Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's media strategy needs to change, insiders reveal
EXCLUSIVE: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been urged to do projects which can show their more 'approachable' side
Sam McAlister is no stranger to high-profile TV projects involving the Royal Family.
Famously, she personally secured the bombshell BBC Newsnight interview with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, a process she wrote about in detail within the pages of her bestselling book, Scoops. This was later adapted into a feature film by global streaming giant Netflix, a project she served on as both an executive producer and on-set consultant.
Meanwhile, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have had a number of high-profile media projects seemingly collapse despite their best efforts. Despite a Daytime Emmy Award nomination, The Duchess of Sussex’s lifestyle programme, With Love, Meghan was cancelled by the global streamer after just two series.
This was following the termination of the couple’s multi-million-dollar deal with audio streamer Spotify. Speaking exclusively to the Royal Observer, the author warned Prince Harry and Meghan Markle that their activities have seemed quite “staged,” something modern audiences seem to shy away from.
McAlister remarked: “People want authenticity, and a version of authenticity might feel like you know pretzels and doing interviews that are very staged. But I think that really in the modern time, you know, get your words wrong … do things more casually, have interviews that don't feel over-staged, that feel more intimate, that feel more real [and] take a bit more risk."
She added: "I think the reward would be really good for them.”
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have released a number of high-profile projects with Netflix. This includes Harry’s 2023 documentary following competitors training for his Invictus Games and their sports series, which “pulled back the curtain” on professional polo. Before this, the couple dropped their highly publicised docuseries in 2022, Harry and Meghan, in which they went into more detail about their departure from the Royal Family.
This came after their bombshell sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey on CBS and Prince Harry's memoir, Spare. In 2020, the duo signed a multi-year deal with Netflix, which was previously valued at up to $100 million. Since the,n the streamer chose to move forward with a revised first-look agreement with Archwell Productions before Markle ended the lifestyle partnership on her brand, As Ever.
They do feel a little bit distant, I think, sometimes because everything is so perfectly administered. - Sam McAlister
McAlister thinks the duo should consider projects where they can display “warmth” and appear more approachable to their worldwide audience. She exclusively told The Royal Observer: “I would have them doing a very small number of things, not so stage managed, to make people understand, you know, the human warmth behind them that I'm sure there is, but sometimes is lost in translation,”
“So more of the kind of person you'd like to have a drinkwith inn a pub, rather than the kind of person that you would be frightened to approach.” She continued: “I think that would probably serve them well to show more of their real selves, which I'm sure is there, and I'm sure they have some lovely things about them.”
Adding: “But they do feel a little bit distant, I think, sometimes because everything is so perfectly administered, and that can give a distance between the viewer and the recipient of the camera.”
