The Rest Is Entertainment - The Steven Bartlett Podcast Pile-On

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

Has Steven Bartlett inadvertently started the World War One of podcasting? Will Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce get married in Madison Square Garden? And why is America’s biggest news show having a ve...ry public meltdown? Diary of a CEO host Steven Bartlett sent the podcasting world into a tailspin after complaining that three glasses of wine ruined his health scores. But why is Bartlett so polarising? And for how long can he walk the tightrope between edgy podcaster and BBC host? In the wake of Dua Lipa and Callum Turner’s star-studded nuptials, Marina shares her field guide to the celebrity destination wedding. So who are the mandatory guests? And how closely will Taylor Swift adhere to the playbook when she ties the knot this summer? David Ellison’s takeover of America’s No.1 news show, 60 Minutes, has sparked dramatic firings and accusations of political interference. So what’s actually going on, and how do you save a legacy news show? The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Octopus Energy, Britain's most awarded energy supplier. Lloyds. 250 years on and still backing the nation's aspirations. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at ⁠⁠therestisentertainment.com ⁠⁠ For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to ⁠⁠www.goalhanger.com ⁠⁠ Video Editor: Adam Thornton Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Emma Jackson Exec Producer: Sam Psyk Filmed at ⁠www.westdigitalstudios.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 The rest of entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy. Now, fan mail is one of entertainment's strangest bargains. You send total devotion one way and the understanding that nothing may come back. Certainly in our day you would write to a film star or a singer. I wrote to Howard Jones. And maybe three months later, a sort of signed photo comes back that's clearly a pro forma, you know, that you know Howard's never really looked at. Steve Martin used to have the performer sort of thing,
Starting point is 00:00:26 which we'd just leave blanks, like insert, like small detail, to make a joke about how completely impersonal, his personal reply to you was. It was just like a standard thing. Impersonal is interest. That's why we're talking about this, because with Octopus Energy, you always can reply to their emails. And not only can you reply to them, they will go to the same small group of people who always deal with you.
Starting point is 00:00:47 That's like unbelievable. It's almost unprecedented that a company you're giving your money to will actually respond to you. Yeah. Are contactable in some way. The 2026 Chevrolet Tracks is the stylish SUV for those. on the move. And with the standard Chevy safety assist package, you have the backup to handle every turn with confidence. The 26 tracks. Start your build at Chevrolet.ca. Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me, Marina. Hi, I'm me, Richard Osmond. Hello,
Starting point is 00:01:20 everyone. Hi, Marina. How are you, Richard? I'm all right. We had a fun week. We interviewed Steven Spielberg, didn't we? It was a huge honour. I'm very exciting. For him too, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he didn't say it, but I think he thought it. I think he thought it. I think thought it. Our members can hear that tomorrow. Everyone else can hear that on Thursday. There's lots of fun. Great questions from our listeners as well. I have been signing tipping sheets for my book. Talk us to what a tip in sheet is. A tip in sheet is if you get a special, so I've got a book coming out at the end of September.
Starting point is 00:01:50 What's it called? I wasn't going to forget to say it. It's called What's the Time to be Alive? It's a collection of my columns. And it's a tip in sheet is it when you get a signed edition, you can actually get boxes of the paper. If you're the author, you get boxes of front pages and then you sign them and then you put them all back in the box. It sends you insane because I've had to do about 7,000 and a half thousand or something of them. I have to say, and this is going to sound like it's sponsored content, it's not. The only thing that has kept me saying is listening to masses of episodes of the book club. I literally love the book club. If you're not listening to the book club with Dominic Sandbrook and Tabby Sarrett, I strongly
Starting point is 00:02:29 recommend it. And by the way, I don't have to be signing books. when you listen to it? No, and by the way, I'm sure they would say, you don't even need to have read the books. I actually have read the books, but you don't need to have read the books. And I absolutely, they are terrific. I mean, Dominic knows I love him,
Starting point is 00:02:43 but Tabby is absolutely excellent. It's genuinely kept me saying, I went mad the last time I did a book and I did these in silence, these tip-in sheets. Signing tip-ins are, yeah, there's something about them, that's for sure. But listen, we now want to keep other people entertained while they're doing something mundane.
Starting point is 00:03:00 Perhaps people are signing books, I don't know. But whatever else they're doing, what are we talking about this week? Right, we're going to be talking. We're going to have fun this week. We're talking about the Stephen Bartlett discourse. There's been an explosion in the world of podcasting after a passing remark upon Stephen Bartlett's podcast. Lots of people have piled in and we're about to join them.
Starting point is 00:03:21 Yes, well, I'm going to go a deeper dive on who Stephen Bartlett is and what that means. I wish to speak only facetiously about this subject. That's right. I'm going to be talking seriously. Okay. But that's how we always do it. I, you know me, I take things very seriously. We are also doing a field guide to celebrity weddings following the Italian union of Dua Lepa and Kalam-Turna this weekend in Sicily.
Starting point is 00:03:47 So we're talking about, you know, I will be giving you a proper field guide to how you do a celebrity destination wedding. And we're also talking about 60 Minutes, which is America's flagship current affairs show, and it's currently in absolute crisis, is if. for political reasons. I mean, we shall find out. Right. Shall we start with Stephen Bartlett? Yeah, business idea, a device that stops you acting like a twat.
Starting point is 00:04:11 I would love to pitch that device to Stephen Bartlett on Dragon's Den, Richard. I would love to. I would say that people, over the last week, you may or may not have felt like a great disturbance in the podcast universe, as if millions of voices screamed out in pain, but then weren't silent. I'm getting ahead of myself. What has actually happened is that Stephen Bartlett on his own. podcast said. Diary of a CEO.
Starting point is 00:04:34 I'm going to do the full quote. I had a couple of glasses of wine, didn't get drunk. It ruined three days of my life because of the domino effect that it caused. It meant that I got worse sleep that night. I ate more poorly the next day because my dopamine system or the cortisol system. That's what they mean by the domino effect, of course. You immediately order a dominoes. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:04:53 I ate more poorly the next day because my dopamine system or the cortisol system or whatever was all messed up. then I podcasted worse. I don't think you used that as a verbity. And I didn't go to the gym the day after. And I could track all of this on my whoop, hashtag ad, hashtag sponsor, investor, whatever. And say the word again, whoop. I mean, you spell it W-H-O-O-P.
Starting point is 00:05:16 And what is it? It's one of these health tracker things. I'm not going to look into it any further than that. I literally couldn't be bothered to look up what it was. It's one of those self-optimization devices. I slightly felt like you've had two glasses of wine. up, Stephen, it's not going down to mine, is it? These are the good problems to have. But it's, this thing has sparked a flood of interventions across the podcasting sphere, pushback really,
Starting point is 00:05:39 but content mainly. We've heard from Greg James, Paloma Faith, Boe Williams, Furn Cotton, Joanne McNally, and now, as well, ideally not have escaped our own podcast listeners, we've heard from us on it. Well, we've heard from you. I've heard from you. Come on then. I've yet to say a thing. Well, no, you tell us. Is this, is this just a way for him to mention his tracker? Well, what I think is this. We're only talking about at all because I think people find him interesting as a figure. I think people are not quite sure where he came from. People are aware that he exists.
Starting point is 00:06:10 If you want to look up Stephen Bartlett, pretty much every single article you read about Stephen Bartlett is headline, is this the end for Stephen Bartlett? Is this the downfall of a CEO? You know, the rise and fall of Stephen Bartlett, every single article is essentially wishing him ill. is essentially saying this guy, we don't know where he came from. He certainly didn't come through our conventional media routes. And yet he seems to have, for a very long time, pretended to be unbelievably rich. And via the medium of doing that has become unbelievably rich, which seems to be unforgivable for almost anyone.
Starting point is 00:06:47 We'll talk a little bit more about him because diary of a CEO did start sort of talking to businessy people. Yeah. Then started to be a slightly more philosophical, I think for his own. health and well-being as the way I read it and now has gone into the world of wellness. It is massive, we should say. It's one of the biggest podcasts in the country. No, it's one of the biggest podcasts in the world. In the world. Yeah. I mean, it's probably if we have, not in terms of the politics, but if we have a Joe Rogan in the UK, it is Stephen Bartlett. Diary of a CEO, he started before lots of other
Starting point is 00:07:17 people started. He built it and built it. It's an incredible marketeer. I'm an insanely good marketeer. It's incredible guests. But as I say, he's now and that wellness industry and he's you know there's been also you know various kind of um complaints upheld against him you know he would you know he would advertise huel and he would advertise zoe you know which is that medical app and not mention that he was financially involved in both of those companies that he was but i i think that if you look at where he came from I think it drives people insane and by the way all of this is caveated with the fact that you know me I always give people the benefit of the doubt and
Starting point is 00:07:56 I know for a fact. I mean, I just can't help myself. That's how I've always been. And it's usually served me well. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I've met him. I've been on this podcast, which we'll talk about that later. I'd like to hear that.
Starting point is 00:08:07 I don't know why I haven't heard that episode, but I need to hear it. It's weird because you listen to it a lot. I listen to you a lot and I like listening to things that you're on. But I have, I feel like I should be a completest with your work. No, I don't listen to Darry this year. So Stephen Bartlett, born in Gaboran, grew up in Plymouth, I think, but low-income household, goes up to Manchester Metropolitan University, leaves after a term. In 2014, sets up a company called the Social Chain with a guy called Don McGregor,
Starting point is 00:08:37 who Don McGregor was sort of the kind of stayed sensible one, and Stephen Bartlett was the salesperson. And Social Chain was one of those companies. If you think back to 2014, all the big companies in the world understood how they did their business, but didn't really understand digital. And what Stephen Bartlett and Don McGregor did, say, look, here's a lot. a way that you can connect to a completely new audience. And, you know, it wasn't rocket science. It's just they were natives and sort of understood the audience in a way that different people didn't, you know, and they worked for Microsoft and Huawei and Universal. You know, they had big
Starting point is 00:09:09 contracts, good contracts, built up this thing, social chain. Stephen Bartlett, right from the beginning was the front man of the thing. You know, I think he understood very, very early on that whatever company he's building, the most valuable thing he can do is build his own brand. That's the thing that he really, really understood. The company gets sold eventually, gets sold for, or at some point it's worth $600 million, gets sold, I think, for $300 million, but actually the bit of it that they set up sells for $7 million. So in amongst all of this stuff, they are building a big successful company doing interesting work, the numbers, and there's plenty of articles that will tell you this,
Starting point is 00:09:46 there's some doubt over just how rich were you, just how successful were you, and that drives people insane. But, I mean, that's been entrepreneurs further. 100% that. You have to pretend to be successful for a long time before you actually are successful. That's clearly one other things you did. He then built up his own brand, really. He wrote a book called Happy Sexy Millionaire. But again, and sold really, really, really well. It was really beautifully packaged. It's a great title. It's a great title, essentially, you know, are these the things you would want to be, a happy sexy millionaire, and got into podcasting very early with Diary of a CEO, a Diary of a CEO, as you can, by the very title, it's essentially saying, well, I'm a CEO. I'm going to talk to
Starting point is 00:10:31 some other CEOs, sort of man to man, usually man to man, occasionally man to woman. And it started as a business advice thing. But all, you know, he's very smart. And it was always, what's the take home here? What can I teach you? What can you, you can, you can, you can listen to this for an hour and be smarter or be, be more ambitious or have, you know, genuine take home stuff. He then started interviewing a few more celebrities and it started being a little bit more about mental health when I went on it again we it's I will say this firstly it was a really interesting chat I absolutely felt like he was in therapy I felt like a lot of the podcast was him asking questions and trying to work out who he was and that's absolutely fine by me I think that's fairly
Starting point is 00:11:12 compelling in its own way and after that podcast whenever you do anything any TV or podcast you will get people come up and talk to you about it and that's absolutely fine by me I think And that, a very, very different group of people came up and talked to me in a very, very different way and a very interesting way. So I've always, always been grateful. I did that show and grateful I said some of the things I said and reached out to an audience who might not have heard that otherwise. So that's always been my thing with Stephen Bartlett. I sort of think, fair enough. And, you know, you can't deny that he now is enormously successful.
Starting point is 00:11:45 Then he went on Dragon's Den, which I do have an opinion on, which we will get to. He is unbelievably good on Dragon's Den. He's exactly what they need on that. They didn't have like a digital native on that. And he brings a completely different energy to it. So he is somebody who I think has done extremely well. He clearly has elements of being a chancer, but also he has elements of not being a chancer.
Starting point is 00:12:08 You know, he has followed through and he has made an awful lot of money in a very, very interesting way. Now he is in this wellness world. I think there are issues. There are issues for our broader culture. I think there are certainly issues for the BBC. Yeah, he's very sort of better never sleeps, isn't he? Yes.
Starting point is 00:12:25 And these wearer, I mean, the whole thing of wearables and tracking everything, which has been what we'll get on to everyone diving in in a minute and all the other podcasts, because I think that actually tells us something completely different to what we've been talking about. And it's also funny. Yeah. I just wanted to do that just to sort of say,
Starting point is 00:12:41 this is who this guy is, this is why he is a to tell. You know, he has set himself up to be there. But this is where it gets. He's absolutely made for like fit bits and aura rooms and whoop trackers, which I must, I guess, please don't say wearable. I mean, the thing about these things is I think if they must exist or they must do them, they cannot and must not pass for conversation. I don't want to care about anybody's, it's like hearing about someone's dreams.
Starting point is 00:13:05 I would literally rather hear about your dreams or how much your four-year-old child is gifted and talented and a genius. Yes. Then I would what your sleep score is. It should be something slightly shameful that you do in private. Yeah, I don't want to hear about your dreams, your kids, or your wearables. Yeah. It's a private activity, right?
Starting point is 00:13:21 Like overpaying for Nido, the childhood craids, or watching lots of, like, kissing montages from heated rivalry on YouTube. You shouldn't talk about it. You shouldn't talk about it if you do it. Okay. I don't, I don't, there's no one in the room who would do either of those things. Exactly. It's disgusting.
Starting point is 00:13:38 Yeah. Don't talk about it in public. So there's tracker. But I did think it destabilized him so much that it reminded me a little bit of the, like a modern version of the tweets. If you didn't like him and you worked for him, you worked at him, and you could hack Stephen Bartlett's wearable. You could send him into an absolute tailspin, couldn't you? Because you could just slightly alter the vitals.
Starting point is 00:13:59 And he would go into an absolute tailspin. That's how someone would get murdered in an episode of Black Mirror. Yeah. By literally being driven insane by their Fitbit. Everyone, though, in other podcastings, the rest of the podcasting fear, has had something to say. In a way, I'm going to say if no one else will. Okay.
Starting point is 00:14:16 This is exactly how World War I started. Yes. Yes, finally. This is the podcast equivalent of everyone's now getting involved in a very, very short space of time. This is the podcast equivalent of late June, early July 1914. Yeah. The assassination of Stephen Bartlett's routine by three glasses of wine, Serbian wine, I don't know. It's a lovely Hungarian-Gustave princip.
Starting point is 00:14:48 Complex alliances, webs of endorsements, and suddenly the arms race of it all, everyone's involved in this discourse. Now here comes goalhanger. Right. So, yeah, and I include myself in that. Okay. Can we take 100% seriously the job description of podcaster? Yeah, I think so. It's a number, but it's not 100, Richard.
Starting point is 00:15:09 It's not 100. Well, I guess so. It's high than 50, maybe. I mean, it's not, it's not shopping 65. I would say it is, I would say it's lower than author, but higher than. game show host. Can, to what degree can you, do you have to take it 100% seriously as a job? I mean, Stephen Bartlett's using it as a verb.
Starting point is 00:15:24 I podcasted worse. And I can't, really. And it should be I podcasted worse, sir. Yeah. Well, I just don't, what about you, don't use it as a verb? What about it just doesn't get used a verb? Well, then what do you say when you're podcasting? Just working.
Starting point is 00:15:38 Okay. Oh, you call it working. That's interesting. You call it working. Wow, you've changed. Okay. But I tell you what I think is actually happening here. It's so interesting.
Starting point is 00:15:47 Because all of these people who have kind of weighed in also are doing these, and I include ourselves in this, like an always-on podcast. Yes. And you just need the content. Yeah. So I don't want to say they're like a bloomsbury group or, you know, feeding into each other's work. But actually it reminds me slightly of, do you remember when we talked about BTS and we talked about, I think the Bangtan universe, which is like a sort of dark mirror world.
Starting point is 00:16:11 Yes. Where because BTS were literally working the entire time, this is obviously the, create the KBuck group. They were working the entire time. So they actually didn't have a time to have any form of life. So they had to create this kind of fake life, which they could then sort of sing and talk about
Starting point is 00:16:27 where they have, goes through problems and have relationships and things, because there was literally no time to do anything other than being BTS. And I slightly wonder whether just, this is just like, oh great, Stephen Martin said something mildly stupid. We can have to read a week's worth of content.
Starting point is 00:16:41 All of us can about this. But I do think as well, you know, as I, As I hinted out, every article about Stephen Bart is, is this the beginning of the end? And people cannot quite see how he did what he did. But he has been wading into difficult territory recently. You know, he's sort of, he started talking to, you know, experts on in-cells. He's had some sort of rather interesting, slightly funky opinions on his podcast.
Starting point is 00:17:04 And I should say the flight studio, who is his production company. They said, the diary of a CEO is an open-minded, long-form conversation with individuals identified for their distinguishing an eminent career, that's like me, and or consequential life experience. They heard a range of voices, not just those Stephen and the Diary of a CEO team necessarily agree with. But, you know, everyone's laid into him. You know, they called him a grifter.
Starting point is 00:17:26 They called, you know, they called his world an empire of bluff. So I think that, you know, he finds himself, you know, the more money he's had, the wider that podcast goes. He does find himself in an interesting new world, that's for sure. And, you know, he's had issues on Dragon's Den as well with some sort of ear seeds that were supposed to cure diseases, which they didn't do. Sorry, ear seeds.
Starting point is 00:17:48 Yes, like little seeds that you put in your ear that, I forget what it was, they cured. It turns out they didn't. No. So it doesn't matter what it was that they cured because they didn't. Right. You know, I could say anything because they didn't cure anything at all. So he found himself in a bit of trouble with that. And people always say, oh, they never invested on Dragon's Den.
Starting point is 00:18:05 He's invested over $3 million on that show in like 54 different things. They really do invest on that. And he really does invest and he really, really does invest. and he really, really gets involved. You know, he is really good at business. You know, perhaps he wasn't as good at business as he hinted at the very beginning of his career, but he has caught up, and now he is, which is half the game.
Starting point is 00:18:22 In the world of podcasting, it is sort of Wild West. There is no off-com. You can do what you want. There's things like, you know, when he's advertising Huell and so where he was, you know, caught out, and there was an apology, it wasn't done again. But in terms of the content you do, in terms of what you talk about, you are free to do it.
Starting point is 00:18:39 Now, Dragons Dem, if we're... We've learned anything from working, you know, from people who work at the BBC for the last 10 years. If there's a minor, minor issue, any sort of tiny issue that might come up, then the BBC get an enormous trouble. I would have thought this is, and I love him on Dragon's Den, by the way, and I love Dragon's Den. I love that show. I really, really do. It feels like an accident waiting to happen. I mean, it really feels like an accident.
Starting point is 00:19:03 I mean, don't you think? Matt Britain's first trip to the podium. Wow. It's got to come soon. Yeah. It's probably his seven. You know, that feels like a difficult thing to ride both of those horses, to be on the BBC where everything has to be squeaky clean and any newspaper will pick up on anything that happens. And to run an enormous podcast that interviews controversial people on the edge of intellectual thought, as we know it at the moment.
Starting point is 00:19:32 And on the edge of health thinking, as we know it at the moment, both of those things you are allowed to do. You're allowed to do Dragon's Den and you are allowed to do a podcast that pushes the boundary. of what we think about things. It feels like at some point that might become an issue. I find that dual carriageway that he's on quite an interesting one. Yeah. But listen, he's an incredible self-publicist, and I don't say that as a criticism because, you know,
Starting point is 00:19:59 that's essentially the career for so many people these days. When I went to do his podcast, it was on the day of the Queen's funeral. And I don't drive, so they sent the car to pick me up. And normally if a car comes to pick you off as a Prius, in this it was Stephen Bart, this own people carrier, that was entirely tricked out. Instead of a thing between you and the driver,
Starting point is 00:20:20 there was a, like a massive screen, the whole width of the car. A screen that you could watch TV on, okay. Yeah, yeah. All the seats were a cream leather and monogrammed in black SB. So you kind of think, I sort of admire it, because you just, you know, I mean... The sheer overfincher of all. Because I'm just thinking I wouldn't pay for that,
Starting point is 00:20:39 if it was my, I wouldn't do it, but it's sort of commitment to the bit. But then, but the other side of it, we put the screen down, because I wanted to just chat to his driver. It was lovely called Smiley. And Smiley said, he said, I used to work in retail. He said, in about five years ago, he said, you know, all went wrong. And I thought, right, I'm going to be an Uber driver. So Smiley gets a job as an Uber driver.
Starting point is 00:21:03 He said, my first ever job, my first ever job, I get this thing saying someone three minutes around the corner needs to be taken, 15 minutes away. My first ever job was quite nervous. Passinger gets in is Stephen Bartlett. He said at the end of the journey, 15 minutes later, he said, would you like to work for me? And he said, and I've been his driver ever since. So, you know, and funny enough, Smiley and I, because he dropped me back off at home as well. And we watched the Queen's funeral procession together because it was just at the end of my road. So the two of us, you sat in the car and just watched no, no, we had a little wander down and watched the funeral procession. So I watched the Queen's funeral procession
Starting point is 00:21:36 with Stephen Bartlett's driver. Well, that's a claim to fame of a sort. Is there a podcast in that? So, and as I say, when I met him, I sensed he was looking for something. You know, he's in his 20s, of course, he's looking for something. And I was happy to talk to him. But, you know, he now occupies a very interesting place in our culture. And this booze thing, I do what I can do.
Starting point is 00:22:00 I know we're talking a lot about Stephen Bartlett. I really want to talk about this optimization culture. Do you optimise? No, of course not. But it reminds me of nothing more than what people used to do is they used to optimize their children. So their children would be at French lessons, then they'd be at piano lessons,
Starting point is 00:22:15 and then they'd be at hockey practice. So every night their kids' lives were incredibly regimented because people thought you could somehow kind of mould this child into some kind of genius. Your child is not going to be a concert pianist. I will just say that. So teaching the piano by all because they can play it at a party, but they're not going to be a concert pianist.
Starting point is 00:22:33 But it seems to have swapped over from molding our children into supreme beings, into this idea that we can mold ourselves into a supreme being by literally gaming every single statistic about ourselves. We're money-balling ourselves, right? Yeah, but it's all just, you're just staying on people's platforms. Yeah. It's, I think you're never, you're, you're completely unoptimized. Yeah. You're truly like giving your data to the man the entire time, literally. every form of possible piece of data
Starting point is 00:23:05 who're giving it to them. I get that your gut bioma is important. I would argue it's not that important. It should never pass a conversation at any point. Yeah. I'm poor of you who mentioned it on this podcast, but really, no. But it is a fascinating thing, and it's very easy to make money out of, and it's all, but
Starting point is 00:23:21 I mean, I suppose like all art and literature, it's all denying we're going to die. I mean, that's... I mean, I just don't think the Wop app is anything like the Great Gatsby, so I don't really want to see it compared to the Great Literature. No, no. It's not. It's not. It's really all of these things. I mean, it's, you know, it's just a fancy wodge.
Starting point is 00:23:40 Yeah. But the key thing that we'll kill you with stress and, you know, paying attention to every single number of every single. For some people, by the way, it works very well because that's some people's personality. Some people absolutely love having a number for everything. That's why people love fantasy football. It's like fantasy football, but for your health. Which you've had to stop for your health.
Starting point is 00:23:57 Yes, because I find it too stressful. Yeah. Exactly. But this stuff is not good for you. You know what works. get a bit of sleep, drinks and water, have friends, laugh and love. And please don't compete over it. It's just the last refuge of the idiots.
Starting point is 00:24:12 It's absolutely nuts. And it doesn't make you happy, but it does make another group of people very, very rich indeed. We know the answer already. We all know it. Every one of us knows it. And we don't need that to be monetised by other people. Love will be the next one. They will start putting love numbers on, like relationship numbers.
Starting point is 00:24:31 But actually, it's really interesting. the complete wholesale abandonment of creation of intimacy to these platforms is really interesting. Actually, I mean, you could do a very long series on that. But here's the key is you are the only generation that this will happen to you. This is a bubble that you're in the middle of and historians will look back and they'll go, what on earth were you doing wearing all of these things, tracking every single bit of your sleep tracking. There are lots of people who need, by the way, to wear trackers for medical reasons. We absolutely buy that.
Starting point is 00:25:02 Most people do not need to use them, and they'll come a point in the future where everyone just goes outside and looks at a sheep. Don't you think? Thank you. Thank you so much for that glimpse into our collective. But yeah, if you get to the stage where a couple of glasses of wine are ruining the next three days, then, yeah, you know you have an issue. Let this be the end of something rather than the start of something. I like to think this is the end of the First World War rather than the beginning of the First World War. But again, that's my personality type. Very good.
Starting point is 00:25:35 Okay, well, we'll await the Treaty of Versailles of all of this. I love that podcast. We'll put a bed to it. After the break, we're going to be journey to Sicily to discuss destination celebrity weddings and Jolie Pallamtern. Whatever you do, don't drink the wine. This episode is brought to you by Lloyds.
Starting point is 00:25:59 Now, I love it when characters are part of the club. You wouldn't know anything about that. Would you, Richard? The Thursday Murder Club in some ways. reminds me of the A team. I would now like to map each of those characters onto the A team and feel I probably could. I mean, Elizabeth is Hannibal and it's not even close. That's exactly right.
Starting point is 00:26:15 And Ron is howling Mad Murdoch. Well, there are definite perks to being in a club. Just ask the members of Club Lloyds. Because with Club Lloyds, you can bank on Lloyds to give you more wherever you are. If you join Club Lloyds, there's all sorts of benefits you can choose between. There's, for example, six free cinema tickets. They've got an annual coffee club and Gourmet Society membership, which would be mine. And also something that the Thursday Motor Club would enjoy very, very much indeed.
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Starting point is 00:27:34 and it's 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. Welcome back, everybody. Now, I would like to offer you, Richard, a field guide to celebrity destination wedding. Yes, please.
Starting point is 00:27:58 Because we've just had a very big one. Both of them are celebrities. Dior Leap and Kalimtan, who've just got married. Huge congratulations. I love both of these people. And they've just got married in Sicily and Palermo. Now, first of all, destination weddings.
Starting point is 00:28:14 A lot of people have a view on them. Yes, I do. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. And in civilian life, you know, you can end up having conversations like, sorry, they're getting married in Mexico. And for some reason, the Henry Candid is Micanos, unacceptable, right? This is totally unacceptable. I've got nine weddings this summer. Okay, but these are not, these are not our ways.
Starting point is 00:28:36 Okay, we're talking about celebrities here. Right. So let me explain to you what you have to do. This is the exact playbook, right? Before you go to the destination, the week before you get married in either Chelsea Old Town Hall Registry Office or Maribon Town Hall Registry Office. Both of them in London, these are the only two options. Yeah. They did Marlabel.
Starting point is 00:28:58 There are only three outfit options for the bride. Vivian Westwood would put a mini dress. Yes. A white trouser suit or a pretty much exact replica of Bianca Jaggers when she married Mick. What does that look like? It's like a cream suit but skirt suit, middy skirt, with a big white hat, probably Yves Saint-Laureen, but don't quote me. Yes.
Starting point is 00:29:19 Wait, hold on. Hold on, I'm just going to bring up a newspaper and quote you. Yeah, no, Marina said, yeah, she said that Bianca. She said it was Easton-Rong. Eve San-Loron. Yeah, from Marina Hyde. Yeah, exactly. Bombshell, yeah, I know.
Starting point is 00:29:31 I won't quote you. Anyhow, those are the only three outfit choices. Okay. Dui Leeper chose option three, the Bianca Jagger. Did she? I believe that's Eve Saint Laurent. Right. Yeah. I'm told.
Starting point is 00:29:44 Yeah. For the man, there's only one choice. No one cares about with him. Like a dark suit. No one's it. Yeah. Well, Mick was in a light suit, of course. Was he?
Starting point is 00:29:52 Yeah. On Nick was. Yeah. But was Callum. In the O.G. I don't know. I literally couldn't care less what the man was the registry office. Don't draw focus, right?
Starting point is 00:30:00 No, no. Don't. Yeah, exactly. Even if he is going to be James Bond. And I think civilians, well, we'll get to that. Civilians only for that. Because you don't want, you know, you can going to have Elton hanging around on the Marlaban road,
Starting point is 00:30:11 chucking some dried rose petals. Oh, so for the registry office bit, it's just... Anyway, then you have to decide why your destination will be. Italy is currently very popular. You know, you've got Lake Como, Tuscany, Sicily, Venice. There's an awful lot of tax dodgers living there. Yeah, yeah. And then, so it's going to be very expensive, right?
Starting point is 00:30:30 So it's better if you picked your venue off the telly so that people can say... And this one, people keep saying where Jolie and Kalam Turner got married, they keep saying, oh, it's in the credits of the White Lotus season two. Okay. It's not. But misreporting is also a very important feature of celebrity destination wedding. So which is good. It needs a balcony.
Starting point is 00:30:51 It needs a balcony where you can emerge for the hyperloid to merge and give something to the paparazzi a wave as if to say, you know, obviously you can't come in. But I know I have a huge fandom. And we saw Dioriope on her balcony. And you also need to have a balcony where you can emerge the next morning to so people can say after you've been partying until 6 a.m. This is all very important that they can get a long lens of you. Now, the build-up, the local media, which will be picked up over here, the local media both loves and hates you.
Starting point is 00:31:21 It's not a celebrity destination if the local media doesn't both love and hate you, if I had some road clothes, whatever. This is quite a new thing. When George Clooney and Amal got married in Venice and they sort of took over the whole thing, no one really cared. Obviously when Lauren Sanchez, friend of the podcast and Jeff Bezos still there. Hi, Lauren. Hey, Jeff. People cared more.
Starting point is 00:31:41 So you get a lot of these kind of boring articles about, you know, or you're turning it into a theme park and something to do with the climate and so on like that. I don't know. I don't know. This is all part of it. Something to do with the climate. In the old days, you start off for a toaster for your wedding because you're setting up house. Now, unless you're judged to have, you know, temporarily ruined a 17th century city state,
Starting point is 00:32:06 be it Palermo, be it Venice, you haven't really had a proper celebrity destination wedding. So we saw a lot of people saying about Duleep and Callum, you know, Palermo is not someone's living room. What? Anyway, you just need to get a few locals to say things like that. Ruinning a city is your uncle being sick in a font of modern weddings. Yes. Yes. It's absolutely essential.
Starting point is 00:32:28 Now, you need a series of dresses. Nobody has just one. And what's quite, I saw that, we don't know, we don't know what. dress duly poor. Yeah, but we will find out. Yeah, we better. We will do. But Donatella Versace was there.
Starting point is 00:32:42 That's the other thing. The designer comes to the wedding. Oh, no. Funny enough, actually, Kieran was once in. In case there's any sewing needs doing? Well, you know, it's like you split it or something. You just invite them. It's sort of, it's full.
Starting point is 00:32:55 Okay, so I don't know. I'm guessing that it was a Versacee dress because otherwise Donatelle is a bit of a random. She'd be gutted if she turns up and it's George Asda. Yeah, I know. It's really. It's almost rude. Okay. Now, somebody famous. has to do a song.
Starting point is 00:33:07 Obviously, it goes without saying that Elton is the pinnacle. But if not, Robbie, you'll do it. Now, Elton did do the song. Did he? Yes, yes. And I think it's almost always your song. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people have been able to tell everybody that this is their song.
Starting point is 00:33:23 That's ironic, isn't it? Yeah. And the guest list is kind of a bit shady here because we don't yet know. And they're very, very good. It's exclusive if your guests are the sort of people who know they're not allowed to put anything anywhere near social media or anything like that. So there's all kind of rumours. Maybe a robbery that was there,
Starting point is 00:33:40 maybe if he would have to step into the breach, you can't do it for one reason or another. Anyhow, I feel like we should discover at some point that Eva Longoria attended. Don't ask me why. She is the zealig of all celebrity weddings. Really? She was there when Victoria danced on Brooklyn.
Starting point is 00:33:57 Was she? Yeah, very much there. Serena Williams. I know she just presented some humanitarian award to Laurenne Sanchez 15 minutes before. Did she? I bet Serena Williams is a for a celebrity wedding I'd quite like to go to.
Starting point is 00:34:10 I bet that would be fun. That would have got quite a lot of good people there. I think Katie Perry and Justin Trudeau, she's becoming a bit of a zealig. Those two, I think we could, they might be the new Longoria of guests. He's loving his life, Justin Trudeau. Do you know, he reminds me more of day after day?
Starting point is 00:34:25 Who? Portillo, because it's like, he did the political thing. And now he's like, oh, I can just go like, you know, he's like, I can just hang out with Katie Perry and go around the world in the same. with that Portillo goes, oh, we can just do train rides now forever and ever, and people like me. Yeah. I can live with that, Justin Trudeau's train rides program.
Starting point is 00:34:43 Okay. But the logistics, you've got a lot of private jets. So that's, then we have to have a lot of articles about how do they all, you know, how do you, same which we had for the Bezos wedding. How do they, it's a small airport, is it? We don't even know, but they, you're made to think that Palermo is like this absolutely tiny kind of thing. It's not, by the way, it's not.
Starting point is 00:35:03 It's like a major internet. personal hub, yeah. But the, and the private jets are arriving. By the way, I read this really interesting article last week about this guy. He built a private jet tracker of basically Silicon Valley private jets because he thought that if there is an apocalypse, it's an apocalypse chapter, that they'll know first. And by the way, in my view, they'll have caused it. Yes. But that's how they'll know first.
Starting point is 00:35:27 Yeah. And you'll know because it's a bit like the great noise of the private jets, a bit like in the ancient world when there, it was thundering, they thought the gods were displeased, we will think, oh, right, there's so many private jets suddenly. They're all heading to Alaska. Yeah, or New Zealand, where they've got their bunkers. That's what my brother's new book is about. I know. You told me before I'm dying for this.
Starting point is 00:35:48 It's really good. Yeah. It's really good. It's really interesting. That whole world is very, very interesting. That whole world is mental. Yeah. But it's absolutely right.
Starting point is 00:35:55 The second five of them go to Alaska or New Zealand at the same time, you're like, oh, great. Yeah. It's over and you're not going to be able to get out. Anyway, the other. The other thing with celebrity destination weddings is, could it help with work projects? No. I'm just saying, for Callum Turner, is him being bathed in Sicilian light in a white dinner jacket at this stage in a certain audition process, the worst thing?
Starting point is 00:36:21 That's interesting. Is it going to give him the edge over Jacob? I don't know. I don't know whether it is, but for me, it's going to be between those two. And as I said before, I thought they were leaning in one direction, but we don't know. You don't know who says yes. That's a lucky side of it, though, isn't it? it. Yeah. They're not going to Palermo because of Bonn. They're going to Palermo for all the other many,
Starting point is 00:36:38 many reasons that you're talking about. Let's think about synergies, Richard, because I can assure you their agents are. You've got to have synergies. I can assure, yeah. So that sort of covers your celebrity wedding. The next one, which obviously we're going to have to go big on on this podcast, is Taylor and Travis. These reports that are so nuts that I cannot believe they're true, but there have been a number of reports in recent days saying that Taylor Swift, um, and and Travis Kelsey are getting married at Madison Square Garden. We know they're getting married in New York, but they're getting married at Madison and Square Garden.
Starting point is 00:37:11 Wow, in the ring. Like the Moonies. I mean, also, you work there. It's like me renewing my vows here. She works there. And sometimes, not always, but sometimes she works there. I just, anyway, if this is true. They'd really have to dress it up.
Starting point is 00:37:27 Yeah. Because it's supposed to be, it's not going to look like an Oxfordshire church, is it? No, it's not going to. Or a grander. Grand Palazzo. No, it's, I mean, you could, you could sell tickets to it. I don't know. This can't be true.
Starting point is 00:37:41 Oh, yeah. I wonder if she'll get fans to go. Oh, of course. Yeah, then maybe there'll be something of that. I don't know. But what's your general opinion on a destination wedding, though? Do you have to, is my general opinion? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:37:53 Why don't you have your honeymoon? And then it's on you. Yeah. And then, and if you do do one, if you're actually telling me that you're going to also have a destination, Stagallah, Hem weekend, you are now taking the piss. Yeah. A stag or hen, I think, is fine because that's, you know, you can make an excuse and not go to a stag or hen if you can't afford it or whatever, whatever it is. You can kind of say, you know, like, oh, that's so annoying.
Starting point is 00:38:14 I can't come out to Budapest. But for a, you can't say no to a wedding. And you've got family and you got old friends and, you know, everyone's got different income levels. I think it's no. It's just a no. But, I mean, I don't think it was probably. If you were marrying someone Greek. Yes.
Starting point is 00:38:31 Because that's where all of their family. from. Or if you're trying to find a halfway point and you're, you know, you're married on Australian and, you know, fine, I get it. There are definitely excuses we're having it. Yeah. In general. If you're from Hayward's Heath and you're getting married in Fadiraki and then everyone's flying back to Hayward's Heath, yeah. Come on. Come on. Especially if you're of the age where everyone's getting married at the same time. It's so expensive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so unbelievably expensive. It's expensive anyway, giving it in the UK. Do celebrities pay for their guests to go out there? It's not clear, is it? I would have thought that, if you thought for one
Starting point is 00:39:03 second that, yeah, they took lots and lots of rooms. And I think you put all your family members and your friends who, and just say, we've got a room for you. And then, you know, Adele, you sort yourself out for obvious reasons. The best person to be in that situation is like, Adam Turner's aunt. But he was like just sort of, you know, just a absolutely regular person who is beyond delighted that her nephew is getting married, has always wanted to see it. To the lovely doerleeper. And now it's like, oh, my God. You will not hear people say a bad word about. Oh, that's good. Poor you like her.
Starting point is 00:39:33 Oh, that's really, really nice. Yeah. But yeah, so she's going there and like Elton John's playing. She goes, I mean, I often hear your song at weddings, but I've never seen it. Oh my God, not this one again. Yeah. Yeah. But that must be amazing.
Starting point is 00:39:45 Well, many congratulations to them. Yes, exactly. They'll probably release a couple of pictures just so we saw what they actually looked like. Yeah. But, yes, so that was very, that was a happy one. But Taylor and Travis next. I mean, watch this space if they're doing it at Malice's God's.
Starting point is 00:40:00 I can't believe it's true. Yeah, that's nuts. Okay. Shall we turn to a more traditional wresters entertainment subject? Yeah, I mean, I suppose it's drama. Yes, it really is. It's going to talk about 60 minutes, which is the biggest current affairs show in America, which is having an unbelievable couple of weeks.
Starting point is 00:40:18 We'll talk about why. Meltdown. Meltdown is exactly that. There was an incredible meeting between the new guys coming in to run it and some of the people who currently work for it, which has been reported everywhere. I just thought it would be a fun thing to give. some context to. It's on CBS is on every Sunday night at 9 o'clock. But it's investigative reporting.
Starting point is 00:40:39 It's like sort of panorama, but it's not. It's, yeah. It's like if panorama was massive. It's basically at 60 minutes. It's actually sort of part of the global cultural conversation. And yeah, they tend to have 15 minute investigations. They have these correspondents who've worked there forever and ever and ever. And they take incredible pains over every single thing they report. So it has a really blue chip show. It has been for years and years and years, a huge brand in the States. There is not a direct equivalent here, but let's imagine it is something like the News at 10. This would be where you're Trevor McDonald's and John Snow's and, you know, these, the kind of has all the big hitters.
Starting point is 00:41:17 We're talking about it because it's become the battleground of a fight over editorial independence, corporate ownership, Trump, ego. Yes, exactly. Yeah, so David Edison, who is the child of a bit of a bit of a bit of. billionaire, who has bought CBS amongst many other things, including CNN and all sorts of things, he decided to overhaul 60 minutes. Can I say something first before we said this? It actually started before then all of this because there was a Trump lawsuit. Trump bought a lawsuit against CBS.
Starting point is 00:41:51 What he felt was some kind of selective editing of a Kamala Harris interview. This was in CBS owned by Paramount. were still owned by the Redstone family. But Shari Redstone was trying to sell it. And a lot of people thought this case would eventually get thrown out because it was perfectly reasonable sort of First Amendment defence to it. But in the end, because they needed regulatory approval to be able to sell the whole of Paramount to Skydance to David Ellison's company,
Starting point is 00:42:20 they settled with Trump for $16 million. And a lot of people within 60 minutes were very, very angry that this has happened and said this is, the editorial independence has been sacrificed for corporate interest, for Trump interests. Scott Pelly, who was a veteran correspondent, was very vocal about that. But anyway, the deal went through. They got their regulatory approval and they clearly regarded that as a price to pay. But we've then seen other things happen.
Starting point is 00:42:48 Stephen Colbert. We know that Stephen Colbert show is finishing on CBS. So there's definitely a thing about CVS that, you know, is it vulnerable to the editorial independence being interfered with by corporate entities. And the stuff that's happened this week is crazy. So there's one called Barri Weiss who ran a media organization called the Free Press that David Edison bought for $150 million. Right-leaning, I think it's fair to say.
Starting point is 00:43:13 Trump-leaning, I think it's fair to say as well. And he bought Barri-Vice in free thinking. Yeah, she... Barri-Vice's story was that she was brought into the New York Times between 2017. and 2020, which was a sort of particular, kind of, the height of, to some degree, kind of peak, woke. And she was brought into sort of, she covered culture and politics to kind of be, act as a counterweight to what, you know, seen as leaning to Democrat or whatever it was. She was quite reactionary.
Starting point is 00:43:47 She said things like, you know, the idea of cultural appropriation is stupid. Intersectionality is a flawed idea. These were regarded as complete sort of blasphemies at the time. And in the end, she resigned because she said that effectively Twitter had become the New York Times' on a, you know, silent editor. Because people were so scared of cancellation or backlash that they kind of cleaved to quite a narrow point of view. And I have some sympathy with that. And there are lots of places that needed some kind of correction, I think. I will not say that I've agreed with everything she's done since then.
Starting point is 00:44:26 and people, lots of people, totally loathe her. But she was installed, having never run a newsroom of any meaningful size before, and certainly not a TV news as editor-in-chief of CBS News by David Ellison. Well, that's the thing. David Edison buys her company for a lot of money and then sets her in charge of CBS News and 60 minutes. So the situation you have is, as you say, someone who is an iconoclast versus a very traditional, very long-standing,
Starting point is 00:44:56 fairly liberal newsroom and this incredible franchise, which is 60 Minutes, which has been going forever and ever and ever. And a lot of the correspondents are in their 70s and 80s and have been there forever. And suddenly she's a new broom sweeping through it. Now, CBS News, which she's in charge of, ratings are down and down and down. And now we have a situation with 60 Minutes, which is the absolute jewel in the crown. And it should be said, profitable. Yeah. You know, good ratings, profitable, Weiss bought in a new kind of chief editor called Nick Bilton, who is not particularly from a news background. He used to write for Vanity Fair, as a screenwriter, all sorts of things like that.
Starting point is 00:45:36 He used to be tech corresponders at New York Times. Yeah. So, you know, he's from that world. And they had a meeting last week where he came in for the first time. And a lot of the big correspondence have left already, Anson Cooper, who was the sort of probably the biggest dog of all at 16 minutes. he has left. So many have been made redundant.
Starting point is 00:45:58 And lots and lots of executive staff, correspondent, everyone has been made redundant. They talk about it as black, do they call it Black Thursday or Black Friday? Whatever. So Nick Belton comes in, has his first meeting with his team to try and say, look, this is who I am.
Starting point is 00:46:13 This is where I want 60 minutes to go. And Scott Pelly, who we were talking about. One of the correspondents, senior correspondent. He had something to say in that meeting. Did he not? Yeah. He seems, and by the way, the audio of this meeting was of course recorded and given to the New York Times.
Starting point is 00:46:30 I mean, literally within two minutes of the meeting ending. Scott Pelley seemed made a big speech saying that Bari Weiss was murdering 60 minutes. Strangely, he seems to, and various other things besides, he has a big sort of goes kind of toe to toe with Nick Bilton. He seems not to have realised Scott Pelly that this could potentially get him fired. Yeah. He said to Nick Bilton, you have slender qualifications for the job. You will never be welcome in this newsroom is essentially what he said. This is his first meeting with his boss, being recorded, by the way,
Starting point is 00:47:05 and then that recording immediately being released. I'm not saying who recorded it and who released it, but it was recorded and released very soon afterwards. Anyhow, it turns out you can get fired for stuff like that. So he did, Scott Pelly did get fired, and he's now on this incredibly emotional round of interviews. saying about, you know, the team, the family on 60 minutes, you know, we travel together, we dine together, we go into literal combat together.
Starting point is 00:47:31 Or you cover literal combat, but okay. And then he started crying in some of these interviews. He said, it's like your family being murdered. Someone wipes out a large number of your family members. This is talking about, you know, comings and goings in the CBS newsroom. It's like your spouse being murdered. I would say that, again, a reminder. that American journalism takes itself so preposterously seriously.
Starting point is 00:47:57 I mean, British journalism takes itself quite seriously in British newsrooms, but American is like... But please, can you imagine anyone in the BBC saying, this is literally like your spouse being murdered? OK, let's just take them over here. So there are three major correspondents still on air, by the way, who have said they will go if anything more is done to it. Yes, but they have all agreed for now to stay. The thing was, they were all going to go at some point. But like one of them, Leslie Stahl, I mean, she's 84 years old. This is not like the democratic establishment.
Starting point is 00:48:23 Yeah, but it really is. But she's agreed to stay. Bill Whitaker's agreed to stay in another one, just to sort of see if they can continue the DNA of 60 minutes into this new era. And Nick Bilton has come back fighting quite rightly. In some ways, he said in the termination letter, you know, he said that Scott Pettie had behaved with remarkable insolidity and contempt. And, you know, he did, is the truth, whether he had a good,
Starting point is 00:48:51 reason to do it is another matter. I mean, Nick Bilton sent a memo saying that absolutely is not going to take any political leads from the ownership of CBS. I mean, I mean, but he would do that if it's true and he would do that if it wasn't true. So it sort of doesn't help. But, you know, his email, it ends, you think, and this is where we came in, it ends. It's been ahead of a first week. Let's get to work. Which is like a Will Ferrell comedy. Yeah. So here's the interesting thing about this story is, is this purely Trump and the Trump agenda trying to bring down one of the last great bastions of American news and American news reporting an independent American news reporting? Is it that? Because every single fact about it makes it look like it is that, the people who have been bought in, the people who have left, the ownership, all of those things.
Starting point is 00:49:44 Or is it? And, you know, when you hear Nick Bilton talk, he said, look, I genuinely recognize this show. gets good ratings and a genuinely recognise it is profitable, it will not be either of those things or do either of those things for long. He said broadcast news as an ice cube is how he's described it. And he said it's, it's, an ice cube is not going to get any bigger. I mean, it's literally, it's out there as it's going to get smaller and smaller and smaller. And the world of news now, as we know on this show very, very well, is a world of younger personalities of clippable things, of, you know, going viral. It is not one hour on a Sunday night with a
Starting point is 00:50:21 huge lead in from the NFL, which is what 60 Minutes has got. It's not an audience that has grown up with this franchise and believes in it and will follow it blindly. That's all gone. And so there is an argument that this isn't a political intervention. What it actually is a life-saving intervention of bringing in a whole new generation of people into this brand, this brand which is trusted, and building it out and turning it into something extraordinary. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree and we can't argue that there has been effectively editorial interference. Oh, yes, absolutely. Because the mere settling of that suit in order to get that we can't, no, yeah, there has
Starting point is 00:50:59 been. And, but I do also think that attempting to have a correction from that era where, I mean, I sort of hate calling it Pete Woke, but you know what, for want of a better phrase, where lots of liberal newsrooms had, in fact, these incredible blowups about tiny, tiny things and real enormous cancellations of staff members and things like that over really actually relatively minor infringements of some perceived liberal code. And I do think that there has needed to be some kind of correction if you wish to try and keep things mainstream.
Starting point is 00:51:36 And I've talked about it before and talked about it a bit when I did appear before the select committee, that in the UK we have this extraordinary thing that America does not have. we had the BBC sitting right at the centre of our sort of mainstream, and I realise that people have got all sorts of different problems with the BBC, but like 60% of people check it frequently. In America, you've got a situation where nothing gets more than 20% of anybody, and the polarisation is almost off the charts.
Starting point is 00:52:09 Like, if you like Fox News, then you absolutely hate New York Times and vice versa. And everybody is sort of flung out to the outer reaches, of these graphs and they don't have anything sitting in the middle. And the attempt to kind, and I do think that when a shared mainstream disappears and we see this all over the world, you get these big, big cultural problems. And it, and it, the lack of a sort of shared mainstream in America and the perception that some things are for some people and some things are for other people and it's very, very siloed like that is not great for social cohesion at all. And you can see the effects of it. So I think the sort of aim of it,
Starting point is 00:52:46 whether or not you think they're doing it right and whether or not you think that actually is their aim or it's kind of a covert thing for interference. I think the aim of it is good to try and create something that more than 20% of people ever are going to think is trustworthy. And it doesn't sort of matter if you have got bigger ratings than you had before because other things have fallen away. You're still, as you say, the ice cube is not a terrible analogy. Yeah. And one very interesting thing about it is, you know, Trump is sort of obsessed with broadcast media and he's obsessed with legacy media. And the truth is that's a, you know, there's steam trains, those things.
Starting point is 00:53:22 And he is obsessed, as are most of his generation, as are most of our generation, with these things that are not going to be here in 30 years time. You know, with the stuff that we grew up with, which we still consider to be incredibly important, and which culturally is still incredibly important. You know, it's still because it's an echo chamber and, you know, legacy media always, you know, what legacy media talks about, leads what other legacy media. media talks about. But that's not going to be the battleground. No, and actually going around in high profile, as Scott Pelley's doing now, going around high profile broadcast slots and literally
Starting point is 00:53:56 crying about things, is like, oh my God, you are absolutely not helping, even the thing you think you're helping. He actually said at one point, I think the headlines will just be about me crying and people saying I'm a lunatic. Well, you called it. Well, listen, he's a good journalist. 60 minutes is back on air in September. They are currently scrabbling, around to get the sort of, I mean, again, they're saying it's, the stuff we do is incredibly difficult. The kind of journalistic kind of skills you're going to have to do to have to do what we do is almost impossible to find. And you kind of think maybe it's not. Maybe there is a next generation of a journalist. I mean, who will want to touch 60 minutes is a, is another
Starting point is 00:54:32 question. But they are currently recruiting to replace an awful lot of the producers and the, the, um, the talent they used to have. But it'll be back on air in September. We'll see what the ratings are like and we'll see what the political bent is like. But I think it's a more interesting story than it first appears. And I think if one thinks it's just about political interference, I think we're missing the bigger picture, which is the biggest current affairs show in America. If it wants to stay that, has to find a way of reinventing itself. I agree. Any recommendations this week? Yes, I have. I've got a really good novel, which is coming out this week. It's called Experts in a Dying Field. And it's by Patrick
Starting point is 00:55:11 Frayne. Now, Patrick Frayne is a very funny writer for the Irish Times. and this is very good for our entertainment podcast. This is a story about the members of a band, the heathens who were active in Dublin about 20 years before the events of this story. But tragedy struck and they sort of scatter and then they reconnect. And it's about bands.
Starting point is 00:55:36 It's about the music scene and a lot of it is about Dublin. And it's really annoying. I know it's really annoying when people say, oh, it made me laugh and it made me quite. but it made me laugh a lot out loud, and it absolutely made me cry. And he's got such humanity, Patrick Vro and I absolutely loved it.
Starting point is 00:55:52 So it's called Experts in a Dying Field. Amazing. I will recommend Disclosure Day, the new Spielberg movie, just because it feels like a great Spielberg movie. We chatted to him about it. You can hear that on Thursday on our Q&A. But yes, it's a proper multiplex movie. And, you know, I love, you know, backcims and all stuff like that.
Starting point is 00:56:13 But it's nice to have. both, isn't it? So yeah, go see Disclosure Day. It's two and a half hours, but it doesn't feel like it. And our bonus episode for our members, which you can join at the rest is entertainment.com. I'm talking to James Kanagas for a minute. How a celebrity could make a run for office even within our political system now and generally about celebrity politicians, what they bring and how we're going to see much, much more of them in the future. Yeah, hashtag the Martin Lewis question. We will see you all on Thursday.
Starting point is 00:56:47 See you on Thursday. Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust.
Starting point is 00:57:14 Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home.

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