Former president could be a Netflix star
LOS ANGELES — The news this week that Barack and Michelle Obama are in talks with Netflix to create nonfiction shows sent the intrigue-meter spiking from Washington to the West Coast.
The development has the expresident and ex-first lady negotiating with Netflix for issuedriven shows. The former first couple would serve as producers and maybe even star; a talkshow format isn’t out of the question.
Netflix declined to comment. An Obama spokesperson offered a general comment to the New York Times, about the couple’s belief in storytelling.
Obama would come in a long line of ex-presidents and ex-vice-presidents turning to media or art: documentaries (Al Gore), lectures (Bill Clinton), painting (George W. Bush) and memoirs (pretty much all of them).
Yet he would also break significant new ground. There are traditional ways for ex-presidents to communicate with the public. A digital subscription service isn’t one of them.
For Netflix the strategy is clear, if hardly a slam-dunk. The company aims to spend $8 billion and offer 700 original shows this year. Algorithms, Netflix asserts, means many of them don’t need to be big to succeed.
That kind of volume thinking would seem to argue against a show from one of the most recognized couples on the planet. But to attract subscribers globally — and an Obama-studded series would play big in Europe and other growing Netflix markets —the company needs Alisters too.
Broadcast play?
And if you’re going to sprinkle in some blockbuster programming, you may as well make it the most major namebrand. To use a phrase digital-minded Netflix executives would surely hate, the Obamas represent their broadcast play.
Interestingly, as major as this would be for Netflix, it would almost be narrowcasting for the Obamas. Even mid-level directors quietly grumble about exposure on Netflix, where shows and movies have a way of sinking with little advertising or home-page play.
Which raises the question of why the Obamas would do it. And while only they could tell you, a Netflix series would offer some advantages.
It’s a platform that at least has the potential to reach a lot of people — 117 million and counting. That reach would also happen cleanly — Netflix is known for its hands-off approach. Streaming is a simple way for the Obamas to get back in the discourse game, a way of shaping the political conversation without all the messiness of jumping back into politics.
Other presidents
All presidents use the entertainment medium that suits them.
Ronald Reagan was a midcentury screen star, and he took advantage of his 50-foot persona to make the transition to politics.
Bill Clinton, with his colorful past and outsized appetites, was tailor-made for the MTV age and he played that card to perfection.
Donald Trump of course took the national craving for brash, blunt, love-it-or-leave-it broadcast-reality TV and rode it all the way to the White House. (There’s an irony in Obama as a nonscripted TV star while Trump sits in the White House.)