Will Christmas Be A Silent Night For Broadcasters?

0:01Hello and welcome to the Media Club. I'm Matt Deegan. In the club today, ITV's ad revenue slides and so 30 millions of savings follow. What's left under the tree? TV critic Scott Bryan on the format's broadcasters are pinning their hopes on this Christmas. Also on the show, AI actors, AI reality shows and the whole of the BFI South Bank broadcast Chris Curtis on what he learned at the AI Creative Summit. All that plus Google gives the news brands the cold shoulder, Trump's BBC case clears a big hurdle, and in the audio network Media Queers, we swipe through the week's most inspirational carousels.

0:35That's all happening in this edition of the Media Club. Come on in. Joining me are two club members to discuss the week's biggest media news. First, welcome back to TV Critics, Scott Bryan. Hi Matt. Who would you like to bring to the club this week? I would like to bring along the comedian Lucy Beaumont, who's been a whistleblower in the bombshell David Walliams investigation. Of course, Walliams denies the allegations. I would highly recommend her interview that she gave with Kathy Newman on Sky News. And I think she's also shone a light on the issues of NDAs and kind of the consequences that some are claiming that it's used by to cover the actions of predatory men.

1:14And I think this has been a conversation that's been generating speed for a while, but it feels really in this very difficult week, I think, facing the media industry. This sort of feels like it's going to be one of the big pressing issues going forward. And it's hard to put your head above the parapet. Oh, massively so. Particularly for kind of talent in the sectors, like doing the right thing, but also looking after yourself and your family and what you're comfortable talking about as well. I mean, and it's a industry that I think the people who run it are the same who have run it for quite some time.

1:47So there's that fear. I think also it's a freelance industry, primarily small productions. And I think sometimes, you know, you have the actions of real good people who try to shine the light on things, but then they get the reputation by others of being difficult. Yes. Which, of course, is completely and utterly unfair. So that's why it made her actions also brave, because she knew that that could be having a detrimental effect on her career, but she still did it anyway. Yeah, did the right thing. And also joining us is Chris Curtis, editor in chief of Broadcast, fresh from a day at the BFI South Bank in the company of robots.

2:23Chris, who would you like to honour with your plus one this week? Well, I'm following Scott, really. It's not been a great week for our sector. It's been a pretty miserable week, all things considered. For the second time in these sort of talent, misbehaviour, criminal action, sexual abuse sort of stories, we've had a partnership between a broadcaster and a newspaper for some really impressive, good old fashioned investigative journalism. So that was Lucy Watson led the reporting from ITN and Maeve McClenaghan and Rachel Healy at The Guardian are the individuals worth a shout out. And yeah, three years, I think it was, of work comes to a head with them publishing an amazing piece of journalism in a pretty terrible week for the industry.

3:11Like in terms of what people outside of our sector think about telly, it's been really, really detrimental. and there's a couple of things I wanted to say really we're not going to talk about it in too much detail but the industry still has undoubtedly a problem with talent relationships and the level of fawning over talent and the level of excuses that are made for talent and I'm not necessarily talking about the extremes of terrible terrible behavior that we've seen in the case of Russell Brandt and the allegations around David Walliams but just in general if you have a culture of yeah i can't think of a better word than fawning around talent then you set yourself up for problems and then the gap the gap between the good words and the strong intentions of the people at the top of the industry who really you know have been very strong zero tolerance wanting to make the television industry a great and inclusive and safe place to work but the reality is that the people on the front line the people on production on set in the studio whatever it might be when the pressure is on when the talent is powerful that bad behavior that goes on doesn't get called out for some of the reasons that that scott alluded to and there is a gap there is a gap that the industry must close between the intentions and the reality and people have got to be empowered and feel able to say we're not having this so yeah that's that's sort of where we've ended up on a on a pretty rotten week.

4:42But there are lots of, you know, we must be careful. There's lots of great things going on in our industry. It's important to celebrate those as well. Okay. In a moment, ITV has found£30 million of savings. The question is, whose show was that money going to pay for? That's after the break. Still waiting in line? Again? That's time you will never get back. Save time and money with Stamps.com. Over 4 million businesses have skipped the line with Stamps.com. Join them to save up to 90 % off carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, registered mail, and packages in seconds.

5:20Get$20 in free postage when you sign up for the pro plan at Stamps.com slash Black Friday 2026. Terms and conditions apply. Thumbtack presents Home Overwhelm. Everywhere I go in my house, it feels like an unfinished project is heckling me. the uneven grout on the kitchen backsplash stares me down do i have to find a specialist to fix that tiling mess the ripped carpet by the basement door snags my shoe do i rip out all the carpet or just replace that section what do i wait what if i just use thumbtack i can find top rated pros for over 500 home categories and projects easily compare prices and read reviews on thumbtack download the app today

6:08welcome back to the media club itv warned on wednesday that advertisers have gone a bit quiet ad revenue fell eight percent in the third quarter worse than it had expected and now it's bracing for a drop of up to ten percent in the final three months of the year so out come the scissors 30 million pounds of what it's calling temporary savings on content and elsewhere chris caroline mccall blames three things the wider economy the global streamers ad tears and junk food ad restrictions uh is she correct she's definitely correct in the terms of those are all things that are undermining itv's ability to to make money um it's interesting the streamers muscling in on the act when they launched their ad tiers in the uk early on it didn't really feel like they had much leverage or or or momentum that's changed i think certainly as they continue to take market share and frankly as more and more of the viewers of netflix amazon and disney in the uk are on these ad tier packages i mean you know that that that's that's that's the the important thing i think i mean amazon effectively ad tier is now standard you have to you have to pay more to not have ads it's not that you you you move down to um to enable them to serve you ads so that that's that's a big change for the sector i think in disney plus i think it's almost impossible to opt out of ads at any level now yes i mean streamers are interested in live programming they're interested in sports rights they're interested in advertising they're interested in all genres it's a bit like they've invented television isn't it well it's the same thing i find with sky whenever they're like oh you can watch hbo max and disney plus all under one roof and i was thinking to myself disney wasn't that the deal 10 years ago before you actually have to have your own streaming service so there we go well scott um i mean as they as they face these challenges i mean streaming hours on itvx actually are pretty strong yeah up 29 percent um is their output changing fast enough as viewers shift well they say that um you know they've already matched last year's um hits in terms of the number of people watching itvx compared to um this time last year so you know before the big christmas rush which is quite an achievement but i think it's also fair to say that quite a lot of their main entertainment um saturday night offerings I've kind of fallen on its face and expensively like Graham Norton's The Neighborhood.

8:34You know, that got bumped to really late night and they dropped all of the episodes of the rest of the series in one go, which doesn't suggest that they had much faith in how well it was going to perform. Same with Gary Lineker's The Box. Yes. You know, that was an untested format, but that yet again, heavily promoted and didn't necessarily land well. and i do feel for them because one thing that does work for itv are those kind of 9 p.m dramas maybe on successive weeknights but as we all have discussed many times it's much cheaper to do an unscripted format than it is to make a scripted format because the costs have gone through the roof and you've got to have a distribution partner somewhere in the us so i think they are finding it rather difficult i think also itv at the moment feels to be like it's treading water just because you know they're waiting for whether they'll get the approval by dcms in regards to sky's takeover of course you wouldn't want to commit to any large long-scale long-term project thinking that actually the moment that sky by you they might change the creative team even though they say they're going to maintain the public service commitments so i think um you know that could have an adverse effect on them in in the short term at least but then you also have to look back and say not to be super cynical here just the structural difficulties the whole tv industry is facing you know younger viewers are not watching tv they're on youtube maybe food for tv and that's where a lot of this advertising money's going and it makes you wonder you know is this advertising going to go back to itv yeah i mean chris i mean some of these some of these changes are any of them sort of in preparation to tidy things up for sky or is that just very much uh ahead of them they're not really thinking about that yet no i think looks and i think scott's right in the sense of that there is a bit of a feeling that sort of corporately they're they're treading water i mean you you hear talk that they're sitting on quite a lot of inventory quite a lot of stock quite a lot of programming that they're not playing out this is this is part of the way they're saving the money isn't it they've like programs that are ready to go out so just being bumped to next year that's right it's to do with payment terms and you make a final payment on on tx etc um so they're definitely being cautious there's not i mean understandably ultimately itv absolutely is a public service broadcaster this is a listed company trying to do the best for its shareholders and they're behaving cautiously uh conservatively with a small c around sort of spending at a time when as you talked about market uh conditions are tough there are there are big structural problems facing legacy broadcasters and it is also true that the appetite for really high quality long form programming has not diminished and if you look at the the blame is their big scripted hit um michelle keegan thriller corrupt police uh series it's doing really well it's doing really well and it's classic uh core itv uh good talent resonates with audiences big hit so it isn't true that you what what itv is serving up no one wants anymore but it is also true that there are massive structural problems and that business is trying to evolve to keep up with uh changing viewer viewer habits and also that their production arm is obviously that's not going to sky is doing pretty well the gentleman i think's one of their labels too they can kind of have hits in different places that aren't the broadcast channels uh next up more than two-thirds of the uk's biggest news websites became less visible on google this year according to cistrix data reported by the press gazette bbc news roughly halved the guardian and the new york times both slipped as well and the biggest rise sub stack uh it more than doubled chris seo consultant barry adams said these sites didn't do anything wrong google is simply letting smaller sites in and search is now a zero sum game so everybody's fighting for for the same space does a title like yours broadcast your subscription title do you still need that google juice the truth is that broadcast is a very very niche publication we've got about 9 000 paying subscribers and we've got a hard paywall and we engage with our subscribers really heavily through newsletters and so newsletters our own newsletters drive traffic from our own subscribers and traffic from our subs is the single most important metric for us so we haven't we're not caught out by um uh google gemini ai answers being given rather than links because there are not loads of people googling terms and then coming to our site to read content and if they are doing that frankly they won't be able to read it anyway because it's paywalled um so it hasn't been a huge problem for us but it is a massive problem for the for the publishing industry and um i do think that you know everyone experiences it in in in in life in their own personal life if you think about the volume of web links that you click proportionally since google introduced a sort of ai summary at the top of search i suspect for everyone it's gone it's gone down and that is a that is a problem for general news consumption on general news sites where google is still absolutely the front door and the main driver of traffic scott do you think is this part of substack success is that a lot of those um publications aren't sort of writing for clickbait you know they're writing for audiences does that make it a more interesting thing to flag up to google search visitors i think partially but i also think there's been the rise of sort of the independent journalists it has been running for quite a while you're seeing i think in parallel with the rise of influencers you know people who have a name for themselves um for the work that they do uh that is not necessarily uh tied to just one organization and they sort of are able to build an audience but also have them pay for that access in the same way of patreon and and i think substack have just been providing the easiest and most straightforward means to go and do so and i think you know you only have to look at the big names joining in fairly recent weeks like marina hyde who cleverly i think takes what used to be in a guardian column but now also puts it onto sub stack and now makes those um sort of columns into youtube videos and i think that's a really smart way to go and do it i guess a challenge and i'm saying this as a person who uh for full transparency has a sub stack please subscribe um is the fact that um there is a concern i think about how much consumers are individually willing to pay you know there's only so many sub stacks that people are happy to pay out for before they think to themselves hang on why not i just buy a magazine but when you're writing that you came from from buzzfeed originally yeah very search and seo and social source of i mean a lot of focus a lot of that was about future audience yeah because because Because we never really, and maybe that was a reason why it sort of faded from view, but BuzzFeed was never that SEO focused and never that Google focused.

15:48It was pretty much entirely based on recommendations of people sharing articles that you had written on their social media feeds. Of course, when those social media feeds changed their algorithms, I think that affected it. I think there was also an issue of how much money are you going to get for all of those hits? I think that had a detrimental effect as well. um you know i think even their leadership highlighted that regret was not getting into paid memberships and i think all businesses that you're seeing you know from reach onwards are now quite quickly trying to get and monetize as much of their content in the same way that you would have done so if you bought a newspaper uh just what we got got you chris sort of hear about the ai creative summit that broadcast uh ran this week um i think it's one of your busiest ever nearly 500 people came along uh yes to hear about ai and and the modern media yes that's right um it's the fourth year we've run it and it's the first time that we've sort of taken over uh bfi so we had three streams running in parallel so people that were attending could could choose which sessions to attend um it's become a big event for us it's fascinating to see how attitudes have changed so in year one there was a lot of skepticism nervousness outrage even potentially that the the the a that this technology was coming along and b that we were sort of creating a a conference about it now there's much more appetite to learn to understand people want to know all the time which models are being used to create the the content that we that we showcased um you know there were all sorts of fascinating uh case studies on display we have um tech providers doing doing demonstrations we have we have speakers from everything from sort of google and various standalone ai uh um tech suppliers all the way through to traditional indies talking about how they are making making use of we had a session with the garden and sky talking about the war game and the the military um the military um skirmishes and um explosions across london that they created via ai uh for for the war game their their series and really that's a sort of super efficient um relatively relatively inexpensive version of cgi right and and and a really interesting creative use case for ai so yeah there was lots of that on display and people really trying to get to grips with what it can do what are its strengths and how can it be additive um and how can it unlock new types of storytelling as opposed to the the sort of often prevailing narrative of how many jobs is it going to cost and um and what are the sort of moral implications your keynote came from aline van der velden she's the creator of the ai actress tilly norwood um How did that go down with the room?

18:46Yeah, again, it speaks a little bit, I think, to the open-mindedness of these delegates. I don't think, I mean, you're probably not going to pay£700 to buy a ticket to come along to a conference if all you want to do is throw turnips at the stage. But it is undoubtedly true. It wasn't that long ago. I remember when ITV, or maybe it was ITV Studios, put out a job advert for like a very senior AI executive. and perfectly understandably lots of big name writers drama writers comedy writers were up in arms about this and i understand the reasons why but i think it i think um uh attitudes are moving on and of course it's important to have ip protection of course it's important to have the right regulatory frameworks around all of this but ai as a technology is coming and how we harness it and how we use it and what it can achieve, I think is really important.

19:47If you're a big drama company at the moment, and Scott referenced earlier the massive price inflation of producing high-end drama, if there is a technology that is getting better and better all the time and it's coming down the line and it might allow you to produce your amazing fight sequence or chase sequence or whatever it might be explosion for less that sounds like a good thing to me it's got we're starting to see um more kind of a ai drama in the feed um some of it some of it some of it's all right if you know it's ai and um it's still got some writing involved uh they're just executing it for a platform and creating something new do you do you look at that in a in a different way i just i just don't understand why like there's so much heart that gets put into the creative process and somebody puts all off their work in the hope that somebody gets emotionally moved i just hate the idea that the way now to just make it more efficient is just to get a computer to do it but you have the if you have the creative writing it and it's the the execution of some of the visuals i think like have i been really emotionally sometimes it sounds dramatic but like um gutted when i've seen something and then i think it's actually had ai use yes i do you know i i i just think that half the time if they're using a special effect that's got ai in i just sort of think to myself just don't do the effect but isn't just cgi in a different well but at the same time i mean i know that there's this whole kind of negativity but like the tv industry at the moment is grappling with loads of people out of jobs and now the solution is not to look at the structural issues facing the tv industry or provide some support and empathy in terms of retraining but just say oh we've just replaced it with some ai you know it's just i just i just go you know i just spend well i mean maybe kind of i'm not a person who work in that form of tech and i do know that there is ai assisted capabilities that allow people to do their work can edit them more efficiently that's not my sector i just write and report tv but whenever i review anything that has got some ai use i just go well why should i care okay when we return every broadcaster is hoping it's got a cracker up their sleeve for christmas so who has pulled one scott takes us through the festive telly see you in a moment

22:21how likely do you think another pandemic is it's right at the top of the agenda it will happen it will happen you know the story you remember the headlines but what if you could hear from the people who were actually there i saw a man who'd been hit in the face with two bullets put my camera to my eye and he looked at me with all the pain in the world in those eyes he was trying to move his head to say no and i didn't take that picture i'm kathy newman and i'm going back inside the stories that changed everything with the people at the very heart of them. Search Backstory and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

22:51If this week's news tells us anything, it's that not everything on screen is quite what it seems. But if you want to look like the real thing, the real broadcast quality thing, then you should really contact Podshop Studios where we record the Media Club every week. Each studio has its own distinct look and feel, professionally designed and fully equipped for broadcast quality video recording. You can check out the whole range at podshoponline.co.uk and they're offering Media Club listeners 25 % off their first booking. Just use the code MEDIACLUB at podshoponline.co.uk. Still waiting in line?

23:27Again? That's time you will never get back. Save time and money with Stamps.com. Over 4 million businesses have skipped the line with Stamps.com. Join them to save up to 90 % off carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, registered mail, and packages in seconds. Get$20 in free postage when you sign up for the pro plan at stamps.com slash Black Friday 2026. Terms and conditions apply. In 2011, a woman's body was found in a California vineyard. This is one of those types of murder investigations that you come across maybe once, maybe never. It appeared the killer tried to make the victim unidentifiable.

24:10Much more extreme than any other case I'd ever worked on. It haunted me. For over a decade, she was a Jane Doe. Then she finally had a name. But learning her identity is when the real mystery began. The killer knows who you are, but you don't know who the killer is. So be careful. Because that's not a one and done. I'm Olivia LaVoice, and this is Ada. All episodes available now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

25:09BBC says it's surprised by the ruling and has until 1st of December to file its formal answer. As we've been hearing, David Walliams has been named as PPT, the man behind that failed injunction bid. The Guardian and ITV News published their joint investigation on Tuesday, alleging he used celebrity to pursue sexual contact with teenage girls and young women. He strongly denies the allegations. The BBC sky and Channel 4 have all removed programmes featuring him from their platforms, from Little Britain to Chitty Flies Again. and tribute has been paid to talk sports danny kelly who has died age 69 after treatment for cancer a former editor of both enemy and q he joined talk sport in 2007 fronting its euro 2008 coverage and became one of its best love voices his friend danny baker described him as the funniest man he'd ever known links to all of our stories are available on our sub stack just go to themediaclub.com and sign up for free that's themediaclub.com uh scott's still with me um scott itv isn't the only broadcaster relying on the next few weeks to rescue the year yeah and the festive lineups are starting to land um what have what are we hearing about first so they're all sort of coming through as a trickle i think what happens is it will be end of this month start of december is when things will be more finalized that's when i speak to any colleague who works at the radio of times they're having a very stressful time because they're having to do like six issues in five weeks and a double issue so thoughts and prayers they're about to have an uphill struggle streamers i think sometimes really care about christmas but a lot of the time just do their own thing on their own schedule anyway yeah obviously the big kind of hba max christmas day thing is the harry potter reboot do you think that's going to dominate family viewing probably I'm not engaging with it.

26:54I'm going to leave that be personally. But I think what we've seen so far in terms of announcements on other stations is that you have had mostly very well-known shows such as like Ludwig, Amanda Land, The Other Bennett Sister. You know, they've all announced Christmas episodes. In fact, The Other Bennett Sister have announced three episodes for the Christmas period. if you think that they can't be any more episodes of call the midwife there are there's a prequel so the um british tradition of having a very big christmas meal followed by people in labor um will be continuing on for another few years at least is the prequel like send a letter to the midwife something like that but because at one point there was getting like so close to the modern age i was thinking i mean it's been my on running gag with friends it's like we're going to end up with nuns in space because it's just every single year like what's going on in poplar they've seen everything um also channel four were doing that um another mog animation and they're really big a few years ago they're doing another another one based on the very successful judith kerr books um also on channel four as well as doing the traditional bake-offs etc etc the taskmaster new year's treats really quite good this year they've got francis bourgeois chesney hawks rob rinder maria machiri and to off of the news off of the news and to top it off alison hammond that's a really good one that's really quite good i did see someone on on xa oh i'm sad she's only there for the christmas special i would have liked a full season of alison hammond on taskmaster yeah i think her itv contract um might differ on that view i feel um uh death in paradise's christmas special might land on iplayer early yeah this might go a month early i mean fine does it does it does it matter does christmas day matter anymore do you think not so much i mean i think it was so blockbuster of course only a few years ago with gavin and stacy um and with wallace and gromit and of course you can't really hurry up plasticine and gavin and stacy was a one-time thing so i think to have a momentous opportunity um to have the ratings of that size This is something that is really hard to come by.

29:09I am always hopeful that somebody else takes the initiative and go, this is one of the only days of the year where you have actually got a catchment of at least 20 million people. Why not actually make something rather than just make an additional episode of an existing series and make it seem like it's Christmas when it was filmed in July? Well, last year, the BBC had nine of the top 10 shows. I mean, I think one of our best ever social posts is you moaning about ITV. who decided to count down tiktok videos on christmas day for some reason or something christmas eve or something like that but i think also like what gets overlooked i feel all the time is how from boxing day onwards to just after new year's day are the most watched tv days of the entire year because now people are realizing you know particularly if they've got many demands on they hold back deliberately those box sets um to watch in those periods where you don't really know what day it is so even like um just today the second part of rivals um has been released by dominic dredwell collins fantastic set second part to the second series but i bet you that disney i mean disney plus won't release their figures but i bet that they will surpass any viewing ship then in terms of post christmas than it will now yeah because audiences will just go oh yeah i've been meaning to watch that thing yeah um obviously there's the itv one percent club Christmas special.

30:29That's obviously core. Of course. How could I forget? Are there any TV traditions you would scrap? Obviously, obviously we've got like this idea of like, yeah, burn it to the ground. You know, it's like it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. You always had like kind of top of the pops on Christmas Day. Well, that's kind of gone out, isn't it? It's now, it's now an eight minute interview somewhere about how great Glastonbury last year was or something. You know, they are, God bless them, trying their best, but it's been, it's nowhere like it was in past. Will we see like the snowman again on like a version of the snowman?

31:03I do not take any negativity about the snowman. Actually, may I just say, the snowman and the snow dog. Yes. Fantastic. Gets a lot of hate because people go, oh, actually, they've now got a dog in it and, you know, the dog lives, et cetera, et cetera. Spoilers. Kids have to experience sadness. But I think the bit where they fly through London is a beautiful, beautiful animation. And also, not to bring it back to AI, but well, something about it all being handcrafted and the beauty and attention that goes into something that on screen lasts a minute but on the paper must have taken months it's just a beauty to behold i think and lends itself to repeat viewing uh i know on social media you create you create a list of your favorite uh tv shows yeah of the year yeah how many are we up to now 35 okay it's been quite a bumper year thanks to peter levy at bbc look north um for many things i think last year he's the newsreader who just gets on well with um paul the weatherman and he um did one last year called um an item on potholes but he rather crudely and without intention said send me your hole to this email address which as you can imagine uh went down very well on social media so there's a fair few of him again this year just because i think um he's just a joy to do to behold on screen uh a fair few this is the thing i've had so many people now ask me whether they're in the list passes and i won't say who they are partially through excitement but also partially through fear yeah which is your list of sort of list of like wtf yeah which which i think is a joy like i don't want to i try not not not to make anyone come across negatively it's purely celebratory because i think so much of the quirks and funniest moments come from the programs that we watch every single day and then there's something remarkably human when somebody messes up and it's so visible to see but they go along with a joke as well one of my favorites has to be on bbc news recently for the midterm elections where they had the bbc midterm election sign but it was reflected on the grass so it just came up with the words erections really loudly on bbc news and then the next thing i tuned in and there had been inconspicuously cups and paper just placed exactly where the thing was everyone's everyone's watching your your feed your feed and i and i spoke to a senior person at bbc and i asked them did they move the paper there and they said yeah that's good that's the impact you have that's the impact of the journalism i give all year on your other list of big tv shows what uh what should people watch at christmas if they haven't caught this year oh that's a really good question shows this year it hasn't been hasn't been a okay i just think purely because tv's going through the motions far fewer commissions nothing about the quality just the variety i think is not as being there as they would have been in previous years just because i think everyone's struggling a little bit but i would say that um shows such as uh i mean the 70 up um conclusion by asif was absolutely phenomenal tv and i just think that it managed to provide something that was very different have a commentary on the actual flaws of the documentary series itself but also managed to celebrate it simultaneously how can anything do as it as well as that um also think waiting for the out really early on in the year this bbc drama about um based on a real book a memoir about somebody who works um as a philosophy teacher within prison thought that was a really great show but also kind of shoved it away late night on saturday um i even quite liked dare i say uh rise of the rockstar chefs yes i enjoyed that yeah which is essentially two men with the ego the size of small planets going uh we had a big falling out 20 years ago and you go who cares and heston smiling in the corner heston's like i'm just happy to be here why am i here in this argument um it did make me feel slightly sad when i got to the credits and it's gordon's company that makes it but i have to say it was a very really well edited show it was um not a second was wasted i think it highlighted the intensity of that level of restaurant um uh being a chef um i also recommend yeah again made by gordon ramsey the production company but actually really quite good there's a series on apple tv plus called um knife edge the hunt for michelin stars yes and what i like dude from the top draw the instagram yes jesse burgess and and um but it looks at kind of i think it puts the onus away from marco pierre white and gordon remsey and more on to um restaurants today and what i liked about that is that they talk about the cloaks and dagger um uh cryptic way that the michelin awards starts and how they do their their jury and they have somebody in to talk about the process but they can't reveal who they are and they also change their voice so they look like they're an fbr informant and i keep thinking all you're doing is you're just tasting some pasta i've seen both those series and the the way it takes over those poor chefs lives oh yeah getting those michelin stars or going up made me understand a bit more why both why all three of them um in in the rock star series has also driven them all mad uh trying to kind of stay at the top of their game and i think you know the i think what was really good about the rock star chef documentary is that it looks at the pursuit of perfection but not just that what does it cost and i and i think the fact that it can cost your relationship uh your um family uh also i think most importantly probably your sanity yes um i thought that to be rather surprisingly a vulnerable watch yeah which i did not expect particularly when there's so many photos of marco pierre white on different walls in his house yes um a delight may i say you have to see it if you haven't also also there's a lovely bit where Marco Pierre White calls Gordon boy yes which drives Gordon mad but honestly the tension throughout the whole series is I think akin to an episode of Real Housewives that that high you know that that high and that kind of like reunion when they all have an argument at the end of it is very much in keeping okay just enough time for the Audio Network Media Quiz

37:17was it just me versus me yes it's just on you phenomenal think of it like I had a mastermind great stuff uh so somehow i'll still lose three media stories connected by one theme and then shoehorned into the format of an existing media property scott this week it's called swipe for more oh god uh every brand every influencer every life coach has discovered the instagram carousel 10 slides a pastel background and a motivational quote in a nice font so i'm going to read you three inspirational carousel posts you just tell me the story behind the swipe and once again alex audio network has taken that aspirational brief from producer matt and found a playlist of hopeful uplifting tracks to score today's game all cleared as all audio network's tracks are for use on socials uh so scott chris has left you to face this on your own yeah i know uh three questions i wonder where chris had to why chris had to go three questions one contestant uh you still have to shout out when you know the story so scott you say my name it's like we all know it's just me like can you please play by the rules scott will say scott thank you right let's play swipe for more slide one a sunset over a villa nine series countless recouplings voice the way okay one very big decision oh scott it's uh maya jammer who's leaving um love island and signed an exclusive deal with netflix so no shows mentioned just no shows mentioned in their gang I mean Unscripted is going up of course you know they poked Sayida who did who was the commissioner for Traitors and of course hugely influential in terms of that massive hit for the BBC and obviously going on to Netflix and I think like dating formats despite the genre having a lot of difficulty in terms of welfare I think it's still a format of shows that streamers are willing and wanting to make.

39:15Got Blind Date coming on Disney Plus is getting and rebooted. Do you know who's doing that? I do know, but I've forgotten. So I hope that's brilliant. Glad that's not the quiz. But I think, you know, it is, like, unscripted is where the interest is going to be next year. Essentially, streamers are trying to try to do a traitors. And of course, who else would you rather have than a traitors yourself, really? I mean, it's an interesting thing, sort of, I mean, Maya's been around for quite a while. Love Island's been a big hit for her. Obviously, not her show, but she's a big part of it. I think he's been great at it.

39:49And also the BBC, Celebrity Traitors, has done her very well. Yes. I mean, interesting that both BBC and ITV don't get to benefit from how they've helped Maya and she's off to Netflix. But if you look at pretty much every single star that has had a phenomenal show on a public service broadcaster, it hasn't been long until they have signed up for a streamer who can pay considerably more. Ruth Jones, James Corden have signed for an Apple show. not long after they did Gavin and Stacey. Also Phoebe Waller-Bridge, massive deal with Amazon. And I think it's finally making a Tomb Raider series that will be out next year, if not the year after.

40:29So, you know, I think a lot of them still feel a lot of loyalty towards making shows for a public service broadcaster. I remember when Richard Madden, when he was bringing back Half Man, of course, Netflix was a big hit for his previous show. He said he had a lot of loyalty and he wanted to have a program on a show on a channel that was watched by people across the country so you know i'm not saying it's all heading in one direction but i think money talks do you know who replaced uh my jammer who do you think would be not me good not me i was reading something um like someone suggesting liver atwood oh yeah maybe i mean it's a classic case i think somebody who's already got a big social media following themselves i'd say uh okay uh question number two oh yeah back to the quiz hello uh Media law explained a thread.

41:16Slide two. Last week, one famous man's anonymity ended. Slide three. But a podcast says he isn't the only one. Slide four. Why we can't tell you anymore. Slide five. Save this post. Scott Bryan, David Williams. Yeah, not quite. Okay. He denies the allegations. So, investigative journalist Justine Smith has told the Private Eye podcast. Oh, about this. Like, there's another person who has allegations against them. But because there is a apparent injunction, it means that we don't know who they are, which, you know, I think I think it's shocking. Yeah. Yeah. It's shocking for media freedom. I think it's absolutely abhorrent and it has to be completely nightly found a way through our justice system, but also through politically that people cannot hide behind injunctions like this because of the alleged victims.

42:11Really, it's absolutely abhorrent. OK, question number three. slide one 11 people one jungle zero excuses slide two a football legend a kaiser chief oh scott yes so it's the weirdest to say my name out loud this is i'm a celebrity announcing their line up yes any politicians this year no politicians we've got wayne rooney joanna page ricky wilson aj ododu adi adepitan as well yes yeah first wheelchair user in the lovely man in the jungle claire sweeney marily frosterup uh chloe burrows sharky uh and jack skipper i thought not a bad not a bad line not a bad lineup i mean i think it's it's it's done okay for the last year is um i'm a celebrity a show i'd like no is it a show that feels completely outdated so that if you introduce a show uh today where you had people eat bugs or mess around with them i think it would be you know people would be shocked and would actually ban it but because it's been in the tradition of being on British TV and people allow it and also it's a ratings winner.

43:16Yes. So I don't like it but it's there. Good. That makes Scott you the winner of today's quiz. First time. Yeah, thank you. You get to spend your newfound success trying to become the new host of Love Island. Good luck. Oh Matt. When I explicitly said no, only a minute and a half ago. You're ruling yourself out. Absolutely. You're definitely ruling yourself out. You're going to have that here, yeah. Again, my thanks to Scott and to chris and also uh to alex audio network uh for supplying today's music remember audio network can do that for you uh just head to audionetwork.com or click the link in our show notes uh so scott where can people keep up uh with your top tv picks both good shows and tv disasters um as well as the other things you're up to so i'm uh at scottie gb on nearly every written platform because there's now 20 of them um i've also got a substack called worth watching uh i'm on five live every monday reviewing tv and i've also got a book now called out now which is helpfully out now so for marketing purposes a perfect christmas gift very much so it looks at um kind of like the influence of queer tv on british tv it's not just for queer audiences the one thing i kind of highlight because it might seem like that but it's more about how tv changes and influences our lives yes if you love tv it's a great read yes and thank you for listening and watching as Well, my name's Matt Tegan.

44:36The producer was Matt Hill. It was a Rethink Audio production with video support from Podcast Discovery. We'll see you next week.

44:52Still waiting in line? Again? That's time you will never get back. Save time and money with Stamps.com. Over 4 million businesses have skipped the line with Stamps.com. Join them to save up to 90 % off carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, registered mail, and packages in seconds. Get$20 in free postage when you sign up for the pro plan at stamps.com slash Black Friday 2026. Terms and conditions apply. In 2011, a woman's body was found in a California vineyard. This is one of those types of murder investigations that you come across maybe once, maybe never.

45:34it appeared the killer tried to make the victim unidentifiable. Much more extreme than any other case I'd ever worked on. It haunted me. For over a decade, she was a Jane Doe. Then she finally had a name. But learning her identity is when the real mystery began. The killer knows who you are, but you don't know who the killer is. So be careful. Because that's not a one and done. I'm Olivia LaVoice, and this is Ada. All episodes available now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

46:12So retrospectors, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of Today in History? On Monday, how a waxwork on a TV show helped catch one of America's most wanted fugitives. On Tuesday, when French revolutionaries attempted to replace God. On Wednesday, why Stevenage became the poster child for Britain's New Town movement. On Thursday, what was that? The town that exploded a whale and created a meme. And on Friday, we tell the true story of the Amityville horror. That's Today in History with The Retrospectors. 10 minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts.