"I'm A Celebrity" Booking Secrets

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Speaker 2 Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me, Marina Hai.

Speaker 1 And me, Richard Osman. Good day to you all.
Good day, Marina.

Speaker 2 Good day to you. Good day, how formal this is.
Good day to thee.

Speaker 2 If there's a me thinks in this podcast, I'm pulling the plug. That's it.
It's one of them.

Speaker 1 Methinks is so useful because if anyone ever says it on social media, you know you can immediately block them. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Block and report. Block and report.
Yes.

Speaker 2 What are we going to be talking about this week?

Speaker 1 A number of things. We are going to be talking about Sky and ITV, who may be merging.

Speaker 2 Well, Sky's going to buy ITV, maybe.

Speaker 1 Yes. I mean, that's what I mean by merging.
It's like I merged with Ingrid when we married. Whereas really...

Speaker 2 Well, I believe you...

Speaker 1 Yes. We all know I was bought out by a much more impressive company.

Speaker 2 We will talk about this entire deal via the prism of your marriage to Ingrid.

Speaker 1 Amazing.

Speaker 2 And what it all means.

Speaker 1 What it all means. We are going to talk about...

Speaker 1 Speaking of Sky, they launched a TikTok channel specifically designed for women. How long did it last?

Speaker 2 For women's sports.

Speaker 1 For women's sports.

Speaker 2 It was born on a Thursday, Richard, and they read the last rites to it on a Sunday.

Speaker 1 We will discuss why.

Speaker 2 So that's quite fun.

Speaker 1 And we're also going to talk, well, we're going to talk about I'm a Celebrity. We're going to talk about celeb booking.

Speaker 2 I'm a Celebrity started last night. It's the 25th series of the ITV jungle-based format.
Seems like more.

Speaker 2 Well, yes, I mean, it's quite interesting.

Speaker 2 Anyway, so I suppose that's quite relevant to what we're saying is I think more than 300 people have now gone into the jungle.

Speaker 2 If you're one of the people, and we're going to talk about booking a talent show, because this has come obviously right after Celebrity Traitors, which is not everyone's favorite act to follow, I'm sure.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's tough. But booking these reality shows and how you do it,

Speaker 2 the mix that you need. The mix that you need.
And as I say, when more than 300 people in the entertainment industry, sort of front-facing, have gone into the jungle, the pool is relatively small.

Speaker 2 And it's quite interesting how you do it. But it is relatively small.

Speaker 1 So, for example, before we talk about someone who we believe was about to go in and now is not, let's talk about the people who are there.

Speaker 1 So, when we talk about the gene pool around these shows, so Martin Kemp is there, always happy to see on my screens.

Speaker 2 Yes. Now, what you're doing with that booking is he is a well-known, he's very well-known phase fire, all sorts of different things.

Speaker 2 You want a slightly older man. You've got to have one of those in the camp.

Speaker 2 Your dad knows who he is.

Speaker 2 Because his son, roman kemp has already done the format

Speaker 1 listen here's i'll do the merry-go-round for you so martin kemp has been on celebrity big brother he's been on celebrity goggle box with roman kemp he's been on 71 degrees north which was itv's uh trip to the arctic with celebrities he's done eight go rallying with his wife shirley which was a show that noel edmans was also on he has done mask singer with shirley as well roman his son as you say has already done i'm a celebrity Roman is currently on Celebrity Race Across the World.

Speaker 1 Someone else who was on Celebrity Race Across the World was Kelly Brooke. Kelly Brooke is now in I'm a Celebrity.
Kelly Brooke has also done Bake Off. She's done Mask Dancer and she's done Strictly.

Speaker 1 Who else has done Strictly in this current I'm a Celebrity lineup? Well, Eddie Caddy has done Strictly, Lisa Riley has done strictly and Alex Scott has done strictly.

Speaker 1 Alex Scott also won Bear Grylls' Mission Survive, which is ITV show. That's probably closest to I'm a Celebrity.
She won that. There were only two series and the other series was one.

Speaker 2 I'm going to get baptised, I don't think, to be on I'm a Celebrity. Exactly.
I'm joking. You don't.

Speaker 1 I'm sure you don't with Bear girls it's not mandatory and the only other person to win uh bear girls mission survive was vogue williams who's also in i'm a celebrity so there are a lot of people who've been around a lot and that's before we get to rebuax who's done fame academy only fools and horses which was endermole's very short-lived uh celebrity show jumping show uh celebrity apprentice and master chef so i'm so sorry could you just take me back to only fools and horses only fools on horses only fools on horses but actually yeah they were jumping over really really small that's not the height of the jumps actually isn't my primary preoccupation with the show concept.

Speaker 2 Yeah. But amazing.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to remember who else is on that.

Speaker 1 It was quite simple.

Speaker 2 They're very much hoping you forget, but I will be assuming the full passenger manager.

Speaker 1 Sarah Ferguson was involved with it.

Speaker 2 That's cheating.

Speaker 1 Perhaps we were going to do an American one and she was involved with that or something.

Speaker 2 It's really interesting.

Speaker 2 Back in the old days, if you did any of the sort of three big celebrity reality formats, I'm a Celebrity Strictly or Celebrity Big Brother, you couldn't do any of the others kind of thing.

Speaker 2 It was like, oh no, they've already done one.

Speaker 2 Now, as we've seen from so many different things, particularly in the US, where 100% reality TV is a career and people just do all the different formats, you know, Jack Osborne on the first episode turned out to be quite good at cooking and no one else could cook of violence that aired on Sunday night.

Speaker 2 And he said, just want to say that, you know, I came second on cooking with the stars or something like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. And by the way, Tom Reed Wilson, who's about to go in as well,

Speaker 1 I think he was second on Britain's best home cook. They've all been around two newcomers.

Speaker 1 They've got, as we've talked an awful lot about reality shows, making sure that you get that younger generation on.

Speaker 1 They got H the rapper and they have got Angry Ginge who actually came across rather well, I think. Very well.

Speaker 2 I was surprised to see him. Is that someone you did?

Speaker 1 No, because he's got a huge fan base.

Speaker 2 So you think they just voted because it'd be funny and they want to see him do it.

Speaker 1 Every single other streamer.

Speaker 2 I don't think that's why they voted for Ruby Wax.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about Ruby Wax because that is a good booking. Oh, yeah, that's a good thing.
Because from second one, you think, oh, Green, this is.

Speaker 1 Because the first half of the people they bought in yesterday, you're thinking oh this is okay it's a little bit identic a little bit pleased with itself and then in the second half you think oh great because ruby wax comes in and absolutely she'll sing for her supper or lack of supper and she'll repeatedly and deliberately misunderstand that we're like why am i doing this why is this happening to me

Speaker 1 of course she understands the format so i was talking to lots of celeb bookers and they they you know they said you know the whole thing is a pantomime and you do need you know you need your

Speaker 1 big names you need those names that that that people who don't really understand telly think are amazing bookings like you know you get jerry haul on strictly or you get Noel or Nigel Farage.

Speaker 1 I'm a celebr where people go, oh, okay,

Speaker 1 it's a big name. But actually, those people tend to fall away.
And it's the Joe Marlas of this world.

Speaker 2 Everybody says that you need the sort of marmalade droppers for show one. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And then afterwards, the group dynamics kind of take over and you discover it's either a show about, either it's a particularly conflict-heavy series or it's one about comradeship or whatever.

Speaker 2 And actually the bookings that the people are on much lower money,

Speaker 2 you know, I think the lowest paid ever was Georgia Tofilo from from made in chelsea's who won it sam thompson won it he won't have got made in chelsea's they're cheap bookings sorry to say and uh jill scott you know again so people sort of fall in love with the

Speaker 2 i saw a list of the salaries in the sun and i was like that is i know those are wrong yeah um they were completely wrong there's some people don't huge amounts of money but a lot of people will do it for for 20 and less 20k and less

Speaker 1 you're either doing for 20k or you're doing it for a million no one's doing it for a million this time this this time i think uh people have done in that lineup, there's no one where you go, oh my god, they've got who now.

Speaker 1 And a couple of years ago, Anton Deck said, We are not having any more politicians on this show. After Farage, they said, You know what? This is not what we want to do.

Speaker 2 Because let's remind ourselves who they had. Much longer ago, actually, they had Nadine Doris, but that was under Cameron.

Speaker 1 Keisha Dugdale.

Speaker 2 Yeah. One big Marmelo dropper was Matt Hancock, him going into it.
That was a good one.

Speaker 2 And then Farage.

Speaker 2 And they said, and I think ITV said, right, you know, no more politicians, but you know,

Speaker 1 then a name will come along.

Speaker 2 For example, someone will come out and say, they're pulling you back in.

Speaker 1 And this year, my understanding is Ed Davy was offered to them. They said, no, listen, we've said no politicians.

Speaker 2 Well, you know, well, I think Ed Davies people have got sort of, he's got a team of people who think of stunts that it might be helpful for Ed Davy to do.

Speaker 1 And I think they thought if you give it to charity, but I think that's what there was another name that came along that I think ITV found impossible to say.

Speaker 2 Well, it would have been impossible to say no to Angela Rayna

Speaker 2 going on it. Now,

Speaker 2 she got really quite far and her people in talks to do this.

Speaker 2 And I mean, what a moment for her. I mean, if you thought last week was chaotic for Labour,

Speaker 2 try and imagine this week if Angela Rayna was now basically running a proxy leadership campaign on ITV. By the medium of eating kangaroo testicles on ITV.

Speaker 1 Take that West Streeting.

Speaker 1 So Angela Rayna, I think everyone knows who Angela Rayna is, the former deputy leader of the Labour Party, now no longer. And the Labour Party seemed to be undergoing some sort of possible

Speaker 1 season four of succession.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 she would be in line for that. So she's a very, very, very significant current political figure.

Speaker 2 Obviously, she wants to return to frontline politics. That's very clear.
And in fact, having always said, I'd never want to be leader, she's now stopped even denying that.

Speaker 2 And I think, were she to do this, you are leaving during parliamentary time.

Speaker 2 I mean, again, it'd be fun seeing the fallout of the budget next week while she's eating you know emuanus yeah which which by the way we'll all be doing after the budget next week

Speaker 2 so she obviously wishes to return to frontline politics and there is a line that politicians can say about doing the show even though you're leaving parliamentary you know time and you could say I don't think we're reaching ordinary people.

Speaker 2 We've got to go to where the people are. And this is what they all say, which is, I will just go where the eyeballs are.
I will go and try and reach out because whatever it is.

Speaker 2 By the way, she would have been an absolutely terrific booking for me.

Speaker 1 That's the thing we talked just now about your Jerry Halls and people like that, which are sort of like a one-week wonder.

Speaker 1 Someone like Angela Rayna, you would get all of the publicity up front and she would be a great booking. She would be a great booking.

Speaker 2 But I think what happened is that obviously she does wish to return to frontline politics. It was made clear that were she to do something like this, there wouldn't be a way back.

Speaker 2 By the way, I don't think the people who would have made that clear are in a position to say who does or doesn't have a way back.

Speaker 2 Anyway, we've seen their briefing operations, so we'll have to wait and see.

Speaker 2 But yes, sadly, that booking did not occur but this lineup makes more sense when you realize that i think i think itv felt that maybe this was this was uh going to happen well i think they felt it it got very far there are always people who pull out at genuinely like big bookings and they're often the ones they spent a lot of money i remember there was boris becker a couple of years maybe just after he got out either just i can't remember his prison term that's not liked him to pull out oh my goodness this is outrageous this morning um

Speaker 1 uh yes that your new catchphrase?

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, it's not. I'm trying it out and it didn't work.

Speaker 2 But yes, Colleen was obviously in a Colleen McLaughlin was a huge, Colleen Rooney was a huge booking and they paid a million and a half. She's the highest paid ever.
You've always got those people

Speaker 2 you might put in and that you would pay a lot for.

Speaker 2 By the way, I'm not saying that Angela Rainey was one of those people because that would be terrible to take that sort of thing, you know, and I think you kind of

Speaker 1 if she were going to do it, it would be for the profile and to

Speaker 2 maybe give it to charity. I don't know what you do.

Speaker 1 I mean, absolutely.

Speaker 2 Hancock didn't give it to charity, obviously.

Speaker 1 Yeah, got paid 320 grand, gave reports suggest 3% of that to charity.

Speaker 2 The nature of this particular format is interesting because on something like Celebrity Traitors, it's really, I'm not saying it's easy to book for because it's nothing is easier to book for.

Speaker 2 It's very, very difficult to book these shows. But you don't have to talk about your personal life.
It's you're constantly talking about the game. It's prestige.
It's still there for a risk.

Speaker 2 There's no privations. You get food.
But as you say, more and more people are getting into this or just seeing it as a career.

Speaker 2 So you're so used to just telling your stories and being that kind of anecdotalist.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, the real kind of what you really want as a celeb booker, again, spoke to people who booked lots of the big shows, you do want someone who has not been on a show before, but is going to be great.

Speaker 1 That's what you want. But though, you know, they are few and far between these days.
Angela Reyna definitely would have been one of those people.

Speaker 1 Where you can do it is with people who were earlier in their careers, like Angry Ginge.

Speaker 1 This rise of YouTubers and Twitchers and streamers and all this incredible because they come with a very, very big fan base already, but they have not done these shows before.

Speaker 1 So they are new to most of your linear TV audience. So Angry Ginge is a new booking to a lot of people, but he brings a lot of people with him.
So that's sort of a perfect thing as well.

Speaker 1 So yeah, and celebr bookers, you know,

Speaker 1 there's sort of two types. There's the celeb bookers who are friends with every single celebrity in the world.

Speaker 1 And there are the celeb bookers who you sort of want, who are the people who just know all of the agents and who can pick up the phone to everybody.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I've done shows before with celeb bookers and they know every single thing about every single person who's going on that show they know who's going to threaten to walk they know who's going to be difficult they know who's going to come good in week three when you know they've got a little bit more confidence they get all of that stuff and as you say when someone drops out at the last minute i mean that's it's like suddenly seeing a superhero because you go oh my god we've lost two of our main cast and the celeb bookers go into overdrive and like the next day they deliver you someone we should say that there are people who are going on i'm a celebrity who are not in there yet well vogue Williams and Tom Reed Wilson

Speaker 1 didn't go in on the first day, and also will both be amazing. Tom Reed Wilson is a great, great, great Brooking because lots of people don't know him, but everyone is going to fall in love with him.

Speaker 2 And may well be the most inexpensive person in that lineup. I think I would guess.

Speaker 1 I mean, he is someone from that lineup who you would stick straight into Celebrity Traitors. Yeah.
Yeah, as you say, you know, it's been on 20 odd years. And when it started, it felt, you know,

Speaker 1 the idea that it was stripped across the week was this extraordinary event, and it made it feel unmissable. And

Speaker 1 just 20 years later, it makes it feel missable. I have to say, it's a great team behind it.
I do think there's some great bookings there.

Speaker 1 Anton Deck are as amazing as ever, and their writer Andy Milligan is as amazing as ever. So, it's still a treat coming up to Christmas.

Speaker 1 Those last-minute dropouts, I mean, weirdly on strictly this year, you know, Danny Dyer, literally at the last-minute dropping out, and she would have made a big difference, I think, to

Speaker 2 she was injured rather than pull out at the last minute.

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. This lineup makes more sense if there were an Angela Rayna type figure in there.

Speaker 2 And also some other quite big bookings as well.

Speaker 2 Just sort of like a big celebrity. But you know, people just do at the last minute kind of get cold feet.
And then some people are just professional reality people.

Speaker 2 Now, I think it might be time for us to go to a break.

Speaker 1 Oh, let's do that.

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Speaker 1 Welcome back, everybody. Marina, there's a huge story right at the heart of British TV at the moment.
A possible joining of forces of

Speaker 1 two of the major players.

Speaker 2 Very, very big news in the UK broadcast landscape and even beyond, which is that Sky, who by the way sponsored this show, are looking to buy ITV for...

Speaker 1 a two billion at the moment around about two billion it's being quoted as so i tv studios are the people who make the television programs and can sell them around the world.

Speaker 1 ITV is essentially the channels. Yeah, it's the networks.

Speaker 2 It's the free-to-air public service broadcaster,

Speaker 2 ITV. That's five channels.
Yeah. And the streamer, ITVX.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a place that makes all its money from advertising, essentially. Whereas ITV Studios,

Speaker 1 as much as one can.

Speaker 2 So Sky are owned by Comcast, although Comcast don't particularly talk about Sky because Sky was bought for about 39 billion, I think it was, and they've seen quite a lot of that written down in recent years.

Speaker 2 But anyway, they are the UK sky is being empowered to go for ITV in terms of why basically both these businesses are in trouble and they will be helped by the scale of being together and they're both in trouble by the way just because well they're in trouble for different reasons exactly sky is too small in pay tv basically and itv is too small in advertising so if you go to scale for scale and you can share lots of costs

Speaker 2 I mean, Sky's got various things. It's got, but it's a platform.
Yeah. And it sells boxes and it sells bundling deals.

Speaker 2 They don't make huge amounts of TV.

Speaker 2 They have, they've hung on to those kind of people who pay for Sky Sports and have it via the box and all of that sort of stuff.

Speaker 2 And that is an extremely expensive, you know, that's a sort of real luxury consumer.

Speaker 2 But in terms of sort of content and services that they have, lots of things are going. Like at the moment, they have now TV, which is their streaming service.

Speaker 2 But lots of things on now, all the HBO stuff is going because Macs is open is going to start in the UK. We'll come to that in a minute of like what all these things are doing.

Speaker 2 So Sky needs its own content really as a subscription service.

Speaker 2 In terms of ITV,

Speaker 2 we are in a declining advertising business. This previously would not have been able to happen.
There's no way that the government would have allowed this to be able to do it.

Speaker 1 Well they have turned it down before, haven't they?

Speaker 1 There were thoughts about this many years ago and they said you would control too much of the British advertising market between the two of you. So

Speaker 2 ITV has looked for different people lots of times, but actually I think it always comes back to Sky and I think that is probably the best fit for them.

Speaker 2 Don't forget, it doesn't mean they don't still have public service broadcasting obligations. That license will carry on till 2034.

Speaker 1 And by the way, ITV1 will still be there and ITV2 and ITVX. So it doesn't affect that particularly.

Speaker 2 It would be a mashup of ITV and Sky stuff, I think. I think you would combine...
Now TV, which is their streaming service, as I say, with ITVX. So you'd have the Sky Tech, which is slightly better.

Speaker 2 But then you would use itv's free content to upsell like a subscription tier there is a pay tier on itvx okay um so sky would still be a platform but they would have a much better service of their own and they would give prominence that service prominence is what like sounds so boring but it's one of the biggest issues in

Speaker 1 uk tv what is why ms will always rent a shop on the high street rather than a street two things down. I mean,

Speaker 1 you go where people are.

Speaker 2 You go where people are. Okay, so it will, and then they'll become a much bigger force in ad sales.

Speaker 2 I think they probably wouldn't be as big as some people say they are, but they would be like half the ad market. Then you're thinking, okay, this seems like a huge, it is.

Speaker 2 This is a, if this happened, this would be a huge remaking of UK's broadcast landscape, and it wouldn't be the end of it because then you're going to say, okay, the other parts of the market, they're going to need protection.

Speaker 2 So if you're Paramount and 5, UK TV, Channel 4, you're probably going to need to gang up together to say, well, we need to have a way of competing with them on ad sales.

Speaker 2 It makes sense at the moment for everyone to try and aggregate content because then you've got bigger players who might be able to compete with American streamers.

Speaker 1 This is the thing that's happened, by the way, isn't it? Is for many years, people weren't really allowed to merge because in our market, it would mean there was a player that was too big.

Speaker 1 However, because of the Netflixes and what have you, and more importantly, I think...

Speaker 2 The separate straits of

Speaker 1 YouTube and because

Speaker 1 this argument that you can't control too much of the advertising take in British entertainment, I mean, that's not on linear TV anymore. I mean, that's

Speaker 1 somewhere completely different. So actually, linear TV is going to have to join together in order to have scale, in order to be able to sell advertising in a way that it's online.

Speaker 2 I saw some reports last week when we were talking about this and they were saying, oh, they control 70% of the ad markets. Like, wake up.
No, they don't.

Speaker 1 I mean, they control 70% of the 15%.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But then you've got to think, okay, the kind of the big story is

Speaker 2 maybe the BBC would say, well,

Speaker 2 in all these negotiations with government, well, okay, if that's going to happen, then you have to let us merge with Channel 4.

Speaker 2 And you have to say public service broadcasters have to be given more prominence, like mandatory prominence.

Speaker 2 So what you could say is there has to be an iPlayer button on remote controls sold in our country. I mean, I mean, prominence is so weird.

Speaker 2 It's like, because you'll see on your remote controls that, oh, I can press Netflix, I can press YouTube.

Speaker 2 Sorry, why can't I, if you allow certain things like this to happen, in order for the market to be fair or to or to give value to people who kind of pay into these things, you might want to say we have to have an if say BBC and channel four merge as one option.

Speaker 2 So you'd have to say we want prominence in that sense.

Speaker 2 Anyway, in terms of jobs, that is a significant thing and what people are thinking because if obviously if two operations merge, ITV, I think, is quite lean.

Speaker 2 It's certainly probably leaner in some ways than Sky and compared to any American operation. It's obviously something we can compare.
In general, these are very difficult times, but people need scale.

Speaker 2 Even Comcast, they want an they want an extra US, an outside of the US operation.

Speaker 2 And I think it's quite interesting, this thing, how it fits into the whole wider picture of what's going on.

Speaker 2 We knew that there was going to have to be masses of MA merger and accession activity in entertainment.

Speaker 2 And actually, you know, a lot of those guys, a lot of the big studio bosses, a lot of the big media companies, a lot of big, they voted Trump really because they wanted to be allowed for this to happen.

Speaker 2 But this has absolutely exploded in the past few weeks. So you've got Larry Ellison or his son, you know, Kendall Ellison,

Speaker 2 David, real name,

Speaker 2 buying Paramount. But no sooner had was the ink dry on that than they're saying, we want to buy Warners.
And Warners are now saying, well, okay, we are up for sale.

Speaker 2 And everyone, I think everyone thought. thought the Ellisons will get it.
Now we discover that Comcast are also looking at Warners seriously. And actually, amazingly, so are Netflix.
And I mean,

Speaker 2 I know there's one absolutely mega, mega, big power broker, I'm a Kingmaker, who thinks actually maybe Netflix will get Warners because at certain points around us is going to say, I don't want to see this, I don't want to keep this, I don't want to keep it happening.

Speaker 1 I don't want my rivals to get too much bigger.

Speaker 2 Well, there's enough for three big things at the top to be in the top three. Netflix is at the top.
Okay, we can argue about YouTube, but in terms of these kind of more traditional, well,

Speaker 2 certain sort of services, you've got Netflix, Disney, and there's space for a third. Now, maybe that's like Paramount Warners.

Speaker 2 Maybe it's something to do with Comcast. Maybe everyone has got bits of these businesses that they want to fit into their things.
In the same way that with ITV, people thought, oh, well, hang on.

Speaker 2 In the UK, other players thought, well, we could buy this and we could slot it into our broadband services. Everyone is trying to get bits of these businesses because there is a big prize.

Speaker 2 To be number three in that is kind of everyone's prize. But then you also think, well, maybe the Ellisons won't get it.

Speaker 2 But equally, what if the Ellisons get tick tock in the us which remember trump said he has to be hived off from the kind of chinese mothership and the and he's talked very favorably about the ellisons and that now if they had paramount and warners and tick tock in the us then you've got a completely different type of company um and then they would be number three for definite and they maybe could go further maybe they're quickly bigger than disney it's hard to say but there are so many different people now predators just like walking around trying to get bits and fit it together with their business and we're going to see much, much more of this.

Speaker 1 Just to try and be big enough.

Speaker 2 Everyone is trying to solve various puzzles and they've all got different missing pieces, but everyone wants bigger scale because you can't do anything without scale.

Speaker 2 So if I had to put some money on it, I would say that the ITV, the Sky and ITV deal will go through, which, as you say, never would have occurred before, never, because the government will think it will have to.

Speaker 1 And at some point, BBC and Channel 4 has to happen. I know that

Speaker 1 I know no one publicly is going to say that or ask for anything like that, but it just has to because it doesn't make any sense at all. Channel 4 doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 2 It happened now in real time, really, really quickly.

Speaker 2 And people are saying, and also, you know, ITV, I know there will be, there's resistance to all of this, but ITV might be worth half what it is in just a year's time.

Speaker 2 And there's just a sense that they have to go for all these different things. We don't know what Warner's coming to the UK, Max is going to launch in the UK.

Speaker 2 And you're kind of thinking, oh, well, they have, well, hang on a second. TNT Sports at the moment is a joint venture between BT and Warners, but BT have said they might give all their sports.

Speaker 1 There's so many. This is so complicated.

Speaker 2 It's ridiculous, but they might give their, if they give their support to Warners and then they've got all of the HBO stuff, and by the way, that includes the new Harry Potter things, the full, you know,

Speaker 2 they're trying to build, Warners is trying to build up in the UK.

Speaker 2 So everyone is trying to do these different things, but this kind of teaming activity is making things and dominoes fall very, very quickly in a way that they would just never have been able to in the past.

Speaker 2 Just think of it as everyone trying to do a land grab to try and solve their puzzles.

Speaker 2 Lots more things will happen, but I think this particular thing will happen and it will change broadcasting, the broadcasting landscape as we know it in the UK for definite.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I would say five years time, BBC and Channel 4 are the same thing streaming-wise. ITB and Now TV are the same thing streaming wise.

Speaker 1 And there's a sort of HBO Max is out there with lots of other things.

Speaker 1 And then Disney, Apple, and Disney, Apple and Amazon still have their, because they have other businesses, you know, bigger than broadcasting.

Speaker 1 They're able just to have their streamers as a lovely little add-on.

Speaker 2 All the maps are being redrawn. I think it's fair to that.
And you just keep watching because it's happening very, very quickly.

Speaker 2 Moving on to something else Sky related, Halo, which was Sky Sports's was, I mean, Halo Goodbye. Hello, hello.
Hello, goodbye. Sky Sports is a TikTok channel for young female fans.

Speaker 2 Sports fans. Yeah, sports fans, described as the Lil Sis, Sky Sports.

Speaker 2 Launched on Thursday.

Speaker 2 The head of social said, I couldn't be prouder and more excited about this launch. Proud because this has been driven by the women on our team and embraced and supported by all across the business.

Speaker 2 Put out of its misery on Sunday,

Speaker 2 we've listened. We didn't get it right.
As a result, we're stopping all activity on this account. I'm still proud.
We're learning.

Speaker 2 And we remain as committed as ever to creating spaces where fans feel included and inspired. Now,

Speaker 2 what the hell happened?

Speaker 2 Anatomy of a Fall. Anatomy of a Fall.
It was a, they crucially said, it's quite interesting. It's not a women's sports account, but sports content through a female lens.

Speaker 2 That means it's tapping into trends and content types, which frankly wouldn't pop up on my FYP and applying to all sports.

Speaker 1 So an FYP is the for you page.

Speaker 2 Yeah, what did that mission statement actually translate as?

Speaker 2 As I said, we only had it for three days. We knew it so little, but it had, I mean, there was a lot of content about Barbies, laboo-boos, matcha, pink and peach branding and lettering, heart emojis.

Speaker 1 What is this matcher thing, by the way? I keep reading about it, they kept mentioning matcher.

Speaker 2 It's literally like some word they're vaguely aware is trending on the internet for various reasons. It's like a sort of, you know, it's, you know, what matcher is.
It's I know what matcher is.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I just don't know what

Speaker 1 you know when it became gendered.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, yes.

Speaker 1 I'd have called it match of the day.

Speaker 2 Match of the day would have been amazing. But we can't.
It's just, it's dead to us now.

Speaker 2 But, and it was, it has had an absolute deluge of opprobrium from people, women, saying this is so patronizing how can you I mean it was kind of mad there was a moment um where someone someone someone a woman said I can't believe you think this is what female sports fans like and the official Halo account said can't believe you bought that energy like

Speaker 2 okay this I mean really embarrassing it's really interesting so in terms of

Speaker 2 the matcher thing and how they would integrate such a concept in, they had a clip from the Bournemouth, the Man City Bournemouth game a couple of weeks ago where Rayan Cherky did those incredible two assists for Haaland.

Speaker 2 And the way they explained that clip was how the matcher and hot girl walk combo hits. It's like, what is this internet word salad?

Speaker 1 I'm aware that you've let's go through this.

Speaker 2 Let's how the matcher and hot girl walk combo hits.

Speaker 1 How the matcher and hot girl walk combo hits. So Ryan Cherky is the matcher.

Speaker 1 Erling Haaland there is the matcher. Maybe or is it just like

Speaker 2 hot girl walk is like it's like some sort of aspirational like go and walk and think about your goals

Speaker 2 kind of meme.

Speaker 1 Okay, which is what Erning Haaland does a lot.

Speaker 2 I mean, okay, I am a chick. I watched that game.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Breaking.

Speaker 2 And this is bizarre. Like this is not at all how I reacted to that, to either of those moments.
It was, you know, it was a great, it was a great fun game.

Speaker 2 Like anyone normal reacted and thought, Chelsea could have bought him two years ago, but no, no, we would have had to sell yeah you know 37 of the other not very good players that we would have had for Daphne on the books at that time in that position but let's not go so let's not get sidetracked I can't get into sidetrack by that now but they thought this is a way that you must talk about sports so I think well I thought I remember when Josh King's goal against Chelsea went in and was disallowed I thought about that that literally every single Fulham account is like is all hot goal war right it's all hot girl war the whole thing no one hot

Speaker 1 no one was like this is one of the great injustices in world football and world history in world history i would say i was like hot girl walk i was like pastor hearts when you don't get the laboo boo or when you've already got the laboo boo and you open the blind box yeah i said i i i i think i tweeted can't believe vara bringing this energy

Speaker 2 so okay we'll never now know what slightly dated cultural references they had to us someone would have been having a brat winter there would you know some there was you they would have had to wait for a certain scoreline maybe to get the six seven meme in there i don't know but it would have been oh they definitely would have they would have got six seven in without any question the second it goes to like three all or something and goes god this is going to end up six seven easy i mean easy the second there's two early goals

Speaker 2 okay can i just say that all little sis content is annoying um and actually that there are people the people who do do this quite well where you're able to have a central brand and then you kind of spin it off into something different

Speaker 2 fashion and beauty can do this. I mean, they are the most remorseless female-targeted industries ever.
They've got basically centuries of experience of how to do this. This wasn't it.

Speaker 2 It's so dramatic that they then pulled it and that they did it this badly.

Speaker 2 And I think we're always fascinated when things like this go this wrong because it reminded me a little bit about the um, which I know we talked about on the podcast when it happened, the Jaguar advert.

Speaker 2 Where do you remember that was basically this time last year when Jaguar had a new advert with no cars in in it what they did have i think was sort of eight diverse non-binary models who came up in an elevator onto a pink planet and you were you did watch it and think oh my god this is in-house as well how did how did this happen how did this happen and there was the answer is i suppose you know it was probably conceived of at the high watermark of a certain type of culture.

Speaker 2 Six, nine months later, when it finally aired, it was three weeks after Donald Trump's victory or something. There had been a distinct vibe shift.

Speaker 2 Like, oh, what is this? This is so bad. And I guess, is that what happened with Halo? I mean, I don't understand.

Speaker 2 Women were apparently involved in the making of this.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 it all comes down to that fundamental misconception. Because, I mean, essentially, it was a football account, really.

Speaker 1 And the thing about football is nobody is watching football differently to anybody else.

Speaker 1 There is nobody of any age or any gender who is watching football differently to every single other person who's watching football. We all watch it in exactly the same way.
It is not gendered.

Speaker 1 And the only way that, you know,

Speaker 1 female football fans, another way of saying it, which is a football fan. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So they are.

Speaker 2 I mean, I don't love it. You know, I've got to say,

Speaker 2 I don't love the lionesses.

Speaker 2 I don't love this girl can, which I think is.

Speaker 1 You love the lionesses.

Speaker 2 You don't love the girl. Oh, I love the lionesses, but I can't say the word lionesses.
England.

Speaker 2 You just have to say, I know, but

Speaker 2 I can't say that in conversation. I would say England.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I can't, I don't love this girl can, which I'm sure maybe it's, you know, so that sport England's initiative of getting women taking exercise. Again,

Speaker 2 I hate the title.

Speaker 2 Maybe it's really successful

Speaker 2 as an initiative. I do think that when people say inclusive, you know, even though, like, what's inclusive about a car that costs upwards of 100 grand? I mean, you're being ridiculous.

Speaker 2 I remember actually when Nigel Farage, they de-banked him, Coots, and they said, we're really committed to inclusivity. It's like, you need £3 million pounds to open a current account.
I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2 Sometimes maybe it works, this kind of a level of that. What you've seen more and more of, I know you're saying that no one watches football in different ways.

Speaker 2 Fine, I get that, but you're seeing a lot more of this kind of omni-channel branding.

Speaker 2 Give you an example.

Speaker 2 Mail online, they've got Mail Plus, which is their sort of paid tier on. And one of the things you can get on that is you can get a showbiz newsletter that's sort of written almost like a sub stack.

Speaker 2 And it comes, it's called The spotlight and it's written in this absolutely extraordinary extraordinarily non-male way where it's like when you're a Dell you don't need the grid the math simply refused to math all these kind of like you know they're talking like bits of the internet and what they're linking to is stories that are written in the classic male online style, not like this.

Speaker 2 I don't know whether that's working and I don't know whether it's getting lots of subscribers and drawing people into the website simply because it's written in a different way and driving

Speaker 2 people people towards their content.

Speaker 2 That's clearly what Haley was trying to do, which is to talk about it in a way that they, you know, like, although I fundamentally believe they misunderstood hung culture.

Speaker 1 We're misunderstood.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, I did my degree in it.

Speaker 1 Hung culture. Hung culture, yeah.

Speaker 2 Like, it's a, you know, it's a lot of people.

Speaker 1 But they're not the rest is history.

Speaker 2 Amazing, amazing. Hung culture.
I mean, I also did my degree in that.

Speaker 2 It was a combined course. The two types of hung culture.

Speaker 2 But they are, but, but they try, so they're trying to drive you towards their traditional content in the same way that Sky is trying to drive you towards their sport content, but do it in a different way.

Speaker 2 I think consumerism has become much more complex and just saying, oh, we're just going to go after little, you know, young women, we're going to go, I don't think that's really how these things hit anyone.

Speaker 1 It sounds like no one was trying to be mean. They were trying to be funny.
But it's just, but it's

Speaker 2 no man. It's just an idea out of time.

Speaker 2 But also it's excruciating because I actually think that the reason the pushback is so big is because we're sort of constantly thinking that the man, and I do use the term advisedly in this particular case, is trying to sell us something.

Speaker 2 And when they do it badly, like they do it with a Jaguar ad, or like this, it's like the backlash is so extreme because most of the time you're too weak and feeble to resist.

Speaker 2 You're just being like overcome by a constant influencing sales pitch. But when it doesn't work, all of the energy gets concentrated into tearing this thing down.

Speaker 2 And I mean, the backlash was like absolutely mega to the point where they just said we've got this completely wrong you know what I bet they would three days is fine because people will forget about it so anyone who's who's been working on it it's okay

Speaker 2 miles and miles of that kind of synthetic sass that they could deliver to audiences but audiences did not want what they were serving when I talked like them for a minute what a packed show we have a packed show thanks for listening everybody any recommendations I am absolutely loving the there's a book called 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin, which is about the stock market crash of 1929.

Speaker 2 He writes things so brilliantly, you know, he writes it like a page turner and it's it's absolutely fascinating.

Speaker 2 And I know there's all this sort of like when you read these books, like the now of it, and but actually it's just an extraordinary story. And I recommend that.

Speaker 1 So 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin. And I saw the last show of the first half of Nick Mohammed's tour, Show Pony, where as Mr.

Speaker 1 Swallow, if you only know Nick from Ted Lasso or from Celebrity Traitors, he's had this character, Mr. Swallow, that he's done for years and years and years.
This tour is brilliant.

Speaker 1 This show is so brilliant. All of his shows have been brilliant.

Speaker 1 It's right in my wheelhouse. If you like very, very clever and very, very stupid all at the same time, then

Speaker 2 is it coming back?

Speaker 2 It is coming back.

Speaker 1 It's coming back next year. So he's touring lots of places and touring much bigger venues as well.
So there will be tickets available.

Speaker 1 I know tickets for these things are expensive, but this is one of those things.

Speaker 1 It's a proper treat.

Speaker 1 It's a really, really great show.

Speaker 1 So it's Nick Muhammad as mr swallow in show pony right we loved it we will be back on thursday with a an interview with kate phillips who is bbc chief content officer so she literally probably has more impact on what you see on television than anybody else in britain and it's a q a so you've already sent us lots and lots of questions so thank you for that we'll be putting those questions television radio every everything everything everything we'll be putting those questions to kate on thursday i'm very much looking forward to that and we'll be talking about traitors we'll be i'm going to talk about political stuff as well, but we'll be talking about

Speaker 2 Heather in the news a bit at the moment.

Speaker 1 So we'll be talking about that.

Speaker 2 And also for our members, we have the third and final part of our series on Story of MTV.

Speaker 2 Now, you can join for ad-free listening, special bonus episodes, all the rest of it at therestersenttertainment.com. Otherwise, we'll see you on Thursday.

Speaker 1 See you on Thursday, everyone.

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