Amazon Prime’s new series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, is set 1,000 years before the famous Peter Jackson-directed films, whose last edition came out 19 years ago, and eight years after the concluding film of The Hobbit trilogy.
17.08.2022 - 11:35 / deadline.com
More than 350,000 households ditched subscriptions to the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ last quarter, according to regulator Ofcom’s annual Media Nations UK report, which showed a record year for British high-end TV production.
While still high at 19.2M, the proportion of UK households subscribing to an SVoD fell by 1pp to 67% across the quarter, coming as the deep-pocketed U.S. streamers struggle in their traditionally strong markets and rethink tactics.
Take-up of these services had been beginning to slow down in 2021 but the decline sped up last quarter, with around 4% cancelling Prime Video and Disney+ subscriptions and 2% cutting off Netflix.
The news comes off the back of a cost-of-living crisis in the UK, which only looks set to get worse and was flagged by Ofcom as “putting pressure on consumer spend.”
However, the number of households now accessing all three rose to one-fifth of the entire population, which costs a house £300 ($362) per year.
Netflix remains the most popular SVoD, with 60% of households subscribed, ahead of Prime Video (46%) and Disney+ (23%), the latter of which saw impressive early growth stall last quarter. Newer competitors such as Discovery+ (8%) and Apple TV+ (6%) lag far behind, while Q2 saw the launch of Paramount+ as competition ramps up.
Around three-quarters of people surveyed said they would consider resubscribing, “reflecting the flexibility of the SVoD consumer proposition,” added Ofcom, with customers “picking up and dropping subs depending on [specific shows] or change in needs or circumstances.”
While the annual 108-page report brought bad news for the UK’s public broadcasters – with average viewing falling by 9% and a generational divide shown up as over-65s were
Amazon Prime’s new series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, is set 1,000 years before the famous Peter Jackson-directed films, whose last edition came out 19 years ago, and eight years after the concluding film of The Hobbit trilogy.
Today (September 1) sees the launch in the US of Amazon Prime Video ’s highly anticipated series, The Rings of Power. This epic drama, set thousands of years before the events of Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, is thought to be the most expensive TV series ever made.
Once upon a time, there was a stigma between film and television, and when you were a big movie star, you never dared appear in a lowly TV series, and if you were a TV star, crossing over into movie stardom was unheard of and barely ever happened unless your name was John Travolta or George Clooney. And yes, thanks to prestige TV and the Age of Streaming, those days are long gone.
EXCLUSIVE: Emma Roberts (Madame Web) will exec produce and star in Space Cadet, a new rom-com from Stampede Ventures, which enters production this month. Also now aboard the film from writer-director Liz W. Garcia (The Lifeguard) is Prime Video, which will distribute it internationally.
Malibu Barbie and Brooklyn Barbie are ready to party under the sea after transforming into mermaids in TheWrap’s exclusive sneak peek at the upcoming Netflix movie musical adventure “Barbie Mermaid Power,” from Mattel.The film follows Barbie “Brooklyn” Roberts (who made her debut in the Barbie universe last fall), Barbie “Malibu” Roberts, and her sisters Skipper, Stacie, and Chelsea “on an underwater adventure as they transform into mermaids to help save the world of Pacifica,” per a logline from Mattel. “In ‘Barbie Mermaid Power,’ Barbie and Barbie are summoned by Isla (from Dolphin Magic) to compete to be the underwater Power Keeper in a series of challenges designed to find their inner powers.
Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), Archie Madekwe (See) and Alison Oliver (Conversations with Friends) are the newest additions to the cast of Prime Video’s upcoming feature Saltburn, written and directed by Academy Award winner Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman). The trio joins an ensemble, which also includes Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi and Rosamund Pike, as previously announced.
‘Camp Pleasant Lake’ Adds ‘Jerry Maguire’ & ‘Broil’ Actor Jonathan Lipnicki
above. The film will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Aug.
K.J. Yossman “Clarkson’s Farm,” the break-out British Amazon Prime Video hit starring former “Top Gear” host Jeremy Clarkson attempting to run a farm in the Cotswolds, has just wrapped and is already in the edit suite, confirmed Amazon Studios’ U.K. head of originals Dan Grabiner. “Because it’s farming and it’s authentic it’s so linked to the seasons and the farming year and the weather and things like that,” Grabiner said at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Wednesday morning. “Season 2 has just about wrapped filming. It looks amazing, I think that’s fair to say.” Grabiner also promised fans more of the show’s break-out stars Kaleb Cooper, a farming contractor, and experienced farmer Gerald Cooper, who tries to guide Clarkson in his thick West Country accent.
Manori Ravindran International Editor Soumya Sriraman, the former BritBox CEO who joined Amazon to lead its Prime Video Channels business in the U.S., is stepping down after two years at the SVOD. Sources indicate the executive is still at Amazon but will be leaving imminently for another role elsewhere. Sriraman is best known for her work pioneering the best-of-British streaming service BritBox in the U.S., where she is based. The SVOD launched there in 2017 and quickly reached 250,000 subscribers in one year. By the time Sriraman departed, in October 2020, the service had more than 1.5 million subscribers. The successful U.S. launch allowed joint operators BBC Studios and ITV to expand the brand to other markets, including Australia and Canada.
Of all the actors in recent months and years who have tried transforming into John Wick in punishing, stylized action movies, Allison Janney in her new film “Lou” may be the most surprising transformation yet. Janney leads the Netflix action movie “Lou” that also stars Jurnee Smollett and Logan Marshall-Green and is produced by J.J.
Ranvir Singh made a return to Good Morning Britain where she confirmed that it was her co-star's last day after another week of presenting shake-ups. The host was back at the helm of the ITV programme on Friday (August 19) with Paul Brand.
Emily Blunt will soon be seen in “The English”, a new series for Prime Video set in the Old West.
The Western genre waned in popularity in the 1980s, but 21st-century cinema still has the occasional film that harks to its heyday. Most of these are genre hybrids, like Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” or S.
Here’s a first look at Emily Blunt in Hugo Blick’s BBC and Prime Video drama The English.
The Queen’s granddaughter Lady Louise Windsor is to attend St Andrews University to study English after receiving her A-level results, Buckingham Palace said. Lady Louise, 18, received her results today, Thursday 18 August, along with the rest of A-level students across the nation.
K.J. Yossman The BBC and Amazon Prime Video have released first-look images of Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer in upcoming period drama “The English.”Written and directed by Hugo Blick (“The Honourable Woman”), “The English” is a Western set in 1890s America where an aristocratic Englishwoman called Lady Cornelia Locke (played by Blunt) and Pawnee ex-cavalry scout Eli Whipp (played by Spencer) join forces “to cross a violent landscape built on dreams and blood,” according to the logline.
Darius Campbell Danesh first found fame on our screens in Pop Idol in 2001, where he made it to the final of the live singing competition against Will Young and Gareth Gates in a contest that gripped the country. But although the star finished the series in third place, it was the beginning of a successful performance career Darius, who went on to release successful albums, appear in the West End, write a book and travel the world with his music.