The Rest Is Entertainment - Editing tricks, stopping leaks and how do you pitch shows?

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

How genuine are the reactions we see? How do you go about pitching a show? And how are the winners of The Traitors, Bake Off, MasterChef and others kept secret? Richard and Marina pull back the curtain on entertainment and answer your questions. Twitter: @restisents Email: [e-mail] Producer: Neil Fearn Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's building connections with a team in a great environment, connecting with your guests in the community, and participating in programs like Smile Cookie and Hockey Card Trade Nights. So join your local Tim's team today. Apply now at careers.timhortons.ca Hello and welcome to another edition of the Restors Entertainment questions edition. I'm Marina Hyde. I'm Richard Osman.

Welcome to the questions and answers podcast. And answers. And answers. It's so crucial. Every week there will be answers. Last week we did an emergency podcast, didn't we? No. You loved calling it that.

No, we did a special bonus episode. I was saying the only way I'll ever get you to do an emergency podcast is if there's a massive hit show on Netflix called Emergency that everyone's talking about. Then you'll be forced to. I will have to find a way around it because it will never happen. Now, let me kick off for you, Richard, with a question from Thomas Lane. I want to know this as well.

How do TV shows that film in advance stop their contestants from giving away anything on social media? Examples like Bake Off, MasterChef, The Professionals, Traitors. film in advance stop their contestants from giving away anything on social media examples like bake off master chef the professionals traitors it would be really easy for one contestant to give away the ending accidentally or on purpose it's a really really good question and funny if i looked at the question i was thinking do you know what it's quite tricky to give the answer different shows do different things but by and large you're actually relying on goodwill with the traitors harry is obviously not getting paid until the show goes out so it's in his interest to not give that away so you have

contracts saying you can't give something away but there's you know you can't enforce a contract if i mean what are you going to do fine andrew he no yeah he actually said he actually broke the rules and told his dad and his girlfriend and it was about 5 00 a.m i thought oh yeah you've gone out had a big night and just thought oops and his dad. And it was about 5am. I thought, oh yeah, you've gone out, had a big night and just thought, oops. And his dad opened a bottle of Prosecco at five in the morning. Oh, wow. Harry's dad's probably 10 years younger than both of us. Yes.

With someone like Harry, it's easy because he doesn't want to break that contract. With other contestants, some shows will give a little runner's up prize that's not mentioned on air, which only gets paid as and when you get through. There would be situations where lots of people go on these shows apprentice would be a good example for exposure yeah and you know to get some sort of contract with various people and that they need quite a lot of goodwill from the production company and the channel for that to happen so you know if you've been on the apprentice andice and you want to work on the BBC and you give away the ending of The Apprentice, then you're not going to get that job. The Apprentice actually, I don't think they still do this, but they always used to film two endings where he hired both of them. So even the people who won did not know they'd won until they watched the episode.

So, you know, it's a good way of keeping things secret. I also don't know this, but I know how newspapers and things work, which is that if they did know who won it, they would keep it totally secret because there's no better way of pissing off your readers than to spoil the show. So you kind of, it's a little bit safe on that side too. But even, it's not just contestants. So Bake Off, when you do the spin-off show,

you could tell by the traitors when they did the spin-off show or anything with an audience, there's a whole studio audience who know what's happened and they don't give it away either so they will all sign the thing saying i'm not able to give this away but i mean what are you giving away it's given away but people don't so strictly usually if you really want to search for it don't search for it because it will ruin everything there's a spoiler before the sunday night show because someone in the audience on the Saturday or someone somewhere around the show on the Saturday will be able to tell you who got kicked out.

The lovely news about it is, because I think whoever was doing the Strictly spoiler was monetising it somehow, that everyone started doing their own Strictly spoiler website. So actually, it's sort of impossible to find out which is the real Strictly spoiler, which is quite good news. There's one of the rare occasions

where disinformation is incredibly useful but by and large you're relying on goodwill if you do a quiz show if you do pointless anything like that if you do house of games don't put anything on social media until the show goes out if you'll ever watch if there's ever a big celebrity show on and you want to know who wins just go on twitter and see whose tweet is saying yeah i'm on uh dancing on ice tonight um hope you guys can catch it because they're only saying that if they won but but by and i honestly usually it's just sort of goodwill and everyone plays the game and plays fair and if you look after people properly on shows and if they've enjoyed themselves then they will do that but it's a it's a it's a great question i have a question for you marina very good um kathyugston says, Radio is a form of entertainment that is often left out of discussions.

That is very true. Its demise has often been predicted, but it somehow survives. I wondered what your thoughts were on the future of linear radio, given the podcast explosion. The podcast explosion. The emergency podcast explosion. Well, this is very interesting because linear radio is far from dead. People don't want it to be dead for a start.

12% of the BBC's entire consumption happens in cars. Wow. It's extraordinary. People are listening to the radio in cars. Funnily enough, 85% of BBC TV consumption is completely linear, which is, again, one of the mistakes people often make when they're talking about media is to imagine that they are representative and just because you like to get lots of podcasts or you like to watch everything on catch up most people don't

but we're talking about radio so to go back to that people actually want what's called a sort of lean back experience people like turning on their radio in the car a podcast is an act of choice and you may think right i'm going to go and walk the dog i want to listen to a specific podcast please make it this one uh but um when the great rest is stable to be fair if anyone heard that they are they are actually listening they're maybe already they already did the worst people to advertise to are people who are already enjoying your product yes i must get the hang of this mustn't i richard uh but um people want to sort of lean back and they want to be able to turn on the radio in the kitchen and something happen linear radio is what happens when you're doing something else it happens in the

background if you're doing something else and people have a lot of time in their lives when they are sort of having to do other things and they'd quite like to just be able to switch something on and a channel or whatever to be happening so what you've got then your issue is the devices and the devices in this case are technically the car which is the device which is delivering this into you or what used to be people's kitchens radios and are increasingly becoming smart speakers which are owned by amazon google whoever now what unfortunately is happening is that there is no incentive for volkswagen or for google to make radio front and center in the dashboard of the car because they can't monetize it they're not interested in radio because they

can't monetize it they can can maybe do deals with Spotify or things like that. So it's not in their interest. Exactly the same with the smart speakers. Now, smart speakers are coming into the market far quicker. Cars take a long time to wash through. You don't get rid of your car, you know, you don't keep your car for a long time. And so radio is front and centre in most dashboards still. But that might change. So yet again, radio is a really big battleground. And it's a battleground against, in my view, some of the sort of pretty awful companies. And it's all via the devices.

So when you say that might change, you mean that car companies would start producing cars without an inbuilt radio and so you weren't able to access? Well, they might do a deal themselves. weren't able to access do a deal themselves with they're not going to do a deal with the bbc obviously but they might well do a deal with um amazon spotify all these different which allows them to put their things front and center and easily most easy to select and they are trapped but people don't want that but it might be what they're given but um oh my god people don't want linear radio to die at all it is literally the tech companies and it is literally the tech companies and it will become the car companies

who are the battleground on this. This is something I would take to the barricades for. Absolutely. If you can get the radio. I mean, radio to me, linear radio comes down to this. Would I put on Ready to Go by Republica? Probably not. If it comes on the radio, am I like, yes!

That's the world of curation for you. Once again, the world of curationation we need to start lobbying the car companies yes say keep vernon k in my car please please keep lisa tarbuck in my car is the hill i will die on exactly richard we have had so many questions about dragon's den tv fakery that i'm just going to sort of amalgamate them in one um just to sort of recap this there was a contestant who, please stop me if I'm getting this wrong, Richard, she was selling something called a 30 pound Accu ear seed. It's a gold plated ear seed that she says cured her ME. Now, this has been quite a big scandal. This is sort of people are saying it's snake oil. And I think all six dragons tried to invest in it. And

she went with Stephen Bartlett because I think she said that someone had told her she was going to meet an important man called Stephen. Ding dong. That's the warning sign. Anyway, I believe the BBC have now had to take this off iPlayer because there have been obviously snake oil claims about it. They've actually put it back on iPlayer now, but with a tiny edit and also a caption on the screen saying there is no evidence at all that these um earbuds work these earpods work ear seeds ear seeds of course what am I talking about I'm an idiot of course it's ear seeds um yeah it's interesting that because obviously there are huge huge huge amounts of money to be made in alternative health remedies and of course if you're an investor you would be investing in alternative health remedies and of course if you're an investor you would be

investing in some of those and of course certain things do work for certain people and the placebo effect works on certain people so that isn't there's a multi-billion billion billion dollar industry wellness and there's always something and if you want to invest in it if it makes people feel happy uh then all well and good there's obviously a side of that which is my machine cures cancer, which is illegal and you should go to prison. So it's sort of a world in which people would be investing. The interesting thing about Dragon's Den, it's always come out of an entertainment department. It's always an entertainment show.

But it does have a genuine truth to it somewhere, which is there is a world in which people are looking for investors. These people, the Dragons, are genuine investors. It's their their money they're not getting paid by production to sort of put money and they do really invest you know after the show of course there's more due diligence and there's a lots of deals break down but lots of deals also go through so it has an awful lot of reality to it there's a lot of people have been using the phrase tv fakery which is something we haven't heard for a while but it was a big scandal for a time back then. It does take you back because people were saying, oh, well, she was approached to take part. Now, I don't think that is TV fakery. No, it's not. And that's always how

Dragon's Den has worked. You'd always get people applying to come on the show with ideas, but you're making a TV show. You want to make the best TV show possible. So, you know, you will often, if you're a researcher on that show, a producer on that show, you'll be looking around for young, interesting businesses who maybe have not thought about approaching Dragon's Den. You approach them. You say, look, would you be interested in coming on the show? Are you looking for investment? At what sort of level? You have conversations with them.

Most of them will say, this is not for us. But some of them will say, actually, you know, yeah, this is. You know, you could go through like a Whole Foods market and you see there's a marshmallow brand. And you think, oh, give them a ring. That's an interesting thing. So yeah, it's not TV fakery. Lots of people do apply. But equally, you wouldn't be doing your job properly if you weren't looking for interesting businesses.

No one is coming along with a fake business that doesn't exist. No one is coming along and trying to con people. All the businesses there are real people, real entrepreneurs, and they're pitching to real people. So I've never had a problem with that. I did a few documentaries about Dragon's Den, about the sort of biggest successes they'd ever have. And it was genuinely such a heartwarming experience. You're talking to the entrepreneurs who had real businesses, real stories, and the money had really, really helped them grow. Talking to the dragons who took it very very very seriously and so yeah i i think it's a

pretty solid show dragons den as to whether they should have these ear seeds it's tricky because definitely people making ear seeds are going out looking for investment that's for sure and dragons den is a show that hopefully shows what real investment is like. But I do think the BBC probably has to... Get out of the Earseed game. I think probably it does. And listen, when all the peer-reviewed papers are in and Earseeds are proven, then of course... Leave it to Gwyneth Paltrow.

I just think there shouldn't be a crossover. I think so. I think if something's on the BBC, it does give it a certain veneer of respectability. This is one thing in however many shows. This is not... It's interesting talking about telly fakery in general because that seems like such a tame scandal looking back on it.

This is back in the sort of around 2010. The Blue Peter Cat was the big one about... Oh my God, Blair Grylls goes in a hotel. And it seems like we've dined out on these stories for weeks and then it's now like, after the sort of political shocks of 2016, you now feel like saying, yeah, yeah, but wait,

the guy who presents US Apprentice, right? He becomes president. So you go back and you look at all these really tame stories and think, I mean, do I really care? But because of that, you will notice that in the UK version of The Traitors, you have to see them leaving the castle in these black Land Rovers every night

and then driving back in in the morning. In the US version of the show, which is shot in the exact same castle with the same crew and everything, they just pretend they sleep in the castle. But because we've had this scandal, we have to show that they're not actually sleeping there. Otherwise, there would be a great big story in the Daily Mail saying they don't even sleep in the castle. Oh, God, don't. It's like a Holmes under the hammer that, you know, where you used to sort of pretend you just follow people back from the auction. And now it's like, no, this is just every bit of TV is like, oh, my God, this is like Ed Poll, which is editorial policy. Yeah, it's always has its hand on on almost any format these days. So I think, yeah, I think, I think probably it was unwise that for all the people asking, but I think dragon's den is is is pretty pretty robust and gary neville was on that episode as well which is great someone had like it's like a cinema pod and he was saying i'm going to give you all the money but only if you can turn it into social

housing you sure gary the big scandal it never really came out was that um uh on blind date when they used to you when you get the choice of holiday at the end, the two envelopes, same thing in both envelopes. You know, but you know, it's like, it's TV, isn't it? I'm shocked. Same thing, right? Retrospectively, I'm going to make a massive complaint.

Can you believe it? And then Cilla Black became president. Yeah. Can you believe it? Can you believe it? Same hairdo, actually. Yeah. Okay, on that blind date bombshell,

let's move on to our next question. Sophie Fisher asks, my question is, why are films made for Netflix, etc., so long? What is the benefit to streaming services to produce longer shows? Is it with a view to introducing ad breaks, which we talked about a little on Tuesday? We did.

I don't think it's to do with introducing ad breaks. This is a very good question. First of all, they want to keep you on the platform. They also think you're watching it at home, so you can probably get through a three-and-a-half-hour movie over three nights, or you can stop and make cups of tea and all those things. But actually, genuinely, the main reason is because

they needed to attract creators to the platform, and they just told them they could do whatever they wanted. And if they'd made it for a different studio, they would have been told to get their movie down under two hours or two hours, ten tops, were suddenly making three hours and ten minutes. And I mean, I was actually speaking to someone who'd spoken to Mike Lee about,

he'd done Peterloo for them. He said, this is fantastic. You can do whatever you want. They've let me do whatever I want. Well, I don't know if you've seen it, but it is much too long and it could have benefited from someone saying, this should be shorter.

And people, creators who all thought,, creators who always think they know best, but actually part of the whole ecosystem in which they work is someone editing and saying, I actually think we need to get this under certain thing. It's not commercial at this length. It's not, you know, it's too long. There's too many woolly bits. I know you love it, but you need to be told. Someone needs to tell you. Well, for a long time at places like Netflix or maybe even Amazon, they didn't tell them.

No one told them. They needed the creators to come to their platforms because they were suspicious of the streamers. They wanted to stay with old studios. So part of the creative offer was like, basically, you can do what you want. And you make it as long as you want. And there's very few creatives who are,

if they were given two hours or three hours, it would take two hours. And an impressively short answer as well, Marina. Yes, we've curtailed ourselves. Exactly. So we have a little break. Imagine if we'd gone on for two hours. Yeah. And an impressively short answer as well, Marina. Yes, we've curtailed ourselves. Exactly. So we have a little break. Imagine if we'd gone on for 15 minutes about that. The problem with creatives is they keep going, going, and going.

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And you won't want to miss it. So make every Wednesday a whopper Wednesday. Only at Burger King, where you rule. Welcome back. Now, straight into a really good one and a matter of mass annoyance for people. Leanne Rhodes says, why do so many programs have a preview

of what's coming up before the start of the show and coming up after the break? It infuriates me. Likewise, Leanne. Sometimes they show up so much, I don't even need to watch the program and I turn over. Leanne, thank you. For me, thank you from everybody for asking that question it drives me absolutely up the wall those shows where the first minute is this is what you're about to

see in the next bit uh and then even then like halfway through that bit there'll be like another bit coming up it'll be the one good line in the whole show by the way and you've by the time it comes like you've heard it three times you've heard it at the beginning you've heard it halfway through you've heard it just after the advert break as well they do it on property renovation shows that's the thing it drives the only reason i'm watching your show is you're showing me a rundown farmhouse and at the end i want to see what it looks like and you are showing me in this coming up what it looks like they cannibalize their own content i just do not understand is the audience regarded as having such a short attention span that unless you tell them what they're going to see they're

going to wander off presumably yes but i what is the evidence for that yeah i don't know any other events other than it's it's a sort of very 15 years ago thing of let's hook people in in the first five minutes. You think that's because otherwise they'll switch over. You think that's those days are gone. Come on. Give us a little bit of extra content. Dragon's Den, which we just talked about, The Apprentice,

they have the beginnings of the show that go on for so long. There can't be anybody who's not just fast forwarding through that on iPlayer. They go, imagine there are four dragons walking to the den. We know. We know, right? dragons walking to the den. We know. We know, right? It's like series 40. We know who they are. We know they've gone into the den.

Honestly, just start with the first pitch. And in The Apprentice, we have to do, there's that whole beginning of the show. This is the series where, you're also showing us things from later in the series where we can see contestants who've got through. They're usually very careful about not showing you stuff like that but you can see it

and then it's this is what happened last time and then it's the titles of the show and then we're into the show you think i can't do this three minutes it undermines the show and it insults the audience so i wish they would stop doing it and i don't actually believe there's any evidence that it hooks people in and makes them hang around longer if anything it takes away the drama and the you know reveals exactly that watch youtube they're they're straight into that stuff they're not kind of going on the last episode let's see what happened now on this episode coming up this is what's going to happen now let's see it happening i think oh my god that's such a good question leon i'm sorry i don't have a technical answer for why. I don't believe one exists. I

think it's laziness. Also, it's a sort of way of making sort of filler, really. It takes down your 30 minutes or however long your programme is. You can take four minutes of it with this nonsense. I mean, it's possible. And this is a possibility. If you're the BBC, when they're selling abroad and shows have to be slightly shorter because they're on ad funded channels, that is a kit of parts. And you can say, here's four minutes you can cut out that's possible that would be a good reason but i suspect it's the horse leading the cart now and people think they have to do these things stop honestly i'm i'm already invested stop telling us something crazy is going to happen and also oh my god this is the thing that drives me mad and actually there's

another question about it so maybe we'll get onto it. This is the pet peeves edition of the Q&A. Which is, they do it on Dragon's Den all the time, which is someone will say something from a pitch. They will then cut to a reaction from a completely different pitch to make it look like something absolutely nuts has happened. And you think, no, that's not the story of your show. So quit that.

Yeah, very good. That's such a good question. Thank you, Liam. Okay, well, let's talk about reactions because someone else has asked a question about reactions bill craddock he says please settle a running argument between me and my wife always bill and it doesn't have to be about television or anything to do with entertainment just get in touch with us dishwasher on yeah do you know what bill she's in the right i'm so sorry on the tv show when the thing happens the camera cuts to a presenter, fellow contestant, audience member, etc. to get their reaction.

Is this a true reaction or is someone editing the footage to splice in reactions from other incidents, even in the case of the presenter, kind of stock reactions on a held tape, you know, a tape that you might already have? Anything with Greg Wallison is the pinnacle of this, suggests Bill. I mean, anything with Greg Wallison is the pinnacle of anything. It's a really good question. By and large, you try and avoid that. As I was just saying, on the start of Dragon's Den, when they're sort of, you know,

giving you an idea of what's going to happen, they constantly do it. It's different bits from different episodes, and that drives me mad. If you're doing something like a panel show, so in a panel show, there's millions of edits because, you know know someone's talking someone else is talking

you know you've got cameras on everybody so you know in the edit you've got all the different you've got the feeds from all the different cameras

we used to call it a quad split we probably don't anymore a quad split so you have four different things which is what a visual mixer

would usually use and someone does a joke and you want to come out there and come in slightly later so they do that joke you then have to do a sound edit and someone says something directly after so you haven't got the the immediate reaction someone laughing you you might then find that same person laughing in a similar way from later in the show and edit that in to cover that edit so you might

you you might do that what you wouldn't do is do a joke that lands flat and then edit in someone laughing hilariously who didn't laugh in the first place you don't you want to be emotionally true to you would find the equivalent shot we we did a show years ago where the host would never laugh at anybody okay so everyone would do jokes and the host would just never laugh. And it was a proper issue very early on in the edit. But then you realise during the pick-ups of the show, where everyone's a bit more relaxed, the host was really laughing.

You know, suddenly there was... And so very early in that show, you'd have to just go to the pick-ups to find shots of the host. Because it looked weird if the host wasn't laughing. It was just nerves, I think, was the thing. But so you had to sort of put that in. I think the host watched it a few times and go,

oh, I love it when I laugh. Yeah, I should do more of that. From that moment on, always laugh. Do you remember, that's the plot of Broadcast News. Do you remember when one of the newsreaders, he looks like he's sort of crying in an interview with a rape victim or something. And in fact, she was like,

and then Holly Hunter works out that they only had one camera there that day. So it wasn't possible for him to have got that reaction. And it destroys her view of him. It's regarded as this kind of huge emotional moment because he's faked his two shot. And in fact, he sort of went back and made himself cry afterwards.

Oh, clever. But yeah, so it's available to people. In reality shows, it's done a fair bit. By and large, producers would not do it in a way that's not emotionally true or to stitch people up because, you know, that can come back on you. But you have a lot of reactions and sometimes you do have to replace the reaction with a reaction that's similar. I don't know whether we've come down on the side of you or your wife

in that particular answer, Bill. Bill's wife. Yeah. What does Bill say Bill's wife. Yeah. What does Bill say? It's not clear. So I hope that the… Yeah, come on, Bill. Bill and his wife are, you know, that is the answer.

Anyway, let's move on. I'm team Bill's wife. Yes. I have a question for you, Marina. I suspect you'll know this. Swiley Botton writes in. Thank you, Swiley. She says, this week Sky announced a major

new upcoming drama about Lockerbie starring Colin Firth. Six months after Netflix and the BBC announced their own upcoming Lockerbie drama. Gillian Anderson is playing Emily Maitlis in Netflix's drama about the Panorama Prince Andrew thing and Amazon are also doing their own version. So why do broadcasters continue to produce shows about

the same subject that are being made elsewhere? Surely your audiences aren't going to watch both. For example, she says, which is a good one, would you watch another post office scandal drama? There were quite a few that people were talking about it because it became an issue about three years ago, say something like the post office, where people actually suddenly, it started finally getting a small purchase in people's imagination. People thought, we must do something about this. But in this case, because I think ITV had bought up Alan Bates and bought up his story and paid for the rights of that, and also many of the characters involved,

the others fell away because they simply couldn't compete with that bought up content. If you're doing a true life story like that, that does matter. It's really quite interesting saying that people won't watch two, I mean, people sadly, do watch two. And it's almost, you know, you remember, they were the fire festival, the sort of thing that went completely wrong. I think Hulu had a documentary, maybe Netflix had a documentary, people watch both. And there's an awful lot of things where people will watch the same thing. And it's slightly what we've been talking about before that kind of algorithmic thing that serves you up the same sort of content.

You know, customers who like this also like. And so people don't regard it. Once they've invested a certain amount, they might find out that other people have a similar project or a project in the same space. But they've invested a lot of money and, you know, they have to believe that theirs will be better. What I can't slightly stand is that, you know, when it's something like WeWork or Theranos, the Elizabeth Holmes thing, you get the book, then you get sort of three competing documentaries, then you get the drama. And I really feel like, yeah, I think I'm on the point of being across this particular story now, which, by the way, only happened three years ago. So I don't like that particular he was directing Dangerous Liaisons, Milos Forman, who he had had Oscars for Amadeus,

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and he was making a film called Valmont, which was coming out really quickly behind them, and in fact should have come out before, but they said to him, how quickly can you start? And he said, Tuesday. And they were like, great. As long as you can get it out before Milos' film, then you're

good to go and he did and I for me it's the far superior film but sometimes there's a play that's been out and in fact Dangerous Liaisons was a play and it becomes a sort of cultural moment and people think I want to bring this to the screen or I want to bring this to TV and it becomes a race but it's interesting people do watch two of the same and that's something we can see but i'm not crazy about the vogue for repetition of it all and is is it a thing where where studios or streamers don't want to blink first where it's a massive game of bluff and they've already sunk enough money in that they want the other they want the other project to disappear and they've got big names involved for example in the um news night the prince andrew, they've got big names involved in both of those productions

and nobody, they're going to do both. But as I say, the market suggests that people will watch both. It's like when they had the Hatton Garden heist and there's like four movies. I think I've watched all of them. There was something, oh yeah, when the Rebecca Vardy and Colleen Rooney thing came out, which by the way, it was brilliant as a real life court battle

that you could follow every day. I had no interest in sort of seeing it on tv and I didn't watch it but I was asked by four different people to write that four different producers asked me to write the drama of that and to each of them I said I'm you know funny enough I was working on something in a slightly similar tangentially related space but I also felt it was great as it existed in real life and i think channel four did one and it sort of fell away and and it's because yeah if something's in our culture then 30 people will be pitching that i mean they and they i mean they really well but i would say that with tv shows all the time and someone says i've got an idea you think but it's if it's an idea that's about something current, every single company will be...

It's like traitors. Every single company has pitched their version of Mafia or Wink Murder or whatever you want to call it. Every single company has done it. And it's been on a number of times. Well, speaking of pitching, I really want to ask this one to you, Richard, because it's from Harry Salmon and he's 12.

So he, in my view, is a future format king. Hey, Harry. He comes with a question to you, and it is, how easy is it to pitch an idea for a quiz show to a TV channel? Can you share any tips for creating one? That's a very, very good question. Our thing has always been with quiz shows. There are two types of quiz shows,

ones that are fun to play and ones that are fun to watch. And what I would do, if you have an idea for a quiz, and it's always, Harry, it's thinking, do I want to give away a lot of money? Or do I want to start with 10 contestants and find the cleverest person? You know, so work out what that basic structure is. And then just come up with a series of rounds. And you do that just by getting your friends together, write a few questions. Whenever we do a quiz, we just play it again and again and again and again and every time you play it,

you have a different little idea and that can change things. So keep playing it, keep playing it, keep playing it. If you have a great one and that's to show that A, people enjoy playing, so afterwards say to your friends, did you enjoy playing that? And if they all said yes,

but also that people enjoyed watching, so have people along just watching the audience and say, was that exciting playing that? And if they all said yes. But also that people enjoyed watching. So have people along just watching the audience and say, was that exciting for you? And if you get to the stage where people enjoy playing it and people enjoyed watching it, then, yeah, you just have to go pitch it to a TV channel, which at the age of 12 is going to be hard, Harry. I'll tell you that.

But in the world of YouTube and stuff, you can film your own things these days. And if it's compelling and if it's interesting and people love watching it then more and more people will start watching it and then tv channels will start getting interested were you thinking of things like this at his age i'm afraid i was yes did you have an exercise book where you wrote them all down and think oh i did i was loving it because i love sport and i love i love the idea with sport that you have all these different formats like you know the fa cup is a a knockout. So you have to start with 128 teams. Then it's 64, then it's 32.

So I knew all that. And a league is everyone's got to play against everyone and, you know, certain points and certain points you don't get. And everyone's got to play all the other teams once. Otherwise, it's not fair. And then, you know, things like the Ryder Cup and I'd see how the points scores worked in that. And, you know, I just apply that to quizzes

and you know quizzes are sport that's that's all they are it's it's taking a group of people and finding a winner and there being a prize and and I love your theory that sort of pretty much everything is sport I mean pretty much so far things that have been sport on this podcast are awards reality tv and now quizzes yeah and sport and sport. Yeah, sport itself. It's also sport. The original sport. Yeah, exactly. Your sport. In a lot of ways.

Yeah. In a lot of ways, it's the original sport. So yeah, something that has a little bit of jeopardy, a little bit of excitement. William G. Stewart, who was a great quiz master and quiz producer, he used to present 15 to 1. This is very good about questions. And anyone who's doing a pub quiz or anything like that, this is useful.

They say, when you hear the answer to a question, you should either say, yeah, I knew that, or you should say, oh, I didn't know that. And if you get that in every question, then you're laughing. But just play, just play, just play, play, play, and hone, hone, hone, and, you know, have fun with it, Harry. That's a great question, and good luck as well. Yeah.

Thank you so much for listening again. Are we done? I think we are. I think we are. But please keep your questions coming in because they're so good i mean there are so many brilliant ones the email address is the rest is entertainment at gmail.com and we are here every week so please keep asking and we'll be back on tuesday for a regular episode talking about all sorts of stuff i think we might talk a little bit about channel four because there's big news coming out of channel four this week and we'll have a proper chat about what's happening there and what might happen in the future. But lots of other stuff as well. Yes, we might also talk about Mr. Beast.

That's coming down the slipway, let me tell you. Anyway, thank you so much for joining us. See you next time. See you next time. © BF-WATCH TV 2021