What I’m Hearing+: Plepler’s Surprise Hit, Amazon’s Bet, & Hulu’s Riddle

Hello, and welcome to the first edition of What I’m Hearing+, a new Puck private email dedicated to making sense of the streaming industry, building off Matt Belloni’s flagship property.
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Hello, and welcome to the first edition of What I’m Hearing+, a new Puck private email dedicated to making sense of the streaming industry, building off Matt Belloni’s flagship property. I’m Julia Alexander, an entertainment journalist turned analyst, Puck correspondent, and director of strategy at Parrott Analytics. My goal is to use data to inform, illuminate, and amuse you—and hopefully provide a better understanding of what matters in the streaming landscape as it evolves.

Mentioned in this email: The Mannings, Taron Egerton, Richard Plepler, Elton John, Kevin Feige, and Neil Patrick Harris.

But first…

Tuesday Thoughts

Amazon’s NFL Bet: Looks like Amazon wants its own version of ESPN’s popular ManningCast for Thursday Night Football. Hence the partnership with Dude Perfect, one of the most popular YouTube channels, in which the sports comedy group will perform various trick shots between plays. It’s a smart digital spin on the live alternate stream concept to bring in a devoted, younger fanbase, who will spend, spend, spend on Amazon’s platform post-game (they hope).

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The Only Surprise About Plepler’s New Hit Show

Richard Plepler has the surprise of the summer in Black Bird, but not because it is executive produced by the former HBO chief. It’s because the Apple TV+ show is so damn hard to find. Also: Notes on Hulu’s latest strategy.

JULIA ALEXANDER

The Apple TV+ miniseries Black Bird is, at first glance, precisely the type of prestige streaming show that should have broken out from the get-go. The Mindhunter-like crime drama hails from acclaimed author Dennis Lehane, stars a hulked-out Taron Egerton, Paul Walter Hauser, and Ray Liotta in his last project before he tragically died earlier this year. Perhaps most notably, the series is executive produced by Richard Plepler, the legendary former HBO chief who launched Game of Thrones, among so many other genre-defining hits. That’s not a bad checklist.

There’s also a very good chance that, up until recently, or even just now, you didn’t know anything about Black Bird. Apple dropped the first two episodes on July 8, then moved to a weekly roll out. The finale drops this Friday, and while demand for the show has grown steadily, it didn’t really hit outstanding levels (2.7 percent of shows reach this tier) until July 22 globally and July 25 in the U.S., according to Parrot Analytics, where I work as director of strategy. Now, as buzz builds ahead of the finale, Black Bird is picking up speed and seemingly finding its audience. It’s the fourth most in-demand show on Apple TV+ right now, according to Parrot data. (Parrot Analytics combines consumption data with research, social media, and social video activity to determine cross platform demand for content in order to determine which series are most likely to drive subscription growth or retention.)...

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