Confessions of a Female Founder," with Lemonada Media in 2025, but only nine episodes were made. She announced last year there would be no second season, saying she was focusing on her lifestyle brand instead. A Spotify executive, Bill Simmons, was blunt in his assessment, calling them "fucking grifters" after the deal collapsed.

Industry analysts pointed out that the Sussexes' experience mirrored that of the Obamas, whose Higher Ground production company also saw its Netflix deal narrowed to a "first look" arrangement in 2024, with their Spotify partnership ending in 2022. The lesson, according to media consultant Matt Navarra, is that "fame can buy you the first click, but only the content earns the second." The Sussexes arrived in Hollywood with nearly every advantage imaginable—wealth, global recognition, access to A-list talent. Yet audiences now have infinite entertainment choices and care nothing for how expensive a deal was or how famous the person behind it is. Curiosity about a person, Navarra noted, is not the same as demand for everything that person produces.

Meghan has reportedly begun returning to acting, her original profession before marrying Harry. She appeared as a celebrity judge on "MasterChef Australia" last month, an experience that reportedly reminded her how much easier it is to perform in a production shaped by someone else. She is now in talks to join the third season of Netflix's "The Gentlemen," a Guy Ritchie-created series. Meanwhile, Archewell Productions has evolved into a more traditional production company, with projects including a polo drama and a film adaptation of the novel "Meet Me at the Lake" in development. Harry is focusing on the Invictus Games, coming to Birmingham next year. The couple's return to the UK does not necessarily complicate their media ambitions—major production companies operate outside Hollywood all the time, and Britain remains a significant production hub. But the scale and certainty of their media future looks nothing like what they imagined when they signed those first transformative deals.