Netflix & Prime Video Lead Streaming Viewership Growth In May; Roku Channel Becomes Third FAST Service Reported By Nielsen

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Casey McQuiston’s romance novel “Red, White & Royal Blue” was an instant New York Times bestseller when it first came out in 2019 and it’s topping bestseller lists once again ahead of Prime Video’s film adaptation which premieres on August 11.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. One of the best Prime Day deals this year is a crazy offer on Prime Video, which is currently offering subscriptions to networks such as Paramount+, AMC+ and Starz for only 99 cents per month.  Although Prime Day doesn’t kick off until July 11, this deal went live on July 5 and runs through the end of Prime Day at 11:59 pm ET on July 12.   Prime members usually have to pay between $7.99 and $10.99 for any individual channel they add onto their Prime Video accounts (the same price they would cost on their respective websites).

Charna Flam Prime Video released the first official trailer for its upcoming original series, “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart,” which will premiere on Aug. 4. The series will drop with the first three episodes and will be followed by a weekly rollout of the remaining four episodes until the series finale on Sept. 1. Sigourney Weaver stars as June Hart, alongside Asher Keddie as Sally Morgan, Leah Purcell as Twig North, Frankie Adams as Candy Blue, Alycia Debnam-Carey as Alice Hart, as well as Alexander England, Charlie Vickers, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Sebastián Zurita, Alyla Browne and Xavier Samuel. The new series is based on Holly Ringland’s 2018 debut novel of the same name, which chronicles the story of Alice Hart, her family and their dynamics in the Australian outback. “When Alice, aged 9, tragically loses her parents in a mysterious fire, she is taken to live with her grandmother June at Thornfield flower farm, where she learns that there are secrets within secrets about her and her family’s past. As she grows from her complicated past, Alice’s journey builds to an emotional climax when she finds herself fighting for her life against a man she loves,” per the official press release.

Prime Video has dropped the official trailer for the Amazon Original series The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart starring Sigourney Weaver.

K.J. Yossman Soccer star Kalvin Phillips is the subject of a new doc on Amazon Prime Video. Phillips, one of Manchester City’s top players, will tells his story in “Kalvin Phillips: The Road to City.” From his early days at Leeds Academy to Man City’s historic triple win (taking the Premier League, FA Cup, UEFA Champions League), “The Road to City” will chart Phillips’ meteoric rise. “The documentary paints an intimate portrait of a footballer with deep roots and family values as it follows his journey to Manchester City and the dramatic injury ahead of the biggest tournament in football, the 2022 FIFA World Cup,” reads the logline.

Naman Ramachandran “Dangal” filmmaker Nitesh Tiwari’s “Bawaal,” starring Varun Dhawan (“Bhediya”) and Jahnvi Kapoor (“Mili”), has unveiled a teaser and confirmed its direct-to-digital global premiere date on Amazon’s Prime Video. Varun Dhawan plays Ajay Dixit, a school teacher in Lucknow, idolized by his students, and admired by everyone in town and Janhvi Kapoor as Nisha, a bright and beautiful girl, whose only hope is to find her one true love. But love is never easy and it has to passage through a war of its own. The film is shot in India and multiple international locations. The film is produced by Sajid Nadiadwala’s banner Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment in collaboration with Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and Nitesh Tiwari’s Earthsky Pictures.

Naman Ramachandran Seasoned media executive Gideon Khobane has joined Amazon as the director for Prime Video Africa. Khobane joins with a remit to support the growth of the Prime Video service across sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa and Nigeria. Working closely with the Africa Originals team, headed up by Ned Mitchell, the content acquisitions team, led by Ayanna Lonian and product teams responsible for launching customer features, Khobane is tasked with helping to provide a mix of original and exclusive TV series and movies for existing Prime Video members and to attract new customers in sub-Saharan Africa. The executive, whose experience over his 18-year career ranges from pay-TV to free-to-air broadcasters across sub-Saharan Africa, most recently served as a group executive responsible for general entertainment for the Multichoice Group, and previous to that, served as CEO of SuperSport International and channel director at M-Net. Khobane will continue to be based in South Africa.

Jack Ryan is returning to Amazon Prime Video for a fourth and final season – you can find release details below.The new season sees John Krasinski return as Tom Clancy’s titular CIA analyst-turned-field agent for his “most dangerous mission yet”.The official synopsis for season four reads: “The fourth-and-final season of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan finds the titular character on his most dangerous mission yet: facing an enemy both foreign and domestic.“As the new CIA Acting Deputy Director, Jack Ryan is tasked with unearthing internal corruption, and in doing so, uncovers a series of suspicious black ops that could expose the vulnerability of the country.“As Jack and the team investigate how deep the corruption runs, he discovers a far-worse reality—the convergence of a drug cartel with a terrorist organisation—ultimately revealing a conspiracy much closer to home and testing our hero’s belief in the system he has always fought to protect.”The first two episodes of season four will be available on the service from 12am GMT on June 30. A further four episodes will follow, with one being released each week.Season three of the series debuted all eight episodes at once, but the service has now switched to a weekly release schedule for the final season.Alongside Krasinski, the fourth season will also see the return of Wendell Pierce (James Greer), Michael Kelly (Mike November) and Betty Gabriel (Elizabeth Wright).

Prime Video has announced a slate of upcoming releases for its India service ahead of Prime Day 2023 (July 15-16 in India), including horror series Adhura and a Telugu adaptation of hit YA drama Hostel Days. 

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Among the handful of new titles arriving on Netflix on July 1 is James Cameron’s “Titanic,” an addition that is rubbing some people the wrong way given last week’s tragedy aboard the OceanGate Titan submersible. Five members traveling inside the Titan were killed when the submersible imploded while en route to visit the wreckage of the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean. Some users on social media have criticized Netflix for bringing Cameron’s “Titanic” to the streaming platform so soon after the submersible tragedy. As one user wrote, “Netflix is overstepping the boundaries of decency on this timing.” Many people are accusing the streamer of attempting to capitalize on the Titan deaths by adding “Titanic” to its library.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Prime Video has unveiled 12 new unscripted reality and entertainment series coming to the Nordics, including an adaptation of the hit format “LOL: Last One Laughing” for Denmark and Norway. The streamer has also renewed the Swedish version of “LOL: Last One Laughing” for a second season. All Nordic versions of “LOL: Last One Laughing” are filmed and produced in Sweden by Jarowskij in Sweden, Metronome in Denmark and Nordisk Banijay in Norway. New Prime Video shows also include the Norwegian docu-reality series “Girls of Oslo,” a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of of well-known influencers Sophie Elise, Isabel Raad, Nora Haukland and Anniken Englund Jørgensen. “Girls of Oslo” is produced by Salto Film and will launch this Fall on Prime Video in Norway.

Prime Video’s unscripted originals push in the Nordics is continuing.

“Atlanta” to Terence Nance’s thought-provoking “Random Acts of Flyness” and Jordan Peele’s critically acclaimed films “Get Out” and “Nope,” this formerly niche genre seems to be thriving in mainstream entertainment.Writer, producer and musician Boots Riley, whose 2018 film “Sorry to Bother You” catapulted him to prominence as a filmmaker, returns with his latest project: “I’m A Virgo” on Prime Video. This highly anticipated series solidifies his position among the pioneers of the Afro-surrealist genre.Afrofuturism and Afro-surrealism, often seen as interchangeable, are different.

Netflix has made some big changes to the way it reports streaming viewership.

Netflix‘s Tudum: A Global Fan Event in Sao Paulo, Brazil was the place to be this weekend!

star of the “Wonder Woman” movies and periodic ensemble player in The “Fast” Saga, is getting her crack at a Netflix female-led actioner.In “Heart of Stone,” Gadot stars as an MI6 agent who secretly works for a covert peacekeeping organization known as The Charter. However, things go awry, as they often do in these films, leaving the professional badass comparatively isolated from her MI6 life and having to save the day with little backup.

Selome Hailu “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets” has had the biggest debut of any documentary series ever produced by Amazon Studios, Variety has learned. The limited series investigates controversies surrounding the Duggar family, best known for TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting,” including Josh Duggar’s conviction for possession of child pornography and the family’s connection to the Institute in Basic Life Principles, a controversial Christian organization. After premiering on Amazon Prime Video with all four episodes on June 2, “Shiny Happy People” reached more viewers in its first nine days than any Amazon docuseries, including high-profile titles like “LuLaRich,” the 2021 docuseries that examined the LuLaRoe pyramid scheme. (An exact tally of viewers for these series is unknown.)

leaving things very open-ended to pick up with more of the storyline found in Bardugo’s “The Six of Crows” and “Crooked Kingdom” duology. The author also confirmed discussions about adapting her more recently written adult novels “Ninth House” and “Hell Bent.”“We have had a lot of conversations about that.

Selome Hailu One of the most talked-about series on network television as of late has now made a showing on Nielsen’s weekly streaming rankings. “S.W.A.T.,” the CBS series starring Shemar Moore, took the No. 8 position with 625 million minutes viewed from May 15 to 21. This viewing window began one week after CBS canceled “S.W.A.T.” after six seasons on May 5 — then reversed the decision, renewing it for a seventh and final season on May 8. Additionally, much of its viewership success is likely due to the fact that the series’ first five seasons became available on Netflix on May 17, adding to the viewing hours measured on Hulu and Paramount+, where “S.W.A.T.” is also available.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Prime Video debuted the first-look image and revealed the premiere date for the adaptation of thriller series “Harlan Coben’s Shelter” from New York Times best-selling author Harlan Coben on Thursday. The show marks Coben’s first collaboration with Prime Video. The first three episodes of the eight-episode series will premiere globally on Aug. 18 exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide, with new episodes available each Friday, leading up to the season finale on Sept. 22. “Harlan Coben’s Shelter” follows the story of Mickey Bolitar after the sudden death of his father leads him to start a new life in Kasselton, New Jersey. Mickey quickly finds himself tangled in the mysterious disappearance of a new student at his school, Ashley Kent, which leads to uncovering unimaginable secrets within their quiet suburban community.