It’s been nearly two decades since soapy teen shows like “Gossip Girl,” “Pretty Little Liars” and “One Tree Hill” reigned on the CW and Freeform, but on Amazon’s Prime Video this summer, it’s 2007 all over again. While linear TV has largely abandoned the young adult genre, Prime Video is leaning into it in an attempt to woo Gen Z and millennials with bestseller adaptations and teen drama galore.
It all starts with Jenny Han’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” Prime Video’s crown jewel of YA (young adult) programming and streaming hit that’s wrapping up its third and final season this fall. Hoping to grab the baton are “We Were Liars” from “Vampire Diaries” creator Julie Plec and “Overcompensating” from social media comedian-turned-TV writer Benito Skinner, as well as a slew of upcoming TV adaptations of buzzy novels “Fourth Wing,” “Off Campus” and YA series from Megan Park’s “Sterling Point” to “Legally Blonde” prequel series “Elle.”
Collectively, these shows represent a big bet by Prime Video that YA content will hook Gen Z at a time when alternative sources of content, whether from TikTok or competing streamers, make the fight for audiences more difficult than ever. What’s notable is Prime Video is leaning deeper into YA at a time when most of its rivals have turned their back on the genre, including HBO Max, which canceled the newest iterations of IP heavyweights “Pretty Little Liars” and “Gossip Girl” and axed Mindy Kaling’s “The Sex Lives of College Girls.”
While getting Gen Z to sign up for streaming platforms has proven to be a tough task — only 56% of Gen Zers pay for at least one streaming service compared to the 75% of all Americans that do, per data from Bango — it’s an investment that pays off in the eyes of Vernon Sanders, Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios’ head of global TV, who told TheWrap that YA fans’ “pure passion” is an invaluable tool in hitting the cultural zeitgeist.
“This audience has really helped build Prime Video across the world, and as we’re seeing in just some of those international hits, when they work, they work for everyone,” Sanders said. “When we get it right … these shows aren’t just for young women. Young women drive the interest, but they can break through in culture and actually bring in much bigger audiences.”
Take “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” After a two-year break in between seasons, the show exceeded viewership expectations, with 25 million viewers across the globe tuning in during Season 3’s first week on Prime Video, according to internal data shared with press. The YA series also ranks as the No. 5 most-watched returning season on Prime Video (behind “Reacher” Seasons 2 and 3, “Rings of Power” Season 2 and “The Boys” Season 4).
Prime Video did not provide viewership data for “We Were Liars,” “Overcompensating” or coming-of-age drama “Motorheads,” but Sanders revealed their viewership was promising enough to open Season 2 writers’ rooms for all three shows, in the hopes that they might score renewals in the coming weeks.
Prime Video’s closest competitor in the YA space is Netflix, whose genre titles include “My Life With My Walter Boys,” “Ginny & Georgia,” Han’s “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” spinoff series “XO, Kitty” and “Heartstopper,” among others. Hulu has thrown its hat in the ring with steamy series “Tell Me Lies,” as has Apple TV+ with its take on regency era teens in “The Buccaneers.”
While Netflix takes the cake for the 12-17 and 18-34 age demographics, Prime Video clocked in just below Netflix in both demos in May, with persons 18-34 making up 15.90% of Prime Video’s audience while the age group accounted for 23.10% of Netflix’s audience, according to data from Nielsen. Those numbers don’t show the kind of loyalty that viewers have for specific shows.
“Young people today, they don’t tend to follow streaming services,” Hub Entertainment Research founder Jon Giegengack told TheWrap. “They don’t care about the company they’re watching from so much, but what they really care about are the stories and the IP and they’ll follow that from place to place.”
Which is why Prime Video has been investing in adaptations of YA bestsellers.
“It’s been exciting for us to build not just a conversation, but a community with this audience,” Sanders said. “We feel like we’re becoming a destination for these kinds of stories and these kinds of adaptations, and we’re excited about what’s to come.”
Activating fandom
In an effort to get Gen Z off TikTok and onto Prime Video, the streamer has tried to get audiences involved in the conversation much earlier.
While some chatter regarding buzzy adaptations like “TSITP” happens organically on social media, Prime Video encouraged even more chatter surrounding its upcoming titles with its women-led storytelling marketing campaign that culminated in a luncheon that brought together Han and “The Summer I Turned Pretty” star Lola Tung, “We Were Liars” showrunner Plec, “The Better Sister” showrunner Olivia Milch and “Culpa Mía” author Mercedes Ron with influencers and tastemakers who helped generate excitement for the stable of programs.
Sanders said the streamer hopes to keep pursuing events that bring talent from across the board together to mix and mingle.
“Our intention is to build a huge network, a web of audiences and connections … It’s about creating a home and creating a community for these fans,” Sanders said, adding that the streamer “can’t get started early enough” in terms of introducing the cast to fans and “building those levers of communication and letting them in early on what we’re cooking up for them and with them.”
Many of these conversations start with authors of the buzzy novels Prime Video is adapting, including Han, who carefully straddles fans of her bestselling trilogy of novels with show viewers. While Han serves as showrunner of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” herself, Prime Video stays in close contact with authors of its upcoming slate — including “Every Summer After” author Carley Fortune and “Off Campus” author Elle Kennedy — to drive engagement with fans.
“[What] we’ve learned from all of the adaptations we’ve done is just how important it is to get it right, to try to deliver what the fans love about each of those properties in unique and surprising ways,” Sanders said.
Sanders noted Prime Video has a “head start” when it comes to TV adaptations, given Amazon’s business of selling books. Those fans are more likely to be subscribed to Prime anyway (or have parents that do), while Amazon has unique insight into which titles are popping based on its own sales data, like the off-the-charts interest in romantasy hit “Fourth Wing” that made the book hard to obtain, even on Amazon.
“We have ways in which we can connect with people that are perhaps different than other other streamers,” Sanders said.
Indeed, Amazon’s cutting-edge ad-tech allows viewers to pause an episode of a show and one-click buy the dress or jewelry a character is wearing. Another reason to court Gen Z as it becomes the primary consumer generation.
Not all swings are hits. Although Prime Video brought in “Gossip Girl” EP Sara Goodman to co-run the TV adaptation of “Cruel Intentions” with Phoebe Fisher, the show failed to find its footing, leading Prime Video to cancel the reboot after just one season.
“We’ve loved that property for so long, and there’s so many pieces to that show that we really believed in, but for whatever reason, it didn’t click with audiences,” Sanders said. “All of our decisions are based on what we’re seeing, in terms of how many people watch, how many people complete the season, and as much as we loved it, we just see enough of a performance to justify a second season.”
Beyond the aforementioned titles and a potential second season of “We Were Liars” that would follow E. Lockhart’s prequel series “Family of Liars,” Prime Video is also gearing up for its adaptation of Stephen King’s “Carrie” from Mike Flanagan, which Sanders describes as “relevant” and “really true to the book” as it follows a bullied teen who gains telepathic powers.
And while “The Summer I Turned Pretty” is ending, the relationship with Han over the show’s three seasons has opened the door for a potential new project for her at Prime Video — Sanders noted the author has “a number of ideas about things that she could be doing on the film and TV side.” Han told TheWrap she is “always happy to go back to Cousins … if the stars were to align,” but these projects wouldn’t involve a “Summer I Turned Pretty” spinoff series.
“Real momentum”
As Prime Video bolsters its original YA slate, the streamer has leaned on the talent who ushered the golden era of soapy teen shows, including Plec, who serves as co-showruner for “We Were Liars” alongside “Roswell, New Mexico” creator Carina Adly Mackenzie. And “The O.C.” and “Gossip Girl” alums Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage were tapped to co-run “My Old Ass” filmmaker Megan Park’s upcoming series “Sterling Point.”
Sanders said they’re focused on finding the right voices to bring these kinds of shows to fruition and people who “have their finger on the pulse” of what’s relevant for teen audiences. That includes YA veterans like Plec, but also new voices like Park, whose Sundance indie “My Old Ass” performed well on the streamer, and social media star Skinner, whose “Overcompensating” was warmly received by fans.
“What I think has been most exciting is, as we started to build this, [who is] coming in the door and asking to work with us,” Sanders said. “There’s real momentum.”
