Judge Judy & Toys R Us, Part 2s

they're back again again!

---

Short post offering updates on two of my favorite topics.

---

Last year I wrote about Judge Judy’s high-stakes move to Amazon Prime. My argument was that Judge Judy’s massive viewership might not follow. People who watch Judge Judy have been watching Judge Judy for decades. It’s a routine. They watch it while they tidy up or whittle or stack matchsticks. Inertia will prevent people from breaking in a new habit. They’ll watch whatever comes on in Judy’s place instead of logging on to Prime and watching on demand. That's what I said, but I was wrong. The New York Times wrote that viewers watched Judge Judy for 150 million hours. If you’re wondering whether that’s good or bad, I can’t help you. Conventional TV has third-party rating systems so the public (and advertisers) can measure popularity. THere isn’t yet an alternative for streaming platforms, so Amazon will just make up a metric like “hours watched.” However, more importantly, Amazon renewed Judy’s show and authorized three spin-offs. We may not have the viewership numbers, but we do know the Judy-verse has arrived. America’s greatest judge clearly blew through Amazon’s expectations.

Toys R Us is officially back, again. I covered the rise and fall of the iconic toy store, but the story wasn’t over. Toys R Us was bought by WHP Global, the same company that owns brands like Bonobos and Anne Klein. Right now there's just one store location in New Jersey and then a bunch of “shop-in-shops” at Macy’s around the country. That is a sad, sad place for any company to be in. It was tough to even write that sentence. New Jersey? This year WHP is launching 24 more stores, mostly at airports like Dallas Fort-Worth. Seems like travel retail is the revamped strategy. Stay tuned!

the new Toys R Us, the most exciting thing to happen to New Jersey since The Sopranos.