The Rest Is Entertainment - How do you save Channel 4?

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

Channel 4 has announced big job cuts, where will it find it's next hit? Could Mr Beast be about to move from YouTube to the mainstream? And why are so many films and TV shows being shelved despite being finished? All that on this week's The Rest Is Entertainment with Marina Hyde and Richard Osman. Twitter: @restisents Email: [e-mail] Producer: Neil Fearn Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Recommendations; Watch Richard: The Newsreader (iPlayer) Maria: Zone of Interest (Cinema) 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit fidelity.ca slash all in one. Getting closer to your goals could start today. Commissions, fees and expenses may apply. Read the funds or ETFs prospectus before investing. Funds and ETFs are not guaranteed. Their values change and past performance may not be repeated. Hello and welcome to another episode of The Rest Is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde. And me Richard Osman. Hi Marina.

Hello Richard, how are you? I'm alright. We're in a slightly different studio today and I'm not someone who really likes change but I think I'll be okay. It's literally next door to the other studio. It's next door but it is different. Well the decor is quite similar. And I'm opposite to you rather than at a slightly oblique angle. I actually prefer this, but you know, if we can't have change, we won't enforce it upon you. By the end of this one, though, I won't want to change back. That's the thing. It'll take me for... Anyway, listen,

shall we talk about some stuff? Today, we are going to talk about Channel 4, which has just announced that it's going to lay off about 15% of its workforce. It's going to talk about channel 4 which is just announced that it's going to lay off about 15% of its workforce it's going to sell its London HQ in Horseshoe Road which is a sort of iconic building and it's going to go mainly digital streaming by 2030. I think they're in real trouble we will we will talk about it but I think they're in real trouble for various reasons. We're also going to talk about someone who isn't in trouble, which is Mr. Beast, who's the biggest YouTuber on the planet. And he is close to doing a TV deal with a streamer,

which may even have been done by the time We Toys airs, but we'll have to wait and see on that one. He's the most famous person on the planet you wouldn't recognise if you saw him in M&S. And we're also going to talk about films getting cancelled.

Almost finished or completely finished films getting cancelled. Halle Berry's movie for Netflix, The Mothership, which is a sci-fi thing, has got completely pulled. So we're going to talk about that because it's part of a bit of a trend in the industry. An epidemic. But we'll start with Channel 4, shall we? As you say, so job losses this week. The big issue in TV is the collapse of the advertising market. So advertisers are not advertising on linear

television, or it's much, much less than they did. So if you're ITV or Channel 4 or Channel 5, that's a huge problem. And so you have to cut your cloth accordingly. But while Channel 5 and ITV have ridden this out rather well, Channel 4 seemed to be slightly stuck on the rocks of it for a number of reasons, I think. But you know, it's a very difficult environment to run a TV channel in. And we should say that Channel 4 is special because Channel 4, although it is sort of commercially, it's self-sustaining via supposedly, hopefully, advertising, it does have a public service remit. So in some ways it is analogous to the BBC in that it actually has this different thing,

which something like Sky or Paramount or ITV doesn't have. Absolutely and while the BBC have obviously got a lot less money than they used to at least they sort of know the money they're going to get because you know they know what the license fee is the government sets it and they have cut it and cut it and cut it or you know they haven't raised it so the BBC can sort of plan ahead whereas Channel 4 don't seem to have planned ahead quite as much as they might have done because I think it's fairly widely predicted this advertising slump and I think people at the channel think it's going to turn around and perhaps it will I suspect it might not but they have really sort of run into the ground in

the last 18 months completely run out of money if you talk to any producers they're not commissioning um there are shows on the shelf which they are not putting out well that's quite that's quite an interesting part of it because the indie sector the independent producer sector which is essentially created by the existence of channel 4 because channel 4 existed we built up this amazing vibrant sector in this country um and you, let's not forget how big the creative industries are in this country. And it's in some ways one of the last great things we make. So they had built up this whole sector. What a lot of indie producers have said, and rightly or wrongly, their anger has been directed at Channel 4 because they say that there are finished shows on Channel 4's shelves that are ready to air that have not been scheduled and are not sort of being aired. And there is some speculation that the reason this is is because one of the other big things we haven't mentioned yet is that for how long the government,

that Channel 4 have been in a sort of dogfight with the government over whether or not they were going to get privatized, which they didn't, something they didn't want to happen, but successive Conservative governments have been threatening this. And some people think that because they wanted to sort of show a, you know, not have a loss on their balance sheet immediately after having fought off this bid, they can list the unaired programmes as stock, so it makes them look more valuable. There has been quite a lot of anger amongst a sector

which owes its existence in some ways to Channel 4 been quite a lot of anger amongst a sector which owes its existence in some ways to channel 4 like a lot and you know let's let's speculate some more one thing they stopped doing last year by and large in independent television what happens is you get a show commissioned the channel cash flows that show you make it you make your 10 15 off the top and everyone's happy what they now ask the indies to cash flow a lot of their shows so they will commission a show say we are not going to pay you until this airs and if you're a banner j or a studio lambert you can carry that cost because you know you've got plenty of cash flow but most small indies which are the ones that channel 4 really should be encouraging

can't do that now there are exceptions to this rule by the way but by and large that has been the business plan for the last 18 months and so they are keeping shows that they have made on the shelf because they haven't paid for them yet and they want to pay for them in the next financial year because they're hoping that advertising kind of ticks over and the reason channel 4 got so big and so great and made all those shows that we remember is that incredibly great relationship with creators and that seems listen it might just be perception that seems to have broken down a little bit and you talk to anyone in the indie sector now and it's hard to find anyone who has a particularly friendly relationship with channel 4 it was fascinating when the government did you know they talked about

privatizing channel 4 and you would expect an enormous outcry from the indie sector and there wasn't really i think a lot of the indie sector thought yeah i mean okay that that seems fair enough you're not making the distinctive stuff that you say that you're making you're not treating us the way that we used to be treated or the way that's where we can run a business properly and so actually the support for channel 4 was quite soft i think for that reason okay well i accept. But I think that's really hard, because I think that one of the really difficult things is, and this, by the way, is for all sorts of television companies, the people who are by and large the chief executives or running these companies have

pretty much, in fact, in almost all cases, only known successive conservative governments where they've been at that level of power within those companies. And all those governments have cared about is those channels, and this is across the spectrum, those channels' news programs and how they appear on them. They do not care about creativity. They are not interested in public service broadcasting. None of those things has been the lesson of the last 13 years. And and it's been very very tough particularly for someone like channel 4 that is sort of to some extent overpriced and underscaled it's very hard to survive in that when you're in a dogfight for your survival and to some extent the BBC has been also in this kind of it's a state of constant existential crouch basically and to some to some extent, you know, there have been,

obviously different people have wanted to buy them. There have been mergers suggested. But as the government found, really, when they were trying to sell Channel 4, you're not going to get a financial investor because it doesn't sort of make sense in lots of different ways. So you need to get a strategic investor. You need to get someone, I don't know,

maybe it's ITV or maybe it's sky or paramount i don't think paramount would be interested in the sort of public service obligations because it doesn't sort of make sense to them something like uk tv which is co-owned by the bbc and it's bbc studios it's sort of dave and gold and alibi and well hang on yesterday is that the history one and yeah yeah yeah drama yeah and there might make sense there might be sort of commercial synergies there but really what channel four i think to some extent should be holding out for is a friendly landing and a friendly government because there is a distinct possibility that a government that will be

reflexively more friendly to them is in the sort of quite medium, you know, short to medium term future. And I think that might help because it has not been good for anybody to be in sort of permanent fight against the government and under permanent threat. It has been really bad for the creative industries, which is something that, by the way, I just don't think the last successive governments have understood whatsoever, even though they're massively successful. Well, that's it, because, as you say, they just get slugged off on Channel 4 News and that's all they care about, and they don't care about the multi-billion dollar industry. It is so one-eyed to care just about the news programming. So I would agree that they have fought fires very well at Channel 4

against the government and against WhatsApp, and I absolutely agree with that, and that that takes up an awful lot of their bandwidth i do think however though that television it's it's many many things and you know it's digital first and it's getting young eyeballs all that kind of stuff and there's a million things you can talk about a million things you can write papers about but it is a hits business it is a hits business and nothing else and bbc has been under enormous fire and it's amazing what uh traitors and the gladiators will do to you uh itv has been under the same pressure for advertisers it's amazing what you know mr bates versus the post office can do it's amazing what you know making your own ip and exploiting it can do

channel four i think has had trouble creating hits in the last five or six years it just has all you know most of the big hits on that channel you know grand designs location location location first dates cats does count and all of those things are shows from a very very long time ago and the hits they've had would be bake off and taskmaster which they simply bought off the shelf from somewhere else which if you're an indie, is not something that you think of when you think of a distinctive broadcaster. I think it's right that they do that.

I think Taskmaster fits perfectly on that channel. I think Bake Off fits perfectly well, but you can't have those as your only hits. The idea about getting those is you produce what we always have, which is a halo effect, which is people come for Bake Off, and suddenly they see all your other offerings. You can put a great show afterwards. You can put trailers and all the ad breaks in Bake Off. That's why Bake Off and suddenly they see all your other offerings. You can put a great show afterwards.

You can put trailers in all the ad breaks in Bake Off. That's why Bake Off is so valuable. Same with Taskmaster for a younger audience. It also drives people to digital. But when you do that, you have to have a big stable of new shows that people really, really want to watch. And I think they've had difficulty doing that. I think they've had difficulty updating the slate.

You know, Last Leg, again, is from years and years ago. So they've got great shows there. But other than perhaps The Piano, it's hard to think of anything that's been a breakout hit on Channel 4. And the problem with that is, it's the law of diminishing returns, which is if you're not having the hits, you can't promote the new shows that you've got.

And then those shows aren't hits, and hits you can't promote the new shows that you've got and then those shows aren't hits and then you can't promote other new shows so i think that while they're dealing with the government and they're dealing with the pressures that face them have been exemplary i think i think perhaps there has been a slight lack of investment whether that's financial or emotional in new programming programming, in shows that they own. Bake Off, they're not making money from Taskmaster. They're not. Taskmaster's made by Avalon. And they are many things, but they are not a charity, you know. And Bake Off is made by Love Productions.

And again, you know, that's a huge deal they signed. And Love Productions are doing very, very well out of that. I can't see that Channel 4 are doing particularly well out of that. So they just haven't built that up. And I think that ITV and the BBC... But we should say things like they are still the best place that if you were trying to get a comedy in somewhere, you would want to go to Channel 4 because people think that making a comedy at the BBC is, for various reasons, very, very difficult. And I'm not saying that the BBC don't make great comedies, but it is regarded in general as being quite difficult for various reasons.

A lot of things have to go through various layers of approval, and some people find that very difficult to deal with. And Channel 4 have always had that sort of natural, edgy home to it. So they have got lots of assets, and I really hope that they manage to sort of pull it together because I do think things look pretty bad for them now. Yes, this is the unique problem they have. So if you're Channel 5, so Channel 5 doesn't have a public service remit. Channel 5 really, really, really knows its

audience. Now, if any channel should have gone out of business, it should be Channel 5, right? If you look back five, six years, you go, one of these big five channels is going to go out of business first, which will it be? You'll say, of course, it's going to go out of business first which will it be you'll say of course it's going to be channel five um and then ben frow comes into channel five and is so laser focused on that audience and it's so laser focused on the people he wants to work with and the producers who can make the sort of shows he wants to make and will make quick decisions um a quick no is the second best thing in tv after a quick yes you know because you move on with your life but that's because he has an audience that he understands who they are. They're slightly older.

And so he can absolutely just make programs for that audience. Channel 4 are in this position where they're still supposed to be making programs for, you know, a younger audience, you know, an edgier audience. And that's very hard to do on a big mainstream channel. It's very hard to get, you know,

2 million viewers for anything with that sort of remit. So it's been very, very hard, but hits change everything. I remember years ago when Kevin Liger was in charge of Channel 4 and they'd had like a bad year. He's now the director of programs at ITV. At ITV. And he was, myself and Tim Hinks, who used to run Ender Barley, he just said, guys, can I tell you what I need?

He said, I just need a hit. Have you got one? And we said, do you know what? We've got this got this thing deal or no deal that we've been kicking around and uh why don't you come along and have a look at it came along had a look at it said yeah i'll have i'll have 200 of those uh and you know it was getting five million within six months because you know and that's because he's a program maker understood what he was watching understood where he could play it understood why people might want to watch it. They don't have a hit quiz, Channel 4, which is crazy. Every channel has a hit quiz.

Hit quizzes are sort of actually quite easy to do because people love quizzes. You get a great format. You get a host that people like. Boom, you're done. You know, and BBC Two's biggest shows, House of Games, Only Connection, University Challenge, they don't cost them anything at all. People love them and they can make hundreds and hundreds of episodes. Right, that for a channel,

that's the sort of thing you need on the channel, just to bring people just day in, day out, a simple thing like that. And they don't have it. Entertainment hits a few and far between as well. It's hard. What they're doing, what they're trying to do,

the business they are being asked to run, it's very, very, very difficult to run. But it would be easier to run if just two or three times a year you just had a massive hit that everyone went crazy for and they had a documentary last week on the minor strike it's hard to think of anything that's more in my wheelhouse than a documentary about the minor strike right that's that to me unless it's a documentary about the iranian embassy siege okay the minor strike all. Yeah. And I didn't know it was on. I didn't know it was on. And that's not their fault. Other than I hadn't watched another show on Channel 4,

which would have told me that it was on. And that's the spiral you get into, you get into a death spiral pretty quickly. And I think, yeah, the unique way they're funded, the unique audience they're supposed to attract, and the environment they are in now with huge downturns. I mean, they're supposed to attract and the environment they are in now with huge add downturns i mean it's a very very hard ship to turn around yeah and i as i say i have a huge amount of sympathy because the semi-unique companion of the bbc over the past few years is being under sort of existential attack by the government it will be helpful for our very very successful creative industries in this country perhaps not to be allowed to be a business and to be allowed to be as successful as they as they can be and as they are uh without being

under constant attack and it's not a particularly part of political point it should be a business point from supposedly the party of business should we end on a positive note and send people in their direction a couple of shows recently so the piano is great go and watch that on all four yes and big boys the sitcom is really really good just started the second series there's there's there's good stuff out there so you know support them if you can uh all of those on on all four well now should we talk about someone who is not in trouble in any way who nadine doris is not trying to shut down who nadine doris is not in any way who none of the culture secretaries could or would shut down because they probably don't even know who he is, is Mr. Beast. He is the world's biggest YouTuber.

He's on the point of doing a deal to bring a series to one of the streamers, probably Amazon. By the time you hear this, maybe he'll have been inked and they will have announced it. He's famous for his competitions, which we're going to talk about in a minute. And he's been shopping it around and it's rumoured to be a sort of $100 million deal which I think he could probably get more. That'd be almost nothing to him. And it ties into the last thing because, you know,

YouTubers, I think in our brain, we still got that thing of just someone talking to a camera saying, hi guys, I'm having my breakfast. And us going, why are people watching this? But actually MrBeast, who sort of started roughly doing that, the stuff he's making is brilliant. He's 25. I mean, I find it quite awful that I'm using the phrase mainstream media,

but you do not really see him covered in the mainstream media. And yet, when he releases one of his videos, which my children pounce on the second they come out, along with, you know, within an hour, something like 44 million people have watched these videos, which is more than, by the way, we'll watch any of the major series on any of the major prestige networks.

Now, his biggest video ever, which perhaps is a good way in to start talking about the sort of thing he does, he did a sort of copy of Squid Game where I think they, 456 contestants competed to win $456,000 that has been viewed

600 million times on YouTube you know Richard it's incredibly high production values it looks amazing must have cost a fortune

the best thing about it is he didn't even have the rights he just did it anyway because he's so massive he's just like listen what are they going to do

they're not going to close this down because it's huge for Squid Game what's that thing people say it's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission that's that's that's a real that's what he did there but it's really great you know the netflix version squid game the challenge that had to go up to 4.5 million to try and compete exactly that it's really really good he puts proper money into these things he says they

cost about the average video costs 1.5 million or something and loses money. He loses money on those big videos and gains all of that money back on his smaller channels, which is sort of the game playthroughs. I've watched him play a huge amount of Minecraft, I'll be honest, him and his friends. I've watched it, you know, it's extraordinary.

You know, he'll do things like, you know, 50 hours buried alive or a week sort of drifting on a raft in the middle of the ocean um and or the most amazing laser you know laser maze those sort of like like entrapment the movie which really dates me i'm sure many years before he was born mr beast is going what is this entrapment you're talking about he started at he started at 13 in 2012 or something and And his first big one was he counted to 100,000. I don't know how long it took him. It took him like a week. Oh, my God.

But this is why I really like the guy. Oh, I've got a huge amount of time for him. Started out doing game run-throughs, which is the traditional thing. Then started doing stuff about other YouTubers earn. He said then him and his friends sat down and just all they did was study the algorithm they studied virality yeah virality is exactly what they that's like you they're sort of i need to understand how this thing works and i'm basically just going to order him food and stare at it for five years if i'm going to do the work anyway i want to know how to get that out to the maximum amount of people but he didn't

just do that which by the way there's a million companies who give you ai content and journalism who studied the virality they studied that and then studied what people love to watch and then made what people love to watch and funded it i mean someone counting to a hundred thousand uh across a week you kind of think okay that's a terrible idea but then you think yeah but i really like to watch it. Yeah. I remember on 8 Out of 10 Cats once, Sean Locke was saying, you know what, they should lock everyone in the Big Brother house and then take away all the cameras.

And everyone's laughing. And then Sean goes, mind you, I'd really like to watch that. And you go, it's that, isn't it? And he's very, very good at those things. He did a format where he's got 100 contestants and they have to stand in a circle.

And the circle gets smaller and smaller across the week. so it's harder and harder to stay in there and even if you even put a foot outside you know you get done but then he will cut that down into 20 minutes and he also does a lot of philanthropic things and he's even got a sort of thing the philanthropy channel now he built 100 wells in various different countries in africa he gave cataract operations to a thousand people who are basically registered blind and what's kind of interesting is that there have been a lot of people sort of criticizing that and saying oh this is all for clicks whatever and funnily enough when my children first showed me him quite a few years ago now i was like this is awful he does it all for clicks this is terrible you should do these

things anywhere not for clicks and i then went away and thought about it and thought you're such a twat marina not for the first or last time because I tell you what it was always like this okay the Medici's building half of Florence it was basically for clicks it was the renaissance clicks right Andrew Carnegie building the libraries or whatever, building things in New York, starting up. Henry Ford and his, you know,

helping his workers. It was all for Gilded Age cliques. Okay. They were, this is the, it was always like this. This kind of thing was sort of paternal and feudalistic and whatever.

But the fact that he's doing it at all, a 25 year old kid is doing it at all. Also, I don't think there's anything that weird about it. This is someone who's grown up in an age where I don't think it's any coincidence, as I've said before, that superhero films have become this huge kind of major kind of part of culture because all the institutions have failed. You're growing up in a time of institutional

failure where two kind of ancient men are going to spend probably this year fighting for the US presidency to run the world and things don't work. And is it a weird response that young people think that maybe this is? And yes, the message should be that institutions cure people who are register blind and build these wells and do all the things. But given that they don't, why was I sort of, what was wrong with the clicks? What made him any different to the Medicis? Apart from he hasn't murdered anybody. But you know what I mean. At time of recording. Yeah, at time of recording.

And I felt I was being a real stick in the mud about it. And I think he's amazing. And there's two ways to get clicks, of course. You can do it the Mr. Beast way. By the way, he's called Jimmy Donaldson is his name. But Mr. Beast, I think, is a better brand. You can do it the Jimmy Donaldson way or you can do it the Andrew Tate way. By the way, it's called Jimmy Donaldson is his name, but Mr. Beast, I think, is a better brand. You can do it the Jimmy Donaldson way, or you can do it the Andrew Tate way. Yes.

And I'd rather people were doing the Jimmy Donaldson way, and I'd rather kids were watching somebody digging wells, whatever the motive behind it is, than someone spouting. I would too, 100%. Although the flaw in the sort of mainstream media, again, I can't believe I'm completely deploying all the time now, but is that when people sort of started hearing that this Amazon deal might be in the offing, people started saying, oh, he's the anti-Andrew Tate. And it's kind of like, no, no, no, he's much better than that. He's much bigger and he's a much more, it's like, I know you've only heard of two YouTubers that you don't have to bet that others are available. But I think he's a really fascinating, interesting, amazing character, really.

And it's interesting that even people like Amazon, who obviously are among the richest corporations in the world, feel that unless they get these people in, I don't know, maybe they'll never lure young people into traditional programming and that you might permanently lose them to different platforms. So to bring him in to Amazon, if they do do the deal, or another streamer does it, is really kind of fascinating. It doesn't always work when YouTubers are bought onto programs and onto streamers or to kind of legacy media channels, which has happened a bit because people are terrified

by what's happening on YouTube. But I think, I'm pretty sure that whatever he does will work. Certainly Amazon need him an awful lot more than he needs Amazon. You know, I'm assuming that they'll come to him with a deal and say, look, it's 100 million. And he'll talk to his people and go, well, we don't lose anything by doing this. No, he doesn't really care about making money, particularly he's makes money. He makes huge amounts of money. But he loses money on things and he sort of cares more about the beauty of the high concept and executing it and these incredibly expensive things. He is not sold on sort of like, you know, margins and things like that. He has made a large amount of money, but it's not his motivating factor. And he works with all his old school friends as well, which is lovely to see.

I'm just going to look at his YouTube channel and see what his top videos are at the moment. Because genuinely, you kind of go, oh God, who is he, Mr. Beast? And then you sort of click on YouTube and you go, okay, I would like to see that. Hold on, Mr. Beast. I've seen huge amounts of elephant toothpaste breaking a whole house apart the other day. Elephant toothpaste breaking a house apart? Yeah. breaking a whole house apart the other day.

Elephant toothpaste breaking a house apart. Yeah. You know the thing you do with, I don't know what, I can't remember what, you mix things together. It's like a kind of giant monster slime explosion. You mix two substances together and it creates this. I bought the world's largest mystery box for $500,000.

Yes, please. World's most dangerous trap. I spent seven days in solitary confinement. I would like to see that. I rescued abandoned dogs seen that one uh survive 100 days trapped win half a million dollars um yeah so he opened up a like a like a chocolate company so he had these chocolate bars feastables feastables exactly and and to advertise them he essentially did willy wonka yeah he said i'm going to do this competition if you win this, which is like a knockout competition, you can either win a chocolate factory or half a million dollars.

And of course they went for half a million dollars. But, you know, it's so smart, everything he does. He does it in such a smart way. I was watching one where, again, a knockout competition, but where they had one representative of 200 countries from around the world competing against each other. You know, you'd have Syria against, you know, Uz know Uzbekistan you know in a egg and spoon race and it's just he makes them 20 minutes long you know on the BBC that's a you know 15 week one hour every Saturday night because that's how

the BBC have to do it um he the concept is explained in way under 30 seconds and that's again and that's all the algorithm. When we talk about the algorithm, he's not just thinking, it's not a mathematical thing. It's thinking, how long does an introduction need to be? When do I get to the hook? The thumbnails are really important.

Colourful and show you exactly what they are. All of that kind of stuff. Again, because he does that and allies it with having great ideas or employing people who have great ideas. He employs 250 people now. He seems to have a whole neighbourhood where he's from in South Carolina. So if I was...

North Carolina, excuse me. North Carolina. Correction immediately. Yeah, if I was someone going into the television content business now, that's where I'd go. I'd go to a Mr Beast or someone like that. There's loads of the jet lag guys who do games around the world as well. These huge shows that are on YouTube. And and again i think our generation is slightly stuck

in that thing apart from you know people kids who are watching this stuff slightly stuck in that thing of youtubers are just telling you about their breakfast and so again if you're channel four and you want young eyeballs how do you do it when mr beast and these people are harvesting all of them monetizing it in a very much, much simpler way, and making stuff that people genuinely love. Anyway, Mr. Beast, he has flaws, for sure. Which of us doesn't? But there's some great content on there.

Absolutely. As you say, he seems to be doing good things with the money. Fast forward 20 years, and he'll be wanting to travel to Mars and being president. Yes. And even on your basic tariff on YouTube, if you're a creator, you get $4.50 per thousand views. His last video, which is $1 island versus quarter of a million dollar private island, 82 million views in three days.

So even at your basic level, that means he's made $370,000 from that in three days. But Mr. Beast... Yeah, he's not on the basic tariff. Oh, he ain't on the basic tariff. He'll be on an awful lot more. Because YouTube have this sort of system where their biggest creator... They give so much of the money away to creators, but not everybody gets the same tariff. And he's on the very, very top tariff.

But that's been the success of YouTube over certain other channels, which is they will monetize the creators. And they understood very early that the creators are everything. It's something like 50% they give away. It is extraordinary. So yeah, he's making a lot. Talking of making $400,000 in three days, why don't we go to an advert break, Richard?

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Only at Burger King, where you rule. Welcome back, everybody. Now we're going to talk about films being cancelled. I might talk a bit about TV shows being cancelled as well. Before they're aired. Before they're aired. Marina, you know my catchphrase. What's that all about?

Well, a Halle Berry movie, which is called The Mothership, a big sci-fi thing, was recently cancelled. Now, they said that it was because... And they'd made it? They'd filmed it? They'd made it. It was in post-production. They needed to do some reshoots, but this is such weird, bad planning

that I can't believe this is the actual reason. They said that the child actors had aged too much. Well, this is quite sort of an extraordinary thing to do, but it's not the first time. Now, the first time this happened, well, there was one called... It's mainly been Warners who have done this, Warner Discovery. There was one called it's mainly been warners who have done this warner discovery there was something called scoob holiday haunt which was pulled and they'd

spent quite a lot of money on that is that scooby-doo movie yes scoob holiday haunt yeah yeah they're trying to just i took the scoop and jazz it up and batgirl now batgirl cost 90 million dollars to make do not do anything that becomes a verb they now talk about films being bat girl they cancel bat girl first of all they they sort of made it for streaming and then they thought we can't make films that cost 90 million dollars just for streaming it needs theatrical release this is so this is awful and the effects are so bad it can't go to theatrical release and they took the tax write-off so they got i think they got sort of 30 million dollars as a tax write-off and bear in mind how long you spent

you spend years on a film you spend years getting off the ground you obviously you're poor you're hard and sold and it had joint directors one of this is one of them found out at their wedding at their wedding that the movie was not going to be released. I mean, it's show business, not show friends. And they had tried to save bits of it by going to the servers and just trying to get some on their iPhone. And then they had to issue this awful statement because this is what, you know, in order to work again, you have to say it was a privilege and an honour

to have been part of the DCEU, that's the DC Extended Universe, even if it was for a brief moment. I mean, this is what they do to you. And anyway, so that was Warners. Then, again, Warners, Coyote vs. Acme, which is a John Cena movie, based on the sort of Looney Tunes IP, I guess, and Wiley Coyote's in court for something. And I think John's... You know what? It's about time.

It's about bloody time. And John Cena is, I don't know, the district attorney for something. And I think John... You know what? It's about time. It's about bloody time. And John Cena is, I don't know, the district attorney or something. Anyway, again, Warner shelved it for a tax write-down. But bear in mind, they'd already done Batgirl and they'd obviously done

Skeeb Holiday Home, which I must say didn't get quite the purchase on the discourse as the other ones. But David Zaslav, who's the CEO, said, oh, it's taken real courage to do this. Well, this was not a view shared by the creative community who all said, you know, why would you bring a movie to Warners when you might do all of this and then they might just pull it?

So then what they've done now is they've said, OK, well, what we're going to do is we're going to shop this around. If anyone else would like to buy this off us, one of the streamers something else then do please come and buy creative versus acme i think it will actually get sold and so it will it will make it to air unlike batgirl or this halle berry movie but you can see why creators it's sent a real chill through the creative industry it's getting anything made is almost impossible yeah and it takes years and years and years and there's knockbacks and knockbacks and some suddenly someone says yes you think oh they said yes so okay we're in pre-production and then during pre-production it gets shut down

or one of the actors can't do it or the you know the presenter you want can't do it and so it's not it's not going to go out but that's years and years and years to make it to finish it to picture lock it and to finally go oh my god the last five years of my life have been

worth it i've made that girl now i can enjoy my wedding uh for it to then disappear now to check my messages yeah yeah where's she checking her messages at the wedding i thought you know what it was a yeah i mean yeah yeah i think it was a bit of a three-day event in morocco sorry i'm getting really into the weeds of this guy's wedding. What day was it that he told him? It's not clear, but I mean, it is going to put a dampener on things, isn't it? Yeah, you shouldn't be checking your phone during the first dance. That's all I'm going to say, although it is Hollywood. Is there a particular reason for this other than movie theatres doing less well

and tax write-offs being important and people having to spend such a huge amount of money on every film now? Well, yes, Warners obviously couldn't work out how to make it work to some extent to make such expensive movies just for streaming but also they had this issue where they were going to they wanted to totally reboot the dc extended universe and get someone in a bit like kevin feige is the kind of presiding intelligence at marvel and they wanted to get someone like that in and it hadn't yet been announced that they were going to get james gunn who is now in charge of it all but I think they felt that they had a lot of these kind of DC properties on the slate that were not going to be

part of this new way of looking at things and this would not have been the Batgirl and this would not have been and so I think quite oddly they have stuck all their eggs in one basket a bit late on the superhero boom thinking James Gunn willall director and writer of guardians of the galaxy and he's kind of a sort of mystic air about these things but i think i don't think superhero movies are over but there is a bleak wind blowing through that particular area of the movie studio slates which is pretty much all of their slates in some ways so that is a worry so i think that they felt that but it just makes people think and a lot of me a lot of me a lot of people cancelled their meetings at warner's thinking well i don't want to sell it there

because this is what's going to happen to me and it's happening in tv as well with the networks in the states in that i know a producer who's got he's doing three or four network shows or had three or four network shows on his slate last year and he said that two separate networks sent an email and sent it to everybody by the way saying what is your kill fee for stopping production on your show what would we have to pay you to stop paying out on this show so you stop making television so he'd made two episodes he's got eight to go or whatever so you know he sunk a lot of costs into it but they didn't want to then pay the next five million dollars so they said how much would we have to pay you and those letters

went out to every single person making shows saying how can we kill for new shows not you know for a big established one they wanted but how much would we have to pay you to kill this show and you know i guess it's sort of they all run out of money because there was so much money in television during the streaming wars because venture capital and you know everyone was trying to get the biggest share of the market to get share yeah yeah and now interest rates have gone up so everybody ran out of money so they're cancelling everything all the time but that's you know to have to be making a show and be two episodes in and cancelling it which happened to me a couple of times it's not great has that happened to you it's not a lot of fun in the old days it used to be you'd do a show and it didn't

quite work well enough so it would come off after a couple of episodes we did a series called shafted with which was a game show with robert kilroy silk and it was sort of um do you know the end game of golden balls which is the split or steal moment where you can share your prize or not which is and it was sort of that writ large and it aired the first couple of weeks aired on itv this shows how long ago it was got six million and itv were like, oh no, this is an absolute disaster. These would be pretty good figures nowadays. Wouldn't they just? And so it was taken off air. And so there

were people out there on that show who won like half a million pounds on a TV show that never got aired. No. So people would go, how did you get that new house? He goes, oh, on a TV show you'll never hear of again. You can't even see on YouTube. You just genuinely feel those people,

their neighbours would think they're in organised crime or something because there's no explanation for it. Yeah, certainly in that thing where if you want to get a mortgage, they say, where are the funds coming from? You go, the funds? Oh, they came from the TV show Shaft with Robert Kilroy. I say, let me Google that for you, sir. Oh, I'm afraid I've called the police.

Those things happen and it's hard because in almost all circumstances, creatives are really trying their best to make something great. Listen, it's a terrifying bleak future. But we wouldn't have a Mr. Beast. No, it wouldn't have a Mr. Beast. Right, should we do some recommendations? Oh, that's a good idea. Should we do that?

What have you got? I've mentioned this on the podcast before before but it is now in cinemas the zone of interest is an extraordinary film it is obviously nominated for all the awards it's jonathan glazer and it is a movie uh that i saw in november and i this is the honest truth i have thought about that movie every single day since I saw it. I strongly urge people to go and see it. It's absolutely extraordinary. It concerns the, based on a true story, based on actual geography of where these people's house were, the camp commandant of Auschwitz, who shares a wall of his perfect garden and his wife's lovely home with the camp itself.

You don't see anything from within the camp but you hear things and it is the most extraordinary film and i can't recommend it enough and it's in theaters this week i'm going to recommend something from iplayer which is an australian series which is so brilliant but people a lot of people don't seem to have watched it it's called the newsreader and it's set in the world of australian tv network news in the 80s like a lot of these things that are coming over from australia now like colin from accounts and things it's just it's it's brilliant it's got actors you don't particularly know in it is it looks beautiful this looks really 80s it's got great kind of 80s fonts and stuff like that but there's um two seasons of it on iplayer and i really strongly

recommend it it's just you know one of those brilliantly written brilliantly acted shows where fonts and stuff like that but there's two seasons of it on iPlayer and I really strongly recommend it it's just you know one of those brilliantly written brilliantly acted shows where you just go oh why didn't I why didn't I know this show existed and it's on iPlayer so you don't need any you know any other platforms anything at all you can just sit and watch that I most certainly will we're back on Thursday for a question and answer show yes aren't we assuming we're not cancelled or paid a kill fee to go away what would your fee be we should we should use on this if that wants to be one of the questions very good what would your kill fee be we do and there'll be other questions coming i'm sure but

i've already looked at some of the questions there's so many questions coming through it's great i'm so happy that there's all these things about a thousand episodes that could run yeah i know but we've got some absolute crackers coming up this week. But if you have any other questions on anything, what our kill fee is, for example, then the rest is entertainment at gmail.com. Do send your questions there. That was fun.

That was brilliant. All right, everyone. See you Thursday. See you Thursday. © transcript Emily Beynon