The Rest Is Entertainment - Richard’s Superpower & Marina’s Warren Beatty Meeting

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

Richard’s Superpower & Marina’s Warren Beatty Meeting What happened when Marina met Warren Beatty, and what are the secrets of press junkets? Is it important you know your conjecture verb from your adjunctive noun? Is there really an order to “in no particular order?” Those questions and more in the one hundredth episode of The Rest Is Entertainment with Richard Osman and Marina Hyde.  *** Final tickets available now for The Rest Is Entertainment Live at the Royal Albert Hall on 4th December. Get them at www.royalalberthall.com *** Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club for ad free listening and access to bonus episodes: www.therestisentertainment.com Sign up to our newsletter: www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producers: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just 30 seconds left on the clock and the home team is moving forward confidently is a crime in Chinatown. Now streaming only on Disney Plus. insurance partner, the Toronto Raptors, we've seen a lot of support from Sun Life over the years, folks. Great stuff, Gare. Looks like Sun Life is the teammate you can trust. Head over to sunlife.ca to get your game plan for life and protect what matters most. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Restors Entertainment Questions and Answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde. I'm Richard Osmond. There's so many great questions to get through today. There's some really good ones. I have to say I am excited for this first one, which is about... Are we going to go straight in? Oh no, we don't have to. We don't have to.

Okay, come on. Do some any other business. Do whatever you want. People walking their dogs going, do you think they like each other? Actually, I listened, do you know what? I listened this week, I went straight into the questions. It was actually quite frosty. There was something in the air and it was a chemistry. No go on, let's do it. Now listen this is from John and Sue's, winners of Pointless series 7 episode 63. Oh John and Sue's. Yes. Now they would like to know how real the marriages are in shows like Married at First Sight et al. Having been through this process twice between us, oh I see with the weddings sorry, I thought it meant they'd been twice on this, or married at first sight, sorry. Having been through this process twice between us, that's the standard marriage process.

But were they married to each other? Because then they just got married to each other, so that's showing off saying, oh, we've been through this twice. You go, yeah, that's because you're a couple. But maybe they've both been through it twice, or maybe they're not a couple. Maybe what they mean is four times, three three times because once each and then once together John and Suze will you get back in touch and said have you both been married twice in which case you've been it through it Four times between you or have you just been married to each other in which case you can't say we've been through this Surely they've been through it three times between them if they've been married to each other to be married once before and then to Each other because then that sorry if I can just corral both of us back

towards the question. I was going to say, I thought, do you know what we did so well getting on to the first question so quickly? And now look at us. We're not even halfway through it. See you next Tuesday. Bye. Okay, having been through this process twice between us, citation needed, we know there's lots of wedding admin like having your notice of marriage on display in your local registry office etc and you also can't get divorced without having been married for a year. So how real are marriages? John and Sue's lovely to hear from you again. It's nice to have a simple answer to a simple question. They are not real. I mean they're just not because of course they're not. It can't be legally binding because you can't just turn up and meet someone you haven't met for lots of the reasons

that you say turning up on the day to marry a stranger is not legally binding. England and Australia you must give notice to the registry office, as you say, at least 28 days before, which of course they don't hear. In fact, each participant in Married at First Sight, they embark on a commitment ceremony with a wedding celebrant. Oh, please. I've done that for festivals. I mean, that's nothing. You can do that with anyone. Yeah. It's essentially like the Avalon Field at Glastonbury. Brides and grooms in Married at First Sight, they get to write a booklet to producers what their ideal wedding would be like. Oh my god that's grim. Ever since I was a young girl I've dreamed of my

wedding and now I get to write it in a little booklet for a producer who doesn't care. Yeah but also when I was a little girl surely I didn't dream of just for an appearance fee getting married on reality television. To an awful Australian man. So we're all making compromises here. But also I didn't dream of a wedding which I would then write down and then a producer would go,

hmm, so we're not gonna be doing that. I mean, listen, it takes nothing away from Married at First Sight, which is one of the great pieces of art of the 21st century. Oh my God. Do you not think? No, I don't.

Oh really? Yeah. Not even married at First Sight Australia? Not even... Fine, alright, you can have one for the news. And that's it. Yeah, Mafsa. Not even Mafsa.

So yeah, it's one of... We talked before, I'm sure, about how anyone who has any interest in human psychology, there are certain shows which just are extraordinary to watch below deck for me is the thing that tells me about the human condition and married at first sight I think tells you unusual stories that you wouldn't dream up yourself. So there's it has a lot to commend it. It is not unfortunately part of the sacred ritual of marriage, which we know and understand. I hope John and see is that that answers your communal question.

But do you think I mean, they must be married. Well, why don't you go into your big old pointless archive and blow the dust off series seven, episode 63 and look in your little producers backpack. I'm going to text now, I'm going to text the pointless producer, see if I can get that information before the end of the episode. Very good. I'll do that. A question for you Marina. Jeffrey Esdale asks, what are the consequences for a journalist when they stray into questions

that are not on topic for a press junket and that mysterious voice off camera is heard to say, we're going to have to leave it there, thanks. Marina, have you ever been blacklisted? I bet she has been. Or shut out for asking too close to the bone question. Oh, okay. That's a very good question. Press junkets are when you've got major film studios

and they've got a film to promote, they'll sometimes just take out the whole floor of a hotel and they've got all the cast members in different rooms and there's a publicist in each and they've got so many rules. I'll give you the rules of one prominent film studio and they have a sort of escalation policy for dealing with journalists who won't stick to the, it's not a script, but you're told you can't ask about this, you can't ask about

their relationship, you can't ask about... There are many things, a sort of prescribed subject, okay? Number one, a polite request in person to move away from the topic that was not agreed upon. Number two, if the journalist persists, even if time remains, the interview may be abruptly cut short to prevent further discussion of sensitive topics. In the case of a repeat offence or a wildly inappropriate question, the journalist may be unofficially labelled as difficult. Now this does happen where you just can't get interviews with people. So, and that limits your access to all high profile interviews, advanced screenings, press materials, they just won't give you any of the advanced stuff. And would that be spread across the different companies as well? Is it like shoplifters in a shopping centre where their picture gets sent to all the shops?

Yeah. So say this is Warner's, it's not, then they may not let you review Warner's films, they may not let you have any advanced materials, you're definitely not allowed to do the interviews. In the most severe cases, the journalists could be officially blacklisted, meaning they're excluded from all future interviews, events, press opportunities, whole companies. This definitely happens. I don't really do interviews very much anymore at all. In fact, vanishingly rarely, but when I used to do interviews, and I remember God, one of the ones I did, this is a, this is an example of the star just saying, don't worry about any of that nonsense.

It was at the Sun and it was honestly for like a listings magazine that the Sun briefly ran for London. I interviewed Warren Beatty. It was so like disproportion. I was like, I used to wear my hair in sort of Bunches and pink ribbons. I was honestly 23 or something. I was interviewing Warren Beatty I did it at the Dorchester somewhere like that. I was going somewhere later and my husband said oh I'll just wait in the lobby for you anyway. Yeah, I'd wait if Warren Beatty was there. Anyway, so Warren Beatty was brilliant, obviously a proper star. And I was a huge film fan, so it was amazing.

The movie at the time was called Bullworth, very sort of slightly forgettable sort of weird race thing. So anyway, so I was doing this interview with him and I was, you know, because I was really young and I just had a load of really stupid cliche questions to ask him and only allowed to ask about Bulworth a film about kind of race relations. Obviously, I just wanted to ask about things like, so is he also vain by Carly Simon about you? Yeah. And the PR was constantly saying there was this guy in the room saying trying to stop all of it. But Warren Beatty just had taken a shine to me, not in the classic Warren Beatty sense, sadly,

but he was just, he was, we were having, we were having, well, we were having great fun. It was hilarious. I asked all these questions. I said, you know, because people say it's, some people say that you're so famous about Mick Jagger. He put his hand right over my toe, ordered and said, yeah, it's not about Mick.

Hilarious, okay. Then we continued. The PR is really trying to stop the whole thing. And he's saying, no, no, no, no, it's just fun it's just fun. I'm having fun. I'm having fun. So the guy has to just sit there, like with the face like a lemon, this PR. I was saying, well, I know I've got to actually go now. And my husband's waiting downstairs and Ron Beecher was like, why don't you do all your buttons up in a whole different way and say, sorry, I've just been interviewing Ron Beecher. The PR was having an absolute meltdown and it

was all allowed to happen. And I've got some really funny photos of it all somewhere and I absolutely loved him. I thought he was totally brilliant. He kept saying to me, you're going to end up on television, you're going to be on television. I said, oh no, I definitely wouldn't want to do anything like that. He was like, don't worry, thank me later. You're going to be on television. I was like, no, no, I really won't. But he was such fun. But the PR was having a sort of meltdown, even though the star was saying, yeah, I don't want to. Oftentimes the star would just say, I don't want to be involved with these rules. I don't care. You know, they've built a rapport with the interview

or whatever it is, and they're perfectly happy to talk about these other things. They haven't given a list of prescribed topics, but the PR has just taken it upon themselves to say, this person only wants to talk about racial politics in America. And the answer is, well, he doesn't just want to talk about that. He'll talk about any old thing. He'd have had a very different career, that's all he wanted to talk about. Question for you about writing, Richard, which, you know, is something I believe you do. In the middle of it now. Not right now. It's in the podcast. Imagine if I was like, even during the podcast, I'd be like, yeah, sorry, Marina, what were you saying?

I back you to be able to do that. Alex McLean would like to ask, what are the roles of an editor and a proofreader when you write a novel? Do they correct errors in grammar, such as failing to use the correct subjunctive tense? Can you get away with just writing a good story without having to focus on the details like this? I know what you mean, Alex.

See, listen, I had a comprehensive school education in the 1980s, so my grammar is terrible. I wouldn't even know what the correct subjunctive tense is. So I just, you know. Yeah, if you are sitting down writing at the moment, do not worry too much about all of that kind of stuff. Obviously stuff has to make sense. And if you, you know, if your grammar is so bad that your sentence is unreadable, then you have an issue. But, you know, if you're using, you know, that instead of when and various other various things you'll be absolutely fine So it sounds like people talk it's a hundred percent that a hundred percent that so the roles are different people

So you're your editor your editor has a very very strong relationship with you And they're they're involved in the whole process of selling the book and marketing the book and they're sort of in charge of all Of that and when you're given a manuscript they will read the book and essentially tell you if they like it or not That's the job of an editor. They'll say, you know, these are the bits I liked. Is this character believable or, you know, or did this happen in the wrong order? The sort of big picture things as did I enjoy this book essentially is your editor's job and, you know, is in a position to make suggestions if you want or need suggestions, you can ignore all of them. But, you know, it's just having somebody read the book.

Those are the scary notes. want or need suggestions, you can ignore all of them. But it's just having somebody read the book. Those are the scary notes. Who loves books and comes back and tells you what worked and what didn't work. There are copy editors and proofreaders, which are different things. So your copy editor is the one who is unbelievably great at this. If you're worried about some of your grammar somewhere, they'll say, oh yeah, you can just, if you change it around this way, that would be the grammar. As I say, if your grammar is so bad or your sentence structure is so bad that your book is unreadable then your book is unreadable.

If you just don't know the correct rules of English grammar and you make the odd mistake here and there they will absolutely be taken out. So if you're writing a story at the moment Alex and you know it's propulsive and we care about the characters don't worry about that stuff because it won't go into print without somebody having looked at it. And then a proofreader actually is the very final bit which is just making sure that all the full stops are where they should be and there isn't a stray. And it's literally like a printing thing, just making sure that there's nothing wrong and occasionally first editions of books to go out with slight errors in them and become

very valuable because of it. But yeah, I would say that I know a lot of agents and editors get books in that are unreadable because they're just people because can't, there's just no sort of command of how a sentence is structured or how a paragraph is structured or how a story continues. So if we're not talking about that, if we're just talking about, I worry slightly that I'm not entirely sure where the verb should go in this sentence or, you know, do not worry about it for a single second. If you're a great're a great writer Alex is because of your characters and your story and the heart you put into it and if people spot that someone's job is to make sure that doesn't go into the bookshops without somebody taking care of you and making

sure you know the things I get you know it's always just just words in the wrong place and what you're saying about dialogue is absolutely right Marina sometimes a copy editor will change dialogue because it's not grammatical and they're going. Oh, no, that's absolutely supposed to not be grammatical That's the way that character talks Yeah That character has an absolute different use that you know, like most of us do the way we are ungrammatical when we speak and that's How I like my characters to be the nuts and bolts of the thing. Don't worry about it Just get on with your story get on with writing the Just get on with your story. Get on with writing the stuff. Get on with your characters. I totally agree. I think colloquial grammar definitely, you know,

I really don't want it corrected in a column because writing it in a certain way can make the point sound particularly wanky, pretending on what's come before or perhaps after. Whereas just writing it in a way that how you might speak diffuses all that and you can get away with saying many different things that otherwise would sound not quite right but I always want it to stay. I always feel like I know the grammar but I want it to stay like this because it works much better like this. Yeah I often do that if something is funny if it is written in a way where you mess about with the grammar or occasionally you'll repeat a word for comic effect and one thing that

all copy editors will always do is oh you know you've repeated a word paragraph which can be incredibly useful, by and large you don't but... I never felt Dan Brown's editor copy editors has ever said that to him. I remember reading one Dan Brown paragraph and the same adjective was used honestly three times in ten lines and I just remember thinking, guys did anyone have a quick look at this? It is you know, story, character, writing, every agent and every publisher you would ever send a book to, they don't care what your grammar is. If you've got a story that makes them keep turning the pages,

that's all they care about, and everything else can be dealt with. If you don't have those things, no one can fix it. No one's gonna be able to fix that stuff, but they can definitely fix all that. You know, if like me, you grew up in an era where no one really taught you what an adverb was, you know it in your head what it is.

And if there's the odd error here and there, someone will absolutely clear that up for you. Now, shall we go to a break, Richard? Oh my God. Are you serious? Yeah. McDonald's has the gift that keeps giving. To Peter, your dog sitter, and Claire, who shovels your stairs. And to you, when you spend $25 on McDonald's gift cards in restaurants, get a coupon for a free Big Mac or McChicken.

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This podcast is brought to you by Humber River Health Foundation. From the discovery of insulin in 1921 to the promise of universal health care in 1966, Canadians have always made health care our mission. Now we face our biggest challenge yet, a cure for health care. Reduced wait times, safer patients, advancements in technology, the end of hallway medicine. We're finding it all here at Humber River Health. Help us innovate to keep health care alive. Donate at healthcarelives.ca. Welcome back, everybody. One of our producers, Joey, just told us it's our 100th episode.

Tell us your in the adverts. Yeah, we buried the lead here. This is our 100th episode, everybody. If this was a TV show, we'd be doing a celebrity special. That's what this would be. We'd both be celebrities instead of us. And to celebrate our 100th episode, shall we do a question about The Rock? Yes, please. Yeah, friend of the podcast.

Danny Watts, good name, Danny, says, Is The Rock's Hollywood career over with Red One flopping on opening weekend? First of all, I don't necessarily think it has a lot, but Red One is a movie that has been made by Amazon, but they've put it in theatres. The Rock is like a North Pole security guard who has to, I think, get Chris Evans, who's a mercenary because Santa's been kidnapped and he has to get, him and Chris Evans have to find him. They're trying to set up... That's a hell of an elevator pitch, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. They're trying to set it up as a sort of new comedy action franchise, right?

The issue with this movie is the cost. By the way, the opening weekend was 34 million. That is fine. That's really quite good for a Christmas action comedy. There's lots of reasons that Christmas movies are slightly a hard sell. In Asia, people aren't Christian. It's not such a big thing. So you're already limiting. Even in France, sorry, in Spain and Italy and places like

that, like Father Christmas himself is not such a big thing. What? Yeah, no, I know. Well, you know. In Spain, Father Christmas is not so much. They're lost. Yeah, isn't it just? They're lost. Problem with this movie is that it cost something like, I think it cost $253 million without marketing and distribution. Okay. this is nuts, right? This is completely ridiculous. The Rock got 50

million of that. Remember, we've talked about this before, when things are put on streaming, you have to say to stars, oh you're not gonna get any sort of performance-based box office returns, so we'll just give you a massive fee up front. So he got 50 million, right? It's meant for streaming. They then decide they're going to put it in theatres. At that point, they should have said, you're going to have to take less because you're going to get some of the box office. Once they put it in the theatres, they could have done the deal differently. This is what they did, by the way, with something like Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, which I think was budgeted to say it was about 150 million and they were going to put it just on streaming

because it makes sense for that. Then they said, actually, no, to put it in theatres it's made a huge amount of money it's it's done really well but they brought the budget down at that point to 100 million right because it's going to things are changing and you'll get you don't have to pay so much in Star-Sara Louise because you can do more performance rated. This is a fine opening figure for this kind of thing okay but it cost at least 100 million too much right? The Rock, okay The Rock has got a special Rock maths by the way though he'll tell you that this is he's got all kinds of ways of saying that movies that haven't done as well as they should have done that he is in are actually runaway successes so with Black Adam he had to

say you know this is actually the biggest opening weekend of my career guys and it was but the film was very expensive and it didn't even make back its money so it was actually a flop. Everyone who works in TV does that with ratings all the time. They get great news in the 16 to 34 demographic. Oh, did you get bad ratings? Rock movies in my view should, and the view, by the way, after this, an increasing view of Hollywood executives, certainly, is if they cost about

one hundred and twenty million, that's great. OK, and and you can if you certainly if you're putting them in theaters things like all of the Jumanji things he's been in like that those are making really good money and they're making sort of three or four times what they cost and they're doing well. If you're spending basically a quarter of a billion dollars on something without marketing. So half a billion with marketing. It's just mad it needs to be so enormous this thing to make it work. It doesn't work. What you'll notice about The Rock is that special rock maths, is that The Rock behaves like the biggest movie star in the world. Okay and actually I know

you're gonna just really roll your eyes at this for some reasons that are not relevant to this podcast. I was looking back over that there's a really good biography of Charles de Gaulle by Julian Jackson. And yeah, no, I know, I know this is very me. Sorry. Where's this going? Charles de Gaulle? How do you have time to read biographies of Charles de Gaulle? That's just a sub question. It's 900 pages. It's huge. But it's brilliant, by the way. Charles de Gaulle recommendation in An Item About the Rock. Charles de Gaulle is in exile in the Second World War. He's got basically a borrowed office.

Don't tell me everything because I want to read it. Spoiler alert, he's got a borrowed office, but he looks down on Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, all of them. And Julian Jackson says behaving like a great power was de Gaulle's chief means of becoming one. So that's what he does. He just acts like he's... De Rauch is like Charles de Gaulle in the Second World War, but he's not actually gonna go and be President of France afterwards, okay? The Rock just acts like he's the biggest movie star in the world, and he's basically also got a borrowed office in London, isn't bigger than lots of other stars, but it's the way he acts. If he hears this, if The Rock hears this, and I know he listens,

then he will run for President of France. This is... It's called A Certain Idea of France, by the way, the brilliant Charles de Gaulle biography that's 900 pages. A Certain Idea of France? Yeah. And you've read that? Where is that in your... I've read it Richard. Where is that on your bookshelf system? It's in political biography, sorry if it's confusing.

Will it be pre-war or post-war because it feels like it's during the war. Those aren't, it's only novels that are divided pre and post-war. Do you know what, I'm an idiot. I can't get back into that. What an absolute imbecile I am. So stupid of me. I can't get back into that. I, anyway, that is, so that's my, the rock is like Charles de Gaulle, but it's not going to, it's not going to become a president of the United States either or president of France. He is not the biggest movie star in the world, but he acts like he is. He can't, he's on fumes now. He can't keep doing that.

He's gonna have to make cheaper movies that are actually at his sweet spot, which is about 100, 120 million. And he's great at that price. Which was also Charles de Gaulle's sweet spot. Which was also his sweet spot, yeah. Yeah, 120 million movies. Danny, thank you so much for your Charles de Gaulle question

there, I hope it was answered for you. Oh, I have news. Breaking. Breaking news. Why did we have a ticker on this? I'd it was answered for you. Oh, I have news. Breaking news. Why did we have a ticker on this? I'd love it if we did. John and Sue's are married to each other. Congratulations, guys. Thank you. John and Sue, congratulations. Blatantly.

I'm so sorry, can I just go back to the question? Having gone through this process ourselves. Twice. Twice. There are various possibilities that John and Sue's count their marriages, their one marriage, it's their first marriage but they count it as, you know, like Bertram Russell said, the wife and husband, you know, in their private lives they must be free. I want to bring him in now after Charles de Gaulle. Bertram Russell. What did you say that in? Um, always in Con Air. So there we go, they're married to each other and they're counting that as two experiences of it. It's an unusual way of saying it, we've been through that experience twice. Yeah, so that's probably the most discountable option, okay. So maybe they've both been married once before, in which case they've been through it four times. Three times.

Three times. Three times, yes, okay. So, John and Sue's, God bless you and thank you, but... Richard's corrected your question. Listen, you do... By the way, you are a service journalist. You do Charles de Gaulle and Bertrand Russell, you do. You are a service journalist. You do Charles de Gaulle and Bertrand Russell. I do marriage maths. We know that. Shall we do

another question? Yes please. Matthew Bell has a question Richard which would be good for you. When presenters like Ante and Dec, Tess and Claudia, Stephen and Holly are announcing who is going home they often say in no particular order but is there a pre-produced particular order they are given so that cameras are best queued and vision mixes are not taken by surprise? Yeah, it's one of the tropes of modern reality TV in no particular order. Obviously in the studio everyone knows the order that they are being read out in because as Matthew quite rightly says cameras need to know where they are, lighting needs to know where they are, so everyone in the gallery, everyone in the production team knows exactly the order

they're being read out in. When they say in no particular order, the point they're making there is we are not giving you an indication of how the votes are going. So we're not reading out the person who got the most votes because otherwise you would soon see with a show like I'm a Celebrity or Strictly that the same person was being read out first every single time. By and large, the viewer votes don't change particularly, you know, the favorites are the favorites. Chris was getting the most votes on Strictly and I'm not saying he is because I don't know that, but if he was being

read out first every time, you'd slightly go, oh, okay, we don't need to watch this. And so by and large, they produce that order. My absolute, if I have a special skin in life, it is when we watch Strictly, when Ingrid and I watch Strictly, every single dance she will say they're having trouble in hold. They're amazing when they're apart they're in trouble in holding her neck is not where it should be. And the judges will go, you're not great in hold. The neck is not where it should be like every single dance. She absolutely knows it. But the one thing I can do is when they say in no particular order the first couple to be saved is I always say, oh, they're going to say JB first. The producer's job is which order do we do this in? And it's always something like,

oh, who had a slightly hard week? Or whose parents are in there? So he says, what's the story? What's the most interesting story? Who do we leave to last? All those things. So I can always work out the order in which they read people in.

And if I get it wrong, it's because that person's in the bottom two. It's a shame you can't do in-game betting, like, just in a split second, like, who's going to be next? Who they do next, yeah. Like, some, you know, Malaysian betting syndicate. Malaysian, yeah. Betting on who's going to be in no particular order.

So everyone in the studio knows, they say in no particular order, just so you don't know who's being voted, and, you know, and then you can leave people to the end to make it as exciting as possible. The one thing with Strictly strictly sometimes they don't do it exactly in order I would do it because dance off sometimes has to be in a particular order, like someone has to dance before the other one because just because of setting and staging and what have you. And so sometimes the person they would love to leave to the end, they have to eliminate first. But that's a very technical point. But no, the no particular order is

a way of sort of producing and it's a way of kind of going, oh your favourite might be in jeopardy because look they were left right till the end. And sometimes it is if someone has had a hard day in camp and I'm a celebrity, you can just say the first person you know you can save them straight away just so they can relax and you know if someone feels like people have been voting for them all the time, Dean and I'm a celebrity and he's been voted for all the time. You know on this particular occasion he has not been voted for. You have two choices. One is it's Dean having a hard time, let's tell him straight away he hasn't been voted for and that's nice for him. Or it's Dean taking this incredibly well, let's leave him right to the very end and we do a big reveal that he's not...

Exactly. So it's a producer's thing. They know how everyone is feeling in camp or on the you know rehearsals for Strictly and so they get to reward people in certain ways and they just it's a storytelling thing It's plain God isn't it Richard really? Well, it's not because the alternative is you do it that you do do it in a particular order and the only order you could Do it in really is order of popularity and then you give away who's won your show in week three order of popularity and then you give away who's won your show in week three. Marina Jim Hardwick asks, I wonder what is the reason for plus one channels such as Channel 4 or the Food Network? Are they still relevant in a streaming world? What are the benefits for the

channel in having one? Oh this is quite a great answer but it's amazing you know what we always say to people quite often on this podcast is just because of the way you watch television it's most likely different to where lots of other people watch television. Some people just use broadcast linear tv and a lot of people just use broadcast linear tv because of the familiarity. About 10 to 15% of overall viewing of a channel will be on plus one still which is kind of wild because it's like a very very inefficient partial on-demand streaming But people just think, hang on, I want to watch Channel 4 News or whatever it is, and I will watch it at 8. It's a real entry drug for streaming services.

It's that thing that you sit on the EPG, but you can actually time delay something by an hour. Yes, and you can slightly sit back and just let the channel happen to you, but it fits in better with your day. A lot of people also miss the start of programs and just say, I'll come back in 40 minutes. Bake Off essentially is on at eight and nine, if you want to watch on Plus One. Of course, it's on all the time as well. But if that's not the world you live in. We always used

to get annoyed with them when Pointless and The Chase were head to head every single day, which they still are. It was always very, very close in ratings between them. But The Chase's ratings always included the Plus One channel and the BBC were never allowed to have a plus one channel I can't remember why but there were lots of reasons why they couldn't And still don't whereas ITV did so they were getting like an extra kind of half a million that we weren't allowed to get and so Sometimes that was some days they beat us but not on not head-to-head and yeah all that kind of stuff But yeah, you're absolutely right about the way people watch TV. My mom, we were down with my mom the other day, my mom loves NCIS.

That's her absolute favorite show and all the different ones she was taking me through. I'm not sure about NCIS Cuba, but I do like NCIS. Actually NCIS New Orleans is my least favorite, but I really, really like NCIS Los Angeles. But she says, but the trouble is I tape them. You know, they're in different places at different times. So I watch them all completely out of order. And so I never know what series I'm on. I said, you know, they're in different places at different times. So I watched them all completely out of order. And so I never know what series I'm on.

I said, you know, just go on Amazon. You could buy like the whole series of NCS LA if that's your favorite. She goes, Oh, no, I wouldn't know. I wouldn't want to do that. So I put it on screen. I said, it's seven pounds for 24 episodes. Like the first series, it's seven pounds for 24 episodes. And she was like, Oh, I mean, I could, I suppose.

I said, well, if you're watching everything out of order, and do you like that? She goes, no, I find it very confusing. Okay, so would you like to watch the whole of the first season of NCIS? I can make this happen for you. In order, because it is, the market has found a way for you to be able to do that.

But that's, you know, in the same way that, you know, I like to wake up in the morning and watch an episode of Frasier, which is permanently available to me on all four, I'm sure, but I quite like the fact that it's just on and then sometimes if I sort of sleep in that I can watch it on plus one. Yeah like the decision to have been made for me. One of these restaurants you go to and the menu is just like it's a tasting menu you

just have to have it. Hooray I'm really happy. That I don't like. Oh don't you? I love choice being taken away from you. There's loads of TV I like. Yeah choice in TV but food no come on. I just I really just know I have very specific needs. And on that bombshell, we will see you next

Tuesday. We'll see you next Tuesday. Don't forget Royal Albert Hall is the fourth of December. So we'll do one more episode before that. That may well break us. So it might be our, listen, might be one of our last ever episodes. Tune in next week to find out! Well next Tuesday, we won't have done it yet, we'll just be even more terrified. Tune in to hear us gibber next Tuesday. Yeah, see you next Tuesday! Bye bye. I'm a man of faith, I'm a man of faith I'm a man of faith