The Rest Is Entertainment - Is X Factor Back From The Dead?

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

Was the BBC right to cancel Ru Paul's Drag Race? Why do Brits still have to wait weeks to see Hollywood films? What was the only time Richard got into trouble with his publisher? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde answer your behind-the-scenes questions of film, tv and flappy books. 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 Exec Producer: Ami Bennett Social Producer: Emma Jackson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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working across every system, all ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running. Bring it with SAP Grow, AI Cloud, ERP for any size business. Hello, and well, Welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment, Questions and Answers Edition. I'm Marina hi.

And I'm Richard Osmond. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? Yeah, very well. Hello, listeners. How are you? Plenty of questions to answer.

Are we going to start with an interesting one? And it's from Mona. This might be one of our shortest ever questions. Mona says, is X-Factor Revival a bad idea? It's not even, is the X-Factor revival a bad idea? Is X-Factor revival a bad idea? Seven words. Okay.

Well, the reason we're talking about this is because this is a story that has appeared a lot over the last week I have noticed. You will have noticed lots of stories about this. In fact, you might almost think this was a story that was happening. Let me get there. ITV cancelled X Factor in 2021 after I think 17 years. In terms of whether it's a bad idea, I don't know. First of all, you will have noticed lots of sub-stories to this. They've said, Louis Walsh saying he would definitely come back on one.

condition that Sharon Osborne was on. Then there's more stories driving on. Myajama's been identified as the perfect presenter. She can bring a young audience. That's clever. Mya Jamma gets identified as the perfect presenter for everything. Yeah, exactly. Mainly because she is.

And it's not happening, by the way. Can I just say this is a story that's got complete life of its own. By whom could such rumours be being stoked? I can't imagine. I simply cannot say. Who would make money from the X Factor? Who would? Yeah, who's got two big formats, both of which are loving armages to earlier existing formats?

No, I don't know. Who knows? It was made by Talkback Thames and obviously with Simon Cowell Show. I don't know where the rumours are coming from. I think it's pretty difficult to, first of all, it is very expensive. It used to cost like $2 million for an episode. I think even now you couldn't do it for about less than 1.5. So that means it would be costing what, you know, the really big show.

shows like I'm a celebrity or whatever cost. The main problem, I think, is that there's a sort of, you know, the duty of care thing. The world has moved on since humiliating people in that way in those audition rounds was sort of acceptable. And even though there was some of it in Simon Cowell's Netflix thing to find the name of the Marxist Revolutionary Group. December 10th. December 10th. It's quite hard. I mean, I actually think it's impossible to separate that format from the Theatre of Cruelty out of which it sort of sprung.

So on the duty of carefront, even if they've managed a way of kind of threading that needle, which maybe they would be able to do something, but it would make it more bland. I think it would still raise all those demons from the past. By the way, who haven't gone away. There were many, many contestants who are still saying that they were failed in a number of different ways by the programme. Some of them are organised into groups, blah, blah. So there are those kind of ongoing complaints. I don't think any more that the music industry would help.

one of the secrets of the old format was that the music industry used to help a lot. Yes, an awful lot. They had their pipeline already and essentially those pipelines were fused together to cast the thing. Most of those people who turned up who were really good, don't let's forget, had already been found by labels. Yeah, a lot of them. There were lots of newcomers, but yeah, a lot of them were. There were a few. There was a significant number had already been found and spotted and developed and maybe even trained.

to some degree by the labels. I don't think that they would help at all now because I think there are just so many different ways. You know, we can see people have surf as far the platforms in totally different ways. Yeah, the world has changed. And I don't think, you know, it can be a liability to be on something like this, which is just too risky.

So I don't think they would help. So although you keep reading stories about this, I do not believe that reality will be bent to this outcome and that they will bring back the X factor. I definitely don't think IDV are thinking about it for one second. But maybe at some point, Netflix or Disney or someone with tons of money will revive it. But as I say, without that theatre of cruelty, it doesn't particularly work. It's too bland as a format. And if you do have it, then I think it just becomes a liability. It's like these people

don't provide news programming for a reason. There are lots of things in television now that are just a liability. Like, you know, I don't do news. I don't do political programming. It's just a liability. This would be a liability and you'd be paying to put yourself at risk because you're dealing with lots of young people and it's a big hassle in lots and lots of different ways. There are other things that we're seeing. We talked about the Mickey Mouse Club revival. We talked about that and clearly Netflix in a very controlled way with Simon Cowell's last show did that. I don't think that by the way was some monster hit. And it didn't, you know, catch the world the light at all.

which may, by the way, have some relation to why these rumors are surfacing. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, it's incredible when you think of what a behemoth X Factor was. It was super massive. And, you know, these things do decline, and that had really declined to the point where there's no return on investment for ITV. So financially it doesn't work for them. In terms of kudos, it doesn't work for them because, as you say, I've become a slightly tainted brand. And in terms of production, it doesn't work for them because it has all the issues that you were talking about.

Brands do not die. I mean, if I think about some of the early Endemarle shows, Big Brother, Deal, I know, deal, still going in different places because there's ways to reinvent them and things that we have happy memories of and, you know, a generation before suddenly going, oh, God, do you remember the X Factor? How amazing that was. There are ways of reimagining it. The way you are not going to currently reimagine it is as a two million pounds an episode show on terrestrial television. It's just that's not the world that we live in. There isn't a channel who could afford it. There isn't a channel who would want it. And as you say, there isn't an industry that needs it. in the way that it used to. In not entirely on related questioning, Richard, can I ask a question on behalf of Isabella Pennings, who is talking about Drag Race, saying why would the BBC acts Drag Race UK are seemingly very popular and cheap to produce show?

Yes, it is related in some ways. I mean, the key word in that question is seemingly, so seemingly very popular and cheap to produce show. And listen, we know the BBC is really cutting its cloth at the moment and getting rid of an awful lot of shows. And that's only just begun, I would say. You look at the things that, you know, we've talked before about live at the Apollo news night being turned into a chat show. Lots of older brands that, you know, are being put out to pasture.

So drag race, it's certainly very, very noisy. It's certainly very, very loved by the people who love it. It's not huge. It's not insanely huge. It really, really punches above its weight, drag race, because the people who like it, lots of big celebs, like it and will appear on it. Obviously, it's huge worldwide and you know, you get to plug into that world as well. But yeah, it's, I mean, it's the same answer as X Factor. It's the exact same answer, which is for the money that it costs, it does not deliver enough for the BBC.

And for a BBC that was better funded five years ago, it definitely did deliver. It did that. but the number you have to hit keeps going up and up and up as the money goes down and down and down and a number of shows have dipped underneath that and because drag race is owned by World of Wonder who've done such an extraordinary job with it worldwide and monetized it everywhere

but it's not a BBC Studios show so you don't even have that kind of economy of scale so it's just one of those things and we're going to see more and more and more of them where the economics of it five years ago worked the economics of it now don't work It's not exactly like the X Factor because I think the X Factor was declining as well, and the world that it was representing was disappearing.

And that's not the case with Drag Waste as a brand. It's not declining particularly. And the world it's representing is not declining either. It's just a situation where production costs when compared to ratings, it just when you're sat in a meeting with a spreadsheet, and you do have to sit in meetings with spreadsheets in television because it's a license fee pay his money. it doesn't work out anymore.

The good news is drag race isn't going anywhere. We know that, but it's going to be on all sorts of different platforms for everyone. Internationally, yeah. And if we think X Factor is a big brand, drag race, I would say worldwide is an even bigger brand in terms of what it does in various territories. So it's not going anywhere, but, you know, the BBC as a home for it no longer makes economic sense. I would say if it was super massive or super cheap, it would just about make sense. but unfortunately it just sits underneath that line. It's a prosaic answer,

but it's going to be the answer to lots of these things in the next three or four years, I suspect. Should we do an entirely themed first half of the show and go on to Dan Babwar's question? Thank you, Dan. Dan says, who will replace Monti Dondon and Gardner's World? Does anyone actually watch Gardner's World anymore? Yeah, Monti Donne is the legendary,

the iconic Monti Dond is leaving Gardner's World. In terms of who will replace, I don't know. I noticed like Jeremy Clarkson, if you want to know how much people actually care about this, Jeremy Clarkson did his entire Sunday Times column this week, and he's not one for a subject that people aren't interested in. He actually by the end was pushing someone called Chloe from Blooms and Greens, who's got an Instagram, she's very young, she really knows what she's talking about and saying, don't just get some kind of random person, but I don't think they will. It's really interesting. So just a quick look in terms of like, does anyone watch Garden as well?

Yeah. Okay. I can give you some numbers from very recently. First of all, it's got 75% name recognition amongst the British, who know what it is amongst British public, which is, that's the most recent UGov polling. That is absolutely massive. Often it's the second most popular show on BBC 2 on its night, usually after Richard doesn't. No, it beats us. It beats you. Oh my God, absolutely. On a Friday, we are not the... Yeah, on a Friday, it's a, yeah. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, House of Games is always the biggest show on BBC 2. On Monday, It's only connect. On Friday, it's Gardner's World. Well, okay, last Friday, the top show of the day,

and this is giving you the numbers so that you can actually think about the ratings, this is the overnight, so certain things consolidate, etc. But the top show of the day was BBC London News with 2.8 million viewers. That's not just London News. That's all of the regional news is combined. This is up against what I lie to you, that Gardner's World is. Now, would I lie to you got 1.4 million viewers and a 15% share. Think how big would I like to you is?

Garden as well got over a million and an 11% share, okay? Often it changes seasonally because there were times in January where we're like, okay, maybe I don't need to tune in this week. As I look out of the window, my uniqueness. But there are certain shows that lots of people who watch this show that we're on right now probably don't realize are absolutely massive. And I'm talking about things like Country File, Antiques Road Show. These shows are absolutely huge.

Antiques Road Show is still just more massive. It's absolutely massive. And people just think, who on earth would watch that? Again, just because you don't watch it, it doesn't mean it isn't just doing unbelievable numbers, much bigger numbers than any hot show on Netflix. Supposedly everyone is talking about much, much bigger numbers. And if we want a seemingly very popular and cheap to produce show, that is Gardner's wild, and that's why that's still on.

But yeah, it does really, really big numbers. And this is not expensive. And the people who watch it love it. And those are the things that the BBC are going to have. to keep doing. It's interesting the question of he replaces him, because we talked about grand tour last week and how they, you know, this world of do YouTubersers work on TV and what Grand Tour have done is taking YouTubers who really know what they're talking about and putting them on TV. And there is a generation now of online gardeners, if you know what I mean.

Yeah. Gardens who then go on online. They're not gardening online. So we are online gardener, that guy. And there will be someone in that world who already has a following, but crucially, knows what they are talking about. Anna's had five years of broadcasting experience because they've done their own stuff and you'll put that person on and they'll do an amazing job, I suspect. But yeah, it's a really great brand for the BBC

because don't forget, you know, there's all sorts of magazine spin-offs and live spin-offs and stuff like that. So it's a proper, proper, proper money spinner. And Monty Don is one of those people. It doesn't put himself out there much, but it's so beloved in Britain. He's just one of those.

guys who absolutely has a love in the nation, which is much higher than his profile sometimes. A fantastic person. Okay, shall we go to a break now? Yeah, it was a real branded first half, wasn't it? Yeah, thanks everyone. This episode is brought to you by Lloyds. Now, show business loves a club. I love all these sort of unofficial groupings of people. There's two brat packs that I'm big fan of. There are two brats packs. Yeah, there's two brats because there's the movie brat pack, all of the Judd Nelson and, you know, Rob Lowe and Chubbush, and, you know, Charlie Sheen and all those guys.

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Welcome back, everybody. Now, Peter Pence has a question, Richard, that you must answer. He says... That they must answer? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Sorry, I didn't...

It's mandatory. Well, it's not like you to misunderstand a format. However. I recently read Careless People by Sarah Wyn Williams, says Peter, which has an extra flap on the front cover that is covered in book review blurbs before you even reach the title page. It got me wondering, do these quote-field covers actually help sell books, or do they just clutter the design?

Oh, God, there is a lot, Peter, I'd like to talk about there. Firstly, this extra flap thing is a huge deal. You can't any bookshop or any publisher. They're obsessed with, do we have a double flap cover? do we have sprayed edge like coloured pages can we have a little ribbon like all these things

very very very costly they certainly they send a message to the book trade that this is this is a huge book for us that extra flat thing I can't bear it they do in America I hate it all the time and it just like if it's messy

I hate it when they used to do it on a wraparound they call it on newspapers someone's paid for it it's like you feel really I feel irrationally annoyed like someone's put a U2 album them on my iTunes. Exactly.

Give me a book with a front cover that I can turn to the first page of and start reading. I don't need to be fiddling about. It's like,

it's like I'm making a slinky or something. So anyway, my publisher is always obsessed with these double-flap things and I've said, time and again,

do not double-flap me. Don't you dare, if you're even thinking of double-flaping me, you better stop. Yeah. If you dream about double-flaping me,

you better wake up and apologize. I think they did double-flapping. flat me on the last one. I could be wrong about that. In America, they do it all the time. America, it's how they do. You can't legislate for the Americans. You can't legislate for the Americans? Now, Sarah Wynne Williams, this book, Careless People, can we as a sidebar just continue to say that she is not allowed to do any publicity? She will go to book festivals. This is about her time working as a Facebook executive. Sorry, if you did it. And it's extremely revelatory about the internal culture of the company. Yeah. And they have

such legal constraints on her and what she's allowed to say and how she's allowed to promote this book. Essentially, she is not allowed to promote this book at all. So we will do this for her. It's an absolutely terrific book. It's fascinating if you care at all about the future of democracy, media. It's definitely, definitely, definitely worth reading. And that's something that she's not allowed to say. So we'll say it for her. Now, this double-flap thing may well be because of that, because the publishers are aware that Sarah William's can't go on this morning and talk about the book. She can't go on the Today program and talk about it, even though, you know, she'd be a, a amazing booking on all of those. So they want to sort of show

the reaction to this book. But it happens a lot on lots of like my paperbacks. You'll have all the reviews of the hardback will be on the paperback. So when the hardback comes out, you can't really put reviews on it because the reviews come too late. So they'll have all of these reviews. I never see my reviews, by the way. I'll say, don't show me the reviews. The first time I ever see my reviews is when I open the paperback of my book and then obviously they've selected all the nice ones. I only ever see nice reviews. So they'll do that.

So firstly, the double-flap thing is assigned to booksellers that this is a book we take seriously and we're spending a lot of money on because it costs an awful lot more money to do a special either sprayed edge or double-flapped book. So it costs an awful lot of money. Can't you just tell them? Can't you just tell the public? Like many things, it could be done in an email. We are spending a lot of money on this book.

But we're not going to piss off all the people who have to pick it up by covering it in this outside stuff. Yes, in this ridiculous outside stuff. I might suggest it to them. but it's a signifier, I would say, of something. Does it work? Well, I mean, the idea of blurbs in general. I think about this all the time.

The blurbs sell books. They tell you they do, but I don't know. I mean, with careless people, because it did pretty well in hardback, and now what they really want is a huge paperback. And I guess if you're sort of flicking it open, and there's like 10 unbelievable reviews, everyone agreeing saying this is amazing. And it's hugely important. I actually think for that book,

there's something to be said for it. I'm like, what, I'm reading a book about Facebook. I'm sorry, that might be your original reaction. And I think that for this book, for all the reasons we've said, so let's take her out of the equation for a second. Blurbs in general, thoughts? Yes, blurbs in general. If you are a new author, so before a book comes out,

the one way you can get blurbs on hardbacks won't be from the newspapers and from reviews, but it will be people say, oh, why do they have celebrities or other authors giving blurbs? And that's because those are the people that get sent to six months before it comes out to try and get a blurb. And if you're a new author, yeah, listen, if Mick Heron has read your book and loves it and, you know, Mick Heron says this is an amazing spy novel on the front cover of your novel, that's helpful. I think there's a... What's on the front of Wechay Shadows?

So Wechay Shadows is... I can't remember. I saw it. It's even on the proof, right? It's a really... funnily enough when they do, when they do original mock-ups of covers, it'll often say, incredible quote here, X, X, X, X, just where it is. But we chase shadows, so Richard Bravery, who designed it. It's my favourite of all my front covers. Yeah, me too. And it's a really lovely kind of sun and a cat, and I love the font. I love the whole thing.

And Richard and myself spent so long trying to work at the exact angle of the aeroplane, the exact angle of the cat's head and all of this stuff. A real Miami-Vice feel in the colours. You know I love that aesthetic so much. Like an 80s airport thriller type thing. So we had it exactly as we wanted it. And then the publishers are, oh, okay, we have to work. work out where to put the quote, whether it goes right or left,

which is the blurb. Yeah. Where's the quote? And they would sort of send things over. I think, no, this doesn't look right at all. And I said, sorry, why would we have a blurb? What's the blurb doing here? What is it advertising here?

And there was not an answer to that. And so we have no blurb on the front because we just loved the, I just loved the cover. And there is. I love it. If it's so, if it's gorgeous, it's so clean. and I like, you know. Yeah, and I absolutely understand, like, on the first book,

my Thursday Murder Club came out, and Ian Rankin said something lovely, and Val McDermott had, there was a point in that, because, you know, they had real authority, and it was an understanding that this was, you know, a proper crime book, so I absolutely get that.

I don't, it's not something now. Your post-blob. Well, they're just doing it because it, because you always do it, because you always do it, because you always do it. And I think, I don't mind it at all, but the fact that we had this front cover, which I really, really love.

and me saying, do we need a blurb? It took them two seconds to go, no. So I thought that was interesting. But I do think Sarah Win Williams, I think it's probably worth it because it's a book that everybody should read. And I've said that too late, unfortunately, to be one of those blurbs.

So apologies to Sarah and Williams. And also from the two of us, keep up the good fight. Keisha Pettett has a question for you. I'm one of your listeners in Australia. Hey, Keisha. And every time I hear you saying, see you next Tuesday, I will listen next Wednesday because we are the head of the UK in time zones.

Hi, Kisha. Showing off much. It got me thinking about the release of film, music books, etc. When they are deciding on a release date, do they always make it for the time zone that they are in? Or do they stagger them? Well, it's sort of different across lots of the different businesses. In music, music used to come out on different days in different countries. In the UK it was on Mondays, Tuesdays in America.

But once they started having problems with sort of leaked and problems, pirated tracks, once everything went digital. They had changed that and they managed to persuade the labels to all release music on Friday. So new music Friday, which is a sort of thing. And they all do it at an agreed time of one minute past midnight. But that does mean one minute past midnight on your local clock. So if you're, wherever you are, you know, New Zealand's going to get it first,

then Australia. So you are ahead on that. Well done, well done, New Zealand. It's like, it's like, you. you know, it travels around the world like New Year's Eve. And it's Friday. Or Father Christmas. Or Father Christmas. Yeah, exactly.

They chose Friday because Friday music chart sales, like lots of things count in seven-day blocks. And they now start on Friday morning. So you've got the sort of best chance of a good opening position. And that's the case with lots of, we'll get to books in a minute. But films are the opposite. And films can release on totally different dates. It depends often on whether you've got a distributor for them. I mean, there's lots of things that I think, quite small films that I think, oh, no, you can see it in America.

When are I going to be able to see it? And it's just not even clear that it's going to get a UK release. It's like I Play Rocky we were talking about on Tuesday. You can bet you'll probably see that in America a couple of weeks before you see it. Yeah, that's November the 6th for us. But yes, it does take down. So films, they used to have to have the physical reels and it would have to be shipped over for America. And because they were so expensive, they would be reused.

So not everyone is getting the film on day and date. but once everything went digital, they didn't have to worry about that. Studios now really want to open everywhere on the same day because, you know, the global box. When we talk about box office receipts, we always use the US numbers, which as we've said before, are brilliant, they're great on their data and the demographic breakdown and everything. They are, you know, fastidious about this kind of stuff. But you'll have the box office, meaning the North American box office, and then you'll have the global. They want to have international or they want to have Chinese.

You want everything because you can consolidate it. say, oh, well, it's playing really, really well overseas or whatever it is. So the staggering that they still have is only because of marketing. So sometimes if things get in advance, it's so that people can, the stars can promote it. And, you know, some things they held them back. Oppenheimer only got a Japanese date after it won the Oscars. Obviously, it's quite a sensitive territory choice in, if I can put it that way. So, you know, the awards perhaps justified the excitement about the film.

I'm just going to leave that one now. I don't want to get any further into that. But streamers choose, you notice streamers choose one moment for the whole world. And it's, you know, Netflix originals go live at Midnight Pacific because they're headquartered there. But for instance, like the other week when they did the GTA6 thing, it was quite an annoying time. You know, it was going to have these six-hour window of exclusivity on Netflix to kind of have footage from the gameplay. And that was exactly the same time around the world, which they couldn't have done any other way.

It's like I was excited that every episode of Reacher comes out at 8am. Yeah, because it's Pacific. But books is more fragmented. Rights are sold territorially and things come out at different times. And you can have different editions. And the bookshops get the stocks weeks in advance. They're forbidden from selling it before the agreed day, although as someone who is about to embark on her own book. My book comes out on the 24th. And there are ways of counting

things into those first week sales. What your publisher might say to you is you're doing this event and it's actually before your publication date, but it will count into first week sales. And that's why you'll see lots of authors kind of consolidate things together. And they might do an event that's really quite considerably in advance of the date of publication. But those, that sales must be held and put into first week. Yeah, all your, all your pre-sales are in that first week. My last book, I remember, I was so annoyed because I did an event and it was put into the wrong week, and it was just a mistake. And I was like, because what happened, obviously then that affects your chart position. The week one is the big deal. You won't week one because you need to be in the

chart in week one, sometimes week two as well, because week one is just a part week. But those first two weeks are the big weeks. But I remember being so annoyed because you can't do anything about it. And they can't rescind it and take it back out even and say, oh, I've made a mistake. So you're just stuck with like, I don't want to say it's wasted. You know, but it was lots and it wasn't and it didn't go in. But in the end it was all right. The most trouble I've ever got in with my publishers was, probably book two or book three or something like that. And I'm aware that the books are in the book shops like a week before they're allowed on sale.

And you really, really, really can't put them on sale early. Book shops get in real trouble. They get them and you might go in and sign them around the back, which you have all done lots of, you know, Yeah, and then, but they can't put them out until the Thursday. But I said, I think someone on Twitter, this is years ago, just said, oh, God, I'm going on holiday on the Tuesday and I really want to take your book with you. I said, oh, do you know, just go into the bookstore, tell them I sent you, and so because they've got copies there. Because I just thought it was a nice thing to do, because someone's going on holiday. Oh, my God.

I see, I see only time I've ever been in trouble. Yeah, really. Yeah, they're really kind of, Richard, we need to, and I thought they were joking, so I was really laughing. I looked at their faces and go, oh, and they're really, because all of the other bookstore, are going, hold on, sorry, you said they were allowed to sell this book. Why can't we saw this book on Tuesday? I just thought it would be like a stream of people going to book shop saying Richard Osman sent me, give me his book early. Which again would be quite a nightmare to deal with.

I think there was a bit of that. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, I really got in trouble, so you mustn't do that. But they are there. Yeah, they are there. And you can pre-order them in bookshops, and you can pre-order them obviously online. And all of that counts into first week sales, which is why people really care about it. And why I really hope that any of my sales get entered into the correct week. this time round. It's called What a time to be alive. Remind me of the release date? September the 24th.

Although if you pop into shops a couple of days before that. No, do not do that. Do not do that. You all get the bookseller in trouble. Yeah. It's the last thing we want. I think that about wraps us up, Richard. Yep. We have the last of our first tranche of Bond specials,

the end of the Sean Connery era for our members, Restorsent Entertainment.com. If you want to become a member, free listening, etc., etc. You do not have to. It's been a great series, though. It all implodes in Japan, doesn't it, Richard? It all implodes in Japan. Anyway, see you next Tuesday.

See you next Tuesday or Keisha and our lovely friends in Australia. See you next Wednesday. See you next Wednesday.