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- [00:00]
Marina
The rest is entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy. Now remember, Octopus Energy, do something really great if they've got your birthday when you call in for whatever reason to Octopus, the hold music is the number one selling single from that year, the year of your 14th birthday.
- [00:19]
Richard Osman
And we discovered, didn't we, that yours was the Only Way is Up by Yaz and the plastic population. We're going to discover mine now.
- [00:25]
Marina
Yeah, yours is I Just Called to say I Love youe by Stevie Wonder.
- [00:31]
Richard Osman
Okay. Yes, I prefer yours.
- [00:33]
Marina
Yeah.
- [00:34]
Richard Osman
Do you think it's weird to have hold music, which is I just called to say I love you. Because listen, and you know that I love Octopus Energy, but I will rarely ring them to tell them I love them. Yeah, yeah, I would usually, but you know, be. I just want to chat to them about something to do with my energy. Yeah, and I don't mean that sort of energy.
- [00:51]
Marina
Well, look, they can butt surface the number one single of that year for you. And you can always choose not to have the music you can choose for. No, but I think only animals do that. As I've said, and I want to go on the record as saying that. Spring starts at the Home Depot and
- [01:08]
Richard Osman
we are bringing the heat to your backyard this season.
- [01:11]
Marina
Fire up the flavor with our wide
- [01:12]
Richard Osman
variety of grills for under $300, like the next grill 4 burner gas grill
- [01:17]
Marina
that's perfect for hosting your spring cookout.
- [01:19]
Richard Osman
Then set the scene and turn your
- [01:21]
Marina
outdoor space into the go to spot for PAT patio sets for every budget.
- [01:24]
Richard Osman
Bring it this season with grills that
- [01:26]
Marina
deliver flavor and patios that set the vibe from the Home Depot. Start your spring with low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot exclusion supplies. See homedepot.com Pricematch for details. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home with agents who close twice as many deals. When you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started@redfin.com, own the dream. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment with me, Marina. Hi.
- [02:11]
Richard Osman
And me, Richard Osman. Hello, listeners. Hello, Marina.
- [02:14]
Marina
Hello, Richard. How are you?
- [02:15]
Richard Osman
I'm okay. The sun has been out sort of. Spring is in the air 100%. That's nice, isn't it? People listen to the podcast on Lovely long walks through the country.
- [02:24]
Marina
Is that how you imagine it? Gambling through daffodils?
- [02:27]
Richard Osman
I would have thought so, yeah.
- [02:28]
Marina
Yeah, I would have thought so too.
- [02:29]
Richard Osman
And just looking directly at their feet instead of at the nature.
- [02:33]
Marina
Yeah.
- [02:33]
Richard Osman
I don't really like a walk through the countryside. You know what I mean? I know I'm supposed to enjoy it, right, Kemi?
- [02:39]
Marina
I don't like sandwiches, I don't like walking through the countryside, but I do.
- [02:42]
Richard Osman
I like the idea of being out there and fresh air is nice. But you know when people say, oh my God, it's amazing communing with nature, I'm not. What are you. I guess there's trees.
- [02:51]
Marina
Would you do it in a golf cart?
- [02:52]
Richard Osman
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.
- [02:55]
Marina
I saw Project Hail Mary. Yeah, listen, I'm happy, okay?
- [03:00]
Richard Osman
It's done good business.
- [03:01]
Marina
It's done amazing. I'm really happy that a film, I mean, it's not entirely an original, is it? Because it's based on a book, which, by the way, people are obsessed with this book. You know, it's a big swing and people have. And people have turned out for it. I have to say, you know, there's a lot of things that I found wrong with it, but equally, there were lots of great bits about it. And to be honest, if you don't, you know, people watch 20 hours of Absolute rubbish at home and if you don't turn out for a couple in the cinema, then there aren't going to be cinemas. So it's the biggest film of the year so far. And I think going and have a look and see, just seeing what the biggest film of the year so far is to me, always a valuable exercise if your local tickets aren't exorbitant and
- [03:38]
Richard Osman
Ryan Gosling is in it. Yes, but we're not talking about that, are we? What are we talking about when we work?
- [03:43]
Marina
Well, times for comedy. Question mark. Because SNL UK launched on Saturday night. Last one laughing.
- [03:49]
Richard Osman
Lol uk. We're gonna talk about that and the world of comedy. We're also talking about.
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Marina
Netflix appears to have divested themselves of runaway business success as ever. Which is, as you know, is Meghan's sort of retail brand attached to her show. With love, Meghan. And we're gonna have a look at the state of the Sussexes media and content empire and also what happened with Netflix and talk a little bit about Netflix and retail, which is qu. Interesting.
- [04:18]
Richard Osman
And I think you've spoken to somebody who has some quite interesting information about.
- [04:22]
Marina
About retail and Netflix, which Is interesting.
- [04:24]
Richard Osman
Yeah. Let's start with comedy.
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Marina
Comedy, snl.
- [04:27]
Richard Osman
Yes. We've spoken before about that happening and, you know, I was very much a booster of it. There was a huge amount of sort of toxicity around it and negativity around it and, oh, this is going to be awful. And snl, America is awful and all this stuff. And, you know, my view has always been. I think your view as well. They are spending a load of money on comedy here. And when the cast came out, I was like, they've got some really good people here. Oh, this is younger. This is interesting. This is different. So I had very, very high hopes for it. Of course, it's in all of the press telling me how awful it was going to be. We haven't talked about what you think about it. I go on record as saying I don't think it could have been better. I thought it was magnificent. James Longman, who produced it, listen, we'll talk about writers and we'll talk about performers and we'll talk about formats and all of those things. To take that with the pressure that was on it with. And I know this doesn't sound like a pressure, but sometimes it's the money that was behind it to have landed that plane in a way that I just thought there was. Last from start to finish. I thought. I genuinely thought it was a magnificent achievement.
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Marina
I mean, I've said before that I don't like snl. The US thing. I don't like, by the way, I love reading about it. I've read every book about it. For some reason, I love the lore around it, but the thing itself, it's not my thing. But if it is your thing, it's such a successfully done transfer. I see it didn't please all the TV critics. One of the things I would say about TV criticism in this country is it's a sort of gentleman and I mean gentleman and gentle lady amateur sort of thing, isn't it? We so often there's a lot of TV critics in the country who are given the job. It's like, oh, you know, you're good at writing and you've got opinions. Why not have them about this thing? We don't really do it with the city or, you know, with business or with. Or with sports or with film. But we somehow, for some reason, there's this whole tradition of saying, you don't really know anything about tv. Why don't you write about tv? And there's a little bit. I did think that there was a little bit of that in Some of it that just simply didn't understand what had happened.
- [06:28]
Richard Osman
Bits of it I'm reading, I think you have no idea or understanding of why this format is over here, how it got made, who these people are. If you're saying these people are new faces, then you shouldn't be writing about television because almost all of these people, if you're even vaguely online, you'll know half of them. One of them called it shockingly competent. I think they were quite surprised that they didn't hate it. I think they were quite. I think they couldn't work out what to say because they could see it wasn't bad, but they couldn't work out if it was good. They didn't have the confidence of actually saying, oh, okay. Oh, actually. And you know, the first episodes of comedies famously are very, very poorly reviewed in both senses of the word poor. I remember the first reviews of the Office which were just saying people didn't
- [07:12]
Marina
understand what it was.
- [07:13]
Richard Osman
Yeah. I mean, just saying, this is a disgrace. This is. Where's all the money gone? Ricky Gervais can't. Right. He might be. You know, the reason you do need SNL is this is you can, you can take all of those people but Lorne Michaels and you have the format of the show and you have the history of the show and as a performer that gives you something bigger than you, that, that exists out there. So it's very, very, very useful to have something that gives you those limits as a. If you're, if you're a writer in that writer's room, if you're a performer as well, to know that it has to be X minutes long, it has to have X amount of sketches. There will be two songs in the middle of it, there will be an over enthusiastic live audience in the middle of it. You'll be reading from cue cards. All of these things that come from somewhere else. It has a brand and a name that you can fall back on. It just gives you extraordinary freedom. And for this young group of performers, good on sky for taking a big. It's that big swing.
- [08:10]
Marina
It's their most expensive unscripted ever.
- [08:13]
Richard Osman
Everyone told them they were idiots. Yeah, everyone says this is going to be terrible. It's going to be the same old faces. It's going to be this, it's going to be that.
- [08:19]
Marina
By the way, Trump has already shared the cold open, so in which Starmer's sort of shown sucking up to him in a voice note or whatever. So it's already part of the global cultural conversation. He's finally found an snl. He likes Trump. So that's good. It does illustrate something about this show, which is, by the way, the same for the U.S. i mean, the U.S. one's on later. It's on at 11:30, this is on at 10. Is it clippable? You get the cultural relevance, actually from the clips that go viral. Things have changed. And it's not that. You know, Lorne Michaels always used to say it was like sport and that, you know, some weeks your team has a bad game and then you just come back next week because you're invested in the whole production, as it were. It got 226,000 viewers live. Okay, here's where we are with television, guys. But. And there was something I found slightly cringe whether we. In the, in the. One of the trails for the thing was say, you know, if you're not getting laid on Saturday night. And it was sort of almost as bad as saying you're going to be watching at hungover on a Sunday morning. But actually, what really needs to happen is that the sketches go viral on social media. That's where you get the cultural relevance now is from those kind of things.
- [09:23]
Richard Osman
You can't just make clips. That's the point. That's the point of why it's snl, that's the point of why it's live on television is you can't clip something from nothing. You know what I mean? It has to have the mothership before you send these little pods off into the universe.
- [09:38]
Marina
The princess die impression in that, Jack Shep's princess die impression. I'm so sorry. It wiped the floor with both Emma Corrin and Elizabeth Debicki in the crown. That's the best princess die impression I've ever seen.
- [09:49]
Richard Osman
And by the way, the end.
- [09:50]
Marina
I know she died 30 years ago, so we can talk about the relevance, but it was epic.
- [09:56]
Richard Osman
And that's an eight minute sketch. But right in the middle of it, I know you have like a 3 second meme which goes around the world.
- [10:01]
Marina
Yeah.
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Richard Osman
I mean, again.
- [10:02]
Marina
And which, quite frankly, Richard was, you know, put it in the Louvre. It's such a good impression. As I say, it's wiped the floor with the crown. One thing I would say about it, and I do think that this is significant, we know it costs a lot. The six episode order.
- [10:17]
Richard Osman
It's eight now.
- [10:19]
Marina
Yeah, They've gone to eight in the middle of the last week before it launches. And even 8 is like in the US it's 20. It's very, very difficult to have such small portions. If you're trying to bet in casts, bed in ideas, bet in the whole sort of thing, that is going to be the thing of which it is the biggest victim, in my view. Because it's just hard to kind of say, oh, this is part of our kind of cultural conversation and everything. But there's six or eight episodes of it now.
- [10:47]
Richard Osman
Yeah, but nothing's part of our cultural conversation anymore, you know, so it's. I think it's okay.
- [10:53]
Marina
And I think, you know, what does that take? Nothing is part of our culture. What are we talking about? I just mean some things must be, or we must be talking about something.
- [10:59]
Richard Osman
We're not in that thing anymore. We go, oh, let's put Wogan on every night. And then people get used to. And then the whole of Britain will watch it all the time.
- [11:05]
Marina
But you know that we live in an always on culture. And, you know, there's something. The reason we do this podcast every week, the reason artists are doing little drops of things, all music artists all the time, is because if you are not on all the time, then you fall away. And people are like. And actually, you know, even SNL people are saying that does 20 episodes a year. Doing eight is very, very small. I don't know. It's possible. If it's very successful, they'll bring it back in sooner and we'll have two runs of it a year or something like that. I don't know. They can do anything they like.
- [11:35]
Richard Osman
They might just keep it going.
- [11:37]
Marina
You think they'll keep it going?
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Richard Osman
No, I think they could keep it going. I mean, they can do anything. That's the point. You know, sky has the money. If they have something that's. That's paying off for them, they can do anything they want. The thing they shouldn't do is go, we're going to immediately go into 20 because they didn't know it would be good. I agree that you want it to be good. You hope it's going to be good. And I think it's safe to say it is good. And it won't be for everyone. And there'll be, you know, hits and misses and stuff like that. But it is, it is the thing that they ordered with this new generation of talent doing something interesting. But you're not immediately going to say, let's do 26 of these.
- [12:09]
Marina
I know you're not, but. Well, I mean, I think people will have other, you know, people will have other bookings, people will have other things. You have to be relatively organized. You can't just say, this is what we're okay now. Now we're always on. I think it's difficult in an always on world to do that short an order, and that's something I think will be a stumbling block.
- [12:26]
Richard Osman
Having said, the Mothership is the live show and, you know, the clips come off it. So long as you're branding stuff snl, you can have little satellite offshoots of this program on all year round and then, you know, the main show comes back. But, you know, if you're sky, you've now got this thing and this group of performers who are attached to this thing who are a stable for you. And of course, some of them will be doing movies and some of them we sitcoms and this or the other, but not all of them all the time. So it's getting a stable of people, a stable of talent who people are hungry to see and you have some ownership over them and they have some loyalty to you. And that's what you want with this show. You want the show itself and then you want the group of people who
- [13:07]
Marina
come through that show if they successfully buy itv, which I don't see why they wouldn't.
- [13:12]
Richard Osman
Yeah.
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Marina
Do you put this, you put this on Saturday on itv, don't you? On Saturday night?
- [13:17]
Richard Osman
I don't think it matters where it goes. I really don't think it matters where it goes because it would be getting
- [13:22]
Marina
more than 226,000 viewers.
- [13:24]
Richard Osman
Do you know what it would be getting? 400. I mean, it's, I mean, not, I mean, not a lot more. And, and that's, this doesn't make any difference to the return on investment for Sky. It doesn't make any difference to Lorne Michaels.
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Marina
Why would the economics not change?
- [13:37]
Richard Osman
Well, because if you listen, the difference between getting 250,000 viewers and getting 7 million viewers is significant because the ad rates are much, much bigger. The difference between 250,000 and 400,000 are not massive. It's a bit. But really the money they're going to make from the show is the ancillary stuff. It is the, the clipping. It, it is building the careers of those people and building projects off the back of them. So, you know, the basic economics of this is a stable of people making this stuff and actually another hundred thousand people watching it live will make a tiny bit of difference, but not enough. That. That's your business model, you know. No, no one's going to get rich off that extra 100,000 viewers.
- [14:16]
Marina
Okay, let's talk about. Last one. Laughing We've got. And then maybe something about both of them together because I think it's interesting.
- [14:21]
Richard Osman
Yeah, so, so. Last one. Laughing so we've been talking about snl. We talking about the reviews and it is, it's a cultural phenomenon, but it is not something that the mainstream of Great Britain is watching or talking about. Okay, It'll again, the clips will start to get on their radar, but it'll. It'll take people a long time before they work out that SNL UK even exists. Last one Laughing, however, is a different catalaphic is a genuine phenomenon. I mean, you know, within its first sort of two or three days, it's over two and a half million people watching it. And that just. That grows and grows and grows and grows and grows. I had so much laughter over this last weekend, thanks to all these incredible people. But so last one Laughing is a totally different thing. I mean it's totally different thing.
- [15:00]
Marina
It's one day's work.
- [15:01]
Richard Osman
Yeah, it's one day's work, but it's what happens 15 years after you give people their break.
- [15:06]
Marina
As always. Just like we always say the minute a format. We know this format's been around the world for a very long time, but the minute format sort of ages or gets to its second generation within your country. You can see now the gameplay is different from last series. I'm fascinated by it, right? The comic game theory. Everyone's got their face. But the stakes now that they know that Bob Mortimer has come back to defend the title. Talent fees on this show are insane. I mean they're like, for many, you know, some will be getting north of quarter of a million quid and it's a day, okay. And obviously they're all, you know, Romesh is going to be on a lot more than, I don't know, Sam Campbell or something. Even though they're all. So it's all a bit different now, you think, oh, hang on, I could come back and get one of the best appearance fee in television again, again, if I win this thing. So the gameplay, to me, maybe I'm just suggestible, but people have told me this in advance from people who connected with the production saying, oh yeah, no, they're really playing at this time. And you are starting to realize that there are sort of skills which is, you realize that it's sort of an endur and the skill that when you have the mic, as it were, not necessarily when you're playing a joker, but when you're just talking to someone is to be able to do that. Bob Mortimer thing, and to just derail so completely that it's just like a broadside from nowhere that you didn't expect and people just can't stop laughing.
- [16:25]
Richard Osman
Can I say who the absolute standout for me and all comedy fans will know him already and he's been on House Of Games and I've seen him live so many times. Sam Campbell.
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Marina
Yeah.
- [16:34]
Richard Osman
I think if you have not seen Sam before, and that's the lovely thing about Last from Laughing, it gets such a big audience that actually it does introduce, you know, like, Bemi, who's on it, who I love. But Sam is so brilliant at it, he doesn't even seem to need a face. It feels like. It feels like he's Luke to Bob's Darth Vader. Do you know what I mean?
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Marina
The idea that I do think it's interesting. One thing I think is interesting about this is, first of all, is that we know how Amazon work, whereas Netflix will, like, try and get a hit, will spend huge amounts of money on something and try and get a global hit with one property. Amazon like to sort of replicate formats and so they've got lots of, you know, they've got various, but they also have a sort of market map, as we've talked about before, you don't need that many shows. They've got Clarkson's Farm, which covers part of it. They've got Beast Games, which covers part of it. And then in the uk, they've got this, which covers part of it. It's really interesting. Last time they were. Last time it aired when it became this huge hit, immediately, a third of the audience to Last One Laughing hadn't watched any content at all on Amazon prior to the month of release. They are trying to do something. I find it quite fascinating with both these shows. I know you're saying, Sky, I've got all these comedians and so on, but to some degree, I have to say, I think sky are sort of raging against the dying of the light. And what Amazon are doing is they want to get you in because they want to sell you shopping, they want to sell you insurance, they want to sell you services, they want to be the everything or. It's almost bizarre. In the old days, you know, the BBC would have a new comedy show and the ITV would have one and we'd compare it. Now, it seems to me such a category mistake that you and I, that we're even talking about these together, because the companies are so, so different. And I have to say, it's sort of weird, like the comedians are just like the fact that it's both happening through some sets of comedians is sort of nuts really. But actually these two huge kind of corporate things are. I fear it is a battle that has already been. The comedians are the foot soldiers and it's a battle that's already been kind of won and lost.
- [18:39]
Richard Osman
People are starting to understand they can use comedy again. I would rather these companies who have very different business models and they will take big swings on everything. I would rather they were taking big swings on comedy than say F1. And I love F1. I love talking about the two of them together because they are very, very different swings because both companies do very different things. And I love that. You could almost transplant the cast of SNL to last one laughing series 15 in 15 years time, you know, you can.
- [19:09]
Marina
I was thinking that while I was watching it. Yeah, but there's something also weird about comedy which is that it's such a kind of crazily zero sum thing. People, you know, will watch absolutely hours of a really rubbish thriller with loads of ridiculous plot holes and they'll be like, eh, it was okay. I mean, you know, pass the time. 30 seconds of a sketch they don't like, they lose their minds. They lose their minds and it's so. And you just, I do feel consider how long you will give an incredibly two and a half star thriller and then how vicious you are. About 30 seconds of something that didn't like get you immediately. Give it a break.
- [19:45]
Richard Osman
What a joyous weekend of laughing. And I just want to say thank you to all the production teams for that work. And I do think SNL listener will have ups and downs, I'm sure of that. But I thought it landed extraordinarily well and I'm excited to see where they're taking this. I just want to see more of those performers, you know, and I want to hear more from those writers. And before this happened there wasn't a place that they could do that particularly other than individually and on TikTok and stuff like that. Now all of them are together and I find it exciting to think what will come of it. It's a rare ray of optimism.
- [20:21]
Marina
Right after the break we're going to be talking about disturbances in the force within the empire of Meghan and Harry. The content empire of Meghan and Harry. Anyway, join us after the break.
- [20:36]
Richard Osman
This episode is brought to you by Bumble.
- [20:38]
Marina
Now, Richard, People get very nervous before sending the first message on dating apps. Your finger hovers over the phone screen thinking, am I actually gonna do this.
- [20:46]
Richard Osman
Yeah. They debate if the person is who they say they are and if replying is going to feel comfortable or mildly stressful.
- [20:52]
Marina
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- [21:02]
Richard Osman
And when that pressure drops, something interesting happens. Profiles become more relaxed, more specific, and way more human. And the conversation just starts to flow.
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Marina
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- [21:19]
Richard Osman
So show more of the real you on Bumblebee.
- [21:24]
Marina
This episode is brought to you by White Claw Search. Great podcast pick, friend. No surprises there. After all, you're all about finding the tastiest flavors out there, just like White Claw Surge. And with big, bold flavors to enjoy,
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Richard Osman
like blood orange, BlackBerry, cranberry and more, it's time to go all in on taste.
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Marina
Unleash the flavor. Unleash White Claw Surge. Please drink responsibly. Hard seltzer with flavors, 8% alcohol by volume. White Claw Seltzer Works, Chicago, Illinois. Refreshing wild cherry cola meets smooth cream. The treat you deserve. Pepsi Wild Cherry and cream. Treat yourself. Right. Megan and Harry. There's a big story in Variety last with this one of the show, one of the showbiz bibles. There are three holy books saying that Netflix had fallen out with Meghan and Harry. Really just a little reminder of what happened when Meghan and Harry left the royal family. They set up this sort of content production company called Archewell and they did various deals, big money deals, most notable of which were they did a $20 million deal with Spotify to produce podcasts. It ended up producing one series before that fell apart. He did a book deal with Penguin Random House that was a an absolute roaring success. That was the fastest selling nonfiction book of all time. He got at least $40 million. That went very well. And they did what's always pegged as a $100 million deal for Netflix. People are now sort of rowing back on that, saying it's closer to 60. You would expect that because it would have been like, oh, if you create some hits, of course, different clauses would have kicked in. And I'm sure that then it would have taken it to 100, but they're now saying it's maybe $60 million.
- [23:13]
Richard Osman
So the base level would have been $60 million, which again, nice work if you can get it.
- [23:16]
Marina
Nice work if you can get it.
- [23:17]
Richard Osman
Money I'd rather was being spent on Comedy.
- [23:19]
Marina
So, yeah, yes, Absol. In a way, it was, yeah. So they did a documentary about their exit, a sort of misery documentary, which was massively, massively successful. I think that was the biggest ever documentary debut for Netflix. And they did ones about polo and global justice, which weren't. And then their various development projects as producers have come to nothing. But they also ended up doing Megan's lifestyle show with Love, Meghan. And what was interesting there is that Netflix became a retail partner. They basically paid to establish her brand as a retail entity.
- [23:55]
Richard Osman
That's a real holy grail for any company. If you can own a piece of merchandise. You can see from MrBeast. And you see we spoke about just now about Amazon. If you can have an audience who then give you more money to buy something that you also own, that is an incredible business.
- [24:12]
Marina
Mr. Beast is YouTube's highest paid creator by a long way and he makes all his money off chocolate. So there we go. What was the retail business? It was jam, famously. It was sort of dried flowers to sprinkle on food. It was some baking mixes. It was rose. There will have been a scented candle. Anyway, so there've been all kind of stories about this. Retail people were like, oh, it's a flop. Then, oh, it's a wild success. Cause someone tried to type in how many units they could get and there were loads of them. So they thought, oh, right. Actually they put in a huge order. The reporting on it's been really bad. But a couple of weeks ago we heard that they were sort of separating and that Netflix were no longer going to be part of this retail arm. Meghan said she that, as ever, had experienced meaningful and rapid growth. I mean, even her company.
- [25:01]
Richard Osman
Yeah, yeah.
- [25:02]
Marina
Everything has to be meaningful. Like even the lines in even your P and L is meaningful. It can't just, you know, it's. She's creating wonder in every spreadsheet. Then came this Variety article and it was. It's quite an attack on them. And they've spoken to lots and lots of people within Netflix. And by the way, I should say that legally this Variety article is caveated all the way through with denials from the Sussexes. People saying, no, this isn't the case, this isn't the case.
- [25:28]
Richard Osman
So accept those caveats from us as well.
- [25:30]
Marina
Yeah, so accept them here. People suggesting that Meghan was very difficult in meetings, that if something was said that she didn't like, the camera would go off and the microphone would go off. I think the Sussexes people have come back and said, you know, Sometimes, like all working parents, the children come into the room. You know, I mean, I personally always wander off my zooms for ages, but anyway. But then there are people.
- [25:52]
Richard Osman
I love the idea you're on a work zoo and your child wonders, and he goes, do you know what? I'm just gonna deal with that.
- [25:56]
Marina
Yeah. Because they didn't have any nannies. They said they had no good ideas. They thought it would be much more than. In fact, it was all just lots of jam.
- [26:03]
Richard Osman
The key thing, why did they think there was gonna be good ideas?
- [26:05]
Marina
I mean, I don't know.
- [26:07]
Richard Osman
They spend their entire life around creative people, and so they. They must have an idea. Why are they sitting across from.
- [26:13]
Marina
I'll tell you what. What they actually thought. And this is what the interesting thing is. To some degree, the Sussex kept kind of cannibalizing what they had with Netflix in that Netflix had this documentary. Then they discovered that they were gonna sit down with Oprah for cbs. It was like, okay, they were gonna do this tell all documentary series. Then they discovered he'd done the kind of book deal and that was coming out whenever it was. And there's always this sort of sense that, you know, but don't worry, you can have with love, Meghan. That's all for you. So that they were getting, to some degree, the scraps. That's not true, because the documentary was hugely successful. Variety said they had $10 million worth of surplus stock for this. Yeah.
- [26:51]
Richard Osman
Which is. That's a lot of jam. That's a lot.
- [26:53]
Marina
That's a lot of jam. As I say, you know, they've denied all sor. One thing we do know is that Ted Sarandos has unfollowed her and the brand on Instagram, even though the Sussex lovers, like, they're great friends with Ted. With what? You know, again, I hate to say it, but I always unfollow my great friends and their brands when there's no problem. Anyhow, why did they do it?
- [27:15]
Richard Osman
Why did Netflix drop the deal?
- [27:17]
Marina
Why did. Yeah, like you were just asking that and speaking to someone who is. Who understands this from within us. Netflix. When Ted Sarander said, it's great discovery for us, I remember reading that quote and thinking, sorry, what? Like, people find this jam in a shop and think, oh, I must watch that Netflix. I've heard of the retail angle. You want shoppable content one way or another. When they did the documentary, the. You know, their misery memoir, Leaving the Royal Family one, the big one, the only hit, everything that was featured in it essentially sold out there were no affiliate links, they didn't have partnerships with anyone. But everything from, I don't know, kitchen equipment to the shoes she was wearing to even the Hermes baby blanket in the background, which sells for more than a thousand pounds, sold out around the world.
- [28:01]
Richard Osman
And Netflix are making no money on that, of course.
- [28:03]
Marina
But then they think, hang on a second, wow, they seem pretty good for shoppable content. The reason they're trying to do this is quite interesting. They have lots of different ways of selling stuff to do with their shows. They have a dtc, a direct consumer business, you know, their own website where you can buy Stranger Things or Wednesday stuff. So that's standard merchandise. But they have lots of experiential pop ups. They have lots and lots of retail partnerships. They had a hugely strong one with Target in the US for Stranger Things. Obviously they do things, everything from Lego to Monopoly to all the different things you can do. They do drinks brands. They did a collaboration with Lacoste, they had lots of products. Squid Game did something massive with KFC which was huge.
- [28:49]
Richard Osman
And the live experiences of that.
- [28:50]
Marina
Bridgerton has got lots of different types from kind of quite fancy things within Liberty where they do tea sets and things like that to lots of live different events. But Stranger Things to some degree is the template franchise for all of this retail stuff. And by the way, the template franchise was just like for everything at Netflix if they could replicate that. All of that strategy is very, very heavily influenced by Disney and how that corporation has played for the last 50 years more. But they don't have the legacy that Disney has where you can put every princess on a lunchbox and all of these things. But they're trying to build that and they want to build.
- [29:24]
Richard Osman
And they thought, hold on a minute, we have our very own princess here because if you and she's making lunch,
- [29:29]
Marina
she's like, she can go on a lunchbox. I would love actually a Megan lunchbox. But then I am an ironist. They want that visible cultural relevance so that all the time when you're again, it's part of always on culture. Your show is walking around on someone's backpack or in someone's lunchbox or wherever it is.
- [29:45]
Richard Osman
Well, they just announced or trying to or suggesting a huge K pop Demon hunters tour, you know, and that's which. Because that's far enough, you know, that's their kind of.
- [29:55]
Marina
Well, we know that was their huge bulldozer. So they didn't have any toys for that because they didn't realize it was gonna be massive.
- [29:59]
Richard Osman
They had nothing.
- [30:00]
Marina
There will be so any toys next time around.
- [30:02]
Richard Osman
You won't believe the next. I was reading about the deal that the people behind yeah, it's amazing. It's a big one. Honestly. It's. It's probably the same daily rate as being on Last one. Laughing what they're. What they're getting. So yeah, it's. But. But it's all of that stuff. And like we were talking about SNL earlier about how companies make their money. This is a huge version of it which is how can we get people who are fans of this show to pay us more and more and more money and we keep a piece of it. So I would have said, said actually not a crazy risk, not a stupid thing to say.
- [30:31]
Marina
So the Discovery comment, people like. Yeah, people like Megan.
- [30:35]
Richard Osman
Megan. So if a blanket in the background of the previous documentary is selling out. What if she is doing something about her life and about how she cooks and about what she uses?
- [30:43]
Marina
That stuff is all incredibly affordable. The most expensive thing is going to be some. And it's not like a very expensive.
- [30:49]
Richard Osman
And it's not owned by Hermes, it's owned by Megan and us. And so we are literally making money from the second the show goes out. Every single thing that gets sold that if it comes off is an absolutely huge business. I mean huge business, which is why they do it. But it looks like maybe it didn't come off.
- [31:06]
Marina
It didn't come off. Okay, so with love, Meghan, as we can all see, is an incredibly cheap show. Okay? It's not actually her kitchen, it's some other person in Montecito's kitchen. But it's incredibly cheap show. Except you've paid the presenter a ludicrous fortune. You've paid more than the Duffer Brothers. Okay? You've paid her so much money and she's had no hits apart from this one thing. And you know the ratings. I remember saying, oh, it was in the top, the UK top 10 for sort of five minutes. And there's that whole sort of Sussex squad, those online people who go, oh no, these things are really successful. No, the tale of the tape is it performed like average lifestyle content. That first series that was 383rd watched over the six month period, 383rd of Netflix's programs. Okay, so that's average lifestyle content.
- [31:53]
Richard Osman
And by the way, we are, we have no. So we've said a million times before Harry's hardback. Which by the way, the anti Sussexes are going, oh no, it's in the remainder bins. No it's the single most successful nonfiction book of all time. Of all time. Of all time.
- [32:07]
Marina
Okay, so the second season again, which, remember, they faked that they were like, oh, we've been renewed. It's like, no, no, you've already filmed them back to back and as a holiday special, which they then put on that was 1217th. So that is way below average lifestyle content. And as I say, also, you've played the present an unbelievable fortune. Okay, yeah.
- [32:29]
Richard Osman
And I mean, put it this way. If it was the seventh or eighth biggest show on Netflix and you'd pay people that money, you'd be like, oh, I said, this is not great. And maybe it's just about okay, but anywhere below that, certainly if you're outside the top, a thousand. I didn't know they went outside the top.
- [32:45]
Marina
Oh, my God. It's okay. And I'll tell you why. Nobody cares about watching her make, you know, lavender biscuits for her ex hairdresser. Okay? This is bullshit and it's boring, right? This is what happened with the Spotify deal. It implod. And as Bill Simmons, who is executive at Spotify and also runs the sort of ring and network of poll work cars, said, you know, you're grifters, they're grifters. They have nothing to say apart from this one story.
- [33:10]
Richard Osman
And by the way, I'm sure I've said this before, we're all grifters. Really. It's okay to be a grifter. I mean, you're born with what you're born with.
- [33:17]
Marina
Okay, well, yeah, I mean, they are kind of. They're out of fashion, you know, they're not very talented and they have a hugely overstated idea of their cultural relevance. You know, hard relate. But, but, but it is what it is. The guy who used to run one of the big talent, talent agencies, I think UTA said at a certain point a couple of years ago, you know, they're just not very good. And this is the reality they had. I talk, I've talked to, you know, how many times have I talked about Persona or personal brand or whatever that people sort of want to see a certain thing from you. And they had this. They have this one story which is we were treated badly in the Royal Family and we left the Royal Family. That is their one story. They're like the Ancient Mariner, right? They've told it every possible way they can now. But nobody cares about any of the other stuff at all. They literally don't. So what you're left with now is that they are just rich people. The victim thing worked out for them a bit, but now people just see them as extremely rich people. They find her quite exhausting. They're quite. And fake. And also, I think the trouble is the audience of everything has become so media literate. I even saw like some pictures of Speaking of Misery documentary series. Cause I think Brooklyn and Nicola Peltz might do.
- [34:35]
Richard Osman
No.
- [34:36]
Marina
Yeah, they might do. You know, again, another worldwide privacy tour.
- [34:39]
Richard Osman
Wow.
- [34:40]
Marina
So if they do one, that will be very successful, but nothing else they do will be successful. And I saw some pictures of David Beckham looking sad in LA last week and all the comments were, oh, this is Backgrid, which is a paparazzi agent agency. Oh, the staged photo agency. These are people in normal comment sections are starting to say they even know the names of, you know, photography agencies and they know that they have a reputation for staging paparazzi pictures. You're dealing with such a media literate audience. Anything that Meghan and Harry do now, because people always want to seem like they're in the know and they understand the bigger narrative and they can see all the plays and all the moves. They now say, oh, you're only coming back to do this because you want content. You're only. This is all just like a play to create more drama or more whatever so that you can have content so that we can get rinsed in in some way.
- [35:25]
Richard Osman
It's so hard.
- [35:26]
Marina
They've moved into a very difficult space.
- [35:28]
Richard Osman
Yeah, yeah, it's hard when the product is yourself.
- [35:30]
Marina
Yeah.
- [35:31]
Richard Osman
If you're a comedian or a writer or an actor or a footballer, you can go and do your job and you can get column inches for doing it. If all you have is you and you're not even an ideas person, you are just a person. That's a hard place to be.
- [35:47]
Marina
Yeah.
- [35:47]
Richard Osman
I think.
- [35:48]
Marina
What story do you tell now? Because really, you can't complain about anything else anymore. You've done all the complaining and they don't really have anything else. And, you know, it's not gonna be jam retail. The way she's cast. This is. They're taking the stabilizers off. I've got meaningful growth and I'm going for it on my own. We'll see. In terms of being content producers, I will tell you one thing, and by the way, from Ted Sarandos unfollowing her now, she'd wanna take this anywhere else. They still have a first look with deal with Netflix, which is sort of a way of saying, you know, we'll take a Look, I mean, it's nothing. A first look really, isn't it? People are waiting to see if further misery ensues. They will wait to see if they stay together. And if they don't stay together, then, believe me, then they've got another story that everybody wants to see.
- [36:34]
Richard Osman
Still feels to me that if you don't do a $60 million deal with Netflix, if you launch this slowly and by yourself, there's enough people who are interested in that brand to sell jam, and there's enough money in selling jam to have a nice living. And, you know, if they set their sights a little bit lower, it feels like. It feels like there's a business there. It's just not a business you want to spend $60 million on. I. I want to spend $60 million buying Harry's autobiography because there's a huge amount of money in it. But a. But a jam business with. With Megan. If you. Yeah, if you. If she came and asked me for 10 grand for 25 of that, I'd be like, yeah, that feels good. But, yeah, $60 million for 25 of it would be. That would be beyond me.
- [37:15]
Marina
It's not a lifestyle brand in any meaningful sense. She has to do it, but she should have gone into something like, beyond. You can have eight products in beauty and sell your company for a billion, like Hailey Bieber has.
- [37:26]
Richard Osman
Where do they go next, though? Cause Netflix has a classiness to it which fits with what they want their brand to be.
- [37:32]
Marina
Unless they have a new victimhood story that really sells. For instance, they split up and Meghan wants to talk about it, then there is nothing.
- [37:40]
Richard Osman
There's money in that.
- [37:42]
Marina
There's a lot of money in that.
- [37:43]
Richard Osman
Do you have any recommendations?
- [37:44]
Marina
I have three recommendations that were sort of pop cultural recommendations. If you haven't read the Hollywood Reporter article about the lighting at the Vanity Fair Oscar's party that was apparently a war crime. I strongly urge you to read it. It's very funny. They always had it in one place, and they've moved it to the Los Angeles County Art Museum of Art. Go and look at some of the photos of the light, of the red carpet lighting. It's like they're being shot in 8K, like ultra high definition. Everyone looks atrocious. Okay. I mean, some of the most beautiful people in the world look awful. Okay. But the writing of this story is so funny because it's so camp. I absolutely loved it. There's a quote in it saying, I genuinely feel bad for some of these women. One poor actress looked like A Diane Arbus character. She was on her phone looking at her pictures and shrieking at her publicist. I heard she went home and cried herself to sleep. Nobody's heard from her since. It's like such a niche thing. But if you don't understand how much they care about lighting and how insanely angry they will be that they were made to look like that on the biggest night in the cat. That's very funny.
- [38:47]
Richard Osman
That's a Hollywood reporter.
- [38:48]
Marina
Yeah. I really enjoyed an Instagram post from Vin Diesel about the burden of creating the final Fast and Furious. As you know, I'm a big fan of the franchise, about muscle cars and the candy asses who drive them. They're creating the last installment in the franchise, maybe. And he said it has outlasted trends, cynics and time itself.
- [39:09]
Richard Osman
Well, it's outlasted time itself. This is terrible.
- [39:13]
Marina
And again, for all the ironyists out there, I have to say that the Justin Timberlake arrest video, which he. The DUI arrest video, which he fought so hard to keep under wraps, there's a lot of it there. There's a lot of content. I think there's about 11 minutes 40 has been released in the station. But also on the side of the road where he's trying to explain, like, what is a world tour? I'm on a world tour. What is one? It's very, very hard to explain. I'm Justin Timberlake. Also hard to explain. I strongly urge a look at the other side of celebrity.
- [39:42]
Richard Osman
And I would just recommend what we spoke about, which is SNL uk. Again, you don't have to like it, but there will be something in there for you. There'll be a sketchy like. And also last one laughing. I just think it's so effortlessly funny. It's so rare to have something that's just so innocently stupid. And so I think, yeah, if you haven't watched both of those, I can. I can recommend them both.
- [40:05]
Marina
I think that's about us for today.
- [40:08]
Richard Osman
Yeah, that's us done. Join us on Thursday for a Q and A. We'll be talking about all sorts of things there. I've got questions about the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot, which apparently is not being rebooted. Lots of questions about the new House of Games as well. Michael Sheen's House of Games. So loads of fun things to talk about on Thursday.
- [40:23]
Marina
And for our members on Friday, we have an episode on Mockbusters. What are they? Why are they so out of.
- [40:32]
Richard Osman
Really interesting.
- [40:32]
Marina
It's fascinating.
- [40:33]
Richard Osman
It's really interesting. And why are they so profitable?
- [40:36]
Marina
And why are they so profitable? Often more profitable than the films that they are mocking up. If you want to join, it's theresticentertainment.com Otherwise, we'll see you on Thursday.
- [40:45]
Richard Osman
See you on Thursday, everyone.
- [41:01]
Marina
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