Uncertainty over CNN's future, new BBC funding ideas and Meghan Markle’s jam making empire consciously uncouples from Netflix

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0:00

Hello and welcome to Insiders, a podcast all about the world of television with

0:59

me, Peter Fincham and me, Jimmy Mulville.

1:03

This is the podcast for people who love TV and who want to know a bit more about what goes on behind the scenes. So, Jim, Yes, I say this almost every week. You're back from being away. You've been in America. You went to the WGA Awards. I was, I did have. I Got news for you. We were up for a writing. Well, first of all, did he win? No. Oh, sorry.

1:05

No, no, no.

1:25

I was teeing that up in a sort of, we did in a sort of almost Trumpian. You know, we're the winners. We're that.

1:26

No, but you know, it's not just about the winning.

1:31

It's, it's the, it's the other people lose.

1:33

It's. Yeah. The. Right.

1:37

Who, who won.

1:38

So the Writers Guild Awards and held at the Edison Ballroom in New York.

1:39

Yeah.

1:44

And we were up in the category against John Oliver last week. Tonight snl us.

1:44

Yeah.

1:50

And the Daily show and Seth Meyers late night with all fantastic shows. We've got a very small writing team. I mean, they're really good. And our show, of course, is partly written but also partly improvised. Have I forgotten who is partly improvised? Because people say what they want to say on the night. And we're being preempted now to explain that cnn, as you know, is a news network and at the moment there's a lot of news. So we are now not going out on Saturday nights on Linear, but we go out on the streaming service the following day on hbo, HBO Max rather. And on the app, the CNN have got this new app which I, I should advertise.

1:51

And do you get an actual Kind of linear thing.

2:29

No, they don't put you out at

2:32

2 in the morning at the moment.

2:34

No, they're clearing the schedules. So the linear service is devoted entirely to news. Commentating on the.

2:35

On the war, which does seem reasonable since CNN is the channel.

2:42

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I met with Mark Thompson, who, as you know, is the CEO and chief editor of cnn, and he's a Brit, and he was saying that over 100 million people have watched CNN globally over the last week.

2:46

Wow.

2:59

So everybody obviously has got their eyes on what's happening.

3:00

And leaving aside the war, which still dominates the news, obviously there's big changes taking place in, in CNN's world because CNN is part of Warner Brothers.

3:03

Yeah.

3:14

And therefore has been taken over by Paramount.

3:15

About to be.

3:18

Yeah, about to be. But Netflix no longer the running, et cetera, et cetera. What's. When you were in America, what was the mood about that? What did you pick up?

3:19

I think their view is certainly at the top is let's see what happens. As you know, David Ellison said quite categorically that we're not, you know, CNN's a great brand and we want to speak to the center left, the center right, the 70 of the American public who have those views. We want to. And the thing is.

3:26

Is that. Right.

3:45

Well, that's what he said in his interview. Probably not.

3:45

I've got the quote he said, actually he said CNN is an incredible brand with an incredible team and we absolutely believe in the independence that needs to be maintained, obviously, for those incredible journalists, and we want to support that going forward.

3:47

So he's going to cancel it then.

4:00

That's three incredibles. Well, it's one of those quotes that has, it says here at the bottom of it, somebody's written this.

4:01

We're fully behind him and we're going to push him off the ledge.

4:07

So I agree this does feel a bit like the football chairman saying the manager's doing a great job. But it would be very obvious in a way for the Ellisons to say we're Trump leaning. CNN's a bit left leaning. Kill it.

4:12

Yeah.

4:27

But these media moguls, and I know you know, David Ellison's, he's sort of what you describe as a Nepo baby, because actually I like him a lot,

4:27

by the way now, but. You do. I like. He's a fine man.

4:35

Did you meet him?

4:38

Was he there? No, but I'm heav you, I'm very available.

4:39

You've sent him an early Christmas card.

4:42

Whenever he wants them, I'm sending him A Christmas card every week.

4:43

But these media moguls, they play a long game, don't they? So, you know, like sort of Rupert Murdoch over the years, he's, he's. He's cozied up to the Prime Minister whether. Whether it's, you know, Mrs. Thatcher, whether it's Tony Blair or whatever. But he knows when he sits with a politician, you won't be there forever. And in America, that's even more so. So wouldn't the Edisons, who presumably expect to own CNNs for many, many years to come, wouldn't they think, hang on a minute.

4:46

Yeah, they're going to hedge their bets. I mean, let's not forget that. I suppose what CNN are thinking about is what's just happened to cbs. CBS was part of the Paramount universe, if you like. It was their linear channel, bit like itv. Very popular, very middle of the road, but, you know, pretty much trusted news network. What happens is David Ellison buys a company called the Free Press, which its co founder, Barry Weiss, is kind of conservative. Curious. Right. So she leans to the right.

5:16

Barry. And she's a woman.

5:50

Barry. B.

5:52

It's not B A, double R. No,

5:52

it's B A, R, I.

5:54

Okay.

5:56

Barry. She is a woman. Pronouns. I don't know what her pronouns are.

5:56

It's not like Barry White.

6:01

No.

6:03

Barry Weiss.

6:03

It's not Barry Weiss. That would be much.

6:04

Do you remember Barry White?

6:06

I do remember Barry.

6:07

We got it together, babe.

6:08

God, it was like he was in the room. Peter, if you close your eyes at that point, I thought Barry White was here with us. No,

6:09

I don't even know. Barry White is still with us. I kind of hope he is Barry White. Come on.

6:17

Is he?

6:22

Yeah.

6:22

Is he having tea with Jeremy Isaac? So. So we. Barry White would be a much more imaginative and much funnier head of CBS News, but it's Barry Weisse. Weiss, which is German for white.

6:23

I've got my head around it.

6:36

So Barry Weiss and she. Basically, to be honest, I think the technical term is she's pissed a lot of people off. I was at the WGA Awards and on Sunday, as you alluded to, and the journalistic awards were given out by a man called Bill Owens. Now, Bill Owens got a standing ovation. I didn't know who Bill Owens was, but when he came out on stage, everybody stood up and applauded him. Apparently. Apparently he's left. He was the executive producer of 60 Minutes, for he'd been at the program for over 26 years, ending up as the guy that ran the show. And he's left. He's left because he no longer has editorial independence. And today another senior journalist has left cbs. So cbs, the news division anyway, is being torn apart by the fact that the Ellisons have in fact, you know, done what I think Trump wanted, which they've, they've changed the angle of approach for CBS News. So I guess CNN have that as a concern because they've seen it in action.

6:37

Doing a satirical comedy show on cnn, is that better than doing the actual political news stuff or worse? I don't know. But you know, a satirical comedy is almost designed to annoy the powers that be.

7:38

Yeah.

7:50

That's one thing we know about the Trump regime and not just Trump, but the people around him is that then they're not people who, you know, can take a joke at their expense. No, they take themselves quite seriously.

7:51

They do and they're very thin skinned.

8:04

Yeah.

8:06

Just go back to the, to the awards is that I did, did forget to mention Stephen Colbert was honored.

8:07

And Stephen got just explained. Stephen Colbert is one of the people who was in Trump's sight.

8:13

He was one of the sacrificial lambs. He was sacrificed on the altar of let's get the deal done with Trump. And that the excuse was that is not making a lot of money. But Colbert was one of the most successful purveyors of late night, hugely popular. And they've got rid of him. He's leaving in May, I think. And he came on stage, he was honored, the Walter Bernstein Award, which was given to usually to journalists for acts of bravery in the face of whatever.

8:18

Walter Bernstein was even the McCarthyite.

8:42

Yes. He was banned under McCarthy and had to write under a pseudonym. And his life was, you know, in those days, you know, this Senator McCarthy went to the big studios and said, if you don't get rid of all your communists that are working for you, because in those days it was reds under the bed, we will fuck you up. And of course it's exactly what Trump's doing to various companies now saying, don't do my bidding, I'll get in your way. And so people did, they were blacklisted. And a lot of people came over here. In fact, some writers came over from us and worked for atv, I think in those days, Associated Television in Birmingham in Lou Gray.

8:44

That's Lou Grave. Yeah.

9:20

And they wrote Robin Hood.

9:21

They wrote the Old Robin Hood by American writers riding through the glen.

9:23

And they kept putting in kind of lefty bits and producers would say, you can't put this in because he robbed.

9:27

Tell You.

9:33

The story he wrote from the rich and gave when I was about.

9:33

Before he did. Yeah. When I was about four years old, I was invited to a friend's birthday party. As you are when you're. For example, sorry, black tie. Some boy, you know, he was in my class. Whether he was a friend or not, it's not the point. I was invited, but it clashed with Robin Hood, which is on, you know, telly at tea time. And I kicked up such a fuss saying, I want to watch Robin. Because here was the problem. The. The family of the boy who's, you know, the birthday party I've been invited to, they didn't have a telly.

9:36

Oh, I thought you say they're related to the Sheriff of Nottingham.

10:07

No, they didn't have a telly. So I turned up and so kind of watched Robin Hood on the table.

10:09

Yeah.

10:13

And my parents were so embarrassed at my appalling behavior that, that they took me home and I thought, great, I'm going home now. I can go and watch Robin Hood.

10:14

And you sent to bed.

10:23

Except I was sent to my room

10:23

and they bought them at early.

10:25

That is such a formative trauma in my early life that many, many years later, when I became the controller of BBC1, one of the first things I did was to commission a series of Robin Hood knowing I'd be allowed to watch it.

10:26

This is. This is news. This is. This is.

10:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is.

10:43

This is gonna.

10:44

The Sheriff Nottingham was Keith Allen.

10:45

So do you think there are schedules. The things we watch are all based on the traumas that people have had in their childhoods?

10:47

Yeah, some of them weren't, but that particular one was. And I remember going to the. So what was screening and thinking, what

10:54

was the One show trauma based on that?

11:01

The One show trauma was based on the fact that it's really hard work to commission different shows into the seven o' clock slot every night of the week. If you scrap a lot of them and create a thing called One show, you put your feet up and you

11:04

thought about that when you were four.

11:16

Not the One Show.

11:18

Okay.

11:19

No, but I. It must be one of my earliest.

11:19

Anyway, Stephen Colbert gets up on stage.

11:22

Yes.

11:24

And he says, you know, I'm out of business in May. I've got a great writing team here. And I didn't do a lot of the jokes that. That they wrote for me because I didn't think they were appropriate or whatever, but they were really funny. I want to do them now. He did a joke. He said, do you remember when Trump And Melania went to see the Pope and she was dressed all in black with a long black veil. Well, they say dress for the job you want. There's one place for the newest drops in wellness and performance and the biggest sale of the year. It's the drop by gnc curating the best of what's new, handpicked by the pros who know what works. And right now, get it all. Buy one, get one 50% off during the semi annual LiveWell sale. From crushing workouts to leveling up your nutrition and everything in between, get the best deals on the latest innovations. All the newness is all on sale right now during the LiveWell sale on the Drop by GNC.

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12:33

So let's get closer to home and let's move back to, you know, television. What's going on in television here in the UK and the BBC have published their response to the government's green paper.

13:04

Yes.

13:20

You know, this is really important to the future of the BBC. This is all about how it's sustainable in the long term and how it's funded. Although even as I say that, when I think of a green paper, kind of one eyelid droops and when I think of the BBC's response, the other eyelid droops. But basically the BBC, I think this is interesting that the BBC obviously, they, they're going to say in the response to the green paper, the BBC needs to survive. The BBC matters. You know, all the well rehearsed stuff about its importance in national life. Tim Davis quoted as saying, the choices here is clear. Back the BBC or watch it decline. The status quo is not an option. I mean these again are kind of, it says here kind of, you know, typical quotes. But then the BBC starts leaning into the difficult reality that, that 94% of people in the UK use BBC services each month, but fewer than 80% of households contribute to the license.

13:20

Yes.

14:14

And among the various things we talk about with license fee, it seems to me this is one of the thorniest of all because how do you get license fee evasion down and license the numbers up in terms of people who pay the license fee? Well, you've got to make it illegal. You go knocking on people's doors, very unpopular things to do and things that the BBC traditionally doesn't like in a sense to associate itself with the enforcement of the license fee, but on the other hand, which is why it's one of those rock and hard place issues if you don't do something about it, you know, in a world in which we all pay voluntary subscriptions for whatever it is, Netflix, sky, etc. Etc. A license fee you can well see, as the years go by, more and more people think, do I need, really need to pay?

14:15

Well, according to the latest Public Accounts Committee estimate, you know, it's my bedtime reading evasion and households deciding they don't need a license cost the BBC more than a billion pounds a year in Las Rev. See, my son's up in Glasgow University and he said to me, so is my daughter and so is your daughter. I wasn't going to mention it because it wasn't for me to mention that Holly was at university in Glasgow, but they are both at university together. And. And the thing is that Jack said to me, why should I pay a lot? Because he just moved into his own flat with his mates, they're in their third year. I said, are you watching television? He said, yeah. He said, well, you got to pay for a license. But I don't watch the BBC, I watch Netflix, I watch streaming stuff. I don't watch the BBC, watch hat

15:08

trick programs on the BBC, like have I Got News for you? Has he got no loyalty?

15:53

No, no.

15:57

Does he not acknowledge that it's the making of those programs over the years that is paid for his.

15:58

He thinks I'm a plumber. I've kept it quiet. You know why I've kept it quiet? I don't want them sending me scripts. But no, and I explained to Jack, Jack, the fact is, if you own a television and you, you have a television in your house, you have to pay a TB license. But that seems, people know that.

16:03

But that seems a quaint thing to say to people of Jack's age.

16:21

I know, but again, I think, I suppose when I was reading this document, I thought, you know, isn't it simpler just to make it the law that everybody has a TV set has to pay a TV license?

16:25

But this is why, this is a very difficult issue because of course, what, what do you call a TV set, you call a laptop a TV set, etc. It's. I like all things to do with the BBC and funding. There's no easy way through this. What, what people like us in television traditionally say, and there's some force in this, is to say that the BBC License fee costs 180 pounds a year.

16:36

I thought it was 170.

16:59

Well, it's. I think it's 180, but it's around that area. So what we people who work in television will traditionally say is it's incredibly good value.

17:00

It is.

17:08

Break that down. It's less than. It's 50p a day or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I would speak on behalf of Jack or indeed on behalf of Holly, but I would say, if you're that generation, you think, yeah, but that's not what I'm comparing to. I'm comparing it to the. To the subscriptions I choose to pay.

17:09

They don't pay them. We pay them and they punts off us.

17:27

They're not.

17:30

They're not paying for anything. Peter. These, these.

17:31

Maybe, maybe not the Melville household, but I run a strict. I go pretty tight ship in the Fincham household. But if you. So if you compare it to some of the prescription subscriptions you pay, it's actually looks like quite a lot of money. So I think it's harder and harder to keep people focused on the idea that. That it's a sort of social obligation to pay a license fee if it's not backed up with rather crude threats of illegality or the knock on the door, which nobody really wants to. You know, everybody's very comfortable with that. That billion pounds a year that the BBC is missing out on. They could, for instance, commission all the proposals. I've currently got in with BBC Television, I think it's. And actually pocket some changes.

17:33

I think it's. It's this discriminating against you, this. But so.

18:18

Well, it's probably a screwdriver as you as well.

18:23

So what are you going to do then? So.

18:25

No, no, I haven't got that. We're not here to have answers. At least I, you know, I'm afraid to say, disappointment to our listeners. I haven't got an answer. I'm pointing out, as we often do, that these thorny issues are genuinely thorny for the BBC. Tim Davy, I mean, he is now kind of, you know, he's on his lap of honor, isn't he? He won't be. He won't be there for very long now.

18:27

Yeah, he's about to stop paying his license fee, I would have thought.

18:49

But, you know, whoever. Whoever's coming in is, you know, it's got an in. In tray full of really thorny problems.

18:52

Did you realize, you see, are there people out there who don't realize that if you're watching, say, the Champions League on Amazon prime, then you actually need a TV license.

18:59

Why?

19:09

Because you are watching television in this country.

19:10

Why don't they explain that more clearly? Well, if I don't know that, why.

19:13

But that is. I mean, I didn't know until I just read it out loud to you, but it's got that and that. But that's the law. And you're right, there's a reticence to apply the law, isn't it? Because it does feel a bit ugly, people going around in a van and banging on your doors. Although I did threaten Jack. I said, there'll be a knock on your door one day and this bloke will turn up and he'll look a

19:17

big bloke, saying, you've got a telly.

19:38

Or. Or in a. Or in a Scottish accent, which I won't do because I don't want to piss off Scotsman.

19:39

It'll be the bailiff saying, your dad hasn't paid the rent yet. Go knock on my dad's door.

19:43

But I think that that's. You see, I think that, for example, the government, many years ago, the government shifted the responsibility for paying for the BBC World Service back onto the BBC, that's £400 million a year. That actually the government should take that back because that's part of our soft power as a country. It's a very trusted service. People in Iran now are listening to BBC Persia because they want to get the news, you know.

19:50

So which government did that?

20:18

It was George Osborne in the days of austerity.

20:20

Austerity, yeah. I've seen George Osborne recently walking around.

20:22

Big issue.

20:27

He doesn't. No, no, no at all. Big paycheck. I don't think. I don't think he's experiencing any dexterity in his own life. I'm not commenting on his appearance. He lost a lot of weight. George Osborne.

20:27

What?

20:40

He was a bit of a fatty, wasn't he? George He. And then he became the opposite.

20:40

He is a he. I would. I would imagine. I knew he's no stranger to Ozempic.

20:45

An old colleague of mine, yeah. Went out with George Osborne when they were at Oxford together and. And she called him Fat George.

20:50

And we can say that about. About George Osborne because he is probably the one most unpopular people.

20:58

He's one of the fattest people we know. No, but he isn't anymore.

21:03

I once attended the Paralympics and as a spectator.

21:06

No, no. Alarm bells ringing as Jimmy enters into this. Nothing to worry about, guys.

21:11

It was one of the most wonderfully warm summer's evening we were there, I was there with the family. It was a great evening. Everybody was in such a great mood. And then they announced that the gold medal was about to be given by the chance Exchequer, George Osborne. And everybody booed very, very, very, very loudly. It was the only sour note in the whole evening.

21:18

So poor George.

21:41

Yeah, he lost a bit of weight that night. Have you seen some of the ideas they come up with?

21:42

Yeah, this is the other thing about this green paper is that they are.

21:48

They're on the front foot of it.

21:51

Yeah. Which I think is a good thing because if the only ideas floating around are completely kind of, you know, you know, put advertising in Radio 1 or whatever, that's not gonna. That's not gonna.

21:52

Or they've dismissed the idea of a subscription model. Thank God for that.

22:03

So, specific ideas in the response. Expanding the scope of the license fee to anyone streaming content on Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple and YouTube.

22:07

What does.

22:16

Etc. Whether the programming is live or not or on demand. What, what are you basically saying? You, you pay a subscription to Netflix, you watch Netflix, but therefore you have to pay your BBC license fee? That's not going to fly. Another idea, allowing ITV, Channel 4 and other PSPs onto the iPlayer hosting the shows and allowing them to use subscriptions and advertising. Well, I can see the point of bringing all these streaming services of the, you know, the linear broadcasters together onto one service.

22:16

I think that's going to happen anyway in the future, maybe long after we're dead. But I think there will be one big UK platform to compete with, you know, apples and Netflixes.

22:50

But if you've got, let's say, ITV on that platform and they've got the right to put advertising into their programs and therefore they will receive that advertising, you could say, how does that help the BBC's financial problems? Because ITV aren't going to want to go into an AI player unless they're allowed to include advertising in their programming. And then that advertising is what keeps ITV alive.

23:00

And I kind of think that both these first two that you've mentioned are a bit woolly and vague and hard to enforce.

23:28

Yeah, you could cause that to happen,

23:34

but trying to get all those players to agree on anything, you know, is going to be a nightmare. But then again, they've come up with the old, the old saw as well. We'll cut some money out. They're going to cut another 500 million out over the next two years.

23:36

We talked about that a couple of weeks ago.

23:47

Well, I guess they can do cuts

23:48

on top of Cuts. It's very painful and literally this morning I had a meeting with somebody at BBC who mentioned budget cuts. You know, becomes the thing they mention in every meeting. So that's unsurprising, but that itself does not solve their problems. So I suppose we come back to there's been more response to the Green Paper is out there, more words have been spoken. Another kind of forest has been cut down to produce this report. But these ideas still feel like the same ideas.

23:49

The one good thing they've asked for is an end to the 10 year charter renewal process, which it says creates an existential threat at regular intervals.

24:20

Isn't that exactly why the government wants it?

24:30

It's a way of the government keeping it to heel. But I do, I mean, as a viewer and as a lover of the BBC, I would love to see it unfettered from that. I think that, you know, what's in danger is you get a government that wants to destroy it and, you know, doesn't hold back when you.

24:32

So if you're the BBC and you put these things into response to the Green Paper, you're going to have layers of people at BBC saying that's believable, that's credible, that's worth trying. It's a bit of a long shot, but let's put it in the idea of saying the charter never gets renewed feels to me like, yeah, wouldn't that be lovely? Wouldn't that be lovely for the BBC? But why would a government agree to that then? The government in a sense has given up its power, its ability, as you say, to bring the BBC to heel. Whether, whether you're a government sympathetic to the BBC, like the Labour government, more sympathetic, or kind of hostile, as you know, Boris Johnson, the Tory government was. You're still going to want to feel you've got some power over the BBC, aren't you?

24:45

Why?

25:34

For the exact reason that they will then, you know, acknowledge the political reality of the world that they move in.

25:35

Well, surely they, Boris Johnson would have completely emasculated or robbed it of all of its.

25:44

Okay, okay, we can come in another way.

25:51

And Farage, God knows what he might do to it.

25:54

What other publicly funded organizations aren't answerable to government? The nhs, Answerable to government?

25:56

Yeah.

26:03

The army, the civil Service, they're all answered. I, I just, I can't see a world in which a government says, okay, the BBC, you have your charter forever and you don't have to.

26:04

What about setting up an independent organization?

26:15

Well, that's a slightly different thing.

26:18

I mean, the board of trustees, for example, could be that. They could be, they could be vetted properly. And you don't have these people on board who are driven by, you know, political motives, like this guy Robbie Gibbs, who's never, never been the same since he left the Bee Gees. Well, listen, I mean, what we've, you and I have proved is that the BBC and its license fee argument and its future are pretty intractable. It's not an easy solve.

26:20

And sitting here now, have you read the response to the Green Paper? Slavishly from beginning to end.

26:49

Yeah.

26:53

I don't yet see anything in it that tells me how the BBC kind of navigates its way into a new non licensed fee world.

26:55

No, I think you've got to keep the license fee and you have to enforce it by people going around with tasers.

27:03

And I think they start, frankly with your son Jack.

27:12

I'll give.

27:15

He can afford a license.

27:15

You can get his address on our emails or socials or why not? But he, he's going to be thrilled by this, I can tell you.

27:17

I'm.

27:24

I'm going to get the news.

27:24

Bragging about this to his friends, saying I was mentioning him dad's post.

27:26

So this week let's.

27:29

They talked about me of some length.

27:30

Let's move from the BBC. Let's move from the sublime to some would say the ridiculous.

27:31

Yes.

27:36

Because. Go on, Peter.

27:37

Oh, it's about, we're going to talk about Meghan Markle.

27:38

Oh, I love Meghan Markle.

27:40

And also we've been talking about. This is television stuff. Stuff. Because we're talking about Netflix.

27:43

Yeah.

27:47

And the Duchess of Sussex. Is she still. The Duchess.

27:48

Is she still called it.

27:51

I can't keep up with all the titles that they.

27:52

Most royals now have had their titles

27:54

removed from them, but let's assume she's still called the Duchess of Sussex. Her lifestyle brand, as Ever. Sorry, ironically titled as Ever has ended.

27:56

It's called as Ever.

28:09

Yes, it is. As ever. Or isn't it called With Love or something?

28:11

No, that's a TV show score. With Love.

28:15

So her lifestyle brand is called as Ever, rather than Here Today, Gone Tomorrow. And it is for now it might have been called. And it has ended its partnership with Netflix.

28:17

Right.

28:29

And essentially it's ended. Exactly. She's decided, or her advisor decided, that Netflix's holding them back. He doesn't have quite enough, quite enough ambition. They want to sell, you know, jam and flower sprinkles and shortbread cookies all around the world.

28:29

What's, what's the thing she sells.

28:48

Most of the, the world's leading global streaming service apparently doesn't have enough ambition for them. So they've, if you believe this, they've ended that partnership and they're going to go and sell these things around the world all on their own. There is of course another point of view that says Netflix are pleased to be shot of them and that nobody was watching their programs.

28:49

I think what's happened was that actually when they do their kind of algorithmic metrics, they do a thing where they, they can track how many people watched for the first two minutes and, and then they can track how many people have watched to 90% of the series. And I would imagine they struggled to find even people who watched it for two minutes.

29:12

By the way, do you know what flower sprinkles are?

29:34

Yeah, what are flower sprinkles, by the way? You mentioned flower sprinkles.

29:36

They are, and I'm quoting here, edible confetti to beautify any dish that epitomize the idea of surprise and delight.

29:40

They are edible confetti.

29:49

Putting pepper on your pudding, you know, definitely gets that sounds like code.

29:52

He, I put pepper on my pudding last night. So what the is she talking about?

29:58

I can't sit here and translate this into.

30:05

Apparently she, she shifts of all these products. Apparently she's best known for her jam.

30:08

Yep.

30:13

I've always thought she was jammy.

30:14

So they decided to move on. A spokesman for as ever said it was grateful for the partnership with Netflix during the brand's first year and added, we've experienced meaningful and rapid growth and as ever is now ready to stand on its own. Which is sort of like, is it not the football manager saying, I think the team is doing absolutely fine. The fact that we're in the relegation zone means there's so many places above us we can aim for. So I've decided to leave.

30:17

And yet Netflix have said Meghan's passion for elevating everyday moments into beautiful yet simple ways in inspired the creation of the as ever brand and we are glad to have played a role in that. Now, if you have subtitles underneath that saying what they really meant was thank fuck she's gone. We'll never have to listen to that drivel anymore and not lose viewers by the thousands.

30:40

But what is kind of in television terms, what is going on here? Because we know that Netflix is an algorithm driven organization and quite an unsentimental organization. So if they felt, you know, the, the, the, the, the statistics, the, the numbers just aren't adding up, they will have dropped this. It's entirely believable that this can be presented as Megan deciding to move on and go global because, yeah, you know, she's out there. But do you think. And you know Netflix. But you've just made a very successful series for Netflix with, with Lisa McGee, how to get Heaven from Belfast. Do you read this when you get, when you sort of penetrate the word salad announcements? Do you actually interpret this as Netflix a thought? Even though Meghan Markle, we can sit here and you know, say what we like about her jam or flower sprinkles. She's one of the most famous women in the world. That's still not good enough for Netflix.

31:05

Netflix are really sophisticated. They can tell whether that something's worth keeping or not. And that's why a lot of shows you don't see go beyond the second season on Netflix now, you know, the kind of long running series of five, six, seven seasons now is quite a rare thing.

32:03

But you've made a different point though, which I think is really interesting point about the fact that on Netflix you don't see many long running series because the algorithms are rather brutal thing. Yeah. Whereas we talked about this before show like Slow Horses on, on Apple, which is, you know, a much smaller streaming service. The percentage of the audience gets much smaller. Nevertheless, they've taken a show like Slow Horses and said we're going to stick with that one. We're going to keep commissioning.

32:16

I know it's brilliant.

32:45

Six series that is far more like the way that traditional broadcasters treated success. So whatever your reference point might be friends or whatever, 150 episodes, you know, a network gets a show like Friends, it's, it's like, oh my God, struck. We've struck gold here. We will have many, many series of it. Is the long running series in danger of being a thing of the past? Because we're now in an algorithm driven world where even though the first series might do well, the second series might do well, at that point, you know, computer says no and it's over.

32:46

You could be. I mean the thing is that the serialized miniseries, the, you know, the eight episodes and that's the end of it is also becoming more and more popular on the streaming services because you can get big stars. You know, Kate Winslet turns up in a TV show, she's not gonna do it for eight years. She might do one series which if it's very well written and it's properly funded and she's paid enough money, she'll do it. So you know, you're trying to get attention of the audience to come and stick with your network. So I think that shorter runs are going to be more apparent. I think they want bigger stars in these short runs. So I think the long run, challenging

33:27

for us as producers, because in the world, in the old world of linear television, at any one time that would be in a schedule, the shiny new things, the things that are at their peak, you know, that they're three or four series in and the audience has grown and they're, you know, the traitors of the moment or whatever. But then, because if you were running a linear channel, you had to fill up a schedule, if you were really honest with yourself, there were shows that maybe were past their best, that were living out their life because it's easier to go on recommissioning them than to replace them. Because if you, if you do decommission them, if you cancel them, you've got a great big hole in your schedule at 8 o' clock on Tuesday or whatever. But streamers don't have schedules like that. So they can just quietly put things kind of out of their misery, as it were. Therefore, does it make it harder to slowly develop the attention and loyalty of an audience in the way that, you know, we've grown up on that? If you like, that could be a drama, it could be a sitcom, it could be a panel show or whatever. It doesn't necessarily sort of pop in the first series or even the second series, but five years down the line, it's got very low audience, will stay with it for a long time.

34:03

But also, I'm beginning to discern a difference now between, you know, Netflix's output and say Apple's output and Netflix do want to have things that the, that the audience kind of gobble up. I mean, they will have room on the platform for what I would call the kind of airport. So Night Agent, for example, I really enjoyed it and gobbled it up in about three or four nights. I can't remember what it was now, but it was really great at the time. But Apple, on the other hand, I think curate incredibly high end shows. I mean, like I said, I'm thinking, I may have said it before on this podcast when I met Jamie Ehrlich and Zach Van Amberg, who run Apple in Los Angeles. And I asked them, saying, well, what's your favorite show on Apple? He said, well, you wouldn't have seen it. It's called Drops of God and it was an acquisition by Jay Hunt. And then they've now I think they've, they funded the succeeding series. I'm halfway through the second series and it's a brilliant show, but I have to say it doesn't try and get to the widest possible audience, but it's a wonderful piece of television, if you like that kind of thing. Same with severance, I would say. As you say, Slow Horses, I think is slightly more populist, but nevertheless they managed to get Gary Oldman, which turns it into a kind of special event. But the thing about Apple is Apple

35:23

would trade all that for Netflix's viewing numbers.

36:32

I don't think they would because I don't think Apple see their TV output in the. Netflix is just Netflix.

36:34

Apple is the, is a small arm of a massive.

36:42

It's basically a 3 trillion whatever dollar company. It's the, it's the biggest company in the world and its TV output is merely part of its marketing spend to enhance the experience on the iPhone or the iPad. So it doesn't actually need to succeed as a TV network, whereas Netflix does.

36:46

To go back to where we started, which is Meghan Markle and her series With Love, Meghan. Does the demise of that series tell us anything about the changing world of Netflix or the changing kind of patterns of viewing and all that stuff? Or does it just tell us something about that particular thing, her and a bubble bursting there and Netflix possibly feeling? Our job is to commission programs that our audiences enjoy. It isn't really to help somebody sell jam in Indonesia.

37:04

No. Although they do need jam in Indonesia, Peter. It's a big problem out there. But the thing is that I think that it's just a case of. Look, they just thought we got a bang for our buck out of Meghan and Harry with the, as you say, with the massive announcement. But I think they're going to reinvent their version of Love island and have Prince Andrew host it next year.

37:40

Well, we all look forward to that.

38:00

Yeah. All right, well, he likes islands.

38:01

He's got lawyers as well. He's not, I'm not sure he has. I think there's almost nothing you.

38:06

There's nothing we can say that will diminish his reputation in the eyes of right minded people, which is the definition of libel. I think we're safe on Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.

38:14

Okay, well, if he listens to our

38:25

podcast, God bless him.

38:27

And he's. And he's. He's got to the end of it this week.

38:28

Yeah.

38:31

He can consider whether we've labeled him or not.

38:31

He's just finishing his son crossword well,

38:34

that's all for this week. Thanks 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.

38:38

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38:44

Or even better yet, why not subscribe to our YouTube channel?

38:50

Thanks for listening. And if you enjoyed this show, please do follow Insiders the TV podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

38:54

Thanks for listening.

39:00

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