Podcasts vs TV, Hollywood's Fear of Trump & Secrets of Xmas Specials

The double bounce of an election and the Euros has led to some very successful podcasts achieving even bigger numbers. Many of these podcast hosts are also part of the TV coverage, so how does one format bleed into the other, what can TV learn from podcasts, and should podcasts really be on TV?
'The Apprentice' (a biographical drama of Donald Trump in the 70s & 80s and 'The Last Screenwriter' (a film written by AI) are struggling to find distributors. What are the reasons for this, and what does it say about the wider movie industry?
Lastly, House of Games filmed its Christmas episodes but what how do you create that festive atmosphere in the Summer?
Watch House of the Dragon Season 2 on Sky. Go to sky.com to find out more.
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00:00 Intro
1:30 Euros & Election boost podcast numbers
24:46 Donald Trump movie The Apprentice can’t find US distributor
34:47 AI movie written by Chat GPT
42:34 Why Christmas specials are recorded in the summer
54:23 Outro

[@jamieemerson2741]

In politics, the podcast revolution shows that there’s an audience for people talking at length about a topic rather than parroting partisan talking points for 3 minutes or less and not listening to one another.

[@scatton61]

Parroting partisan talking points whilst at the same time Claiming to be objective and balanced.

[@LiveInConcertUK]

BBC1’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg is the epitome (nadir) of bad political interviewing. The host contrives long, accusatory and typically inane multi-part ambush questions based on the latest piece of journalistic tittle-tattle then interrupts the minute the interviewee opens their mouth. Fifteen minutes after the show, a snippet is launched as the top story on the BBC News website. Politicians are forced to defend themselves in a barrage of soundbites to avoid being misrepresented by the producers’ sensationalist editing. Contrast that with the relaxed style of ITV’s This Morning where the interviewers ask open questions and where the guest is allowed to speak calmly, on a sofa, without interruption and with humour and even some occasional self-deprecation. This is by far the more interesting, engaging and insightful approach to political journalism, and viewing figures reflect this. The BBC’s contrived, confrontational approach serves no useful purpose, satisfies no-one and is now the aberration.

[@MikusMusik]

"Far left like the New York TImes 😂😂😂😂😂" - good one.

[@mikesanborn4541]

I caught that too. There is no such thing as a far left major news media outlet in north America.

[@matthewr8502]

Just like there is a change of clothes for each episode of House of Games, there should be a change of clothes between the main show and the Q&A show so we can maintain the pretence that Richard & Marina spend the week reading the questions and researching the answers for the second show. I appreciate that in many weeks, only the most eagle eyed will spot that Richard is wearing a slightly different sports jacket :-)

[@jules-1953]

well nice to know that they don't have a bottomless wardrobe !

[@MrRnipperBrockleBroadcasting]

Ho, ho, ho House of Games Christmas special recorded on my birthday!🤠👍

[@carolineskipper6976]

Loved the segment on Podcasting vs Broadcasting.

[@byronc6790]

LOVE YOU guys but please create another Ad read for sky I've heard to so many times 😂

[@johnd6487]

somebody finally said it.. i keep thinking I've accidentally stumbled onto the same podcast twice

[@jessicam3676]

Too late to stay up (Pacific Time Zone). But I’ll see you in the morning for a cup of tea and an opinion.

[@KysterElla]

So true about the language used in traditional scripted broadcasting... very different!!! Love this show so much guys want more episodes per week 😍

[@euansmith3699]

"The train has left the station, and we decided to get on it..." is a great illustration of how far behind the curve discussion of AI is. If the train has left the station, it is too late to decide to board it.

[@Elwaves2925]

You can catch it at a later station but it's overall journey isn't going to stop.

[@Snoodlehootberry]

I 100% agree with you about political podcast. This is why Tom Walker’s character Jonathan Pie has made such an impact

[@chrisclarke4295]

Is he the same Tom Walker who worked for the Russian state AFTER their invasion of Crimea? He really sounds like someone we should all listen to

[@Snoodlehootberry]

@@chrisclarke4295 nope kzbin.info/www/bejne/iKGUn2qqr6t2eacsi=WGfk9PJV6JlXBKnq

[@KickassUncle]

I love the comedy in this: "Far left, like the New York Times..." So absurd. You got me.

[@KickassUncle]

The Boston Globe, not Herald. I don't get the joke. Were they just wrong?

[@boreilly82]

Wasnt it Ricky Gervais and The Gusrdian that first nailed the podcast? Must have been 20 years ago. Amazing.

[@ThomasJoe..]

Seth Green was one of the main starters in the industry. I think the filming of the podcasts and having it on KZbin at the same time is a huge shift.

[@boreilly82]

@@ThomasJoe.. the weird thing now is seeing podcasts on the telly. It's gonna be around for a few years as it's so cheap to do

[@kirstyjobson3698]

WHAT? Jules Holland isn't live on NYE?? 😮😂 Genuinely thought it was.

[@MrFuzzyGreen]

SUOW. Saw you on Wednesday

[@juliamcwilliam]

In Australia we have the ABC, which I feel is similar to the BBC

[@NickDusting]

There's an audience for people who know what they are talking about rather than people who can't answer a question or who purely look to be antagonistic. It works because it's how people normally interact when there's a shared experience.

[@thebagelsproductions]

Interesting about Paxman. Towards the end, he was trying to be like Paxman and became a parody of himself. He became influenced by Chris Morris, who was producing satire.

[@fifinoir]

‘Set an AI to catch an AI,’ has already happened on the small screen. A show called Person of Interest had that series arc story.

[@scatton61]

Although they might be governed by very strict rules Upon what they can report on, the mainstream news is power comes from what they decide not to report on. Whilst I agree they can't cover everything it is interesting to see both here and over the pond what is and what's not being covered. And if our media is so objective and balanced why is it that it simply parrots many of the talking points and topics covered by the US mainstream media

[@maxine2798]

Give us some examples please. Something like the “trans” issue has been stirred up by the right of centre parties here, across the pond and across the channel. For example let’s see how things go if Le Pen takes charge next door. Of course it is debated in liberal circles, perhaps with the desire to keep developing answers

[@kosefix]

The thing about Manchester United is that they always try to walk it in...no wrong team.

[@lakrids-pibe]

What was Wenger thinking, sending Walcott on that early?

[@openquin1]

Marina certainly knows Snark when she sees it, I like this podcast because it tends to upbeat and positive but I find it funny watching Marina, reining herself in on certain subjects.

[@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV]

Christmas specials being filmed in June is interesting. In Australia we have Xmas in July. Because our Xmas falls in summer, we sometimes have classic Xmas food like roast beef & potatoes etc while inside in air-conditioning. Or we may eat something lighter or have a barbecue by the pool instead, because the hot weather doesn't invite a roast dinner. So, our restaurants do something called Christmas in July - they offer roast beef, spuds, sprouts, crackling etc along with some Xmas trappings, in the middle of our winter when such food is very appealing. It's like Xmas comes twice a year.... :)

[@TheSuzberry]

And on December 25 you can have “White Wine in the Sun.”

[@AC-sd6fo]

Talk more about quiz shows or do a separate pod about the ins of it

[@Tozzywozzy01]

Disneyland cast members probably listening to the bit about the film where someone interacts with Adam Driver's character on a screen knowing they've done that kind of thing with animated characters for weeks on end. Literally one of the earliest animations, 'Gertie The Dinosaur', was her creator Winsor Mccay talking to her and pretending the amass of drawings were obeying him. Still there were people who walked out of 'The Artist' because there "Wasn't any sound" so I guess there'll be people who can't handle what is probably now a niche type of entertainment 😆😆😆

[@christiangedet8888]

You have to talk about Misstiano Penaldo

[@DrCalamityJan]

Did you mention Guy Ritchie just to see how many of us say 'not that old chestnut'?

[@ahughes981]

Podcasts I find are better than radio and daytime tv. Rather than putting up with what tv and radio offer. The choice is mine. Hopefully talkback radio perishes.

[@paulwswift5226]

Brave Sir Robin.

[@andya696]

I used to go to QI recordings before the pandemic. The Christmas special was always THE one that everyone wanted to go to. I was lucky enough once and it was great fun, but very surreal, watching Sandi Toksvig and co. do their thing, whilst wearing a paper cracker hat in late March.

[@ernestoyepez5103]

I love to watch Podcast after a game.

[@TomSmith-jp1es]

Interesting cut at 29:05 when talking about what the potential Trump attorney general said

[@cybergornstartrooper2157]

Best bookings on political shows are back benchers with axe’s to grind who don’t care if they dish the dirt. Diane Abbot and Michael Portillo on “This Week” were a wonder to behold. Every week they would happily dish the dirt on their own party. It was a miracle Diane didn’t get expelled.

[@DasHanzii]

There's absolutely no evidence that AI will be remarkably better in 3 months time. Or that it will ever be able to write a movie worth seeing. It might be. But the notion of continued growth in capability that Marina also seem to believe is all part of the AI hype machine. It might be, but it also might be at a plateau and not get noticeably better. Goldman Sachs believes so (not that they are always right, but they do spend a fair amount of money on trying to predict the financial future). I agree that it should be discussed now, and that it makes sense to fight the copyright infringements by AI-companies, but please add caveats when talking about the future of AI.

[@chrisclarke4295]

It likely won't There's evidence it could get dumber as its inspiration and learning material increasingly becomes itself. Dead internet theory is real

[@thomasdalton1508]

The fact that it's a lot better now that it was 3 months ago is the evidence that it will be much better in 3 months' time. That isn't conclusive proof, but it is evidence. You don't usually plateau suddenly. There would be a noticeable slowdown of improvement before improvement stops and we haven't seen that, so we can be pretty confident that there will be significant improvement over the next 3 months.

[@brianhotaling5849]

NYT. Far left. Just shat myself laffing.

[@TheGreatSteve]

Gary's always an anchor.

[@simonkaston9306]

Sorry but not interested in seeing either of those movies

[@mrvenom88]

I don't think this suggested court case would get very far. Making model weights out of freely available text is pretty clearly a transformative work.

[@djtwo2]

"freely available" ... much of what is available on t'internet is actually covered by various contracts you implicitly agree to by accessing the various sites.

[@mrvenom88]

@@djtwo2 implicit contracts? Again, I don't foresee success for that in a court of law. "Please view our ads while you read these articles" is more or less unenforceable. If you mean "no reproduction without permission" and the like: it's a transformative work. The text of Romeo and Juliet does not exist within an LLM's model data, and the only reason the model can spit even part of it out (if it can do so at all) is that it considers those words to be likely associates to context.

[@inopsology5208]

​@@djtwo2 ...which are to control reuse and reselling of the content verbatim. New content inspired by preexisting content is demonstrably not illegal (reviews, study guides etc)

[@chaddy65]

Illumination - sigh

[@stewartbrodie1720]

Although I distrust soundbite politicians, I cannot blame them alone for their approach as they understand that their responses will be mercilessly edited by the broadcaster to suit the narrative the broadcaster wants. There are no good, serious politics discussion shows left on mainstream TV, IMHO. I used to enjoy "This Week" (2003-2019), presented by Andrew Neil with Michael Portillo, Diane Abbott/Alan Johnson/some other Labour politician, mainly because the discussion was almost always carried out in a civilised fashion, where the debate consisted of one person speaking for a while and then other people responding to it, challenging it and asking questions - or, shock horror, agreeing with each other! - rather than just trying to shout louder than the speaker in an attempt to drown them out. They covered all the serious topics as well as the less serious . The weekly guest contributors, from all walks of life from journalists to rappers, made a short film and joined a debate on the issues of the day in the same spirit. In retrospect, it was very podcasty.

[@walkingandadventures6114]

Only people who know nothing about football want to listen to the pundits.

[@andy2950]

Simply put, on a political podcast, the viewer is more likely to get "honesty."

[@abzulooks6012]

Having worked in an environment where you don't want people pushing buttons by accident.... Get a cover for any button that's mission critical- one that you have to lift up before you can push the button. Or: get a keyed switch. That way you can get the thrill of feeling a bit as if you're activating the nuclear codes.

[@lakrids-pibe]

Season's greetings Cool yule! ⚽🎄☃🎅

[@chrisofnottingham]

But surely there is a difference between listening to lots of songs in a certain style and then making up a new one in that style, versus actually just quoting the lyrics of a specific song. I mean, the top ten singles today all have the same four chords and they were written by humans. So if AI used those same four chords is it suddenly a general infringement of copywrite because the AI download the songs but it's ok for the human writers to do that because they just listened to them on the radio?

[@m-alexandria-g]

Genuine q: How do we think Stephen King gets away with using sooo many hundreds and hundreds of song lyrics in his books? He’s obviously very untouchably famous and wealthy, with wealthy publishers-but hasn’t always been. And of course our Ricky is not a nobody 🤗 SK’s been doing it for decades and is always using the absolute most famous lines from smash hits - you can always tell what it is. A good example in US IP law of what we’d call “non-competing format”: the people who buy a Stones album won’t stop doing so because of them being referenced in King’s books; the music sales might even experience a bump. His son Joe Hill does the same-even had a book titled “Heart-Shaped Box.”

[@Elwaves2925]

By "Heart Shaped Box" can I assume you're referencing the Nirvana song. It doesn't really matter anyway, I was just curous. It works as a book title because as you say, it's a non-competing format and the words used are in general use. Even then, you could still call a book you wrote Heart Shaped Box without any issue. The term cannot be copyrighted in that way. It's how there can be multiple different songs called "The Power Of Love." Some things aren't copyrightable if they use general words that are in regular use. I hope that makes some sense from a non-expert point of view. As for the lyrics they use, I have no idea. Maybe it's different in the US to Richard's experience in the UK but I suspect they both get permission for those lyrics.. Why not send it in to that e-mail address as they do like questions related to a previous podcast. 🙂

[@PaulMcCaffreyfmac]

Maybe oddly I don''t find Maitlis and Sopel's joy enjoyable to watch. They mainly talk politics and compared to Campbell and Stewart on The Rest Is Politics they feel entirely superfluous. Traditional news channels may be in peoples' homes but I watch podcasts at home and though I might worry for the ornaments I'd rather have Campbell round than Maitlis. It goes without saying that Marina can smash all my ornaments anytime while Richard drinks the last of my milk.

[@SirPablo2Pablo]

Do people want to watch Question Time??!

[@James-xv2ev]

No distributor for the Trump movie - do you agree with Chomsky and Herman's Manufacturing Consent that the media is driven by the market to have a conservative ideological bias? Does the impact of new media invalidate their argument?

[@maxine2798]

Are we, your gentle listeners, the third person in this podcast?

[@Snoodlehootberry]

Great holy nuts and berries ! Saying someone, anyone is shit is the least offensive of offensive comments.

[@MiguelCasimiro01]

144p or pay up !?? 🤨

[@blacktinibis7250]

Imagine thinking the NYT is far left! 😂😂😂

[@deanharding740]

I watch/listen to a lot of KZbin because I can focus on what I want to at greater depth. I’ve almost stopped watching traditional tv news and interviews because they only cover sound bites and life is more nuanced than that. The other thing that puts me off is tv journalists interview techniques which is combative for combative sake and this negative approach isn’t pleasant to listen to and isn’t very productive either. The other issue is mainstream tv clearly having agendas on politics - just look at how negative the coverage is for trump and Farage - people don’t like that and will rebel against it. It won’t take long before the way I consume news will be the norm and mainstream news and newspapers will be history.

[@michaelnaylor-hodgkinson991]

Please, answer this question. I love and trust you both so much. I also love and am really proud of the BBC. HOWEVER, I worked at an airport in Manchester, which was bought by one of the richest men. He allowed fracking on his land. My stepdaughter joined the protesters and was a witness to police violence. I knew it had happened as did everyone surrounding the camp. The anti-fracking violence never got a mention on the BBC. I was so struck, especially as my family thought I was a tosser supporting Aunti Beeb. Why would they not report if they were genuinely neutral?

[@thomasdalton1508]

Do you mean the protests in 2013/2014? The BBC reported on the accusations of police brutality around those protests. The reporting mostly focused on the official investigation and its findings that there wasn't any evidence of brutality. The lack of evidence is probably why the BBC focused its reporting on the investigation rather than events themselves. The BBC can't report serious accusations without some evidence to support them. Were there videos showing clearly excessive force being used by police?

[@user-rp1sw5ku4y]

Just hearing "many humans were involved" makes me question reality

[@tristiemerritt6473]

I think you've proclaimed the success of the UK football and politics podcasting too soon. Let's see what the numbers are like after the tournament/election. That's the measure of success of Rest is History, Hacks on Tap etc

[@JoeChristmas-rx1gr]

In terms of football punditry, the BBC should use Nedum Onuoha far more. Unpartisan, interesting and engaging with an ex-player's insight, without the "it was better in my day" bitterness

[@sl1msn1per]

I'd be curious to know how the filmmaker actually wrestled with the ChatGPT to generate the script. Because the reality is pretty wide open at the moment. How much guiding the AI in the right direction is going on, how much human writing is in there, etc. There is increasing evidence that we are hitting some of the limits of what is possible with these generative AI models. If that is true, then it is great news, because we start ignoring this AI takeover nonsense driven by VCs to inflate their startup valuations and start using the technology for what it is best at: at being human-guided force multipliers.

[@stephenaskew4346]

It's clever how the Marina Ai stumbles over intros in an attempt to seem more human. We're all doomed.

[@thomasdalton1508]

Whether training AI from copyrighted material is a copyright violation is an interesting question and one that the courts will have an interesting time with. Really, though, we need legislatures to make some new laws on the subject and decide democratically whether or not it should be allowed. It is no different to how humans are trained. If you read any advice for aspiring authors, it will always tell them to read a lot. You can't become good at writing without reading what others have written. You can't just plagiarise their content, but you can and must learn from it and be inspired by it. If we are going to have generative AI, it is going to have to be trained in the same way. Therefore, I think legislatures should pass laws explicitly authorising the training of AI from copyrighted materials. There should probably be some kind of license fee involved - just buying one second hand copy of the book and then training an AI that is going to do the work of thousands of humans doesn't seem quite right - but preventing training at all will stunt development. Human authors have a conflict of interest, so can't be allowed to decide whether their content can be used this way.

[@callumrobinson4137]

Marina is litterally my favourite person ever at this point. Love richard too tho

[@iansmith1549]

Someone needs to tell Laura Kuensberg about the restrictions on those presenters in TV news and politics. Her whole career has been based on passing on bar tittle-tattle, random tweets etc and presenting them as fact.

[@Ulleskelf]

People love Professor Sir John Curtice as he's intelligent, knowledgeable and non-partisan,. More people like him on politics programmes and less mouthpieces of the parties.

[@jlondon1441]

Says on football broadcasts that broadcasters have a responsibility because they know how much they can impact the teams, then when talking about politics, that Trump claiming a movie portraying sensationalized and unconfirmed stories about him being released right before the elections is election interference, that he is absolutely mad. Which is it? Does entertainment have real world influence or do people take it as entertainment and then move on? Should the movie be released, probably…but if it’s made to negatively impact people’s opinion of Trump using unconfirmed stories and sprinkles in some falsehoods to be more engaging or sensationalizing, maybe it shouldn’t come out before the election. Put it out Dec 1. These big production companies wouldn’t be so scared to put it out if they were confident that it was all true and they did everything above board. It is strange that Hollywood is so left leaning, wanting all these social programs and oversight, going so far as to claim over and over again that if “x” gets elected they are moving to Canada or England or some other “leftist“ country, then they don’t and complain about the taxes in those countries or how it wasn’t feasible business wise. The republicans are supposed to be the ones about deregulating businesses, shrinking the government and lowering taxes, if they are so concerned about taxes and business, wouldn’t they want republicans.

[@r3cy]

My entire life I've heard my parents generation complain about the attention span of mine. meanwhile they're watching vapid garbage on TV with ad breaks every 12 minutes, while i've been watching 3 hour discussions on politics/history/philosophy/culture for the last decade. I look forward to the end of scheduled terrestrial TV, it's a waste of talent and resources.

[@Pininfarina81]

I love listening to politics, particularly The Rest is Politics & The Newsagents just for how bent out of shape they're all getting at how popular Nigel Farage is & they can't get their heads round it as they're so out of touch.

[@inopsology5208]

AI systems don't reproduce training data verbatim, but rather learn patterns and generate new content. This is more akin to how humans learn than to copying. The difference is the speed of generation of output not the substance which can vary in quality just like human ouput. To clarify AI >cannot< reliably identify AI output as Marina believes, many students are aggrieved at being mistakenly accused of using AI, while others admit they used it undetected.

[@DylanSwayneHughes]

yep. I find Richard's example of including a song lyric in his book a bad example. Sure its copyright infringement if he puts a single song lyric in his book, and it would be copyright infringement if an AI generated book included that same song lyric. but it is not copyright infringement in either case to create a song lyric with a similar vibe, using similar word structures, rhyming patterns, meaning. as long as its not those literal words in that order, its not copyright infringement by person or by AI.

[@andrewstedman6900]

Richard has just labelled me a nutter I hate every football pundit. As for commentators please just describe the game and give us the facts I don’t want your view of what the player is thinking as you clearly have no clue! 🚩🚩🚩🚩

[@acidstrummer]

I chose watching SKY over ever seeing my grandchildren again!

[@theroomfloor]

Yes podcasts are coming to maturity. Isn’t that why you are both here? I mean, when for example, student newspaper the Guardian finally stops whinging about smelly boys and the far right local pub, and graduates out of its own privately educated echo chamber, where will Marina eat her Pret lunch?

[@derronhall495]

The only thing more boring and pointless than sports is discussing it.

[@ChrisH78]

I know he's your boss but I feel like Lineker, Shearer, and Micah shouldn't be allowed to perform as a team for the BBC because it feels to me ever since the rise of T.R.I.F all 3 have begun to make regular controversies on BBC football coverage which seem designed to bring more eyes to their podcast. It feels like an uncomfortable crossover and mild abuse of license fee.

[@joevictor53]

I feel like they should merge TRIF with Stick to Football and just have the BBC and ITV pundits talking together and forgetting about the channels they work

[@florinip1978]

Jude doesn't fit well in England team, they play better without him.

[@AlmostYearly]

Sky.

[@Alo4321]

Can't watch sky sports any more cause of their constant attempts to go viral. Carragher and Neville are awful. Just click bait.

[@acidstrummer]

SKY network supports stochastic terror :3

[@marial8415]

It's hilarious that Marina keeps trying to convince us that BBC is unbiased. And her own inability to be neutral and subdue her lefty talking points/beliefs is tiresome. The so called don't say gay bill she spoke about was anything but, as the word gay was not mentioned. Her ill informed Hollywood friends said it was though so that's good enough for her.

[@daviebananas1735]

What an entirely disingenuous point.

[@BetmmaTipsUFC]

Do people ACTUALLY like Christina Unkel? I'm asking that genuinely because I cannot stand her... She uses a thousand words when 20 would do and most of the time says absolutely nothing with them. Roy Keane asked her "who are these people?" [making the decisions on the handball rule] literally 3 or 4 times and she flat out didn't answer, then told him he can look up the people on a website. Then she gave absolutely the most non-answer possible about the laws, before fiiiiiiiiinally giving an opinion that was about as non-committal as possible. Why is that the "breakout star?" To me she's just about as close to a linked in middle manager / politician that you'll find in football at the moment.

[@HardingNo1]

Blimey! After years of the entertainment industry crushing the life out of comedy. tv, films etc, ruining careers, youcome down like a ton of bricks on Trump - undoubtedly one of the main targets of the manic wokeness.

[@rojh9351]

Are you served with a fried egg or slice of pineapple?

[@KristineMaitland]

In truth, I have gotten to the point where I have turned to the comedians for political commentary on podcasts: Pod save the UK (Coco the journalist keeps Nish the comedian in check *grin*), The Bugle (UK), News Weakly (Australia with Sami Shah being the only one to cover South and East Asia as well as the Middle East knowledgeably), In Canada? Because News is off for the summer... And for the USA? Josh Johnson - comedian and storyteller who managed to get his audience to really think about the first debate between Biden and Trump to the point where the audience went silent for a full minute. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nHLSpaaJpNaWqZo

[@Elwaves2925]

I've said for a very long time that if you want the truth of a situation, topic or whatever, look to certain comedians and strip away the funny.