Great Xpectations

25:47And of course, now there'll be a whole new generation of catchphrases coming out. It is going to be an absolutely packed summer. We talked a bit at the beginning of the programme about the sort of good run of films that you're on. But looking ahead to this summer, Toy Story 5, Spider-Man, Brand New Day, Disney's latest live action film. It is going to be a very, very big year for cinema. It will be. So if it's a bad summer weather-wise, don't worry if you've got a family, you can spend a lot of time in the cinema. I do love, I really love time spent as a family sitting in the dark silently together.

26:24It's just great. You've got Minions as well. So you've got another Minions, which I've been lucky enough to see 15 minutes of and it's very funny. But this year we've got a much better balance of those big tent poles, but also mid-range films as well. So in the summer we've got Sunny Dancer coming out, which is a kind of a film aimed at 12 to 24-year-olds, so that kind of that Gen Z audience that has now actually rediscovered cinema to our deep joy. And then we've got pressure in September. So we've got a proper mix of... We've had some years where we've had a tentpole film and then nothing or very little, and then another tentpole film.

27:04And what we want as, you know, cinema people is a consistent slate of different product to appeal to different audiences. It's fascinating hearing you describe it as a tentpole film, one film kind of holding up the whole of the sector. The bank holiday weekend coming up, it's going to be really, really sunny for most of the UK. And I remember once I interviewed the boss of Vue Cinemas and he said that his preferred weather was mild drizzle, not enough to stop people walking to the cinema, but enough to drive them through the doors. What are you expecting on a sunny bank holiday weekend? Well, Tim will be cursing the weather.

27:45Yes. So what you might get is you will get, for some people it's kind of half term. So what you might get is a lower than expected first weekend and then people coming into the cinema during the week as they look for something to do, families look for something to do. there's loads of deals that you can get as well to go to cinema so some of my cinemas do Mondays where every ticket is five pounds so that thing when they're quite bored you actually want them to be quiet for a period of time and not demand ice creams it will be fine but it won't be there are films that sometimes take you know word of mouth drives you know I mean Project Hail Mary is an example word of mouth drives it to stay in cinema for longer but you might not have that blockbuster opening weekend, but you've got faith that the audience is going to come, which Mandalorian and Grogu, which is opening tomorrow, will have, because it's kind of like a big film for people who love Star Wars.

28:47When you start listing off all the films, it actually really is an exciting year, isn't it? Look, we're going to be late to the news, so I'm just going to squeeze in one more question for you, Catherine, but be relatively succinct if you can. At CinemaCon, I know it's hard, I'm going to ask a huge question now. We heard at CinemaCon earlier this month. Paramount's David Ellison committing to a 45-day theatrical window and 30 movies a year if or when Paramount joins forces with Warner Brothers. Do you trust that? I assume that would be just very, very good news. Well, he turned up to CinemaCon and stood in front of us and said, I'm promising you now, face to face, that that's what's going to happen and that is what's going to happen.

29:25And Universal also committed to 45 days as well. Very exciting. We often talk about cinema's struggles, but this is definitely a high point, isn't it? Up 5 % year-on-year in admissions so far. Very, very good to know. Catherine, Jacob, Russ Mould, stick around. There is lots more to talk about.

30:04Wake Up To Money from BBC Five Live. Good morning. If you're just joining us, welcome to Wake Up To Money on Thursday. We have been talking about all sorts of things so far this morning. AI, SpaceX, it's all going on. We also had a little bit of a chat about The Devil Wears Prada 2. And Eddie and Hitchin says, it's better than the first. Love the line. People need to stop swiping and start reading. Never a truer word said, says Eddie. Thank you very much for that. I want to hear your thoughts this morning on everything that we're talking about. I want to hear if you are excited about SpaceX's plans to list on the stock market.

30:42Is it something that you would want to get involved in? Get in touch. Let me know. You can text me on 85058. You can send me a WhatsApp message on 08085 909693. But let's talk about the economy now. because we have had, and we should do the good news, shouldn't we? We've had a series of better than expected economic numbers in the last week. So first of all, GDP figures showed the UK economy unexpectedly grew in March, despite it being the first month of the Iran war, up 0.3%. Then the International Monetary Fund upgraded the UK's GDP growth prospects for the year from 0.8 % to 1%. And when you're dealing with massive, massive numbers like the UK economy, you know, these small moves all count.

31:31And then finally, yesterday, figures showed that UK inflation fell by more than expected. So it slowed down. Inflation, of course, is the pace at which prices are increasing. And it slowed to 2.8 % in April, had been around 3%. Is that reflected in what people, shoppers, consumers are actually feeling? A lorry here from Spain now, I think it's£700 a lorry more than it was four or five months ago, pre the Iran war. And all that price gets passed down the line. And obviously then it goes to the end user, which is the customers. I find that, yeah, you have to be a lot more stringent. You have to be a lot more hardworking as well to maintain the same standard of living.

32:14But I think it is doable and it is possible if you've obviously got self-resilience. Electric, gas. Gas and electricity is worse. Water. Don't speak about the water bill. We're just surviving, you know, take it as it comes. Because there's no one to call to, no one for helping us. So we just take it as it comes. So there you go. Some cautious consumers. should we be feeling more optimistic though? Still with me is Russ Mould, Investment Director at AJ Bell and Catherine Jacob, Chief Executive of Pearl & Dean, which sells cinema advertising. Russ, what do you think? Have we been too pessimistic?

32:56Because this at very least shows that the UK economy is more resilient than perhaps we'd thought. It's definitely hanging in there. I mean, there are still some... It's hanging in there. There you go, bringing the optimism. Yeah, no, no, definitely. It is. And we are still seeing growth, which I think a lot of people have been pleasantly surprised by. But there are clearly still some big challenges out there. We've talked about the oil price coming down a little bit overnight, but it's still up nearly 50 % from where it was before the war in the Middle East started. And that inflation number yesterday could prove a little bit deceptive.

33:26The rate of inflation has decelerated, which is good, to 2.8%, when actually a lot of economists thought it might accelerate. But there were some base effects in there from increases in taxes and water prices this year that weren't as big as the ones last year. So that's helped. and the energy price cap may go up in the second half of the year. So I was on a conference call yesterday where a fund manager was talking about, he thought that if all the numbers just stayed where they are, then inflation would still get to 4 % towards the end of the year. So that's one challenge. The jobs market is, even if you trust the Office for National Statistics numbers, and they're quite honest about the fact that they're a bit ropey, then the jobs market is definitely softening.

34:01So the Bank of England would be hoping perhaps to cut interest rates on one hand, we'll be looking at inflation accelerating on the other. So it's still got some difficult decisions ahead. And I suppose what we're all kind of holding our breath for, and I think shoppers as well, is that question of whether we have yet seen the full impact of the Iran war, whether this has been some sort of resilience carrying us through. But we could potentially see more negative figures for the next quarter. Because if you talk to food producers, for example, food inflation was higher than the standard rate of inflation or the general rate of inflation.

34:33and some organisations are warning that food inflation specifically could be as high as 10 % by the end of the year. It's a legitimate risk given that urea prices are up strapped, at least the fertiliser prices will be up. And again, a lot of the oil price shock may have been cushioned from us so far because we have had stockpiles that we've been able to run down. There was supply coming out before the war started over tankers. The UAE has withdrawn from OPEC Plus so it can maybe pump some more oil. So there have been mitigating factors in the short term. And if there is a speedy and peaceful solution, which we hope for humanitarian reasons above all others, that will definitely, that should definitely help.

35:11But even then, you've still got to get the tankers there. They've got to fill up. They've got to get out. There's got to be repairs made to the damage that's been done. And also, I assume that the reserves that have been depleted, nations will want to replenish. So whether oil will scuttle back to where it came from at$70 very quickly is an open debate. And I think there are reasons why we haven't seen inflation gallop higher as we did immediately after the Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022. The economy is not as strong now as it was then. The labour market is softer. We're not emerging from lockdown.

35:45We're not seeing very strong economic growth. We're seeing modest economic growth. So there is still a risk that over time the knock-on effects filter through. Yes, which is why the Bank of England's on a state of high alert and why financial markets, rightly or wrongly, have switched from looking for one or two interest rate cuts this year to heaven for heaven, maybe even one or two interest rate increases. Yes, actually, we'll talk about that in just a moment. I do want to pick your brains on what we might see. But Catherine, what are you seeing in terms of consumer confidence? Is it perhaps hard for you to assess the state of the economy more generally when you've got so many amazing films perhaps kind of lifting the cinema sector in particular?

36:24Yes, I mean, we can have a kind of slightly depressed advertising economy, but if we've got a strong film slate, then advertiser demand will be there. Because, you know, as I've said before, it is possible to go to the cinema for, you know, at a bargain price. And people want to escape. I mean, cinema always does well in, if we've got the product, we always do well when people are depressed because we offer them an escape from endless doom scrolling. because you can't have your phone with you in the cinema. So, yeah, I mean, we can do a good slate, rises all the boats as far as cinema is concerned.

37:04The worry for us is our cinema operators who got really, really slammed by increases in utility prices and that put pressure on them at a time when we didn't have a good film slate. But there's been a level of recovery there. The first thing that gets cut by, you know, companies in difficult times is normally advertising. And touch wood so far, we're not seeing that. We're seeing a kind of a cautious kind of, we're going to play it how it goes. You know, we're not going to commit to anything substantive, you know, long term. But we still do have companies that we're talking to about activations in summer next year, which I think, you know, I think everyone's just crossing their fingers and hoping for the best, actually, a bit.

37:54I think that's always my approach to these things. But the government wants us all to feel more at ease, doesn't it? It's been putting in place measures, in fact, to ease the cost of living. In the budget, I took£150 off of energy bills. I froze prescription charges for the second year in a row. And I froze rail fares for the first time in 30 years. And because of those measures, the most recent inflation numbers showed that inflation fell by more than expected last month. But I recognise that things are still tough for families. And that's why I'm announcing today that kids will travel for free on buses in England this summer.

38:33But this is all part of a wider package of measures to help families and to help working people with the cost of living. Well, that was the Chancellor speaking in Leeds yesterday. as the government announced that free bus travel this summer for 5 to 15 year olds. Maybe that'll help them get to the cinema. But Russ, is this just about sort of helping people immediately with prices if they do start to rise? Or is it also sort of designed to give people a bit more feeling of security so that the economy doesn't necessarily suffer and people don't start keeping all their money closer to home? Yeah, I think that's probably a combination of the two.

39:11I mean, the obverse argument is, blessed our grandchildren for they shall inherit the national debt, because in the end, we are ultimately subsidising our lifestyle now. I'm going to embroider that onto a cushion. Yes. I mean, that's the kind, but the argument that Chancellor Reid will put forward is, look, we're investing now to protect the economy, provide growth, and growth will generate tax income that will help to pay for the measures. That is clearly the argument. The obvious argument is, again, it could mean that we are spending a little bit more than we would or we're not raising the money that we'd expect to do through fuel duty, which has been going up since, in theory, 2023-24 and hasn't been.

39:48The£400 million tax break for road haulies is fantastic for them. If you green environmental campaign, you're probably not desperately happy about more road traffic and want that stuff to go by rail. And also, again, it's money that the exchequer was expecting to bring in and now isn't. So as ever with these things, there are trade-offs. There are choices. There are no perfect solutions. Chancellor's doing her best to get us through what's a very, very difficult time. But there could be, yes, consequences of some kind further down the road. And it may well be the biggest one of all, which is, you know, the government sums don't quiet it up and there's more borrowing further down the line.

40:21And it's not an easy line to walk, is it? Not at all. I remember a few years ago, I genuinely had an anxiety dream where I was suddenly made Chancellor. and that's always stayed with me. Another job I wouldn't want would be to be governor of the Bank of England. We've been hearing from him this week. Andrew Bailey told MPs on the Treasury Committee that the conflict in the Middle East has been dominating, has been the dominating change in the landscape for the economy and has helped keep inflation higher. And I think we might have a clip of that. Oh, we have not got a clip of that. But, Russ, what are we now expecting from the Bank of England this week?

40:57Because we had been expecting, as I say, two rate cuts this year. We've been talking about those like they were just priced in. Yeah, markets are now pricing in two or even three rate cuts. Increases by this time next year. Given the softening that we've seen in the labour market, unemployment up to 5%, job vacancies back to where they were in 2021 as we were staggering out of lockdowns, I'm not totally convinced that the UK economy is strong enough to withstand that. So I think the Bank of England is in a very, very difficult situation, particularly because it's called back in 2021-22 that the inflation we saw after the Russia-Ukraine war was transitory.

41:35Well, they've got that unfortunately wrong and that simply hasn't been the case. So human nature being what it is, if you've been caught on the hop one way, you may try and overcompensate on the other this time around. So that's a possibility. So the Bank of England has to stay vigilant. I suspect they may squeeze one interest rate cut through and then cross their fingers and hope for a resolution in the Middle East. But inflation is a legitimate threat to their policies at the moment. Yes. And I suppose the question is then how the UK economy is faring compared with other European economies. I mean, are we seeing kind of the trickiness, the difficulties that we're having playing out elsewhere?

42:14Certainly in Europe, because they're very reliant upon, again, energy imports and to a degree food imports, just as we are. And that is a major challenge. They've got the same issues of national security in terms of supply chains, in terms of availability of raw materials, and in terms of defence in that both ourselves and the EU were looking to put up defence spending at a time when government finances are already relatively stretched. We're not as badly affected by higher oil prices as some of the Southeast Asian economies, or say Korea, Taiwan, who are huge, important, nearly everything. So that's a major challenge for them.

42:47The one economy that at the moment looks to be sailing through their best is the US economy. There's probably more AI dollars being spent there, as was being discussed earlier. But also it's basically self-reliant in terms of energy. In the 1970s oil shocks, the US was probably the importer of last resort. Now it's probably the marginal exporter to the world. In that respect, America is butterest and much more insulated than most other countries. I just want to touch on some comments from Bill Winters, the chief executive of Standard Chart at the bank. He's in a bit of hot water for suggesting that AI, artificial intelligence, would replace what he described as lower value human capital.

43:30Now, he made these comments at an investor event in Hong Kong in a memo to workers seen by the press association. He's said that these remarks were taken out of context and that where roles do fall away, it reflects changes in the work, not the value of our people. But, Russ, lower value human capital, it's quite a strong phrase, isn't it? I wouldn't be pleased if I was referred to in such a fashion. I have to admit, no. So, I mean, Bill Winters, the boss of Standard Chartered, is known for calling a shovel a shovel and being pretty plain speaking. But there's plain speaking and then there's dystopia.

44:05I think, yeah, if he did say those words and they were reported in the right context, I'm sure he'd love to have them back. And the fact that an email has gone round would suggest that he's now trying to deal with that. And he's talking about how he was really meaning a change in the way in which customers value the work that's being done. Some of the more repetitive or some of the more labour intensive work, which he's clearly suggesting can now be done by an agentic AI service of some kind. And that's because the company at the start of the week got a lot of shelters very excited by raising its profitability targets for 2030 by talking about internal productivity programs such as AI.

44:41So that actually went down quite well. But no, I think it's not a public relations triumph, a labour relations triumph, let's put it that way. No, and agentic AI, I should say, these are AI systems that don't just respond to your text prompts, but they can understand goals. They can sometimes autonomously act to solve problems. And it is very, very much the next big thing. In fact, if you're interested in agentic AI, I was chatting about that with the boss of Raspberry Pi a few days ago. And you can find that on Big Boss Interview on BBC Sounds. I'm sorry. I'm always plugging. Right. Let's talk about something completely different now.

45:18No flights, no phones and a low budget, high stakes race to the finish line. who's going to come first in tonight's final episode of Race Across the World. This race, it's a lifetime of exploring in such a short amount of time. I feel like I'm in a painting. Everything's unpredictable. Good morning. It's going to open up a lot of doors. Oh, wow. Not many people have the privilege to unlock. We've been criminals to miss this. This is an adventure. Take money moves. Take money moves, guys.

45:58I mean, it is exciting, isn't it? If you're one of the millions of fans tuning in, don't worry. There will be no spoilers here. But we are going to talk about how it's driving up a certain kind of tourism. People are watching that and then they're looking for their own adventures and their own experiences. Joining me now is Clarissa Cappelletti, International Regional Manager at WeRoad, which offers group travel and adventure holidays in more than 150 countries around the world. Clarissa, good morning. Hi, good morning. Thank you for having me. Explain adventure holidays. What kinds of amazing things are people wanting to book?

46:36All sorts, to be honest with you. I think that, you know, people are looking for those less popular destinations nowadays where, you know, they can shoot that Instagram picture that is different from everybody else. So from, you know, horse riding in Mongolia to rafting in Sri Lanka, they're really looking to push themselves out of the comfort zone and really have those wild moments while travelling. But give me some examples. Like what kind of thing? Are we talking about sort of, I don't know, swimming with turtles or are we talking about legendary hikes up ice flows? I think both, to be completely honest with you.

47:16So scuba diving is really gaining a lot of popularity. So turtles, sharks, people are really wanting to get close to those things. Yes. But equally, you know, hiking in the Dolomites, hiking in Patagonia, getting those really like getting to the peaks of those very popular mountains. People are really wanting to push themselves. So can you give me a sense then of how much more interest there is? How many more calls you're getting or how many more people are wanting to book this kind of break? So many more. And to be honest, also like shows like races across the world do help drive tourism to less well-known destinations.

48:04So, you know, just setting as we call it in the travel space is definitely a trend. And the people are wanting to go on places that they see on TV. So, yes, those type of shows really help us drive demand to new destinations instead of the usual, you know, Spain or Portugal or Greece. Although I imagine that after some of these adventurous trips, people maybe want to sit on the beach and recover. But how affordable is this? I mean, is this a sort of rich people tourism or very, very affluent people tourism? Because it can't be cheap. The kind of cheaper holidays are the package holidays, aren't they, where everyone's doing the same thing?

48:47So presumably stuff like this is for a more affluent client. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure that is fully true in the sense that adventure is becoming more affordable, first of all. um second you know if you do it in a group dynamic like we do you actually gain a lot of economies of scale when doing it so it's way more affordable affordable that if you were to to do it by yourself um and also keep in mind that a lot of these destinations are not key touristic places just yet so it's not like going to um Italy in August where you know prices are shoot because everybody wants to go there. So you can still find quite a lot of good deals.

49:35And do you find that people have watched that particular TV show and then they've seen a location and that's where they want to go? So I don't know, Mongolia was one of the places filmed in the series, wasn't it? Did you then see an uptick in people wanting to find out more about traveling there? Yes, 100%. We actually have seen a kind of upward trends across all of what we call the Stan countries. So even Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, we've got sold out trips across all these destinations this summer, to give you an example. Who's going? Is this a young people game or is this retired people?

50:13Like what's the age group that's booking these amazing adventures? Yeah, it's a good question. I don't think I can fully answer that because our trips are for younger travellers. So for travellers that are 21 to 49. I'm really glad that you're counting 49 as younger. We should have you on more often. So, yeah, so we cater for a kind of slightly younger generation. So I can't comment to the retirees. But within that, I mean, within that then, because up to 49, you know, that's a very, very wide range. Who's doing this? Everybody. Everybody. So from the 25-year-old person to the 45-year-old person, everybody wants to do these tricks and wants to go to that part of the world.

50:58We've been talking this morning about SpaceX, the enormous futuristic space company filing for an IPO, potentially a list on the US stock market. And one of the things that was mentioned in its filing paperwork was the idea that it would be providing passenger transport to the moon, maybe even passenger transport to Mars. I mean, obviously, we're not there yet. But is that, you know, when you sort of look ahead at people wanting adventures and wanting something completely out of the ordinary that their neighbours haven't done, are you kind of looking ahead and thinking, yeah, in my lifetime, maybe that'll be space travel?

51:36So it's funny you ask that. We actually, as part of April Fool a couple of years ago, we fooled people and said that we were launching a trip to the moon. We love this type of marketing. And actually, you have no idea how many people believe that that was true. That's fascinating. And so they contacted us and they were like, oh, my God, this trip sounds amazing. Where can I sign up? So, yeah, I mean, I would love to be able to make this happen if SpaceX helps us. but for now, for us, remained an April Fool type joke. I have to say as a journalist, I hate that kind of April Fool. You have to be really, really cautious on that day and in fact every day.

52:18Clarissa, thank you so much for joining us on Wake Up To Money. Clarissa Capoletti there from WeRoad, which offers those kind of adventure holidays. Thank you to her. Thank you as always, of course, to Russ Mould, Investment Director at AJ Bell. Thank you to Catherine Jacob, Chief Executive of Pearl and Dean. Thank you to you for your company, for your messages this morning. Been an absolutely fascinating and busy chat. But that is it for Wake Up To Money. Wake Up To Money from BBC5 Live.

53:03Welcome to the Wayne Rudy Show. We're joined by Wayne Rudy. We are joined by the actor James Nelson-Jones. Is that him, lad? Is that him? You've got to get you in season three. You've got to do it. Bruno, this is the first interview I've ever done. Very nice to be here with you. I played against you. I got the shirt off you, but you don't know it. I asked Juan to get it for me. Paddy, thank you so much for being with us today. I know I'm going to win the belts. That's in my destiny. It was just, that wasn't my time. The Wayne Rooney Show. Watch your night, player. Listen on BBC Sounds.