It is one of the more aggravating aspects of the media. Highly-touted stories and projects receive far less attention when they dissolve and fail.

I covered this recently about the decision to remove Aunt Jemima from store shelves. The press raved when the Quaker Oats Company made the call to kill off the brand during the 2020 BLM protests. There has been little to no coverage of its disastrous after-effects.

In a similar fashion, we saw that Meghan Markle has flamed out on Spotify, with muted interest in how her trumpeted podcast deal recently ended. In 2020, when she was signed to a $20 million podcast deal, the press raved, claimed her show was highly rated, and that magnificence and a new podcast syndicate from the pariah royals was sure to follow. Then – very little had been heard. Apart from one holiday special, Meghan had her interview show Archetypes, which managed barely a dozen episodes.

When it was announced last month that the arrangement was ending, a joint statement was released on how Spotify and the Markles were mutually parting ways. The details show far more issues. After all the hype of the signing in December 2020, there was hardly any movement on providing content. The couple’s podcast company, Archwell Audio, took more than 6 months before even hiring a director for this division, and it was not until August 2022 before the first episode of her podcast emerged.

The royals have been paid significantly less than the tens of millions announced, due to a severe lack of production. Now in the weeks following the announced end of the deal with Prince Hank and his wife, dysfunction is being revealed. Famed sportscaster and Spotify executive Bill Simmons on one of his own podcast episodes had strong words about the couple just after the announced end of their deal with his company.

I wish I’d been involved in the Meghan and Harry leave Spotify negotiation, “The F***ing Grifters.” That’s the podcast that we should’ve launched with them. I gotta get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try to help him with podcast ideas. The grifters. It’s one of my best stories.

In one of the reported pitch ideas from Prince Harry, he proposed sitting down and interviewing no less than Donald Trump and Vladamir Putin, and discussing with these leaders how their upbringing and childhood experiences (and traumas) formed who they are. It seemed clear Harry wanted to frame things around his own experiences, something Meghan accomplished on her own truncated show. (Harry never managed to produce a show for Spotify.)

Now, more is being revealed: We are told that even while barely doing the work required, Meghan barely even did the work on that limited level. It was shown that, for some of her shows, she did not actually speak with her guests. While the episodes with famous names – Mariah Carey, Serena Williams, and others – had her speaking with them directly, in other episodes this was not the case. 

It seems when professors or writers were on discussing topics, the interview was actually conducted by a producer. Markle’s questions and comments were later edited into the discussion to appear as if she had been the one to speak with the guests. This becomes yet another indicator of how much the Royal Couple Mystique is simply a facade with an empty building behind it.

This past December, the head of Archwell Audio stepped down. This departure was preceded by the resignation of Archwell’s Director of Communications, as well as the President of the company, who walked away after a year and a half and was not replaced. Adding to the dysphoria inside their company, much like Spotify severing ties, Netflix also has seemed to struggle with the Markles. The pair signed a lucrative production contract with the streamer – estimated to be worth $100 million – also in 2020, but again, little has been shown for this. 

Apart from a documentary series – about themselves – there is little to be seen. A show following athletes competing in Harry’s competition, “The Inctus Games” has never materialized. Last summer it was announced Netflix canceled the production of Meghan’s animated program “Pearl”.

It should not come as a surprise to many that such a content-free couple would struggle mightily with actually producing content of any merit.