The Rest Is Entertainment - TV Is Dead, But Michael Parkinson Is Alive

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

National treasure Michael Parkinson has a new podcast, but how will a man who died in 2023, be brought to life for it? Richard has the inside track on the AI used, the ethical considerations, and the sensitivities that have gone into the project. If it has escaped your attention, there will be a new leader of the free world this week as America takes to the polls. Marina gives us the history of how entertainment has shaped the US election coverage. Lastly as linear TV continues to decline, some new data has emerged as to what we are consuming in its place and how it's changing what we expect from our entertainment. Recommendations: Richard: Showtrail (iPlayer) *** The first The Rest Is Entertainment Live takes place on Wednesday 4th December at the world famous Royal Albert Hall. Enjoy a live Q&A, podcast favourites and more surprises get your tickets at www.therestisentertainment.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] Producer: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport As always we appreciate your feedback on The Rest Is Entertainment to help make the podcast better: https://forms.gle/GeDLCfbXwMSLHSUHA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osmond. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? I'm all right. You're literally jetting off to the United States of a little country called America for the election straight after this.

We are. I'm recording a little bit early because I will be heading out under the auspices of Goalhanger to do an election night broadcast and post-election wrap-up with Alistair, Rory, Dominic Sandbrook and the person I'm doing all of this for, Anthony Scaramucci. Wow, I mean that's a, listen... Long way to go, but worth it I think. It's worth it, we'll all be the judge of that next week. I talked to a friend of mine yesterday, an American friend, I said,

how are you feeling about the election? And she said, I'm feeling nauseously optimistic. That's very good. But what are we talking about this week before you jet off with the other big wigs? We are going to talk about Michael Parkinson being, I don't think you can say revived, there must be better terminology for it now, but returning as an AI version of himself in an interview series. Yeah, which has been all over the press and I've looked into the story and it is an awful lot more interesting

than you might imagine that story and there's a lot more to it as well, so we'll talk about that. We are going to talk a little bit about the US election and how it's covered and the media landscape over there And we're going to show you the the single chart that explains everything about television What's happened to it and what's going to happen next in one simple chart? promises promises promises promises I am aware. I really have to deliver on today's podcast because you're heading off to meet scaramucci Uh, so michael parkinson this uh ai story has been all over the papers recently really have to deliver on today's podcast because you're heading off to meet Scaramucci. So Michael Parkinson, this AI story has been all over the papers recently. There's a podcast

coming out, it's called Virtually Parkinson, where an AI, the version of Michael Parkinson, is interviewing celebrities and it's been absolute catnip for the newspapers, it's been absolute catnip for the industry, as in this sounds like the worst thing that's ever happened. It's got everything you don't want, which is AI. A beloved national treasure. A beloved national treasure, podcasts, that sort of thing. And it's fascinating it came out because around about a month ago, can I play you a message that I received from a very old colleague of mine.

She's not very old, but I mean, she's been a colleague for a long time. I received this following message and genuinely sit yourself down and take a little listen to this. Hello Richard, this is Michael Parkinson. Firstly, I want to extend my gratitude to your friend and former colleague for the kind introduction. I'm a great admirer of your work not only on television but also your impressive turn as a best-selling author It would be an absolute pleasure to have you as a guest on my new podcast called virtually Parkinson I know that you're quite used to appearing on a podcast

I've heard though I've not listened to it yet that you you have a quite successful one of your own Maybe when you're not too busy, you can share some tips with me Anyway, I'm sure our listeners would love to hear your story on both your career in entertainment and your journey into the world of crime fiction. I look forward to hopefully having you join me for a conversation soon. Oh my God. What do you make of that?

Why is my, well the first word the one always says terrifying. I mean, it is obviously just incredibly lifelike. Yeah. I mean, how can that not be him? Even the little pauses and the self-catching in the voice, it's so extraordinary. Now my first instinct, which is I suspect would be everyone's first instinct, is I was uncomfortable about it and I immediately said no. I immediately said, and it's the first time I've ever used this phrase, I said on behalf of humanity

I'm gonna turn this one down. And so I did and my colleagues very good about it. And then all this press started coming out about the podcast and a program was sort of launched on it and everyone seemed very upset. And I started thinking this colleague of mine is very smart. This colleague of mine is no fool. And when I started reading into it a bit, I thought, I wonder if there's a little more to this. So I got in touch with the people behind it and the story behind it genuinely, I think is very, very interesting to the point where I think at the end of this particular section, we might have a discussion about whether I should actually go on it.

I have to say, if you'd asked me before you played that clip, I would have had one view and now I've got a totally different one. It is a collaboration this podcast between Mike Parkinson who's Michael Parkinson's son who owns the archive all this father's interviews under Parkinson productions. He's done all sorts of things for those archive over the years but that's what he owns and a company called Deep Fusion which are run by a guy, a few people, the chap I've been talking to is called Benfield. Are they purely an AI company? What are they? Well, they're more of a production company, finally, and fell into AI sort of accidentally.

And I said to Ben, listen, I'm uncomfortable with it, can I ask you a load of questions? And he said, yeah. He said, I genuinely want you to ask me questions. I've seen how this has been reported in the press, and I'd love to put a slightly different take to it. So Ben's company, Deep Fusion, started, he made a documentary about Gerry Anderson, puppeteer and Thunderbirds etc. A genius. A genius, exactly. Troubled genius, as so many of the geniuses are. And he had 36 hours of audio archive of Gerry Anderson. And so he and Gerry Anderson's son set about doing a sort of deep fake Gerry Anderson but using

the real audio archive and images of Gerry Anderson. And when it was announced he said oh my god everyone went absolutely crazy, it was called like a meat puppet engineer and all sorts of things. But actually when it came out people I think understood this as an incredibly useful way of... All the things Gerry Anderson would have hated, puppeteering not necessarily up at the top. It was very very apt. But it actually was an amazing way of using that audio archive and everyone seemed very happy. Recently they did it with Lou Pearlman as well in the Backstreet Boys documentary. They had lots of his audio and they had an interview with him but they

made his lips say the audio. They were absolutely open about it and it worked very well. So anyway, he did that. He said, suddenly I'm now the expert in deep fake AI and all this sort of thing. So lots of people came and talked to me about various things. He said, and I got much more involved in it. And to the extent that Ben has been across almost all the big trade bodies in the UK and the US, he's been involved in the procedures, how we use AI, the legislation that they're trying to use. So he said, look, this procedures, how we use AI, you know, the legislation that they're trying to use. So he said, look, this is what I've been doing, I've spent the last couple of years in the US and the UK, working at how we use AI in a safe way that, you know,

protects people's incomes and jobs and what have you. Which comes down to four things, essentially, when we're talking about this world of faking a human being, using their words, using a voice, you know, that's the world that he's talking about. And he said that the four things that he has tried to put in every single contract, informed consent from the family or estate or the rights owner by informed consent to really genuinely understanding what it is that's happening and the producer also understanding that it's mutually beneficial for everyone. Licensed data, so every single thing you're using to train what you're doing has to be owned by someone has to have a rights holder who are not being ripped off

So you're not training on anything that you know Things that don't belong to you exactly that um equal remuneration for the AI version of Whoever you're creating so whatever you would pay a normal human being you pay the rights holder of the estate of whoever owns all of this archive. The key one I think, no passing off, so no pretending it's real. He did all that, he said, and then Mike Parkinson gets in touch. Now Mike Parkinson, Michael Parkinson's son, he's been in the industry a long time, he is what I would call an operator in the way that so many people I've known over the years are an operator. It's just someone who has some IP and you find ways of using it.

And he said, look, we've been doing loads of stuff with this archive. I'd love to sort of do an archive podcast as well, just somehow use all this stuff I've got of my day and interviewing some of the most famous people in the world. He said, and I saw what you've done with Gerry Anderson, I know who you are. Is there something we can do? Mike Parkinson and Ben Field meet up, they chat about it. Ben sort of at the end of the meeting says to Mike Parkinson, what's the point?

And Mike Parkinson goes, you're absolutely right, there isn't one. And so Ben said, look, we shook hands and said, that's a really interesting chat, lovely to meet you, we are going to do nothing here. So Ben then says, someone that's completely different asked me to create, this is a terrifying sentence, asked me to create an AI television commissioner for an away day for one of the big broadcasters,

just a sort of, you know, like a... Always starts on the away day. Always starts on the away day. Exactly. What happens on the away day stays on the away day. So he said he creates this thing and to show it off to the channel, he pitches something to it. This is where Ben got me.

He said, look, I'm good in the pitch meeting. He said, I can look at people, I can understand what they're saying. I can make them laugh. I can, you know, I can gossip and you know, I can, that's how I sell. He said, I could not do it with this AI commissioner, this AI commissioner. All it would talk about was the idea and drill down further and further and further used all of my words against me could not be charmed in any way. And I generally felt I'm having a very different conversation than I would have with a human being, but in quite an interesting way. So this podcast

has been, you know, if you read in the papers, it's Michael Parkinson interviewing celebrities and you know, it's sort of some weird kind of hybrid and we know it's not him. And he said, why don't we do a podcast that's split into three parts. The first part is a celebrity comes on and we talk to them about AI and their worries about it. The second part is Michael Parkinson interviews them like a traditional chat show. And the third part is what on earth just happened? How was that for you?

What did you think about it? What was weird about it? What wasn't weird about it? And he said, you know, having Michael Parkinson there is sort of, it's a lovely bow, a lovely wrapper to make a podcast that you wouldn't otherwise listen to. I absolutely buy that as a podcast. Well, this is really landmark. It hasn't been reported. No.

I see His Majesty's Press have done a great job in communicating that. Bring in Michael Parkinson back from the dead. And also, by the way, most people, you hear a story. That's the point. You only hear the headline. And by and large, we've got 50 things to think about in a day. So you don't go further. But that's why I wanted to talk to Ben because the people who were involved with it, I just thought it doesn't feel like they would be doing the thing I'm being told they are doing. And talking to Ben and hearing that you do think, well, that is an interesting podcast, isn't it? Which is what is it to be a real human being? And what is it to talk to somebody who isn't real?

What is that experience? And I feel like maybe that's valid. Oh, completely. This is landmark. It would be so interesting. And obviously, as you say, to have been across all those bodies and to understand those issues in that really deep way. But to filter as always through the prism of a real human experience for the first time. I think it's totally gripping. Can I ask how it works? You've changed your tune since two and a half minutes ago. Yeah, I know, but you see there's the thing. And so, sorry, how does the actual interview work?

Well, it's a live interview. So you're sitting there with headphones, you hear a question from Michael Parkinson, from the voice of Michael Parkinson, you reply and Michael Parkinson then carries on from there. So it's live, it's as it happens. If I do end up doing it, I should report back as to whether there were glitches. But it's not some cobbled together thing where there's someone giving prompts from a gallery, which by the way would happen with a human interviewer. It's the AI doing all of the work. On your own in a room in the sort of Eames armchair.

I mean, that would be quite... I worked with a presenter once. I'm not sure he's ever done a chat show, but his writer would be in the gallery. By the way, this presenter I absolutely love and a writer I love, the writer would be in the gallery and he would literally just have open talk back and he would just keep talking

and the presenter would say the thing that the writer was saying just all the way through it was amazing. So listen, is that AI? It's fascinating. Listen, we heard the bit at the beginning which was amazing and you know, Ben says look, we train it and train it and train it and still every now and again like it'll do something so weird that you're like, okay, we have to retrain that. But it is like a lot of the AI creativity, it's all down to prompts, it's all down to what you put in,

it's all down to how this thing is trained. But essentially, I would be lying if I told you I knew exactly the process that goes into it. But he has over the years done this many, many times with many, many personality types. Like a TV commissioner, I know what a TV commissioner, here are the prompts to make a TV commissioner seem like a TV commissioner. So he's worked with Mike Parkinson to say

here are the prompts that make Michael Parkinson seem like Michael Parkinson and feel like Michael Parkinson. But is it happening in real time? So, oh I see, that's what I meant. Are you sitting there and you're actually being interviewed? You're not saying wait while I reboot it and then it's going to come up with question two? Yes, there's not someone in the gallery saying, now say this Michael Parkinson bot, it is genuinely an artificial intelligence working out what you just said and then working out a response to that. It's your earphones, you're sitting there with your earphones on and he's talking into your ears.

And the thing I love about it is, you know, neither of them are saying, oh and it's going to be amazing, it's going to be like being interviewed by Parkinson. They're both saying, it's going to sound like you're being interviewed by Parkinson, but what is that like and how is it different? And what does that mean about what's happening in this conversation? To all intents and purposes, you are having a conversation with the most congenial, erudite man, you know, who has ever worked in British broadcasting, but you are just talking to a computer.

No, it's not. There's so much to talk about with this, but it's interesting in the week where people have been talking about being able to talk to dead versions of their own relatives. And actually that new meta headset that's currently at the ridiculous prohibitive price point hasn't even been released, but you can sort of go into your old family photos. And I wonder how Mike Parkinson, I mean, psychologically, psychiatrically, how's all this been for him? Well, this is what I think about it. And that's why it's a more interesting story, because if I was Mike Parkinson, and I read the newspaper reports in the last week, I'd be like,

guys, I mean, it's my dad, and I'm a really good TV producer, so maybe, you know, I know what I'm doing. I think that he has spent so long on that archive with his dad, well, his dad, but he's alive and he's done live shows and all sorts of clip shows and things like that. And by the way, if that sounds exploitative at all, pretty much the whole of television now is how do we package up our archive? And also, we were talking only very recently about legacy and the publishing houses always trying to keep authors legacies alive in different ways, not as a sort of trolley

dash but in lots of ways because they believe in those writers and it's nice to kind of try and find ways of helping them to reach new audiences. This will certainly reach new audiences. I think so and you know what what would Michael Barkston not be interested in being a novelty like a sideshow act like a kind of I am a computer Michael Parkinson what I suspect he would be interested in is What on earth is happening with the way we talk to people and what we think about creativity and what we think about conversation I think he would be interested in that and I'll maybe able to do you think get somebody someone who is Very clever has been interviewed by him in the past for real to do this? Oh, that's fine. I assume so, yeah.

I really hope they do that because to say how is it different or how wasn't it, hopefully someone who's slightly more kind of thinker and his various guests, you know, not Emu or whatever. Not that I, you know, I love it. An AI Emu and an AI Michael Parkinson would be, yeah, that's quite a show. And talking to Ben especially, the thing that reminded me of more than anything at all, so the headline comes out and you do worry about it and anyone who works in the television industry now is understandably terrifying. Because, you know, an industry has been hollowed out, but for other reasons, I suspect, which we will get on to when we talk about that

chart later so everyone does worry about it but talking to Ben about it I just feel like I'm talking to any producer I've been talking to in the last 30 years and I especially feel like I'm talking to producers I would talk to 20 years ago who said you know we have to do stuff with online and this has to be on YouTube and I'd be going I just want to go to the studio and, you know, we have to do stuff with online and this has to be on YouTube and I'd be going, I just want to go to the studio and like, you know, do like normal proper telly. And all of those people turned out to be right. All of those people were fascinated with technology and wanted to use it in a creative way and wanted to do something unusual and different. And my creativity, which is, you know, the sort of creativity

that gets a lot of publicity is that sitting down with a blank piece of paper and writing something down that's funny or thinking of a quiz idea. That's the thing we fetishise. But actually there's the creativity of someone saying the world is really becoming an interesting place. How do I use these new things? What Ben reminds me of absolutely is like a proper, smart producer who's thinking, what's the most fun, interesting thing I can do here?

I'll find a different way to talk about it than the kind of two ways we have at the moment, which is say, this is terrifying and we can't do anything about it, and other people saying this represents the most amazing, you know, multi-generational opportunity. And to find somewhere in between of all of that, I have to say, I think you have to do it, Richard. Oh, you reckon? Come on, why think you have to do it really it'd be

interesting right given you can ask anything I guess you can't offend AI Michael Parkinson you know if I don't know that's disrespectful imagine if AI Michael Parkinson walked out you know what it should have had enough that's a that's my Michael Parkinson impression. That was probably the first draft of the AI Michael Parkinson. But you know, I do think in amongst the kind of terror at AI, and a lot of which is absolutely right, this feels like a false flag. This feels like a thing where actually someone's doing something rather interesting. Someone's trying to shine a light on what AI is. and Ben with his track record of what he's done and what he's been involved with. I certainly think

that the road he is going down, he is paving with good intentions. I think for sure. Where that road leads, who knows, but having spoken to him and having really heard the idea, I went, as you have just done, from this is an idea which I'm going to turn down on behalf of all humanity to, oh, I'd actually be quite interested in doing that. And you know, the manpower involved would be absolutely equal to any other podcast, probably more so that more people involved in that, so more people are being employed doing it. At another point, not now, we will talk about how the TV industry is using AI, and it's

using it increasingly in lots of interesting ways Almost always not in the ways that are making the headlines That's interesting the people whose jobs are at risk But this to me does not feel like a threat to anyone's livelihood and actually it's the opposite It's sort of a way for Ben There's a way for Ben to make money to produce and so way for Mike Parson to make money because he's a producer But it's also a way of saying we need to be having this debate about what is real, what is not, what is fake, what is not.

Well the way they've structured it, as you said, in those three parts, is in the spirit of almost philosophical inquiry. So it is, I mean, that's one of the ways it would be helpful to talk about it. Should I tell them instead of calling it Virtually Parkinson, they should call it Michael Parkinson in the spirit of philosophical enquiry? Well, I think that will probably will be the title they end up going for. It's just a working one at the moment. By the way, happy to be proved wrong.

I might be entirely wrong about this, but my instinct is that what looked like a bad new story is actually a very, very interesting story made by very, very interesting people. And yeah, now I really want to listen to it. Shall we just listen to another five-second clip with all of that in mind and hear him again? Yes, please. Hello, Richard. This is Michael Parkinson. Firstly, I want to extend my gratitude to your friend and former colleague for the kind introduction.

So there it is. And I do think, listen, there are enough real human beings doing interview podcasts as well. It doesn't feel like it's... It's just one presenter. There are, real human beings doing interview podcasts as well. It doesn't feel like it's... It's just one presenter. There are, as you say, many, if not more people working on this particular thing who are real humans. Yeah. Shall we go to some ads?

Let's do that. Welcome back, everybody. We are going to talk a bit about election coverage. We are. After that, don't forget, we've got the one single chart that explains everything about television. It really does explain everything about television as well. But, yeah, so you're about to head to the US. I understand how UK election coverage works, but America have a whole other history of election broadcasts. They have a whole other history of election broadcasts. They have a whole other history of election broadcasts and this time of course they are gearing up for not just

election night but what might be you know election week. Yeah. Election week spills over into civil war. I'm mercilessly joking. So they are preparing. It could be the start of a long one because obviously elections are intensely close these days as they never used to be. They don't have those sort of same dramas that we, those sort of same very British funny dramas which you know whenever you look at a British election you're going to go to 650 counts where there are people dressed as bins and stuff standing on the stage in the community centre and I mean it's always funny I absolutely love it you know but they don't have that but it is the biggest ratings for news in America in the four year cycle, unless something absolutely enormous happens. It's like the World Cup for American politics.

It is. And it's going to go on a long time. They need all this because advertisers, that's another thing that people don't realise, is that advertisers have really struggled in the last few years with even committing to advertising on news channels because the country's become so much more polarised. You're sponsoring opinion that has become more and more strident and you may not agree with. That, by the way, is why so many news channels are backed by billionaires because actually it's very difficult to turn a profit because big blue chip advertisers will not advertise in politics these days because it's a trap. Why risk it? What's your name going to be next to it?

Anyhow, it's quite interesting, history of it and as a television spectacle So many things in the American century the 20th century We understand of as television spectacles because that's how they came in 1948 was the first time they did anything on television at all They broadcast the returns, but it was very boring and also they had sort of chalkboards literally and They'd made a mistake. They had the wrong result in their mind. They thought that Thomas Dewey was going to beat Harry Truman. So they had that wrong.

So there was already like, I didn't like the election coverage. Even though they never had been in it. Oh, pollsters. Timber pollsters. Oh dear, they didn't do it very well. That was the first time out. Now, 1952 was Eisenhower versus Adlai Stevenson. Now... Don't tell me you won, because I haven't watched.

Well, by that stage, a third of the households had TV, and only 1% had had them in 1948. It grows so quickly, American, you know, by the time we get to 1960, 90% of households have them. The explosion of TV is kind of incredible. But NBC and CBS both decide, because it's a space race, it's sort of futuristic it's 1952 to use computer forecasting. Whoa. Yeah and they talk about it for like a long time in

advance like we're gonna have a computer on election night. It's got the voice of Michael Parkinson. By the way this is the first election where you see TV ads and if you go back go and have a look at them because I was watching some of them last week look for the jingle I like Ike you think my god was that what political TV ads were like? Ike being Eisenhower So anyway, ooh computers Univac is the CBS computer The Univac?

Yeah the Univac It's like that's like Henry Hoover I know it weighs eight tons and it's gonna tell you who's gonna win the election, right? Wow NBC had the Mon robot only the size of an office desk I mean this would be like, you know one tiny app on iPhone now. But it was the whole sort of Tomorrow's World vibe of it all. Now the Univac really early on in the evening calls the election for Eisenhower 438 to 93. The Univac team think what on earth? They are afraid to

even tell the CBS reporters never mind. That's an insane landslide. They think it's an insane landslide and they think I can't we can't tell the CBS reporters, never mind CBS. Because that's an insane landslide. They think it's an insane landslide and they think, we can't really tell CBS reporters, let alone the viewers. They eventually do tell CBS reporters who are like, yeah, no, I don't think so. In the end, it's 442 to 89, so they missed this great opportunity to say, by the way, computers know quite a lot about this stuff, okay. But it took till the 1970s for it to become this dominant part of it.

But it was always in black and white, so we didn't have this idea of red or blue states or anything like that. And in 1976 was the first time they did one of those maps and they had to slot coloured gels into these cut out plastic spaces, you know, as each state was called. I love all those technologies on YouTube you can see all the old UK coverage and US coverage. I spent the most wonderful few days looking at all of this and it's fascinating to actually be able to see it now and to go back and see it. But at that stage they thought oh red is always a left-wing colour and so red states were Democrat states. It's only in the 90s that this whole idea of red and blue states and people sort of settle on a

colour for the party And that's where it all comes from television That's why we talk about red states or whatever anyway They all combined together to have one of these companies that will one exit polling basically which which we have in the UK You know we all rely on the same exit poll which is done by the brilliant professor John Curtis and his team who is amazing But they did it for the 1990 midterms, and after that, they used it. But only until 2000, where, you may remember, they called Florida wrong. And that's it. It's now polarized, everyone's fallen apart. No one has... They don't have anything that's the same.

They don't have one all agreed on. In 2008, they had holograms and they were really bad. Like so Will.i.am would turn up in the studio with a sort of blue ring around him to talk to you about what he thought was going to happen. But if you look now at what they're planning to do, everyone is settling in for a week. In the old days you'd think, it's been really exhausting covering the election, we've got one last push and then you know by midnight we'll probably all know and obviously they continue broadcasting but for breakfast you were going home. Now it's like buckle up

because I mean remember last time with John King I mean my middle child who was very young at the time got completely obsessed with it and would literally run in from school and put CNN on because it went on you know it went on for days which is quite weird you know you will become obsessed with these things but it tells you a lot about what's happening now, like News Nation has got a special broad, which is a sort of right-leaning news channel, they're going to have a special broadcast from Georgetown Law School, which just tells you... That tells you everything you need to know.

The venues that you used to have are now different. I mean, disinformation, which has become such a loaded word, but they think because there's going to be so many days in which it's sort of still unfolding or being challenged, needless to say, lots of things will spring up on social media. They have already allocated lots of people whose sole job is to say, no, the reason we don't know here yet is for this reason, rather than the election's been stolen, please turn up with your guns.

Because Trump has preloaded so many, oh, they're stealing it in Virginia, they're stealing it in Georgia, all these things. And so if any of those states do go against him, I mean who knows, then they're not going to take it lying down. And therefore it will be a job for the, you want it to be a job for the lawyers rather than a job for the mobs. Yes, so anyway, it will be a very interesting thing, but it will go on a long time, so you'll have to have your stamina. But do please join us for Goalhanger's Rest is Politics look, which is going to have the pre-match build-up, the half-time analysis, and the end of game analysis, if I can just make everything about football. It sounds like the election will go to penalties. Yes, very much so.

And you can find all of that banquet of delights on the Rest is Politics YouTube channel, starting at 8pm UK time. So talking of the apocalypse, television, the question I get asked most by people who listen to the podcast is, is television dead? And it's a very interesting question because you have to define both television and dead. And there's probably professors out there, so you also also have to divine is but that's beyond my ken but there's an amazing bit of research by evan shapiro and our friends at the overnight's organization talking about some viewing habits and there's you know there's an awful lot of chatter in the air about oh nobody watches broadcast tv anymore you know kids don't watch broadcast tv but in very stark figures they laid out a series of things and

can I just tell you what I think is the absolute key one? Go on. So overall about half of all viewing, so that's any content you're ever watching, is still broadcast television. It's 46% now, it's come down from 52% but roughly half is sort of still people watching BBC one BBC two ITV channel four That's what we mean by that and that by the way is a huge amount of people So it's in an enormous amount of people which is why culturally these things are still huge and you know Country fire is still huge is what is why those things happen but if you look at 16 to 34 year olds and

Their proportion of what they watch 14% of all their viewing is broadcast television. 14% and it's going down and down and down. Streaming is 39%. Social viewing, which is largely YouTube and TikTok. 40% of all television being watched by 16 to 35 year olds is YouTube or TikTok. And 14% is what we would consider traditional television BBC one BBC two etc etc and that is not sort of just preserved in amber because

those figures just gonna go up and up and up and the broadcast media is gonna go down and down and down so to all the questions is television dead I mean if you are BBC one BBC two if what we grew up with and I'm talking about some of the older listeners here what we grew up with, and I'm talking about some of the older listeners here, what we grew up with, yes that is going to die, and it's going to die fairly soon. Can I counter that? Yes, of course you can. Okay. People like linear TV and that is why all the really advanced streaming services are starting to experiment with it.

The trouble with a lot of these things is that people are now watching, you know, it used to be that people would watch this type of content on their phone, say YouTube, the stuff we talk about, YouTube, TikTok, like that. Now they're watching it big screen. So you're putting on your smart TV and you're going there. Now on those things, people find linear very hard to find. And it's deliberate and they're always trying to make it slightly harder to find for various commercial reasons. But when people see it, they like it. And that is why everyone from Netflix downwards is experimenting with linear.

A hundred percent. And the interesting thing that's happened is what capitalism always does. It said, oh, this boring old thing that you've got, we've got a much shinier version of this. And 10, 15 years later, you go, oh, what you've actually got is the same thing but for much more money Yeah And people are very very accepting of it because it's what they grow up with and we grew up with a certain thing This generation are not growing up with that certain thing, but you're absolutely right people still like to watch things at a certain time But it is a habit of tuning into you know, East Enders at 8 o'clock or whatever that has gone And if you're one of the major channels, what

does this mean? If you're the BBC, the BBC, the iPlayer, I think sometimes doesn't get the credit it deserves. It was an incredibly early adopter of streaming. It works pretty much flawlessly. You know, we all know, you know, in some way that Netflix works flawlessly. We all know certain apps that do not work flawlessly and are counterintuitive and just don't work particularly. But the iPlayer always has been. The BBC understood very, very early that the future was not in people sitting down at 7 o'clock to watch the same thing.

The future was in building up a huge catalogue of things that people could access at any time and that's the only way they were ever going to make money. ITV and Channel 4 worked it out a little bit later and also you think of the Farrar Ray a few years ago where they said, oh we're gonna shut down BBC Three as a channel and we're just gonna use that money to commission programs and the again the the commentary at up in arms and you think yeah you don't even watch BBC Three and the people who do don't care about this because they're gonna watch it like this anyway yes the best thing to do instead of having a whole

channel with you know a whole building is actually spend that money on programs that people might find and brands that people might find and the only place they can find them is on your streaming service, which is the BBC iPlayer. Channel 4 is pivoting to digital because you can't do anything else. They're suggesting I think by 2028 that 80% of the viewing of their programs will be on streaming rather than on linear TV. You can see it with Bake Off and Taskmaster. Well over half the people who are watching those shows are watching them on digital and, you know, those are the biggest shows. And again, building up that catalog and that archive and people can go to that. But just that figure that 16 to 35 year olds, A, there's a lot of them, B, they're going

to be around for a long time, C, they are the people that advertisers want to advertise to. They are not watching terrestrial TV. And by the way, if you were like a young startup or you were some, you know, new streaming service and you had 14% of the market, you'd be absolutely over the moon. And so there's still money there. But you talk to the heads of any of the big channels and they'll all say, we probably sort of commission enough for five days worth of programs a week, you know, and in the old days where they, you know,

you'd have the summer, you'd have lots of repeats, but the rest of the time, it'd be originations the whole, the whole time. And now that's not the case. And people complain, they say, oh, these repeats and actually they should take more risks and this, that other they can't so is television dead well that side of it is definitely dying it's definitely not going to be around for too much longer you know well we've got maybe five years maybe ten years of we still turn on the TV at certain times a day to watch things

live events and yeah live events sports big shows, you know, Strictly and Gladiators, people are coming for that moment. But if you're looking to a channel to be 18 hours of entertainment all day every day, then that's not going to happen because it's not commercially viable in any way. And that's not the fault of the channels, it's not the fault of commissioners, it's not the fault of ideas, it's advertisers. It's the way we live now. It's exactly the way we live now.

It's also the platforms who are, by the way, the difficulty is, and there are a lot of people, even within the BBC, who say, well, why don't we put our programs on YouTube? Because then more people will see them. This is a disaster, that particular strategy, because the BBC did an interesting experiment where they got a Radio 1 presenter, put him on a big block that said BBC and talked about BBC and Radio 1 and they put it on YouTube and then they talked to, you know, they did surveys of people who'd watched it and they said, oh, it's a great YouTube show. Yeah. Okay.

And you become in the YouTube feeding business if you just think, oh, well, a little engagement, a little, you know, a bit of credit is better than none. That's not the case for our public service broadcasters. And so some people who just say, oh, just put it all on YouTube. It just becomes part of the big YouTube munch and everyone just thinks it's YouTube content. But by the way, if you were a Radio 1 presenter and you wanted to quit the BBC and put all your stuff on YouTube, that probably is the way to go. Because that's the way to make an awful lot more money.

And that's the rub of the whole thing. It's very hard for these big organizations to make a lot out of YouTube, but it's very, very easy for content creators to make money out of YouTube. And again, the neat trick in the same way that the Netflix of this world have said, the way you do things is outmoded, we want to nude you as viewers and now we're going to do the same way that the Netflix of this world have said, the way you do things is outmoded. We want to nude you with viewers and now we're going to do the same thing as you. The smart, it's not smart particularly, but it's very, very interesting, which is television is expensive to make.

The bit of television I've made for years, which is put funny people in a room or put clever people in a room asking questions, that's expensive to make. And the return on investment is is almost nothing YouTube stuff is very cheap to make however if you start putting YouTube production values on a broadcast television show people are not interested They do not want to watch it. They can't switch on BBC one to see something that with with low production values It's culturally not acceptable to them. However, what's happening now as you? You know as you referred earlier is people will watch YouTube through their television.

And if they watch YouTube through their television, they are aware they're watching YouTube and they are very comfortable with the production values of YouTube. So suddenly you've got all of these things which are on television, which look very, very cheap, which people are very, very comfortable with. The BBC and ITV and Channel 4 cannot do them because we have a certain expectation of them. But content creators, ideas people can do those things. Content there's never been more of. Opportunities for new voices in the industry there's never been more of because there are roots to market

there didn't used to be. But the steam trains which are the BBC linear channels, ITV, Channel 4 are not able to do that, which I think is an almost unique bind they find themselves in. Can I talk a tiny bit because I just think it's interesting and it's linked slightly. Podcasts on YouTube? Yeah. People, it's really interesting and we were just talking amongst our producers about this, that even the audience for this podcast has gone up 200% in one month on YouTube. From 8 people to 16 people.

But it's actually a lot of people and they're not really sure necessarily why this is happening. And there are obviously lots of reasons why people, all podcasts I'm talking about on YouTube, people like to watch them because maybe they like to see the reactions, they like all sorts of things. A lot of people say it makes them focus better, kind of they remember it better if they've seen it as well as heard it. There are all sorts of reasons and also YouTube's analytics are very good, so people are able to see where people are. But it's very interesting that even something which we would, you know, as low production values in many ways as a podcast, which is honestly just clearly not designed to be a spectacle, is doing, you know, no offence to us, is doing extraordinarily and people will watch it on their televisions, again on their smart TVs. And because they're aware that it's not being made for television, that we make no concessions for it being on TV, I mean, there's a like a thing of us there.

It's a little bit like the test card in many ways, but. But if I was making. Slightly animated. If I was making a 50 minute television show, then we'd have an enormous studio all day. There'd be a staff of about maybe. You don't know how shiny that floor would be. It would be incredible.

Yeah, exactly. It's just that's the industry that, you know, I'm used to being in. And the podcast industry is very different. But once somebody starts using YouTube on their television I'm watching you on a screen and they can switch from BBC one to you then it is television Well the the other fascinating statistics from this this this stuff from the overnight people and Evan Shapiro terms of the share of various media organizations

So overall in Britain BBC is still top 24% share of various media organizations. So overall in Britain, BBC is still top 24% share of all viewing of content. Then you've got YouTube, then ITV, then Netflix. We go to that 16 to 35 year olds again. The BBC is beaten by three platforms. It's beaten by TikTok, which has 11%. So more 16 to 35 year olds are watching content on TikTok than they are on the BBC. 15% Netflix, 27.5% YouTube. The battle is done, the race is run for what we remember television to be. Is television dead? Yes, television is dead, long-lived television. But look after what you care about and please understand the pressures that those people are, if you do care about those broadcasters, understand the pressures that they are under.

Understand they are not just making a series of rash, stupid decisions. They're working in a very, very difficult economic climate. And it's great that some of the broadcasters at least are still having absolute massive swings and hits and making stuff that, you know, the traitors is the sort of thing that could extend the life of the BBC by a couple of years because it's just, it hits, hits, hits the thing, make stuff that people want to watch. Any recommendations, Richard? Yes, I really enjoy the second series of BBC show trial.

It's a completely different story to the first series, but Michael Socha is in it, who you might know from This is England, and his performance is genuinely brilliant, but it's about the killing of a climate protester and loads and loads of twists and turns, like the first show trial. But it's a proper kind of roller coaster. And as so many people do, you can watch that on iPlayer. It's amazing with the dramas. You look at the ratings on all the dramas that you get from broadcast and Honestly on the streaming services. They're doubling trebling quadrupling their audiences Ludwig, which is coming back It got up to like 9 million because of I play and di ray on ITV

It's huge numbers the hard acres on Channel 5 they're gonna keep huge amounts of their audience are coming from streaming So listen, we're halfway there already to this wonderful, where we can still have public service streaming. But show trial, I really, really recommend. Listen, have fun in America. Thanks so much. I will do, but we will be together for our questions and answers episode.

We will, I look forward to that under a different president. Indeed, one way or the other. The address for those questions is therestisentertainment.gmail.com And our second bonus episode out on Friday, which is part two of the Steven Seagal story. I'm so sorry, and yet I'm also not. See you on Thursday. See you on Thursday. Hi everyone, Marina here. I've got some very exciting news. On Tuesday the 5th of November, I'll be covering the US presidential election through the night, live in studio from New York City as part of the Rest is Politics coverage.

I'll be joined by Rory Stewart and Alistair Campbell from the Rest is Politics, Dominic Sandbrook from the Rest is History, and, perhaps most excitingly indeed, certainly most excitingly for me, Anthony Scaramucci from the Rest is Politics US. We'll be live on YouTube from 8pm UK time on Tuesday evening and back again the following morning at 5am UK time. We'll be analysing all the events as they unfold and I'm sure there'll be plenty of time to dig into the impact of plutocrat everyman Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos on the soap opera that is US presidential politics.

The show will be incredibly interactive so you can ask us as many questions as you like. For more information, just search The Rest Is Politics, America Decides on YouTube.