The Banijay All3 Mega Merger, BBC Bafta Fallout and Paramount emerge victorious in the battle for Warners

Missed calls, slow replies, messages scattered everywhere. If you're running a business that's not just annoying, it's revenue slipping away. That's where Quo comes in. Spelled q, U, O. Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2.1 shared business number for calls and texts. Stop missing customers. Start capturing every opportunity. Try quo free and get 20% off your first six months at quo.com tech.

0:00

That's.

0:28

That's qu-com tech quo. No missed calls, no missed customers.

0:28

Hello and welcome to Insiders, the TV podcast with me, Jimmy Melville.

0:44

Oh, and me, Peter Fincham.

0:48

You forgot who you were then.

0:50

I did, yeah.

0:51

Yeah. This is the podcast of people who love television and. And want to know a bit more about what goes on behind the scenes.

0:51

Peter, I. I did. I did slightly fluff the intro there, but actually I wanted to ask you. Jimmy.

0:57

Yes.

1:01

About your team. Everton.

1:01

Yes.

1:02

Who won 2 nil.

1:03

At home.

1:05

At home. And you're now in the top half of the table.

1:06

We. We're eight.

1:09

This is very good, but very peculiar kickoff that. I don't know if this is of interest to our listeners. There was more like the way a rugby game starts where you kick it high in the air towards the other. What's going on there? What was that about?

1:10

It was. I think it was kind of just a very. The first attack. I mean, it was. It was bizarre.

1:22

So it was. Football's been around for 150 years and nobody's ever done that before.

1:28

No, I mean. And it was legal. What happened was that the ball was passed back to Kiernan Dewsbury Hall.

1:33

Yes.

1:40

Who sounds like a spar in the Cotswolds, doesn't it? But he's a great player. He's one of our best signings, I think. And then he just. He. He lifted it up off his right foot and then belted it really high in the air. It. And everybody in the stadium felt it was a bit weird, but it, you know.

1:40

Yeah.

1:55

It didn't work.

1:56

No. What about.

1:57

I mean, but it might start a trend.

1:58

Exactly.

2:00

Like the long throw in. Anyway, here we are.

2:00

Here we are. We're talking about Everton.

2:02

And this is not the Insiders of Sporting Podcast. This is the TV podcast. What are we going to talk about this week?

2:03

There's so much going on, isn't there?

2:10

Smorgasbord events.

2:12

So I think. Well, the first thing let's talk about is the announcement, which has now been confirmed after rumors that Banerjee and all three media have agreed a deal to merge. So let's put inverted commas around that word merge because, you know, one of the best known sayings in business is there's no such thing as a murder merger. And you can immediately see that the current Banerjay Entertainment CEO, according to this announcement, Marco Botti, who I must admit I don't know was, will be the new CEO. And All3Media's chief executive, Jane Turton, who I know very well is to become the deputy jointly owned by banerj and Redbird IMI as a 5050 venture. And Redbird's chief exec, Jeff Suka, will be the chairman. So here we go. Consolidate. We're independent producers and as we often talk about, we're products of the independent sector and the growth of the independent sector. But here is another big merger that creates something that independent of what you might say, are they really indies or are they just part of a big corporate thing?

2:13

It is a bizarre journey we've been on because when we began there was a duopoly of ITV and BBC. Then Channel 4 comes along in the early 80s and disrupts all that and it fragments the business so all these different individual, talented, individual flowers will bloom,

3:20

that sort of thing set.

3:33

And suddenly the garden is full of very many different flowers. And then at the end now we've got almost completing a circle where these huge monolithic structures are coming together to create these, as they call these super indies. And I know, I do love the kind of quotes they come up with when they. When they announce these mergers. And, you know, we're going to be a home for creative excellence and where creative excellence and commercialism lives side by side. They're not very happy names.

3:34

We've all put our name to quotes like that, haven't we? But it reminded me of. Is it. Was it in not the 9 o' clock news, there was a sketch which. The basic thrust of the sketch is whatever happened to that little man who came to mend the fence or the little man who came to do the plumbing? Well, the good news is we've got them all together now into Little Man Corporation. So this is kind of effectively that, you know, what's happened to all these independent companies. Well, they're independent of what.

4:01

But that's what Banerjee and all three are. They're a collection of labels.

4:29

Yes. And you know, God, they're big. Thank you. Expected generate revenues of 4.4 billion euros. Interesting. We're talking euros now. So, you know, that's. That's a very chunky business. But let's just Focus for a moment on. On the, you know, announcement about who's in charge, because Jane Turton, who I've a great admirer of, would I, if I were Jane Turtle, would I even want my name on an announcement saying I'm now the deputy, having been the Chief Executive? I think that's quite a difficult.

4:34

My push it towards maybe accepting the poison chalice of being the Director General of the BBC.

5:08

Well, we can come on to talk about that in a minute because would she accept that poison chalice? I don't know. I. I think she'd be very, very, incredibly, very good. And I think that'd be a good move for the BBC, a move for her. But what I don't know so much about, and you may do is do you know Marco Bazetti?

5:13

To be honest with you, I thought he played left back for Juventus, so it's news to me that he might have done. He's running this.

5:31

But. So I think you said, as I say, there's no such thing as a merger. So this sounds like Banerjee are taking over. Taking over all three.

5:38

Well, they have 120 production companies in 25 different territories, they call them not countries. And all three operates with 40 labels across, mainly the UK, US, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and New Zealand. Whereas I think Banerjee is more promiscuous in its. In its territorial occupation. And in fact, when I heard the announcements, and of course now I know the answer, but I thought, I wonder what they're going to call themselves, because all three media and Banerjee. How do you put those two names together to kind of make a new title? But apparently this may be an indication of who's going to be the lead dog in all this. It's going to be called Banerjee.

5:45

Yes, exactly. And they also say that the deal is expected to deliver around 50 million euros of cost synergies. Possibly a euphemism.

6:27

Yeah.

6:38

What might it be a euphemism for?

6:38

Cost Synergies might mean that they're going to decrease their workforce quite substantially because all the back offices for distribution, you know, all those kind of support departments, you have to support the, you know, the, the, the creative output. Well, they can, they can blend them, can't they?

6:40

They can blend them. But, but, but even if you set about blending them on day one. 50 million euros of cost synergies in the first 12 months.

6:59

Yeah, cool.

7:09

That's going at it hard.

7:10

That's going to be painful, I think. Yeah, but that's the point of it, isn't it? And when it's very funny, when you introduce this, you made a slip, you said the murder merger.

7:11

I did actually say that.

7:22

And psychologists would point out that's what they call a Freudian slip because there is murder involved. I think, as people say, any merger in the first hundred days, there's blood on the carpet.

7:23

Yeah.

7:34

So that's what's gonna happen, is in the first hundred days, there's gonna be some very frank. Now the deal's done, I think all the kind of niceties fall away. And Jeff Zucker is the chairman and he's an executive chairman. And Jeff Zucker, I knew when he was running NBC about 30 years ago, and strangely, he commissioned have I Got News for your to go onto NBC in 2001. Wow. But it was in the June and in the September, the twin towers.

7:35

Okay.

8:03

And suddenly topical humor wasn't that funny anymore. So. But he's been around. He's a very, very seasoned veteran in this business. And he's, he's moved sideways into. He ran. I think he runs a thing called Redbird, which then bought all three media. And I think he's driven this because I think his idea is that big. Bigger is better.

8:03

Red Bird has got sovereign wealth in it from Abu Dhabi.

8:23

Yeah.

8:27

I think it's fair to say. So Redbird tried to buy the Daily Telegraph in a slightly different corner of the forest and failed to do so because the, the, you know, one thing, the Telegraph itself campaigned against being bought by Redbird, but politicians got involved there and said, do we want sovereign wealth to be owner of a major sort of, you know, newspaper in the UK and they decided they didn't want to, but there are no barriers to them becoming owners of big television production companies. So again, if you, if you break down the ownership of what is now going to be called Banerjee, as it always wants to be fair, is there any British ownership in that at all now? And, and you might say, does that matter? We live in a. We live in a global world. But go back to what you were saying about the birth of Intersector Channel 4. Very, very particularly British thing. Lots of British companies emerged from it, but all of these companies now, as far as I know, and correct me if I'm wrong, have no British ownership

8:27

in them at all. No, but they are the keepers of some pretty iconic shows, aren't they? I mean, if you go through the roster of their shows like the Traitors, Big Brother, Survivor, Peaky Blinders, Gogglebox, House of Guinness, I mean, they're Pretty ubiquitous. And you know, and maybe, you know,

9:32

we live in an international world. The Traitors isn't a British format. Big Brother isn't.

9:53

Yeah.

9:56

Format Survivor is, but they feel like it's never been a hit.

9:57

But they're part of the cultural conversation of the country. Yes, yes. I mean, the Traitors in particular, which. I mean, the Traitors is now in, I think 75 countries. It's actually in Russia. I. I heard and I tell you.

10:00

Do they understand it?

10:14

Well, it wasn't sold to Russia. They nicked it and they've retitled it Heirs and. And Usurpers or something.

10:15

Yes.

10:22

And all three media said yes, it's exactly like the Traitors. I think actually people do get killed in the Russian version.

10:23

Did I tell you that? That the BBC studios agreed a pre sale. This is before we ever made a single series. And Chelsea Detective.

10:30

Yeah.

10:39

To the biggest streaming series in Russia. And this is one of the biggest pre sales they'd ever made and was going to give it an in a footprint across the whole of Russia. And that was about a week before Russia invaded Ukraine.

10:39

Oh, how inconvenient for you. So you're also one of the casualties of the war. I think we should have a. Some kind of moment's silence here to register your.

10:51

I'm gonna be silent because I can't think of a way coming back.

11:03

Your lack of Russian profits, by the way.

11:06

Compassion.

11:09

They wouldn't have paid you anyway.

11:10

They didn't showed it. But it would be nice to think of our show being watched in Vladivostok or whatever it would have been, wouldn't it? Well, I. Sure.

11:12

Why did you pick Vladivostok? It's the most eastern part of the.

11:23

That's the point. It's the most remote place to be to be watched.

11:26

It's almost. It's almost touching Alaska, isn't it? Vladivostok?

11:29

I think so. You forget that this really is not a geography podcast, though.

11:33

No.

11:37

I'm quite dodgy on my Russian Next week, Oxbow Lakes.

11:37

All right, so hang on.

11:42

So let's. Let's try and make a sense this up for ourselves.

11:43

How does it affect. Listen, I don't know about you, but I always think, how does it affect me?

11:46

Fair enough. It affects us because we see further consolidation and you could, you could easily make a good news argument if you run a, you know, proper India as we do, that this means we are more of a kind of endangered species and therefore above our weight. Or you can make a bad news argument.

11:50

I think you know, in a way, does Netflix want to deal with companies like yours, or do they want to deal with these huge companies who feel that they have leverage because they've got other shows on their networks? Which, of course, that is, that is a factor.

12:09

I think it cuts a little bit, both words and also we could touch on this. I was talking to an old colleague and friend from ITV yesterday and trying to find out a little bit what's going on about Comcast and itv. And I kind of came away thinking, because, you remember, there was that story that talks had slowed, which we think was planted by Comcast. But. But according to this friend, the due diligence is still going on. This, this, this deal's likely to happen. The Comcast lawyers are all over them asking questions and, you know, trying to, you know, make sure the program supplies secure and so on. So assuming that does happen, which is another part of the big mergers going on in the business at the moment, does ITV Studios find itself in a better or worse position because all three and Banerjay, two big rivals, just merged into a thing much bigger than ITV Studios? Does ITV Studios then think, well, who wants to buy us? Or do they then, when they've been decoupled from ITV Broadcast, think we'll go out and buy people? I, I'm genuinely don't know the answer

12:25

to that and I don't think they know the answer to that yet. I think that, you know, Julian Bellamy, who runs ITV Studios, must be thinking, oh, this is a moment really, because you're right not to be bought by all three, to be left, you know, for, for all three to.

13:32

And jilted at the altar.

13:46

And, and the merger is that apparently all three media, or rather Redbird, have had to supplement their part of the bargain to make it a 5050 deal.

13:48

Yes.

13:59

So they've, they've actually made a cash payment into that pot, if you like,

14:00

of hundreds of millions.

14:04

It's six. Over 600 million.

14:05

Yeah.

14:07

Yeah. But no, I don't know. I mean, the other thing I was thinking about, and maybe, you know, this is crazy, is that I wonder if when you're that big as a studio, you then think, well, maybe we should buy a couple of channels.

14:07

And then you. Then you've basically. Or a stream around in a complete circle and ended up where the business started.

14:18

That was the point I was trying to make, is that are we heading to a place where now we'll be dealing with, you know, duopolies or monolithic structures which provide, are vertically integrated from studios all the way up to broadcasting on digital.

14:23

But then, but then that sort of also begs a question, which is, what is a channel in the modern world? What's the different channel and the platform? And we've seen in the last week talk of the BBC supplying. It's a YouTube rather. This, I think this was an interview not with Ted Sarandos, who we often talk about, but with the other code, CEO of Netflix, saying we would like BBC programs on Netflix. And at that point you think, well, what is the BBC? Is it a platform or is it a producer? Or is it that, you know, we once understood exactly what we meant by being a broadcaster, but. But increasingly in a world of streaming and multiple platforms, different ways of getting, I mean, you know, many years ago, 40 years ago, I seem to remember the BBC had a, you know, dilemma as to whether they would allow their programs to be shown on sky, because sky was a platform which obviously it's obvious what ended up. Of course they're on sky, but sky was also a rival broadcaster. So it feels like all these things being mixed up together in, in one way or other.

14:35

And we haven't even mentioned the problem of how do they all address YouTube.

15:38

Indeed.

15:42

So the BBC now are talking about making YouTube first content and you think, well, all right, if you want to do that, then why just put the whole of the BBC?

15:43

Well, I think this point was made by the co CEO of Netflix, Greg Peters, that, that you, the growth of YouTube, it's like, you know, audiences are sort of like a river. They're going to find their way into any tributary that they, they want to go into. And if YouTube turns out to be the main, you know, the main place that audiences go, then you're fooling yourself if you think you can stop that happening. It will happen. So I think the point he's making, I mean we, we need to come on to this. He's obviously making it in the wake of Netflix, withdrawing from the battle from Warner Brothers or being beaten by Paramount, depending on how you look at it. So he's coming out. You don't often see him interviewed. He's coming out and saying, no, our business model is strong. We, we know what doing. But looking forward, he's pointing to things like maybe BBC programs should be shown on Netflix as, as an example of the way the world is going.

15:50

I mean, Netflix. Well, we, we can get onto this next story really, because it's a perfect segue, is.

16:46

Yeah, it's. But it's the same kind of story, isn't it?

16:51

Now Netflix now are feeling, also feeling a bit kind of smaller than they were, bizarrely, because they've been beaten to the punch by Paramount, who in the race to acquire wbd, Warner Bros. Discovery, they were all. Paramount were always second. And I actually thought even a couple weeks ago, oh, it's a done deal with Netflix and Netflix will buy Warner Bros. Discovery. They're mainly interested in Warner Bros. Because of the library. And it'll be the end of the cinema as we know it because movies will just all appear on Netflix. And suddenly out of nowhere, David Ellison, the Nepo baby of Larry Ellison, who obviously is great friends with Donald Trump, he increased his offer from $30 a share to $31 a share. And that was enough to convince the shareholders of WBD that they should switch and say to Netflix, well, we're now going to go with Paramount. At that point, Netflix says, you know what, we're going to withdraw, which is a wish.

16:54

We're so used to a world in which Netflix is so dominant. Do you think Netflix, do you think it's possible then that Netflix is, if you like a Nokia phone in the 1930s, 90s or whatever you think, oh, Nokia phones are what we've all got. They're gonna be around forever and then, you know, somewhere the tectonic plates shift and before you know where you are, we've all got Apple, iPhones or whatever. Or. Do you see what I mean? Could Netflix suddenly not seem such a big and dominant force in the television world as we've got used to it being?

17:53

No. Well, I think it's the last time. This is the first instance where they've come second in a way where you think, oh, they've been bested by another organization because normally they are the 600 pound gorilla in the jungle, aren't they?

18:22

Yeah, yeah. So let's, let's move on to kind of much closer to home from your point of view. You make have I Got News for you for cnn. You think you're up for an award, Am I right?

18:34

I'm going out this afternoon because we're up for a Writers Guild award on Sunday and the, the writing team who are brilliant up against snl, us and John Oliver and those kind of shows were in the kind of world.

18:44

Wouldn't that be amazing if you won against those shows because they're big, established shows that, you know, even to be

18:57

nominated is really good. It's really good news. But you're. I know, I know where you're heading is that, is that because Paramount are now going to buy wbd. And CNN is part of that world is they've said they want to own every single channel whereas Netflix were going to spin all the cable channels off. So CNN would have been a separate entity and would have lived to fight another day. Now there's a sort of Damocles over CNN because we know that Donald Trump hates cnn. The Ellisons are very close to Donald Trump.

19:03

The worry is if John Donald Trump now gets CNN in his crosshair. Yeah, he's never liked.

19:33

As a favor to me. Yeah, can we just change the way CNN is?

19:37

I mean they're not going to suddenly turn CNN to Fox News.

19:41

Well, see, but CBS News now is, is run by Barry Weiss who is Trump friendly. And people are leaving. People are leaving in their droves.

19:44

And CNN of course is run by Mark Thompson, director General. Sir Mark Thompson, former director general of the BBC and also who ran the New York Times.

19:52

And he's absolutely brilliant and he's easy

20:02

to imagine Mark Thompson in a Trump leaning organization.

20:04

But Mark, I think Mark Thompson, I mean Mark said to the employees of cnn, which is the right thing to say, I think is let's not, let's not prejudge things. Let's see how things unfold.

20:07

Well, he, Mark Thompson has sent an email to employees specifically telling staff at CNN not to jump to conclusions about the future until we know more. I mean this, this is a little bit like, is it not okay tasteless here? So one of the ayatollahs saying, yes, we've just been bombed for the last four days by the Americans, but let's not jump to any conclusions. Yeah, I think they're friendly.

20:16

Yeah. So I mean, yeah, I think we can misinterpret the, the bombing and the killing of a leader.

20:41

Just going back briefly to all three and Banerjee because this doesn't really affect us because we run, you know, the sort of companies that we run. But if you're, let's say Fremantle, a company that I once worked for, does Fremantle, then sit down thinking, oh no, these big mergers are taking place and we're not part of them and suddenly we seem quite small in the world of the, you know, mega indies, the super indies.

20:48

Well, I think going back to what you said about ITV Studios once they are separated from the broadcast side of things, I wonder if those, will they,

21:14

will they merge with Freeman.

21:24

I was gonna say, do you think those.

21:24

Will the RTL Group who own Fremantle say, well, we need a big, super indie, bigger than Fremantle is at the moment. Let's buy ITV Studios.

21:26

I think we're giving them ideas on this podcast.

21:33

Yes. Do you think we might get commissioned?

21:35

We should invoice them in the usual way. We're actually acting. It should be insiders, the consultancy.

21:37

Absolutely. The matchmakers.

21:45

I think if people who are out there who are running smaller independent companies like ours and are listening to this, I do want to say, I think the best defense that we have is to come up with the best ideas.

21:47

Yes.

21:58

Because actually when you walk into a broadcaster or a streamer, it doesn't matter where you're from in that moment, it's all about what is the idea and who's going to make it and who's in it. And that conversation is not going to change. No matter how big your company is, in the end you're reduced to that meeting where you're trying to sell a show. So I think there is comfort in making 7.5 billion a year. Of course there is, because you've got economies of scale and you can develop more. But you know, your development slate is commensurate with the size of your business and it's probably a very healthy development slate. And of that development slate, you will sell a percentage of those shows. So that's not going to change. Peter?

21:59

Yeah. What you don't have, which they will now have in this, you know, United Manager All3Media is such a spread of huge programs that the loss of one of them is never going to kind of quite.

22:37

That's true.

22:50

So you, you certainly, you know, what are the advantages of scale? Well, stability, you might say. They're not, then they're not likely to go under. Whether the valuation you put on it on day one sustains and goes up or kind of goes down. This is, you could say this is true of all big media mergers, that they're gambles on values going up. Foreign

22:51

Hi, this is Farnoosh Tarabi from Sew Money with Farnoosh Tarabi. And today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile Quick money tip stop paying a carrier tax. If your phone bill feels trapped in a pricey plan, this is your sign to unlock savings. Boost Mobile helps you reset your spending. With the $25 Unlimited Forever plan, you can bring your own phone, pay $25 and get unlimited wireless forever. And that simple switch can unlock up to doll in savings a year. That's money you could put towards paying down debt, investing or something that actually brings you joy. Those savings are based on average annual single line payment of AT&T Verizon and T Mobile customers. Compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan as of January 2026. For full offer details, visit boostmobile.com shipping, billing, admin, payroll, marketing. You're managing all the things, so why waste time sending important documents the old fashioned way? Mail and ship when you want, how you want with stamps.com print postage on demand 24, 7 and schedule pickups from your office or home. Save up to 90% with automated rate shopping. That's why over 1 million small businesses trust stamps.com go to stamps.com and use code podcast to try stamps.com risk free for 60 days.

23:24

It wouldn't be a week in TV without a story about the BBC, Peter.

24:46

It wouldn't, sadly and. Well, actually, no. There's two stories, to be fair. So a name has emerged in the sort of runners and riders for dg.

24:50

Yeah.

24:58

Which we've talked about various times and we've talked about people like Jay Hunt and Alex Mahon, who I think are both now officially ruled themselves out or whatever. We've talked already today about Jaden Turton, who I'd put money on as an outside bet. But a name has emerged, a guy called Matt Britton.

24:59

That's a good name for Director General, BBC.

25:15

And he's British. He's British. He's a former Google exec and he's being talked up as the next dg. Do you know him? Have you.

25:18

Have you never heard of him?

25:25

Have you heard him speak?

25:26

No, I'm sorry, he's. Well, is he. Is he from the world of television?

25:27

Well, he's from the nice. In the world of Google. So we come back to that familiar thing which is is it a good idea to bring somebody in who brings an outside perspective?

25:31

Who is he? We should Google him.

25:41

Who brings an outside perspective

25:45

or is

25:49

it better to have somebody, one who knows a little bit about television and also about. Has an instinctive feeling for public service, which is what the BBC is. Because whatever you might want to say about Google.

25:49

Yeah.

26:02

It is not a public service organization.

26:02

Didn't he have an odd session with a government select committee when he was asked about. I think he was upbraided for Google not paying enough tax in this country. And then One of the MPs asked him a question about how much he earned and he said he didn't know. And I think people say that when they're earning so much money, they don't actually know.

26:06

Well then, so. But you know, there's an argument that that's it. There's nothing wrong with it.

26:26

We may have seen a pay cut for that?

26:30

Well, no, no, but. But I don't see any problem at all in somebody who's earned a lot of money and then goes to become Director General of the BBC. Because in a way, I mean, it's a very well paid job, but it's also a public service job. So the question is whether bringing somebody in completely from outside the world of television is a. Is a good gambler or a bad one. The BBC, which is something we have talked about before, is a tricky organization to join at a senior level if you've never worked before. Obviously I speak from personal experience there, but the last time a DG joined the BBC who'd never worked at the BBC was Greg Dyke. And Greg Dyke was very popular DG and it went well for a while, but he, he came unstuck when the BBC hit a big problem. One of those BBC scandals. In this case it was the Hutton Inquiry and the, you know, the Iraq

26:31

War, sexing up the dossier.

27:23

And Greg Dyke did not survive that scandal. And you could argue it's partly because he hadn't been at the BBC for that long.

27:27

No, but I think that BBC scandals will.

27:36

Whoever goes in BBC scandals will come in battalions at them and is having been a very senior Google exec. Does it give you the right qualifications?

27:38

That's quite funny because in those days Greg Dyke was seen as being a bit of a barra boy and a bit of a bruiser and he was very popular with the staff, I think because he was very. He was a human being and, and a bit rough around the edges, but he kind of called it as it was. And the BBC up to that point had been run by, you know, man, that sitcom. Yes, Prime Minister.

27:49

There were a lot of Sir Humphreys.

28:08

A lot of. Lot of Sir Humphreys. It was a quasi government department as well as a broadcast.

28:10

Tend to be members of the establishment.

28:18

Yes. Whereas now they have to be a bit. A bit fly, they've got to be a bit more nimble.

28:19

And you could argue that they need to be a bit visionary in terms of all the things we've been talking about. How the world is changing. Platforms, broadcasters, production, they're all aligning. The stars are aligning in different ways

28:24

and all the while the BBC is appearing smaller and smaller and smaller.

28:36

So a truly visionary Director General who didn't, if you like get bogged down in internal BBC politics and, and had no experience of it, could be an absolutely brilliant appointment. Matt Britton could be this person we don't know we don't know. We felt. I kind of feel interesting, though, I think, to know more about him. If you Google Matt Britton, interesting enough, it says that he rode in the

28:40

Soul Olympics for Great Britain and he came in.

29:03

Well, they didn't get a medal, did he? He didn't get a medal. You can't hold that against.

29:07

No. Yeah. You've got it wrong.

29:10

He's only one of the rowers, isn't it?

29:12

No, but you're using apparently now commentators say, did he meddle?

29:13

Does that become a verb?

29:18

Oh, I mean, it's appalling.

29:19

Don't you hate verb Lands turning into verbs?

29:21

Yeah.

29:23

So annoying.

29:23

Yeah. Like impacted.

29:24

Yeah.

29:26

What the hell. No, you. You have an impact like detraining at

29:26

the end of a journey on a train. Let's not go down that one.

29:29

No.

29:33

But so very good for him. He was obviously a very good rower, but not quite good enough to get an Olympic medal. But would he be a good dg? Totally different issue.

29:34

You're full of insight, aren't you? Because you're right, being a good rower doesn't necessarily make you a really good dg.

29:42

Doesn't do any harm.

29:48

That's also going on. Gonna go on your gravestone. That's one of the best things you come out with recently. But the BBC have also been in

29:49

the news for the wrong difficult story and a. More.

29:57

This is a really hard one to unpack.

30:00

Really hard. Yeah.

30:01

So the story is, as we know, at the BAFTA Film Awards, the film, I Swear, which tells a fantastic story of John Davidson, who suffers from Tourette's syndrome, and in fact, it won Best Actor award. And John was at the ceremony and he has Tourette's, so he has these ticks where he blurts out words at any given time. And there was an award given out by two black performers, Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo. And the N word was heard quite clearly. What happened was it wasn't cut out. There was a delay, so it could have been cut out. There was a kerfuffle over whether there was a microphone that was too close to John and was that the right thing to do or not? But in the end, what's happened is there was a delay and it didn't get taken down off the iplayer. It's the. It's the. It's.

30:02

It mirrors remembering the iPlayer for nearly 15 hours, which is. Which. We've had this before with Glastonbury. Yeah.

31:02

It was the same kind of issue around the Glastonbury thing. And I don't know. What do you think? I think that it was. What happened was Alan Cummings, who's the host, obviously he then came out and said, we apologize for any offense. You have to understand this is not, was not intentional. This was a sufferer of Tourette's, which is a condition which makes you say things which you don't mean to say at inappropriate times. And we're very sorry.

31:08

And the film is about being to people with Tourette's and about if you like, respecting people with Tourette's and their rights and all that. So it's a really copy.

31:34

But apparently no. There were two instances where he used that word.

31:43

Yeah.

31:46

And the second instance they did pick up and they cut it out.

31:46

Yeah.

31:50

So it's bizarre. They didn't pick the first one up, but they claim that went through. They didn't pick it up, it was a mistake.

31:51

It's the sort of thing that blows up into. And there's been much coverage about it and, and then we even to the extent of Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, saying, you know, the BBC's got questions to answer here and so on. But in terms of. Is this something? Well, they don't really have a DG at the moment. They've got Tim Demi Davies leaving anyway. Where you say the DG should resign because of this? Yeah, no, not really. I mean, obviously it went badly wrong and somebody somewhere didn't do something they should have done, which is certainly to taken down the iplayer. But you know, I, I kind of know from experience that if you're the person who ultimately is responsible for this, does that mean you've got any actual control over it? Is, you know, you're not in that edit it kind. If you're senior management at the BBC, by the time this gets to you, it's already too late to stop it turning into a big scandal. I mean, nobody's doubting something's gone horribly wrong here. And this word should never have been in a broadcast version of it because there's a two hour delay on it and it should certainly then not have been on the iplayer.

31:57

I saw it and I thought both Lindo and Jordan, I thought those two guys handled it really well. They were dignified, they're professional, they took a beat, they carried on, they got through it. And I think that, I don't know, I just think that we lack now the ability to kind of just take a step back and understand what was going on and see that there was difficulties on both sides. Very hard for those Two guys to hear that word in such a public venue. But how mortifying for the Tourette sufferer to think that, oh, he was apparently

33:06

very upset and what should have been his wonderful night, you know, where it

33:38

now will always be in his memory as one of the most painful events of his life.

33:42

Yeah.

33:45

And. And the guys in the OB truck, you know, they made a mistake. It wasn't that they did it intentionally. There's no intent.

33:46

It's a bad thing. I don't think it says anything more widely about the BBC. I think that's part of the point I'm making, but I do think. So let's say this guy Matt Britton becomes new dg. So he's a kind of, you know, comes in from outside.

33:52

Yeah.

34:05

If I were him, I would, I would say the way the BBC then handles these things doesn't show them in the best light. But bafta, obviously this is a BAFTA event. They're advertising for a head of PR and comms. And do you know what the salary is for this, for this role at Bafta? 55,000pounds.

34:05

And it says here it's an opportunity to join a very busy team at Better Loose.

34:24

Yeah, yeah.

34:28

And they just got a lot busier.

34:29

I know, but in that world of PR and comms, if that really is a salary you put against the head

34:31

of prisons, quite junior, I guess what

34:37

I'm getting at, I'm getting it. You, you, you know, when, when a thing like this blows up, which is, which is, you know, problematical to BAFTA and to the BBC and, and allows people who want to, to give the BBC another kicking, you, you need people handling the fallout of it who might be at a senior level than is implied by that salary.

34:39

Yeah. Although people who are paid very high salaries. Can we can things up as well?

35:02

People like you meet me.

35:07

Yeah, yeah. I do it all the time. But SNL last week, Saturday Night Live in America did a sketch about this.

35:08

Yeah.

35:16

And it had various members of their cast impersonating big stars.

35:17

Oh, no. And they got, they got terrible kind of Mel Gibson.

35:21

They had, they had Mel Gibson saying, I, I realize I, I've been diagnosed with Tourette's. Which explains all the things I've said about the Jewish community over the last. Then J.K. rowling came out. I said, you know, I, my comments about the trans community are all because of my Tourette's. And they were all.

35:24

But when I hear that. So this. I think that's. Yeah, I, I read that story and I read that and thought those are very good jokes. Well, it's a very good joke at Mel Gibson's. Very good joker. But of course, if you look at it from the point of view of are we being fed to the Tourette's community? That's why they've had the pylon.

35:41

But yes, but they're missing the points. This is what I mean.

35:58

That's almost. We're talking about suppressing free speech. This is a lesser thing but are. When the SNL writers think there's a very funny sketch to be made in this idea that Mel Gibson claims to have Tourette's, should they then self censor and say, although it's a very funny joke and a very good sketch, no in the making, we shouldn't make it because it's going to offend Tourette's sufferers? Well, that's, that's a 64, 000 question.

36:01

I actually think the point of it. But the angle of attack was not Tourette's, it was Mel Gibson, of course, and the Bill Cosby one was hilarious. I love Now I laughed and you know, I, I just think that it was a very funny angle where they thought these people are now seizing the opportunity to explain, to basically launder what they've been saying by saying, oh, I've got, I've got Tourette's. Well, that's not an attack on them.

36:25

And you would think that people who have Tourette's would see the joke there and say that's, that's a good joke. But people on their behalf will say no, that's massively offensive and they should never have died.

36:52

If you apply a little bit of common sense to this. And we do a show, you know, do you do a show called How I Got News for your. Clearly you're going to be involved in, in various stories which sail close to the wind. And the truth is that I think that we've now come to a place where if you mention anything they think, oh no, no, we've got to get rid of it. But you think, hang on a second. For example, you know, when the Duke of Edinburgh died, Ian Hislop talked about the documentaries that were on instead of us on the Friday night the David Tennant episode got postponed quite rightly because the Duke of Edinburgh died on the Friday. And Ian said, I really enjoyed the documentaries about the Duke of Edmund, some things I didn't know. And he said, you know, I remember there was one really charming story about when he was at school in Germany and he was forced to be in Hitler youth. And when they did the salute, he would, as the hand went up, ask, can he go to the toilet? And I thought, that's a really funny story. Well, we were told by an executive, you've got to take that out. Why? That's what I, I said it in exactly that tone. And we then kept, we kept it in because it's a charming story.

37:03

Very well.

38:15

From all they heard was Nazi party, Duke of Edinburgh. They put it together and they came to the wrong conclusion. And I said, no, no, this is where you need to use your intelligence and use your intelligence to say, this is not a joke about. Isn't it funny that he was a Nazi? He wasn't. He was actually saying, I'm not a Nazi by turning the Hitler salute, the Heil Hitler into a joke. Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox now and let's end this program before I get into real trouble.

38:16

Yeah.

38:45

Yeah.

38:45

Well, look, that's all for this week and thank you very much for listening. Any questions about the world of television you want to ask, send them our way. We'd love to hear from you.

38:45

You can get hold of us on the usual way on our socials. Even better, why not get a pizza in and watch us on YouTube?

38:53

Thank you for listening and if you enjoyed the show, please do follow Insiders. The TV podcast will be back next week. Unless we've been cancelled.

39:00

I hope so. We may have been canceled.

39:08

That new thing. Yeah, we've got it. The Drop by GNC bringing you all the newness that matters. Hand picked by the pros who actually know what's up and what's proven to work. We keep you on top of the trends and dialed into what's next. Whether you're crushing it at the gym, leveling up your game or thriving every day, the Drop by GNC is where the latest solutions in health and wellness land first nonstop innovation and fresh finds daily explore what's new and what's next on the drop by gnc.

39:19