The Rest Is Entertainment - Richard vs the SAS

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

Do celebrities get an easier time on SAS: Who Dares Wins? Why are box office returns measured commercially, rather than the number of tickets sold? How is filming in cars done? What time do you star...t drinking as a guest on Saturday Kitchen? Your excellent questions answered by Richard and Marina on The Rest Is Entertainment. Newsletter: www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: therestisentertainment@gmail.com Producer: Neil Fearn Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport As always we appreciate your feedback on The Rest Is Entertainment to help make the podcast better: https://forms.gle/hsG8XXMc4QyGNBHN8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 What does possible sound like for your business? It's having to spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment Questions and Answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I am Richard Osmond, ready for some questions? I most certainly am. Born ready, right?
Starting point is 00:00:28 Born ready. I don't sleep, I wait. Should we start with you? Yes. Colin Price has a question for you. Hit me with it. Colin asks, so, it starts with a so. People on Pointless, when you introduce them, they would always start with so. As Sandra would go, John John tell us about yourself. So
Starting point is 00:00:46 Where's that come from? That's a verbal take It's yeah, I probably didn't occur 15 years ago, but it's one of those things anyway, listen This is this is not the rest is linguistics. No, that's some no Chomsky and soup all out, isn't it? Colin says so Well, yes, you say so often I'm watching so so often I'm watching. See, that's the problem, Colin, with so, so comma. It is actually now becoming the rest of linguistics. Anyway, that's all. You like it, Richard.
Starting point is 00:01:12 That is all we have time for today. Colin Price says, so often I'm watching a drama or police procedural and a scene is filmed inside a car. The driver turns to the passenger and talks sometimes at length. I want to shout, keep your eyes on the road. So keep your eyes on the road. I assume they're never really driving, but the view out the window doesn't suggest they were on a trailer. How were these scenes filmed? Oh, right. Okay, Colin. Well, you know, in the old days, which is such a sort of trope of those kind of 50s movies, and any even persisted beyond where Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in the car driving around and, you know, to catch a thief in the convertible and then the film of the road behind in the car driving round and, you know, to catch a thief, um, and the convertible and then the film of the road behind it. And it's quite, you know, that, that particular scene,
Starting point is 00:01:49 I think she's got to swerve away from lots of Laurie. She's a crazy driver, crazy girl, crazy driver. Then they stopped doing that. And that all changed. Now the car that you see the actors in for the purposes of this explanation is called the picture car, right? So the picture car has got your actors in. What you normally have if you've got some money is a car process rig and that's basically like a low loader which that car is on. This works best by the way if you haven't got lots of cars driving around because then as you can imagine the picture car will be slightly higher up. And by the way if you look closely I was watching was watching, which I really loved actually, and I'm coming to it really late. But I'm looking forward to the next series, which hasn't come quite yet, which was Magpie Murders. Part
Starting point is 00:02:33 of it set in, you know, back in the fifties, they were driving around in Norfolk, which they were lucky because there was nobody else around on the road. But I did think this car is quite high. I could see, but that's, you won't really notice things like like that I chance to notice it because I'm always looking for stupid little things like that But then pulling along that low loader you might have something called an insect car Which is like a sort of inset insert car which is an Adapted kind of truck or you know SUV which has got all this kind of rigging sticking outside of it so that they can film What's happening in the picture car on the low loader behind and that will tow it. But you also have camera cars which might drive alongside
Starting point is 00:03:11 or whatever to get the shots and they're sort of matte black so they don't reflect the light. And you might have seen these because they've got a huge kind of crane sticking out over the top. Basically no one is ever driving. Sometimes you have like a tow dolly where they're actually just pulling it and the picture car itself is encrusted with cameras and lighting equipment and that's happening. Funnily enough, what has now happened after beginning this with that kind of Grace Kelly and Cary Grant thing about the footage behind being played and it always looks like they're in front of a cinema screen of a road.
Starting point is 00:03:41 What they can now do, you're going back in some cases, if you've got a lot of money, you can do it in the studio. And I was talking to a production designer about this and it was incredible. He did something set in a kind of sixties version of New York. They film it all and then it's done with CGI. You can put it on the outside of the car windows, which by the way is all just green screen in the studio. And the light of the buildings, you know, going through a place where there's a gap in the street, it will reflect on the actors' cheeks. It is incredible that what they can do now.
Starting point is 00:04:10 So they can now simulate that entire thing. So we're almost going back if you've got lots of money to make your thing, to simulate it back. Yeah, but yeah, anytime you see people talking inside a car, they are not driving. They are in the picture car. Yeah, there's lots of external shots of cars. Ingrid just did a job where she had to drive an Audi.
Starting point is 00:04:28 And actors, by the way, they were always driving people. They say, would you like me to drive the car into shop for you? And all actors go, no, I'm absolutely fine. I can drive a car. But then it's always terrifying. You think, oh my God, how do I drive? Yeah, yeah. But funnily enough, you know, showing the projections,
Starting point is 00:04:42 that BBC drama that was on Night Sleeper, which is all on a train, also on a moving train from Glasgow to London, and that has video screen of exactly the entire journey from Glasgow to London, just outside the windows of the train. And it looks like they really are on a train. They do this increasingly now because it's really expensive to send a crew to do lots of things. So if you send a sort of skeleton crew to shoot what you need yeah it's actually in many cases cheaper to sort of CGI it into the site and much more practical because you haven't got
Starting point is 00:05:11 to get the whole crew and all the actors and everybody to wherever your remote on the on the Thursday Murder Club movie not to be all 1930s about it but the internal shots of the flats of all the main characters. So we got the big external thing, which is a big sort of country house. And painters had looked from inside the windows, they'd taken a photo of the scene outside every single one of those windows where they knew that the characters lived. And they then painted enormous kind of 40 foot high canvases
Starting point is 00:05:40 of that exact scene. So there were paintings, but you look out and it just looks like the real. What, for when they have it at Shepperton? To go through the windows at Shepperton at the studio this is. Exactly. So the walls of the studios are enormous paintings by these incredibly talented painters to look like the outside of Well I love that that's very golden age. That's very cool isn't it? Yeah. When we did Celebrity Antiques Road Trip you really are inside the car and they have little GoPros looking at you but you do have to keep your are inside the car and they have little go pros looking at you
Starting point is 00:06:05 But you do have to keep your I have less money than some of the productions We've been speaking about but also you go to a road where there is there is no traffic There's only one rule on celebrity antiques road trip and any time you watch it You'll see this you're always in a like a classic car, but there's no road markings You have to go to a road where there's no road markings So it looks like you're in the countryside, which you are So the second there's like white lines in the middle of the road you're like oh we can't do that you turn off until there's no road markings. So yeah on Celebrity Antiques
Starting point is 00:06:29 Road Trip they really are driving. That's a scoop. Yeah yes it's and also yes it's because it's not quite yes as discussed. What do you mean it's not quite as what? It's not I'm just saying it's probably costs less than the Thursday Murder Club. What you think Celebrity Antiques Road Trip is not like a Marvel movie? I think it's not like the Thursday Murder Club movie. What, you think The Antiques Road Trip is not like a Marvel movie? I think it's not like the Thursday Murder Club movie. I don't want to speak on Marvel. I mean, it has some similarities, I would say. I've got a question for you from Daniel Openshaw,
Starting point is 00:06:54 and I really want to know the answer to. Really enjoyed your appearance on Saturday Kitchen, Richard. Thank you, Daniel. I have often wondered what time people actually start drinking on that show. If there's a rehearsal before the actual show starts at 10, perhaps not, then that would be quite a session before the weekend has even begun. Yeah gosh it's a good question. So there is a rehearsal which as the guest I didn't get to go to I think they
Starting point is 00:07:15 have a rehearsal for the chefs and things like that because that's quite technical. I know they definitely do drink the wine during the rehearsal because when we were drinking some red wine on the show I was on someone said this is tastes so much better than they did earlier because it's been allowed to breathe so they had they had been drinking 42 yes exactly so yeah you start about 10 it's like Christmas day isn't it really it doesn't count it's so similar yeah but usually drink on Saturday kitchen doesn't touch the sides you know um the truth is you don't drink an awful lot of it no you know so they'll bring over the. You don't eat a lot of the food, either. You have sort of a mouthful of the food. So Ollie Smith, who we've talked about before, he was the wine expert when I was
Starting point is 00:07:52 on it. And yeah, just for each dish. So maybe there's four bottles of wine. You kind of try, but you only have a little sip. When I was on Sunday brunch a few years ago, they did hot gin cocktails. And this was about 11 in the morning and we really knocked those back. They were amazing and yeah by the end of that everyone was a little bit kind of okay that's interesting. It's about you know 1130 on a Sunday morning and I slightly feel like I've had a session but on yeah on Saturday kitchen there's so much going on so much stuff happening you have a little bit of each of the food and just a just a sip of the
Starting point is 00:08:23 wine. By the third one you do sort of you know they're showing some Niger or something and you sat there you've got a glass of wine in of the food and just a sip of the wine. By the third one, you do start of, you know, they're showing some Niger or something and you're sat there, you've got a glass of wine in front of you and you go to drink from it and someone takes it away from you and you think, oh yeah, of course, I am not at the pub. I'm not at the pub is absolutely fine. But yeah, so immediately it gets taken away and the crew eat all the food and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, so you are not too drunk, although even by the end of that, I guess if you've had two sips of each, you've had maybe two glasses of wine or something, you feel it a tiny bit, but yeah, nothing compared to the bocce cocktails on Sunday brunch. That was, yeah, that was challenging. What a professional though, you nailed the appearance.
Starting point is 00:09:01 Well, that's it. Some people, when you come on shows, you're in you're dressing room for half an hour and some people do always ask for a beer, so people like to have something before they go on. There's certain people where runners have said no beer for this person. Just say we've got nothing. Yeah, just say honestly, there is no booze available. We've looked everywhere in London and they don't seem to have any. Yeah, it's really annoying. But then other shows, you get booze on set if you want it, you know, if you do Graham Norton or something and say what drink would you like on set and this or the other, but it's really annoying. But then other shows, you get booze on set if you want it. You know, if you do Graham Norton or something, they say what drink would you like on set? And this or the other, but it's never, yeah,
Starting point is 00:09:30 there's never kind of points. It's not like the darts or something. No. I think it's just, you know, a little relaxer. Me, I was like a glass of water. I said I'd like to have my wits about me. Yes, absolutely. And no, it's just not entirely worth it.
Starting point is 00:09:43 It's like people who tweet drunk. It's like people who go on chat shows drunk. That's half of Twitter, isn't it? It certainly reads like it. That's what you really come to understand, I think, on things like Twitter and stuff like that. When someone seems utterly unreasonable and they've done something that's inexplicable. Just look at the timestamp. They're drunk, right? Marina Edward Skinner has a question for you. I am awaiting the new series of celebrity SAS who-des-wins and wondered, do they take it easy on the celebrities off camera?
Starting point is 00:10:10 Edward, this series has now started since you wrote that question and I've asked one of the participating celebrities on it who said that actually, no, it's a really unusual reality show, which is that you do not see producers on this show at all. You don't have contact with production staff. If you need to see a doctor or the shrink, you can see them, but they don't count as the production staff. But the only people you see are the directing staff, and the directing staff are on the whole time. You're being filmed whenever you're seeing the directing staff. You don't chat to them at all during filming. That creates that particular atmosphere on that show. And I mean, they are the real stars, the directing staff, so that Foxy and that Billy, you know,
Starting point is 00:10:53 they are the draw of the show. But it wouldn't necessarily work if off camera, it was all like, oh, come on, I'll make you a cup of tea. So you see them, they come on camera, and you're into the tasks and the challenges and the things like that. It's amazing that because again we talked about immersive experiences on the Tuesday show and actually as a celebrity these those experiences do become incredibly immersive and you do get Stockholm syndrome incredibly quickly because if I was on that show I'm not going to do celebrity SAS are you tough enough because I know the answer already which is no I am not tough enough. I would not, if someone starts shouting at me,
Starting point is 00:11:27 I'd be like, come on, man, this TV, I'm not doing this. And also, I know this is being filmed. I know there's someone in a truck having a cup of tea, watching me getting screamed at, and I'm not, I just, I'm not having it. But if you give yourself up to it, it very quickly becomes your reality. And producers have known that for years and years and years.
Starting point is 00:11:46 And you know, you should be able to go on those shows and just go, look, come on guys, this is a, you know, you talked to my agent, we had lunch in the IV when you signed me up for this. I'm not suddenly going to be in my underpants having water thrown over me. Uh, and think that that's normal. Uh, and yet, and yet it absolutely happens. You buy into it. There's a sort of thing and it happens, human nature isn't it, you don't want to be the person who breaks the spell,
Starting point is 00:12:10 you don't want to be the person, if a reality is there, you don't want to be the emperor's new clothes, just go hold on, is it? But it feels like... But any of those shows in which you become exhausted of their sleep deprivation, you're hungry, you're tired, any of those you become exhausted of their sleep deprivation, you're hungry, you're tired. Any of those you become institutionalised far quicker, which is the case across, you know, not just entertainment formats, also imprisonment and various other, any of those things you become very quickly part of the institution. One of my absolute favourite substrata of show business groups is the WhatsApp group between celebrities, all of whom were booked on the same reality show. Okay, because when you are on SES, are you tough enough? Anything like that, Strictly, The Jungle, any of those,
Starting point is 00:12:54 there is a real genuine, very, very strong bond between the contestants on those shows, because they're going through the same thing, they're going through a thing that no one else is going through. Just psychologically, it's very, very bonding. And so whenever people on those shows go, oh my God, we're all like, we're going to be friends forever, they are not kidding. They're not being kind of showbusinessy. Genuinely, they feel like they are connected. They feel like there's this bond that will never be broken like a band of brothers. So they all have WhatsApp groups. That's like they've gone to boarding school for one week.
Starting point is 00:13:23 Yeah. So listen, I'll take your word for it. I can imagine. Definitely. And so after that, you know, you'd always get people who've been on certain shows or done certain challenges with people and their phone would go off and you go, oh, what's that? You go, oh, it's the WhatsApp group. You know, someone wants us to do 10-pin bowling.
Starting point is 00:13:40 Because for about four days afterwards, all you can do is talk to those people because no one else understands what it is you've been through. But like after about four days and suddenly you're doing something else and you've something's happening with your kids at school and, you know, so you, you, you move on, but there are certain people who cannot let it go. And that WhatsApp group, which is strong for a while, then it just gets less and less and less. And then usually there's just like one person going anybody in Exeter. Uh, cause I'm heading out for a drink if anyone's around
Starting point is 00:14:06 but it's not fake it is really not fake but it does not last long that camaraderie of reality shows and I just said that's in a way if there was a way of televising the sad petering out of a celebrity reality show whatsapp group I would watch that. Sick John's at Gloria Reality. Yeah, there you go. But you can bet with celebrity SES they will honestly, they will just be brothers in arms and sisters in arms for so you know, it just, it will mean so much
Starting point is 00:14:34 to them. Not Barrowman. And then I was Barrowman on it. He was on it for I believe 17 minutes? I don't want to misstate the number of minutes. Yeah. Or was it 32 minutes? We're talking a number of minutes beneath the number 60. Oh, what happened? He vomited and just looked at his vomit and then went, right, I'm out.
Starting point is 00:14:50 Yeah, but that would be me. See, that's it, because Barrowman knows where he is. You know what I mean? Does he? I mean, that's part of the problem. He didn't seem to know where he was lots of the times, probably why he's now doing the reality shows. But anyway, it hasn't worked out for him. But that would be me. I would literally, the second someone shouted at me and I would laugh, you have to laugh because you go, but I know that you are, you know, those guys are no longer in the SAS, they're in show business. Right? So they're TV presenters, right? So
Starting point is 00:15:17 don't tell, you know, They're the worst. They're television presenters who are also in the SAS. I mean, that is perhaps our strongest and most difficult to deal with humor. I once met Andy McNabb, you know, author of Bravo 2.0, SAS veteran and, you know, media superstar. Was he pixelated? Yes, he was. By the end of the evening, yeah. So we met up with him, had a drink with Andy McNabb, who looks exactly like you think he'd look, which is inconspicuous but hard, if you know what I mean. So inconspic like you think he'd look, which is, which is inconspicuous, but hard.
Starting point is 00:15:45 Yeah. If you know what I mean. You know, so inconspicuous, you know, he could kill you. And he was saying, well, I tell you what we'll do. There's a firing range up at Stoke Poges. I'll take you up to the firing range at Stoke Poges and we'll fire guns. And I was like, Oh my God, the only thing better than that would be if there was a bar. He goes, Oh, there's a bar.
Starting point is 00:16:00 Okay. At the firing range. All right, Andy. So yeah, if real SES guys were shouting at me, I would be Mika Zalam, and I'd do exactly what I was told. Oh yeah, he'd do what you were told. But if the showbiz ones are shouting at me, I'd be like, listen, do you want to come on House of Games?
Starting point is 00:16:14 You can come on House of Games if you want, but if you shout at me one more time, then you're not going to. Please, can you go on and try and break the format in 30 minutes? Can you imagine? What about a new show called The Format Breaker? Richard Osmond goes on other people's shows and works out how to destroy their format. But the way to do it, of course, is to destroy it in that way and then for the producers to go, Richard, we can't show this.
Starting point is 00:16:33 You're the reacher of formats, Richard. You just break them with a glance. Yeah, but I go, I know you can't show it and so therefore I need you to make sure that no one is shouting at me. Right? And then I'll be good as gold. I'll do the challenges. I'll lift stuff for you. I know you can't show it and so therefore I need you to make sure that no one is shouting at me. Right? And then I will be good as gold. I'll do the challenges, I'll lift stuff for you, but I'm not going to go in there in my
Starting point is 00:16:49 pants and be shouted at. I said, and if you want that to happen, I am going to say to the guy, listen, mate, I know you're agent. You are not storming an embassy. Right? And he's going, sorry, can I just ask you, Richard, why did you say yes to this show? Have you seen television? You come across as a guy who's seen television. So why did you say yes to the show? Have you seen television? You come across as a guy who's seen television.
Starting point is 00:17:05 So why did you say yes to the show? And then I would say, this is purely hypothetical. And I didn't say yes to the show. This is weird. We just on a podcast and you will recognise that I have not said yes to your show. But if I, it, if you were forced, if suddenly it became like national service, uh, and you had to go on a reality show and I was on that, then I would definitely, I would, you've got to be talking to the producers all the time, you've got to be saying I refuse to accept that this is reality because
Starting point is 00:17:30 it isn't and if you want me to pretend it's reality then I am going to need someone really nice to sleep. That's the title of the show, it's better than the format break where it's I refuse to accept this is reality. Richard Osmans, I refuse to accept this is reality. Also the title of my autobiography. On that note, I think we better go to a break. Let's do that. Welcome back everybody. Now, Richard, from Tim Leake, there is a question about radio
Starting point is 00:18:00 music. I was listening to Jason Manford on Sunday and his show is on all of the eras absolute stations. So that's 60s, 70s, 80s, sport, etc. The era of sport. But obviously the songs in between are different. Do they have to plan every space to have songs from the relevant decade match on length? Or do they use different adverts and stings to fill the difference? Thank you for that question. So genuinely, I did not know the answer to this and I wanted to find out. So I did. And I talked to this and I wanted to find out, so I did and I talked to all sorts of people who do that because it is incredible. So absolutely, Jason will just do his bit with Steve Edge and the music is completely
Starting point is 00:18:34 different depending where on the dial you are. Rob Watson, who's one of the content directors at Absolute Radio, got back to me and he said any presenter on these things and their producers, they know they have a certain amount of talk time per hour so they have which they have to hit exactly whether that's 24 minutes or whatever it is and that allows the music schedulers to know how many songs to schedule the music schedulers know exactly how long the ad breaks are by and the ads are standardized across the things but yeah so you've got a piece of technology that tells you exactly how long different songs are from the different areas they
Starting point is 00:19:04 are then matched up so somebody is doing an incredible bit of algorithmic work. Maybe there's some AI involved these days. I don't know. They wouldn't tell us, would they? And so it's absolutely that. So, and you know, if you listen to the, the, the Dave Berry radio show as well, you know, that which is absolutely live and all the talkie bits in that show are done at exactly the same times, even more complicated that they bury show. But yeah, so somebody behind the scenes is doing incredible amount of work, but it's one of those ones,
Starting point is 00:19:28 it's not like Chris Evans show where they can overrun by kind of seven minutes or something like that. They have to hit exact to the second times, which great radio presenters can do. But it's an incredible business because you hire Jason once, he's on five different stations, whatever type of music you like,
Starting point is 00:19:44 you get his personality, which people people love and you get the music that you love but yet it all comes down to somewhere somebody in a computer is logged every single song every single length of every single song so much matches them perfectly so it's exactly it's all mass but it's genuinely impressive stuff I would say but of course I mean how else would they do it other than that but that that's what they're doing it's meticulous it is meticulous Marina I have a question for you which I don't quite understand but I think you do Charlie Lockett asked Charlie Lockett it was like a Dr. Zeus character
Starting point is 00:20:14 Charlie Charlie Lockett in his magic pocket it's always like pulling like pockets lockets had a pocket yeah yeah I mean it's a work in progress no it's I'm sorry it's ready to I'm ready to I think that's ready to go okay Charlie Lockett has brought a question out of his pocket or her pocket and it is this why is the commercial success of movies primarily measured by box office returns rather than the total number of tickets sold which I would have thought were the same thing it's not actually I can tell you why they do it this way. Tickets sold, a lot of the tickets are sold at premium and so you might see it as a special screen, you might see it at IMAX premium screen, evening screenings.
Starting point is 00:20:54 So something like when Furiosa opened earlier this year, the sort of the Mad Max instalment of that, it actually sold fewer tickets than the Garfield movie, but it was number one in the box office because it sold sold fewer tickets than the Garfield movie, but it was number one in the box office because it sold more premium tickets. And I mean, I am a big fan of all data being released and when people don't give you the data, it's because they're deliberately trying to be obscure. And even, you know, like I'm thrilled Netflix releases all their stuff, but they do this kind of what they call it hours viewed and they're not talking to you about, you know, how quickly'm thrilled Netflix releases all their stuff, but they do this kind of what they call it hours viewed.
Starting point is 00:21:26 And they're not talking to you about, you know, how quickly after release and things like that. There's, there's always a form of sort of obscurantism going on. The reason that is in the movie business is because box office receipts are down all the time, right? But because of inflation, it makes it seem like movies are opening big still. But if it did it on tickets sold, you'd be shocked how many, you know, tickets are being sold this year compared to like the late nineties or something like that.
Starting point is 00:21:49 It's a story that the movie business whilst talking about it all the time does not like to tell about itself, which is that fewer and fewer people are going out to see their, their products. But certain types of movies, by the way, do that and they make a lot of money. Like Oppenheimer, obviously so many more people went to see Barbie than Oppenheimer, so many more people. But a lot of people want to see Chris Nolan films in IMAX and there's these kind of premium showings in these kind of theatres with massive screens where they can charge a lot more. So films like that are deliberately made to be on big
Starting point is 00:22:20 screens. And Chris Nolan is someone who talks a lot about why he wants his movies like that. Things like Dune again that makes a lot of money because people want to see it on an enormous screen and they will pay for that but I think they should release both because I think that's interesting but I think lots of things about people are telling us about how many things they actually sell and how many people actually watch their stuff that doesn't happen because they're trying to keep it from you. It's interesting because the book market operates in exactly the opposite way, which they'll tell you exactly how many books are sold rather than how much profit
Starting point is 00:22:50 they have made, if that makes sense, because you know with discounting books and stuff like that, it can make a big difference. So when you get the Nielsen figures each week, and as you know I like to get the raw data, I'm like you, the data's there, I like it, it not only tells you how many books have been sold, which is what you see in the Sunday Times bestseller, but it'll also tell you at what discount each of those books has been sold, which there's always a discount because you've got the recommended retail price and then retailers compete against each other on price and Amazon competes against them all on price as well. So you'll see the average discount and then you'd also see the
Starting point is 00:23:21 gross figure that has been made by that book in a week, which is the amount it's sold multiplied by what they are actually sold for which I find very very interesting. You're the leader in every category in which you compete. Anyway, but you will occasionally get a very high-end literary book which has not been discounted at all so it might be like at number seven in the chart, but you know at zero discounts over actually like the fourth, you know, you know in terms of making money is it's made more. But ebooks is where that's particularly is the case, because you look at the ebook charts, and it's all they're almost always dominated by books that have been available for 99. Which are not making money for anybody. So it's they say in the ebook market, volume for vanity, profit for
Starting point is 00:24:03 sanity, which is there's you know there's no point selling a hundred thousand books at 99p other than it's a very very good loss leader and a very good promotion for that author if they've got another backlist which you want to sell so you will if you're selling a 99p ebook it's to say I think you're going to love this author so read this and you know you can then find that the authors other works but for more money so yeah it's weird that. It's exactly the other way around in that, which is they tell you exactly how many have been sold, but not for how much.
Starting point is 00:24:30 They never give you the 360 picture. All of these people are trying to keep, show you their best side. But it's nice at least in this, that if you are in the industry, you can see that. And by the way, the discounts are usually about 36%, will be the average discount for any book at any given time from the recommended retail price. But it is open and clear. It's
Starting point is 00:24:50 not included in the top 10. It wouldn't change at a huge amount. No, but it's better than nothing. As we say in the UK, we do not publish any, we said the other week we didn't publish any of the theatre grosses at all because they want to keep all of that secret. So some data is better than no data, but more data is always good in my view. More data is always good. If the history of the last 50 years has proved anything, it's the more data we have as a species, the more advanced we become. It's really helping us out. On that commercial bombshell, shall we leave it?
Starting point is 00:25:21 We shall. Now, please do keep sending your questions in though, totherestisentertainmentatgmail.com and we have coming up some pretty exciting news about an ad-free version. Yes, exactly, which people have asked us about a lot. So yeah, I think we're having a little think about how that might work. We want to make sure that there's a little bit of extra value in there as well, but we are, I promise, working on it and we'll have more details very soon. We'll have more news on that very soon. Other than that, see you next Tuesday.
Starting point is 00:25:49 See you next Tuesday.

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