Who Lives in a Moai Statue Under the Sea?
This week has been full of discussions Apple TV Plus and Disney Plus new content. There's been a lot of talk about Apple's new shows (like "See," "The Morning Show," and "For all Mankind"), and there have been even more conversations about the plethora of options already available from Disney. But it should be understood that Netflix is not taking all of this new competition lying down. They may be losing some long-standing shows (Friends included)but they have plans to fill those slots and continue to push original Netflix productions.
Netflix has recently partnered with children's programming juggernaut Nickelodeon. The pair have agreed to a multi-year $200 million original animation deal. Many classic Nick toons already call Netflix home. (Anyone watch Invader Zim?) But with all the new streaming services new content will also be a key part of the deal. A lot of those new shows will include already popular characters from the extensive Nickelodeon catalog. It's obvious that this partnership was directly influenced by the new Disney streaming service which, without some changes across the market, could almost hold a monopoly on kid's content some time very very soon. What kinds of plans do Netflix and Nickelodeon currently have for their future? What are they working on together? Something that already has quite the built-in, and enthusiastic, audience. Spongebob Squarepants' depressive yet hysterical co-worker, Squidward, will finally get all the attention he deserves with his very own spinoff series out of this new content partnership.
The world is still waiting on details about this Squidward spotlight, though it has already been rumored the show will be very music-based. For those unfamiliar, Squidward has always been a prolific clarinet player on the "Spongebob Squarepants" program. In an era of partisan politics and climate change, Squidward may, in fact, speak more to the general television audience than the ever peppy and upbeat Spongebob. It will certainly take more than a straight-talking squid to save the streaming service most people have relied on in recent years. It's a new dawn in the era of streaming and Netflix is both aware and, maybe, a little bit afraid. This deal with Nickelodeon is at least pointing them in what is assumed to be the right direction. Maybe it's time to take a page out of Apple's book (they currently have the least content to choose from) and go for greater quality in programming options. We will have to wait and see how everything shakes out.
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