The Rest Is Entertainment - Favourite muppet, what is the fourth wall and will there be another Top Of The Pops?

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

Which muppets are Richard and Marina's favourites? In a world of streaming could we ever have another Top Of The Pops? Plus, newspaper columnists. Why do some get the column inches they do? Those que...stions and many more answered in this episode of The Rest Is Entertainment, get your question in via therestisentertainment@gmail.com Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee!  Twitter: @restisents Email: therestisentertainment@gmail.com Producer: Neil Fearn Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Recommendations; Watch Richard: Last Stop Larimar (Netflix) Maria: The Curse (Paramount +) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:38 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. What day of the week do you look forward to most? Well, it should be Wednesday. Ahem, Wednesday. Why, you wonder? Whopper Wednesday, of course.
Starting point is 00:01:03 When you can get a great deal on a whopper. Flame grilled and made your way, and you won't want to miss it. So make every Wednesday a Whopper Wednesday, only at Burger King, where you rule. Hello, and welcome to The Rest Is Entertainment, the questions edition with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osborne. Once again, it's questions and answers. Yeah, sorry. I just should make that clear. Not just questions. But Richard, let's get right into it.
Starting point is 00:01:34 Although the questions were more fun last week than the answers, I have to say. Yes, and they always will be. And it'll be so much quicker. Right. Lisa Burns, Richard, would like to know, she says, you talk a lot about overnights, catch-up, streaming, different platforms, etc., and how well or not a show is doing in the ratings. But how are the numbers actually collected? This is a very good question. This is a good question. And it hasn't changed a lot for many, many years. Certainly when we talk about linear TV. So we talked about Gladiators getting 6.4 million on the other show this week.
Starting point is 00:02:03 And it is a number of people uh have bar boxes in their home and bob is the british audience research board exactly right you can already tell it's like from the 80s yeah and they are attached to their television and essentially it can measure what you are watching and you can then input if there's more than one person in your household watching a particular show they can be attached to devices nowadays they have an app that can do it so it is it has kept pace with the modern era yeah how many families in all households have these boxes i think it's it's around 5 000 i think something around 5 000 which is absolutely you know we'll get on to whether that's representative yeah essentially that all that gets sent back to
Starting point is 00:02:44 the barb headquarters and you have to say who was watching. Yeah, essentially all that gets sent back to the Barb headquarters. And you have to say who was watching in your household. You have to be quite specific. They can't think that the whole family were tuning in to EG Gladiators if it's just one of you dreaming of Jet on your own. One of you dreaming of Jet on your own. Is that a euphemism? It is, I'm afraid.
Starting point is 00:03:01 And those all get fed through and it's aggregated. And the next morning, the overnights come through, which is how many people were watching the night before. These days, you then a week later get the catch-up figures, which is what everyone was watching on streaming as well. And if you're Netflix and people like that, you have your own metrics to do it. But the bar box is the thing that's been the heart of the overnights
Starting point is 00:03:23 for many, many, many years. It has the odd odd inconsistency but not by much is the truth if a show starts big and creeps up a bit the next week it will always creep up a bit the next week and the next week i've never seen an actual problem where a show that lots of people watched looks like no one watched it or vice versa there was one week with channel 4 when they had a show it's a new panel show that they put on saturday nights and they they held great store by it and the ratings came through and it said it got 2.4 million and they suddenly went thank god we knew it we got ourselves a hit and then it came through there was a glitch in the data and it got something like 0.8 million but just for a day they thought they
Starting point is 00:04:05 had a hit on their hands and they didn't so it used to rule everything the overnights i slightly love the bob the idea of the box it's like we think of you you know it's like a sort of nation of goggle boxes but it's this kind of 5 000 household strong panel it's unpaid you get vouchers you get paid in vouchers for sort of high street shops that could be popular for all ages which i think is there's something so homespun about it all i love the idea of it but also you know people say how can you tell the viewing habits of a nation by from 5 000 people that's plenty enough any polling organization will tell you if you want to you know general election whatever it is 2 000 and above that's what you need 5 000 is not bad because there's
Starting point is 00:04:41 lots of smaller channels now and occasionally the bar box can make a difference there. I think there was someone was telling me a show. I can't remember what it was on. Not ITV3, but one of the smaller channels. And the ratings would sort of go up and it would do well for a few weeks and it would do badly for a few weeks. And it was all down to one guy who worked on the oil rigs who loved the show. So when he was home, he would watch it. And when he went away, he wouldn't watch it. And he was the entire 80, who would who loved the show so when he was home he would watch it and when he went away he wouldn't watch it and he was the entire 80 000 viewership
Starting point is 00:05:08 of that's incredible there's a button you press when which says i'm away i'm on holiday i'm away so that you can you can sort of put the closed sign on your barb panel door someone i know um has got a barb box i've recently discovered someone's recently been added to the panel i will keep that person's identity completely quiet. But that is immense prestige as far as I'm concerned.
Starting point is 00:05:29 Can you imagine? How long had they been trying to get on the panel for? Oh, I don't think they've tried. I think it was random. Like jury service? Like jury service.
Starting point is 00:05:36 I think, or being one of the sugar babes, I think it just happens to you. But think of the pressure though every time you're watching something. Yeah, I would take it, I would really, really take my responsibilities incredibly seriously.
Starting point is 00:05:46 It's television. It's huge, Richard. Like if I'm watching Gladiators, I'm like, but am I really, really enjoying it? Do I want to watch Ant and Dick's Limitless win instead? What do I actually think is a responsibility to the nation? Uneasy is the head that wears the crown. Uneasy is the head that has a bar box. A heavy crown, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:06:04 So it is not perfect, but it's not bad, is the truth. It's a pretty accurate reflection of what people are watching and what people are not watching. And if ever something incredibly weird happens, it's usually an hour later they go, oh, there was a mistake in the data. So it's very, very, very trusted by all the channels and all the advertisers.
Starting point is 00:06:24 There's a question from Jamie Cowling. He says, one for Marina, please. How do newspapers decide which columnists are right for them? It seems baffling to me that particularly in an era when budgets are light and it's digital first, some columnists have regular features. Yeah, tell us about columnists and tell us about newspapers and their economic worth. Well, it's interesting. I think sort of columnists are slightly different. I am obviously am a newspaper columnist. I think
Starting point is 00:06:49 there's the columnist is slightly different from other areas in the paper. I will say for the Guardian, one thing that I really value is that they a few years ago started giving us our data. So you can see the minute your piece is launched online, you can see the numbers it's doing in real time, where the referrals are coming from, maybe they're coming from the front page of the website, because it happens to be there, or maybe they're coming from Apple News, or from Twitter, or from Facebook, or all sorts of other things. And you can see your numbers. That's going to make me sound as though I just think it's all a numbers game, which I don't, because there's lots of parts of a newspaper that are sort of, perhaps they're unloved, perhaps it's a sort of
Starting point is 00:07:28 kind of niche or foreign reporting that's really important. And it may not do huge numbers, but it's really important that it's covered. And it's really important that it's there. Having said that, I do think that columnists is probably, I could be wrong about this. I mean, I'm not the employer, I'm just the employed. But columnists is a numbers game, I think, really. You get people who you think are going to get large amounts of numbers, you hope, entertain people, whatever it is. People talk a lot about sort of hate watching or people you love to hate and you read like that. And there are a lot of people and you'll see that their columns might go viral.
Starting point is 00:08:04 And sometimes people are laughing at the columns and sometimes people just can't believe that that person said that thing and it becomes a sort of, so, you know, they get a lot of numbers that way. I would say that what they really, really want, viewership or eyeballs to translate into subscriptions or donations in the case of the guardians membership model and therefore the
Starting point is 00:08:27 hate watch thing you're not going to pay for people that you can't really you can't really stand or you just think that they've written some outrageous thing this week and you're going to scream about it on twitter for a day but i do think it's important to get the numbers and i think probably as a columnist you want to get high numbers or a specific type of deep engagement one thing i really like about the way we have our data is that you can see how long it was read for whether it was read right to the you know you can see it was read at a percentage score of how the people who read it did they read it to the end things like that with you know with your data do you get to see other people's data
Starting point is 00:09:00 as well yes you do and of course it's important that my enemy should fail as well rather you get to see everyone's data yes but like you can see the data of the the articles you can see any article yeah and whoever's written it and you can i suppose you can see other people's numbers yes so you can see how long people read theirs for as well so you can compare and contrast there are certain things that affect that like if something gets referred from apple news you'll get because it's sort of global you'll get these huge spikes in numbers but they tend not to follow through with the same engagement because it's just it doesn't get so deeply read but it's it's really interesting and it's something that i personally pay a lot of attention to and other people other papers may have completely different kind of the guardian i'm sure has much more
Starting point is 00:09:43 sophisticated measuring than what we're even allowed to see. There are other papers that have been interested in hiring me at various points, people like The New York Times, other papers, places like that, have different ways of measuring and they have different things that they would want from you. They might want you to, I don't know, be a columnist for an American paper because they think that they want you to bring in an Anglophone audience. Everyone now is chasing the same sort of,
Starting point is 00:10:05 it's a bit like, it's gone global, it's a bit like Netflix or whatever, you're chasing kind of global eyeballs. So they might feel that you can bring that in. Global eyeballs. Global eyeballs. Sorry, that's not a very good way of putting it. That's a good name for a podcast. Yeah, I know, I'm slightly, yeah, I am a writer, you know, I mean really, global eyeballs. Anyway.
Starting point is 00:10:21 But how true is that of the whole newspaper industry? So I always think this, when you sort of look at some of the stuff that's thrown up by the algorithm everything everything is ruled by clicks right or you have to have those clicks to do the other work yes you do but i think that there is a danger where you can just constantly have kind of ridiculous headlines to draw people in um that or the clickbaity stuff or kind of absurd positions or in some cases I've thought always sort of quite exploitative young people writing personal essays of one type or another that I always advise people not to write if they're asking me you know how to get it started because they can get you a huge amount of attention for one day but then I don't think the pastoral care is often there in terms of the people who commission these things and they can you know how to get it started because they can get you a huge amount of attention for one day but then I don't think the pastoral care is often there in terms of the people who commission
Starting point is 00:11:08 these things and they can you know they blow up you're not really looked after you're not you're suddenly at the center of a storm for writing something or you've written about some terrible thing that's happened to you and then I think go back and write those stories when you've become more established as a writer I really do feel that this is sorry we've gone a bit tangentially off there but you can get for those kind of personal first person things which is why you see a lot more of that now um you can get big big numbers but it's getting people to stick around to come back because they like the same thing every week I personally think that that is the uh the big thing to maintain numbers week after week and also ideally to get people to subscribe to
Starting point is 00:11:46 your publication or to donate to your publication um or whatever in whatever way keeps it going because i mean of it listen you you're not going to say it but you are almost always top of the numbers for the guardian and you do insane numbers on social media as well can you see how much of that engagement does lead to donations as well is that something i can't i can't see that actually within the guardian i wonder if i could ask but you can talk to people who can tell you roughly speaking where you fit into how much translates to subscriptions and i know on other papers you know they were at the time for a while on the telegraph they were offering people a bonus for every person that said I've subscribed because of x well you'd like that wouldn't you yes but in but in the go see in negotiations
Starting point is 00:12:30 the numbers are bought up you're able to bring up those numbers if you are if you're talking about renewing the contract well I mean I don't dare I don't know if I ought to talk about that but I do I do think about my numbers a lot. And I think that you probably have to. Yeah, I think you have to. So you want to be making money for someone. You know, it's nice to be paid, but you want to make sure that people are getting a little bit extra on top because then everyone's happy. Yes, but equally, you want to sometimes cash in the goodwill that you've got by telling lots of jokes about this or that and think, I would like to write a column about the post office this week, back when perhaps it wasn't being covered in quite the way it is currently now.
Starting point is 00:13:06 And you think you could do that. So I think in those terms, it can be quite useful to have that sort of thing that if people are coming back week after week, then sometimes you can present something unexpected in the space. Yeah. Great question. Thank you, Richard. Much too embarrassed to talk about me anymore.
Starting point is 00:13:22 Can we please move on? And I can, this is a much better question. Steve McQueen says, who is your favourite Muppet? Oh, that's a good question, isn't it? I think probably Fozzie Bear. Oh, really? I think that'd be my favourite because he's got that kind of old school vaudeville thing. Do you know why he's called Fozzie Bear?
Starting point is 00:13:41 No. Frank Oz. Ah, really? Fozzie, yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, there you go. He used to do The Voice. Doesn't anymore, of course.
Starting point is 00:13:49 Okay. How about yours? Mine would be Miss Piggy and Kermit. Just a couple on again, off again. I am here for all of their drama. I do actually have quite a lot of sympathy with Miss Piggy because I know she wears her heart on her sleeve, but I know she's a handful, aren't we all?
Starting point is 00:14:04 But I sometimes feel that Kermit is a little withholding. Yeah, I can live without Kermit. Yeah, there's a South Park episode actually where Wendy keeps sending Wendy Stan's girlfriend, she keeps sending him really long texts and he just replies each time
Starting point is 00:14:20 with a thumbs up emoji. I slightly feel that's the story of the Piggy and Kermit relationship. But, you know, I think you should sort of step up. I like Stadler and Waldorf as well. Yeah, of course, we're the critics. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:14:32 What do you think at home? Favourite Muppet. Here is a question for you. We talked about this on the Q&A last week. Nettie Arimel says, what is the fourth wall? I've heard it referred to however i don't know what it really means is there also a first second and third wall very good news okay
Starting point is 00:14:49 well the first second and third wall would basically sort of be the fourth wall is the sort of it's the invisible wall that separates the audience from the actors and most plays and things and most tv drama you see nowadays almost all without exception it's almost like you're looking in through a window. They're not acknowledging you. Your presence isn't being acknowledged. I think Stanislavski called it invisible solitude. These things are happening on the stage.
Starting point is 00:15:13 Stanislavski. Yeah, Stanislavski. He has something for every occasion, doesn't he? Well, yes, I think he does really. Actually, do you know what? He was my favourite Muppet. The proscenium arch in the theater was originally you can imagine that that went over the stage and you answered your the other part of your question the first second
Starting point is 00:15:29 and third walls are the sides of the stage the side of the stage in the back backs of the stage but actually the fourth wall is a really relatively recent invention in the whole of drama because it's obviously for listed existed almost as long as humans have existed and the actors were forever talking to the audience and involving them and there were choruses and there were there was an acknowledgement that this was an artifice that this wasn't really happening and it's only as things started to become more and more naturalistic 16th 17th 18th centuries that the idea that people on stage would stop acknowledging people in the audience and then but you still now see it obviously it was used to huge effect in Fleabag where she turns around and what it gives you is that allows you I guess you as the audience know more than the characters which is a sort of great position always to be in a drama.
Starting point is 00:16:17 So the fourth wall on television is the screen? Is the screen. Essentially and anytime someone looks down the barrel at you directly in the middle of a drama they're breaking and it's very rare in television these days and you go back to some of the things that the 80s which we were talking about sort of something like house of cards where francis urquhart the original who later played by sort of kevin spacey in the u.s adaptation will look out and speak to the audience i was thinking that robert lindsey did it in gbh um miranda Yes. Yes. It's it's saying Browns boys. Yes. It's self-conscious. Yeah. That's why we mentioned it. It's self-conscious. And in some cases in those things, like perhaps like in House of Cards and GBH, they're kind of
Starting point is 00:16:56 reaching for a, to some extent, Shakespearean vibe. You're thinking about these epic stories of downfalls and betrayals. And there's something quite sort of Shakespearean and old timey about that and so you might have the equivalent of a kind of chorus but in general it's rare and you really have to earn it I think because it takes you out of the world obviously so it has to be really important to make it work I quite like it they do it in books as well there's a you know when an author directly addresses you as a reader yeah and I've there's something about it I quite like I've as you say I think it takes people too much out of the world so it's not something i would particularly do myself but i like it when an author has the confidence to do it yeah that's like all those things you can once you know the rules you've got to be really good then you can break them and it
Starting point is 00:17:35 can really work shall we take a pause and listen to some messages from our sponsors let's indeed do that no flipping best western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... Come on kids, back to the hotel room. Good night kids. Good night mama. Life's a trip make the most of it at best western welcome back to the rest is entertainment questions edition i'm kicking off immediately with a hard hitter richard questions Questions and answers edition. Oh, sorry. From Colin Evans. Let's just call it questions edition. Can we call it the questions edition? Yes, let's do that. Yes, I'm never going to
Starting point is 00:18:32 get it right. I've got the synaptic connection now just won't make itself, so I'm always going to just call it the questions edition. Let's call it T-R-I-E-T-Q-E. Moving on. Colin Evans. Richard, which is worse? The House of Games or pointless board games? Both, of course, serious family breakdowns in this household due to the high hopes we held of being fans of both shows.
Starting point is 00:18:53 Oh, goodness. That's such a good question. Yes. I will say this. I'm not a fan of either. I like both the shows. Yeah. There's all sorts of spin-offs that come when you make a tv show and board games are one of them they're not particularly lucrative
Starting point is 00:19:12 for anybody there must be a bit otherwise you would have surely masterminded it and said i will take care of this well yeah you know uh so the pointless one is almost incomprehensible the one good thing about the pointless board game is it gives you loads of question cards. So I would say if you've got that board game, just take the question cards and make your own format, is what I would say. House of Games board game, I have not played. The House of Games books that Alan Connor writes, who's the chief question editor, they're pretty good. Because there's lots of questions from the show, but he also writes some new ones. And you can just go through that in any order you want to.
Starting point is 00:19:49 But yeah, in general, I've never been across the board games. It's the sort of thing that they sort of come to you right at the end of the process and say, is this okay? And of the 50 things you're doing that day, you kind of go, I mean, no, but what do you want me to do? People always say, well, why don't you do apps as well? There's not really that much money in apps for TV shows. I think that the program itself, that's the wellspring of the thing,
Starting point is 00:20:14 that you try and take care of. The books, I think, are good. But yeah, board games is one of those things that I've never... I'd like to develop my own board game. Yeah, but it's not... I'm sorry, I played a sort develop my own board game. Yeah, but it's not related to, I'm sorry, I played a sort of Traitors one at the weekend, and I, you know, I'm not in a Scottish castle
Starting point is 00:20:30 sitting around a round table in a very, very high-stakes battle for my future, and it's just not as fun doing it around my table, and there's no real way that you can create, don't really. The only similarity was Claudia was there. Yeah. It's the only one. Yeah, I think board games are tricky because they're different to television shows.
Starting point is 00:20:50 It's tough for the board game companies. I will give them that. They want to do stuff with rules. But honestly, people just want the question cards, I think. And then you can play it however you want. We've got some House of Games question cards. The small set, that is better. Okay, because then you do it your own way.
Starting point is 00:21:05 Don't worry about the formats and all that kind of stuff. Just play with the cards, I would say. I would love you to do a board game. Will you do a board game? You surely will at some point. I don't know. It's a good question. It would be a bit of fun, wouldn't it?
Starting point is 00:21:17 Yeah. Good question. Put me on the spot, though. That's tricky for me. Yes, okay. That's very personal to me, the board game thing. Yes, I know. It really is hard. I used to, on Twitter, every reply I used to get
Starting point is 00:21:29 that this board game is terrible, but for Pointless. I don't get it so much for House of Games, but the Pointless board game I think was very disappointing for many Christmases. It's good you're not one of those people who puts it in their biography, I do not do the board games. I had to eventually. Did you?
Starting point is 00:21:41 I had to do a tweet just saying, guys, I have nothing to do with the board game i'm so sorry sorry i ruined christmas oh here's an interesting one from duncan smith thank you duncan my question is why do film and tv extras not get credited they spend many hours on set do an important job but yet the carpenter's assistant's cousin twice removed makes it to the credits doesn't seem fair right well i can on something like film or television first of all i have to duncan take a slight issue that the carpenter's assistant cousin or as you put it i realize you're exaggerating for comic effect but the those those jobs are hugely important those people get there at four in the morning and
Starting point is 00:22:19 they'll probably be last to leave at like the sparks the grip setting stuff up and those jobs are massively important and they will be there for the whole shoot and sometimes this can be for a year and they've been there for six months before the shoot yeah and they have not turned up one day and been an extra in a street scene not to denigrate the work of those people but if you've credited all of those people you already look now on the credits for some, you know, a lot of kind of superhero franchise films or films with a lot of CGI in. And there are genuinely about, I don't know, six or seven hundred sort of animated post-production people. And their names are tiny, tiny, tiny. And they'll have been put in sort of run on paragraphs, basically, really at the back end of the credits.
Starting point is 00:23:06 basically in the really at the back end of the credits and they will have spent I mean months on it and they will have worked brutal hours under you know sort of crunch culture where they there aren't really enough VFX houses now to do the work that is required of most of these things and people were kind of exhausting hours so you can't I don't think put what's called background or supporting artists different ways of describing the same things and you can't really necessarily credit all those people. Not that they aren't valued. I mean, in those old films, things like Gandhi, they had something like 300,000 extras. Those would be long credits.
Starting point is 00:23:32 On Lawrence of Arabia, I think the extras had a mutiny, like a genuine mutiny. You know, there can be situations in that where background or supporting artists feel they're being very badly treated. But there was a wonderful interview recently in The Guardian with a woman who's been the an extra the most time she's the Guinness world record for being an extra in the most things and she had an absolutely sort of fascinating take on the sort of backgrounds eye view of the movie industry and who she was told never to make eye contact with Tom Cruise all the different things she's done over the years and someone has tried to piece together all her little tiny momentary things it was absolutely wonderful so i recommend reading that but in general it's
Starting point is 00:24:09 just not possible the credits would go on for 15 years it's a nice gig that but you're right there's an awful lot of negotiation over credit certainly in tv where credits do have to be a certain length and not everyone can be credited on every episode so if you're in wardrobe or makeup you know given you've got to fit them into 20 seconds sometimes and there's 100 people who are genuinely integral to the show. And as you say, by the way, the assistant to the carpenter is unbelievably integral to the show. The show doesn't work without all of that.
Starting point is 00:24:36 That's one of the beauties about TV is there's behind the camera and in front of camera and everyone does their job properly and everyone needs to do their job properly. But yeah, you have to have big negotiations over who can get credited who can be a producer the crediting of writers is a huge i mean loads of people i know so many people who've written a lot and spent put a lot into shows on which they receive absolutely zero credit for and that is a it's it's a very difficult thing to negotiate and it's a and you go into being an extra knowing that that's the gig.
Starting point is 00:25:06 And if you get a line, you will be credited. You'll be credited and paid an awful lot more money as well. And paid so much more than you would otherwise just for saying a tiny thing. One of the fun things to watch in TV is if there's a scene where there's only three people in it and one of them doesn't say anything throughout the whole scene, you know it's because they don't want to pay that person. They're literally there as ballast. Always fun to watch those scenes and go,
Starting point is 00:25:29 is that person an extra or are they going to say something? Oh, they didn't say anything at all. You think, oh, okay, you just got a day rate. Whereas if they said something, a couple of grand. Yeah, straight away, it's such a jump. Yeah. Lovely question, though. This is a question from Sam King, who says,
Starting point is 00:25:45 I'd love to get your thoughts or insight into why the BBC has never thought to bring back Top of the Pops following its cancellation in 2006. Personally, I think it's crazy that a slot can't be found in either the BBC One or BBC Two schedules for a weekly show that plays the most popular music of the time. Top of the Pops is how I discovered so much of the most important music of my life as a child teenager, and it feels a shame that the current generation don't have the same type of show even in this era of online content there's surely a place for it on terrestrial it's a you know what it's a really good question and i have a lot of sympathy with sam's i used to love top of the pops and you know i still love the charts i'll still look at the charts every week and and you know i'm a huge fan of current pop music i think our generation is missing out
Starting point is 00:26:25 on an awful lot of great music because we don't have top of the pops um i think the truth is the younger generation genuinely don't need or care about it top of the pops no but it was last time in 2006 so if you're 17 it's something it's something that happened before you were born so it's it's not a brand that has as a great deal of purchase the idea of like and also of course you have a phone in your hand and you can watch the music you want whenever you want it having said that one thing that as we talked a little bit about in other areas of this show things that are coming back are the idea curation the idea of playlists is huge and so think it's strangely you think oh you can just get it on your own device why do you ever
Starting point is 00:27:05 need someone to put together a show for you weirdly people do including young people like things to be organized for them in this way because everyone likes to sit back a little bit and let something happen rather than having to do it all themselves and actually some of the trends more and more of the are going back in the direction of curation and the equivalent of playlists i'm using that as a modern idea of this, I guess, Top of the Pops as a playlist. But I suppose it was a light performance element and video and things like that.
Starting point is 00:27:32 But people like the idea of curation. I think it's right. You know, the repeats of the old Top of the Pops do great business for BBC Four. They constantly, you know, if ever you see the Thompson Twins trending, you think, oh, they're doing Top of the Pops from 1984. Well, that's one of the things they've got the rights for because the BBC don't have the rights to so many of their shows. But they have all the rights to Top of the Pops, which is why they can keep putting that out.
Starting point is 00:27:54 I think one of the issues with, you know, obviously, so Top of the Pops as a brand, I think, doesn't have the resonance it once had. But the idea of having a weekly chart show on a big terrestrial channel i think the charts have changed an awful lot um because of the era of streaming i think if you look at back at those old top of the pops it's constantly changing there's you know there's fun things going on new bands suddenly emerging from from nowhere if you look at the the top 10 this week now here's a shame we don't have top of the Pops, but another reason we do. So the number one at the moment, which is Noah Khan, which is Stick Season, is a genuinely brilliant song. It's a great, it's an absolutely classic number one single that I think everybody
Starting point is 00:28:36 would love. But it's been in the charts for 15 weeks. You know, stuff hangs around a lot. Jack Hardo's been in the charts for nine weeks. He's in the top ten. Casso and Ray and D-Block Europe, they've been in 22 weeks they've been in the charts, and they're number five at the moment. Tate McRae and Greedy, 17 weeks. Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift is in the top ten. It's been in the charts for 30 weeks. So the charts are quite blocked up.
Starting point is 00:29:00 They're quite clogged with things. So if you're doing the rundown of the top 10 songs it doesn't change an awful lot from week to week anymore which i think loses some of the excitement of top of the box which is climbers movers and you know yeah like the the highest you went to this week is number 16 or something there's you know it's the charts because of streaming because of the way they're measured things hang around a lot more and if taylor brings out a new album suddenly she's got six songs in the top 10. Or if Drake does,
Starting point is 00:29:27 he's got 12 songs in the top 20. So I think the charts are a different beast. That's for sure. I think really what we need is for people our age, and I'm assuming Sam King's age, a lovely show once a week that says, here's the new music. You know? Here are the songs
Starting point is 00:29:48 that are popular. Here's a couple of new things. That's the curation thing. Here's ten songs that you can take into next week and you can talk about and you can listen to. One of which might become one of your new favourite songs because Generation's missing out on all that music. So that show, I think, would be
Starting point is 00:30:04 an interesting show to do but i think a traditional top of the pops which is the chart run down who's up who's down who's new entry i think the charts are slightly too clogged to do that and it's a shame but noah khan stick season if you don't know it's a very beautiful song that is it for this week but we will be back on tuesday with the show proper and then another questions edition next week. So do please send more emails in with your questions. The rest is entertainment at gmail.com. They are so good.
Starting point is 00:30:31 Yeah, that was great fun. Thank you. I genuinely love T-R-I-E-T-Q-E as the kids are calling it. So thank you very much, everyone, for your questions. And we'll see everyone on Tuesday, won't we? Bye-bye. Bye.

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