The Oscars: Does Anyone Care Any More?

26:21Welcome back, everybody. Now, Marina, Jeff Bezos has been on, friend of the podcast, has been on Maneuvers this week. He has been. He's owned the Washington Post for some years and, you know, previous editors have said, oh, you know, he doesn't want to get involved in the newspapers. This billionaire doesn't want to get involved. This guy who has presumably just bought this title for the love of newspapers. OK, well, wake up, because last week he has announced that only opinions that support personal liberties and free markets will be allowed in the comments section of The Washington Post. This is famously the newspaper that wrote Watergate.

26:59You have to remember that American journalism, as discussed previously in this space, takes itself extremely seriously. And which is a shame because there's often so much to amuse one about it. the only things you're allowed to write about are things that support personal liberties and the free market. And he says viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others. Now, the senior opinion editor has already resigned. You shocked me. A little bit of background to this, actually, because it's not his first sort of foray into suddenly doing stuff to do with this title that he's owned for quite a long time.

27:32Just before the election, you know that ridiculous thing. and I do find this ridiculous, by the way, where newspapers write a leader around the globe and say who we would back in the American election. Who we're supporting, yeah. I personally have, I think it's absolutely fatuous, and have you ever voted because what the leader column of the newspaper you happen to read says? Me, yeah. Yeah. Always. I literally, I pay very little attention to anything, then the day before the election, read the Express, and there I go. Huh, so that's what I'm doing today. Always have done, always will do. Having said that, all newspapers do it.

28:02I think it would be great if all newspapers stopped doing it and trying to make things slightly less kind of obviously biased. Having said that, doing it just a few days before the American election, let's be real what his timing was actually about. In very short order, I mean, they lost... So what, yeah, you haven't said what he did. He said, we're not going to endorse presidential candidates because I want to bring back fairness into the news reporting into the mainstream and it will make trust in media higher, which is important. Yes, I agree with you, Jeff, but that's not what you're doing in this case at all.

28:36Anyway, in fairly short order, they lost 250 ,000 subscriptions, I mean, in days, as far as people could work out. Then, just before Christmas, one of the cartoonists did a cartoon of various tech guys and Disney in the form of Mickey Mouse, sort of being like the wise men or otherwise, offering gifts to Trump as he was coming down the, you know, a cartoon of that. That wasn't run. And then the cartoonist resigned. So there's been this sort of, and Bezos was one of those wise men sort of offering things. So there is a sort of sense that he is having said, he lulled everyone into a sort of sense of security and saying, oh, there's going to be a wide variety of opinions for years.

29:15And I'm going to be a hands off owner. Yeah. He said. Okay. Newsflash. And it shouldn't even need to be. When a guy like that buys a newspaper, he doesn't care about newspapers. He literally, he certainly doesn't care about profit because I can tell you this thing lost about 100 million last year. So why is he doing it? He is doing it for power and influence. The same reason Musk bought Twitter. Yeah, actually, all of these, all of those tech guys, all of the American, what we now should really call the American oligarchs, because think of where they were sitting at the inauguration, you know, a row in front of the cabinet.

29:48All of them need a form of media, be it social media, be it legacy media or in a kind of futuristic kind of AI form of media. They all need something like that. Because by and large, they are all snowflakes. They rally against snowflakes, but they don't like to be criticised. But are ones. But of course they are. But I mean, listen, we always accuse other people of being the things that we are. That's human nature. But yeah, certainly, you know, they like to have something that they can completely control and sounds like a big news organisation is supporting them, whereas they are the big news organisation.

30:19But it is also a lever to get them what they want in their business interests, which is kind of, I think, the number one thing, the reason they do it. If you think of all those guys, think of how many of them are in competition with each other. You know, Musk has been at loggerheads with Bezos before. They've got, he wants to protect Amazon and he, which doesn't, don't forget, which doesn't just sell you products. He's like Sting in the 80s. Exactly. Just like that. Just like that. Hopefully he'll start releasing some music soon. That'd be nice. But he wants to protect Amazon, which, don't forget, is involved in health care, which is involved in, obviously, cradle to grave sort of insurance stuff, military contracts, Blue Origin, the space company, which has got lots of significant contracts.

31:01And he wants to protect that. And therefore, he has to do stuff for Trump. So the best way to do stuff for Trump is not to just like buy him a load of products on Amazon, which is what I do when I'm trying to impress somebody. He wants to do things like this to say, we're only going to publish this sort of opinion. And, you know, therefore, if you're attacking Trump on any of those things, you can't really appear any longer in the Washington Post opinion pages. So this is a big move. Yeah. And it's essentially instead of saying you cannot criticise Trump, he's saying you can only write about personal liberties and free markets.

31:30He's sort of a backdoor route into saying, please stop criticising him. It is. And it's interesting. I mean, to me, it's he's becoming such a sort of, you know, he really does. He's always looked like a sort of regional Vin Diesel lookalike. You know, do you get a lot of work? No. Something about acquiring Bond in that same week. And then tweeting, which is the, oh my God, that really depressed people in the Bond family already. That Jeff Bezos was already tweeting to people, who should be the new Bond? You know, that's, oh my God, that's excruciating. You're not the Radio Barxer breakfast show, mate.

32:01Come on. But then I got, it reminded me then of that photo shoot that on almost the first episode ever of this podcast, maybe, or one of the very early ones. We did something on that funny Vogue photo shoot that Lauren Sanchez did. and I thought I've got to go back to those pictures. On that text, wherever it is in West Texas, that kind of space ranch or whatever it is, they've got something called the 10 ,000 year clock. Yeah, it ticks once a year to make some point about something or other, I don't know what. But it bores, it's a great big subterranean thing. I mean, if you look at it, it looks exactly like the sort of thing you would find in a Bond villain's lair.

32:36It goes down multiple stories. For the purposes of this photo shoot, Lauren was sprawled across a section of it in Red Secret, Dolce & Gabbana. Making a different point. Again, a point itself that was slightly obscure. That's clocks for you. He has got that sort of Bond lair, and now he's doing it. I mean, this is the villain, really. Why are they all such Bond villains? It's so weird. It's like... The real knock-off. Yeah, but it's like, you know, they said that the Mafia really changed after The Godfather came out, and they started behaving like the people on The Godfather did. They've all got space rockets.

33:06They're all trying to take over the government. You think, guys, this is... You're literally behaving like super villains. You're literally doing the thing that you've seen in the cinema so many times. Well, it gives them a template. Yeah. So op-eds is essentially the part of a newspaper where some very august people of the day write their opinions on various things, various topical things and give, you know, pronouncements from the mountaintop about what they take is. And in newspapers, they've always been sort of sacrosanct and they've always been, to be a leader writer, a comment writer, has always been a huge deal and a huge privilege.

33:41is that something really though that has disappeared it feels like in fact um bezos said you know um a broad-based opinion section is now the job of the internet and you know it's trite but it's sort of true as well is the op-ed thing is that still something that people read i mean you know i write op do you yeah it's your column op-ed yeah is it that's what it is newspaper columns are op-ed i i totally agree with you in terms of like the significance of them and by the That way, op-ed is opinion editorial. On any op-ed pages, you'll have some people who are your returning columnist, your staff columnist, and you will also get columns in to address the issues of the day.

34:21I don't have a problem with it. It's obviously far less significant than it was because, as you say, the internet has completely taken over. But also, most people would not experience your column as part of the op-ed pages of The Guardian. I agree. Most people would see a link to your column in lots of different places, click on it and read it. On social media, possibly. They might sort of have a way of, you know, I mean, I don't know all these things, but sometimes people say, oh, I have an alert set up for certain things or whatever it may be. But in general, you don't necessarily experience them in that same way.

34:51And that still feels like a relic of newspapers handing down their opinions to you and there being no blowback and no comeback. So this would also affect, you know, anytime you were to read a Washington Post columnist, that would affect those people as well. It's not just like one article a day in the newspaper, their view of the world. It is all the regular economists for The Washington Post would not be allowed to expouse views that weren't to do with personal liberties and free markets. I have to say, it's quite hard to see how it works in practice. If you're, say, like someone who I think is so brilliant, you know, who's a human economist in The Washington Post, Alexander Petri.

35:28If she's not, can she take the piss out of Trump anymore? I mean, because remember, they didn't really have sketch writers, which is such a shame because they have such incredible raw material. But can she take the piss anymore? What are the parameters? Is every column going to be interrogated for, you know, is clearly in support of the endless sort of taxonomy? Is it in support of, is it not? It's quite hard to see how you actually do this on a practical day-to-day basis. Yeah, and it's a shame because she presumably can just take what she does elsewhere, anywhere. And if she's loved by people, then people will pay her.

36:00should probably end up more than the Washington Post. So actually the Washington Post gets hollowed out, but that's not really Basis' concern. But also how many columns do you want to read about the same subject every day? Me? Eight? Yeah. It absolutely depends what the subject is. You're a very idiosyncratic human. If it's how well Calvin Bessie is playing at Fulham, eight, nine? But anything else, no, not so much. Yeah. So I think it's quite difficult. I mean, are you going to just cut the section by a lot, which maybe they're going to have to do, because again, as I say, they're losing lots of money.

36:27But it's interesting to see how it will be rolled out practically. And also, they have lost a lot of people because a lot of people have decided to leave. Whether people will stay and at what point it just sort of becomes hollowed out into something else completely. I don't think it's going to make him any extra money. I don't think people are going to say, oh, I must subscribe to The Washington Post now because they're doing that really great thing about the pillars of liberty. I mean, you know, no. It has one. There's one pair of eyes he's interested in. And that's Trump. Yeah. That's all. Yeah.

36:56And that will make him more money than those quarter of a million subscribers. He has military contracts. And that's democracy. One thing I would say is that, you know, what happens now at the Washington Post? Does everybody resign? Which probably isn't going to happen. But there is something I think it's worth thinking about with liberal newsrooms. All liberal newsrooms over the last, I think, you know, the last 10 years have had some, lots of many or a few at least blow ups on kind of identity politics grounds. And I really do think we're going to come to look back in lots of ways about the all sorts of behaviours during that decade as a kind of detour in cultural philosophy.

37:37And people resigned because I remember in the New York Times ran an article by a senator, a guy called Tom Cotton, saying that they should have used military force during the Black Lives Matter protests that were becoming violent. and this blow up, this identity politics related blow up caused the resignation or the sacking I think of the comment editor of the New York Times the deputy comment editor had to be moved back onto newsroom duties the real gains were not being made by the people who were thinking they were having all those culture war arguments within newsrooms and having these kind of huge blow ups they were actually being made by the right they were being made by all the sort of libertarian right like people like Jeff Bezos.

38:22And it used to be said back in the 80s when we first started hearing the phrase culture war, oh, conservatives start culture wars and liberals end them because what that tended to mean was that, yeah, and then liberals bring some equality legislation and, you know, this thing, we don't talk about this thing anymore. But I have to say now that I'm starting to feel that there's been a 180 on that, which is that liberals started all these culture wars and now conservatives are just ending them. and I wonder whether that the last decade has been usefully spent in having all those kind of silly little blow-ups in newsrooms when you think this was the real problem, okay, and now it's coming home to roost, now your face is being eaten, as it were, and there's not a lot you can do and I think that people might come to realise that those kind of particular arguments and kind of detours were a waste of time and actually the payoff is this.

39:14Yes, there's a particularly specific thing I think you're talking about, which is we are, of course, allowed to disagree with things. And we're, of course, allowed to say, I don't agree with this being in my newspaper. I don't agree with the thrust of this article. That's absolutely fine. It's always going to happen because we all have different opinions about things. It's when you start demanding that a plurality of voices are removed from a newspaper because you don't deem that they fit whatever orthodoxy you agree with. It is very difficult then to argue that what Jeff Bezos is doing is wrong.

39:48Yeah, you're next. He's doing the same thing. He just, he completely disagrees with you. But also, he owns the paper. Yeah, exactly, for some reason. Yeah. But, you know, you have to be able to give your view and to stand up for what you believe in and fight for what you believe in. But perhaps, yes, that idea that this should not be allowed in our newspaper rather opens the door to other people saying this should not be allowed in our newspaper. And as you say more specifically, this sort of thing should not be allowed in my newspaper. Yeah, I think the wrong battles were fought. And now the big battles, the much more serious things, the tanks are sort of steaming in and they can't do a whole lot about it.

40:29so I think tactically in lots of ways once again journalists haven't played it brilliantly Shall we talk about there's been another war that's been going on for the last 10 years or so which is the terrestrial broadcasters BBC ITV Channel 4 against the streamers and it has become absolute received wisdom that streamers are destroying the terrestrial channels now I have been last week looking into all the data of just streaming ratings so forget what the BBC get during the day forget what ITV gets on the day itself, just streaming ratings, not stuff you're watching on normal television, just stuff that you have to click a button and then click another button to watch.

41:11And I think the picture tells us that BBC and ITV particularly have done incredibly well in the streaming era, is the truth. And they've delayed the end of terrestrial television by years and years and years. If you want to look at the top 100 shows of last week, this is just streaming. so forget people watching EastEnders or whatever on an actual channel, just streaming. Of the top 100 shows on streaming last week, it won't surprise you to learn that 60 of them are Netflix shows. 10 of them are Disney, but 10 of them are BBC, 10 of the top 100. Nine of them are ITV, one of them is Channel 4. And given that those channels are dwarfed by the budgets of Netflix and some of the other streamers, I would say that is pretty good going.

41:54The top three shows last week, number one was American Murder, the Gabby Petito documentary on Netflix. Number two, Reacher, which is on Amazon Prime. And number three, The Unforgotten, the ITV drama. When you look through that top 100, and Amanda Land has six episodes in that top 100, the BBC sitcom with Lucy Punch written by Holly Walsh and others, which is terrific. EastEnders is in there. Amanda and Alan's Spanish Job is in there. There's lots of shows that are being watched a great deal. And to be very clear, this doesn't even take into account people who are watching Appointment to View, which the top 10 shows on that without any question are always terrestrial.

42:35I rule it out because that's not going to be the case in 10 years time. It's just not. In 10 years time, it's all going to be streaming. There'll be some live broadcasting, but it will all be streaming. And I would say that when you look at the numbers, the BBC and ITV have done incredibly well with the budget they have. And Charlotte Moore, who was running the BBC, who's left this week, and Kevin Ligo at Channel 4, they've done an awful lot of good stuff. You know, Netflix obviously have dominated this year. Squid Game has been this year. Black Doves, Zero Day, Celebrity Bear Hunt. So there's lots and lots of Netflix things in there.

43:09But the BBC and ITV are really, really punching above their weight. and I think perhaps sometimes we don't... iPlayer particularly... Appreciate that. The time spent with iPlayer is bigger than all of the streamers combined. Yeah, iPlayer is... We forget because it hit the ground running such a long time ago with such quality and such usability. We forget quite how brilliant that is. You would think that a venerable British institution that if you were to read the tabloids is constantly on its knees and run by idiots, you would think they would run a really bad streaming platform and they don't.

43:41They run just about the best streaming platform in the world and it works. It works. It's growing all the time. It grew much quicker than Netflix last year and it had something like 16 % growth last year and Netflix had 7 % growth in the UK. So it's growing all the time. So have the streamers destroyed the BBC and ITV? I would say no, they haven't. I would say they've both been incredibly resilient. In the future, we are not going to be watching BBC and ITV when it goes out. We're just not. In the same way that we are going to have self-driving cars, we are going to be a streaming nation is the truth and you look at any of the statistics about people under 16 people under 35 that the bbc the terrestrial stuff is meaningless they will watch those things on streaming they'll watch bbc shows itv shows on streaming but they will not watch it at the time and that's that's not going anywhere millennials as they get older their habits are not changing they're not suddenly going now we're a bit older we're going to start watching scheduled television they are bringing their habits with them through the ages but a couple of observations about that top 100.

44:41Okay, in the top 100, 53 of the top 100 streaming shows last week were drama, 19 were film, 12 entertainment, seven documentaries, six sitcom episodes, all the mandorland, two kids shows and one sport. There is on that list not a single quiz. There's not a single studio entertainment show. There's not a single panel show. There's not a single chat show, a single antique show, a single cookery show. All the stuff that has filled the schedules of BBC and ITV and Channel 4 for so many years and none of that is particularly working for them in streaming. None of that is working for them in streaming.

45:11So those shows are going to disappear unless there's another platform that takes their place. And interestingly, there is another platform that is going to take their place. And that is, genuinely, we can forget terrestrial versus streaming. We really, really can. It is done. The argument is over. BBC and ITV have held their heads above water for a very, very long time. YouTube, and particularly YouTube Watch through the television is far and away the biggest growing sector of television by an absolute country mile. YouTube itself used to be huge, but now YouTube, even on television for under 16s, that is where they are watching most of their television by quite a long way.

45:50YouTube, TikTok, I mean, the BBC is somewhere and then, you know, ITV and Channel 4 are a long way behind. So forget the streaming wars. It is now the YouTube wars. And to their credit, Channel 4 are ahead of the curve on this. They've started licensing things to YouTube a little while ago and have a very strong YouTube strategy. ITV do too. Slightly harder for the BBC. I don't think it is a good strategy. You don't think it is? No, I don't. Go on. I'll tell you why. Okay, Netflix, they didn't put their stuff on YouTube, did they? Well, that's, I think... Why doesn't Amazon? Yeah, I think Netflix and Amazon are going to have trouble because they can't put their things on YouTube.

46:27But I think that the BBC... Well, I think Netflix are going to have to license some of their stuff out anyway. 100%. But what happens is that if you put stuff on YouTube, the service gets the credit, right? YouTube gets the credit. It's a service. It's not a platform, whatever it is. But, you know, you're commissioning content. You're paying for it. And you are giving it to that service. I think something different needs to happen. And I know that what you think is, I bet we don't necessarily think the same on this. Well, firstly, I think if you're Channel 4 on ITV, I would do what they're doing and license stuff to YouTube.

46:57I don't think it cannibalizes your terrestrial output. I just don't think it does. It turns you into something different, which is a content provider. And actually, there's a million content providers. Turns you're a wholesaler. So why do we need you? But in terms of what you do for the next five years, I don't think you can have a strategy that doesn't include YouTube. I think it's absolutely impossible. I think what is definitively the case going forward is the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, they have to be allowed to be a joint venture at some point. They have to be. The stuff that is really, really popping everywhere in terms of the streamers is absolutely huge budget.

47:33You have to be allowed as a BBC and ITV to team up because the BBC is teaming up with Australian broadcasters and Brazilian broadcasters and Japanese broadcasters to make money. ITV is having to do the same thing. They're all having to go out of the country to raise money for every single big show they do. Let them just talk to each other. It's interesting. I think definitely I think they should talk to each other. And I don't think that is a bad idea at all. what they all have to realise is that you've got to produce and package stuff in a way that young people want. You can't just stick traitors on YouTube and think...

48:02And by the way, this is not young people are stupid. No, no, no. Not for one second. Young people have grown up watching their media in a certain way, in exactly the same way that we did. And it is natural to them in the same way that we watched it was natural. And you have to go where the audience is. But it's different, OK? So you're thinking, where are young people all day? They're on their phone, OK? Why is the PSB, the public service broadcaster, offering for mobile, basically just the broadcast offering TV, but on their phone, okay? That's not right, okay? Public service broadcasters are not in, they are in the TV or radio business, but number one, they're in the public service business.

48:40And TV and radio just happens to have been a great way to deliver those particular aims, which are, you know, doing good for democracy, creativity, understanding, all those sort of things. Educate, inform and entertain. Yeah. OK. But if things have changed, then just adapt what you do to provide the same public service, OK, which is the number one objective. Strangely, it doesn't have to be a 60 minute hour of television. It can be anything. And you've got to adapt because otherwise YouTube will win. And I totally agree with you. Funny enough, if you don't work together, I have. Sorry to have to do this twice in an episode.

49:15But look what happened with newspapers. OK. I forgot. I literally forget what happened with them. Last thing I heard, Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post and everyone's happy. Okay, if you listen to someone like Scott Galloway, he's brilliant. He's a sort of tech professor and an entrepreneur. He's really, really clever. And he said quite a while ago, he was on the board of the New York Times for a while. And he said on almost his second board meeting, you know, back in the day, he said, I think we should just switch off Google. I think we shouldn't be part of Google. And everyone's like, that's really, you know, how stupid.

49:45Because, you know, they want to look with it and they understand where the world's going. Okay. The worst business decision made in the entire last 50 years, which is, by the way, some competition in print media, was allowing Google to have their data and their stuff. OK, they should. Google was the beneficiary. Look what's happened to them. OK, they should have worked together all of the titles across the globe. They should have globally worked together. Instead, they wanted to be like first out there. They felt they were being buccaneers. And in fact, what's happened is, you know, they've had their faces eaten and there's no good way back.

50:19Listen, I absolutely agree with you. So I agree with you on the PSPs working together. That's absolutely vital. I think it absolutely strengthens it. I think if we think of ITB, BBC and Channel 4 as broadcasters, right, that is not a thing anymore. By broadcasting, we mean this is on at this time, this is on at this time. If you think of them as producers of content. And as people in the business of public service. If you think of them as producers of content, but they are producers of content who have certain expectations of the sort of content that they're producing, then I think put your stuff anywhere.

50:49That's the truth. Monetize your stuff anywhere is that thing. The thing with the BBC is that Google will win if you put it on YouTube. Google will win just like just like they did before. We already know what will happen, which is Google will win and it will be a mistake. There are other ways to go about this. Go on. As an example, you need a level playing field and the government can help in this, by the way. Okay, I, you know, prominence on the home screen when you see, when you turn on, you know, every smart TV you get now has got a YouTube button. Okay, because YouTube have found a way to make that happen.

51:19Okay, why can't the government get its act together to make, there's like a freely button, that there has to be a freely button on any remote control show, smart TV remote control sold in this country. This is something that can be done. Instead, I mean, and no disrespect to, you know, people who uncover the Gino de Campo revelations, I was hearing, like Lisa Nandy's doing an interview saying, the government's going to intervene in the TV industry over this sort of thing if the TV can't get the house in order. And what are you going to do? You're going to have a phone line? You're going to intervene in individual productions?

51:52This is not the job of government, okay? This is much more important. You know what I'd love for her this year? I'd love for her to get a spad who understood television, Richard. Lisa, please, let this year bring her this, OK? And that's what she should be... No, as again, I'm sorry that the Gino de Campo revelations happened. If Lisa really cares about cleaning up, you know, workplace sexual misconduct, then her own workplace parliament is absolutely crawling with it and it has very, very bad procedures in place. So I would do that first before she gets TV's house in order. But much more important is stuff like this, is giving a leg up to the public service broadcasters.

52:26and why can't they make sure that there's a button on every remote soul in this country? So people have, people are quite lazy, you know, and I'm one myself. If you can press that, that's something, those are things you can do. But yes, people working together is going to work. But giving it to YouTube will result in Google winning again, just like it did with newspapers. I don't understand why Google would win. Because you're giving your content to them. You're paying for your content and no one is saying, oh, I saw this great BBC show and you just say, I saw this great thing on YouTube. Yeah, but they're seeing something that has public service credentials on YouTube.

53:00Oh, that's nice. You're paying for some people in California to make some money out of something. Okay. No. They're not going to go to the BBC. No one's going to switch that button on. Well, but there should be other things. That's what I said earlier. So either they don't see it at all or they see it on YouTube. I think there might be a point where you have to accept the ubiquity of YouTube. I agree, but maybe you change your offering. The BBC changes its offering. Maybe all the public service broadcasters get together, as you say, and they think about different ways. It doesn't have to be in a half-hour telly.

53:29Maybe all sorts of other things. We are absolutely on the same page there. I think they have to team up to make big dramas and the sort of stuff that really pushes through, the stuff that really takes on the streamers because they cannot afford it and they're all seeking the same partners in other countries. So why not just seek each other? Definitely have to do that. But also, I think they all need somewhere where they can do short-form stuff. They do four-minute stuff, 10-minute stuff, 20-minute stuff. Channel 4, Fremantle have just signed a big deal with the Sidemen to do lots of their formats.

53:55You know, there's huge back catalogs here. There's huge amounts of talent in all of these organizations. I think there's also the will, certainly the BBC and ITV, to work more closely together. Because we are not in the 1980s anymore, or even the 1990s, where, you know, ITV is a 24-7 channel and so is the BBC. There's about a third of a week's content on each of those channels at any given time. Stick them all together. You know, you have real strength in numbers. You've got great people. You've got people who've got great, you know, relationships with YouTube. you've got people there's it's just there is not enough money and there are not enough eyeballs to support all the public service broadcasters that we have it just doesn't it it doesn't work at some point they're all going to have to team up so streaming honestly i think think is now a red herring but this idea of youtube and this idea that everybody under 16 is watching youtube and they're watching on television and this is not just oh there's 21 for them and 20 for the bbc is the numbers are huge the numbers are huge and also all the evidence points that as people are getting older the way they're watching television is not changing they're sticking with the streamers they're sticking with you know to television on social channels as well that is where it is all going but we still come from a generation who are in love with the media that we had and the television that we had and of course i am because what i grew up with is my whole career was in that but you have to let it go you have to let it go and in order to do that you've got to let the big beasts of British television team up.

55:24Assemble. Assemble, exactly. But also it'd be great for the government to realise that that's actually a prime thing for something it could do to help in the interest of public service. Yeah, we have to stop thinking about what television was and we have to start thinking about what television is. We just have to, because if we do that, the one thing we know about this country is we've got some of the greatest creative minds in the business. We've got incredible skill sets over here, the crafts we've got over here. it's just we are absolutely jam-packed with talent which other people are taking advantage of you could so turbocharge this entire creative economy you just because it's it's an easy win but the one thing we have to give up is our cultural memory of what we thought television was when we grew up i definitely think all these adaptations should take place um but we also have to remember one thing about tech companies the one thing we know they're not going to save you recommendations Richard?

56:17Recommendations I am just slightly off brand going to go for a Netflix show which is Toxic Town which started last week and is absolutely terrific it's about the poisoning of Corby when the steelworks were being redeveloped and birth defects and it's an incredibly tragic story but it's just brilliant, the cast is brilliant Jack Thorne has written it, Annabelle Jones has produced it and they're both absolutely at the top of their game is really, really a terrific watch. It feels very, very important. It's one of those things where they said, oh, you know, Netflix would never do something like Mr.

56:53Vates versus the post office. And of course they would if it's something this good. You're in such safe hands and telling a story that I wasn't aware of, but it's one of those things that you are not going to forget. Well, thank you very much, everybody. Is that us for today? That is us for today. Bonus episode on Friday as well, the part two of your, the Ryan Murphy story. The Ryan Murphy story. where things go downhill it takes a dark turn like many Ryan Murphy things in the first two seconds of the show but yeah we'll be we're doing that for our members which you can join our AAA club or the rest is entertainment.com otherwise the podcast remains as always on Tuesdays and Thursdays and we will see you on Thursday see you on Thursday

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