In short
The hosts discuss the “Stephen Bartlett discourse” sparked by a remark on Diary of a CEO about how “a couple of glasses of wine” ruined his next three days, plus the wider podcasting/wellness backlash. They also give a “field guide” to celebrity destination weddings, focusing on Dua Lipa and Callum Turner in Sicily, and then cover the crisis at CBS’s 60 Minutes over editorial independence, corporate ownership, and staffing changes.
Guests
None. The episode is hosted by Marina Hyde and Richard Osmond.
Guest backgrounds
N/A.
Key claims
Bartlett is a highly effective self-publicist and marketer who built success via Social Chain and Diary of a CEO, then moved into wellness; critics say he promotes products while being financially involved (e.g., Huel, Zoe). The wine/WHOOP “domino effect” comment is framed as emblematic of “optimization culture” and wearable tracking replacing private human experience. For 60 Minutes, the crisis is linked to corporate reshaping under David Ellison, including hiring Bari Weiss to lead CBS News.
Notable examples
WHOOP wearables; Bartlett’s Dragon’s Den performance; alleged Huel/Zoe conflicts; Dua Lipa/Callum Turner’s Palermo wedding; rumors of Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce marrying at Madison Square Garden; Trump’s CBS editing lawsuit settlement; Bari Weiss’s appointment; Anson Cooper’s departure.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOFan Mail and Impersonal Replies
0:45 to 1:55
Discussion about fan mail and the impersonal nature of replies from celebrities.
“unbelievable it's almost unprecedented that a company you're giving your money to will actually respond to you are contactable yeah in some way your call has been forwarded to voicemail.”
Signing Tip-In Sheets
2:25 to 3:40
Richard discusses his experience signing tip-in sheets for his upcoming book.
“so I've got a book coming out at the end of September.”
Upcoming Topics and Discussions
3:40 to 4:44
Overview of the topics they will discuss, including Stephen Bartlett and celebrity weddings.
“But whatever else to do, what are we talking about this week?”
Stephen Bartlett's Podcast Discourse
4:44 to 5:50
Exploration of the discourse surrounding Stephen Bartlett's comments on his podcast.
“Yeah, business idea, a device that stops you acting like a twat.”
The Rise of Stephen Bartlett
5:50 to 7:46
In-depth discussion on Stephen Bartlett's rise in the podcasting and business world.
“It's, I mean, it's one of these health tracker things.”
Stephen Bartlett's Business Model
7:46 to 9:27
Analysis of Bartlett's business strategies and brand building techniques.
“I mean, it's probably, if we have, not in terms of the politics, but if we have a Joe Rogan in the UK, it is Stephen Bartlett.”
Cultural Impact of Stephen Bartlett
9:27 to 10:23
Discussion of the cultural implications of Bartlett's wellness approach and controversies.
“Stephen Bartlett, right from the beginning, was the front man of the thing.”
Podcasting Trends and Influences
10:23 to 12:30
Exploration of the broader trends in podcasting influenced by figures like Bartlett.
“But, I mean, that's been entrepreneurs for 100 % that you have to pretend to be successful for a long time before you actually are successful.”
Wrap-Up on Stephen Bartlett
12:30 to 14:00
Final thoughts on Stephen Bartlett's impact and the ongoing discourse in podcasting.
“They didn't have like a digital native on that.”
The Podcasting World War
14:00 to 14:59
Exploring the escalating drama in podcasting as more voices join the discourse.
“like overpaying for Nido, the childhood crates, or watching lots of kissing montages from Heated Rivalry on YouTube.”
Show all 30 chapters
Stephen Bartlett's Career and Controversies
15:00 to 18:11
Discussing Stephen Bartlett's provocative statements and the impact on his career.
“This is the podcast equivalent of late June, early July 1914.”
The Duality of Podcasting and TV
18:12 to 19:49
Understanding the challenges of balancing podcasting with traditional broadcasting.
“He's invested over three million pound on that show in like 54 different things.”
Celebrity Encounters and Personal Stories
19:50 to 22:20
Sharing personal anecdotes about meeting Stephen Bartlett's driver and cultural reflections.
“Both of those things you are allowed to do.”
Optimization Culture and Its Pitfalls
22:21 to 24:56
Critiquing the obsession with optimizing every aspect of life and its implications.
“Your child is not going to be a concert pianist.”
The Future of Tracking and Wellbeing
24:57 to 26:20
Speculating on the societal implications of health tracking and data.
“This is a bubble that you're in the middle of and historians will look back and they'll go, what on earth were you doing wearing all of these things, tracking every single bit of your sleep, tracking?”
The Future of Tracking and Wellbeing
26:21 to 26:36
Speculating on the societal implications of health tracking and data.
“After the break, we're going to be journeying to Sicily to discuss Destination Celebrity Weddings and DioLipo and Callum Town as well.”
The Future of Tracking and Wellbeing
26:40 to 27:40
Speculating on the societal implications of health tracking and data.
“You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Richard?”
Celebrity Destination Weddings
27:41 to 28:00
Discussing the recent wedding of Dua Lipa and Callum Town in Sicily.
Celebrity Destination Weddings: The Playbook
28:35 to 31:02
A detailed look at the unwritten rules of celebrity destination weddings.
“Now, I would like to offer you, Richard, a field guide to celebrity destination weddings.”
Celebrity Wedding Nuances and Gossip
31:02 to 36:45
Discussion on the details and gossip surrounding celebrity weddings, including guest lists and performances.
“You know, you've got Lake Como, Tuscany, Sicily, Venice.”
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey's Wedding Rumors
36:45 to 40:38
Exploring the sensational rumors about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey's rumored wedding plans.
“Anyway, the other thing with celebrity destination weddings is, could it help with work projects?”
60 Minutes Meltdown: Corporate Drama
40:38 to 42:08
A deep dive into the turmoil at CBS's 60 Minutes amid corporate changes and editorial battles.
“I mean, watch this space if they do it at Madison Square Garden.”
The Overhaul of 60 Minutes
42:08 to 43:05
Discussion on the changes at CBS and 60 Minutes under new ownership.
“So David Edison, who is the child of a billionaire, who has bought CBS amongst many other things, including CNN and all sorts of things, he decided to overhaul 60 Minutes.”
Bari Weiss and Editorial Independence
43:05 to 45:29
Exploration of Bari Weiss's role at CBS and the implications for editorial independence.
“And a lot of people within 60 minutes were very, very angry that this has happened and said this is the editorial independence being sacrificed for corporate interest, for Trump interests.”
Scott Pelley's Controversial Meeting
45:29 to 48:00
Scott Pelley's outspoken comments during a staff meeting lead to his firing.
“versus a very traditional, very long-standing, fairly liberal newsroom and this incredible franchise which is 60 Minutes, which has been going forever and ever and ever.”
The Future of 60 Minutes
48:00 to 50:49
Discussion on the challenges facing 60 Minutes and the state of broadcast news.
“And he's now on this incredibly emotional round of interviews saying about, you know, the team, the family on 60 Minutes.”
Cultural Polarization in Media
50:49 to 53:15
Examining the cultural polarization and its effects on media consumption in America.
“smaller and smaller and the world of news now as we um know on this show very very well is a world of younger personalities, of clippable things, of going viral.”
Reinventing Journalism for a New Era
53:15 to 55:42
The need for journalism to adapt and reinvent itself in the modern landscape.
“I think the aim of it is good to try and create something that more than 20 % of people ever are going to think is trustworthy.”
Book and Movie Recommendations
55:42 to 56:00
Hosts share their recommendations for a new novel and a Spielberg movie.
“I've got a really good novel which is coming out this week.”
A Story of the Heathens
56:00 to 57:29
Learn about the story of a band, their struggles, and reconnections.
“This is a story about the members of a band, the Heathens, who were active in Dublin about sort of 20 years before the events of this story.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00The Restless Entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy. Now, fan mail is one of entertainment's strangest bargains. You send total devotion one way and the understanding that nothing may come back. Certainly in our day, you would write to a film star or a singer. I wrote to Howard Jones. And maybe three months later, a sort of signed photo comes back that's clearly pro forma, you know, that you know Howard's never really looked at. Steve Martin used to have the pro forma sort of thing, which would just leave blanks, like insert like small details to make a joke about how completely impersonal his personal reply to you was it was just like a standard thing impersonal is interesting that's why we're talking about this because with octopus energy you always can reply to their emails and not only can you reply to them they will go to the same small group of people who always deal with you that's like unbelievable it's almost unprecedented that a company you're giving your money to will actually respond to you are contactable yeah in some way your call has been forwarded
1:05to voicemail.
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1:54Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde. I'm me Richard Osmond, hello everyone, hi Marina. How are you Richard? I'm alright, we had a fun week, we interviewed Steven Spielberg, didn't we? It was a huge honour and very exciting. For him too, I think. Yeah, I mean he didn't say it but I think he thought it. I think he thought it. Our members can hear that tomorrow, everyone else can hear that on Thursday. There's lots of fun, great questions from our listeners as well. I have been signing tip-in sheets for my book. Talk us through what a tip-in sheet is.
2:25A tip-in sheet is if you get a special – so I've got a book coming out at the end of September. What's it called? I wasn't going to forget to say it. It's called What's the Time to Be Alive? It's a collection of my columns. And it's a tip-in sheet. So when you get a signed edition, you can actually get boxes of the – If you're the author, you get boxes of front pages and then you sign them and then you put them all back in the box. It sends you insane because I've had to do about seven and a half thousand or something with them. I have to say, and this is going to sound like it's sponsored content.
2:56It's not. The only thing that has kept me sane is listening to masses of episodes of The Book Club. I literally love The Book Club. If you're not listening to The Book Club with Dominic Sandbrook and Tabby Sarrett, I strongly recommend. And by the way, I don't have to be signing books when you listen to it. No, and by the way, I'm sure they would say, you don't even need to have read the books. I actually have read the books, but you don't need to have read the books. And I absolutely, they are terrific. I mean, Dominic knows I love him, but Tabby is absolutely excellent. And it's genuinely kept me saying, I went mad the last time I did a book and I did these in silence, these tip-in sheets.
3:31Signing tip-ins are, yeah, there's something about them, that's for sure. But listen, we now want to keep other people entertained while they're doing something mundane. Perhaps people are signing books. I don't know. But whatever else to do, what are we talking about this week? Right, we're going to be talking. We're going to have fun this week. We're talking about the Stephen Bartlett discourse. There's been an explosion in the world of podcasting after a passing remark upon Stephen Bartlett's podcast. Lots of people have piled in and we're about to join them. Yes, I'm going to do a deeper dive on who Stephen Bartlett is and what that means.
4:05I wish to speak only facetiously about this subject. So I'm glad someone's going to take it there. I'm going to be talking seriously. But that's how we always do it. You know me. I take things very seriously. We are also doing a field guide to celebrity weddings following the Italian union of Dua Lipa and Callum Turner this weekend in Sicily. So we're talking about, you know, I will be giving you a proper field guide to how you do a celebrity destination wedding. And we're also talking about 60 Minutes, which is America's flagship current affairs show, and it's currently in absolute crisis. Is it for political reasons?
4:41I mean, we shall find out. Right, okay. Shall we start with Stephen Bartlett? Yeah, business idea, a device that stops you acting like a twat. I would love to pitch that device to Stephen Bartlett on Dragon's Den, Richard. I would love to. I would say that people, over the last week, you may or may not have felt like a great disturbance in the podcast universe, as if millions of voices screamed out in pain, but then weren't silent. I'm getting ahead of myself. What has actually happened is that Stephen Bartlett on his podcast said... Diary of a CEO. Diary of a CEO. I'm going to do the full quote.
5:15I had a couple of glasses of wine, didn't get drunk. It ruined three days of my life because of the domino effect that it caused. It meant that I got worse sleep that night. I ate more poorly the next day because my dopamine system or the cortisol system... That's what they mean by the domino effect, of course. You immediately order dominoes. Exactly. I ate more poorly the next day because my dopamine system or the cortisol system or whatever, was all messed up. Then I podcasted worse. I don't think you used that as a verb. And I didn't go to the gym the day after and I could track all of this on my WHOOP, hashtag ad, hashtag sponsor, investor, whatever.
5:50And say the word again, WHOOP. WHOOP. I mean, you spell it W-H-O-O-P. And what is it? It's, I mean, it's one of these health tracker things. I'm not going to look into it any further than that. I literally couldn't be bothered to look up what it was. It's one of those self-optimization devices. I slightly felt like you've had two glasses of wine. Buck up, Stephen. It's not going down to mine, is it? These are the good problems to have. But this thing has sparked a flood of interventions across the podcasting sphere. Pushback, really, but content mainly. We've heard from Greg James, Paloma Faith, Vogue Williams, Fern Cotton, Joanne McNally.
6:25And now, as will ideally not have escaped our own podcast listeners, we've heard from us on it. Well, we've heard from you. Come on, then. I've yet to say a thing. Well, no, you tell us. Talk to me about Zafari. Is this just a way for him to mention his tracker? Well, what I think is this. We're only talking about a talk. I think people find him interesting as a figure. I think people are not quite sure where he came from. People are aware that he exists. If you want to look up Stephen Bartlett, pretty much every single article you read about Stephen Bartlett is headlined, is this the end for Stephen Bartlett?
6:57Is this the downfall of a CEO? You know, the rise and fall of Stephen Bartlett, every single article is essentially wishing him ill, is essentially saying, this guy, we don't know where he came from. He certainly didn't come through our conventional media roots. And yet he seems to have for a very long time pretended to be unbelievably rich and via the medium of doing that has become unbelievably rich. It seems to be unforgivable for almost anyone. We'll talk a little bit more about him because Diary of a CEO did start sort of talking to business-y people. Yeah. Then started to be slightly more philosophical, I think for his own health and well-being is the way I read it.
7:38And now has gone into the world of wellness. It is massive, we should say. It's one of the biggest podcasts in the country. No, it's one of the biggest podcasts. In the world. In the world. Yeah. I mean, it's probably, if we have, not in terms of the politics, but if we have a Joe Rogan in the UK, it is Stephen Bartlett. diary of a ceo he started before lots of other people started he built it and built it and built he's an incredible marketeer i'm an insanely good marketer gets incredible guests but as i say he's he's now into that wellness industry and he's you know there's been also you know various kind of complaints upheld against him you know he would you know he would advertise huel and he would advertise zoe you know which is that medical app and not mention that he was financially involved in both of those companies that he was.
8:24But I think that if you look at where he came from, I think it drives people insane. And by the way, all of this is caveated with the fact that, you know me, I always give people the benefit of the doubt, unless I know for a fact. I mean, I just can't help myself. That's how I've always been. And it's usually served me well. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I've met him. I've been on this podcast, which we'll talk about that later. I'd like to hear that. I don't know why I haven't heard that episode, but I need to hear it. This week, because you listen to it. a lot. I listen to you a lot and I like listening to things that you're on but I have I feel like I should be a completist with your work.
8:57No I don't listen to Darryl this year. So Stephen Bartlett born in Gaboran grew up in Plymouth I think but low-income household goes up to Manchester Metropolitan University leaves after a term in 2014 sets up a company called The Social Chain with a guy called Don McGregor who Don McGregor was sort of the the kind of stayed sensible one and Stephen Bartlett was the salesperson and social chain was one of those companies if you think back to 2014 all the big companies in the world understood how they did their business but didn't really understand digital and what Stephen Bartlett and Don McGregor did said look here's a way that you can connect to a completely new audience and you know it wasn't rocket science it's just they were natives and sort of understood the audience in a way that different people didn't you know and they worked for Microsoft and Huawei and Universal you know They have big contracts, good contracts, built up this thing, social chain.
9:52Stephen Bartlett, right from the beginning, was the front man of the thing. I think he understood very, very early on that whatever company he's building, the most valuable thing he can do is build his own brand. That's the thing that he really, really understood. The company gets sold eventually, gets sold for, or at some point it's worth$600 million, gets sold, I think, for$300 million. But actually the bit of it that they set up sells for$7 million. So in amongst all of this stuff, they are building a big successful company, doing interesting work. The numbers, and there's plenty of articles that will tell you this, there's some doubt over just how rich were you, just how successful were you.
10:30And that drives people insane. But, I mean, that's been entrepreneurs for 100 % that you have to pretend to be successful for a long time before you actually are successful. And that's clearly one of the things he did. He then built up his own brand, really. He wrote a book called Happy Sexy Millionaire. but again and sold really really really well it was really beautifully packaged it's a great title essentially you know if these are things you would want to be a happy sexy millionaire and got into podcasting very early with diary of a ceo diary of a ceo as you can by the very title it's essentially saying well i'm a ceo i'm going to talk to some other ceos sort of man to man usually man to man occasionally man to woman um and it started as as a business advice thing but all you know he he's very smart and it was always what's the take home here what can i teach you what can you can listen to this for an hour and be smarter and be be more ambitious or have you know genuine take-home stuff he then started interviewing a few more celebrities and it started being a little bit more about mental health when i went on it again we it's i i will say this firstly it was a really interesting chat I absolutely felt like he was in therapy I felt like a lot of the podcast was him asking questions and trying to work out who he was and that's absolutely fine by me I think that's fairly compelling in its own way and after that podcast whenever you do anything any tv or podcast you will get people come up and talk to you about it and that a very very different group of people came up and talked to me in a very very different way in a very interesting way so I've always always been grateful I did that show and grateful I said some of the things I said and reached out to an audience who might not have heard that otherwise.
12:14So that's always been my thing with Stephen Bartlett. I sort of think, fair enough. And, you know, you can't deny that he now is enormously successful. Then he went on Dragon's Den, which I do have an opinion on, which we will get to. He is unbelievably good on Dragon's Den. He's exactly what they need on that. They didn't have like a digital native on that. And he brings a completely different energy to it. so he is somebody who I think has done extremely well he's clearly has elements of being a chancer but also he has elements of not being a chancer you know he has followed through and he has made an awful lot of money in a very very interesting way now he is in this wellness world I think there are issues there are issues for our broader culture I think there are certainly issues for the BBC yeah he's very sort of better never sleeps isn't he yes and these were I mean I the whole thing of wearables and tracking everything which has been what we'll get on to everyone diving in in a minute and the whole all the other podcasts because i think that actually tells us something completely different to what we've been talking about and it's also funny yeah i just wanted to do that just just to sort of say hey this this this is who this guy is this is why he is a tog you know he has set himself up to to be there but this this is where it gets he's absolutely made for like fitbits and aura rings and whoop trackers which i must guess please don't say wearable i I mean, the thing about these things is I think if they must exist or they must do them, they cannot and must not pass for conversation.
13:41I don't want to care about anybody's. It's like hearing about someone's dreams. I would literally rather hear about your dreams or how much your four-year-old child is gifted and talented and a genius. Yes. Than I would what your sleep score is. It should be something slightly shameful that you do in private. Yeah, I don't want to hear about your dreams, your kids or your wearables. It's a private activity, right? like overpaying for Nido, the childhood crates, or watching lots of kissing montages from Heated Rivalry on YouTube. You shouldn't talk about it. You shouldn't ever talk about it. You shouldn't talk about it if you do it.
14:12Okay? There's no one in the room who would do either of those things. Exactly. It's disgusting. Don't talk about it in public. So his tracker, but I did think it destabilised him so much that it reminded me a little bit of a modern version of the Twits. If you didn't like him and you worked for him, you worked out and you could hack Stephen Bartlett's wearable. You could send him into an absolute tailspin, couldn't you? Because you could just like slightly alter the, you know, the vitals and he would go into an absolute tailspin. That's how someone would get murdered in an episode of Black Mirror.
14:44Yeah. By literally being driven insane by their Fitbit. Everyone, though, in other podcasting, the rest of the podcasting sphere has had something to say. In a way, I'm going to say it if no one else will. Okay. This is exactly how World War I started, right? Yes. Yes, finally. This is the podcast equivalent of everyone's now getting involved in a very, very short space of time. This is the podcast equivalent of late June, early July 1914. Seemingly isolated event. Yes. The assassination of Stephen Bartlett's routine by three glasses of wine, Serbian wine, I don't know. It's a lovely Hungarian Gustavo princip.
15:20Should have been containable. Yes. But people have got drawn in, in a chain reaction, in these other podcast empires, complex alliances, webs of endorsements, and suddenly the arms race of it all, everyone's involved in this discourse. Yeah, now here comes Goldhanger. Right. So, yeah, and I include myself in that. Okay, can we take 100 % seriously the job description of podcaster? Yeah, I think so. It's a number, but it's not 100, Richard. It's not 100. It's higher than 50, maybe. I mean, it's not. I would say it's lower than author, but higher than game show host. To what degree can you... Do you have to take it 100 % seriously as a job?
16:02I mean, Stephen Bartlett's using it as a verb. I podcasted worse. I can't, really. It should be I podcasted worse. Yeah. What about you don't use it as a verb? What about it just doesn't get used as a verb? Well, then what do you say when you're podcasting? Just working. Okay. Oh, you call it working. That's interesting. You call it working. Wow, you've changed. Okay. But I tell you what I think is actually happening here. It's so interesting because all of these people who have kind of weighed in also are doing these, and I've cleared ourselves in this, like an always on podcast. Yes. And you just need the content.
16:37Yeah. So I don't want to say they're like a Bloomsbury group all, you know, feeding into each other's work. But actually, it reminds me slightly of, do you remember when we talked about BTS and we talked about, I think, the Bangtan universe, which is like a sort of dark mirror world. Yes. where because BTS were literally working the entire time, this is obviously the K-pop group, they were working the entire time. So they actually didn't have time to have any form of life. So they had to create this kind of fake life, which they could then sort of sing and talk about where they go through problems and have relationships and things because there was literally no time to do anything other than be in BTS.
17:12And I slightly wonder whether just, this is just like, oh great, Stephen Bartlett said something mildly stupid. we can have three weeks worth of content all of us can about this but i do think as well you know as i as i as i hinted at every article about stephen bartlett is is this the beginning of the end and people cannot quite see how he did what he did but he has been wading into difficult territory recently you know he's he's sort of he's started talking to you know experts on incels he's had some sort of rather interesting slightly funky opinions on his podcast and i should say the flight studio, who is a production company, they said, the diary of a CEO is an open-minded, long-form conversation with individuals identified for their distinguished and eminent career, that's like me, and or consequential life experience.
17:56They heard a range of voices, not just those Stephen and the diary of a CEO team necessarily agree with. But, you know, everyone's laid into him, you know, they called him a grifter, they called, you know, they called his world an empire of bluff. So I think that, you know, he finds himself, you know, the more money he's had, the wider that podcast goes he does find himself in an interesting new world that's for sure and you know he's had issues on drag the stand as well with uh with some sort of ear seeds that were supposed to cure diseases which they didn't do sorry ear seeds yes like little seeds that you put in your ear that that i forget what it was they cured it turns out they didn't know what so it doesn't matter what it was that they cured because they didn't um you know i could say anything because they didn't cure anything at all so he found himself in a in a bit of trouble with that and people always say oh they never invest on Dragon's Den.
18:44He's invested over three million pound on that show in like 54 different things. They really do invest on that. And he really does invest and he really, really gets involved. You know, he is really good at business. You know, perhaps he wasn't as good at business as he hinted at the very beginning of his career, but he has caught up and now he is, which is half the game. In the world of podcasting, it is sort of wild west. There is no Ofcom. You can do what you want. There's things like, you know, when he's advertising Huell and Zoe where he was, you know, caught out and there was an apology, it wasn't done again.
19:14But in terms of the content you do, in terms of what you talk about, you are free to do it. Now, Dragon's Den, if we've learned anything from working, you know, from people who work at the BBC for the last 10 years, if there's a minor, minor issue, any sort of tiny issue that might come up, then the BBC get in enormous trouble. I would have thought this is, and I love him on Dragon's Den, by the way, and I love Dragon's Den. I love that show. I really, really do. it feels like an accident waiting to happen I mean it really feels like an accident I mean don't you think Matt Britton's first trip to the podium wow it's got to come soon it's been about two weeks you know that feels like a difficult thing to ride both of those horses to be on the BBC where everything has to be squeaky clean and any newspaper will pick up on anything that happens and to run an enormous podcast that interviews controversial people on the edge of intellectual thought, as we know it at the moment, and on the edge of health thinking, as we know it at the moment.
20:14Both of those things you are allowed to do. You're allowed to do Dragon's Den and you are allowed to do a podcast that pushes the boundaries of what we think about things. It feels like at some point that might become an issue. I find that dual carriageway that he's on quite an interesting one. Yeah. But listen, he's an incredible self-publicist And I don't say that as a criticism because, you know, that's essentially the career for so many people these days. When I went to do his podcast, it was on the day of the Queen's funeral. And I don't drive, so they sent a car to pick me up. And normally if a car comes to pick you up, it's a Prius.
20:53In this, it was Stephen Bartlett's own people carrier that was entirely tricked out. Instead of a thing between you and the driver, there was like a massive screen, the whole width of the car. A screen that you could watch? TV on? Yeah, yeah. All the seats were a cream leather and monogrammed in black SB. So you kind of think, I sort of admire it. Because you just, you know, I mean... The sheer overfinch of it all. Well, because I'm just thinking I wouldn't pay for that. If it was my, I wouldn't do it. But it's sort of commitment to the bit. But the other side of it, we put the screen down, because I wanted to chat to his driver, who was lovely, called Smiley.
21:31And Smiley said, he said, I used to work in retail. He said, and about five years ago, he said, you know, all went wrong. And I thought, all right, I'm going to be an Uber driver. So Smiley gets a job as an Uber driver. He said, my first ever job, my first ever job, I get this thing saying someone three minutes around the corner needs to be taken 15 minutes away. My first ever job was quite nervous. Passenger gets in is Stephen Bartlett. He said at the end of the journey, 15 minutes later, he said, would you like to work for me? And he said, and I've been his driver ever since. so you know and uh funnily enough smiley and i because he dropped me back off at home as well and we watched the queen's funeral procession together because it was just at the end of my road so the two of us so you sat in the car and just watched no no we walked we had a little wander down and watched the uh watched the funeral procession so i watched the queen's funeral procession with steven bartlett's driver well that's a claim to fame yeah isn't it just is there a podcast in that so and as i say when i met him i like i sensed he was looking for something you know he's in his 20s of course he's looking for something and i was happy to talk to him uh but you know he he now occupies a very interesting place in our culture and this booze thing i do what i can i know we're talking a lot about stephen bartler i really want to talk about this optimization yeah culture do you optimize no of course not but it reminds me of nothing more than what people used to do they used to optimize their children so they go their children would be at french lessons then they'd be at piano lessons and then they'd be at hockey practice So every night their kids' lives were incredibly regimented because people thought you could somehow kind of mould this child into some kind of genius.
23:05Your child is not going to be a concert pianist. I will just say that. So teach them the piano by all the computer so they can play it at a party, but they're not going to be a concert pianist. But it seems to have swapped over from moulding our children into supreme beings, into this idea that we can mould ourselves into a supreme being by literally gaming every single statistic about ourselves. We're moneyballing ourselves, right? Yeah, but it's all just, you're just staying on people's platforms. I think you're never, you're completely unoptimised. Yeah. You're truly like giving your data to the man the entire time, literally every form of possible piece of data.
23:45I get that your gut biome is important. I would argue it's not that important. It should never pass for conversation at any point. Yeah. I'm poor I've even mentioned it on this podcast, but really, no. But it is a fascinating thing. It's very easy to make money out of. And it's all, I mean, I suppose like all art and literature, it's all denying we're going to die. I mean, that's... I mean, I just don't think the Whoop app is anything like The Great Gatsby, so I don't really want to see it compared to The Great Lichita. No, no. It's really all of these things. I mean, it's, you know, it's just a fancy watch.
24:19Yeah. But the key thing that we'll kill you is stress and, you know, paying attention to every single number of every single – for some people, by the way, it works very well because that's some people's personality. Some people absolutely love having a number for everything. That's why people love fantasy football. It's like fantasy football, but for your health. Which you've had to stop for your health. Yes, because I find it too stressful. Yeah. Exactly. But this stuff, it's not good for you. You know what works. Get a bit of sleep, drink some water, have friends, laugh and love. And please don't compete over it.
24:49It's just the last refuge of idiots. It's absolutely nuts. And it doesn't make you happy, but it does make another group of people very, very rich indeed. We know the answer already. We all know it. every one of us knows it and we don't need that to be monetized by other people love will be the next one they will start putting love numbers on like relationship numbers but actually it's really interesting just the complete wholesale abandonment of creation of intimacy to these platforms is really interesting actually there's all i mean you could do i mean you could do a very long series on that but the key here's the key is you are the only generation that this will happen to you.
25:26This is a bubble that you're in the middle of and historians will look back and they'll go, what on earth were you doing wearing all of these things, tracking every single bit of your sleep, tracking? There are lots of people who need, by the way, to wear trackers for medical reasons. We absolutely buy that. Most people do not need to use them and there'll come a point in the future where everyone just goes outside and looks at a sheep. Don't you think? Thank you so much for that glimpse into our collective. But yeah, if you get to the stage where a couple of glasses of wine are ruining the next three days, then yeah, you know you have an issue.
26:04Let this be the end of something rather than the start of something. I like to think this is the end of the First World War rather than the beginning of the First World War. But again, that's my personality type. Very good. Okay, well, we'll await the Treaty of Versailles of all of this. I love that podcast. We'll put a bed to it. After the break, we're going to be journeying to Sicily to discuss Destination Celebrity Weddings and DioLipo and Callum Town as well. Whatever you do, don't drink the wine.
26:36This episode is brought to you by Lloyds. Now, I love it when characters are part of a club. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Richard? The Thursday Murder Club, in some ways, reminds me of the A-Team. I now would like to map each of those characters onto the A-Team and feel I probably could. I mean, Elizabeth is Hannibal and it's not even close. Yeah, that's exactly right. And Ron is howling mad Murdoch. Well, there are definite perks to being in a club. Just ask the members of Club Lloyds, because with Club Lloyds, you can bank on Lloyds to give you more wherever you are. If you join Club Lloyds, there's all sorts of benefits you can choose between.
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27:55Yeah, that's right. We're excited too. See you soon.
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28:33Welcome back, everybody. Now, I would like to offer you, Richard, a field guide to celebrity destination weddings. Yes, please. Because we've just had a very big one. Both of them are celebrities, Dua Lipa and Callum Town, who've just got married. Huge congratulations. I love both of these people. And they've just got married in Sicily in Palermo. Now, first of all, destination weddings, a lot of people have a view on them. Yes, I do. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. And it's, you know, in civilian life, you know, you can end up having conversations like, sorry, they're getting married in Mexico. And for some reason, the Henrik and his Mykonos, unacceptable, right?
29:10This is totally unacceptable. I've got nine weddings this summer. Okay, but these are not our ways. Okay, we're talking about celebrities here. Right, so let me explain to you what you have to do. This is the exact playbook, right? Before you go to the destination, the week before, you get married in either Chelsea Old Town Hall registry office or Marylebone Town Hall registry office. Both of them are in London. These are the only two options. Yeah. They did Marylebone. There are only three outfit options for the bride. Vivian Westwood put a mini dress, a white trouser suit, or a pretty much exact replica of Bianca Jaggers when she married Mick.
29:52What does that look like? It's like a cream suit, but skirt suit, midi skirt, with a big white hat. Probably Yves Saint Laurent, but don't quote me. Yes. Wait, hold on. I'm just going to bring up a newspaper and quote you. Yeah, no, Marina said, yeah, she said that Bianca Jaggers... She said it was Yves Saint Laurent. Yves Saint Laurent yeah from Marina Hyde yeah exactly bombshell yeah I know I won't quote you anyhow those are the only three outfit choices okay Dua Lipa chose option three the Bianca Jagger did she? I believe that's Yves Saint Laurent right I'm told yeah for the man there's only one choice no one cares about the man's right just don't bother like a dark suit no one's in well Mick was in a light suit of course was he?
30:34three piece but was Callum in the OG I don't know. I literally couldn't care less what the man wears to the registry office. Don't draw focus, right? No, don't. Yeah, exactly. Even if he is going to be James Bond. And I think the civilians, well, we'll get to that. Civilians only for that, because you don't want, you know, you're not going to have Elton hanging around on the Marylebone Road chucking some dried rose petals. Oh, so for the registry office bit. For the registry office bit. Anyway, then you have to decide where your destination will be. Italy is currently very popular. You know, you've got Lake Como, Tuscany, Sicily, Venice.
31:06There's an awful lot of tax dodgers living there. Yeah, yeah. And then, so it's going to be very expensive, right? So it's better if you picked your venue off the telly so that people can say, and this one people keep saying where Julie and Callum Turner got married, they keep saying, oh, it's in the credits of the White Lotus season two. Okay, it's not. But misreporting is also a very important feature of celebrity destination weddings. So which is good. It needs a balcony. It needs a balcony where you can emerge for the hypoloid to merge and give something to the paparazzi, a wave as if to say, you know, obviously you can't come in, but I know I have a huge fandom.
31:44So we saw Dua Lipa on her balcony. And you also need to have a balcony where you can emerge the next morning so people can say after you've been partying until 6 a.m. This is all very important that they can get a long lens of you. Now, the build-up, the local media, which we picked up over here, the local media both loves and hates you. It's not a celebrity destination if the local media doesn't both love and hate you, if I had some road clothes, whatever. This is quite a new thing. When George Clooney and Amal got married in Venice and they sort of took over the whole thing, no one really cared.
32:15Obviously, when Lauren Sanchez, friend of the podcast, and Jeff Bezos were there. Hi, Lauren. Hey, Jeff. People cared more. So you get a lot of these kind of boring articles about, you know, oh, you're turning it into a theme park and something to do with the climate and so on like that. I don't know. I don't know. This is all part of it. Something to do with the climate. Something to do with the climate. All right, Stephen Bartlett. You start asking for a toaster for your wedding because you're setting up a house. Now, unless you're judged to have temporarily ruined a 17th century city-state, be it Palermo, be it Venice, you haven't really had a proper celebrity destination wedding.
32:53So we saw a lot of people saying about Dua Lipa and Callum, you know, Palermo is not someone's living room. What? But anyway, you just need to get a few locals to say things like that. Ruining a city is your uncle being sick in a font of modern weddings. Yeah. Yes. Yes. It's absolutely essential. Now, you need a series of dresses. Nobody has just one. And I saw that we don't know what dress Dua Lipa wore. No way. Yeah, but we will find out. Yeah, we better. We will do. But Donatella Versace was there. That's the other thing. The designer comes to the wedding. Oh, no. I know. Funny enough, actually, Kieran was once...
33:31In case there's any sewing needs doing? Well, I think you didn't know. You know, it's like you split it or something. You just invite them. It's sort of, it's full. Okay, so I don't know. I'm guessing that it was a Versace dress because otherwise... Why is she there? Donatella's a bit of a random attendant. She'd be gutted if she turns up and it's George Asda. Yeah, I know. It's almost rude. Okay. Now, somebody famous has to do a song. Obviously, it goes without saying that Elton is the pinnacle. Yeah. But if not, Robbie will do it. Yes. Now, Elton did do the song. Did he? Yes, yes. I think it's almost always your song.
34:01Yeah, yeah. A lot of people have been able to tell everybody that this is their song. That's ironic, isn't it? Yeah. And the guest list is kind of a bit shady here because we don't yet know. And they're very, very good. It's exclusive if your guests are the sort of people who know they're not allowed to put anything anywhere near social media or anything like that. So there's all kind of rumours. Maybe Robbie that was there, maybe he would have to step into the breach if Elton can't do it for one reason or another. Yeah. Anyhow, I feel like we should discover at some point that Eva Longoria attended.
34:31Don't ask me why. She's the zealot of all celebrity weddings. She was there when Victoria danced on Brooklyn. Was she? Yeah, very much there. Serena Williams. I know she just presented some humanitarian award to Lauren Sanchez 15 minutes before. Did she? I bet Serena Williams is a celebrity wedding I'd quite like to go to. I bet that would be fun. You would have got quite a lot of good people there. I think Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau, she's becoming a bit of a zelig. Really? Those two, I think they might be the new Longoria of guests. He's loving his life, Justin Trudeau. Do you know who reminds me more of day after day?
35:07Who? Portillo. Because it's like he did the political thing and now he's like, oh, I can just go like, you know, he's like, I can just hang out with Katy Perry and go around the world. In the same way that Portillo goes, oh, I can just do train rides now forever and ever and people like me. Yeah. I can live without Justin Trudeau's train rides program. Okay. But the logistics, you've got a lot of private jets. So then we have to have a lot of articles about how do they all, same which we had for the Bezos wedding. It's a small airport, is it? We don't even know. But you're made to think that Palermo is like this absolutely tiny kind of thing.
35:44It's not, by the way, it's not. It's like a major international hub. And the private jets are arriving. By the way, I read this really interesting article last week about this guy. He built a private jet tracker of basically Silicon Valley private jets because he thought that if there is an apocalypse, it's an apocalypse tractor, that they'll know first. And by the way, in my view, they'll have caused it. But that's how they'll know first. Yeah, and you'll know because it's a bit like the great noise of the private jets. A bit like in the ancient world when there was thundering, they thought the gods were displeased.
36:19We all think, oh, right, there's so many private jets suddenly. They're all heading to Alaska. Yeah, or New Zealand where they've got their bunkers. That's what my brother's new book is about. I know. You've told me this before. I'm dying for this. It's really good. Yeah. It's really good. It's really interesting. That whole world is very, very interesting. That whole world is mental. Yeah. But it's absolutely right. The second five of them go to Alaska or New Zealand at the same time. You're like, oh, great. Yeah. It's over and you're not going to be able to get out. Anyway, the other thing with celebrity destination weddings is, could it help with work projects?
36:51Look, I'm just saying, for Callum Turner, is him being bathed in Sicilian light in a white dinner jacket at this stage, in a certain audition process, the worst thing? That's interesting. Is it going to give him the edge over Jacob? I don't know. I don't know whether it is. But for me, it's going to be between those two. And as I said before, I thought they were leaning in one direction, but we don't know. And you don't know who says yes. That's a lucky side effect, though, isn't it? Yeah. They're not going to Palermo because of Bond. They're going to Palermo for all the other many, many reasons that you're talking about.
37:22Let's think about synergies, Richard, because I can assure you their agents are. You've got to have synergies. Yeah. So that sort of covers your celebrity wedding. The next one, which obviously we're going to have to go big on on this podcast, is Taylor and Travis. These reports that are so nuts that I cannot believe they're true, but there have been a number of reports in recent days saying that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey are getting married at Madison Square Garden. We know they're getting married in New York, but they're getting married at Madison Square Garden. Wow, in the ring. Like the Moonies.
37:55I mean, also you work there. It's like me renewing my vows here. She works there. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes she works there. I just, anyway, if this is true. They'd really have to dress it up. Yeah. Because it's supposed to be, it's not going to look like an Oxfordshire church, is it? No, it's not going to. Or a Grand Palazzo. No, it's, I mean, you could sell tickets to it. I don't know. This can't be true, can it? Oh, yeah. I wonder if she'll get fans to go. Oh, of course. Yeah, maybe there'll be something of that. I don't know. But what's your general opinion on a destination wedding, though?
38:33Do you have to, is my general opinion. Yeah. Yes. Why don't you have your honeymoon then? And then it's on you. Yeah. And then, and if you do do one, if you're actually telling me that you're going to also have a destination, stag or hen weekend you are now taking the piss yeah a stag or hen i think is fine because that's yeah you know you can you can make an excuse and not go to a stag or hen if you if you if you can't afford it or whatever whatever it is you can kind of say you know like oh that's so annoying i can't come out to um budapest but for a way you can't say no to a wedding and you've got family and you've got old friends and you you know everyone's got different income levels i think it's no it's just a no but i i mean if you are marrying someone greek yes by all means because that's where all of their family are from so if you're trying to find a halfway point and you're you know you're marrying someone australian and they're you know fine i get it there's definitely excuses for having it yeah in general yeah if you're from haywards heath and you're getting married in faderaki and then everyone's flying back to haywards heath yeah come on come on especially if you're of the age where everyone's getting married at the same time it's so expensive yeah it's so unbelievably expensive it's expensive anyway living in the UK do celebrities pay for their guests to go out there?
39:42it's not clear is it? I would have thought that if you thought for one second that they took lots and lots of rooms and I think you put all your family members and your friends who and just say we've got a room for you and then you know Adele you sort yourself out for obvious reasons the best person to be in that situation is like Callum Turner's aunt but who's like just sort of you know just an absolutely regular person who is beyond delighted that her nephew is getting married, has always wanted to see it. To the lovely Dua Lipa. And now it's like, oh, my God. You will not hear people say a bad word about people who really like her.
40:15Oh, that's really, really nice. But, yeah, so she's going there and Elton John's playing. She goes, I mean, I often hear your song at weddings, but I've never seen it. Oh, my God, not this one again. Yeah. But that must be amazing. Well, many congratulations to them. Yes, exactly. They'll probably release a couple of pictures just so we saw what they actually looked like. Yeah. But yes, so that was a happy one. But Taylor and Travis next. I mean, watch this space if they do it at Madison Square Garden. I can't believe it's true. Yeah, that's nuts. Okay. Shall we turn to a more traditional wrestlers entertainment subject?
40:50Yeah, I mean, I suppose it's drama. Yes, it really is. We're going to talk about 60 Minutes, which is the biggest current affairs show in America, which is having an unbelievable couple of weeks. We'll talk about why. Meltdown. Meltdown is exactly that. There was an incredible meeting between the new guys coming in to run it and some of the people who currently work for it, which has been reported everywhere. I thought it would be a fun thing to give some context to. It's on CBS. It's on every Sunday night at 9 o 'clock. But it's investigative reporting. It's like sort of Panorama, but it's not.
41:24It's like if Panorama was massive. It's basically at 60 minutes. It's actually sort of part of the global cultural conversation. And, yeah, they tend to have 15-minute investigations. They have these correspondents who've worked there forever and ever and ever. And they take incredible pains over every single thing they report. So it's a really blue chip show. It has been for years and years and years. A huge brand in the States. There is not a direct equivalent here. But let's imagine it is something like the News at 10. This would be where your Trevor McDonald's and John Snow's and, you know, the kind that has all the big hitters.
41:59We're talking about it because it's become the battleground of a fight over editorial independence, corporate ownership, Trump, ego. Yes, exactly. So David Edison, who is the child of a billionaire, who has bought CBS amongst many other things, including CNN and all sorts of things, he decided to overhaul 60 Minutes. Can I say something first before we say this? It actually started before then, all of this, because there was a Trump lawsuit, Trump bought a lawsuit against CBS for some, what he felt was some kind of selective editing of a Kamala Harris interview. This was in CBS, owned by Paramount, was still owned by the Redstone family.
42:42But Shari Redstone was trying to sell it. And a lot of people thought this case would eventually get thrown out because it was perfectly reasonable sort of First Amendment defense to it. But in the end, because they needed regulatory approval to be able to sell the whole of Paramount to Skydance, to David Ellison's company, they settled with Trump for$16 million. And a lot of people within 60 minutes were very, very angry that this has happened and said this is the editorial independence being sacrificed for corporate interest, for Trump interests. Scott Pelley, who is a veteran correspondent, was very vocal about that.
43:20But anyway, the deal went through. They got their regulatory approval and they clearly regarded that as a price to pay. But we've then seen other things happen. Stephen Colbert, we know that Stephen Colbert's show is finishing on CBS. So there's definitely a thing about CBS that, you know, is it vulnerable to the editorial independence being interfered with by corporate entities? And the stuff that's happened this week is crazy. So there's a woman called Bari Weiss who ran a media organization called the Free Press that David Everson bought for$150 million. Right-leaning, I think it's fair to say.
43:55Trump-leaning, I think it's fair to say as well. And he bought Bari Weiss in free thinking. Yeah. Might be the thing we say these days. The sister story was that she was brought into the New York Times between 2017 and 2020, which was a sort of particular kind of the height of, to some degree, kind of peak woke. And she was brought into sort of, she covered culture and politics to kind of act as a counterweight to what, you know, seen as leaning to Democrat or whatever it was. She was quite reactionary. She said things like, you know, the idea of cultural appropriation is stupid. Intersectionality is a flawed idea.
44:35These were regarded as complete sort of blasphemies at the time. And in the end, she resigned because she said that effectively Twitter had become the New York Times' silent editor because people were so scared of cancellation or backlash that they kind of cleaved to quite a narrow point of view. and I have some sympathy with that and there are lots of places that needed some kind of correction, I think. I will not say that I've agreed with everything she's done since then and lots of people totally loathe her but she was installed, having never run a newsroom of any meaningful size before and certainly not a TV newsroom, as editor-in-chief of CBS News by David Ellison.
45:22Well, that's the thing. David Ellison buys her company for a lot of money and then sets her in charge of CBS News and 60 Minutes. So the situation you have is, as you say, someone who is an iconoclast versus a very traditional, very long-standing, fairly liberal newsroom and this incredible franchise which is 60 Minutes, which has been going forever and ever and ever. And a lot of the correspondents are in their 70s and 80s and have been there forever. And suddenly she's a new broom sweeping through it. Now CBS News, which she's in charge of, the ratings are down and down and down. And now we have a situation with 60 Minutes, which is the absolute jewel in the crown.
46:03And it should be said, profitable. Yeah. You know, good ratings, profitable. Vice brought in a new kind of chief editor called Nick Bilton, who is not from particularly from a news background. He used to write for Vanity Fair, a screenwriter, all sorts of things like that. He used to be a tech correspondent at New York Times. Yeah. So, you know, he's from that world. And they had a meeting last week where he came in for the first time. And a lot of the big correspondents have left already. Anson Cooper, who was probably the biggest dog of all at 60 Minutes, he has left. So many have been made redundant.
46:40And lots and lots of executive staff, correspondent, everyone has been made redundant. They talk about it as Black Thursday or Black Friday or whatever. So Nick Bilton comes in, has his first meeting with his team to try and say, look, this is who I am. This is where I want 60 minutes to go. And Scott Pelley, who we were talking about. One of the correspondents, senior, very senior correspondents. He had something to say in that meeting, did he not? Yeah, he seems, and by the way, the audio of this meeting was, of course, recorded and given to the New York Times. I mean, literally within two minutes of the meeting ending.
47:15Scott Pelley made a big speech saying that Bari Weiss was murdering 60 Minutes. Strangely, he seems to, and various other things besides, he has a big sort of goes kind of toe-to-toe with Nick Bilton. He seems not to have realised, Scott Pelley, that this could potentially get him fired. Yeah. He said to Nick Bilton, you have slender qualifications for the job. You will never be welcome in this newsroom, is essentially what he said. This is his first meeting with his boss being recorded, by the way, and then that recording immediately being released. I'm not saying who recorded it and who released it, but it was recorded and released very soon afterwards.
47:54Anyhow, turns out you can get fired for stuff like that. So Scott Felly did get fired. And he's now on this incredibly emotional round of interviews saying about, you know, the team, the family on 60 Minutes. You know, we travel together, we dine together, we go into literal combat together. there. Or you cover literal combat, but okay. And then he started crying in some of these interviews. He said, it's like your family being murdered. Someone wipes out a large number of your family members. This is talking about the, you know, comings and goings in the CBS newsroom. It's like your spouse being murdered.
48:32I would say that, again, a reminder that American journalism takes itself so preposterously seriously. I mean, British journalism takes itself quite seriously in British newsrooms, but American is like... But please, can you imagine anyone in the BBC saying, this is literally like your spouse being murdered. Okay, let's just take them over here. So there are three major correspondents still on air, by the way, who have said they will go if anything more is done to it. Yes, but they have all agreed for now to stay. The thing was, they were all going to go at some point. But like one of them, Leslie Stahl, I mean, she's 84 years old.
49:03This is like the Democratic establishment. Yeah, but it really is. But she's agreed to stay, Bill Whittaker's agreed to stay in another one, just to sort of see if they can continue the DNA of 60 minutes into this new era. And Nick Bilton has come back fighting quite rightly in some ways. He said in the termination letter, he said that Scott Petty had behaved with remarkable incivility and contempt. And he did, is the truth. Whether he had good reason to do it is another matter. I mean, Nick Bilton sent a memo saying that absolutely he's not going to take any political leads from the ownership of CBS.
49:44I mean, but he would do that if it's true and he would do that if it wasn't true. So it sort of doesn't help. But you know, his email, it ends, I think. And this is where we came in. It ends. It's been a hell of a first week. Let's get to work. Which is like a Will Ferrell comedy. Yeah. So here's the interesting thing about this story is, is this purely Trump and the Trump agenda trying to bring down one of the last great bastions of American news and American news reporting and independent American news reporting? Is it that because every single fact about it makes it look like it is that the people who've been brought in the people who have left the ownership, all of those things?
50:25Or is it and you know, when you hear Nick Bilton talk he said look i genuinely recognize this show gets good ratings and i genuinely recognize it is profitable it will not be either of those things or do either of those things for long he said broadcast news is an ice cube is how he's described it and he said it is it's it's an ice cube is not going to get any bigger i'm just literally it's it's out there it's going to get smaller and smaller and smaller and the world of news now as we um know on this show very very well is a world of younger personalities, of clippable things, of going viral.
51:00It is not one hour on a Sunday night with a huge lead-in from the NFL, which is what 60 Minutes has got. It is not an audience that has grown up with this franchise and believes in it and will follow it blindly. That's all gone. And so there is an argument that this isn't a political intervention. What it actually is is a life-saving intervention of bringing in a whole new generation of people into this brand, this brand which is trusted, and building it out and turning it into something extraordinary. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree, and we can't argue that there has been effectively editorial interference.
51:36Oh, yes, absolutely. Because the mere settling of that suit in order to get there, we can't, yeah, there has been. But I do also think that attempting to have a correction from that era where, I mean, I sort of hate calling it Pete Woke, but you know what, for want of a better phrase, where lots of liberal newsrooms had, in fact, these incredible blow ups about tiny, tiny things and real enormous cancellations of staff members and things like that over really actually relatively minor infringements of some perceived liberal code. And I do think that there has needed to be some kind of correction if you wish to try and keep things mainstream.
52:17and you know I've talked about it before and talked about it a bit when I did appear before the select committee that we have in the in the UK we have this extraordinary thing that America does not have we have the BBC sitting right at the center of our sort of mainstream and I realize that people have got all sorts of different problems with the BBC but like 60 percent of people check it frequently yeah in America you've got a situation where nothing gets more than 20 percent for anybody and the polarization is almost off the charts like if you like fox news then you absolutely hate new york times and vice versa and they are everybody's that sort of flung out to the outer reaches of these graphs and they don't have anything sitting in the middle and the attempt to and i do think that when a shared mainstream disappears and we see this all over the world you get these big big cultural problems and it and it the lack of a sort of shared mainstream in america and the perception that some things are for some people and some things are for other people and it's very very siloed like that is not great for social cohesion at all and you can see the effects of it so i think the sort of aim of it whether or not you think they're doing it right and whether or not you think that actually is their aim or it's kind of a covert thing for interference.
53:34I think the aim of it is good to try and create something that more than 20 % of people ever are going to think is trustworthy. And it doesn't sort of matter if you have got bigger ratings than you had before, because other things have fallen away. You're still, as you say, the ice cube is not a terrible analogy. Yeah. And one very interesting thing about it is, you know, Trump is sort of obsessed with broadcast media, and he's obsessed with legacy media. And the truth is that's, you know, the steam trains, those things. And he is obsessed, as are most of his generation, as are most of our generation, with these things that are not going to be here in 30 years time, you know, with the stuff that we grew up with, which we still consider to be incredibly important, and which culturally is still incredibly important.
54:19You know, it's still because it's an echo chamber and, you know, legacy media always, you know, what legacy media talks about leads what other legacy media talks about. But that's not going to be the battleground. No, and actually going around in high profile, as Scott Pelley's doing now, going around high profile broadcast slots and literally crying about things is like, oh my God, you are absolutely not helping, even the thing you think you're helping. He actually said at one point, I think the headlines will just be about me crying and people saying I'm a lunatic. Well, you called it. Well, listen, he's a good journalist.
54:5460 Minutes is back on air in September. They are currently scrabbling around to get the sort of – I mean, again, they're saying the stuff we do is incredibly difficult. The kind of journalistic kind of skills you're going to have to do to have to do what we do is almost impossible to find. And you kind of think maybe it's not. Maybe there is a next generation of journalists. I mean, who will want to touch 60 Minutes is another question. But they are currently recruiting to replace an awful lot of the producers and the talent they used to have. But it will be back on air in September. but we'll see what the ratings are like and we'll see what the political bent is like.
55:26But I think it's a more interesting story than it first appears and I think if one thinks it's just about political interference, I think we're missing the bigger picture which is the biggest current affairs show in America, if it wants to stay that, has to find a way of reinventing itself. I agree. Any recommendations this week? Yes, I have. I've got a really good novel which is coming out this week. It's called Experts in a Dying Field. And it's by Patrick Frane. Now, Patrick Frane is a very funny writer for the Irish Times. And this is very good for our entertainment podcast. This is a story about the members of a band, the Heathens, who were active in Dublin about sort of 20 years before the events of this story.
56:09But tragedy struck and they sort of scatter. And then they reconnect. And it's about bands. It's about the music scene. And a lot of it is about Dublin. and it's really annoying. I know it's really annoying when people say, oh, it made me laugh and it made me cry, but it made me laugh a lot out loud and it absolutely made me cry and he's got such humanity, Patrick Frey, and I absolutely loved it. So it's called Experts in a Dying Field. Amazing. I will recommend Disclosure Day, the new Spielberg movie, just because it feels like a great Spielberg movie. We chatted to him about it. You can hear that on Thursday on our Q &A, but yes, it's a proper multiplex movie And, you know, I love, you know, backwimms and all stuff like that.
56:55But it's nice to have both, isn't it? So, yeah, go see Disclosure Day. It's two and a half hours, but it doesn't feel like it. And our bonus episode for our members, which you can join at therestisentertainment.com. I'm talking to James Kanagas for a minute. It's about how a celebrity could make a run for office even within our political system now. and generally about celebrity politicians, what they bring, and how we're going to see much, much more of them in the future. Yeah, hashtag the Martin Lewis question. We will see you all on Thursday. See you on Thursday.
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