51. Celebrity Traitors finale week: The REAL big dog! Producer and Founder of Studio Lambert | Stephen Lambert OBE

31:15so that if you win as a traitor, people congratulate you because you've played a good game. They don't say, oh, you mean you lied throughout. No, they say, well done, you played the game. Although apparently Paloma Bay's not very happy. Well, maybe there are some exceptions. Well, maybe that's a good story. I don't know, but yeah. So I think from, and then I think the fact that, you know, one of the classic things of Greek drama is dramatic irony, where you, the viewer, know more than the participants. So that goes right back to Greek, doesn't it? Oh, I definitely think so. I love that, because we know who the traitors are, obviously.

31:57We know who the traitors are. And I think dramatic irony is actually key to a lot of programmes that we've done. I mean, Undercover Boss is dramatic irony. Faking it was dramatic irony. Yeah, of course, that's the connecting theme, in a way. Right back to Greek. Right back to the Greeks. They had all the secrets. Yeah. And I think the fact that we, the viewers, know who the traitors are. And we can't quite believe that the faithful can't spot it. And it makes us... No, and how dogmatic they can be in wrong is so interesting as well. And then that becomes so interesting to watch the way a group comes to a conclusion, the way...

32:31I mean, it does make you question the whole jury system. Well, lots of things, running a company boards, anything, how a group becomes so certain about something that can be so wrong. And also how they seize on evidence to support their theories. I mean, the point about traitors is that the traitors do start doing things that is real evidence. And the skill then of the faithful is to spot it, to recognise how significant it is, and to persuade the other faithfuls that this is real evidence. But at the beginning of the show, there's no evidence. And so it does, it's such an, it turns out that that's very entertaining, watching people create theories.

33:17I suppose it's a sort of, just like it would be fascinating to watch how a jury works. Yeah. Well, 12 Angry Men is a very famous film. Well, indeed. So I'm thinking about this. The current show, it hasn't gone unnoticed. especially from colleagues of mine who've watched all of your Traitors series, that the celebrity traitors took quite a lot longer to spot the traitor than the civilian. That's just because I think the celebrities are very good at being traitors. Well, you've certainly had some good ones. I don't know. I would agree. They were very skilled in this. So the celebrities are better traitors.

34:03Well, when people get frustrated with the faithful and think, oh, they're not very good faithful. Well, the counter argument is they're very good traitors. Yeah. Yeah. And I think Kat and Alan are very good traitors. Who are still in. They're exceptionally good. Are exceptionally good. So we'll wait with great interest to see how this works out. And then you've also got coming out at the same time that Traitors concludes your new Celebrity Race Across the World series. So what's made that? That's another huge hit. Is that dramatic irony again or is that something else? Definitely not dramatic irony.

34:40Definitely not. We all know what's going on. I mean, we know as much as they do. Well, I think it speaks to people's love for travel, but sort of authentic travel. But I think the key thing about that show is that it's a show about a journey in the relationship of the people, the pairs that are taking part in the competition, as well as a physical journey. And I think the way in which the team who make it skillfully tell that story of how the relationship between father and son or two friends or husband and wife, how both a backstory, but also how it changes in the present tense as they go on the journey.

35:28Yeah. Is. And we imagine how we would be. And we imagine how we would be. And you see the world in a way that feels sort of unfiltered. And I think also people are so touched by how generous strangers are and the kind of the small things or sometimes the big things that people do to help each other. So it's a very heartwarming and uplifting show that has just the right amount of tension and excitement as they compete to get to the next checkpoint. They have all kinds of mishaps and problems getting to those checkpoints that they have to overcome. it's I mean it's just a great authentic journey show that has lots of journeys going on in addition to the obvious physical journey an odyssey if we go back to the Greeks so that's another classic structure I guess so you've got a great advertising campaign coming out to support these two shows you just mentioned to me before we started what's it called Stephen?

36:43I don't know The strap line for it is run, lie, enjoy. So you run in Race Across the World. You have to lie in Celebrity Traitors. And hopefully together, the two are shows that you will enjoy. It's just unusual because Celebrity Race Across the World is launching at 8 o 'clock on Thursday on BBC One. And straight after it, at 9 o 'clock, Celebrity Traitors comes to an end. it's the final episode. So on Thursday, I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be run, lie, enjoy. That's what I'm going to be doing. And I think a few other people listening to this might be doing the same thing. Oh, you were expecting a very big audience for the final of the traitors.

37:29I'm sure there'll be a very big audience for the launch of Celebrity Race Across the World. So a huge night for you and your team on television. Well, congratulations. I mean, I was thinking about this coming here. I mean, you have entertained millions of people over decades now. and not many people can say that and i think it's fantastic what you do and and i'm so pleased that these series are such big hits because they deserve to be the one the one that sort of i found little surprising was the squid game the challenge because i mean i watched squid game and i thought it was the most violent show i've ever seen but you managed to turn that into a sort of successful uh unscripted format what what made you do that and how does that work well we were asked to do it by Netflix they had the idea of wanting to so they came to you with this idea they said you know because Squid Game the drama is their most successful show of all time ever since Netflix has started it's had a bigger audience than any other show.

38:31It tells us a lot about human beings. Well and they didn't expect it to be that big I mean they thought it was going to be huge in Korea but it just went everywhere It was an extraordinary show, though. Very unusual show. And unusually, it was a drama about a competition. And the man who is in charge of unscripted television at Netflix managed to persuade his colleagues that, well, look, our biggest show is a drama about a competition. Why don't we do the competition for real? With a few sort of changes. With a few changes. I mean, unless you wonder whether it was possible to kill people. but our lawyers said no it's going to be really tricky if you do that right so a few important changes yeah i mean i think people are were fascinated by that world there's a huge fan base that that we would love the the drama and they were interested and wanted to see what a real version was like because again like a lot of these shows like us when we were talking about race across the world people are thinking what what would it be like if i was doing it and again i I think with Squid Game, it was always, what would it be like if I was in that situation?

39:41And the show enables you to see what it would be like in a way that I think people find compelling. It's a huge financial prize as well. And that was the kind of unscripted. That was the kind of, how do you, obviously we're not going to kill people. So what do you do that somehow gives the same sense of, oh God, this is terrible. I've been eliminated. Well, I think the size of the prize was crucial to that. It meant that everybody, you don't die, but your dreams die when you get eliminated. That's somehow worse, isn't it? 4.56 million is not going to be yours, Stephen. You're out. It's not. Okay.

40:26And only one person is going to get it. One person gets it. And that's, I mean, it's a very hard show to make because if you're making the scripted version, you've got a script. And those are pretty useful things. That means you know who's going to win and you know which characters to follow because they're the ones who are going to get it. And you don't. And we don't. And so we're having to... Putting it together and shooting it is a bit like a relay race. You build a baton and you're following somebody that you get interested in. and then they get eliminated by that point. Hopefully the baton has been passed to somebody else.

41:08And so as you get closer towards the end, the characters that will take you to the end have started to emerge both in the filming but also in the edit. Because it's not like we can just... There's so many people, there are so many people that... 450 something. 456, that we can't film them all. So it's not like we can go back and go, oh, well, we know who's going to win. Let's get all the footage of what they were doing at the beginning. We just don't have it. And if we do it, there'll be brief shots. There won't be interesting stuff that will make us build them up as characters. So that's, in production terms, a complicated task.

41:48Very complicated. So I'm interested in a couple of things just before we put traitors to bed. Keeping it confidential, I mean, you know who's one. You're sitting opposite. I'm not going to ask you, obviously, but how do you make sure that doesn't leak out? I mean, that's a huge thing because we're all on sort of tenterhooks. Do you get them to sign some? I mean, how do you make sure that happens? Because it would obviously spoil it. Yes. I mean, everybody has contracts that say you can't talk about the show, whether they're celebrities or civilians. Some of them are better than others at reading their contracts and sticking to them.

42:24Fortunately, when it comes to the press, they don't want to ruin it for... So they might have heard a rumour, but they're not going to publish anything. There's always a danger that people will say something if they think they've heard something on social media. But a rumour on social media isn't very definitive. So people, it doesn't look that different to just somebody saying, well, I think they're going to win. Yeah. So you do need the sort of goodwill of the press. You do need the goodwill of the press. But they don't want to spoil it for everyone. They don't want to spoil it for everyone.

42:55It is also, you know, people watch Hamlet over and over again. I mean, in the end of the day, I don't necessarily know that if you did know who was going to win, it would be the end of the world. You're still fascinated to know how they, how the winners were able to win. You don't need to actually have that as a secret. All stories, what you want to know is how did it come about rather than actually what the final result was. But yeah, I mean, we put an awful lot of effort into keeping it secret. And just a sort of production question, how long is everyone in the castle for? Because aren't they sort of cut off from the outside world and they go and film there?

43:36They cut off from the outside. Several weeks? Well, no, each episode is shot in a day. Okay. I mean, the first episode tends to get shot in more than a day because they arrive and then there's a whole lot of press stuff you've got to do. How long would they typically be there? Two weeks? well if they get murdered or banished early on they're not there for very long at all but if you're there to the end then you know it's a the shows tend to be like well the celebrity one's 9 episodes the civilian one is 12 episodes so you're there for 12 9 days plus a few extra days plus you arrive you know to get acclimatised I mean so it's yes it's about 2 weeks yeah and that sort of intense engagement yes it is very intense you can tell I mean looking at it well I think crucially with all these shows it's the same with Squid Game you create a world where we try not to be in there with them as much as possible you as the production team we the production team the camera coverage is such that they just get on with it I mean, they get dropped off.

44:49They kind of know. That's another reason why it's very important that you do the whole episode in a day, because they're sort of picking up the rhythm of the show. They know. They get dropped off. They go to breakfast. They know what to do. I mean, Claudia comes in and tells them a little bit. They know when the clock's like, oh, it's time to go home. I mean, you don't need somebody to keep telling them what to do. And we don't ever tell them, go and do this, or why don't you go and say that, or. So it has its own energy. So it has its own energy, because the most important thing is it's authentic.

45:20So there's no direction going on. No. I mean, we're trying to work out what we think might happen. We're all the time anticipating, but that's not the same thing as trying to tell them what to do. And also remember, it's a competition. I mean, particularly with the civilian versions, people are winning quite a lot of money. And so with any competition, there are very strict rules. i mean with squid game the challenge the amount of money is enormous so the rules are equally very very strict you know we you can't interfere in any way as a producer in a no you can't have a favorite faithful or anything like that no stephen fry gets it he gets it i suppose indeed indeed looking forward i mean i i meet lots of young people who say they want to work in tv or they want to go into film and it isn't obvious how someone might do that.

46:16I bet you get a lot of people coming to you. But if someone was interested in this space, I mean, you went into it through an unusual route. You said doing a PhD about Channel 4 and often unusual routes are the best. But what should a young person who's interested in this space, because it is a huge industry now and something that Britain clearly excels at thanks to you and others. What should a young person be thinking about or trying to sort of learn or what experience might they usefully get to start that journey, Stephen? The obvious one is watch television. It's amazing how many people tell it out.

46:51Really? Is it obvious? They come to you and they haven't watched it. When you start asking them about television programs and they haven't watched a lot of things, try and watch television, not just television today, but there's so much historical, I mean, interesting television, whether it's dramas or reality shows or whatever that give you a historical perspective of where television has come from develop your critical faculties watch television and start thinking about why do I like this program, what's making it work or why don't I like this program and what's making it not work for me how would I change this program that's not working for me to make it better learn how to talk about television so that you're discussing it as a medium through which if you're interested in working in it, you understand what are its constituent parts and which bits, well, all bits are crucial to making it work, but, you know, why did they get it wrong?

47:52I mean, with scripted programs, it's amazing because so much energy goes into the script, and yet sometimes you watch things and you think, why on earth does this ever get ordered? because the script was terrible. But obviously somebody thought it was good and why would they have thought it was good? And also what is a particular program trying to do? Obviously programs are doing different kinds of things, not just in terms of what they're about, but also what they're doing in a schedule because television is largely still commissioned for a linear schedule, even though so much is watched on streaming platforms.

48:31but even on a streaming platform, even on Netflix, you've got to think about, well, what are they actually doing? How are they spending their money? What percentage of their money are they spending on kind of low-cost programs? What kind of programs are they buying that probably don't cost that much? Why are they deciding to spend a lot of money on those big ones? Just read about television. Watch television. Learn to talk about it. Immerse yourself. Immerse yourself. That's the number one thing. The number two thing is, yeah, I mean, it's hard. There's so many people want to work in. That's what I'm seeing, yeah.

49:11But it's equally much easier today to make something and put it up on YouTube or to put it elsewhere, I mean, on Instagram or whatever. What's it called, a sizzle tape? Make your own sizzle tape. Make your own sizzle tape of your skills. I was thinking about your CBS experience. Indeed, indeed. I know I understand, yes. But you don't have to just make a sizzle tape. You can make a little, come up with something that, a comedy of some kind, going into, people can do amazing things with very little these days. With phones. And they can show, with phones, and they can show their creative sensibility and skills.

49:54I mean, but this is so exciting in a way, because you can do this with nothing, really. Yes, of course. There are no barriers to entry. You don't have to have huge amounts of capital. I mean, if you're interested in television, think about two people that you know who you think are very funny and just arrange for them to talk to each other and film it and edit it because it's also not very difficult to edit and put it up on YouTube. And then you can show people stuff that you're doing. So you must have them get started in some way. Then get started in some way. And then the hardest bit of all is sort of latch on to somebody who's a mentor.

50:28I mean, most people in television have at some point early in their career, they've found somebody that they've managed to build a relationship with so that that person sort of helps them get going and sort of helps them get in the door or gets the break. A bit of encouragement or some introductions. Yeah. But I mean, none of that's easy. No. But it's all eminently possible. It's all legitimately possible if you're really driven. Yeah, I'm often surprised at people's lack of interest in kind of really understanding what television is and where it's come from. And I think of you... Which is where we began our conversation.

51:11It is. Yeah. So you think that's... So understanding that is critical, really, you think. I think it... Well, you've helped explain it, actually, in this conversation for anyone listening. They've got to start already. We need to know where we've come from and what's been done. Can I ask you, you mentioned, I mean, you mentioned the importance of watching television. Are there unscripted shows not made by you that you think, that you really like? Oh, well, all the hits that we don't make, I wish we would have made. So which ones are you thinking of? That's just interesting. Well, I mean, Bake Off is a huge hit.

51:44Bake Off. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Yeah. In America, Survivor. I mean, yeah. I'm very, it's really hard to make a popular successful program. I bet. Because I'm often amazed because when I was a documentary maker at the BBC there was always a kind of, oh, well, we make the real stuff. We're telling the people about the documentary. We're telling people about how the world is. We're not making kind of sort of entertainment stuff. This is psychology we've been talking about. But exactly. And the idea that, oh, well, you can just default to popular, easy stuff. It's the hardest thing in the world to come up with something.

52:30It's much harder, in my mind or in my experience, to sit around with clever colleagues and try and design a new popular, returning, entertaining programme than it is to, say, go and make a documentary about, I don't know, anything. Policemen in South Africa. Policemen in South Africa. Because essentially, if I want to make a program about placement in South Africa, okay, well, I've got to find some charming way of persuading the people who are the gatekeepers to let us in. And there are all kinds of techniques for how you do that. But they're essentially practical skills. I mean, there's skills about how to persuade people, how to be around, how to win people's trust, how you start filming, what kinds of things you film that will make a bit of narrative for you, how you then put all that together in a cutting room.

53:21All that is skills that you kind of start to learn as you're in television. You get better and better at it. But that's an easier process, I still think, than to sit there and kind of with a piece of blank paper. but let's just come up with something now that is going to be a design for a program that is a format that will repeat. There's sufficient variation so that people aren't watching the same thing over and over again, but they are watching something that is essentially repeating. I mean, each season of Traitors, the same format is happening. it's just that it's designed in such a way that there's sufficient variation because of the change of the cast and because of the way the game plays out so that is a very intellectually challenging I can see that it's a hard thing to do much harder I think than the practical skills of actually making say a documentary talk me through that a bit then so you have a group of people how many of you would sit around with this blank piece of paper and how do you sort of, I don't like the word, ideate or create some new format?

54:35I mean, you've obviously done it a number of times. I've done it a lot. I mean, these days, my younger colleagues do most of it. I tend to get more involved as we get to the point where an idea is sort of at the point where we're trying to sell it to the buyers. It's where people have to sum up the money. I mean, the hardest thing in television, I think, is persuading somebody to give you the money to make a television program. So how much money are we talking about, just so people understand? Television programs used to be in the hundreds of thousands, I mean, the kind of programs that we make.

55:11Now they can be over a million an episode. And I mean, in the case of something like Squid Game, The Challenge, it's, you know, more than, I mean, it's millions as opposed to an episode rather than. So someone's writing you a big check at this point. They're writing you a big check. To buy this outfit. We made a decision, my partner, Tim and I, a few years ago, to just concentrate on big shows because we had the view that, of thinking about it from the buyer's point of view, the buyers are going to lose their jobs if they buy very expensive shows and they don't work. And so they're taking a huge risk.

55:52and yet they know that in order to kind of stand out, by and large they need to take these big risks because those big shows are the shows that are the ones that are going to appeal. Get on the front page of the sun. Get on the front page of the sun. And so if you're going to be a buyer buying big shows, you're only going to buy from people that you know can actually deliver and are not going to screw up. so even if you've got a good idea for a big show if you don't know how to make it or if you haven't got the track record that says you can make it then you're very unlikely to actually get that bought right and so you need the combination that come once you can get into that club once you're in that club of we make big shows and we can deliver and they're good it's surprisingly not as crowded a club as other parts of television yeah i'm thinking there's some barriers to entry So that makes it a good business though.

56:50That does make it a good business. If you're concentrating on big shows, then there's less competition and the rewards are greater. So I'm thinking about the business studio Lambert. You've become part of all three media, so they acquired your business, is that right? And just talk me through that because... I mean, you've got quite an interesting business model, as I understand. Well, I'm constrained from saying too much about a business model. Fair enough. But we talked earlier on about how television, independent television developed and how in the early 2000s, the independent sector finally got a better deal out of, with the support of government.

57:37And as a result, for the first time, money did start to come into the sector, outside money. And as a result, there's been quite a consolidation process. And so a lot of independent production companies have been bought and become part of big groups. And those groups are able to kind of avoid the sort of problem of being too small. And so you kind of feast and famine. If you're large enough, then you've got enough of these returning programs. And when something drops away, you've got something else coming through. And it's on a scale. also enables you to have a, you know, if television is either sold to buyers who take all the rights like Netflix or they're sold to people like the BBC or NBC in America who just take the rights to their particular territories, that second group of buyers are much better from an independence point of view because you then get the right to sell the program and the finished program and the format all around the world.

58:39And if you're part of a big group, the distribution company will then be a very effective seller of your tape and your formats to all the territories. And that's how the sector benefits. I mean, how you retain talent is difficult. And we've come up with quite ingenious deals that enabled us to incentivize everybody in our company, or not everybody, but all the key people to keep staying and to do deals where there are rewards over time that depend on how well we're doing. And they, as well as the culture of the company, have been the key things in terms of making us successful. So just sort of looking ahead a little bit as we come towards the end of the conversation, I mean, what excites you most about the future of Unscripted?

59:37I mean, it's obviously a world in which you're leading, but what's next in this space? Well, the new big thing. I mean, I don't know that there's a theme of what's going to excite me. I mean, we are trying to take a lesson from Squid Game and seeing other big existing IP and how we can turn something that already exists either as a game or as a big drama series and turn that into a big unscripted show. Obviously coming up with new ideas ourselves and we're looking for opportunities to partner with the right people or to take something where somebody comes to you with an idea for... So you're open to ideas from the right places.

1:00:30We're open to ideas that tend to come to us from a buyer rather than from sort of individuals. In other words, if a broadcaster like Netflix came to us and talked about wanting us to do an unscripted version of Squid Game, that kind of thing rather than... Because, I mean, we employ a lot of people. We employ a very talented development team to create our own ideas. so every time we take an idea from or if we ever took an idea from outside of our own group our own in-house people there's an opportunity cost and that's complicated it's a dilution so we tend not to do that but obviously if a broadcaster comes to us or a streamer comes to us with something and says do you want to make this into a into a show then that's quite exciting and you know that then often it will it will happen yeah well as as it did with squid game the challenge Lastly, Stephen, is there anything you wish you'd known at the beginning of your career that you know now that you could have told your younger self?

1:01:31By Apple. By Apple. Yeah, I wish I'd known that as well. That's a very good answer. I don't know what the equivalent is for the future, but there must be something out there for anyone to keep an eye on. I don't know. Gosh, I listened back to a tape of an interview I did when I wrote my book in 1982, and I realised I was so wrapped up in the subject matter that I was describing the trees and I couldn't actually describe the wood. and I think to be able to tell people when they're young immerse yourself in knowledge about whatever it is that you're interested in but then also be able to try to step back and talk about it in a way as if you're explaining it to your slightly deaf aunt rather than thinking that I need to explain all this complexity in detail is something that would have been useful for me to have appreciated quicker.

1:02:38Why do you say that? It's an interesting answer. Well, I just think as a young person, I was very interested in the detail of things and that I would often have been asked about it, would want to explain it in too much complexity. I mean, I think even in this conversation, I just think that people get bored unless you tell it in a very good way. Finding a web. Or also that if you're trying to communicate in almost any situation, you have to be able to work out what is the actual pithy important bits and being able to develop your skill. It's no good thinking you know what the pithy important bits are if you don't actually know the subject.

1:03:21But then if you know the subject in great detail, don't think you've got to explain all that detail. And make sure you know what the pithy important bits are. Exactly. I mean, that's a communication skill, isn't it? Yes, it is. Getting your message across. Yes. Or if you've got five minutes with someone, what's the one thing you want them to know about you when they leave? Absolutely. And that's a sales skill as well, I suppose. It is a sales skill. And I think that one's sales skills got. I learned my sales skill from talking people into taking part in documentaries. Right. And interviewing people in documentaries.

1:03:52I mean, that you're listening all the time and you're trying to... I think the best salespeople are listening as much as they're pitching. They're picking up all the signals of what the buyer, the listener, is reacting to what you're saying. And you're responding to those, but in a way that isn't over-responsive. I remember going on a sales course years ago, and I was just told you've got two ears and one mouth. so that was quite a helpful pithy summary of that what you're saying yeah i agree and and what's interesting you know you've been describing these these wonderful programs and the psychology behind them the importance of ideas but you've still got to do sales and every business whatever activity it is we're in involves what i mostly do these days is is is my energy main energy goes into getting things across the line because some young people i meet say oh i don't want to do sales i'm worried about doing so i don't want to pick up the phone but everyone has to do that you know you're the top of the tree in terms of television production that's your main activity you just said yeah and and it's true for what i do and i mean you might be a top lawyer it's true for what they do or people in business so i think those skills what you just said is very illuminating to learn how to do that early on will help anyone in any activity absolutely when i was trying to persuade people to take part in documentaries particularly if they had views like south african policemen who I wouldn't necessarily chair, you want them to feel that they are persuading you of their point of view.

1:05:29That doesn't mean you should go straight into going, oh, I completely agree with you. But if you kind of acknowledge their worldview and sort of, oh, I see what you're saying is this, then people feel so much more comfortable and relaxed about the fact that they think they've won you over. And that's how you form a relationship of trust in many cases because you're sort of... Well, you're being respectful. You're being respectful and you're repeating back your understanding of what it is that they're trying to say to you. And that's actually a technique that one uses in selling all the time. But if you understand, I think that for us, we put a lot of energy into understanding the position of the buyer when it comes to selling a television program.

1:06:11What's their position in the organization? Who do they have to sell to in order to get approval to get this thing to go ahead? It's, you know, too many people are selling thinking that it's all about them and it's actually all about the person who's buying that you've got to worry about. You know, that's so true and it's most true in job interviews. I mean, people think, you know, I explain to people in one of my books that a job is a problem to be solved. And when you go into the interview, you've got to present yourself as the solution to the problem, not what's in it for me. and you're saying the same.

1:06:50Absolutely. In this different area. This idea I have for you, James, as a television program is just what you need to solve all your problems. Yeah, I've sold, Steve. I can see why this has worked out so well for you. I've so enjoyed talking to you and I wish you continued success. Can't wait to see who wins Traitors on Thursday. And congratulations again on your Emmy, which was for Traitors in America. I asked two questions at the end of every one of my podcast conversations, which I'm going to ask you. The first question, because here at Reid we love Mondays, is what gets you up, Stephen, on a Monday morning?

1:07:26My trainer. Your trainer. Very good. I have to be up for him because I see him on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. And then I don't know. What time does that start? 7.30. Right. Very good. And then I... Why do you do that? because i don't want to die early good answer you think that'll help yeah i agree i do keep telling him i've read another book that says exercises to push you too hard as i as he makes me do another horrible thing horrible crunch i i've just read another book that says exercise is bad for you but he doesn't believe me that's not in it it's not in his interest to believe you but no i love the game i love getting up and you know I love that moment when somebody says yes they're going to buy something I love that moment when you read the overnights which is the numbers that come in that tell you how well a program has done and they're bigger than you thought and you go oh my god yes I actually also like it when you go to an award ceremony and they say and the winner is and it's your show there's a lot of highs and I love the teamwork of you know of programs being made I mean the magic of television is the way You've kindly said that we've been doing a lot of programs that have entertained millions.

1:08:47But what's extraordinary is you can have an idea in your head. And in such a short period of time, it can be in millions of people's heads.

1:08:58That transference. Very powerful medium. That transference. But it's just the fact that you don't have to build huge infrastructure, physical infrastructure, to manufacture something and then sell it and get it out. It's a relatively light kind of physical infrastructure system and really quite quick. I mean, often it takes longer than you want it to, but the process that you can have, we could have an idea today, go and see the right buyer. We could be making it in the next few months and it could be on television early next year. And if it's a hit, millions and millions of people have now seen it and it's got inside their heads whereas before it was just in our heads that's a very intoxicating proposition i can see that i can see that and i can see why you love mondays so see my last question which is from my book why you 101 interview questions you'll never fear again it's a very straightforward one is where do you see yourself in five years time five years well i don't know i think i will by then probably have stepped back a bit further.

1:10:15I mean, the last few years I've been stepping, I'm very good at delegating and I probably will have delegated that much more. Whether I'm still involved in this company in the same way in five years time, I don't know. But I have so many other interests and I love doing other things that, and I'm, you know, in five years time I'll be in my early 70s so I just don't know it's a big question for me because I need to try and work out what I want to do in the remaining time you suddenly as you get into your into your late 60s you start suddenly realizing there isn't that much time left and working out whether you want to do the same thing or whether you want to do other things is is is very much in my mind at the moment and I think five years is the time that I will sort of make that decision over you'll probably be watching television some other time i'll definitely be watching television i suspect some of the shows will have your stamp on them but i i wish you you know continue success and whatever that transitional journey wherever it takes you um i wish you all the very best thanks so much for coming in to talk to me steven thanks really enjoyed our conversation and I've learned a lot about how TV is made and your thought process around it.

1:11:37So thank you. Pleasure. Thank you. A huge thank you to Stephen Lambert for sharing his insights into building Studio Lambert, creating the traitors and navigating the fast-changing world of television. I'm your host, James Reid, chairman and CEO of Reid, a family-run recruitment and philanthropy company. If you want to learn more about Studio Lambert, Stephen or Reid, you'll find all the links in the show notes. See you next time!