The Rest Is Entertainment - Has The BBC Really Cancelled Doctor Who?

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

Should the BBC have travelled stateside for the FIFA World Cup or stayed in Salford? And have bosses really cancelled the long-Running sci-fi stalwart Doctor Who? The World Cup has finally landed in the Americas, but time zones are preventing fans from watching the games. Richard Osman and Marina Hyde review the best and worst 'content' from the tournament, from Piers Morgan's podcasting attempts to the controversial ref-cam smothering our screens. What does it mean that the BBC has put Doctor Who out 'to tender'? Richard has the inside track and has a unique suggestion for the next Timelord. The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Octopus Energy, Britain's most awarded energy supplier. Lloyds. 250 years on and still backing the nation's aspirations. 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: Adam Thornton Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Emma Jackson Exec Producer: Sam Psyk Filmed at www.westdigitalstudios.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The rest of entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy. Now, fan mail is one of entertainment's strangest bargains. You send total devotion one way and the understanding that nothing may come back. Certainly in our day you would write to a film star or a singer. I wrote to Howard Jones. And maybe three months later, a sort of signed photo comes back that's clearly pro forma, you know, that you know Howard's never really looked at. Steve Martin used to have the performer sort of thing,

which we just leave blanks, like insert, like small detail to make a joke. about how completely impersonal, his personal reply to you was. It was just like a standard thing. Impersonal is interesting. That's why we're talking about this, because with Octopus Energy, you always can reply to their emails. And not only can you reply to them, they will go to the same small group of people who always deal with you.

That's like unbelievable. It's almost unprecedented that a company you're giving your money to will actually respond to you. Are contactable in some way. Twizzlers keep the fun going. Yeah, I know. I just stopped whatever you were. we're listening to to tell you that Twizzlers keep the fun going. Well, irony isn't my forte,

but twisty, chewy, yummy Twizzler sure is. So think of Twizzlers as a little palette cleanser for whatever's queued up, which by the way should be coming very soon. Like any second now. Okay, Twizzlers, time to keep the fun going. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Restis Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde and me, Richard Osmond. Hello, everyone. Hello, Marina. Hello, how, Richard, how are you? I'm very, very well. I'm looking forward to today. We've got some fun things to talk about. I normally ask what you've done this week,

but I know something you did this week. I think you had one of the greatest free experiences you can have in British show business this week. I went to Would I Lie to You, to a recording of What I Lie to You on Thursday night. It was totally amazing. If you like the show, this is basically like a sort of three-hour version of the show

with no filler. No filler. There is no filler. I have even more respect for everyone involved in that show than I did before. I went. It's absolutely terrific. I'm not going to say the line-up because I don't know if I'm allowed to say the Oh, you had a good lineup. Oh my God, it was insane. It was ridiculous. It's always a good lineup that show because, you know, David, Rob and Lee are always there. Having said that, mine was particularly good and you've commented on that matter. And I took my daughter, who everyone was incredibly

nice to. It's her favorite thing. She wants to be the booker-on, but I lie to you when she really does. Listen, I don't put it past her. It was absolutely brilliant. It's a very brilliant. It's a very brilliant. It's the most, if you want to apply for tickets to watch that, you can via SRO and you can be in the audience and the audience is pretty big. You don't realise that because there's a little mini audience at the front you're seeing. You're thinking, oh gosh, but actually there's a big tiered stand at the back and I cannot recommend it enough. There is no filler. And as you say, SRO, which is standing room only and there are various other audience places as well. And it's always free to go and see a TV show. Sometimes don't go. I wouldn't go to a

sitcoms, there's a lot of things, but things like panel shows is such a great free evening. I mean, you know, you've got to get there. But other than that, it was so good for the soul. We honestly laughed for three hours, like the entire time. And so I felt like I'd done some abdominal exercise without having to do any. And it was absolutely brilliant. I loved it. I can't thank everyone enough there.

It was just terrific. So honestly, yeah, just apply because it's so worth it. It really is. What are we talking about this week? We are talking about, there's a World Cup on, and we are going to be talking about the kind of, in the old days we just said TV event, but it's now a massive social media event. We're going to be talking about all of those things and how it's changing the way we can seem sport and accelerating changes that are already happening. Yeah. It's like the World Cup of Crisps, but for football. Yeah.

And we are also talking about Doctor Who, been a big Ferrari this week about whether it's been cancelled or not. We'll be telling you exactly what's happening with it. and I'll also be telling you who should be the next doctor. I have, I think, the perfect next doctor. Shall we talk about the World Cup? I mean, I'm still giddy from Ivory Coast One, Ecuador, nil. So forgive me if I'm breathless. There are 104 matches, obviously, 48 teams.

It feels like more. That haunted Cubal, who I absolutely hate, be for President Gianni Infantino. Can I just say right off the bat, bring back that blatter in, okay? Infantino has promised. At the start of this, he said, think of 104 Super Bowls. I don't know if you watch Catars Switzerland like we all had to because that's the timing of it all. I quite like a Catar, Switzerland. I like countries that would never ordinarily have anything to do with each other.

They're two of the great geopolitical mediators, of course, Switzerland and the guitar. But you know what? I don't think Guy Moabry mentioned it. No. We will talk about it as a TV or a media event because if you're lucky enough to be at the World Cup, Well done you. I hope you have a brilliant time. But obviously for the vast majority of people, this is experienced as a TV and now a sort of social media or other platforms event. The timing of it, particularly for us in the UK, has meant that, you know, it's quite obvious.

You try and sit down and you think, I want to watch them walk up now and you really can't watch any World Cup till very, very late. Yeah. Some games at like 8 or 9pm, but there's 11pm games. There's 2am games. There's 5am games. Just because of the time difference. it is a very, very difficult World Cup for us to watch. What we really want, what we really love, is a World Cup where there's a game at 10 in the morning,

there's a game at 2 in the afternoon, and then there's a game at 7. That's the perfect World Cup for us. For me, I disagree. 2, 5 and 8. 2, 5, no, I like a 10 in the morning. We have jobs, so it's hard. No, oh, absolutely. But the whole point of a World Cup is how do you fit your job?

I want to walk through an office where everyone is pretending to work, but they've all got their computer on and they've got the BBC Sports app showing the game. Okay, but I mean, for everyone who's not in offices and different types of jobs, no, I think two, five and eight is the optimal work-up times. Maybe we'll get some more of that next time around. My favourite thing about going to America is always you can watch Premier League football at sort of 10 in the morning. Things are filling the gap because it's harder to watch in a way. So there are lots and lots of shows, podcasts, one very notable one, because it's in our stable. The rest is football are in New York and they've got a big place overlooking Times Square, a big apartment,

where I'm obsessed with things that are on the kitchen island. Yeah, I assume they're living together, the three guys. Yeah, they live upstairs. It's a staircase. I assume they live upstairs. They must do, right? Then filming that bit is a spin-off sitcom for week three. That's a lot.

Would they call it friends? I think they would actually, to be fair. I wanted to do things to say, but they wouldn't call it friends, like pretending that they weren't friends. Yeah, but sadly, I think they are. It's not like Rory and Alistair. No, I've watched that sitcom. I could watch that.

Is it a sitcom? That's like, is the bear a sitcom? come. It'd be quite stressful. Yeah, it was a stressful two-hander. Anyway, so stick to football. They're on YouTube. Obviously, there's lots of podcasts. Guardian have got a very successful one. Yeah, it's doing very, very well.

Piers Morgan is doing something a World Cup uncensored, some sort of spin-off of the kind of main ragebait brand, which has got him, Simon Jordan and John Terry. Oh my God. Wow. Even like, you know, James Corden is doing something for Fox, Fox After Arse, which is a kind of spin-off thing on it. everything's a bit like a sort of airport weather spoons in that whenever you're

watching it, everyone's got a sort of fine to a glass of wine and it's kind of fine, I think. There would seem to be a forcatcher on the rest of football table at Kitchen Island the other day. But it is harder to watch games, so clips and punditry are really filling a lot of gaps.

And they're sort of doing that in general anyway, which will come to. But it feels like the whole, virtually the whole of media has turned into an episode of Soccer AM. Yeah. But slightly less well-funded. But yeah, what do you do when you don't have the rights? Because of the timing of it, people want stuff. And also, I do think that people are changing the way they can seem sport.

The rest of football seems to work by it. It kind of drops at 6am every day. You can switch on Netflix. And, of course, they don't have the goals. But, you know, like any of those podcasts, they're just chatting about the game. And that's interesting because you've seen some of them, you haven't seen some of them.

And you can watch the goals on your phone. That's the point. I mean, there are places where you can watch the goals. you don't need them to be sort of talking through it. So it weirdly works. We'll talk a little bit more about the whole thing, but I will talk later about what I think this means for Netflix because I think it has a real significance.

I think the rest of football is going to have a real significance for Netflix. Okay, let's talk first about all of this kind of, I don't know what you'd call it, like ancillary stuff, everything that's on YouTube. Let's call it Socoram. Is it just about, is it all clips? Because there's so much stuff now you see a clip, the holy grail of sort of going viral, creating noise.

I always think of it as a slight, there is an answer to it, but it's a sort of yes but why, yes but why, you know, okay, is it successful if something goes viral, yes but why, you know. And actually, in the end, when you get down to the ultimate yes but why of this, for all of these things, it is about discovery of your show, your podcast, or whatever you do, and it's about a subscriber acquisition. So it turns a piece of a pretty cheap content into something that drives customers, acquisition for whether you're doing some sort of, so.

And you get more sponsorship and better platform distribution. It also, by the way, goes even deeper than that, which is for the individual people on those shows, it is good for their personal brand. And there are ways that they can monetise. They can just go, look, I had over, you know, 200 million views on this. Perhaps you want to book me for your conference. Yeah. When Gary Lineker in the last Euro said England played shit, I mean, it's not even, it's

something that any of us would have said to each other. but because it was different to how he was speaking on the BBC, it was a massive sort of viral moment, and it was very good for the rest of football. It drove a lot of subscribers and it drove a lot of discovery and so on. I was finding it amazing after saying that that he's still at the BBC. I find that, I'm sorry? No, I do find it amazing that Meeker and Allen are stood at the BBC area

where you will get onto all of that. And so we know that the internet rewards strong opinions, tribalism, and conflict. Welcome to sport. Yeah. And all of these clips are really like. do you strongly agree, do you strongly disagree, can you strongly not wait to be able to share this in a mocking way when it's proved wrong? That's essentially the three things of a football clip.

Essentially, can you believe what Shira said now? Yeah. And they all slightly do it. And even actually like, I mean, once you start seeing it, you think, oh, I see Gary Lindca's saying I'm going to, if the USA go all the way, I'm going to present this in my pants, which we know he's said before on match the day about Lester 10 years ago. Neville the other day talking about if they've got all this technology, why won't FIFA show us to

us? It's like a dictatorship. I thought, I love all this stuff, you know, but that's for ITV and that goes viral. And it's a way of all of this stuff sort of exists as, I mean, even Alexei Lallas, who none of us really want to watch the World Cup far Fox at all, but I'm now aware of what they're doing because Alexi Lallis said about James Corden, oh, he's a full kit wanker. And so now we're like, All right, I see. Alexi Lalas is doing, you know, it is... Yeah. And also he's trying to tell Latina Ibrahimovich about football.

Yeah. Which is interesting. I can't, I mean, Lallif I can strongly live without. He's hardcore MAGA. But what I think it's interesting is that all of this, and particularly over here, as I've said, because of the timing is, it's all about these changing habits, which is that young people are not abandoning sport,

but they just consume it totally differently now. Full match viewing is becoming a much small... part of whatever sports consumption is. The matches weirdly feel like a slight interruption into the flow of banter. Yeah. Because you do think, oh my God, I've been really enjoying everything. And I've got to watch 90 minutes of this. Yeah, well, I know, you know, people can't read a whole book anyone.

I think the same is happening to football. So do I. I really do. Yeah. I think we're finding almost impossible to sit through a whole match. And that used to be like the dream. You used to go, oh my God, the matches on. And it's like, what's happening, what's happening?

And they've got an outbreak and I have the next one. and then elaborate in the next one, and that's, well... But now it's like you watch the first 10 minutes just to look at the kits. And then you keep an eye on your phone just in case it goes to like three all or something. You think, oh, I've got to watch the last 15 minutes of that. But yeah, I think the football match is going the way of the book. Yes, which is... We'll all have our views on that.

I definitely think it's bad with books. But younger fans, it's sort of highlights, clips, social content, athlete-led social content that's around the Id of it, and Punditry. And all of this is set up this time around to cater to that, partly because of the time zone, partly because of people being forward-looking. And if you look at what all the different broadcasters have done, there was an interesting poll done by UGov saying that there's a whole thing that, like, oh, Jen said they don't like sport. That's not true. 74% of 18 to 24-year-olds follow sport regularly.

But only 30% primarily watch full games. 34% say they prefer highlights over full games. But I would have thought that has actually even gone up the 34% since they did that. So they might watch 10 minutes of highlights, some TikToks, they might have a 45 or even a 60 minute podcast about it all. But that's all adds up to, I suppose. Yes, a lot. Perhaps it all adds up to 90. But it's not 90 as we knew it.

Yes, it has become a completely different game. But the amount of money in it is so absolutely beyond enormous. Firstly, I think our attention spans can't take 90 minutes of a football game anymore. But secondly, everyone wants a piece of that. You know, it's like the weapons industry. There's a lot of money in it. So even if you can get 2% of it, then you're making out like a bandit. And so everyone is really, really vying for the money, for the sponsorship money, for the attention money.

The rights are almost becoming a burden. Yes. So if you look at the US broadcasters who feel like, you know, with CBS, we have to have this stuff going through our pipes. It's insanely expensive. It actually doesn't pay for itself. But it brings people, there's some sort of halo. It costs a fortune to get any sports rights. And almost everything that we're talking about here has no rights of any type.

They don't have highlights. They don't have anything. And TikTok have got some rights this time. And TikTok can stream a couple of full games, I think. YouTube have got packages. They're trying to sort of attract other creators, all the broadcasters, as a forward-looking thing to say, it doesn't have to be this. It doesn't, you know, if we don't have the rights or whatever,

We can still have something around this. As you say, the weapons industry. The numbers for the games are still huge on terrestrial TV and you know those games getting three and a half, four and a half million. The Scotland match like 1.7 million at 2 in the morning. You don't need to know much about TV to know. That's quite a big audience at 2 in the morning. But if you think of the money they spent for it for 3.5 million viewers,

it's amazing, it's great for a channel. But you could be in a loft in New York with a couple of cameras getting clips that go crazily viral with far more than 3 million people. And that's the business we're in now. You know, I would have thought the rights to live broadcasting sport, I think there's an interesting future for that. Because the noise around sport is becoming much more lucrative. The attention is becoming bigger than the sport itself.

I couldn't agree more. in that case, can I just get on to some of the sort of standard so-called controversies we've been seeing, like, the BBC aren't going, they're doing it from Swelford. I couldn't care less, by the way. Do you know what? It's not even a football country. So I'm sorry, I have to say that when I see, like, everyone's like, no, the US. So when you see, by the way, this is no shade on ITV set, which is obviously amazing. And they've got the Brooklyn Bridge in Manhattan, the background.

But I don't think of, there's something about football countries. So when Spain and Morocco have it, if they have, you know, Sagrada familiar in the background of Barcelona and you're looking at that, it's like, oh, that's football. Because Spain is a football country. But when I see the Manhattan skyline, whilst amazing, I don't immediately think of football. So I literally couldn't care whether they're there or not. I honestly couldn't. I think it's a real object lesson in the BBC currently are going through lots and lots and lots of cuts. I think they announced this week there might be 10% of the news division, for example.

but they're trying to find lots of places to make cuts. And this is a perfect one. You know what? It's great to have everyone out there because you get the vibe of the World Cup and it feels very special. They don't need to be there. If you see, they've got three great presenters, Kelly Kate's, Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman.

They've got a great set, a great studio. They're following the match. They've got reporters out there. They're watching stuff on their phones just like we are. They are immersed in this tournament. And it is saved millions to not send everyone over the game. It's such a confected route and it's all made by the enemies of the BBC, who by the way, if they had sent them, would be like,

I can't believe the BBC is spending this much money on a football. There was an amazing telegraph deadline about it's the work from home World Cup for the BBC. It's so pathetic. You can't win with these people. You can't win at all. And to sort of compare it with Glastonbury or anything like that, yeah, that's a weekend. It's so stupid that I'm embarrassed for anyone making that argument. Yes, agreed.

So I don't care about things like that. And I think they are going, if England or, of Scotland, to get towards the end of the tournament, of course, people will go out there. But it works so perfectly well and there's an immediate cost saving.

And it's one of those things you absolutely get into the rhythm of going, of course we have to send them out because, you know, like in news, like anywhere, you do need to be on the spot and on the scene. But, you know, so long as the commentators are in the stadium,

you know, you just stick the presenters anywhere. Yeah. It's great. You know, it's like, and it's like money, completely saved, and there is zero,

literally zero, difference to the coverage. I couldn't agree more. Can we talk a little bit about how particularly sporting events really usher in innovations in the way things are filmed and what have you? Are we going to talk about RefCam? You know I'm getting on to Refcan. That's where I'm going. Okay, yeah. By the way, you take everything from FIFA. That's just to explain to people where you get this stuff. The feed comes from them. The innovations are up to them. And they've got various different ones this time. They 3D scanned all the players so that they could help with the And also it means they can clone them in future.

Yes. So we can have an intergalactic football league where they'd have to pay any players. Some humans disagreeing with any of the things they do. But yeah, referee camp. I mean, they have this in rugby. They've managed to sort of put some AI stabilizer on it so it doesn't look like horror movie fan. It's not like backrooms. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Mexico, South Africa game. They showed the Rale Jimenez goal on it. And it was some bit there. The referee, Wilson, Sanpio, just sort of chasing. I was thinking, God, it's quite a hard work, isn't it? I mean, to keep up with these guys who, you know, hearing a pretty fit. Yes. It, A, makes you feel much more sympathy and empathy for referees.

But B, it's just brilliant. Yeah. It just looks amazing. Yeah. More like a computer game. Yeah. But real. Yeah, POV.

You know, everything is, yeah. The audio is very, is different, which is always a bit of a liability. So I have to be quite careful with the audio because do we actually want to hear what they're saying. But you're supposed to get, because of all various of these innovations, you're supposed to get sort of faster and fairer offside decisions. I mean, I have some sympathy with Gary Neville. If you do it, can you please tell us, can you show us then? Yeah.

And if you're keeping the information in, I just don't trust you. I think it's a dictatorship. I think FIFA is a dictatorship. I think the World Cup is an abomination. There we go. There's a little clip. Yeah. Something like that.

And let me tell you something about Gary Lineca. I mean, lots of people are loving Christina Uncle. She's fantastic. So she's the American referee who they bring in if there's ever any controversial decisions, which there always are. And she's so no nonsense. She was on the last World Cup as well. She was great on that. Very, very good.

But, you know, that sort of thing is, that's a joy to watch. The cameras are very good. They've got lots more of the sort of spider cams. You can't have drone cameras so much in football, which they did, which were really good in the Winter Olympics, I thought. The drone cameras were amazing. But you can't have that because they'll probably get taken out by a. Oh, yeah, by the ball. Yeah.

Or by one of the, sorry, again, America. we have no need to have military helicopters doing a fly-pass above a game. Just absolutely no, we don't do that. Honestly, I'd rather that's what American military helicopters were doing at the moment. You're right. You're right. Take some other circulation, doesn't it? Well, you know what? I would love it if you got... Anyway, I'll be overtaken.

This podcast will be overtaken by a deal in Iran. But that's why John Healy, the Defence Secretary, resigned. Yeah. I don't have enough money to protect our country and also do fly-past. Do fly-past over every Premier League? Yeah, I can't do it all. It's very, very militarised. If you ever go to NFL games in the US,

there's so much military hardware in the skies as a display before I don't feel we need to see this during a World Cup. Certainly not where someone's just been awarded a Peace Prize. But anyhow. But FIFA have been sort of talking about dat attainment. They're sending people in the stadium. The Wi-Fi is apparently way better. And so they're sending you stuff on your phone. Well, I mean, it could hardly have been worse,

where you actually couldn't send your copy. when you were filing from the stadium sometimes. Oh, really? Oh, my God. Sometimes there would be real disasters. But anyway. But yeah, so they're sending stuff to people's phones in the stadium and they're trying to just make it all.

I hate it so much. Just you know what, I know how I want to watch football. I know what I look up. I'll choose the one podcast that I love. I'll look at the goals and I'll choose the games I want to watch live. That's all I want to do. Stop trying to upsell me all the time. Yes, I agree.

And they're always trying to make it seem like that innovating. Stop putting a QR code on the screen saying, you want more information. I have all the information I need. I've got the internet. I have all the information I need. Exactly. I have all the information in the world. I do not need your QR code. But there is always, there's a sort of, you know, Americans like they're a distinct aesthetic to their sports and how they like it to look. And obviously, FIFA have leaned towards that to some degree. Can I talk a little bit about the rest of this football and what it means for Netflix? So it's an interesting deal that the guys struck, a very lucrative one as well.

and it is essentially sort of turning a podcast into a television program, which we've talked about a lot before, that kind of mission creep of when you start videoing podcasts, and then suddenly everyone under 35 starts watching them, and then they start watching them on their TV, and then the streamer goes, oh, actually, perhaps we could, that feels like a bit of, you know, visual content.

We do visual content, perhaps you can come on this. And when they do that, of course, they want slightly high production values, and then suddenly it's turned into, as you say, slightly lower budget football focus. I mean, that's what it becomes. But if you look at the rest of this football, Netflix for a long time, have been desperately trying to get into the order

of scheduled television. So they do pop culture Jeopardy with Colin Jost and things like that. They want people to come back every day to watch the same thing in the same way that terrestrial TV has always done. They want you to stay longer on the service because at the moment I think there's some dispute,

whether it's an hour, an hour and a half or two hours that people spend on Netflix. I think it's closer to an hour. And that's it. They want you to spend much longer than that on the service. And the best way of doing that is have a show that's on every day for you. That's like an hour and a bit long. And the rest is football ever since it started.

It's been in the top 10 an awful lot since it launched. And often when you launch a show, it is in the top 10 because of the way the algorithm works. But if they can, as the tournament progresses, stay in that top 10, three, four, five, six weeks. And also, they can show to Netflix viewers that you can turn on your TV. and there's something, a new episode of the thing you liked yesterday, and it's live and you can come and watch it. It's just a way of changing that consumer behavior. And it's a really good, it's a really good sort of Trojan horse to get people to understand that.

Yeah, sport particularly. Yeah. And we know that they don't, you know, they have had some sporting rights, but they say they haven't and they say they say everything. Never believe in Netflix, what they say. But they want to have sports adjacent stuff. Yeah. So particularly when you've got something like this happening,

the World Cup, which is obviously a kind of daily iterative. incredibly compelling attention event. They're desperate to get into the world of visualised podcasts. Visualised podcasts are the absolute holy grail, which is there are a lot of them. They have a loyal audience who want to see the next one. They create a big library as well, but they're very, very, very cheap.

Yeah, and you leave them on. Yeah. Almost as though you used to leave the TV or the radio one in the background. And as you say, the World Cup is the perfect opportunity to say, this is a destination for that if you would like that because none of the visualised podcasts have really taken off and none of their schedule programme has really taken off. It makes a lot of noise,

but people are not being driven to it day after day after day in the way that BBC Daytime has with Homes Under the Hammer. Netflix essentially need their homes under the hammer. You're compelled every day to go there. And at the moment the rest is football is Netflix's homes under the hammer. I mean, I should have said Bargain Hunt, really, because that's more appropriate. But I do think it's going to be a huge deal for Netflix.

I think seeing that those people coming back again and again and again and again for the same thing. You know, if you make a two-hour film, you'll get a certain amount of viewers. If you make an hour every day for six weeks and people are still coming back and coming back and coming back. That is an entirely different business plan. In fact, it's the business plan. What's the market? You're going back in every day for it. It's important.

And you just keep turning. Do you know what? I actually will get some for Roche. Yes. we talked about the games themselves being less important. I think the BBC and ITV have both done an amazing job in this World Cup. The presenting teams on both channels are great. ITV's Pundit line-up is really, really good.

It's really, really good. They did two games in a row the other day, and they swapped all three pundits, and every single one, I was like, well, this is great. No fella. Yeah. Emma Hayes, I love. She's great. I think both the channels are doing a great job,

but this world around it, this noise around it, the podcastification of the World Cup, I think, is fascinating. And if you don't like it, it's not going anywhere. No. It really isn't. Now, shall we take a hydration break? Oh, that's very clever. And after that, we're going to talk about is Doctor Who cancelled?

This episode is brought to you by Lloyd's. Now, I love it when characters are part of the club. You wouldn't know anything about that. Would you, Richard? The Thursday Murder Club in some ways reminds me of the A-Team. I would now like to map each of those characters onto the A-team and feel I probably could. I mean, Elizabeth is Hannibal and it's not even close. Yeah, that's exactly right.

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Welcome back, everyone. We're about to talk about Dr. Hubert. You're doing another live show without me. I'm doing a live show at the Restis Fest at the South Bank on the 6th of September, which is a crossover event with Tom Holland from The Restis History. Okay. And it's called the Real Housewives of Regency England. I want to explain that we're essentially spending the entire profit margin of the weekends festival on this one show.

It's got very high production values. There's a number of things happening around it. And I think it will be a huge. of fun. It will combine, if you love Regency England, or you love the real housewives, I don't know which camp I'm in. It's a bit of both. There's something for everyone. Beautiful. And we can get tickets. You can get tickets for this at southbankcenter.com. UK and it's on Sunday, 6th of September. Let's talk about Doctor Who. Now, Doctor Who, there's been a Ferroari or a Ferroar. What's happened, Richard?

In the news this week, because the BBC have announced that they are canceling the upcoming Christian special and they are putting Doctor Who out to tender. And the fan base and indeed the newspapers seem to have taken the expression out to tender to mean out to pasture. So there's been lots of headlines saying, Dr Who has been cancelled. I won't string this out too much. It has not been cancelled. It has been the opposite of cancelled. What's the opposite of cancelled? Continued, I guess. So what has happened is this? And I'll explain what being put out to tender means as well. Can I just say where we finished? Okay. Yeah. The last the audiences saw was last May, 2025, which ended on a cliffhanger where Shuti Gatwa, the current doctor,

regenerated into Rose Tyler, who, if you know the show, is Billy Piper and was one of the doctor's companions right back when Russell T. Davis, the showrunner, first brought this show back in 2005, and he was the showrunner from 2005 to 2010. other people took it over and he returned in 2023. When he returned, there was a co-production deal with Disney Plus, which I will get into all of this. Anyway. And that was the last episode essentially of that Disney Plus deal. So Disney Plus pulled out after that. Their money came out as well, which is sort of bad, but you know, these things almost always happen. Disney needed it to be a certain thing. BBC needed to be a certain thing. And it didn't tick all the boxes for everyone. So Disney

pullout and the BBC go, listen, we're carrying it on, we're going to do this Christmas special. So this news this week that says, oh, we're not doing the Christmas special and we're putting it out to Tender. I think, understandably, makes everyone think, oh, my God, is that the end for Doctor Who? True story. I've tried to speak to people from every side of this story. And what happened was, so in 2025, Disney pull out, the BBC are still absolutely saying, no, we are definitely going to carry on with Doctor Who. what we will do is we're going to put this out to tender. Again, I'll explain what that means in 2028 to 2029.

That was the original idea. At which point everyone goes, oh, we should do a Christmas special to, you know, sort of bridge that gap because that's a long time. It's currently made by, or it was made by Bad Wolf. Yes, who are an independent production company. But BBC owned the rights. Bad Wolf made the show. So they say, look, we're going to put this out to tender.

And because the BBC were dealing with Trump and Charlotte Moore, who was the chief content officer was leaving and Kate Phillips was coming in. So there was a lot of churn at that point. And as soon as Kate Phillips probably gets her feet under the table, she said, oh, we're going to put it out to tender now? Because the whole point of putting out to tender is this is a big deal for us. This show is a big deal for us. It's the opposite saying we're going to rest it.

It's the opposite of saying we're putting it out to pasture. It is saying this show is a big deal for us. We want to have this. It will give it multi-series. We need now to find production companies to pitch into us to say they want to make Doctor Who. So as you say, Bad Wolf Make it at the moment. I don't think that they will pitch to do the new one

because Bear Wolf are very successful at the moment and, you know, Doctor Who is quite a burden to carry. It's almost like being, you know, the owner of a football team if you're in charge of Doctor Who. There's a lot of politics to come with. A lot more fear of moving in it. We'll get onto the fandom shortly. Production companies can now pitch

to make Doctor Who. That contract is up for Gramps. The BBC do this all the time with all sorts of shows, shows that they own the IP for. So something like fake or fortune that went out to tender, songs of praise went out to tender, masterminds, stuff like that, these shows where they make it and it is beholden on them to say what's the best way we can make this? Can we keep it in-house or has a production company got a great idea about how to make the show? So BBC studios could pitch within this process? BBC studios could absolutely pitch. BBC studios almost always win these tenders.

Yeah. And sometimes it's because they, you know, something like fake or fortune, BBC studios make it anyway. And so they have those talent relationships. they have the cost savings of knowing how to make it. So, you know, BBC studios usually are at an advantage. In this case, of course, it's been made by Bad Wolf for a long time. So they don't have any kind of incumbency advantage. However, one guess is they might win it, I would have thought. But I think there's various ways that you can win this pitch.

If you, for example, he wouldn't do it, I'm sure, but if you were an independent production company and Jack Thorne said, I want to make Doctor Who, and I'll make it with you, then you may well, make that pitch. If you are an independent production company and you see the importance of all the incredible ancillary rights to Doctor Who and the kind of extended universe and you have an incredible pitch that includes lots of digital media and has like a really, really forward-thinking way of making Doctor Who, you might win the pitch as well. You know, if you've got an incredible piece of

talent who has agreed to come on board as Doctor Who and he's only going to work with you, you might win that pitch. But the process now is production company, will go into their bunkers, they will think, how will remake Doctor Who, how do we make it for that budget, do we keep it in Cardiff? I think it'd be impossible to win this picture

not keeping in Cardiff, by the way, because it's such a big deal to the area and to the production hub there. So I think it will stay exactly where it is. But they'll be going away.

All their development people will be around knocking up a huge document. It's a funny one. If it's BBC IP, if you're bad wolf when you're making Doctor Who, it's not the biggest money

spinner you're going to make because it doesn't belong to you. But production companies these days are far more sort of companies for hire since the world of streaming, where streaming always, you know, keeps the IP for production companies to say, float, no, they have to take some of these gigs where, you know, you're not making as much money as if you'd invented Doctor Who. So 50 companies will pitch. The BBC will cut that down to four. They will be invited in for extra pitches, you know, to absolutely kind of go through every

single detail of what it is that they want to do, how they're going to fund it, who the talent is behind the camera in front of the camera, all of those things, and the BBC will eventually choose a winner in that process. But that hopefully is the thing that reassures Doctor Who viewers that this is not being put out to pasture. It's the exact opposite of that, which is the BBC. You see a long future for it. They have to find a way of future-proofing it, of making it in a way that works for them, works at a price that works for them, that, you know, which retains the integrity of that production base in Cardiff. But it's an enormously positive move.

And the idea with the, because it's been slightly clouded by the fact that that Christmas special was cancelled. But as I say, they were, the idea was they were going to put out to tender in 2028. As soon as they said, we're putting it out for tender now, you can't make the Christmas special. Because the canon of the show would be affected so much by what they were about to do with the whole, you know,

Tucci Gatwilat, Biddy Piper thing. It's just you can't lay that on the next, You know, there are companies out who are working on where they take the Doctor Who universe. And if you're about to drop an enormous Christmas-shaped bomb in the middle of that, it makes that process impossible for everybody. So that's why that's not going ahead. I mean, we'll get on to the fandom in a minute, which, like all fandom, I don't want to completely homogenize it because it's very factional.

We have to say why this has happened. To some degree, we have to be honest, you know, the ratings were not there. That's why Disney got out of it because it didn't work for there. And not any of that. The BBC cannot say that. I mean, the fact that the BBC are doing at all tells you that the ratings are there for the BBC. I agree. There's enough of them. But what is it for the BBC?

Is it like, when Kate Phillips came on the show, she's the chief content officer of the BBC, she talked about what she dreams of for shows that they're those three Gs. It's basically like a whole, all different generations sitting down and watching something together. And when I say historically, I'm talking about from the 2005 return, that Russell T. Davis triumphantly created. It was that show. But that was a different, you know, that's now 21 years ago and that's a different, totally different linear era.

And the difficulty with, you know, it's sitting on a streaming service, Disney Plus, but it's also, and obviously on IPlayer as well, but it's also, is it still this thing that people might sit down at, you know, 5.50 or 6.30 or whatever it is on Saturday evening to watch. I will say that Chuti Gatwa, I don't feel that he understood that the sense of what that role is.

And it's a different role to lots of things. I probably won't be the last time I mentioned Bond, but it's a bit like being something like James Bond. It's a different thing. It's a responsibility. It's an ambassadorial role to some degree. And I don't feel that he, first of all, he didn't ever, in interviews come across as particularly enjoying it.

Maybe that's just the personality type. I don't know. But you are something more. than I'm just playing a guy on TV. And, you know, David Tennant, obviously he was a huge fan. Capaldi. Matt Smith, who wasn't, but was, I mean, was extraordinary. As a replacement, I just think Matt Smith's era on the show is brilliant.

And Peter Capaldi, who was another, you know, a huge doctor who fan. All of those people understood that they were essentially in, it's a funny, isn't it? It's a very unusual role that, yeah. It is, that's why I think it's almost like Bond in some ways. It means something much more, and it's something. connected to something kind of bigger. So also, you know, you have this fandom. The fandom is, as I said, I don't want to homogenize it. You have some sort of diehard Hoovians. You have some real

people who've been with it for decades. And then, you know, you'll have, you also have the kind of His Majesty's Press who think that it's all a big woke culture war. Russell T. Davis would probably say that elements, he had rather lost elements of the fandom. And I think that there For me, just reading the statement, he said, for the record, there's no script. I never wrote it and no actor was ever approached to play the next doctor. You may disagree. Fine, sit in that chair and wait to be proved right. You'll be waiting a long time.

There's a little niggle in there for me as a statement. He's a good writer. I mean, I literally, I mean, I love him. I literally love him. And the only reason we're having any of this conversation at all is because this show fell away in 1989. And there were all sorts of people saying, who's going to rescue us? you know, maybe Amblin, there was a whole movement at the time. Maybe Steven Spielberg's company is going to come in a way.

Yeah, well, it didn't happen, guys, okay? And this show that we were even talking about now, Russell T. Davis was working at CBBC, I think, in 1989. And he, in 2005, he brought it back in this absolutely triumphant way. And that's really the reason why it's sort of in the mix in this conversation. It's a big beast, the culture around the show. I say it is very like being the England manager or more the chairman of a football club. I mean, it will end in failure whoever you are.

At some point, your exit will always be ignominious, always. In that last episode, there's so many different things happening. There's like the reality war is happening, without getting to it into the absolute law of it, if you don't watch it, but the reality war is happening, an extraordinary thing has just happened in terms of a regeneration. To me, it is slightly like, oh my God,

how do I come back after no time to die if I'm doing the next Bond film? But equally, wow, here's something that we're now talking about in the similar terms of James Bond. I think the fandom slightly have to remember that whilst it had a very engaged fandom and people had a big heritage memory of it and hiding behind the sofas and all those sort of things, it wasn't this kind of global thing that people, and it's become, its status has increased enormously since 2005 as a whole idea. And so I think the fact that you're even having these conversations of like, you know, who's so-and-so-going-to-do with it?

how will they deal with all these things? I agree that there's quite a lot to take on just in terms of the loose ends and cliffhangers and things that have been laid down as story points. That's the same for who has to come in and Stephen Knight has to come in and write Bond after no time to die and what they did at the end of that,

which was eccentric. But you know, you've got to find a way through. And we know that people, brilliant writers can find a way through these things. That's the thing. It's interesting going out to tender because what it actually means is you do spread the net out, net out quite wide. There isn't some sort of, you know, succession strategy.

All these different companies will be talking to different writers. And somewhere there will be someone, you know, in the same way that, you know, the 1980s Doctor Who was so special for Russell. There will be people for whom the Russell T. Davis show was incredibly special. When they were growing up, there was like some young writer who can take this on and do something extraordinary with it. It has to be an awful lot cheaper than the last generation of it because the Disney money is out. so you have to find a way of making it cheaper. But you can do that with Doctor Who. It's always been about emotion and storyline rather than CGI.

The BBC tender quite a lot of things. And I'll say this. There is not a single show that they have tendered, which hasn't gone on to have multiple series afterwards. They've never done a tender and gone, actually, we're going to get rid of this, or done a tender and they do one more series and it disappears. Every tender the BBC has ever done is for a show

that they are absolutely committed to and that they want to go forward with. Yeah, it's not the long grass. It is not the long grass. Even though people think it is at the moment, it's not. It's really, really not. It may well be, just to deal with the financial side of it, that some of these companies bring in production partners

and bring in foreign money that the BBC doesn't have. So, you know, there's lots of ways of cutting your cloth. But genuinely, it's a huge money spinner for the BBC still, Doctor Who, the kind of universe around it. It doesn't punch its weight in terms of ratings, you know, on the overnights, but that's becoming less and less and less important. So I have to say something. People were like,

there was a lot of noise about the Christmas special, the last Christmas special TV ratings, but something that I'm sure we'll talk about more when we come to Christmas is, is Christmas TV what it used to be. I mean, across the board last year, they had some extraordinary things the year before with Gavin and Stacey and things like that,

but actually Christmas TV is not Christmas TV. We have a folk memory of something that doesn't exist anymore. I've got a couple of ways of me. it cheaper, by the way, because as I say, lots of people will be, will be pitching, because this tender process has only just started. So there'll be lots of production kind of crew sitting around this week talking about how they land Doctor Who. Just ways of making it cheaper. This is my best way. Ross Kemp is Dr. Who, and the whole series of him sitting around vaping while the TARDIS gets fixed.

I love it. It's like because he's just thinking about what happened, you know, in previous iterations and stuff. But he is just every now and again just going, is it? Does it take you inside the mind of Kemp? Yeah, a little. Well, it's takes you inside the mind of Doctor Who. He's not playing Ross Kemp. Isn't he always? Well, maybe, but isn't Doctor Who? I think, anyway, that's...

Okay, so Ross Hemp's sitting around vaping while the tire just gets fixed. Yes. Junior Doctor Who, which is just a whole series where he's on strike and catching up on his sleep. That feels doable. So Torchwood, which is, as we know, is an anagram of Doctor Who. So I've got two other anagrams. Hoot Crowd, which is... Doctor Who looks after an owl sanctuary, or our hot cord, which is the doctor injuring himself

on hotel room kettles. Okay, I love all of this. Not bad, is it? Absolutely amazing. Is that, so Ross Kemp is your pick for the next doctor? I think the TARDIS being fixed and the doctor having to just sort of go to the betting shop and just sort of wait around, pop into Audi every now and again. It's a bit to be interesting.

Just the kind of down time of Doctor Who. What does he get up to? I'd watch it. If you can't travel through the universe. With the writer, I would watch it. Yeah, exactly. But genuinely, and I've tried to talk to as many people as I can, everyone seems very, I absolutely see where the fandom is coming from.

The fandom are catastrophizing to some degree. And by the way, you would. To varying degrees, I think it's fair to say. And you care about it so much. It's interesting, with Ingrid having been in Doctor Who, I quite often meet Doctor Who fans. To a person, I found them to be just kind and thoughtful and funny and the process is going to be fascinating.

Something really interesting will come. Do you want to know who the new Doctor Who should be? Who? We've enjoyed very much Saturday Night Live, the UK Saturday Night Live, and there's an absolute standout star from that. George Four Acres. Wouldn't he be amazing?

All the best Doctor Who's can really do comedy. You talk about Matt Smith, Tenor Capaldi. They can really do comedy, but you could stick them on a Shakespeare and they can do that as well. And George Four Acres is a great Shakespearean actor and a great comic. Wouldn't he be amazing? I like that. Yeah.

since marina i have loved the new olivia rodrigo album which is called you seem pretty sad for a girl in love and it's a whole arc from sort of falling for you know these i like this sort of genre for yeah yeah for an album because she became famous you know when she was 17 and i do think that's a that's really difficult whether you can grow as an artist and you can sort of put she's absolutely a big a huge deal but she's sort of floating above that and i think she's absolutely brilliant. Robert Smith does a duet on this and she obviously brought him on stage at Glastonbury for her set and that was, and I mean some people just didn't get that, but I think it's brilliant and you realise much, but it's more developed that sort of influence on her in this.

And it's, they're just great songs. And I think it's really wonderful that she's been able to sort of kick on definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely to a much higher level. Because sometimes at that age, it must be quite hard to become a sort of woman artist when you got famous at 17. And we live in a golden age of pop music. I think we really do. It's harder because we don't believe we do because we don't all coalesce around the same songs in the same way that we used to

because we're not just sort of a one radio station culture. But the songs are all out there. It's just harder to find them sometimes when you're sighted the older like I am. I'll recommend there's a new series of four seasons on Netflix, the Tina Faye, Coleman Domingo, and the rest of them. And it's just very beautifully written,

beautifully observed. And if you like the first series, you love the second series. If you've not seen the first series of four seasons, I would strongly recommend that as well. So there's two recommendations, really, but the same show. Okay. Well, we will be back on Thursday with a Q&A with Tom Hanks. Toy Story 5 is out on Friday and Woody is here with us.

But we're talking about lots of – it's really cool. We're talking about quite a lot of other things as well. And it's wonderful. I mean, full disclosure, we've already done the interview. And he's a dude, right? Oh, my God, please. He's a dude. But we've asked your questions as well.

So, yeah, join us on Thursday for Tom Hanks. On Wednesday for our members, the bonus episode, which is I'm talking to James Kanagosorium, and it's all about capturing the zeitgeist. His company does a lot of work on the zeitgeist and where the zeitgeist is going next. It's really, really interesting. That series between the TV has been absolutely fascinating. If people have not listening to it, it is genuinely brilliant. He's great.

I'm your great, but I knew that already. He's very. I didn't know. He was great. He is very interesting. Okay, so if you want to join for ad-free listening and bonus episodes, it's the rest is entertainment.com. Otherwise, we'll see you on Thursday. See you on Thursday.