Euphoria: Exploitation or Empowerment?

Summary

The Rest Is Entertainment

Episode: Euphoria: Exploitation or Empowerment?
Date: April 13, 2026
Hosts: Richard Osman & Marina Hyde
Main Theme:
An insider dissection of the return of HBO’s Euphoria, exploring whether the show tips into exploitation or remains a vehicle for empowerment, alongside fresh commentary on major podcast valuations and set security nightmares in the era of drones.

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Episode Overview

This episode sees Richard Osman and Marina Hyde dissect the cultural and industry waves surrounding Euphoria's much-anticipated return. They weigh its impact as a so-called "zeitgeist show," discuss whether its boundary-pushing content is transgressive or exploitative, and explore the show's influence on the careers of now-megastar cast members like Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, and Jacob Elordi. They also delve into the behind-the-scenes drama—both on set and at its red-carpet premiere.
Further, the episode pivots to the professionalization and monetization of podcasts—spotlighting a staggering OpenAI acquisition—and rounds off with a deep-dive into the security arms race on UK film sets, complete with drone incursions and legal innovations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Euphoria’s Cultural Impact and Classic Teen Drama Lineage

• Euphoria is labeled a "zeitgeist" show, inheriting and upgrading the “gritty teen drama” tradition of Degrassi, Skins, and 13 Reasons Why ([04:00–04:24]).
  • Marina: “When they come out, they instantly make all the other mainstream shows look incredibly vanilla and kind of twee and scripted.” ([04:00])
• The show broke boundaries with its raw portrayal of addiction, sexuality, and youth—generating both acclaim and controversy.

2. Cast Ascendancy: Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney & Jacob Elordi

• The careers of Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, and Jacob Elordi have skyrocketed since the show’s debut ([04:45–05:00]).
  • Richard: “Now it’s the new season of a TV show starring three of the biggest stars in the world.” ([04:56])
• Insights into the dynamics between the stars, including reported “beef” between Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney ([09:09]).

3. Red Carpet Power Plays and Celebrity Cliques

• Backstage gossip and carefully orchestrated red-carpet appearances (“military precision”) provide peeks into celebrity rivalry.
  • Marina: “Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney, you’re not going to see those two in a picture.” ([08:54])
  • Zendaya's late arrival is dubbed "the ultimate power move” ([09:22]).

4. Production Realities & Rumors of Exploitation

• The series is notable for its “nudity waivers” and infamous on-set discomfort around explicit scenes ([06:18–07:04]).
  • Marina: “There have always been rumors of people feeling they were made to either go too far or … some of the cast have explicitly said, … ‘I started asking for my shirt to be put back on at a certain point.’” ([06:43])
• Hosts debate whether the show’s approach to sex and trauma is artistically necessary or exploitative shock-value ([13:49–15:04]).
  • Marina: “A lot of the time, I just think this is actually quite exploitative.” ([13:49])
  • Richard: “Ask yourself whether you would be comfortable doing that.” ([14:21])

5. Sam Levinson: Auteur or Alarm Bell?

• Showrunner Sam Levinson’s reputation for both creative authenticity (drawing from his own struggles) and rumors of difficult, unloving management style ([12:46–14:13]).
  • Marina: “Many, many people would tell you that he’s not particularly well loved.” ([15:26])
• Parallel drawn to “The Idol” project, which the hosts deride—especially episode 3, “the worst episode of television I’ve ever seen.” ([15:56])

6. TV vs. Film Prestige in a Post-Euphoria World

• Discussion on how TV can now match (or outmatch) the prestige of film, yet actors prefer film for its flexibility and one-off commitments ([17:26–19:12]).
  • Marina: “Do you really want to commit to something that lasts for years and years and years, or do you want to get in and out in four months?” ([19:14])

7. The Enormity of Euphoria’s Success

• Euphoria is HBO’s fifth-biggest show in history, after Game of Thrones, The Last of Us, and The Sopranos ([20:52–21:25]).
  • Richard: “Succession is number six. Sex and the City number seven. They’ve had some good shows, HBO, to be fair, haven’t they?” ([21:16])

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “The third season of anything is where suddenly the money becomes very difficult.” — Marina ([08:15])
• “Somehow, now when I look at it, I just see … I’m not quite sure what the purpose of some of this shock value stuff is.” — Marina ([19:48])
• “Would you recommend season one?”
  “Absolutely, I would… Don’t watch with your kids… or your parents.” — Marina & Richard ([20:39–20:49])
• “The actors … want to say, ‘I’m, I own this. I do this on purpose.’ I mean, I am empowered.” — Marina ([14:41–15:06])

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Podcast Industry Deep Dive: TBPN & the OpenAI Buy ($200M+)

1. The Podcast Boom 2.0

• Discussion of TBPN’s meteoric rise: 18 months, Tech Bros John Coogan and Jordy Hayes, “techno optimist good hangs,” and their acquisition by OpenAI for “low hundreds of millions of dollars,” most likely as stock ([24:00–25:23]).
  • Richard: “They have turned like a text message from one to the other in October 2024 into let’s say $200 million. Minimum.” ([26:04])
• TBPN’s audience is small but “influence-dense”—composed of VCs, engineers, and industry insiders ([27:49]).

2. The Value Proposition

• OpenAI wants deeper narrative control—“distribution is the moat” ([31:59–32:56]).
  • Marina: “They are influence-dense. All the important people are listening to your thing.” ([32:13])
• Both hosts are skeptical of OpenAI’s assertion that editorial independence will remain untouched.
  • Richard: “You’ve just paid them $200 million and you don’t expect them to go any easier on you?” ([30:27])

3. Changing Media Consumption

• The move signals a shift where “people don’t really care quite so much about journalism,” preferring “someone who feels insidery and is a good hang” ([38:40]).
• Hosts note this is indicative of a broader decline in gatekeeping and journalism being supplanted by “personalities talking about this stuff” ([39:21]).

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Behind the Scenes: Set Security and Drone Intrusions

1. UK as Global Film & TV Powerhouse

• UK studio space now reportedly outpaces Hollywood ([40:59]). The hosts heap praise on UK crews’ skills and reliability.

2. The Drone Menace at Leavesden Studios

• A drone operator (DJ Audit/Nigel Dix) captured and posted shots of Harry Potter sets ([42:26]).
• “Audit YouTubers” provoke security for content—deliberately seeking confrontations for YouTube ([45:03]).
  • Marina: “They just want the argument, and then they put you on the internet. You don’t want to be on the internet.” ([46:07])

3. Legal & Practical Hurdles

• Studios can’t jam or shoot down drones (illegal under UK aviation law), and can only temporarily block airspace ([47:17]).
• Warner Brothers’ legal strategy is based on IP infringement, not trespass ([48:15]).
  • Richard: “So it feels like a bit like you might be…”
  • Marina: “Yes, and that is probably the best way.” ([48:15–48:18])
• Growing trend of watermarking scripts, using code names and even fake scenes to prevent leaks ([49:31–50:39]).

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Recommendations & Closing Thoughts

Game and TV Picks

• Marina: The Chameleon (card/party game)—“I thoroughly recommend The Chameleon.” ([51:16])
• Richard: Bait (Amazon Prime, starring Riz Ahmed & Guz Khan)—“It’s really interestingly written, interestingly shot. Guz and Riz are fantastic together.” ([51:21])

Final Reflections

• The episode wraps up with wry humor about podcast investments, industry shifts, and inside-showbiz banter, encapsulating Richard and Marina’s blend of sharp insight, compassion, and irrepressible wit.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:32] Start: Discussion on Euphoria’s return and beef among cast
• [04:00] Euphoria in the history of transgressive teen TV
• [06:18] “Nudity waivers” and production controversy
• [08:54] The Zendaya–Sydney Sweeney red carpet rift
• [13:49] The exploitation debate—actor pushback and agency
• [15:26] Sam Levinson’s reputation in the industry
• [17:26] Film vs TV careers, commitment, and actor motivations
• [20:52] HBO smash hits leaderboard
• [24:00] TBPN podcast story—structure, audience, OpenAI buy
• [29:05] OpenAI’s motivations for the purchase: narrative control (“the new moat”)
• [38:40] Opinion vs journalism in the podcasting age
• [40:59] The UK’s rise as a film/TV studio hub
• [42:26] The Harry Potter drone incursion explained
• [47:17] Legal limits of anti-drone measures
• [49:31] Script security arms race, leaked scripts
• [51:09] Game and TV recommendations

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“The point about [the TBPN] audience, while small, is that it is incredibly influence-dense... all the important people are listening to your thing.” – Marina, [27:49]

“A lot of the time, I just think this [Euphoria] is actually quite exploitative.” — Marina, [13:49]

"[Re: Euphoria's impact] It really, really made a generation of actors. So anything where you have to cast teens to try and be teens seems to be the sweet spot for creating a generation of Oscar nominees." — Richard, [11:33]

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In a Nutshell

This episode of The Rest Is Entertainment unpacks the knife-edge between artistic truth and shock-for-profit in modern storytelling, using Euphoria as a jumping-off point for a broader critique of media, stardom, and power behind the camera and the microphone. A must-listen for anyone invested in pop culture’s evolving frontlines.

Transcript

[Marina]

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[Marina]

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest Is Entertainment with me, Marina

[Richard Osman]

Hyde and me, Richard Osman. Hello, listeners. Hello, Marina.

[Marina]

Hello, Richard.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

How are you?

[Richard Osman]

Very well. Got a glass of water, got a cup of tea. I've got my podcast partner with me.

[Marina]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

What else could I ask for?

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Very, very little in this world.

[Richard Osman]

And what should we talk about this week? What shall we talk about? What are we going to talk about? Like we haven't planned it.

[Marina]

Well, we've planned what we're going to talk about. We are going to talk about the

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

return after, even by the standards of peak tv, quite a long hiatus.

[Richard Osman]

Euphoria and Euphoria is one of those shows that lots of people over here have never seen, but they can now see because of HBO Max and it launched the careers of some of the biggest stars in the entire world.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

And there's beef, there's plenty of beef.

[Richard Osman]

So we felt that ticked a number of boxes.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

There's beef and bin fire.

[Richard Osman]

So Beef and bin fire.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

No, that's one of. That's like a pub in Hoxton, isn't it?

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

The Beef and Bin. I wanted to go there.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah. Set up by four Eton venture capitalists.

[Marina]

Speaking of venture capitalists, we are also going to talk about a podcast which

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

I've actually been listening to, has not got a big audience, has just been sold for low hundreds of millions of dollars. It's only been going 18 months. We'll talk about what it is and

[Richard Osman]

who bought it and how we could get our hands on low hundreds of millions of dollars.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Absolutely.

[Richard Osman]

And we're going to talk about set security. There's all sorts of trouble on the Harry Potter set with drones kind of taking images of things. But the world of set security and script security and what companies do to, to, to protect their IP before it comes out. Yeah, talking of IP before it comes out. No, because it came out last night.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

It came out last night.

[Richard Osman]

See, that's what you have turned into that link. And I can't, I've lost, I've lost my link ability. You've taken it from me.

[Marina]

There's only a finite amount of linkability that can't be created or destroyed. It can only be passed from one

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

host to the other.

[Richard Osman]

So every time you do a good link I have to do a bad one straight afterwards.

[Marina]

Euphoria is one of those Zeitgeist. Well, when it started, it's one of those Zeitgeist shows that are kind of a long tradition of kind of transgressive shows about, hey, this is what teenagers are actually doing and what being a teenage really like. They. When they come out, they instantly sort of make all the other mainstream shows look incredibly vanilla and kind of twee and scripted.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

They're always darker and grittier, which always

[Marina]

means it's lots of drugs and sex and it comes in, I mean, I suppose, like the early ones like that are things like Degrassi, but then get more into something like skins or 13 reasons why it's in the tradition of those shows.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

That's.

[Richard Osman]

And one of the things about Euphoria, first is massive, but secondly, it launched the careers, but it really crystallized the careers of three friends of the podcast.

[Marina]

3. Three great friends of the podcast who are. Who are Zenday, Sydney Sweeney and Jacob Elordi.

[Richard Osman]

I mean, come on.

[Marina]

All of whom are now big stars.

[Richard Osman]

And the interesting thing there is, when it started out, Zendaya, she was well known. The other two, less well known. But now, as this new season comes out, essentially it's a new season of a TV show which was a scrappy little underdog, and now it's the new season of a TV show starring three of the biggest stars in the entire world. What's the basic premise behind Euphoria for people who know nothing about it?

[Marina]

Well, I'll just do the very basics so that you can get into the story. You know, at the very start, when we meet her, she is centered on Zendaya, who plays a character called Rue. She's a drug addict, and it sort of follows her journey, her friendship group, things with her family. And I won't say any more because

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

otherwise you're spoiling the stories.

[Richard Osman]

But, but, but, but it's Teens and Their Troubles.

[Marina]

Teens and their Troubles.

[Richard Osman]

Try in a. In a. In a gritty, honest, open way.

[Marina]

Euphoria's based on an Israeli series of the same name, and they got Sam Levinson. He created it for the US and in large part, it has directed a lot of it, certainly directed a lot

[Richard Osman]

of the new series, and wrote a lot of it.

[Marina]

And wrote it. Yes. And it's. He is the son of Barry Levinson, as he's a sort of. So he's a sort of Hollywood legacy person. Barry Levinson, who directed Rain Man, Good Morning Vietnam, Bugsy, all sorts of things

[Richard Osman]

like that so weird in Hollywood to have father and son in the same business.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

It's very strange.

[Marina]

Yeah, yeah. Who?

[Richard Osman]

Coincidence, isn't it?

[Marina]

It broke a lot of boundaries.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Not always positive, I would say, because

[Marina]

there was a huge amount of kind of nudity and shock value scenes. I remember. I mean, I think there's one you have to sign something called a nudity waiver or nudity rider when you're doing this.

[Richard Osman]

Nudity rider.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

It's a hell of a job.

[Marina]

I know.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

And I think there's one episode where

[Marina]

I mean, they were literally in the hundreds, these things.

[Richard Osman]

More riders than the Grand National.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Yeah, very many more. And somehow less safe in some ways.

[Marina]

No, I'm joking. Not less safe. It's very well run as a production. Although there have always been rumors of people feeling they were made to either go too far or. And some of the cast have explicitly said, oh, I was actually Sydney Sweeney

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

started saying, you know, I started asking for my shirt to be put back on at a certain point because it was unnecessary.

[Richard Osman]

So it started last night. Can I ask a question? Because this, I think is the interesting thing about it. Cuz often you have these shows that launch big stars. Why they all come back to it would be my question. You've got three people there, Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney and Zendaya, who could do anything, literally anything. And yet they've gone back to this show, which does have occasionally a reputation that it's a. It can be a difficult set to be on and yet they've all come back. Can that just be money or is it they feel they owe it something?

[Marina]

Okay, well, I think it's both to some degree. I think it was such. It was such a groundbreaking show and it was such a big sort of deal. And the reason why lots of those things have been tolerated, as it were. And you know, there'll be a lot of people who will talk about Sam Levinson and I don't think he's the most particularly beloved person. However, what it did is it brought in an audience that HBO just didn't have or hadn't seen, or that they brought in a whole new young, very engaged audience and people. There's a lot that can be forgiven for that. The third season of Anything is where suddenly the money becomes very difficult. If you sign on and you do and you'll sign on and you'll sign on for a season of something and your next season will effectively be on the same terms. Or maybe there's a slight uplift, but

[Richard Osman]

it's kind of built into the initial two season contract. Yeah.

[Marina]

The third one is where they get your paydays, but these guys have big paydays anyway. So I think there is partly some of that, but I also think that. I think they probably think it's iconic and they probably do feel they owe it something. And either HBO or Sam Levinson himself has been very persuasive. I mean, you might want to do lots of other things on hbo. You might, you know, you might want to. There's lots of reasons why you'd come back for season three.

[Richard Osman]

And maybe they get on with each other and they have happy memories.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Maybe some of them do, some of them don't.

[Marina]

The red carpet. The show was okay. Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney, you're not going to see those two in a picture. The red carpet. Just reading about the red carpet made me laugh so much because I. When you're reading between the lines and you know how it works, you're thinking, I can't actually believe what military position.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

This must have been planned by all of their individual teams.

[Marina]

So you've got. The show was supposed to start at 7, as in everyone's supposed to be in their seats and they were supposed to have the screening. I don't think Zendaya turned up till

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

8, which is the ultimate power move.

[Marina]

But everyone else was long in their seats. There are two shots of some of them. But there's supposed to be a big, big beef between Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney. Who knows whether that's true? But they're certainly not in any pictures together. And when you look at it, all you can see, oh, okay. So those two like each other.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Those two, yeah.

[Marina]

And there were so many angles and plot lines just on that and who

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

will arrive and in what order.

[Marina]

It made a sort of Paris fashion show where eventually Rihanna will turn up

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

like two hours later and then the show can start.

[Richard Osman]

Do they all like Jacob Elordi, though?

[Marina]

I haven't heard anything specifically about him, I must say. I haven't heard Andrew's digital specifically.

[Richard Osman]

I was reading about the, you know. So when this started, Sydney Sweeney had been in, but not really. This was her proper big break. Zendaya, as we said, had been Disney Club Spider man and had done Greatest Showman. So she was just breaking through. But I think she's talked about euphoria and said, I found I was in a place where I could go in. I could only really go in one direction and it was a direction I didn't want to go in. And so she Jumped at the chance of doing this. But Jacob Elordi was, I mean he was a sort of Australian heartthrob and he'd been in a couple of things, but he was out in Hollywood trying to make it. He was just about to go home. I think his visa was about to run out. He was helping a friend doing a self do a self tape for Euphoria. And then he said, I wonder if I can send in my own self tape for this. So did. And just before he's about to go back to Australia, gets this part and you know, now is an Oscar nominee. So it was really, really the making of him. Something else would have made him. Cause he's terrific. But this was the show that really saw him through. The Skins comparison you made is very, very interesting. Cause occasionally a show will come along that will make a generation of actors and this really, really did in the States, particularly with those three. But Skins in the uk, which as you said is a, is a similar proposition, which is this is what teens are really like. And suddenly everything else about teens looks ridiculous. And on that show you had Dev Patel who was a non actor before that, you know, so that was his first thing. You had Daniel Kaluuya who had actually done all sorts of things but was writing on Skins as well. You had Nicholas Hoult who had been in about a boy but you know, was a child actually.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Yeah. And was a nerdy little boy in that and then was like Tony. It was like the center of everything

[Richard Osman]

Jack o' Connell was in made an absolute generation of actors. So anything where you have to cast teens to try and be teens seems to be. That seems to be the sweet spot for creating a generation of Oscar nominees.

[Marina]

But they do grow up. And the gap. They've done a time jump for obvious reasons because there has been.

[Richard Osman]

There has been a time jump.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

A time jump.

[Marina]

But even the sort of indulgence of peak TV where you had three year gaps between seasons. Actually the last season of Euphoria wrapped shooting not Transmission, but rap shooting almost five years ago. And certain key actors have died.

[Richard Osman]

Eric Dane, Angus Cloud died. And again he was someone, he was street auditioned Angus Cloud, which is something they, you know, they tried to do for this. In fact, Zendaya's part was originally they'd found someone on the street who they thought could play that part. Yeah, he passed away. So there's, there's a lot of behind the scenes drama as well that ties into all of this. Tell me a bit about Sam Levinson then because you know I keep reading. I keep reading, like allusions to this being a troubled set. And we know what he went on to do next, which we've talked about before, which was.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Oh, well, I will have to talk

[Marina]

about it within the context because I think this is quite interesting. So Sam Levinson, I think, you know, as I say, he's sort of son of Hollywood royalty. I think he effectively kind of dropped out of normal, not completely out of normal education, but sort of sat around

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

watching a lot of movies.

[Richard Osman]

Sam Levison, I said, had a childhood where he'd been through various, you know, substance abuse issues, and so he was writing that sort of thing anyway. And in a meeting, someone had said, oh, we got this show Euphoria from Israel. Would you like to adapt it? And he said, yes, and essentially just wrote the thing that he wanted to do. But that's the way the TV works sometimes.

[Marina]

Yeah. So when Euphoria premiered and came out, and it was shocking and it was. It struck a chord completely. And it brought in this audience.

[Richard Osman]

It felt real.

[Marina]

Yeah. And it brings in an audience that they don't have. And that is something that you can't really put a price on because there were regular stories of things would come out of the set and say it was difficult, you could see what was up there on the screen, which was that it trod a very fine line. I mean, I find it pretty bleak, actually. And I don't know.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

And most.

[Marina]

A lot of the time, I just think this is actually. I think this is actually quite exploitative.

[Richard Osman]

Do you know stories about Sam Levinson that you would never be able to say in public?

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

I think lots of people have heard lots of stories about Sam Levinson that they can't necessarily say in public.

[Marina]

Again, I would say that it's not necessarily.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Well loved, Richard.

[Marina]

Okay, I will say that. Look at what's on the screen. A lot of it's up there on the screen, and you can decide whether

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

that comes from a place of, you know, love and understanding, or whether it comes from a place that seeks shock value at almost all costs.

[Richard Osman]

It's often the case if you are looking at a scene to go, okay, step outside of this, step behind the camera, think about that morning, think about all of those actors and think about how they were asked to do what they're going to do, how they felt during it and how they felt after it, and then ask yourself whether you would be comfortable doing that.

[Marina]

And the actors themselves would say in interviews, yeah, I know I've pushed back on certain things. I think because if even your actors are saying, I. I push back on this. And even Sydney Sweeney is saying, she asked if I could put my shirt back on in a few scenes, there's something about. They are aware that there's a perception that they're being exploited, and they don't want to show that they are. They want to say, I'm. I own this. I do this on purpose.

[Richard Osman]

I mean, I am empowered.

[Marina]

In the new season, she's trying to be an only fans girl. And there's a lot of. I mean, there's.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

She's done up as a dog at certain points.

[Marina]

I don't know. You know, I'm sure she's a strong, independent woman. And anyway, so. But Sam Levinson, I think it's fair to say, from a lot. Many, many people would tell you that

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

he's not particularly well loved.

[Marina]

However, because he brought in this audience. He then wanted to do this other thing, which was the Idol, which he did with the Weeknd.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

That's the one that stars Lily Rosedep and the Weeknd. And it's sort of about a cult thing. I have to say, if that was set out to satirize. Well, not satirize or to critique exploitation and cultish behavior, um, I think it

[Marina]

was the thing it was trying to critique.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah.

[Marina]

If you've listened to this podcast before, you may well have heard me say that episode three of that is potentially

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

the worst episode of television I've ever seen. Yeah, but whatever.

[Marina]

So I don't think people within the cast were thrilled. By the way, as I say, the

[Richard Osman]

people in the Euphoria cast is sort of in the same universe.

[Marina]

Sort of. Yeah. And also, if they are going to do season three and wrap up this story that they maybe feel they owe something to, I mean, Zendaya's done, like, June Challengers, the drama, lots of things like that. Sydney Sweeney's done Anyone but you since. Since it wrapped the Housemaid Immaculate. Okay.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

And Madame Web.

[Marina]

But, you know, it's a movie. Jacob Elordi's on Saltburn, Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights.

[Richard Osman]

So what you're saying is we've got the three of them who've done this incredible show that they owe an awful lot to, and before the next one comes out, they're all massive superstars. In the meantime, the director and writer of their show has done a massive dump right in the middle of Hollywood.

[Marina]

Yeah. And I think everyone involved in that

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

was just hoping it would. They would just get out alive of that.

[Richard Osman]

It didn't. It didn't Unlike a massive dump, it did not hang around for long, did it?

[Marina]

It didn't. But you know, you can find it all. You can still go and watch it,

[Richard Osman]

but I mean, you can don't, but you can.

[Marina]

But anyway, so during that time, all of those people became not just, you know, they didn't just have good roles, they became proper bankable. You can open a movie, movie stars. And so it's very, very odd to see people of that, that heft, I suppose, as in people who can get money for films, which somehow is still the benchmark.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Even though, you know, we might say that television has been much more successful

[Marina]

or much more reliably successful in recent years. But if you can get money and you can open a film, then you are still huge. And to see all of those, those particularly those three on the red carpet is odd now because it seems almost

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

like it's top heavy. Like, how can all these people be on this show?

[Marina]

Because each one of those is now a lead in whatever they're in.

[Richard Osman]

It's sort of happened all around us. So we do, we know it already that television, especially for a younger generation of actors, has equal if not more prestige than movies. And this is an object case and it is. The three of them are happy to co star in this thing on television because they're not thinking, I could be making a movie. Instead they're thinking, no, this is an enormous worldwide.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

I'm not sure.

[Marina]

I think that, I actually think, isn't it interesting that they could all be leading TV series, But maybe they want. Don't forget TV is a massive commitment as this more than anything shows. I think it's the commitment that they are less interested in. Are you really gonna sign away potentially seven seasons of something or seven years or however many years rather than doing lots of high profile potential great film projects? And I think that's still why they, it's interesting that none of these particularly have been doing TV series. They've been all doing films because. Not just because it remains perhaps undeservedly the prestige thing, but because actually you don't have to commit to seven years or whatever and wait around while someone

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

goes and makes the idol.

[Marina]

You're, you're, you're much more master of your own destiny. And I wouldn't want to imply that, by the way, they weren't because I think Casey Bloys, who's the CEO of hbo stood up and said, you know, thank you all for being here. And I've just been shouted at so

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

many times over the last few years by your agents and managers and publishers,

[Marina]

you know, because getting to just try and get the schedule to make it happen. But I think that's why. Do you really want to commit to something that lasts for years and years and years, or do you want to get in and out in four months plus promotion?

[Richard Osman]

Well, that's why this is perfect. This is like a movie to them, isn't it? This is all the advantages of the scale of television with none of the disadvantages, which is you're going to be tied up for years and years and years. This is a one and done because they've already done the first two seasons. So this one, they can just go in, do a thing. They know it's going to absolutely explode everywhere around the world and get out and back into the $10 million a movie.

[Marina]

I also wonder whether it will explode because it will get masses of traction, but I wonder whether people will think, oh, gosh, that was such a sort of COVID era, you know, that sort of thing. And somehow now when I look at it, I just see. I'm not quite sure what the purpose of some of this shock value stuff is. It really felt much clearer in earlier seasons that. Not always, by the way, but I thought most of the shocking stuff landed and you understood the substance beneath it and you understood why it was in the narrative. The danger when you have this much time has passed and things have moved on a bit and actually the culture's moved on is.

[Richard Osman]

And everyone involved has got so much money.

[Marina]

Do you actually think this is quite exploitative or does every single thing for me will need to land without there being a big backlash as to, you know, why is this. Any of this happening?

[Richard Osman]

Would you recommend season one to our podcast?

[Marina]

Absolutely. I would recommend anything that.

[Richard Osman]

Don't watch with your kids.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

No, it's not a kids show.

[Richard Osman]

Or I should say don't watch with your parents.

[Marina]

Yes.

[Richard Osman]

Depending on your age.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Yeah, Just don't watch. Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

Fifth biggest show in the. In the history of HBO as well. It's interesting, as you say, HBO had these huge hits, but they did not have a really, really young, skewing hit. And this was. This was absolutely that biggest show in HBO history, of course, Game of Thrones by quite some way. And then. And then the Last of Us, funnily enough. And there's slightly different ways of measuring what shows are big. But, you know, Sopranos is number four. This is number five. Succession is number six. Sex and the City number seven. They've had some good shows. Hbo, to be Fair, haven't they?

[Marina]

White Lotus must be creeping.

[Richard Osman]

White Lotus is number nine as well. Which, of course is what Sydney Sweeney sort of went on.

[Marina]

Yes.

[Richard Osman]

To do next. It's the first time lots of people who haven't seen Euphoria would have seen Sydney Sweeney.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Yes.

[Richard Osman]

Okay, let's go for a break, shall we? And after that, we're going to talk about this insane, genuinely insane podcast story. This episode is brought to you by Bumble.

[Marina]

Now, there's a modern phenomenon when someone says they're on the apps, but what they actually mean is they downloaded them, opened them once, and then immediately felt tired.

[Richard Osman]

So, technically on the apps, but nowhere near them. Making and updating a dating profile can be weirdly exhausting. Too many decisions, too much pressure to come across as the best version of yourself.

[Marina]

Well, that's where Bumble comes in. Instead of asking people to produce a personality from scratch, they give you personalized guidance on how to help show the authentic you.

[Richard Osman]

And not in a bossy way, more in a you're already interesting, but let's point the camera in the right direction.

[Marina]

And the prompts are better too. Less I like travel more. I once missed the train because I was petting a dog. Something someone else can respond to and spark conversations from.

[Richard Osman]

Because when a profile actually reflects someone's personality, conversations don't feel like small talk. They flow and they feel like they're going somewhere.

[Marina]

So download Bumble Today, show more of the real you, and see why it tends to be the app people hear about from friends.

[Richard Osman]

I like the idea of someone missing a train because they were petting a dog.

[Marina]

Well, it's involving, isn't it?

[Richard Osman]

Isn't it?

[Marina]

I'm engrossed.

[Advertiser Voice]

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[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

It is an honor to share.

[Richard Osman]

No, it's our honor.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

It is our larger honor. No, really, stop.

[Advertiser Voice]

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[Car Seller]

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[Advertiser Voice]

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[Marina]

Welcome back everybody.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Now we are going to talk about the sale of a podcast.

[Marina]

It started 18 months ago.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Less than 18 months ago actually.

[Marina]

It's called TBPN. By chance, I have been listening to

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

it for the last six months.

[Marina]

I'll say what it is. It's a. It's two finance bros. Well technology Finance Bros.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Originally the technology brothers TB called John

[Marina]

Coogan and Jordy Hayes. A year ago they rebranded it to TBPN and they start.

[Richard Osman]

They started which is now Technology Business Programming Network.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

Rather than Tech Bros.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Which are brothers which they were at

[Marina]

the start a year ago only they started this with no outside investment which is going to become relevant. And they started doing a three hour daily livestream which is cut down which I don't, you know watch but I watched the 30 Minute podcast. It's cut down into. But I am so not the typical audience.

[Richard Osman]

It's a daily show and it covers the business world and particularly the tech business world. So it covers a lot of AI, it covers all of the movements in that industry and there are a lot

[Marina]

of business defense for obvious reasons. Last week they did stuff about space travel and space travel companies and all of that sort of stuff. And I would say to describe them, I would say they're 100. They are techno optimists. They are sort of good looking in a kind of benign Patrick Bateman style way. Anyway, we're talking about them because this

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

podcast that started less than 18 months

[Richard Osman]

ago which has 70,000 viewers and to put 70,000 into context, there are podcasts in this country that you'll get a million listens an episode. I mean that's not, that's not beyond the realms of, you know, for stuff in the. In the top 10. This is getting 70,000 and that's in America and America and that's on a good day.

[Marina]

Averages 50,000 viewers per episode per live stream. Has been bought by OpenAI, a company

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

they cover all the time for some

[Marina]

in the low hundreds of millions of dollars. And I think you would definitely expect a significant percentage of that to be in OpenAI stock options which we know that it's almost a trillion dollar company and it's probably may going to float, may go to IPO later this year.

[Richard Osman]

By the way. It's a good product. I'll say that. I mean it depends on your view of them and the world and that but they put it together nicely and

[Marina]

I don't know about it. The reason I started listening to it is because I don't really know about this world. They're a good hang. Okay. And that is crucial. They are a good.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Exactly.

[Marina]

That you don't mind spending time with them.

[Richard Osman]

They have turned like a text message from one to the other in October 2024 into let's say $200 million.

[Marina]

Minimum.

[Richard Osman]

Minimum.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

And if it's an OpenAI stock, then

[Richard Osman]

with just 70,000 viewers, slash listeners less

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

than 70, that is their peak.

[Marina]

I think 11 people work on this

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

show by the way. 11.

[Marina]

And SportsCenter is a US show where there's a desk on ESPN. Yeah, it's on ESPN and they talk about sports news. Okay.

[Richard Osman]

It's like Sky Sports News would be how I'd see it.

[Marina]

Yeah, exactly. But they wanted to be like that for tech. The jump to always on as in they have made it daily and they've made as much of it available as they can sort of humanly do. So they do a three hour livestream but they now cut it down to a 30 minute episode that you can. Which is the bit I listen to.

[Richard Osman]

There's an amazing part very early on in this story and I think it's useful for all and any creators is these two guys had done a couple of episodes and sent them off to a friend who was in the business and this is any advice you got at all. And his one piece of advice, and this is such a great piece of advice for anyone, is you need to take this 100 times more seriously.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

Which isn't be a hundred times more serious on air. You've got to be yourself but you've got to take the business of what you're doing and your idea 100 times more seriously. And they said we never look back from that moment. And I think that's unbelievably great creative advice always.

[Marina]

And some people say, oh, it's like sort of cnbc, like a rolling news is channel's business desk but for Gen Z and they've got sort of little details. They do, they've got a good sort of studio. They've, you know, they've got a gong that they bang.

[Richard Osman]

They film it properly, it's lit properly, they dress properly. I mean to all intents and purposes it looks broad.

[Marina]

It's like old television quality.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

It's a desk with two guys.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah.

[Marina]

As I say, why did I listen to it? They had an easy and appealing style. They covered an area. I just feel like, feels like it's

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

the defining issue of our times and I don't really know that much about it.

[Marina]

And they were good to hang out with. But I am not the typical audience and I am absolutely none of the value in that audience. The point is Silicon Valley is obsessed with it and you know, if you look at their sponsors, it's absolutely wild. I think they got 5 million sponsors, $5 million off sponsors in the first year. This year they're on track for $30 million. They're all sort of things like Ramp, which is charge cards, Plaid, which is a fintech thing. Google, Gemini, the New York Stock Exchange. I mean, it's wild, you know, but the point about that audience, while small, is that it is incredibly influence dense, I suppose. So it's venture capitalists, it's engineers, it all the people who work in the businesses about which they're talking. And as I say, they do primarily talk about AI, not, not exclusively. And they've had guests. You know, Sam Altman's been on it's. Been on it, yeah. Satya Nadella's been on it, the Microsoft CEO.

[Richard Osman]

So. So if I, if I'm John Coogan and Jordy Hayes, I absolutely see what I get out of a deal of somebody giving me $200 million. I see, I see my upside, as you say. Look, it's, it's someone that's on course to revenue of $30 million this year, but that's not a valuation where you would pay 200 million for it. So Sam Altman must be getting some extra value out of his $200 million.

[Marina]

Well, this is the most interesting part of all of this, and that's probably why we're talking about it, is because the head of strategy at OpenAI said, you know, when this deal was announced, I've been thinking about the future of how we communicate at OpenAI. And one thing that's become clear is that the standard communications playbook just doesn't apply to us.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

We're not a typical.

[Marina]

And then they also said with the mission of bringing AGI to the world comes a responsibility to help create a space for a real constructive conversation about

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

the changes AI creates.

[Richard Osman]

By the way, in my opinion, the best way to have a real constructive conversation about something is to pay somebody $200 million to have that conversation.

[Marina]

Well, it's interesting, isn't it? Because until this point, whilst they obviously are incredibly well connected, they're both angel investors, tech angel investors. They have a lot of these two

[Richard Osman]

guys even before this started. They're not, they weren't poor, they weren't starving. No, they've been involved, I think John Coogan have been involved in Soylent, that meal replacement thing. They've both been around.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

They've got a really tobacco patches company called Lucy.

[Richard Osman]

They are very well connected. They've done very well for themselves. Anyway, that's the reason people are watching them, is they Know what they're talking about? Not just a couple of dudes turning up and saying nonsense. Well, they are. But nonsense that they understand.

[Marina]

Yes.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah.

[Marina]

So they've said, oh, this will not

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

interfere with our editorial output.

[Richard Osman]

Sure.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Okay, sure.

[Richard Osman]

I mean, Sam Altman says, I don't expect them to go any easier on us. So you've just paid them $200 million and you don't expect them to go any easier on you. Listen. Okay, I guess I get it.

[Marina]

Okay. They're trying to say it. This isn't compromising because we are not a news organization. We would prefer other people went and broke their scoop somewhere else. And then we got people on our show to talk about context.

[Richard Osman]

They said, yes, they have. They have said, look, we're not journalists. We are literally, we are personalities talking about this stuff.

[Marina]

Yeah, yeah, okay. But you now are owned by OpenAI.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

So whatever.

[Marina]

But what has happened there is that OpenAI feel that they need. I suppose if you're nearly a trillion dollar company and you thinking, what is my communication strategy?

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

We didn't need one.

[Marina]

Now we do need one. I mean, 200 million is nothing to get. Literally nothing to get. And if you're giving it in partly in stock or whatever to. To get people to push your story all the time. And as I say, they are techno optimists. They're not sitting there like me thinking, oh my God. I mean, Sam Altman, this week, only this weekend he was the subject of a New Yorker article by Ronan Farrow. Last week, he, this weekend said that Sam Altman said a Molotov cocktail had been thrown at his house. Obviously that is abysmal. I deplore anything like that. But saying that it was effectively saying

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

it was because of this New Yorker article. Okay. Do people do that because of New Yorker?

[Marina]

I don't know.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah. What's the vendor?

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Yeah. I mean, yeah.

[Marina]

And people who find New Yorker cartoons funny.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

So I. I don't know, is it.

[Richard Osman]

I think it might just be me, so.

[Marina]

And then he wrote this enormous long post over the weekend at about 3 in the morning. And I honestly, I read this post, go and look at it.

[Richard Osman]

And I just thought, that's why I love doing this podcast with you because I know if Sam Altman has written an enormously long post at 3am then I'll have read it, but. You'll have read it. Yeah.

[Marina]

And I just read it and I just thought, I literally can't believe this mega liability is in charge of this

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

civilizational altering, destroying technology. I don't know it's so mad that we're allowing him to be this person.

[Marina]

But anyway, yes, they do need a narrative. But a lot of what people talk about this word has been revived. Have you heard this? People keep talking about moats in the tech space. Now this is a phrase, a word that originally Warren Buffett came up with. And it's the thing that gives your company a sustainable competitive advantage. It's hard to replicate in a other ways, blah, blah, all this sort of thing. In the revived era of this word, recently, people are saying, oh, it's taste. And actually that's the thing that makes. That sets my company apart. A lot of people are saying that distribution is the moat now it's the new moat. And it's this thing that if you can control your story and this would be a really good way of doing it, it doesn't matter, like you have some huge audience. So it's that they are influence dense. All the important people are listening to your thing. And it doesn't matter that, you know, not millions of people like Rogue are listening to Rogan or something like. It's the people who are listening to this and you're speaking via these people directly to them. So that is being able to sort of communicate in that way is very interesting. And there has been a whole sort of rush to acquire podcast. Even Goal Hanger has taken investment from the churning group. What they're trying to buy into more and more is networks of podcasts or podcasts that have some specific reach that it's beyond. Oh, one person stands or falls on this. You know, what they want is the. To buy in into is the is. Is community. And this, the idea that they've got very, very, very engaged. However, it doesn't have to be enormous, but if they're significant, that community is becoming the most desirable asset.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah. And this is. And, and this is the second wave of podcast booms. There was a podcast boom about four or five years ago which was, wow, what's this? New industry, people. Everyone's listening to audio. This is amazing. And so there was a lot of money spent on a lot of money lost at that point. And there was some thinking afoot that maybe the multiples you could get for a podcast company might have disappeared. However, I think since the pivot where now most podcasts are watched.

[Marina]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

And people have come to understand, certainly people in the venture capitalist world have come to understand that this is the new television, that just by default everyone is suddenly watching this stuff, but somehow

[Marina]

it's more intimate than. And More engaged than television ever was

[Richard Osman]

and the product cheap and all of those things. So there is now suddenly a second much, much, much bigger boom. Because what they're buying into is the future of television. They were buying into the future of audio and making a small bet on that. They're now buying into the future of television and making a huge bet on that.

[Marina]

They think they can sell the audience things. That's what ultimately they want.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

They want to sell a very engaged community things.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah. And you know, the key thing is it's not scale anymore, it's depth. So it's not can you reach 5 million people? It's can you reach 70,000 people who really count? Exactly. But you know, can we get maximum value out of that? Funnily enough, this TBPN thing, I think slightly is set aside from that narrative. So that narrative, there are lots of podcast deals going on at the moment for the reason I'm talking about, which is suddenly you're owning these brands that people are watching and people don't mind being sold to by all that kind of stuff. Whereas tbpn, I think what it comes down to, as you say, so we're very used to AI now. It's got to the point where as a technology, it no longer can trade off its novelty. It can no longer trade off, oh my God, have you seen this ChatGPT thing? You can put this into it. You know, that's all gone and it's now understood as a more mature industry. And so it does have to slightly control its narrative. And I think there's an understanding OpenAI certainly that the narrative is not going great for them culturally, that there are doubts about AI. I suspect it's going very well in business terms, but culturally it's not going great. And so it'd be nice to do something about that. But I think it's a good, really, really age, like an old fashioned version of like when you're, you know, local butcher would go and buy a northern football club because he loves the club and he knows he's not going to make money about it, but he just wants to be involved. I think that Sam Altman just loved this show and he thought, well, what would it take to get it and the money it will take? And he doesn't know that 200 million is a lot of money. He doesn't know that. What do you think? He's worse than Elon?

[Marina]

He's worse than Elon and Zuckerberg. I just, I just think he's becoming my worst one. It's so competitive. He fought the worst type, bro. And he's it.

[Richard Osman]

Can I say something about Sam Altman?

[Marina]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

Like the guy. I like the guy. I like his technology. I think that AI is a force for good. I think. Sam, I think, if you're listening, I think that Marina is a naysayer. I get it. There's people like that. We have to jettison them.

[Marina]

Sort me out if you want to get bought by him.

[Richard Osman]

But you know, I just think, think Gary Lineker and I both love what it is that you do. That's what I know. Listen, I bow to your.

[Marina]

No, I think he's a bad hat.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

He's a bad hat.

[Marina]

Anyway, this is like us being bought

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

by a consortium of lots.

[Marina]

I don't know someone or I don't know one person. It's like being bought by Netflix, just owned by Netflix. And I find it. It's interesting that they can say that they can be. But. But who?

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

But also slightly, who cares if you started something 18 months ago and OpenAI, you've just got $200 million plus of OpenAI stock.

[Richard Osman]

And also I suspect that they will be able to say what they want because the second that, you know, they say something bad and you know, Sam Altman responds, what are you going to do? Because Sam Altman loses control of the narrative again, you know, that's the point. I think they're in a very, very strong position, these guys because firstly, they are, as you say, tech evangelists anyway, you know, they are, they are not naturally inclined to, to disparage AI or this. But that's, you know, they have to be going out of their way to do it. And yeah, the consequences for OpenAI if they were seen to censor them would be very, very damaging. I think, my God, these guys. And as I say, it would be an even better story if these guys weren't already rich. I get that if they were like a couple of plucky young upstarts who suddenly had $200 million for something that they built 18 months ago. But my God, they must be high fiving each other.

[Marina]

One thing I would say is that I wonder if it's part of a sort of general shift, which worries me for sure that people don't really care quite so much about journalism or whatever and people being held to account, they kind of just want someone who feels insidery and is a good hang. You know, it's interesting the way that audiences are going and you look at what's happened with short form video and you look at like the decline of people reading print articles, for instance. And when I said about print articles, I didn't mean in the newspaper, I mean on newspaper websites or whatever. And that they're shifting much more towards. Towards things coming to them via video that are not held to the same journalistic standards remotely. I mean they're not. I wouldn't even claim to be journalists

[Richard Osman]

because it's opinion and people prefer opinion to journalism.

[Marina]

I agree.

[Richard Osman]

Always have done, always will do. And we've had enough gatekeepers over the years that actually there has always been journalism at large scale, certainly in this country and in the States. And now those gatekeepers don't have control over it anymore. And if you want to know about sport or if you want to know about. About technology or if you want to know about politics, you can, and lots of people now do, just listen to two people giving their opinion on it. And you hope somewhere in the middle that those people are good actors and those people have, you know, hold themselves

[Marina]

to a certain ethical standard and try and be fair. But yeah, it's just hope.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

You just hope there's no industry code.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah, exactly. Now, shall we finish talking about security? The strange world of TV and film, set and script security and the breaches thereof.

[Marina]

Yes. And this is sort of in the news because some drone shots have been obtained by a drone operator and were

[Richard Osman]

put on the Shadow should release a song called Drone Operator. Yeah, Anyway, that's by the by.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

That would be good.

[Marina]

And the drone operator got shots that they said were of the new Harry Potter show which is filming at Leavesden. Apart from the bits that are on loop, put them on the Internet. And Warner Brothers have now reacted in a way which we'll get to. To put it in context, there is so much high end film and TV now shot in the UK that I, and I actually think that we have either were just about to overtake or we have overtaken the amount of studio space there is is more than there is in Hollywood now in the uk, which is. I know it's incredible. And they're booked out for a long time.

[Richard Osman]

And by the way, an absolute testament to the, to the, the craftspeople in the UK and just the incredible crew that you get anytime you want to do.

[Marina]

Listen, I know they're lovely fail to

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

unionize in the same way because they

[Marina]

have much more attractive labor laws and incentives.

[Richard Osman]

But also they're unbelievably good at their job.

[Marina]

But it's a great success story and we have a huge amount of it being made here and Anyway, this drone incursion happened at Leavesden, a place I know very well because I've shot various things there. And they have a huge collection of sound stages. Like all studios, they're kind of this Dijon mustard color. They've currently got more than 20. Some of them are 50,000 square foot. They're really enormous. It's been constantly expanding ever since I went there, which I think must have been in 2018. You constantly gain.

[Richard Osman]

Do you think it's because of you?

[Marina]

No, no, no. But you're shocked if you go. You have six months away and they've built another load of stuff. The back lot is enormous. That alone is about, I think, 100 acres or something. You know, you can. And that's where you would build the back. Lots of interesting and relevant to the story because it's where you. A back lot is the bit that's not covered. So say you've got these big kind of like almost like corrugated iron buildings. Those are the stages. And you can't see what's happening in there, for obvious reasons. They've got a roof. But if you need to build. I don'. Some arena from House of the Dragon, or you need to build Privet Drive specifically here.

[Richard Osman]

There's the Quidditch stadium, which I think the drone took a shot of, which is sort of two halves of a Quidditch stadium, and then enormous blue screens for, you know, filling in in post.

[Marina]

So, yes, of course, the drone operator

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

said, you can tell, was not a

[Marina]

television fan because he identified a large amount of the House of the Dragon set as being a Harry Potter set, and then also said the blue screens, you can see they're trying to hide it. It's like, no, mate, that's not what blue screens before.

[Richard Osman]

But anyway, that drone operator is an idiot.

[Marina]

Well, he actually is. And we'll get to it.

[Richard Osman]

Oh, really?

[Marina]

Oh, my God. They're so horrible, the people. Yeah, I'll get to this. But anyway, it is amazing, but there's incredibly tight security on the set on the lot at Leavesden. You know, House of the Dragon had a code name on the. Which I don't think I better say, because even within the city.

[Richard Osman]

Rent a Ghost. If you hear the word Rent a ghost.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

It wasn't Rent a Ghost.

[Marina]

I wish it was. I was thinking about you and Rent a Ghost at the weekend for some reason. Anyway, it had a code name and you can't really see. I remember what. When I was finishing a day on. I think it was on Avenue 5, which was a show that I worked on there, and Will Smith, the writer and I came out and you couldn't even tell what had been built because they're so secure, even on the set. But it was an exterior set and it was actually slightly raining, and so the mist was coming off all the lights. And therefore you could see in the darkness. They were just starting a night shoot,

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

what it was, and we were like, oh, my God, it's Winterfell.

[Marina]

Because they were still making game, as Rose said. And there is a sort of thing. It is amazing. The sets are just beyond. You try and do as much on the studio property as you ever can because it's the most secure you'll have seen. If you look in, like, paparazzi pictures of. There's a scene of Dumbledore walking across the beach. Obviously they can't build a beach, so they've had to go to a real beach and do that. And then you are open to paparazzi, to locals. You can't control it. So you try and do as much as possible on the back lot. And they've clearly built Privet Drive. They've done all these sorts of things.

[Richard Osman]

Diagon Alley is there.

[Marina]

Diagon Alley, yeah. But you are terrified of drones. I think even when we were doing the franchise, I think we. We considered definitely having a plot about

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

a sort of drone terror. You know, like that one at Gatwick where there wasn't actually a drone. Yeah, I can't remember.

[Marina]

But we didn't do it. But people think about drones all the time. Because the thing is, you in the uk, under UK aviation law, you do not own the airspace above whatever you have. So these drone operators can. You can ask them to stop filming. But the person who shot this is a guy called DJ Audit. Well, his real name is Nigel Dix.

[Richard Osman]

No way.

[Marina]

And he is an auditor. Now, I'll tell you what an auditor auditor is. Auditors are drone operators who use their drones to supposedly inspect and monitor on or report on assets or compliance things. You know, railways, construction sites. Kind of seeing are people obeying health and safety. That's a slightly. That's the theory. And that's a legitimate part.

[Richard Osman]

Like. But like vigilante.

[Marina]

No, that's.

[Richard Osman]

That's not a job.

[Marina]

A version of that job.

[Richard Osman]

That's a job. Okay.

[Marina]

There is a sort of vigilante version, which is YouTube audio editors. Audit YouTubers. They call themselves Audit YouTubers. Oh, my God. They film police stations, private property, other buildings, and it's all for content. And what they do is that they film it and they try and get a security guard to come up to them and say, sorry, what are you doing? As someone, you know did at Leavesden, saying, I'm afraid you're.

[Advertiser Voice]

You.

[Marina]

You're not allowed. Could you please take the drone? And they then have a massive argument, which is their content. And they're deliberately provocative. They wait to be challenged and they. You or you won't go viral. And actually, you know, you're talking to people who are just really ordinary security guards. They have them all sorts of different sites. They're not. And people have now had to be trained everywhere. By the way, I spoke to someone at a railway station the other day because I was. Just missed my train and, like, an outlying railway station. And then one of these guys was doing it. The guard had to say, I'm sorry, could you. And this guy tried to argue with him. The guard was so polite. And I said to the guard afterwards, what was all that about?

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Because I had, like, for half an hour to wait for my train.

[Marina]

And he said, these are auditors. We have them all the time. We're trained now to be really, really polite because they just want the argument. And then they put you on the Internet. You don't want to be on the Internet. Anyway.

[Richard Osman]

If someone said to me at a party, they're an auditor, I would. I would have had a very different view before this conversation. So that is good to know. But now, what if an actual auditor tells me they're an auditor? And I'll be going, do you know what? What you do is a disgrace.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Yeah, it's.

[Marina]

It does feel to me very much.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

It feels like men's work, if I can euphemise.

[Richard Osman]

Okay.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Do you think there are any women auditors?

[Marina]

It's very. To me, it's very, very, you know, like that meme.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

There won't be a second date, but at least she now understands the finer points of UK aviation law. And I just. I. It's just a very, very.

[Marina]

It's man's work.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Debate me. You've never.

[Richard Osman]

No, listen, I'm literally thinking of a friend of mine's husband who. Who loves his drone. He is not an auditor. He's a very nice man. But.

[Marina]

Yeah, and I think actually lots of

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

women love their drones, but doing this particular thing with your drone is auditing.

[Marina]

Anyway.

[Richard Osman]

Auditing via drone.

[Marina]

So Warner Brothers know this is a recurring problem, and obviously for years, this series is just going to be, as I say, that you do as much as possible as you can on the stages at Leavedon and On the lot.

[Richard Osman]

But you can't put a roof on everybody but you.

[Marina]

You can sometimes. Actually the law is quite interesting. You can sometimes not over leavesden but you could say it's illegal. First of all, it's illegal to. You can detect a drone but it's illegal to jam it or shoot it down, which is obviously quite tempting.

[Richard Osman]

Although they did do that on an Avengers movie. Samuel L. Jackson says he was on an Avengers set when, when, when a Dr. Into their airspace.

[Marina]

Well, that is illegal and they will have had to do something about that afterwards, I'm afraid because of civil aviation law.

[Richard Osman]

They all have to bring in the auditor's auditor.

[Marina]

Yeah, you can block the airspace temporarily in some places and you can say that you're doing that for safety or whatever it is, but you can't permanently enforce a no fly zone over leaves. And that's never going to happen. They know these people that there's a legal precedent for them being allowed. So it's quite interesting what Warner Brothers have done. They've gone to court about this now, but they've gone a different way because a lot of people try to do it the way like this is trespass. You're not going to get anywhere on trespass. What they've said is that he is infringing their intellectual property rights.

[Richard Osman]

That's what I was wondering. So it feels like a bit like you might be.

[Marina]

Yes, and that is probably the best way. He's immediately kind of counter, counter, counterfiled in some way saying, you know, I've got the right to do this, but I actually think this is a good counterfile. Yeah, well they know their rights. I mean these guys really know their rights and they think they're involved in rights based work, but they're not. They're just involved in, you know, the content mill. I mean it's all content mills, isn't it? At least in the content mill. But in America they've got totally different rules. But how on our, in our country when so much stuff is being made here, whether they will be able to get some sort of precedent and say you can't ever fly a drone over a studio.

[Richard Osman]

I think in the very first Thursday medical book I intimated that Elizabeth had been behind the drone at Gatwick.

[Marina]

Yes, that's true.

[Richard Osman]

Yes, of course I remember that just in an Australian.

[Marina]

God, there's so many great articles about that and it was just like a sort of. Was it a mass hysteria? Did it happen at all?

[Richard Osman]

Yeah, it wasn't anything. Right.

[Marina]

I don't think it was. There was a really good Guardian article about. A long read about it.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

That's really.

[Marina]

That was, you know, sometime after the event. And yeah, that is very interesting. But anyway.

[Richard Osman]

And that, by the way, is why I think sometimes there should be a channel that just repeats the news from five years ago, because it put everything into perspective. And also, you just go, oh, yeah, the drone. Oh, what happened with that?

[Marina]

Also, there's been so much that it's quite hard to catch up on it.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Maybe they should just do box sets of it.

[Richard Osman]

It's a really, really good idea. So that's drones. We will talk maybe another time. We'll talk about script security, which is insane. You never get a script now that doesn't have your name plastered all over it, that doesn't have a watermark, just so anytime. Because, you know, Game of Thrones got leaked. There's all sorts of things that are leaked. But I'll just say now that that's also. The whole security around scripts also goes back to Samuel L. Jackson on the very first Avengers movie when his assistant printed out a copy of the script for Sam, accidentally printed out two copies, left one of them on the printer, a production assistant came, got it, sold it, made a load of money, and the whole first Avengers script was. Was. Was leaked. And now, oh, my God. When Ingrid gets pages through, sometimes there are scripts where you cannot see anyone else's scenes. Like, nothing. Everything is redacted apart from the scene that you're doing. And just every single show now, the security around scripts, they'll do fake scripts. They'll do scripts with fake scenes. So if that gets leaked, they know exactly who leaked it. It's like Colleen Rooney taking charges go

[Marina]

places as a decoy thing. And yes, when you first get to read the script to see whether they're gonna offer you the part, it will expire within an hour. So you can have a quick look. And then it's kind of burnt itself after reading.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah. And it's Samuel L. Jackson's assistant's fault.

[Marina]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

Any recommendations this week?

[Marina]

I have been away, as you know,

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

last week, and I went with a most beloved family, many of whom are listeners to this podcast.

[Marina]

And we played so much of a game called the Chameleon, which is a version of Imposter. It's so good.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

I absolutely loved it. You know, one person's the imposter, and you've got to work it all out.

[Marina]

But it comes in cards. It is really.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

I thoroughly recommend the Chameleon.

[Marina]

The Chameleon.

[Richard Osman]

And it's just like a little card game.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

Yeah, it's a card game.

[Richard Osman]

So I'll recommend Bait, which is the Riz Ahmed Glus Khan show, where there's rumors that Riz Ahmed is going to be James Bond and what happens to the Becker? But it's so. It's really interestingly written. It's really interesting, interestingly shot. Guz and Riz are fantastic together. Anyway, it's much darker than you'd think, but the jokes are very, very, very funny. Yeah, I thought Himesh Patel, who I know was in the franchise, he's just turned up as well. And he's so awful. In a good way. He acts someone who's so awful. But yeah, I'm really, really enjoying.

[Marina]

And that's on prime, right?

[Richard Osman]

That is on Amazon Prime. Yeah. And the interesting thing there, of course, is. Cause Amazon prime now own the James Bond franchise. Riz Ahmed is able to make a show which talks about James Bond, which talks about him becoming James Bond, which, you know, which uses that unique.

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

We expect much more Bond adjacent content in the coming years.

[Richard Osman]

Yes, exactly. But if this is their first bit of Bond adjacent content, then it is surprisingly good.

[Marina]

Right, we'll be back on Thursday with a Q and A and on Friday

[Podcast Co-host/Guest]

with the next part of our Spice Girls series. Jerry may not stay with the band.

[Richard Osman]

No spoiler. Listen, so long as Zane stays in one direction, I'm happy, then it's fine.

[Marina]

And if you want to join for ad free listening and bonus [e-mail] otherwise, see you on Thursday.

[Richard Osman]

See you on Thursday.