Was Taylor Swift's Wedding Cringe?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rest Is Entertainment – "Was Taylor Swift’s Wedding Cringe?"

Date: July 6, 2026
Hosts: Richard Osman & Marina Hyde

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Episode Overview

This energetic episode of "The Rest Is Entertainment" sees Richard Osman and Marina Hyde deep-dive into the pop culture event of the year: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s grand wedding at Madison Square Garden. The duo dissect the guest list, speculate on A-list dramas, and muse on what such a spectacle says about celebrity culture. They then switch gears to analyze the new Katie Price documentary and discuss the ramifications of Sky’s acquisition of ITV. The episode is peppered with their trademark wit, humor, and sharp industry insight.

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Key Segments & Insights

1. What Does "Getting Your Flowers" Mean?

[00:04 – 01:11]

• Marina introduces the phrase "getting your flowers"—being belatedly recognized for one's ongoing work, as with actor Jean Smart in "Hacks."
• Richard quips that Octopus Energy literally gives flowers to customers, linking customer service to the theme of recognition.

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2. Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce – The Celebrity Wedding Event

[03:22 – 22:23]

Madison Square Garden & The Scale of it All

• Marina describes the surreal experience of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce tying the knot at Madison Square Garden with around 1,000 guests.
• “It does definitely seem like getting married at the office, but I think people thought maybe they’d get married privately and this would be a party afterwards.”—Marina [04:07]
• Richard notes the remarkable level of secrecy:
  “If you’re incredibly rich, you can pull off secrecy, can’t you?” [06:17]
• Guests had to give up their phones at the door and sign NDAs until midnight, yielding almost zero leaks.

Guest List: Celebrity Math & Fan Service

• Delving into the logistics, Richard and Marina marvel at the guest list’s vastness:
  • “Imagine sitting around… someone must have gone, here’s a list of famous people who you are tangentially attached to.” —Richard [08:15]
  • Debate over "fan service" and celebrity culture:
    “The biggest star in the world is still a massive star fucker,” —Marina [09:50]
• Notable attendees included Beyoncé, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Paul McCartney—and notably, Graham Norton and Greg James.
• Not all invitees were obvious choices, e.g., Machine Gun Kelly (“an old friend of Travis”) and Steven Demetriou (ICE El Paso chief).

Who Wasn’t Invited?

• The conversation turns to Blake Lively’s conspicuous absence:
  “Taylor Swift is godmother, not just to one of Blake Lively’s daughters, but to all three.” —Marina [12:09]
• Marina and Richard speculate on whether this signals a major falling out.

The Ceremony: Control, Performance, and Vows

• Adam Sandler (aka Happy Gilmore) officiated.
• Both discuss the intensely performative nature of the event:
  • “If you cannot be performative on your wedding day, when can you be?” —Richard [15:08]
• 40-minute vows and a Cinderella/Alice in Wonderland castle theme underscore the day’s self-indulgence.

AI Slop & Media Hysteria

• Marina notes the proliferation of AI-generated images of the wedding:
  • “So many pictures have come out that do look incredibly convincing and they’re just… they’re not real.” [18:10]
• Richard and Marina reflect on the cultural meaning:
  • “Almost everything written about this wedding was about who was there.” —Richard [19:43]

Takeaways

• The power dynamic of celebrity gatherings:
  • “Your power multiplies itself by their power… It’s very easy to become more famous when you’re surrounded by other people who are incredibly famous.” —Richard [19:13]
• Marina wonders who refused the invitation:
  • “I would love to know who said no.” [21:22]
• Both agree the event was less about romance and more about celebrity networking and showbiz optics.

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3. Documentary Deep Dive: Katie Price: Nowhere to Hide

[23:55 – 38:32]

The Katie Price Formula

• Marina calls this new Sky/Mindhouse doc “very, very good,” praising its candid access and narrative honesty.
• Katie’s early fame: transitioning from “solitary, horse-loving” childhood to breaking big in the tabloids as “Jordan.”
• Media and industry context:
  • The “ownership” of one’s value and image, pioneered by Katie, anticipated the era of influencer branding and reality TV stardom.
  • “She took ownership of her value in a way that was actually sort of very...was radical.”—Marina [31:18]
• The family’s perspective is central—her mother, sister, brother, and stepfather offer grounding commentary throughout.

Cautionary Tale or Empowered Icon?

• Richard: “She has the curse of being compelling. Lots of people had her talents, her story… but she is so compelling to people she is enabled at every single step.” [35:26]
• Documentary covers painful truths—her relationship with her body, fame, and repeated exploitation.
• Both hosts agree Katie is brutally honest but perhaps not fully self-aware.
  • “She answers every single question. But she doesn’t seem to have as much self-knowledge as you would expect.” —Richard [36:14]

Notable Moments

• Katie’s innovations in paparazzi self-monetization and selling her own photos.
• Her love life is portrayed as serial drama—never-ending and highly publicized.
• “She is a very, very propulsive person...it’s better to just go forward and compartmentalize things.”—Marina [37:19]
• The episode frames her as a mirror for society’s obsession with women’s bodies and the commodification of self.

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4. Sky Buys ITV: The Business End

[38:33 – 45:49]

Deal Details & Industry Impact

• Sky buys ITV’s broadcast operations for £1.6 billion (not including ITV Studios).
• “Sky is too small in pay and ITV is too small in advertising… So you go for scale and you share many costs.” —Marina [39:23]
• The merger’s threat to Channel 4’s independence: “Channel 4 should be most worried…now this is going to take a while to go through.” —Marina [40:14]
• Strategic alliances loom: BBC and Channel 4 may need to collaborate or be at risk in the new media landscape.
• “In terms of what would it actually mean as a viewer at first, very, very, very little.” —Richard [40:24]
• Discussions on potential job redundancies, impacts on Sky News, and the importance of PSB (public service broadcasting) protections.

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Memorable Quotes & Highlights

• “The biggest star in the world is still a massive star fucker. Like beyond like these. Let’s be honest—they have celebrities, love celebrities.” —Marina [09:50]
• “If you cannot be performative on your wedding day, when can you be?” —Richard [15:08]
• “There’s something very beautiful at the heart of it—that’s the nice thing. That’s why we’re allowed to buy into it.” —Richard [20:24], on the family aspect of Taylor & Travis’ wedding
• “She has the curse of being compelling.” —Richard [35:26], on Katie Price
• “I think Channel 4 and the BBC have to find a way to come together. The time for ego is now long past.” —Marina [42:32]

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Recommendations

[46:10 – 47:28]

• Marina: Tournament football is her only recommendation—she’s all in.
• Richard:
  • Monopoly Deal—the card game, “a much quicker, much more fun version of Monopoly.” [46:17]
  • No Name by Wilkie Collins—“A really, really, really, really terrific book… would make an amazing adaptation.” [47:03]

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Key Takeaways

• Celebrity Culture: Even at the very top, celebrities seek each other’s company, validating that the pursuit of fame and proximity to it is endless—even for A-listers.
• Weddings as Stage: Taylor Swift’s wedding is the ultimate example of the spectacle-driven, performative nature of modern celebrity life.
• Katie Price Story: Katie is both a cautionary tale and a pioneer—a product and a shaper of an era in which self-monetization, personal narrative, and constant audience gaze are central.
• Industry Consolidation: Sky’s acquisition of ITV is a seismic media industry shift, with implications for competition, streaming, and public service broadcasting.

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Notable Timestamps

• Taylor Swift wedding deep-dive: [04:01 – 22:23]
• Katie Price documentary analysis: [23:55 – 38:32]
• Sky-ITV business discussion: [38:33 – 45:49]
• Hosts’ recommendations: [46:10 – 47:28]

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Tone & Language

Both hosts keep the tone light, irreverent, and conversational, balancing industry savvy with playful banter. Marina’s sharper edges and Richard’s more whimsical musings complement each other, ensuring the analysis never gets too heavy or self-serious—even when the topics veer into melancholy.

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For listeners who missed the episode, this summary captures the energy, insight, and cultural radar of "The Rest Is Entertainment"—your guide to what’s hot, not, and mind-boggling in the world of showbiz, TV, and media.

Transcript

[Marina]

The rest is entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy.

[Richard Osman]

Now we're going to be talking about an expression which I hadn't heard till seven seconds ago, which is someone getting their flowers. Can you tell me what that means?

[Marina]

Well, it means like you've been around a long time, but people suddenly think, hang on a second, you're amazing and you should be recognized.

[Richard Osman]

So you're finally getting your due, you're

[Marina]

finishing your flowers and you're being garlanded. Now, I would say someone like this is someone like Jean Smart who plays the lead in Hacks. She plays Deborah Vance. Okay. Jean Smart is extraordinary. She did a huge amount of TV and stage work and there was a sense that she was sort of always brilliant. But then this one role came along, Deborah Vance. In Hacks. They literally just give her the Emmy every year now. She gets her flowers every year. She gets her Emmy every year. As we always talk about Octopus's customer service, your, your account's run by about 10 or 12 people. You've got a small team.

[Richard Osman]

They know who you are.

[Marina]

Yes. And they are permitted to send flowers every week to a customer who might just be going through something, whatever it is, so they can recognize that it's not an apology, it's just because someone was going through something and they. You get your flowers.

[Richard Osman]

Another example of they seem to do business in a very interesting and customer focused way. Imagine if Jean Smart is an Octopus customer, might get her flowers twice.

[Marina]

Yeah, every week.

[Richard Osman]

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[Marina]

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[Richard Osman]

And me, Richard Osman. Hello, Marina.

[Marina]

Hello.

[Richard Osman]

How are you? Yeah, you know, like everyone, it's Monday morning. That's when we record.

[Marina]

And I've had like one hour sleep. Don't even bother asking me for my recommendations at the end of this because it is tournament football all day long, all night long.

[Richard Osman]

I mean, for it to be 1am and then to be moved to 2am if it had been 7pm like they suggested. Can you imagine the ratings by the end of that game?

[Marina]

I'm actually fascinated to see what the ratings were. I'm looking forward to that.

[Richard Osman]

Also this week you went to Wembley for another very exciting event.

[Marina]

I went to Harry Styles.

[Richard Osman]

Wow.

[Marina]

Yeah. I went from the DL Congo game straight to. To Harry Styles. Very difficult to work out who the best Harry of the evening was. No. Harry Styles was totally amazing and emotional. I want to say a big thank you to Holly on Harry's team for looking after me and my sister like princesses. And to Rachel. Rachel, who looks after Shanah Twain, who took a picture of me crying on my sister's shoulder during Sign of the Times. It was very emotional. It was very, very emotional evening. I absolutely loved it.

[Richard Osman]

What are we talking about today?

[Marina]

It's a packed show, Richard, because two people got married. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are now married. We're going to talk about what that wedding says about them.

[Richard Osman]

And Neil from Strictly got married as well.

[Marina]

Yes. Yeah. I don't think we're going to have time to get. To get to too much of that because also, breaking news this morning, sky is buying itv.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah.

[Marina]

And that is a big, big thing. And we're going to talk about what that means.

[Richard Osman]

And talking of sky, they have a new documentary out this week. It is about Katie Price.

[Marina]

Yeah. We will talk about her. Her as a story and what she says about herself and all of us, I suppose. Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

Shall we start with Taylor?

[Marina]

Yeah. I mean, a wedding does tell you quite a lot about who people are. A lot of this is scattered thoughts. Forgive me. Like I said, I've had one hour sleep. But, you know when they had posted that engagement photo and she was like, your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married. You know, there was just no real sense at any point of like, are they actually doing it at Madison Square Garden? Because it does definitely seem like getting married at the office, but I think people thought maybe they'd get married privately and this would be a party afterwards. Just in case you hadn't heard, they got married in Madison Square Garden at a huge ceremony attended by a thousand seemingly of.

[Richard Osman]

That's a lot of top celebrities. We will get on to having thousands

[Marina]

of people at your wedding. Yeah, that's a lot of people. And I think people can't quite believe she would do it and that this maybe was a decoy. They'd been married before, but. But you can see that someone that at home in a performance venue, and you know him to a different extent, would feel that they had control. And I mean, one of the big things about her we know is that she likes control. Doing it this way, I have to say, in the center of Manhattan, we now know forever. Never mind the gym teacher and the English teacher. There is nothing understated about them. Okay. This is not Tom Holland and Zendaya for one second. Okay. You know, she needs a no fly zone. I get that. It's amazing that they were able to pull it off with the level of secrecy that they have. And since it's happened, you have seen like some of the guests sort of post pictures of them. No one has done it. You know, they haven't done it from within the venue or meaningfully within the venue.

[Richard Osman]

There was an NDA until midnight, wasn't there? Then people could say they had been there. But there are a number of things they weren't allowed to photograph or have, you know. Cause they were given their phones on the way back out so they could do on the way in photos and on the way out photos.

[Marina]

But yeah, I mean, it's a thing where you're just taking like Beyonce and Tom Hanks's phone off them. It's fine. Look, you know, they're all close personal friends, I'm sure, but we'll get to that.

[Richard Osman]

Now we have to wait for. It's usually about two weeks until the wedding photographer sends you the email file. So presumably Travis will wait until they get all the photos of the wedding and then they'll choose their favorites and hopefully share a couple on their Instagram.

[Marina]

I feel sure that we will see a little bit more. Do you think it's sort of amazing that they were able to pull off that level of secrecy? Really? That you knew that?

[Richard Osman]

I think if you're incredibly rich, you can pull off secrecy, can't you?

[Marina]

Okay, but can I. Can I just say that when the US bombed those Houthi targets in Yemen, like the National Security Advisor accidentally added a journalist to the group chat. So it's actually more secure than a number of high level US military operations.

[Richard Osman]

I think if I was spending $26 million on a wedding, which is my guess as to what it cost, because that's what they gave to charity as well. And that felt like quite a random amount. So I thought, oh, it cost 26 million. Let's give 26 million to charity. Yeah. If I was spending 20, 26 million and I could afford security and police and this other. Yeah, I'd have a fairly secure.

[Marina]

Yeah, but what does it cost to bomb the Houthis? I don't want to get sidetracked into that. But that's quite expensive, too. It's a lot more than 26 million, let me tell you that for free. Well, it was a military operation and Adam Sandler was apparently the officiant. In their language.

[Richard Osman]

Yes.

[Marina]

So discuss.

[Richard Osman]

Well, again, If I've got 26 million and someone says, do you want Happy Gilmour to marry you? You think, yeah, of course I want Happy Gilmour to marry me. Who would you choose?

[Marina]

What I think is interesting about the guest Avica. Yeah. Is that it's the sort of a basance paid by literally the biggest stars in the world. That there's a. There's a status to being, you know, they want to. And also that those two, your supposed English teacher and your gym teacher, want to be the sort of people who have Steven Spielberg at their wedding, who have Beyonce. I mean, celebrities, as we know, don't have old friends. I think they regard it as a moral float.

[Richard Osman]

I felt that they did have some old friends there, I thought, because they got. I mean, this is the thing. You got 1,000 people at that. How many people do you have at your wedding?

[Marina]

About 150, I think.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah, I think we had about 120. And even then you're like. I mean, towards the edges of the 130, 140, you're quite pushing. It's quite a lot of people.

[Marina]

I'm thinking, did you actually have a chance to sit down with Machine Gun Kelly during the evening?

[Richard Osman]

I don't think did.

[Marina]

Some of the people were just sort of like, okay, Hugh Grant, fine. I mean.

[Richard Osman]

But Machine Gun Kelly was an old friend of Travis Kelce. They grew up together. He's like a weird. He's a celebrity. And there are some unusual names on the list. I mean, I like the fact that she invited Graham Norton because he asked her on the show. And Greg James. I sort of get it. So 1,000 people. So you go, okay, it's Madison Square Garden. So you're used to having a lot more than 1,000 people there. And 1,000 in the kind of abstract. Doesn't sound that many. But let's sit down. Let's be at that kitchen table with Travis And Taylor. So everyone who's been married, imagine just that thing where you sit down and go, okay, who's coming to the wedding? We know roughly how many people we've got. Let's say a normal wedding, 120. You might have a smaller one, you might have a bit bigger, but the maximum you're not having many more than 200. And you sit there, family, friends, this, that or the other. And then you know, maybe you sprinkle a few kind of, oh, it'd be interesting if we invited so and so because they've never met so and so. And that might be quite fun. And oh, they did invite us to that thing. So let's invite them. And before you know it, you sort of got to the end of the list, right? And that's 150 people. They then got another 850 people to invite. Imagine sitting around, they can't have done the whole list. They cannot have done the whole list. Someone must have gone, here's a list of famous people who you are tangentially attached to. This is the guy when, you know, you said that you.

[Marina]

I need a yarn wool for some of these. Let me tell you. I need the connection.

[Richard Osman]

But, but that's a lot of people to invite to a wedding.

[Marina]

It is. But can we say what this actually means, which is yes, please. She is the. I mean if she's like one of the biggest stars in the world, for sure.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah.

[Marina]

Basically the biggest star in the world is still a massive star fucker. Like beyond like these. Let's be honest, they have celebrities, love celebrities. Must ask. Some celebrities because of my normal friends will find it hilarious if they go to a wedding and they'll get pissed and I'll be on the dance floor with like whoever.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah. We for example, had Miles Jupiter at our wedding and that was a lot of fun. Yeah. But that's crowd went well.

[Marina]

Did you reveal him or did he actually just.

[Richard Osman]

No, but afterwards people like all my old friends were like, oh my God, it was so great that Miles Jopp was there. Yeah, everyone was excited.

[Marina]

Fan service, right.

[Richard Osman]

And he's an old, something very old friend of both of ours, so he. So it was lovely to have him there. But that's all you need, Taylor. Just invite Miles.

[Marina]

Honestly, it just says something a little bit different.

[Richard Osman]

You notice, I hope, by the way, you notice, I hope that the last three people we interviewed on the Wrestlers Entertainment, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Sir Paul McCartney were all there.

[Marina]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

So it's very, very hard. I wonder, I could be wrong. Cause I didn't see Adam Curtis on the guest list. But I wonder if Taylor listens to our shows and goes, oh, you know what?

[Marina]

If anyone. Maeve has.

[Richard Osman]

Whoever Marina has asked about their cultural life.

[Marina]

Tim. David.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah, Tim Davy was there. Yeah, absolutely. There were some other interesting guests. There was a guy, Steven Demetriou, who is not a film star, he's not a pop star. He is the guy who runs the ICE detention center in El Paso. Lena Dunham did the sort of best woman speech and said, as always in the newspaper, said Drew gasps. No, it didn't. Of course it didn't. People were just laughing.

[Marina]

Okay, I'll tell you who wasn't there. And this is so cold. Okay.

[Richard Osman]

Me.

[Marina]

Blake Lively.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah. Was she not there?

[Marina]

No. They got some pictures of her attending some hall show with her and Ryan Reynolds with one of their children in upstate somewhere or other. Fascinating about that is, given you're having a thousand people. Yes, there's a lot of people.

[Richard Osman]

Also.

[Marina]

Can I say, when you do a wedding list that you think. I mean, we're not. I don't know why we're friends anymore, but we are friends, and I'm not leaving these people off. It would be really awful.

[Richard Osman]

Who would like for your wedding? Who would that be?

[Marina]

She. It's a long time ago, Richard, but she really did completely cull her for the whole Lively Baldoni thing. She. That is so cold. Okay. Taylor Swift is godmother, not just to one of Blake Lively's daughters, but to all three of the daughters. She is godmother.

[Richard Osman]

Oh, wow. So she didn't invite her godchildren.

[Marina]

No.

[Richard Osman]

Because she didn't have bridesmaids. I saw that. And Travers, I don't think had groomsmen.

[Marina]

No.

[Richard Osman]

And that's.

[Marina]

It's cold.

[Richard Osman]

Come on, man.

[Marina]

And it's really interesting because when you look back at it, was this ongoing plotline like, are they still friends? Is this song on Life of a Showgirl about her when she's saying, good thing I like My Friends cancelled. There was all that sort of stuff that people said and it was unclear, you know, just because they hadn't been photographed. And if you look at all the messages which came out in the discovery process of the It Ends with Us mega drama. Taylor Swift is very, very supportive, but is it the exposure of the messages and the sort of brand contamination that she's called her for? Cause I don't know what else you could have done if you. For saying, you've got me involved in this and you've exposed Me. Is that what's done it. It is so cold that she's not there.

[Richard Osman]

But again, I mean, we've all had this issue.

[Marina]

We were very, very close.

[Richard Osman]

We've all had this issue with our weddings.

[Marina]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

You know, when you go, oh, God. We would have invited Eileen, but after that lawsuit, it's very difficult. So, Auntie Eileen, I'm so sorry. Because you are, honestly. You're 1001 on the list, by the way. Somebody would have been 1001 on that list. Somebody would have been 1000amonth. There was a group of people who were like, oh, I could have. That could have been. Imagine if we'd interviewed her at some point and you hadn't been invited and Greg James had. We'd have been like, greg, I'd say,

[Marina]

I'm going to invite everyone I've ever talked to.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marina]

At one point.

[Richard Osman]

And we just never spoke to her

[Marina]

in terms of it as a sort of fan service event. Because everything she ever does is, in some ways it was in keeping with her songs, which is, you know, there's long guessing games. Is it about this, the possibility of sort of decoding things? Also in keeping with a lot of her songs, it does, because of the blate lively angle, contain mega celebrity beef. And I wonder how much more will be unfolded for them and what more they'll be able to see.

[Richard Osman]

They had the event the night before, which sounded like a much more sedate affair. That sounded like 100 people. That sounded like the weddings that we would have. And it'd be interesting to see who went. And it'd be interesting to see if actually they did do anything official on that night.

[Marina]

It's one of those annoyances or whether

[Richard Osman]

it was just an American wedding breakfast.

[Marina]

Yeah. Everyone does a speech.

[Richard Osman]

Oh, my God.

[Marina]

Thanks, America. But you don't feel the need.

[Richard Osman]

Their vows were 20 minutes long each.

[Marina]

Oh, my God.

[Richard Osman]

Can you. I mean, can you begin to imagine? Can you begin? I mean, I love my friends, but if any of my friends did a ceremony, I would be like, come on, guys, this is. Listen, you're in love with each other. That's good. A lot of people in this room in love with each other. A lot of people have been in love before. A lot of people here have been married. We've been to each other's weddings. Okay, who. Look out. Just absolutely look out across the congregation here.

[Marina]

Would Tom and Rita have done this? I don't think so.

[Richard Osman]

Who here has done 40 minutes worth of vows? And the answer will be nobody.

[Marina]

Yeah, that's like, longer than Lily Allen's current concert.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah, that's longer. That's longer than injury time in the. In the England match.

[Marina]

That's the longest thing of all time.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah, but. But, yeah. So I think that it's. If you cannot be performative on your wedding day, when can you be? So that's a given.

[Marina]

I'll tell you what, Richard. She has got a number of opportunities to be performative.

[Richard Osman]

Oh, she can be. Yeah.

[Marina]

Yeah. She has, in fairness, Taylor Swift, a number of opportunities to be performative, more

[Richard Osman]

than most of us.

[Marina]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

But I think you're allowed to be self indulgent.

[Marina]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

On your wedding day. And we've all got friends certainly have been self indulgent.

[Marina]

So on Brand, I'm amazed. I really thought that they would, like, be in some sweet. I mean, how many of the songs have got stuff about sweet little churches and aisles and all of this sort of stuff? And it's like, all right, you're gonna do it in Madison Square Gardens, and when the announcement comes out, it's gonna say just TNT married. So is this like a tie out with AT&T? Yeah. That was bad. I'm sorry. That was bad.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah. That's more performative than I would have chosen to be. They even went when you walked in, which I thought was sort of a nice touch. You walk past a wall of pictures of Travis and Taylor when they were children and getting older, which exactly what they did in Gavin and Stacy.

[Marina]

Yes.

[Richard Osman]

It's the exact same trick. Right.

[Marina]

I've seen it before. Yeah, that's. Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

So they obviously.

[Marina]

And they built a castle within. I mean, I'm saying a lot of this stuff out loud. I'm told that they built a sort of castle within, and it was a sort of Cinderella sort of Alice in Wonderland themed party. Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

I mean, fine. I mean, you've got to have a theme. And, you know, they obviously. Yeah. They have wedding planners. Yeah. And once you do have wedding planners, of course, wedding plans have got to try and earn their money somehow. So they're going to be throwing ideas at you, and you're going to, you know, say yes. Some of them. Yeah. But you have. I mean, you have to do something, don't you? Yeah. And, you know, they're busy people. You know, they got the recording albums, they got podcasts, and we know how long that takes. But listen, it's their wedding. They can do what they. Absolutely. What they want. They're clearly in love with each other, and I think that's really, really lovely.

[Marina]

40 minutes in love with each other.

[Richard Osman]

Yes, but you could never. Yeah, but I. But I. Yes, I think we're allowed to talk about it as a cultural event because they made it a cultural event. It wasn't, as you say, it wasn't a quaint little wedding in upstate New York with, you know, a few friends and family. I mean, that would have been amazing, don't you think? Well, I would have done that. Do an acoustic set afterwards. Invite. Invite Stevie Nicks, who both played at the gig. Everyone plays acoustically in a tiny little. Under a pagoda and a New England church. And then release that. That's a lovely. Call it the Wedding album. That's. If I was their wedding planner and I got down to.

[Marina]

I would watch that show so hard,

[Richard Osman]

I got down to the last three. That's what I would have done. I've said, look, take your 26 million and the 26 million are given to charities. That's 52 million. I'll do this whole thing for 400,000 because I got to include security, you know, So I figure 50 grand for the actual wedding, 350 for security and stuff like that. And then we can give 50 million to charity and we'll release an album off the back of it. The wedding. The wedding album. And we'll make all that money back.

[Marina]

Well, I'm sorry they didn't go with you. One of the other. One of the last things I want to say about this, this is the first time I've seen this and you realize just how, like convincing AI Slop or just AI is. I've seen so many pictures of them that look so kind of realistic of them facing off against each other in a wedding dress and a thing. And I keep thinking, is that one. Have they released one? None of them are real. There's just masses and masses and masses of a. We know they were in Dior and it was custom Dior, but they're key. So many pictures have come out that do look incredibly convincing and they're just. That they're not real. It's becoming like compete. Ubiquitous.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah, it's. It's fascinating. It's fascinating. He's shut down New York again. We, you know, we talk a lot about where. Where have all the stars gone? And where's the old days of show business and shutting down the middle of New York in 100 degrees heat. So that's sort of very show businessy. And having every celebrity on the planet, apart from Blake Lively at your wedding, that's very show busy as well.

[Marina]

The big takeout Is that the biggest stars in the world are massive star.

[Richard Osman]

I mean, they are, they want. It's very interesting that, you know, celebrities flock together and they say, oh, and those. Because we sort of understand each other. You think? I don't know if it is. I think it's because your power multiplies itself by their power. And it's, it's like, it's like people in the city who will hang out with other people in the city who have a lot of money or access to a lot of money because that multiplies itself. It's very easy to make money when you're surrounded by other people who make money. And it's very easy to become more famous when you're surrounded by other people who are incredibly famous. Almost everything written about this wedding was about who was there.

[Marina]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

You know, I mean, and it makes sense.

[Marina]

And the idea of people like, you know, Spielberg having to show a sort of QR code to get through and, you know, yes, Jay Z, I'll have your phone off you. All of that is such a power move.

[Richard Osman]

They were drinking Jay Z champagne as well, weren't they?

[Marina]

Oh, were they?

[Richard Osman]

Ace of Spade champagne was what they were. Was what they were drinking.

[Marina]

I'm sure the brand opportunities were extraordinary.

[Richard Osman]

I mean, can you begin to imagine that the money they're going to be making out of it over the next couple of months.

[Marina]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

I mean, the stories we're going to hear.

[Marina]

But everybody, people would, you know, posted people with the ones with the beauty brand, like Selena Gomez were posting, you know, putting on their own products in the car on the way there. It was a very modern event. Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

My favorite bits was when their friends from home were there as well. And the family and Mama Kelsey, who I've been very much enjoying on Traitors as well. That's nice. There's something very beautiful at the heart of it. That's the nice thing. That's why we're allowed to buy into it.

[Marina]

If you can cut your way through this.

[Richard Osman]

But as a spectacle, I would just say to everybody, everybody here who has been married, who's about to get married, who wants to be married in the future. Think about sitting at the kitchen table, think about getting to that 90 odd number of people that you think. Yeah, that's. I think those are. That's our family, that's our close friends from home. Those are the people actually in the last five years who've really become important to us and the people we would love to, really love to meet each other. Think about getting to that number and add another 910 people and just think about how that would be given. By the way, if you invite Steven Spielberg, he would probably say no. So you're really. That's a net. You're really going to have to.

[Marina]

I would love to know who said no.

[Richard Osman]

I would. That's a document I would watch like the Beatles get back. Nine hours worth. I'd watch nine hours worth of them going through the guest list for that wedding. I would love that so, so much. I would just love to hear the nos. I'd love to hear the nose on their side and I'd love to hear the RSVPs that came back. Would you have got, would you have gone if you had been invited? I know neither of us would ever been invited.

[Marina]

I'd be absolutely ridiculous. Of course I would have. Of course.

[Richard Osman]

I was talking to Ingrid about this and I said, well, I don't think I would go because I don't. I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't want to go to New York.

[Marina]

Want to see it?

[Richard Osman]

Yeah. She said, stop me. I mean, you're an idiot. Yeah, of course you would.

[Marina]

But I can assure you. But Richard, you would be going.

[Richard Osman]

Yes, that's true.

[Marina]

You, Ingrid would be informing you that you are going.

[Richard Osman]

But I just don't know how much, how much fun it would be being a thousand person wedding with people you don't really know that.

[Marina]

Well, the people watching would have been off the chain. It would have been hysterical. Absolutely hysterical. It's like the Black and white ball times 100. You could have just laughed so much and it's just like a hilarious moment.

[Richard Osman]

You know what, the reason I would have gone. It would be nice to meet Greg James.

[Marina]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

So after the break we are going to talk about, I would say very much the British Taylor Swift, Katie Price. This episode is brought to you by the Lloyds 5k house deposit.

[Marina]

Lloyds are offering a 5k house deposit which was last seen in 1996. What are your entertainment memories of the 1990s?

[Richard Osman]

I feel guilty talking about the 1990s because you look back and it was, it was such a golden era.

[Marina]

We'd never had it so good and we didn't even realize because we were young and we just thought we were entitled to it all.

[Richard Osman]

We absolutely took it for granted. Yeah. Britpop was absolutely in its pomp oasis playing to a quarter of a million people. You had blurred up.

[Marina]

I'm so sorry.

[Richard Osman]

Spice Girls, amazing movies at the cinema, Trainspotting. I mean, it felt a time of Absolute optimism. But at the time you just assumed that was the way that.

[Marina]

A very British type of optimism.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah, but part of the optimism of course, is that mortgages were more affordable and that is what Lloyds is, is dealing with right now.

[Marina]

Yep. Last seen in 1996, Lloyds are now offering 5K deposit mortgages to first time buyers. Search 5K First Time Buyer 1996 Average

[Richard Osman]

first time buyer deposits based on ONS data subject to status. Your home may be repossessed if you don't keep up repayments. Conditions apply. I'm archmanning.

[Marina]

I'm Madison Skinner. I'm Eva Jovic.

[Richard Osman]

I'm Decoria Moore.

[Marina]

Want to train like a Red Bull athlete? Tell us your fitness goals this summer to enter the Red Bull athlete challenge. You'll get to try each of our workouts for a chance to win an ultimate Red Bull experience.

[Richard Osman]

Think you have what it takes?

[Marina]

Good sleep is everything. That's why Ollie's science bag support is made with a blend of melatonin and L theanine for both kiddos and grown ups. So when your mind won't switch off, you've got something that can help your racing thoughts and restless nights won't stand a chance. Find Ollie Sleep solutions for the whole [e-mail] that's O L L Y dot com. Welcome back, everybody. Now we are talking about a new documentary that drops on Wednesday. It's called Katie Price Nowhere to Hide. It's on sky, it's made by Mindhouse, Louis Threw's production company, and it's directed by Paddy Wyville. She's sort of, obviously been a sort of fixture of national life and she says it was a fun 10 years. Then the second 10 years starts to get turbulent and then the third 10 years, it's turbulent. She. It's an extraordinary thing. It's very, very good, I should say. And I think it's. We've talked a lot about subject, commissioned documentaries on this podcast and I don't know who commissioned this, but it doesn't matter because there's nothing she would have taken out. I mean, she has a sort of nuclear candor. It's extraordinary.

[Richard Osman]

She has nothing to hide.

[Marina]

She has nothing. Yeah, you know, it's beyond. I am what I am. I mean, it's amazing. There's a, there's a shot really quite near the beginning where she's showing Paddy Wyville, the documentary maker, you know, into her past and they can't get into her garage where it's all stored because the old pink range Rover she had, which has now got its windows sort of caved in and it was sort of overfinched, so it says pricey along the back instead of Range Rover. Its tires are down. It's just lodged in front of the garage door. So she has to sort of crawl under to get in it. Anyway, she gets into this garage and there's a load of pink fun fur and a load of other stuff. One of the boxes just says exes and surgery.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah. And even then she says, oh, that's a big box.

[Marina]

Yeah, it's okay. Before we go any further, I do want to say that it is obviously. And anyone who has seen the pictures of her, has read the stories about her in the last few years, will also have this sense that it is an incredibly sad story and it's a awful story and that it transitioned from one thing to another. And it's a really. And I definitely think that this does not shy away from any of that. It deals kind of amazingly with her relationship with her own body. Just her sense of herself as ugly. She always struggled to make friends. She's friends with horses, basically.

[Richard Osman]

And then there's lots of her as a child just being a sort of horse loving, quite solitary child who if you listen to the family, changed overnight.

[Marina]

Her family are involved in this and they are absolutely brilliant. Every one of the family members is incredible. Her mum, her sister, her brother are. And her stepfather are absolutely amazing. She then turns 14 and she just becomes this compelling sexual presence to boys. And at 16, she already knows she's gonna be famous. She sort of changes, but she's been abused twice by then. And she's a great narrator of her own story. Cause she talks about wanting to be looked at by men, being desperate to be looked at, but not touched. And so this pictorial thing. And it's interesting because she gets onto page three, basically, which is her huge. Is her big break. And you get in because someone sends your pictures in. And someone took us have a lunch break on Brighton beach at some pictures of her. And then they changed her name from.

[Richard Osman]

They went through a whole list. They said, yeah, you can't be called Kate because she really called herself Kate. And they. They showed the list and they had. It's like Linda. You think it's got to be Linda because of Linda Lucardi, but it's just like all incredibly normal names. And someone just said, how about Jordan? She just went, yeah, fine.

[Marina]

I mean, Peter Stringfellow used to do that with all the strippers. You know, he'd always say, come over here, Jerricky, come on. Come over here. And that was not, you know, everyone had to be sort of rebranded in a way.

[Richard Osman]

I mean, she presents that weirdly as a sort of sliding doors moment where her personality splits into. I don't quite. We'll talk about it at length. I don't quite buy it. I don't think her personality does split in two. She talks quite a lot about saying there's Jordan and then there's Katie and they are different people and people don't see the real me. But a lot of what she does and how she behaves. You think? No, I think. I think there's quite a lot of you in Jordan. And there definitely is a very gentle. Cause you hear about it from people who know it. There is a gentle, kind person there. But I think a lot of this Persona is also you.

[Marina]

Yes, but she says that because she is a sort of master of narrative. And for a long time she believes she can shape the narrative about her. And it was interesting. I remember she. So she gets on page two and I worked at the sun at the time and she did something. It was so ridiculous. They had a no Silicon rule on page three. If you don't remember what page three was, there was a topless women every. On page three of the paper every day.

[Richard Osman]

And nobody questioned it.

[Marina]

And nobody questioned it. And she wanted to have a boob job. And this was right before the sort of democratization of this surgery, which was not. Which we now, you know, is. Is completely sort of democratized, but the sun sort of. I mean, I hated all these aspects of the Sun. They. They sort of felt they were drawing a line in the sand. And they, you know, readers had to be able to believe what they saw in terms of the text they were being shown. And remember, they were so prissy in that they would asterisk out the central I of the word tit. Cause, you know, words had to be asterisks often when they were three inches east of a pair of the actual thing anyway. But they polled the readers. Should she do it? She shouldn't do it. And I remember at the time. Cause I worked there and I was doing picture research at the time. And people were like, she's so stupid, she's so headstrong. She's destroyed her career now. Cause she can't appear up here on page three anymore. Cause she's done this anyway. She ends up doing Playboy and all things like that. But actually, I think what was so interesting about her at the time was, yes, she was headstrong, but she'd foreseen something that they had not seen, which is that a new type of fame was becoming available and ownership of yourself was a possibility.

[Richard Osman]

And she also said, I wanted them to be fake. I wanted them to look fake. I wanted that fake look. That's the thing that I wanted to do. I wasn't trying to deceive anyone. I wanted them to look fake, which. That's a very interesting character note.

[Marina]

But also to be told, you won't work here again. And to think, well, you know what? I back myself. And she did back herself, which she

[Richard Osman]

does time after time in this, occasionally for ill, but she does it.

[Marina]

That represents a new kind of monetization at that point in celebrity culture, which was, okay, there's the lad mags, and there's an explosion of the lad mags. And you can make money through those. She's always sold Papshots. I've watched the first two episodes of Documentary. I don't know if she gets into how much she sells Pabshots, but she does.

[Richard Osman]

There's a very interesting. The very first kind of thing where one of the pap sessions. Well, she said I was going out. This is after she'd had half Harvey, and they were selling, you know, photos of me. And they were getting paid for it, she said. So I just thought, well, hold on, I'm gonna go out anyway. And someone's getting paid for these photographs. I want to get paid. So she teamed up with one of the. Perhaps one of the agencies. And he speaks completely freely about it. He said that she would get photograph coming in, and then she'd tell me, I'm coming out the back. I would photograph her. There'd always be a couple of fellows sort of holding her up. She'd give me a little wink, I'd send in the photo. There'd be a code on it, which was my code, so I'd get my money. There'd also be a code on it, which was Katie's code. And so she would get her money as well. And, you know. But she says it. She said, this is why I did it. I was showing it anyway. I knew someone was making money. I thought, well, I would like me to be making money.

[Marina]

So she took ownership of her value in a way that was actually sort of very. Was radical. But it's even more than that. It's that the idea she saw herself clearly. She becomes very quickly. She sees herself as a serial drama and the Kardashians keeping up with the Kardashians only launches in 2007. I mean, it now feels like we've lived in that era for a long time, but then it's tied to PAs, to endorsements and that idea that there's a narrative momentum to your own life that people will buy into figuratively and literally, that they will buy things. And it was a sort of train wreck era of all, you know, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. But she always seemed to be just about in control of her train at that time. And these books are about her life, you know, her autobiographies. The sales on those is unbelievable.

[Richard Osman]

Even the first few novels she did, I think she had about 12 novels now. And the sales now are not what they were, but the first few were big.

[Marina]

The first one was 400,000 copies in hardback.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah, that's a lot.

[Marina]

Yes. Obviously she has evolved and I mean, if we just flash forward to the present day, lots of. We had so many questions about this and we never really answered it because you may know that, I mean, she. Her latest escapade is that she met a guy, they got married after just a few days. They got, you know, obviously tattoos of each other, a proposal identical to a one he'd made very recently to a woman. He lives in Dubai. He's obviously, I'm sorry to say, Lee Andrews. He's a complete wrong one. Has he got a Cambridge doctorate? I don't think he has. He can't leave Dubai. And people were saying, oh, he can't leave Dubai. And she was like, he can. He's coming to me. Watch him. Anyway, just when he was due to travel, he says, he rings her and says, you know, I've been kidnapped. I've been taken to a black site, which I think it's incredibly hard to tell, might be connected to some fraud allegations, which he denies. I mean, he denies a whole lot of things, I think, from a hair transplant to fraud allegations to the fact that he can leave Dubai. And this is the ongoing drama. And it's incredibly hard to know what is actually happening.

[Richard Osman]

Well, Paddy Wyville, the director of this, who I have to say does a great job, he said in an interview, he said the hardest thing about the documentary was knowing where to end it. He said, cause I'd be in the edit for like, so sort of three months and think, okay, okay, I think I've got it now. And then I get a call and I go, sorry, Lee Hu. Because it just, it never ends.

[Marina]

Even now, she is totally compelling. And I'd sort of forgotten because there's a lot you have to look away from now. You know, she's so thin. She's obviously had so unbelievably many surgeries.

[Richard Osman]

It's interesting. They talk. It's really good access all the way through that. As I say, family. When they're talking about affairs, when they're talking about the Gareth Gates. And Gareth Gates is there talking about it. When they want to talk about Dame Bowers, he is there talking about. About her as well. But they taught the guy who did her first ever breast surgery.

[Marina]

Yeah, that surgeon.

[Richard Osman]

So he talks about it. He said this and this. This was the size of it. Said, and then she came back and wanted a bigger one. I said, and then she came back again and wanted a big one. I said, no, that you can't. I mean, you. You can't. And Paddy goes, well, what happened then? And he went, well, she just went somewhere else and someone else did it for her.

[Marina]

She is a force of nature. And there's something about sort of girls like that that you do see slightly feel like built the country to some degree. And they should really have been twirling around with all the beds in the 2012 opening ceremony, you know. And I sort of, in a way, I don't know why you compare it to an opera diva, you know, where the life is just this extraordinary tragedy that's sublimated into something or picaresque, you know, picaresque novels, normally about sort of roguish men, but there are. There's a subsection of them that are about kind of lower class women who use their wiles to.

[Richard Osman]

I was thinking about exactly that. It feels like a 19th century novel. It really does. And, you know, these characters, they've always existed. And she's just moulded herself to the times in which she lives. And actually she's moulded some of the times in which she lives as well. You know, she has the curse of being compelling. Lots of people had her background, lots of people had the things that happened to her. Lots of people had her talents, lots of people had her story. But she is so compelling to people that she is enabled at every single

[Marina]

step of her journey, if she understands what she means. And what I find very weird about it is that she's always lent in, as we've discussed, so completely hard to. Whatever sells.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah.

[Marina]

And I think that she now sees, and this is the sort of part of the tragedy of it, she sees herself as a cautionary tale. And so she sees that the cautionary tale is the Thing that sells the most. And quite hard because although this, you know, this business of commodifying yourself in the way that she has is quite young in the scope of human history, except in, you know, I guess, some professions or whatever. But there's a point where you don't really know whether the dynamics of the story, where that stops and where she starts or what she's doing, because it would make a good story. And it's very difficult to think of whether just the sales or her are in the driving seat.

[Richard Osman]

It's interesting because as you say, she's brutally honest all the way through. She doesn't hold back. She answers every single question. But her. She doesn't seem to have as much self knowledge as you would expect. And I think, you know, by the time you get to the age of 48, perhaps you should have some of that self knowledge. Her family seemed to have a great deal of knowledge about her and kind of understand her. And there is. Every time something new happens, like Dane or Gareth, and they just cut to one of the family and they were just like. And then we heard about this and we're like, oh, no.

[Marina]

Because, you know, they're exceptional.

[Richard Osman]

Every time you're exceptional, they really are exceptional. But there's.

[Marina]

You're dealing with a force of nature. You see that when you see that family, who are so great in so many ways, but you. Some people, yes, they can't control. Never mind nature. Nature will find a way.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah. If that family cannot control her, she is not gonna be controlled because they are super bright. But there's only one moment, funnily enough, in that first two episodes where Paddy calls her out on how she treated Gareth Gates and says, I think you humiliated him. And it's the only point where she goes, yeah, yeah, gosh, I sort of suppose I did. It's almost that everything that's being asked of her is something she's considering for the first time. She lives her life well.

[Marina]

She's incredibly propulsive. Yes. She's a. She is a very, very propulsive person. And I mean, I can recognize elements of that, that it's better to just go forward and compartmentalize things. But one of the things you should take away from it is the idea of the audience. Because if you feel like. Have a look at it. If you think you've been able to look away from her a while. For a while. Because she is compelling and the audience gaze, that's been a huge part of this. And she. As a. I mean physically. I mean, to look at and as a story holds a mirror up to society, you know, what is fetishized and normalized and then kind of expected of women's bodies. The abuse of it, the actual abuse of it, direct, criminal in some cases, and indirect. And the collateral damage of it to these people around her. And then there's this sort of woman, this tiny woman, kind of staggering on in the middle of it all.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah, she seems in the middle of all of this and in the middle of this cultural force, she does seem to retain her agency, which I think makes it even more fascinating because she seems to be complicit in a lot of what happens in a way you don't often see in these documentaries. I do. I think it's really worth people watching and you will make your own mind up and everyone will have different opinions.

[Marina]

I think it's very well done.

[Richard Osman]

It's really, really well done. It's terrifically interesting. And if I may segue, it is on sky on Wednesday. And we will finish by talking a little bit about sky, because they have just bought itv, if you're wondering what that means. I mean, essentially, it's been on the cards for a long time.

[Marina]

Well, yeah, we first talked about it when we knew it was significantly on the cards last year. Then they were talking about it buying it for 2 billion. They've bought it for 1.6 billion, which a lot of people were saying it'll be worth about half that in a year. So the price has come down. Not ITV studios, we should say. The networks are so the free to air psb, itv, that's five channels.

[Richard Osman]

So ITV studios, other production companies. So they haven't bought that. The people who actually make programs, they bought the gubbins of the thing.

[Marina]

So what does this mean? Well, sky is. Sky is owned by Comcast. But this is, interestingly, this is Sky's deal. It's been driven completely by Dana Strong, who runs sky in the uk, as the wise of it we talked about before. But, you know, sky is too small in pay and ITV is too small in advertising. And you go for scale and you share many costs. You know, cost synergies is obviously a euphemism, and we'll have to get to that because I think that sky could take about 1.6 billion in cost synergies. Even before you start the idea of kind of strategic business synergies, what you're seeing here is two of the three biggest advertising houses merge. So in terms of who should be most worried, we'll talk about within sky and itv. But Channel four should be most worried because how do you get protections from being on the sidelines as the smallest advertising house? Now, this is going to take a while to go through because the competition and markets authority, who decide whether or not you've got too much share of the market or tending towards monopoly, as we've said, consolidation sort of has to happen.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah. If you look at both of them, you know, sky are very, very open. They said we have to get growth, we have to get growth. And we can't get growth with our current business plan because that's not where the market is. And ITV can't get growth with where they are because that's not where the market is either. Together, there is some sort of synergy. So it makes absolute sense in terms of what would it actually mean as a viewer at first, Very, very, very little. The ITV shows will remain on itv, the sky shows will remain on Sky. There's certainly going to be a discussion about why don't we put Saturday Night Live on ITV and suddenly we can get 2 million extra viewers. But those discussions haven't been had. That's not what they're planning to do.

[Marina]

Sky wants to be the aggregate.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah.

[Marina]

They want to use ITV's crown jewels. So you'll have Love island and you'll have World cup, you'll have all sorts of things like that.

[Richard Osman]

But again, on a streaming platform. So the streaming platform will be sky and itv. So what? It actually means a couple of things. It actually means we talked before about this need for iplayer and the other terrestrial broadcasters to team up with each other to form one thing, which would be BBC, ITV and Channel 4. That will now not happen with ITV. Definitely not with ITV, but Channel 4 and BBC One, therefore. I mean, Channel 4 have to team up.

[Marina]

We talked about it before, like a strategic rationale. It is now not just a good idea, it's an imperative idea. Like Channel 4 and the BBC have to find a way to come together.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah.

[Marina]

You've got this sort of floating voter in the form of five, which is owned by Paramount, and obviously both sides would be saying, come in with us. But I don't think actually with those ads, with that ad set sales point that I've made earlier, that that would even be possible for. So the BBC and Channel 4 and 5, I mean, they've really got to sort of come together and. And they've got to do the. You're just looking to try and have these destinations of scale because otherwise you're going to get swallowed up. It's I have to say that I

[Richard Osman]

think, I think by the way, it's not happening at the moment because Channel 4 is in such a weak position that it's very hard that they know that they would be eaten now. Whereas if they have a couple of good years, a couple of big years, a couple of big hits, then actually

[Marina]

they just think they have, I think the biggest. Have to get over the themselves and Channel four have to get over themselves and they have to find a way to do this. And I don't think they should be wasting two years, in my opinion.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah, but, but there's ego involved, right?

[Marina]

Okay. But the time for ego is now long past. Yes, but. And they, Yes, I agree, but they'd have to find a way to give it equal prominence and do all of those things. I, I think within, within sky itself. You know, sky have often sort of said, I don't know, I'd be worried if I worked at Sky News, I have to say, in Sky Arts, because those things have been, have sort of existed. I think Comcast would have got rid of Sky News as soon as they were allowed to, with the obligation, after the obligation passed for them to have to keep it open. But now sky will have a psb, they'll have a news arm. They had things like Sky Arts and Sky News as a lost leader to be part of the ecosystem. But if you now have1 via OTV, I fear that would be one of the sort of synergies, as it were. Sky is going to ultimately be a victim of people unbundling. Okay? Because they, they just are and they've been good at managing not to make that happen. But a lot of pressure has been on the football because the football is what they have, basically.

[Richard Osman]

Can you explain to people what unbundling means?

[Marina]

Unbundling means that you don't say, oh, I'm not, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna have, I'm not gonna have these sky services say at the moment they've got a big issue, which is that they've still got a lot of people paying 80 quid a month for their telly. And if you say, okay, well, I'm going to unbundle, I'm not going to have, I'm not going to get this all through Sky. I'm going to have Freely and Netflix and prime and HBO Max, and I'm still going to be paying way less. So there's been a lot of pressure because they do have, they do have the football. I have to say the new government green Paper is trying to list all sorts of different events and make it more difficult. So you need other stuff because the football has been this kind of huge thing that has kind of kept it up. They need other stuff. They don't make that much content at all. But I do think that those synergies mean that some of the. The stuff they do make is going to fall away.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah, well, they've got plenty of money, which is good. They don't have the shop window quite as much as itv, whereas ITV have got less money than they did, but have this incredible shop window. Everyone involved you talk to on each side feels fairly comfortable with it, as you say. I think there will be redundancies as certain jobs are doubled up. I would think something like Sky Arts would be fairly safe because ITV is a psb. Everyone at sky is saying, we absolutely. It needs to stay a psp. No one at sky is going, no, we're going to bring this entirely into the commercial thing. We're going to try and get out of all of our PSB obligations. That doesn't seem to be what they're saying. And therefore, you know, ITV do have to do arts program.

[Marina]

It gives you protection to be a psb. So they want that. They've always tried to argue for being a PSB because we provide things like Sky Arts and Sky News, but they don't actually have any of the PSB obligations. So they don't. But they have argued to try and get into that.

[Richard Osman]

But the best thing about being a PSB is you're right at the front. You're front and center when you turn your television on. That's the main best thing about being a psp. But I would have thought Sky Arts is perfect. That's a really easy thing for ITV to have to put all of its arts programming through.

[Marina]

I'm not sure about that, but anyway,

[Richard Osman]

yeah, well, we shall see. But the new thing would be very, very interesting as well. But, yeah, in terms of being a viewer, I think almost nothing changes, apart from, you know, what's going to happen with iplayer. And that's completely changed now because ITV are not going to go anywhere near it, I think. And BBC and Channel 4 have to set up something together as get a

[Marina]

button on the remote. I keep saying this. They need a button on the remote. You can't compete with the American streams. You need a button on the remote. Yeah, that's something the government could do.

[Richard Osman]

But anyway, yeah, well, listen, maybe they're listening. They wouldn't have got to the end. They'd be like, oh, no. I was only listening for Taylor Swift and Katie Price. When it got to the sky thing, I was like, yeah, I'm less interested. Any recommendations?

[Marina]

I've told you my recommendations. Tournament football all day and all night football. That's all I'll be doing. And that's all I have been doing. What about you?

[Richard Osman]

If you like the idea of Monopoly but hate playing it because it takes so long. Monopoly Deal. Which is a card game you can play. It's a bit like rummy that you've got to collect sets, but it's, it's a, it's like a much quicker, much more fun version of Monopoly.

[Marina]

And D in the pilot to the

[Richard Osman]

King Kids, you call it MD, MD. Oh, really?

[Marina]

Yeah.

[Richard Osman]

You play it too.

[Marina]

I've, I've played a lot. I've had to ban it being played in certain places, such as restaurants. I've. Yes. I urge you to impose restrictions on it if younger people are playing because it can get actually in some ways nastier.

[Richard Osman]

It's quite frustrating. It's quite frustrating. I don't think I've ever actually won a game.

[Marina]

Wow. Really? Okay. Yeah, likewise, probably.

[Richard Osman]

I've got a competitive family and I'll also recommend. We were talking earlier about picaresque 19th century novels and I'm reading no Name by Wilkie Collins. I'll just finish no Name by Wilkie Collins, which I don't think many people talk about, but it's a really, really, really, really terrific book. And by the way, any drama execs listening would make an amazing adaptation. It's got like some central characters who you just think, oh my God, oh

[Marina]

God, I'm gonna buy it when I leave. I haven't read it.

[Richard Osman]

No Name, it's called.

[Marina]

Thanks.

[Richard Osman]

It's long, like all of those things.

[Marina]

I can handle it.

[Richard Osman]

Yeah, but you're 100%. Katie Price would be right in the middle of that book.

[Marina]

Right. Other than that, we are back on Thursday with a Q and A. But also which I enjoyed very, very much. And the second part of your special bonus series on what World cup have we got this week? We've had US sitcoms.

[Richard Osman]

We are doing the World cup of British bands. So who are the best British band of all time? According to the British, We've already recorded it. I will say this. I would say it's very interesting. I would say it's very of you. Very interesting. John Robbins and Maisie Adam are back to talk about that. If you want to become a member, which is ad free listening and all of our bonus content, it is thereses entertainment.com we'd love to have you, but for everyone else we will continue to be free twice a week every week.

[Marina]

See you on Thursday.

[Richard Osman]

See you Thursday. Foreign. We've got some exciting news to share with the listeners of the Rest Is

[Marina]

Entertainment we do indeed. We are holding a summer sale so you can become a member of the club for a third off the regular price.

[Richard Osman]

That's right, with the code SUMMER2.6, you can head to thereses entertainment.com and claim an annual membership with this brilliant discount.

[Marina]

So if you want to spend your summer listening to us discussing celebrity drama, behind the scenes stories and industry gossip but have none of the ads and why wouldn't you? It is a no brainer.

[Richard Osman]

Plus you can catch up with all of the archive of our members only shows you may have missed, including Marina's latest series Vibe Shift.

[Marina]

And we've got lots more of those special series planned. But remember, this deal will only run until the end of August, so don't wait around. Head to therestasentertainment.com now. Your package says delivered, but delivered where exactly? The hallway? The lobby? Your neighbor's apartment? Instead of playing detective with your deliveries, get a mailbox at the UPS store. We'll sign for your packages, text you when they arrive and keep your deliveries low key under lock and key. Get 3 months free mailbox services with a new annual agreement at the UPS store. For full details and to get your coupon, visit theupsstore.com offer Pandora jewelry brings the sparkle to your summer now with even better prices. Enjoy up to 50% off select styles, from personalized pieces to must have favorites made for the summer. Timeless designs that shine with you through every moment wherever the summer takes you. Shop in store or online now through July 6th. Terms and conditions apply. Visit pandora.net for details.