The Rest Is Entertainment - Dubai Influencers vs Iran

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

Are expat social media stars in the UAE the real victims of the Iranian war? Has Netflix dodged a bullet by losing the Warner Bros. bid? Were The BRITs actually good? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde discuss how the Iranian drone strikes have impacted the influencer economy in Dubai. Is it really 'the safest place in the world'? David Ellison (and his dad's billions) have won the bidding war for Warner Bros. Who are the winners and losers in Tinsel Town? The BRITs on Saturday night were an excellent display of British music (with a fair amount of bleeping) How did they get it so right? Recommendations:Richard:Man On The Run (Amazon Prime)The Secret Agent (Film)The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Octopus Energy, Britain's most awarded energy supplier. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at therestisentertainment.com For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Video Editor: Charlie Rodwell & Adam ThorntonAssistant Producer: Imee MarriottSenior Producer: Joey McCarthyExec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Octopus Energy. Now, it is award season. Everyone is wondering who's going to clean up. And we tend to think awards are about that one big moment, like, oh, my goodness, that one night, that speech, I can't believe I've won. But. The effort that goes into winning an award. Everyone going for one of those big movie awards. It's not a coincidence that academy members or whatever are saying, oh, did you see that thing?

Yeah, I did. It was really good. There is a remorseless, many months campaign. And there are tens of people working on. every single film's awards campaign. I thought you're going to say tens of thousands. No, no. But there are tens.

Yeah, there are tens. But that's quite a lot when you think of like one. And it's a full-time job. We mention this only because we are announcing our presenting partnership with the lovely people at Octopus Energy who have just won the which recommended provider of the year for the ninth time in a row. And that is not something you get just by year. Which is hard to win.

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Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home. You'll find the same regular prices online. online as in store. Many promotions are available both in store and online, though some may vary. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina Hi. And me, Richard Asman. Hi Marina. Hello Richard. How are you? Yeah, I'm not too bad. All Things Considered. Might as well call this podcast All Things Considered because we're a lovely alternative to actually looking at anything else that's going on in the world. We are going to have to slightly go there this week though because we are going to be talking about Dubai influences and this

it's quite interesting when what might be the beginnings of World War III seem to be breaking out how amazing people have said oh well what about all those people in Dubai who tell us how fabulous it is I know that seems that seems to be their main takeaway we are we are going to discuss it though also well I thought I thought it was widely understood we've been in the middle of World War III for a long time so this must be World War four Oh, I see. Okay. Maybe even five. It's like too fast, too furious now. Yeah.

Wars. We're also going to talk about the Brits and shock horror was actually good. And is British music like in an amazing place at the moment? I'm also going to be telling you why the best selling single in Britain is not number one and hasn't been all year. So I'll be explaining why that is. I also have some career news, which I will talk about at some point in there in this show. And we are going to talk about the. The update to the biggest deal struggling to be born in Hollywood as Paramount finally make a successful bid for Warner's and Netflix are out of it. And we're going to say what that means for the business and for us as consumers of entertainment.

I think it's actually quite an interesting story that. For a business story, I think it's quite good. Absolutely no, there's no shade on the rest is money there. But this is an interesting business story. Well, yes. All of their stories are interesting. We're going to get with another business story. Okay. So the weekend, huge historic events in Iran and the wider Middle East region,

the killing of the Ayatollah in a U.S.-Israeli strike, retaliatory attacks by Iran, some drone strikes in Dubai. But I hear you ask, what of an influencer's golf trip to Marbea? Let me go to the husband of Petra Eccleston, Sam Palmer, to his insta for an update. I know there is bigger problems than my golf trip. arguable. But honestly, I am boiling inside. I was so looking forward to it.

It was going to be brilliant. Hang on, I've got another Dubai-based influence. By the way, everyone in Dubai is an influencer, and we'll talk about that and why. Another one, there's an Australian one called Louise Starkey, whose verdict on what she was seeing out of her window was, can't everyone just chill out? So some interesting content moments.

Is she related to David Starkey? It didn't say, I think it's unlikely. We're only being slightly serious, of course, but it's sort of fascinating that in these huge seismic global events, something very noticeable has been going on. And there is a massive tide of commentary online of people pointedly asking, oh, what's become of all the influencers telling us about their fabulous lives? And the reason for that is Dubai is the influencer capital of the world. It's extraordinary. It's a city of four million people. There are 50,000 influencers.

That's one in 80 people in Dubai. is an influencer. So they've only got 79 people to influence each of them. Effectively, yes. And all of them essentially work tacitly in the cause of suggesting that Dubai is a place of luxury and crucially safety. And I think, so we're going to talk today about what it means when a place's image is contracted out almost completely to this whole new breed of content creators.

and what it says about the status of influencing that people are actually slightly distracted from the possibility of imminent war by sort of to unleash a certain kind of shardinfreude as to what is happening to this kind of whole strata of people. Yeah, how quickly an actual war becomes part of the culture war. Yeah. Yeah. I have also, by the way, just so you know, is a little treat for you, I put all of your details through the Dubai creator economy website to see you. if you'd be eligible to move there on a free golden visa, and I'll be giving you the results later.

Presumably, I can get even better terms today than I could on Friday. We shall find out. But it's interesting, by the way, that either that that thing is this, which I think some people don't know this idea, that they are actively pursuing creator. So we'll talk about why they're doing that, and we'll talk about whether Marina Hyde would be eligible for a tax-free existence in Dubai for the next 10 years.

God. What would happen if we moved the podcast there, essentially? Right. All sorts of things have been sort of lost leaders and they've made to try and get people into Dubai. And it's been the most extraordinary successful city that's been sort of conjured up out of nowhere and bits of it reclaimed from the sea in an incredibly short space of time. And it's amazing how much content creators, influences, for want of another word, are key to that. They have a whole something called the Creator HQ. It's a government initiative, right? Creators HQ, yeah. And in the same way that sort of Emirates at the start was a way to, the airline was a way to sort of get people, it was almost like a loss leader to get people to pass through.

This is what they've also tried to do with content creators. And they wanted, well, I mean, until Friday they were saying they wanted to grow this part of the economy to contribute 5% of GDP by 2013, which is quite a big part of any country's economy, 5%. It was the beginning of last year, beginning of 2025, they launched this then creators HQ. And the idea was to get 10,000 influencers into Dubai. Can you imagine they wanted 10,000 influencers in Dubai? What are we short of, influences?

And, you know, when we say influencers, obviously everyone means different things. But they're talking about content creators, essentially. And so you can apply, if you live in any country in the world, you can apply to move to Dubai under this scheme. And under this scheme, they give you a number of different things. They give you a visa. They give you like a physical Creators HQ hub, which has, you know, podcast studios, offices, all those things. They will give you business and legal support. They would essentially set you up as a business.

There's a whole strata of people who deal with this. Yes, exactly. Agents, producers, people who get you follow accounts. It's like a whole professional strata in Dubai. So you can apply. When you see all of these people who are saying, yeah, you know what? Fed up with Britain. Britain is, you know, there's no room for entrepreneurs in Britain.

I'm going to move to Dubai where you can get things easier. This is what they're talking about. They're talking about the fact that someone is saying, oh no, we will sort everything out for you. Come over here for free and we're going to give you these offices. We're going to give you these podcast studios. You are going to live tax-free. We're going to set up a company that you wholly own. the government is not going to keep any of yours. So they are literally being incentivised,

massively incentivised. There were 0% personal income tax, is that correct? 0% personal income tax and a very, very low corporation tax as well. So they're paying very, very, very little tax. What they are essentially saying, a lot of these influences go over there, particularly the ones you talk about in a political way, they're saying, oh no, you know, this is the place where capitalism reigns. You go, no, this is a place where socialism reigns because you're going over there because someone is funding you. Someone is taking money and giving you that money and subsidising you to do the thing that you do. It's socialism. That's okay. Just admit it. Just say, I'm going over there because I'm getting a handout.

I'm going over there. I'm going to a foreign country and taking a hand out. It's like all the tech companies in the US with all their handouts, their tax handouts. The biggest welfare coins in the world. It's exactly right. To put it like that. Listen, the place, anyone who tells you socialism doesn't work, take a look at the very, very top level of influencers and tech bosses. it is working absolutely beautifully for them because they live in a socialist utopia

and essentially that's what Dubai is. But in another way, Richard, they are the sort of basic, sad little stormtroopers of late stage capitalism and it's going to split them out. They're sales drones and they're selling with their advertisement. Is that the thing?

I don't know. It is now. They're selling hotels, yachts, luxury, lifestyle, medical procedures. You can sell them a lot easier over there than you can. more regulated economies. Essentially influencing is the chief means by which things are sold there.

They've majored on this. Extraordinary, the city itself has become constructed in a sort of Instagram-friendly way. Instagram has a headquarters there, no surprise. And there's obviously a sort of dark side to this because you can be detained for making defamatory comments. You do sometimes have to do state work, although it is, they, It's never discussed. People don't say whether they've been paid or whether it's just, you know, you're on the team. Now you take one for it.

And it's just the cost of doing business. And they never rock the boat. So creators HQ, here's the eligibility for it. And I would say it's a relatively low bar if you're involved in the world of content at all. So you have to have a proven content career. I've been through every single bit of this with your. So you've got a proven content career. I think it's fair to say.

You know, those columns that you're writing about David Meller, that's a content career. That was the beginning of it. And it's a career of sort. Proven content career. You're very kind. Evidence of income from digital activities. Now, I assume that, well, I mean, this is digital. The Guardian is digital.

So you will have some evidence of income from digital activities. That's you need. Strong engagement or measurable impact. So do you have strong engagement or measurable an impact? I would have said when I ticked the box for you because of the nonsense you were talking about your bookshelves and how you organise your bookshelves. And I think that that had strong engagement because so many people disagreed with you. And I think it had measurable impact because everyone just went, do you know what? I'm actually fine with the way I'm doing my bookshel.

I'm moving city by to get away from this rubbish. Carry on. Press coverage awards, brand co-labs. Awards, you're always winning like columnist at the year or something, aren't you? I have got quite a few of them. Have you? Okay, that's good. Brand co-labs less so, but that's, listen, that's okay. But awards, I think, are big for them. And the final one, clean legal record. I ticked yes for that. I don't know. I think I have one, yeah. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, no, yes, I have a clean legal record. So that is all you need. If you can demonstrate that, and also if you can demonstrate, it's not necessarily just to follow account. It's, it's, it's the key. It's not like trying to get into the Jedi Knights, right? It's, I think, you know, it's a low. It's barely hard on getting into the. the Baron Knights. Wow, that's a hell of a reference. That's one for the past. Isn't it just?

So if you have all of those things and you want to go over there, I'll say they will give you visa assistance, company set up, legal support, co-lab opportunities. So I know you don't have a lot of brand co-labs, but the good news for you is if you go to Dubai, you will get loads of co-lab opportunities. What about the adverts in this podcast? Oh, that's true. That's a co-lab. We co-lab with Octopus Energy. Yes. Correct Monday. So, again, that's another tick that it didn't tick. You've got brand co-lap. They were also then, when you go out there, they will give you workshops and mentoring and training in the following areas. And it's interesting the order they put this in.

Firstly, branding. Okay. Helpful. Production. Joey does all that for us. Monetisation. They'll do a workshop in that. Engagement.

And finally, storytelling, which is the last thing to do. This is like a psychological penal colony. I can't do it. They will do all of those things for you. Also, one of the key things is if you, if you, above another eligibility requirement, which we'll go into, you can get a golden visa. Now, a golden visa, like anything, which has gold in the title, is cool. It is, it's true.

Otherwise, why would they call it that? Why don't you think it through a tiny bit? Keep going to me. I will move to Dubai. Feel somebody like someone don't know so much about branding. So golden visa, you get 10 years residency in Dubai, which is renewable as well. What's the second prize? 20 years.

You get 10 years residency in Dubai and for relatives as well. And as you say, it's absolutely text-free, all that kind of stuff. And for that, you do need, again, it's all of those editabilities, but at a slightly higher bar. So I put everything through for you. And it says, this is the things they are looking for. This is the reason why they would give you a golden visa. They're looking for established creators with international audiences. Now, we have a lot of listeners in Australia.

Hello, Australia. So I think that absolutely counts and our friends in America. They are looking for, genuinely, they've carved this out. They're looking for podcasters with measurable cultural impact. They are looking for podcasters with measurable cultural impact. And that's what I'm looking at right now. Well, as I say, the weekend has maybe changed some of this stuff. you would be eligible immediately, absolutely free.

You don't have to pay a single thing for a 10 years residency. But that's why a lot of these people are moving to Dubai. That's what I'm saying. They're not moving to Dubai because they are entrepreneurs who are going, oh, finally there's a place here where I can move quickly. And, you know, they are moving there because someone is incentivizing them with dollars from the government to do that. Dubai influencer content comes with such a distinct.

set of tropes that are actually very narrow and you know this is a but it's the sort of skyline flex like themselves in front of this amazing and very recognizable skyline supercars helicopters private jets they all rent them by the way and they rent time in them they don't half these things never take off they just have pictures of them sitting in them I that's one of the things I object to so much it's like influencing is so uncool it's like all of this stuff is just so sort of basic the entire sort of possibility and um you know creating creativity of human experience sort of distilled down to about 10 template images that are involved like white fluffy bath robes, champagne flutes, a private jet seat. I mean, come on.

This is so dull. Like I said, you are a little late capitalist stormtrooper that's going to get spat out by the system. Anyhow, sorry, oh, beach clubs, that's another big thing that, you know, the Palm Jamera, well, that was hit by a missile on Saturday. Hotels, shopping malls, the hall you get from it all. And that whole poolside entrepreneur lifestyle, you know, here I am in this amazing place, I'm on my laptop, you know, I manifested this. I, this is my business. But the kind of underlying thing of all of this things are, as I said before, it's luxury and it's safety. And a huge amount of them spend a lot of time saying, I've moved here because, you know, I hate London's a mess or wherever I lived before is a mess. There's crime. There, you know, this is incredibly safe. And obviously, something absolutely extraordinary has happened. By the way, that we hope everyone is deeply safe and all of that stuff. But it shines a light on this gilded world that's been sold back to people. But it's a load of profession.

It's honestly, it's like a state agency or traffic wardens or journalists. They're like they're down there or though, you know, it's a hated profession. People feel like it, I suppose essentially it is built on boasting saying, look what I've got, look what I'm doing. And Dubai content in particular is very smug. But as you say, stuff that you actually don't have. Yes. And Dubai content, I think, in particular, is very like, you know, the grass is greener.

So in some ways, but if you look at the level of Schadenfreude online as soon as the event started unfolding on Saturday, those compelling stories we talked once before about that amazing no going back. God, I mean, that's 20 years ago, I must have seen that, maybe more, that extraordinary documentary about, was it on Channel 4? People who start new lives? Do you remember? And there was one who went to a sort of desert island and it was going to be perfect. And let's just say it really isn't. And I suppose the feeling of most people who are in this country, who are in a cost of living crisis, who are struggling in all sorts of different ways.

There is some sort of sense that it's being rammed down your throat, this perfect lifestyle. and this is why in lots of ways people hate influencers. They want to sort of be them at some level that they don't talk about, but as I say, they're down there with state agents and journalists. A huge amount of following influencers has become about, we talked about this when we talked about Tatelice of righteous or embittered detective work, and same to some degree with the beckons. Like what you're saying is the situation isn't the situation.

This isn't what you're selling it as. now we've just seen that on a geopolitical level. Like the thing that Dubai has used all of this army of people to say about itself is in fact suddenly not the case. It is not a place currently of safety and who knows what will have unfolded even by the time this podcast goes out. But something very, very significant happened. And, you know, it's a new kind of Middle East. There is no oil. This is a new kind of Middle East Dubai.

The influences are the oil here. And the same way that, you know, Saudi Arabia, we've talked a lot before. Everyone's tourist money is incredibly important. Hollywood money is important. Cultural money is important. The interesting thing, and this is the understanding that Dubai certainly has, and I think Saudi Arabia certainly has, that the creator economy is the fastest growing part of the new entertainment economy.

In a way that because of our history and entertainment, we haven't quite got on board with. We still slightly think of the creator economy as, something slightly other. And they understand actually that is where all the money in entertainment is going to be in the next 10, 15, 20 years. So that's why they're throwing all this money at these creators. But they've concentrated so much of it on this. And until now there's been no question that it wasn't just going to keep going on at the same level.

But now you see how precarious all these things. And actually that's mirrored by influencing not just in Dubai, influencing anywhere. people who understand tech and understand the algorithms will always say to you, it seems like it's a great thing. But actually, if the rug goes under you for one reason or another, say, I don't know you'll have done something wrong or people decide to sort of cancel you in the way they can in that world, then suddenly you have absolutely nothing and you're really, really stuck. But if you're, to counterpoint to that, if you're an individual influencer,

that's definitely the case. It's incredibly precarious. As it has, you know, if you're a pop star or a TV presenter or anything like that, that. But if you are a big media organization, and that's what the Dubai government is acting at as here, they don't mind a few influences, you know, being disgraced because they're constantly being replaced. You know, there's always new ones. What's happened here is the entire schick has had the rug pulled underneath it, because what you're saying is this is a place of great luxury and great safety, and suddenly it's not.

And I think it's very difficult with that many people who are out there creating, content. Yeah, I'm sure. Listen, not depressingly. I'm sure they won't write it. I think depressingly, this is content at the moment for those influencers. But it's, you know, if I were there, and you can see that their management has been in touch with them and say, be very, very careful

what you post, do not make it. The inadequacy of the pivot, like Louise Zisman, who is an apprentice, runner up, who's got a very successful podcast which she does from Dubai. And now I saw her saying, you know, doing a post saying, home-baked bread rolls, you know, keeping the kids, entertainment,

and indoors. And I just thought, yeah, this isn't really like lockdown. I just think it's bread rolls are not going to cut it here. And getting your content right, there's already a backlash now over the last two days for people saying, even this situation, you're making all about you. And because people have this kind of bedrock idea that implementsers are self-absorbed and unsurious. And, you know, maybe they are because not in their real lives, perhaps, but certainly in the way they present themselves and the way they make this kind of advertisement content. And there's such a big backlash that you can see certain people just didn't write, who people who are used to posting things 20 times a day, didn't because someone had said to

maybe Kate Ferdinand and Rea Ferdinand's wife, be really sure when you put down what you're going to put that it does not like completely centre you or doesn't. And I think it's very difficult when you're now have got a city, as I say, where there's 50,000 influencers, what do you do now? One of the two fundamental tenets on which all of their content has been based, which is This is Paradise and It's Safe, has been very significantly undermined,

not necessarily forever undermined at all. But what now? I mean, all the comments beneath, all the things that you're trying to sell, people will have a number of views about quite how realistic what you're saying. Yeah, and to reiterate, We hope that everyone across the Middle East stays completely safe. But this is an area we wanted to talk about.

No one is expecting people to come war correspondence overnight. Of course not. But it's very difficult to see how that many people, that big professional class, as it were, has to sort of pivot completely and to see what they'll do. They may be able to write themselves pretty easily, but I think that something quite seismic has been, has occurred and something very, very significant has been undermined. Yeah, and I hope it's interesting to hear about this idea of creators HQ,

which is a very, very real thing, which is really, really targeting implementers. And every single time you see somebody say, I'm leaving this country, I'm going to Dubai, because, you know, I have opportunities there. What they're saying is the government of Dubai and everything that stands for and everything that happens in their name are funding me to go.

and do this. So I'm leaving... I'm a civil servant. I'm leaving... Yeah, but you are. I'm leaving a liberal democracy because of the difficulties and challenges that are involved in a liberal democracy to go somewhere where I'm being a paid shield, which you can be a paid shield if you want. We all pay shills for things that we believe in. That's absolutely fine. But that's what they are. And I'm being funded. Someone is paying for me to do that in a way that speaks of nothing but socialism. That's exactly what's happening there. They are going from a non-socialist society.

into a socialist society and someone is paying them for the soft power that they bring, which brings me to finally the Creators HQ, I ticked every single box that I thought applied to you, and they say that you are definitively qualified for both Creators HQ and for the Golden Visa in a category called Distinguished Talent in Media and Digital Content. So you could go out there tomorrow. Listen, anyone can go out there tomorrow if you can get a flight, which you can't currently. Right. After the break, we are going to be talking about another seismic shift. This time in the Paramount's attempts to buy Warner's, which have been successful and Netflix is out.

And we're also going to be talking about the Brits, which happened on Saturday night, and was perhaps. Actually good. Guys, breaking news, we are going to be interviewing Tim Davy, the outgoing Director-General. of the BBC. So please send us your questions to the rest of entertainment at gollhanger.com. Put Tim Davy in the subject line so we don't miss it. There's always many things we can discuss on the matter of the BBC. And that will go out next week. Welcome back everybody. Now we're going to talk about Warner and Paramount and Netflix. But I promise some career news, which is I am leaving House of Games. It will no longer be Richard

Osmer's House of Games. It will be somebody else's House of Games. It will be somebody else's House of Games and I gladly hand over the keys and I just wanted to go on record and say how much I love it and loved it and I've done 800 episodes I was going to say how many and how many seasons oh seasons I don't know we don't really I just turn up and film them yes a lot of episodes yeah and I've loved it and of course I met my wife through it as well and it's it just with the writing there comes a point you know where where where you have to hand it over the big BBC have very, very, which I'm very glad about, have said they will continue it. So that incredible team I get to work with are still going to be making it with a different host.

But not with me anymore. I will do one final week. I'll do one final week where I hand over to the new host, which will be a lot of fun. But oh my God, I've loved it. I've loved doing it so much. And I'll be gutted when I don't do it anymore. But, you know, I had to, in the same way with pointless. But, you know, we filmed 110 episodes.

last year, which are still going out now. And those will be my last ones apart from one final day. Well, I wonder how many hundreds of those episodes have been watched in my house. And I will say, thank you. You have brought such joy to everyone in my family. So thank you. And onwards. Looking forward to Sue Pollard's House of Games.

That out of the way, let's talk about more minor showbiz news. The acquisition of Warner Brothers by Paramount Skydance. Well, you've thrown that into the show. now, haven't I just? Talk us through what has happened there. Right, yes. Now, the last time we covered this and in fact until just the end of last week,

Netflix were kind of locked on as you could be at this stage to acquire Warner Brothers, one of the huge studios, but at the last minute Paramount, Paramount Skydance, remember Skydance was a small film studio which recently acquired Paramount

and now almost immediately he wants to acquire But Warners. They raised their offer to $31 a share. Netflix were given four days to respond to a counter, and co-ceeos, Ted Sarand us and Greg Peters, said, after one day, yeah, no, you're all right. Yeah. We're walking away.

It's not right for us at this price. Netflix said essentially that Warner Brothers would be a nice thing to have at the right price. It is not a must-have at any price. Nice to have. Which it is for Paramount Skydarts. Yeah, anyhow. Hugely overpaid.

Well, they're buying it for $11, 11 billion. And it looks like, you know, they will get it. Remember, Larry Ellison is like, you know, he's always bumping along in the top four. I think he's currently the fourth richest man in the world, but sometimes he's the second. It just moves around a little bit. Larry Ellison, he's now said he will backstop the deal, but it's his son, always referred to on this podcast as Kendall Ellison, but actually called David apparently. David, who wants this. But they're close to the Trump's and it's thought that, you know, people think for that reason it will get through whatever regulatory things that Netflix would have found quite difficult. Now, despite the the initial shock back when we first covered this when Netflix was sort of sweeping in for it. I came to think, and lots of other people came to think, and I'm sure you probably did, that actually Netflix was the better deal for Hollywood. By far.

For them to have won this, would have been better for the town, for the people who work at Warner's, for all of those things. And mainly because Netflix and Warner Brothers do quite separate things, so the synergies of those two companies come together, you will talk about the savings, the Paramount Sky Dance are going to make.

With Netflix and Warner Brothers, actually, they would multiplied each other a little bit more and these two big companies, I think, divide each other a little bit more. So there'll be an awful lot less jobs, I think. And right up until last week when Ted Sarandos was still sort of pushing this deal, he was saying repeatedly as many times as possible on record, he was really committing to cinema release. Remember what we call, they call it windows, the time that a film is in the theatres before it comes to other forms of release and when it eventually ends up on streaming. Now, Netflix sometimes will have something in theatres for a week and then it'll be on streaming.

There are several windows between something going to streaming where you can pay for it, where you can do all sorts of different things, and creators really, really wanted it preserved. Now, Ted Saurand just went on the record and said, no, no, no, we're definitely going to stick to it. Okay, so he hasn't got it now and he can go back to slagging off cinemas.

Yes. Genuinely, Netflix seem thrilled to have lost out. Oh my God, this is one of the great losses ever, and we'll get to that. They got to the point where there was so much political pressure which they weren't interested in. And they've never had it really. They've never had political pressure.

Exactly. They don't have news. They don't have all sorts of things that bring political pressure. They were being told to fire Susan Rice from their board, all sorts of things that they are not used to having. The price was going up and up and up into a point where they thought this doesn't make any commercial sense for us. And their shareholders hated it, Richard. The shareholders hated it. And the second that they pulled out, and they pulled out immediately, they were like, oh no, you can have that.

The second they pulled out, their shares went up 10%. Yeah, by the end, I think it. Yeah, there's shares that are on a tear now. It's great. Okay, so what's this going to mean for all the little different bits of this? And for us as people who even over here consume a huge amount of the things they make, okay? So for movies, David Ellison has said the combined Warner Paramount entity will release 30 films a year to which I can only say, loll, okay. I absolutely will lay it down here.

I don't think that's going to happen. It would be lovely if it did. I don't think it's going to happen. it does happen, by the way, there will be like 12 movies that you think, what's that weird, tiny movie that got released for like one day? What's that AI film made with Oracle AI? I remember the Ellison's run Oracle. In general, everything we've ever seen in the history of all of this is that studio mergers

lead to fewer and not more titles. It happened when Disney acquired Fox. So what they now have, they have two lots, two studio complexes. I mean, the Paramount Lot is one of the most beautiful buildings in Los Angeles. And I, you know, my thoughts. You know that doesn't mean much, but actually this is genuinely a beautiful building, a series of buildings. The Warner lot, which is also very historic, they will, I think our producer, Jerry was just saying to me they'll have like 88 sound stages. Paramount is saying that they will make $6 billion of savings.

And when they're talking about savings, let's be very honest what they're talking about. They're talking about thousands of people losing their jobs. Ted Saramandross has been saying, okay, with that level, remember, this is leveraged, this is a leverage bite. They have a huge amount of debt. There's no way that $6 billion will be enough. Netflix estimate that Paramount are going to have to make $16 billion, $16 billion of savings. I mean, there's so many different bits of this empire. So there's what happens with talent?

A talent going to be sort of sniffing, going to think, you know, the Ellison's are clearly, you know, Lindsay Gray and the sort of ancient and awful Republican senator was snapped with David Ellison, who was his guest at the State of the Union last week. Everyone knows that the Ellison's are very close to Trump. will lots of talent think again this can only be to Netflix's benefit Why would I not go to Netflix? Why would I not go to Netflix?

In another way I would say though Talent is not in a position to be sniffy Hollywood is in a lot of trouble and you know if at the start Kendall Ellison does make 30 films a year He's going to need people to be in them Sports-wise this is looking pretty good because they now have all the football

their football UFC golf they have you know the college basketball tournament March Madness that is mega, it's like a huge cultural moment. So they have all of that. I think in some ways what's very interesting is the TV networks. There is a whole sort of hot take industry

that in fact this has only ever been about news which is too hot to take for me but that CBS which is currently going through a whole kind of a load of convulsions which has been put under the control of Barri White who is a sort of conservative friendly kind of person who's never run a network but is now

running this. What happens to CNN? Do they all have to report into Bariwise? So the basic principle here is that CNN, which is one of the big news networks over there, is now under direct control of people who are very, very close to Trump. Well, media power in general is shifting towards being Trump friendly across everything. What he does require people to be Trump, you can't say, oh, you know, he's their tacit supporters of, Trump always wants you to be overtly political and to bend the way. Yeah, to dependently. So lots of things are shifting, and other people will say, oh, well, it was a long time the other way.

So that's fine. In terms of the nature of the deal, I'm sure Warner's shareholders love being told that a shares are worth $31 because they were bumbling along at like $11 for a long time back there. So I'm sure they love that. But as we say, they have a vast amount of debt. Something like 57 billion of this deal is debt. Most of it junk rated. And then you add into the debt that was already on Warner's books. There are estimates you're somewhere around 90 billion of debt here.

And that's all very well, by the way, if you're bankrupt by Larry Edison, because he runs Oracle. And Oracle is riding like on the unbelievable AI boom. I mean, the value of that company is so enormous. They went back and back and back with more and more and more money because money was meaning this to them at the moment because they are so awash with it because of AI. So AI, as you say, yeah, we can make movies with AI.

But if AI turns out to be a bubble, and it's going to turn out to be some sort of bubble at some point, for sure, then suddenly that $90 billion of debt is going to be very, very, very difficult to service. And if that becomes very difficult to service, then you have a huge behemoth right in the heart of Hollywood, right in the heart of creating content for television, film and everything, which will be almost crippled. Unless they get some more of what is part of this deal, which is Saudi money.

It doesn't look amazing in lots of different ways. And in terms of who's running this, I mean, who is David Ellison? He was running something called Skydant, honestly about 15 minutes ago. I always think people in the film business will tell you that if you ever see a producer on the red carpet with the stars of the film, that guy is a real asshole. If you look at Top Gun Maveritt, which is by far the biggest thing Skydance ever produced, who is there, Tom Cruise and all of them on the red carpet, is of course David Ellison. You know, he's trying to create this enormous media company at incredible speed.

And doing it, by the way, purely through spending his dad's money. Yeah. I mean, it's not like, oh my God, he's really transformed. Well, his dad is backstopping this. Yeah, exactly that. That's, which is the difference. I mean, I suppose we have to believe it. but ultimately means awfully huge layoffs.

But Netflix has emerged. Amazingly the win. Clearly, we know their investors didn't like the deal. But when you do a deal as big or you come closer doing a deal this big, you get to look completely over the entity you wish to acquire's books. So they know every single thing about how they're not the same. Remember, Netflix are not the same as these old Hollywood legacy studio companies. they're doing something totally different.

And of course, they've hired lots of people with those companies. So it's not like they have no institutional knowledge of how these companies work, but they've now seen exactly every single thing. And sale rates at different parts of the year, at different times. I mean, literally deals. When now Netflix are doing up front because they haven't had it. It's all very different. So they've had a chance to look at exactly how it all works.

And they've managed to get away from it. And they're also getting a $2.8 billion cancellation fee. I think it might be too boring. it's something ridiculous. Yeah. And Washington is not up in their business any longer, which was becoming very difficult. I mean, they're a bit more sort of on the radar now because people have had to think about them, which they never had to before. They were just the sort of TV company.

And also one of their big competitors has been forced to massively overpay for something. Yeah. Because they've had to consistently top Netflix's deal. So it sort of couldn't be a better loss. I mean, it might be one of the all-time great losses in corporate history. Yeah. This one. Everything about it has turned Netflix's way.

We should say that just in general, they just, and I understand why they have to happen in a very, very difficult climate for the whole business. But almost always these big mergers don't work. I mean, you know, I was talking to someone who works at a senior level on the creative side and said, you know, I've done so many reorientation days where it's like, hi, welcome. Welcome to your new corporate overlord. I've done like three in the last decade now I've got to now do another. These things don't tend to work. Maybe they'll prove us all wrong and make 30 great AI films a year. Or maybe the turmoil is not at all over.

And it certainly isn't over in terms of job losses. I mean, so many thousands of people are going to lose their jobs. There was a separate thing recently, Jack Dorsey, who set up Twitter originally. And now when we look at where Twitter is, we sort of see him as, you know, some sort of great hope. But he has a... He's a George W. Bush. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. He has a company called Block, which is a payments company. And he has just laid off 40% of the staff of that company. He's laid off 4,000 people. And he has not laid them off because Block is doing badly. Block is doing very, very well. He laid them off because AI is now doing the work of most of his employees. And he says, this is a direct quote from Jack Dorsey,

Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes, by which he means that they will lose... We'll all essentially be Dubai influences. 40% of their workforce. And, you know, there's over 50,000 employees within this merger. You lose 40% of that. It's a lot of people. And it feels, again, like we were talking in the Dubai thing, it feels like there's such

an unfairness to it, which is a group of people playing by different rules because they're being funded by something that's not based on anything real. It's ever been thus, but I do think Netflix would have been a better home for Warner Brothers. Listen, let's take them out their word. If they do massively ramp up movie production, that will be very, very good news. And it's doable and perhaps they will do it. But they can only do it if they use AI, Oracle AI on it. They can't possibly put out 30 movies a year. They just can't. And it's not going to happen.

And if it does, a significant part of those films will be made by AI. There's only one Jason Statham. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm always saying. It's essentially the point I'm making in every single lighting we ever do on the film. What would Latin for? There's any one Jason Statham be? I'll stop try and work it out.

Should we end with some good news, which was the Brits this weekend. It's moved up to Manchester at the co-op arena, which, if you remember when that opened up was derided because. they were, you know, kept being shut down and there were all sorts of issues and now has turned into like an unbelievable venue with insane acoustics. You know, after, you know, the BAFTAs and what have you, to have this ceremony, because the Brits does feel like, you know, all awards ceremonies feel like, you know, they're less significant than they were. But it felt like a room full of people working in an industry that's absolutely firing on all cylinders. Amazing performances, amazing

winners, amazing energy, a host who's actually a comedian so can do jokes. And I just thought it was worth noting that it feels like sort of a good news story. There's bad news stories within the music industry for sure, the decline of live music, the decline of live venues and things like that, Wolf Alice, who won the best band, spoke about that. But it felt like in terms of creativity and in terms of, you know, an industry that, you know, doesn't always show its best side. It felt like a really celebratory evening. Absolutely it did. And there were so much sort of great, great stuff there.

I will say in terms of TV, which is the medium one, via which most people will have seen this ceremony, the ratings are down. I agree that the story it's celebrating is very, very successful. The ratings are down. It's like the 10th most watch program on Saturday night. It's behind Michael McIntelagh's big show, got talent, weakest link, gladiators, the news, obviously, always. So yes, I think that it's interesting. The industry at celebrating is doing very well, the British side of it. But award ceremonies in general are, they're becoming very difficult, and we will end up talking about this,

but particularly after what happened at the BAFTAs the week before. But I noticed that so much conversation around the Brits was online, was about censorship. And they were saying, you know, people have been censored for saying free Palestine. or, you know, making comments about ice. In fact, even some very, very anodyne joke Jack Whitehall made about Peter Mandelson was censored. Some of these things, by the way, are cut for length and people don't realize that. The show overruns, they have a slot. Certain things have to go.

And maybe they just took the view that, like, lots of politics jokes, we don't need millions of them because that's not really what this place is about. Yeah, that joke was just, there was a table of politicians, Andy Burnham and Lisa and Andy. And he'd done the joke about Andy Burnham saying, this is the early party you get invited to these days. he said, oh, who else is on the table? I'm sure I saw Peter Mandelson on the list. Oh, that was a different list. Yeah. I mean, I'd cuss it because it's not, there was better stuff.

Sure and Ryder had to have an entire anecdote bleeped. Sure he did. I have to say that artisan. just often used to, in decades gone by, often used to use award ceremonies to make political points and things that. We know they did. But all of the censorship stories in the last year have come

from sort of creative events of its kneecap and Bob Villan at Glastonbury, John Davidson at Bafters, we're going to get to that. It's become such a sort of cultural war minefield. In the past when these stands were taken or people said these things, they didn't happen in the sort of frenzied world

of social media, which, and it's not the fault of the broadcasters is a big part in our lives of why we can't have nice things. Social media just means you can't have those moments. You know, and of course there have been an award ceremonies. I mean, they're so dull that they're a really good time to take a stand because everyone's excited. But if you do anything off the script,

people always have done, be it film or music or any sort of awards, but now doing it in a world where the social media reaction is instant and it becomes a huge thing, we have to understand that broadcasters operate under codes. And in America, they cut lots of things in the Grammys because you're not allowed to swear. So you can probably mention ICE, but you can't say F-Ease because then you're swearing.

We have different broadcast laws. We have the things that can be said at the Brits after 9pm are different to the things that can be said before 9pm. But there is a sort of general misunderstanding, just a lack of understanding, which you'd think when we've had this long in social media, about media law. Funny enough, the Times did a article, I had to do an article last week saying this is the reason we don't allow comments under most of our Andrew Mountain Windsor content.

And this is the reason. And I'm not joking. As you know, I'm obsessed with newspaper comments. I read all of them. It was people just saying underneath, why don't you just say this is nothing to do with you? It's just what commenters are saying, hi, this is sort of our job. We have, most of us have been through libel actions or things that were threatened, liable actions and we understand the law better than you, we have to protect ourselves because it will not be you paying when somebody takes legal action and the sort of general failure to understand it all. I mean, if I was running one of the big media organizations, I would cut out pretty much everything these days. I mean, because everything, you know what? Because the next

day, all I have to deal with is someone can be, it'll be someone saying, you know, I would, I would just, you know, I'm not even going to show it, cut out everything. Well, bear in mind that everything they had to cut on Saturday from the Brits, they have had a week of playing out in the aftermath of what happened at the Bafters to remind everybody when Michael B. Jordan and Dary Lindo, who were behind sinners, were on the stage. John Davidson, who has Tourette's, involuntarily ticked, said the N-word, it was not cut from the broadcast despite there being a long delay. We have to talk about this. I have to say, I think it was absolutely awful, horrendous that those two guys should have to stand there and that they heard it.

I think it is horrendous that to some degree John Davidson was put in that situation. Reportedly, we don't know. But reportedly, he said, I am concerned that I'm near an audience microphone. I'm concerned that they put in an audience microphone there. This is, I have to say, the BBC say they want a quick investigation. It shouldn't take too long because this is a mega, mega mistake. It's really, really bad. Everyone knew it had happened in the room.

That's what's so odd. It's not like, oh, they said they didn't hear it in the editing truck. But the thing is you don't need to hear it in the editing truck. And in editing trucks, often you don't hear it because you've got lots of different mics all going at the same time. Where you definitely hear it is in the room. And what you have in the room are floor managers, stage managers, members of the crew, members of production. I mean, they are there and they are in direct contact with the truck as well. There is absolutely, I mean, by the way, the BBC did not put it out deliberately.

So we get that, you know, sometimes when you see things and people go, oh, they're happy putting that out. No. It's a mistake. Nobody is happy. It's a catastrophic mistake. Nobody on any side of this discussion is happy. Everybody is unhappy with everything that happened. There was a huge mistake that happened in the middle, which is there's a lack of communication.

You know, I had messages from people who are at the thing saying, oh my God, this has just happened. And it's, you know, so everyone heard it. Everyone knew it. And it did not get through from the floor to the truck. It did not get through from the truck to when it's delivered. for broadcast as well, and it took another 24 hours for that to get through. Listen, absolutely certainly, they can find out what the issue was and they can find it out quickly.

It is definitively, no one has done this on purpose. But it is, you know, in the climate we live in, and as you say, with social media and what happened at Glastonbury, it's sort of extraordinary that it wasn't picked up. And it has caused such upset for everyone on every side of this argument. that you sort of feel, come on. I'll be honest with you. There was a point last week where I thought, perhaps awful as this is,

this will lead to something better and I think lots of people did. And there will be more awareness, there will be more understanding of Tourette's and the understanding of in this situation, why it's particularly unique that it's a neurological thing that someone can't help. I don't know if you've seen Saturday Night Live

did a sketch on, I think they may be kind of, it from the broadcast, but they've put it out deliberately on their social media in which some of who they've identified or decided of the worst people in entertainment, Mel Gibson, Army Hammer, Bill Cosby, they turn up and they blame all their various scandals on the fact that they just have Tourette so they can't help them say in these things, okay? I can't, okay, S&L, you want a good target? Like, the BBC is right there, okay? Really self-important awards organizers are right there. If you want to be brave, you could do two very low-level operatives

in a truck having to have a very high-level debate about competing rights against the clock post a decade where identity politics was given primacy over everything. I mean, that might have been something to do. Instead, you've punched down. I mean, sorry, I already knew that SNL were basic and depressing and not funny, and that 90% of their sketches go on too long, two minutes too long because they can't work out how to get out of them, or maybe it's just self-indulgence. But you know what? Now I also know that they do disabled jokes, okay?

Tell your friends, SNL punched down at people with disabilities. They had many other targets they could have chosen. Of course they should have made something about, you know, you're not going to not do address this unless you're particularly wet. But the idea that you've made Tourette sound like something that, you know, people just say they make up to get out of bad things they've done is to me mind blowing and no, I no longer think something good can come out of something awful that happened the weekend before. I think it's indicative of the fact that in the UK Tourette's awareness has quite a long history

and a lot of work has been done. So much by John Davidson. So much by John Davidson. And there is more of an understanding in the UK about what Tourette's is and people do understand that if you have a tick, you're not saying your deepest, darkest desire, you're saying the opposite, which is you're saying the worst thing you could possibly say, that's the point of it. It has that self-destructiveness in it. And that has been something that Tourette's campaigners in the UK have dealt with for years and years and years and years trying to get people to understand that.

And, you know, Pete Bennett, who went on Big Brother and things like that, is, it's something culturally we have come to understand a little bit more. It becomes apparent that that has not crossed the Atlantic. But in the wake of this. And there is an award. winning film that explains the whole thing. But there were also, there were so many videos posted by black people with Tourette's trying to explain and essentially defending John Davidson. And listen, as I said, it is absolutely horrendous that Michael B. Jordan and Darolando stood up and had that and I, you know, I wish that it hadn't happened. But to end the week, a whole week on, when you would think that

all sorts of different awareness of a neurological condition might have been in. increased, to end it, punching down at people with disabilities is so depressing. Shame on SNL. I wonder what the Minister of Culture in Dubai would have to say about that, Marina. I wonder. I've just on tick to box. I was going to talk about Olivia Dean and why the biggest sounding song in Britain at the moment is not number one. Let's do that next week.

If you're a geek like me about the charts and about things like that, then there's a really interesting story happening in the charts. Or can we do a deep dive on the charts and how weird they are? Yeah, because I don't want to detract from that grand finish. Okay, recommendations. I am going to recommend on Amazon Prime, a brilliant documentary made by Morgan Neville called Man on the Run about Paul McCartney and the sort of decade after the Beatles split up, essentially a way of Paul McCartney finding a way to be the most famous man in the world and have a family and make music.

It's really, really beautiful and interesting and the music is great. And he takes so many wrong turns, which he's incredibly honest about. You can see he's obviously sat in an edit and looked at this, but you can see that every single thing that Morgan Neville has put in there, Paul McCartney's gone, okay, fair enough. Because there are bits in there where you go, ooh, because we all make mistakes. It's really, really, really lovely. And if it's possible to think even more highly of Paul McCartney than you already did, then you do by the end of this. It's a man on the run on Amazon Prime. I would like to recommend The Secret Agent, which is a brilliant Brazilian film.

The story is extraordinary about living amongst corruption and paranoia. And I'm ashamed to say that I knew so little about that part of Brazil's history. I knew stuff about Chile, about Argentina, but I didn't know about this. And it stars Wagner Moran. It really is. The production design, by the way, you cannot believe. and there's huge crowd scenes in lots of different parts. You can't believe that this film wasn't shot in 1977.

Everything, the color of it, that every single, every thread of the clothes, every single thing seems that you're right there. And there are a couple of bits where you kind of are in the present day. And it's so interesting to see just the completely different lighting, just the way everything looks completely different anyway. But it's a really interesting story, and I've been thinking about it ever since. That's the secret agent. See you all on Thursday. Did Vladimir Putin interfere in the U.S. 2016 presidential election?

I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist. And I'm David McCloskey, author and former CIA analyst. And we are the hosts of The Rest is Classified. And in our latest series, we're going deep inside the 2016 election to reveal the true story of whether the Russians helped Donald Trump take the White House. This is the unbelievable story of how Russians spark. first hacked and then leaked emails belonging to Hillary Clinton's campaign, how Julian Assange got involved with Putin spies,

and how 2016 marked the point that the world changed forever. Get the full insider scoop by listening to The Rest is Classified, wherever you get your podcasts.