Dubai Influencers vs Iran

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Hello, and welcome to this episode

of the rest's entertainment with me, Marina Hyde.

And me, Richard Osman, hi, Marina.

Hello, Richard, how are you?

I'm not too bad.

All things considered.

All things considered.

Might as well call this podcast,

all things considered,

because we're a lovely alternative

to actually looking at anything else

that's going on in the world.

We are going to have to slightly go there this week, though,

because we are going to be talking about Dubai influences.

And it's quite interesting when what might be

the beginnings of World War 3 is deemed to be breaking out.

How amazing people have said,

oh, what about all those people in Dubai

who tell us how fabulous it is?

I don't know, that seems to be their main takeaway.

We are going to discuss it, though.

Also, I thought it was widely understood.

We've been in the middle of World War 3 for a long time,

so this must be World War 4.

Oh, I see, OK.

Maybe even 5.

It's like too fast, too furious now.

Yeah.

Wars.

We're also going to talk about the Brits

and Shock Horror was actually good.

And it's British music, like in an amazing place

at the moment.

I'm also going to be telling you

why the best-selling single in Britain is not number one,

and hasn't been all year.

So I'll be explaining why that is.

I also have some career news, which I will talk about

at some point in this show.

And we are going to talk about the update

to the biggest deal struggling to be born in Hollywood

as Paramount finally made a successful bid for Warners

and Netflix are out of it.

And we're going to say what that means for the business

and for us as consumers of entertainment.

I think it's actually quite an interesting story

for a business story.

Yeah.

I think it's quite good.

No, absolutely no, there's no shade

on the rest of the money there.

But this is an interesting business story.

Well, yes.

No, all of this was interesting.

We're going to get another business story, OK.

So the weekend, huge historic events in Iran

and the wider Middle East region,

the killing of the Ayatollah in a US-Israeli strike,

retaliatory attacks by Iran, some drone strikes in Dubai.

But I hear you ask, what of an influencer's golf trip

to Marbella?

Let me go to the husband of Patrick Eccleston,

Sam Palmer, to his Instagram for an update.

I know there is bigger problems than my golf trip,

I'll give you one.

But honestly, I am boiling inside.

I was so looking forward to it, it was going to be brilliant.

Hang on, I've got another Dubai-based influencer.

By the way, everyone in Dubai is an influencer

and we'll talk about that and why.

Another one, there's an Australian one called Luis Darki

who's verdict on what she was seeing out of her window

was, can't everyone just chill out?

So some interesting content moment.

Is she related to David Stark?

Yeah, it didn't say, I think it's unlikely.

We're only being slightly serious, of course.

But it's sort of fascinating that in these huge seismic

global events, something very noticeable has been going on

and there is a massive tide of commentary online

of people pointedly asking, oh, what's become of all the influences

telling us about their fabulous lives?

And the reason for that is, Dubai is the influencer capital

of the world.

It's extraordinary.

It's a city of 4 million people.

There are 50,000 influences.

That one in 80 people in Dubai is an influencer.

So there were only about 79 people to influence each of them?

Effectively, yes.

And all of them essentially work tacitly

in the cause of suggesting that Dubai is a place of luxury

and crucially safety.

And I think, so we're going to talk today about what it means

when a place's image is contracted out almost completely

to this whole new breed of content creators.

And what it says about the status of influencing

that people are actually slightly distracted

from the possibility of imminent war,

but sort of to unleash a certain kind of shard and fraud

as to what is happening to this whole strata of people.

How quickly an actual war becomes part of the cultural war?

Yeah.

I have also, by the way, just so you know,

as a little treat for you, I've put all of your details

through the Dubai Creator Economy website

to see if you'd be eligible to move there on a free golden visa

and I'll be giving you the results later.

Presumably I can get even better terms today

than I could on fire.

We shall find out.

But it's interesting, by the way, that either that thing is this,

which I think some people don't know this idea

that they are actively pursuing creators.

So we'll talk about why they're doing that

and we'll talk about whether Marina Hyde would be eligible

for a tax-free existence in Dubai for the next 10 years.

Oh, gosh.

What would happen if we moved the podcast back there essentially?

Right.

All sorts of things have been sort of lost leaders

and they've made it to try and get people into Dubai

and it's been, under the most extraordinary successful city

that's been sort of conjured up out of nowhere

and bits of reclaimed from the sea

in an incredibly short space of time.

And it's amazing how much content creators, influences

for one another word are key to that.

They have a whole something called the creator HQ.

It's a government initiative, right?

Creators HQ, yeah.

And in the same way that sort of Emirates at the start

was a way to, the airline was a way to sort of get people.

It was almost like a loss of the easy to get people to pass through.

This is what they've also tried to do with content creators.

Yeah.

And they wanted, well, I mean, they want, until Friday they were saying

they wanted to grow this part of the economy

to contribute 5% of GDP by 2031,

which is quite a big part of any country's economy, 5%.

It was the beginning of last year,

beginning of 2025, they launched this then creators HQ.

And the idea was to get 10,000 influences into Dubai.

That's the, can you imagine?

They want to 10,000 influences in Dubai.

What are we short of?

Influences.

And when we say influences, obviously,

everyone means different things,

but they've talked about content creators, essentially.

And so you can apply, if you live in any country in the world,

you can apply to move to Dubai under this scheme.

And under this scheme, they give you a number of different things.

They give you a visa.

They give you like a physical creators HQ hub,

which has podcast studios, offices, all those things.

They will give you business and legal support.

They will essentially set you up as a business.

There's a whole structure of people who deal with this.

Yes, exactly.

Agents, producers, people who get you follow accounts.

It's like a whole professional strata in Dubai.

So you can apply.

When you see all of these people who are saying,

yeah, you know what, fed up with Britain.

Britain is, you know, there's no room for entrepreneurs in Britain.

And I'm going to move to Dubai where you can get things easier.

This is what they're talking about.

They're talking about the fact that someone is saying,

oh, no, we will sort everything out for you.

Come over here for free.

I'm going to give you these offices.

We're going to give you these podcast studios.

You are going to live tax-free.

We're going to set up a company that you hold your own.

The government is not going to keep any of you up.

So they are literally being incentivized, massively incentivized.

There are not percent personal income tax, is that correct?

Not percent personal income tax and a very, very local corporation tax as well.

So they're paying very, very, very little tax.

What they are essentially saying, a lot of these influencers go over there,

particularly the ones who talk about it in a political way,

they're saying, oh, no, this is the place where capitalism reigns.

You know, no, this is the place where socialism reigns

because you're going over there because someone is funding you.

Someone is taking money and giving you that money and subsidising you

to do the thing that you do.

That's it's socialism.

That's okay.

Just admit it.

Just say, I'm going over there because I'm getting a handout.

I'm going over there.

I'm going to a foreign country and taking all the tech companies

in the US with all their handouts, their tech standards,

the biggest welfare queens in the world.

It's exactly right.

But it like that.

Listen, the place where anyone who tells you socialism doesn't work,

take a look at the very, very top level of influencers and tech bosses.

It is working absolutely beautifully for them

because they live in a socialist utopia.

And essentially, that's what Dubai is in Europe if you're around.

They are the sort of basic, sad little stormtroopers of late sage capitalism

and it's going to split them out.

They're sales drones and they're selling with their advertisement.

Advertainment, is that a failure?

I don't know, it is now.

They're selling hotels, yachts, luxury, lifestyle, medical procedures.

You can sell them a lot easier over there than you can in more regulated economies.

Essentially, influencing is the chief means by which things are sold there.

They've made it on this.

It's extraordinarily, the city itself has become constructed

in a sort of Instagram friendly way.

Instagram has a headquarters then, and no surprise.

And there's obviously a sort of dark side to this

because you can be detained for making to family comments.

You do sometimes have to do state work.

Although it is, it's never discussed.

People don't say whether they've been paid or whether it's just,

you know, you're on the team now you take one for it.

And it's just the course of doing business and they never rock the boat.

So here's, so creators HQ, here's the eligibility for it.

Okay. And I would say it's a relatively low bar

if you're involved in the world of content at all.

So you have to have a proven content career.

I've been through every single bit of this with you.

So you've, you've got a proven content career.

I think it's fair to say, you know, those columns,

those columns that you're writing about David Meller, that's a content career.

That was the beginning of it.

And it's a, and it's a career of sorts.

Preven content career, evidence of income from digital activities.

Now, I assume that, well, I mean, this is the digital,

the guardian is digital.

So you will have some evidence of income from digital activities.

That's you need strong engagement or measurable impact.

So do you have strong engagement or measurable impact?

I would have said, when I ticked the box fee because of what you,

the nonsense you were talking about, your bookshelves,

and how you organize your bookshelves.

And I think that that had strong engagement because so many people disagreed with you.

And I think it had measurable impact because everyone just went,

I, do you know what?

I'm actually fine with the way I did my bookshelves.

I mean, if you'd like to get away from this, we'll love this career.

Press coverage awards, brand co-labs, awards.

You're always willing, like, columnists at the year or something, aren't you?

I have quite a few of them.

Have you? Okay, that's good.

Brand co-labs, less so, but that's a, listen, that's, that's okay.

But awards, I think, are big for them.

And the final one, clean legal record.

I ticked yes for that.

I don't, I think I have one.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, yes.

I have a clean legal record.

So that is all you need.

If you can demonstrate that, and also if you can demonstrate,

it's not necessarily just follow account.

It's, it's, you can demonstrate your influence.

Well, I think that stuff is not like trying to get into the dead eye nights, right?

It's, I think, you know, it's a load, it is a load of,

it's very hard on getting to the baron nights.

Wow, that's a, that's a, that's one for the fast.

Isn't it just?

So if you have all of those things and you want to go over there,

I'd say they will give you visa assistance, company set up, legal support,

a co-lab opportunities.

So I know you don't have a lot of brand co-labs,

but the good news for you is if you go to Dubai,

you will get loads of co-lab opportunities.

What do I have in this podcast?

They, oh, that's true.

That's a co-lab.

We co-lab with octopus energy.

Yes.

Right, Mundo.

So again, that's another tick that I didn't tick.

Right.

You've got brand co-labs.

They were also then when you go out there,

they will give you workshops and mentoring and training

in the following areas.

And it's interesting the order they put this in.

Firstly, branding, okay?

Helpful.

Production.

Joey does all that for us.

Monetization, they'll do a workshop in that,

engagement and finally storytelling,

which is the last of the things to do.

Oh my god, this is psychological penal, Connolly.

I've forgotten the, I can't do it.

They will do all of those things for you.

Also, one of the key things is if you get above

another eligibility requirement, which we'll go into,

you can get a golden visa.

Now, golden visa, like anything

which has gold in the title is cool.

It is.

That's true.

Otherwise, why would they call it that?

Think of it.

Why don't you think it through the tiny bit?

If you're going to do me, I will move to do I.

Feel something like someone.

Don't know so much about branding.

So golden visa, you get 10 years residency in Dubai,

which is renewable as well.

Well, it's a second prize.

20 years.

You get 10 years residency in Dubai and for relatives as well.

And if you say it's absolutely text free, all that kind of stuff.

And for that, you do need, again, it's all of those

editabilities, but at a slightly higher bar.

So I put everything through for you.

And it says, this is the things they are looking for.

This is the reason why they would give you a golden visa

that are looking for established creators

with international audiences.

Now, we have a lot of listeners in Australia and Australia.

So I think that's, I think that absolutely counts.

And our friends in America, they are looking for genuinely.

They carved this out.

They're looking for podcasters with measurable cultural impact.

They are looking for podcasters with measurable cultural impact.

And that's what I'm looking at right now.

Well, as I say, the weekend has maybe changed some of this stuff.

You would be eligible immediately, absolutely free,

you'd have to pay a single thing for 10 years residency.

But that's why a lot of these people are moving to Dubai.

That's what I'm saying.

They're not moving to Dubai because they are entrepreneurs who are going,

oh, finally, there's a place where I can move quickly.

And you know, it's they are moving there

because someone is incentivizing them with dollars

from the government to do that.

Dubai influencer content comes with such a distinct set of tropes.

They're actually very narrow.

And you know, this is like, but it's the sort of skyline flecks

like themselves in front of this amazing

and very recognizable skyline, supercars, helicopters,

private jets, they all rent them by the way

and they rent time in them.

They didn't half of these things never take off.

They just have pictures of them sitting in them.

That's one of the things I object to so much.

It's like influencing is so uncool.

It's like all of this stuff is just so sort of basic.

The entire sort of possibility and, you know, creativity

if human experience sort of distilled down to about 10 template images

that were involved, like white fluffy bath robes,

champagne flutes, a private jet seat.

I mean, come on.

This is so dull.

Like I said, you are a little late capitalist room

trooper that's going to get spat out by the system anyhow.

Sorry, oh, beach clubs.

That's another big thing that, you know, the Palm Jamera.

Well, that was hit by a missile on Saturday hotels,

shopping malls, the hall we get from it all.

And that whole pool slide entrepreneur lifestyle, you know,

here I am in this amazing place.

I'm on my laptop, you know, I manifested this.

I, this is my business.

But the kind of underlying thing of all of this things are,

as I said before, it's luxury and it's safety.

And a huge amount of them spend a lot of time saying,

I've moved here because, you know, I hate London,

London's a mess or wherever I live before is a mess.

And there's crime, there, you know, this is incredibly safe.

And obviously something absolutely extraordinary has happened.

By the way, that we hope everyone is deeply safe and all of that stuff.

But it shines a light on this gilded world that's been so effective.

But it's a low profession.

It's honestly, it's like a state agency or Traffitwoods or journalists.

They're like, they're down there or though, you know,

it's a hated profession.

People feel like, I suppose essentially,

it is built on boasting, saying, look what I've got,

look what I'm doing.

And also, and do my content in particular is very smug.

But as you say stuff that you actually don't have.

Yes.

And do my content, I think in particular,

is very like, you know, the grass is the grass is greener.

So in some ways, but if you look at the level of shard and

Freud online, as soon as the event started unfolding on Saturday,

there's those compelling stories.

We talked what's before about that amazing, no going back.

God, I mean, that's 20 years ago, I must have seen that.

Maybe more that extraordinary documentary about,

I said, on Channel 4, people who start new lives.

And this is, do you remember?

And there was one who went to a sort of desert island

and it was going to be perfect.

And let's just say it really isn't.

And I suppose this feeling of most people who are in this country,

who are in a cost of living crisis,

who are struggling in all sorts of different ways,

there is some sort of sense that it's being round down your throat,

this perfect lifestyle.

And this is why in lots of ways, people hate influencers.

They want to sort of be them at some level that they don't talk about.

But they are, as I say, they're down there with state agents and journalists.

A huge amount of following influencers has become about,

we talked about this when we talked about Tattle Ice,

of Richard, or Embittered Detective Work,

as the same to some degree with the Beckham's.

Like, what you're saying is the situation isn't the situation.

This isn't what you're selling it has.

Now we've just seen that on a geopolitical level,

like the thing that Dubai has used all of this army of people

to say about itself is, in fact, suddenly not the case.

It is not a place currently of safety.

And, you know, who knows what will have unfolded,

even by the time this podcast goes out,

but something very, very significant happened.

And, you know, it's a new kind of Middle East.

There is no oil.

This is a new kind of Middle East Dubai, and it's...

Influences are the oil here.

In the same way that, you know, Saudi Arabia,

we've talked a lot before, you know,

everyone's tourist money is incredibly important.

Hollywood money is important.

Cultural money is important.

The interesting thing in this is the understanding that Dubai certainly has,

and I think Saudi Arabia certainly has,

that the creator economy is the fastest-growing part of the new entertainment economy,

in a way that, because of our history and entertainment,

we haven't quite got on board with.

We still slightly think of the creator economy as something slightly other,

and they understand, actually, that is where all the money and entertainment

is going to be in the next 10, 15, 20 years.

So that's why they're throwing all this money at this...

But they've concentrated so much of it on this, that it...

And until now, there's been no question that it wasn't just going to keep going on at the same level.

But now, you see how precarious all these things.

And actually, that's mirrored by influencing not just in Dubai,

influencing anywhere.

People who understand tech and understand the algorithms will always say to you,

it seems like it's a great thing.

But actually, if the rug goes undy for one reason or another, say,

I don't know, you'll found to have done something wrong,

or people decide to cancel you in the way they can in that world,

then suddenly you have absolutely nothing, and you're really, really stark.

But if you're to counterpoint to that, if you're an individual influence,

so that's definitely the case. It's incredibly precarious.

As it has... If you're a pop star, or a TV presenter, or anything like that,

but if you are a big media organisation,

and that's what the Dubai government is acting at as here,

they don't mind a few influences being disgraced,

because they're constantly being replaced.

You know, there's always... What happened here is the entire stick

has had the rug pulled underneath it,

because what you're saying is this is a place of great luxury and great safety,

and suddenly, it's not.

And I think it's very difficult.

With that many people, you were out there creating content.

Yeah, I'm sure. Listen, not depressing, we may...

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think depressingly,

this is content at the moment for those influences.

But if I were there, and you can see that their management has been in touch

with them and said, be very, very careful what you post.

Do not make it...

The inadequacy of the pivot, like Louise is this man who is an apprentice,

runner-up, who's got a very successful podcast, which she does from Dubai.

And now, I saw her saying, you know, doing a post, saying,

home-baked bread rolls, you know, keeping the kids entertained and indoors.

And I just thought, yeah, this isn't really like lockdown.

You... I just think it's...

Bread rolls are not going to cut it here.

And, you know, getting your content right,

there's already a backlash now over the last two days for people saying,

even this situation, you're making all about you.

And because people have this kind of bedrock idea that influences

a self-absorbed and unserious, and, you know, maybe they are,

because it's not in their real lives, perhaps,

but certainly in the way they present themselves

and the way they make this kind of advertisement content.

And there's such a big backlash that you can see

certain people just didn't write, who people are used to posting things

20 times a day, didn't, because someone had said to maybe

Kate Ferdinand, really, I'm sorry, be really sure when you put down

what you're going to put, that it does not, like, completely send to you

or doesn't. And I think it's very difficult when you're not,

you're now have got a city, as I say, where there's 50,000 influencers.

Every single thing, what do you do?

Now, one of the two fundamental talents on which all of their content has been

based, which is this is paradise and it's safe, has been very significantly

undermined, not necessarily forever undermined at all.

But what now? I mean, all the comments beneath,

all the things that you're trying to sell, people will have a number of views

about quite how realistic what you're saying.

Yeah, and to reiterate, you know, we hope that everyone

across the Middle East stays completely safe, but this is an area

we wanted to talk about.

No one is expecting people to become war correspondents overnight,

of course not. But it's very difficult to see how that many people,

that big, you know, professional class, as it were,

has to sort of pivot completely and to see what they'll do.

They may be able to write themselves pretty easily, but I think that something

quite seismic has been, has occurred and something very, very significant

has been undermined.

Yeah, and I hope it's interesting to hear about this idea of creators HQ,

which is a very, very real thing, which is really, really targeting

influencers and every single time you see somebody say,

I'm leaving this country, I'm going to Dubai because, you know, I have opportunities

there. What they're saying is the government of Dubai and everything that

stands for and everything that happens in their name

are funding me to go and do this. So I'm leaving.

I'm a civil servant.

I'm leaving, yeah, but you are. I'm leaving a liberal democracy because of the

difficulties and challenges that are involved in a liberal democracy

to go somewhere where I'm being a paid shield, which is, you can be a patient.

If you want, we all pay the shields for things that we believe in, that's absolutely fine.

But that's what they are and I'm being funded.

Someone is paying for me to do that in a way that speaks of nothing but socialism.

That's exactly what's happening there. They are going from a non-socialist society

into a socialist society and someone is paying them

for the soft power that they bring, which brings me to finally the creator's HQ,

I ticked every single box that I thought applied to you.

And they say that you are definitively qualified for both creators HQ and for the golden visa

in a category called Distinguished Talent in Media and Digital Content.

So you could go out there tomorrow.

Listen, anyone can go out there tomorrow if you can get a flight, which you can't currently.

Right, after the break, we are going to be talking about another seismic shift at this time

in the Paramount's attempts to buy warners, which has been successful and Netflix is out.

And we're also going to be talking about the Brits, which happened on Saturday night,

and was perhaps actually good.

Guys, breaking news, we are going to be interviewing Tim Davy, the outgoing

director general of the BBC. So please send us your questions to the rest of

entertainment at golehanger.com, put Tim Davy in the subject line so we don't miss it.

There's always many things we can discuss on the matter of the BBC.

And that will go out next week.

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Welcome back, everybody. Now we're going to talk about Warner and Paramount and Netflix.

But I promise some career news, which is I am leaving House of Games. It will no longer be

Richard Osman's House of Games. It will be somebody else's House of Games. And I gladly

hand over the keys. And I just wanted to go on record of saying how much I love it and loved it.

And I've done 800 episodes. I was going to say how many and how many seasons?

Oh, seasons I don't know. We don't really. I just have a lot of episodes and I've loved it.

And of course, I met my wife through it as well. And it just with the writing comes the point,

you know, where where you have to hand it over. The BBC have very, very, which I'm very glad

about. I've said they will continue it. So that incredible team I get to work with,

still going to be making it with there with a different host. But not with me anymore. I will do

one final week. I'll do one final week where I hand over to the new host, which will be a lot of fun.

But oh my god, I've loved it. I love doing it so much. And I'll be gutted when I don't do it anymore.

But you know, I had to in the same way with pointless. But you know, we filmed 110 episodes last

year, which are still going out now. And those will be my last ones apart from one final day.

Well, I wonder how many hundreds of those episodes have been watched in my house. And I will say,

thank you. You have brought such joy to everyone in my family. So thank you. And onwards.

Looking forward to Sioux Pollard's House of Games. That out of the way, let's talk about more

minor show business, the acquisition of Warner Brothers by Paramount Skydance.

Well, you've thrown that into the shade now, haven't you? Haven't I just took us through what has

happened there? Right. Yes. Now, the last time we covered this, and in fact, until just the end

of last week, Netflix were kind of locked on as you could be at this stage to acquire Warner Brothers,

one of the huge studios. But at the last minute Paramount, Paramount Skydance, remember, Skydance

was a small film studio, which recently acquired Paramount. And now almost immediately,

they raised their offer to $31 a share. Netflix were given four days to respond to a counter.

And co-CEO's Ted Sarandas and Greg Peters said, after one day in the end, you're all right.

We're walking away. It's not right for us at this price. Netflix said, essentially,

that Warner Brothers would be a nice thing to have at the right price. It is not a must-have

at any price. Which it is for Paramount Skydance. Which it is for, yeah. Anyhow.

Hugely overpaid. Well, they're buying it for $111 billion. And it looks like,

you know, they will get it. Remember, Larry Ellison is like, you know, he's always bumping along

in the top four. I think he's currently the fourth richest man in the world, but sometimes he's

the second. It just moves around a little bit. Larry Ellison, he's now said he will backstop the

deal. But it's his son, always referred to on this podcast as Kendall Ellison, but actually

called David apparently. David, who wants this, but they're close to the Trumps. And it's thought

that people think for that reason it will get through whatever regulatory things that Netflix

would have found quite difficult. Now, despite the initial shock, when we first covered this,

when Netflix was sort of sweeping in for it, I came to think, and lots of other people came to

think, and I'm sure you probably did, that actually Netflix was the better deal for Hollywood.

By far. For them to have won this would have been better for the town, for the people who work

at Warner's, for all of those things. Mainly because Netflix and Warner Brothers do quite

separate things. So the synergies of those two companies come together. You will talk about

the savings, the Paranat skydance you're going to make with Netflix and Warner Brothers.

Actually, they would have multiplied each other a little bit more. And these two companies,

I think, divide each other a little bit more. So they'll be all for a lot less jobs, I think.

And right up until last week when Ted Sarandos was still pushing this deal, he was saying repeatedly,

as many times as possible on record, he was really committing to cinema release. What, remember,

what we call, they call windows. The time that a film is in the theaters before it comes to

other forms of release. And when it eventually ends up on streaming now Netflix, sometimes we'll

have something in theaters for a week. And then it'll be on streaming. There are several windows

between something going to streaming where you can pay for it, where you can do all sorts of

different things. And creators really, really wanted it preserved. Now, Ted Sarandos went on the

record and said, no, no, no, no, we're definitely going to stick to it. Okay, so he hasn't got it now

and he can go back to slagging off cinemas. Yes. Generally Netflix seem thrilled to have lost out.

Oh my god, this is one of the great losses ever. And we'll get to that. They got to the point

where there was so much political pressure, which they weren't interested in. And they've never

had it really. They've never had political pressure. Exactly. They don't have news. They don't have

all sorts of things that bring political pressure. They were being told to fire Susan Rice from

their board, all sorts of things that they are not used to having. The price was going up and

up into a point where they thought this doesn't make any commercial sense for them. And their

shareholders hated it, Richard. The shareholders hated it. And the second that they pulled out,

and they pulled out immediately, they were like, oh no, you can have that. The second they pulled

out, their shares were not 10%. Yeah, by the end, I think, yeah, their shares are on a turn now.

It's great. Okay, so what's this going to mean for all the little different bits of this? And

for us, as people who even over here consume a huge amount of the things they make. Okay,

so for movies, David Ellison has said, the combined Warner Paramount entity will release

30 films a year to which I can only say, lol, okay, that is, I absolutely will lay it down here.

I don't think that's going to happen. It'd be lovely if it did. I don't think it's going to happen.

If it does happen, by the way, there will be like 12 movies that you think, what's that weird

time movie that got released for like one day? What's that AI film made with Oracle AI? Remember

Ellison's run Oracle? In general, everything we've ever seen in the history of all of this is that

studio mergers lead to fewer and not more titles. It happened when Disney acquired Fox. So what they

now have, they have two lots, two studio complexes. I mean, the Paramount lot is one of the most

beautiful buildings in Los Angeles. And I, you know, my thoughts, you know, that doesn't mean much,

but actually this is genuinely a beautiful, a beautiful building, a series of buildings.

The Warner lot, which is also very historic, they will, I think, I'll produce a journey,

it's just saying to me, they'll have like 88 sound stages. Paramount is saying that they will

make six billion of savings. And when they're talking about savings, let's be very honest with

that. They're talking about, they're talking about thousands of people losing their jobs.

Yeah. Ted Sarandas has been saying, okay, with that level, remember, this is leveraged,

this is a leveraged bite. They have a huge amount of debt. There's no way that six billion will

be enough. Netflix estimate that Paramount are going to have to make 16 billion, 16 billion of

savings. I mean, there's so many different bits of this empire. So there's, what happens with

talent? A talent going to be sort of sniffing, going to think, you know, the Alison's are clearly

you know, Lindsey Gray and the sort of ancient and awful Republican Senator was snapped with David

Ellison, who was his guest at the State of the Union last week. Everyone knows that the

Ellison's are very close to Trump. Will, will lots of talent thing. We would read it again,

this can only be to Netflix. Netflix. Why would I not go to Netflix? Why would I not go to

Netflix? In another way, I would say though, talent is not in a position to be sniffy. Hollywood

isn't a lot of trouble. And you know, if at the start, Kendall Ellison does make 30 films a year.

He's going to need people to be in them. Sports wise, this is looking pretty good because they now have

all the football, their football, UFC golf. They have, you know, the college basketball tournament,

March Madness. That is mega. It's like a huge cultural moment. So they have all of that.

I think in some ways, what's very interesting is the TV networks. There is a whole sort of hot take

industry that in fact, this has only ever been about news, which is too hot to take for me. But

that CBS, which is currently going through a whole kind of a load of convulsions, which has

been put under the control of Barry White who is a sort of conservative, friendly kind of person

who's never run a network, but is now running this. What happens to CNN? Do they all have to report

into Barry White? So the basic principle here is that CNN, which is one of the big news networks

over there, is now under direct control of people who are very, very close to Trump.

Well, media power in general is shifting towards being Trump friendly across across everything.

What he does require people to be Trump, you can't say, oh, you know, he's just their

tacit supporters of Trump always wants you to be overtly political and to bend the knee. Yeah,

it did, yeah, to, to bend the knee. So lots of things are shifting and other people will say,

oh, well, it was a long way, the long time the other way. So that's fine. In terms of the

natures of the nature of the deal, I'm sure one has shareholders love being told that shares

are worth $31 because they were bumbling along at like $11 for a long time back then. So I'm

sure they love that. But as we say, they have a vast amount of debt. Something like 57 billion

of this deal is debt. Some, most of it, junk-rated. And then you add into the debt that was already

on Warner's books. There are, there are estimates you're somewhere around 90 billion of debt here.

And that's all very well. By the way, if you're bankrolled by Larry Edison, because he runs

Oracle and Oracle is riding like on the unbelievable AI boom. I mean, it's the value of that

company is so enormous. They went back and back and back with more and more and more money because

money was meaning this to them at the moment because they are so awash with it because of AI.

So AI, as you say, yeah, we can make movies with AI. But if AI turns out to be a bubble,

and it's going to turn out to be some sort of bubble at some point for sure, then suddenly that

90 billion dollars of debt is going to be very, very, very difficult to service. And if that becomes

very difficult to service, then you have a huge behemoth right in the heart of Hollywood,

right in the heart of creating content for television, film and everything, which will be almost

crippled. And then they get some more of what is part of this deal, which is Saudi money.

It doesn't look amazing in lots of different ways. And in terms of who's running this,

I mean, who is David Ellison? He was running something called Skydance,

honestly, about 15 minutes ago. I always think people in the film business will tell you

that if you ever see a producer on the red carpet with the stars of the film,

that guy is a real arsehole. If you look at Top Gun Maverick, which is by far the biggest thing,

Skydance ever produced, who is there with Tom Cruise and all of them on the red carpet,

is of course David Ellison. He's trying to create this enormous media company at incredible speed.

And doing it, by the way, purely through spending his dad's money. Yeah.

I mean, it's not like, oh my god, he's really transformed. Well, his dad is backstopping this.

Yeah, exactly that. That's which is the difference. I mean, I suppose we have to believe it. But

ultimately, it means awfully huge layoffs. But Netflix has emerged. Amazing.

Amazingly. Clearly, we know their investors didn't like the deal. But when you do a deal,

it's big or you come closer doing deal this big, you get to look completely over the entity

you wish to acquire books. So they know every single thing about how they're not the same.

Remember, Netflix are not the same as these old Hollywood legacy studio companies. They're doing

something totally different. And of course, they've hired lots of people of those companies. So

it's not like they have no institutional knowledge of how these companies work. But they've now seen

exactly everything and say all rates are different parts of the year at different times. I mean,

literally, we're now Netflix doing our front because they haven't added it. It's all very different.

So they've had a chance to look at exactly how it all works. And they've managed to get away from it.

And they're also getting a $2.8 billion cancellation fee. I think it might be 2.9 bit. It's something

ridiculous. And Washington is not up in their business any longer, which was becoming

very difficult. I mean, they're a bit more on the radar now because people have had to think

about them, which they never had to before. They were just the sort of TV company. And also,

one of their big competitors has been forced to massively overpay for something because they've

had to consistently top Netflix's deal. So it sort of couldn't be a better loss. I mean,

it might be one of the all-time great losses in corporate history. Yeah.

This one, everything about it has turned Netflix's way. We should say that just in general,

they just, and I understand why they have to happen in a very, very difficult climate for the whole

business, but almost always these big mergers don't work. I mean, I was talking to someone who

works at a senior level on the creative side and said, you know, I've done so many

reorientation days where it's like, hi, welcome to a new corporate overlord. I've done like three

in the last decade now. I've got to now do another. These things don't tend to work. Maybe they'll

prove us all wrong and make 30 great AI films, yeah. Or maybe the term oil is not a tool over. And

it certainly isn't over in terms of job losses. I mean, so many thousands of people are going to

lose their jobs. There was a separate thing recently, Jack Dorsey, who set up Twitter originally.

I remember seeing this, you know, now when we look at where Twitter is, we sort of see him as a,

as, you know, some sort of great hope. But he has a George W. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he has a

company called Block, which is a payments company. And he has just laid off 40% of the staff of

that company, laid off 4,000 people. And he has not laid them off because Block is doing badly.

Block is doing very, very well. He laid them off because AI is now doing the work of most of his

employees. And he says, this is a direct quote from Jack Dorsey. Within the next year, I believe

the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.

By which he means that they will lose. We'll all essentially be deviant for 40% of their workforce.

And, you know, there's about over 50,000 employees within this merger. You lose 40% of that. That's,

you know, it's a lot of people. And it feels again, like we were talking in the Dubai thing,

it feels like there's such an unfairness to it, which is, which is, you know, a group of people

playing by different rules because they've been funded by something that's not based on anything

real. It's ever been thus. But, you know, I do think Netflix would have been a better home for

Warner Brothers. Listen, let's take them like their word. If they do massively ramp up movie production,

that will be very, very good news. And it's doable and perhaps they will do it. They can only do it

if they use AI oracle AI on it. They can't possibly put out 30 movies a year. They just can't.

And it's not going to happen. And if it does, a significant part of those films will be made by AI.

There's only one Jason Statham. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm always saying.

It's essentially the point I'm making in every single item we ever do on the film. What would

Latin for? There's only one Jason Statham be. I've got to try one again.

Should we end with some good news, which was the Brits this weekend. It's moved up to Manchester

at the Co-operina, which, if you remember when that opened up, was derided because they're

you know, kept being shut down and there were all sorts of issues and now has turned into like

an unbelievable venue with insane acoustics. You know, after, you know, the BAFTAs and what have

you to have this ceremony, because the Brits does feel like, you know, all the world ceremonies

feel like, you know, they're less significant than they were. But it felt like a room full of

people working in an industry that's that's absolutely firing on all cylinders. Amazing

performances, amazing winners, amazing energy, a host who's actually a comedian, so can do

jokes. And I just thought it was worth noting that it feels like sort of a good new story. There's

bad news stories within the music industry for sure that decline of live music, that decline of

live venues and things like that wall fallacy, one best band spoke about that. But it felt like in

terms of creativity and in terms of, you know, an industry that's, you know, doesn't always show

its best side. It felt like a really celebrated evening. Absolutely it did. And there were so much

sort of great, great stuff out. I will say in terms of sort of TV, which is the medium one,

via which most people have seen this ceremony, the ratings are down. I agree that the

story it's celebrating is very, very successful. The ratings are down. It's like the 10th most

watch programme on Saturday night. It's behind Michael McIntyre's big show Got Talent,

Weakerslink, gladiators, the news, obviously, always. So yes, I think that it's interesting that

industry at celebrating is doing very well. The British side of it, but the, but award ceremonies in

general are, they're becoming very difficult and we will end up talking about this, but particularly

after what happened at the, the BAFTAs the week before, but I noticed that so much conversation

around the Brits was online was about censorship and they were saying, you know, people have been

censored for saying free Palestine or, you know, making comments about ice. In fact, even some very,

very Anadine joke Jack Whitehall made about Peter Mandelson was censored. Some of these things,

by the way, are cut for length and people don't realise that. The show overruns, they have a slot,

certain things have to go and maybe they just took the view that, like, lots of politics jokes,

we don't need millions of them because that's not really what this place is about. Yeah, that joke was

just, there was a table of politicians, Andy Burnham and Lisa and Andy, and he'd done a joke about

Andy Burnham saying, this is the only party you get invited to these days. And then he said,

oh, who else is on the table? I'm sure I saw Peter Mandelson on the list. Oh, that was a different

list. Yeah. Perfectly serviceable gag. But I mean, I'd cast it because it's not, there was

better stuff. Sean Ryder had to have an entire anecdote, believe it. So, Sean Ryder had,

of course he did. Sean Ryder had, of course he did, had an anecdote about being busted for

drugs possession at the Brits in 1990. And it was just like the whole thing just had to go.

So there was, there's a lot of complaint about censorship. I have to say that artists,

often used to, in decades gone by, often used to use awards ceremonies to make political

points and things that we know they did. But all of the censorship stories in the last year have

come from sort of creative events of its kneecap and Bob Villain and Glastonbury, John Davidson,

at BAFTAs we're going to get to that. It's become such a sort of culture war minefield.

In the past, when these stands were taken or people said these things, they didn't happen in

the sort of frenzied world of social media, which, and it's not the fault of the broadcasters,

is a big part in our lives of why we can't have nice things. Social media just means you

can't have this moment. You know, and you could, and of course there've been, and awards ceremonies

are, I mean, they're so dull that they're a really good time to take a stand because everyone's

excited. But if you do anything off the script, people always have to be at film or music or

any sort of awards. But now, doing it in a world where the social media reaction is instant

and it becomes a huge thing, we have to understand that broadcasters operate under codes and in

America, they cut lots of things in the Grammys because you're not allowed to swear. So you can

probably mention ice, but you can't say F ice because then you're swearing. We have different

broadcasters laws. We have the things that can be said at the Brits after 9pm are different to

the things that can be said before 9pm. But there is a sort of general misunder, just a lack of

understanding, which you'd think when we have had this long in social media about media law.

Funny off the times to do an article last week saying, this is the reason we don't allow comments

under most of our, Andrew, Martin, Windsor content. And this is the reason. And I'm not joking,

as you know, I'm obsessed with newspaper comments. I've read all of them. It was people just saying

underneath, why don't you just say this is nothing to do with you? It's just what commenters

are saying. Hi, this is sort of our job. We have most of us have been through libel actions or

things that were threatened as libel actions. And we understand the law better than you. We have

to protect ourselves because it will not be you paying when somebody takes legal action. And the

sort of general failure to understand it all. I mean, if I was running one of the big media

organizations, I would connect pretty much everything these days. I mean, because everything,

you know what? Because the next day, all I have to deal with is someone, it's someone saying so,

you know, I would, I would just, you know, I'm not even going to show it kind of everything.

Well, bear in mind that everything they had to cut on Saturday from the Brits, they have had a

week of playing out in the aftermath of what happened at the BAFTAs to remind everybody when

Michael B. Jordan and Darryl Indo, who behind Sennis were on the stage, John Davison, who has

Tourette's involuntary take said the N word. It was not cut from the broadcast, despite

there being a long delay. We have to talk about this. I have to say, I think it was absolutely

awful, horrendous that those two guys should have to stand there and that they heard it. I think

it is horrendous that to some degree, John Davison was put in that situation reportedly. We don't

know, but reportedly, he said, I am concerned that I'm near an audience microphone. I'm concerned

that they put an audience microphone there. This is, I have to say, the BBC say they want a quick

investigation. It shouldn't take too long because this is a mega, mega mistake. It's really,

really bad. Everyone knew what had happened in the room. That's what so odd. It's not like, oh,

I didn't, they said they didn't hear it in the editing truck. But the things you don't need to

hear it in the editing truck and in editing trucks often, you don't hear it because you've got

lots of different mics all going at the same time where you definitely hear it is in the room.

What you have in the room are floor managers, stage managers, members of the crew, members of

production. They are there and they are in direct contact with the truck as well. There is

absolutely. By the way, the BBC did not put it out deliberately. Sometimes when you see things

and people go, oh, they're happy putting that out. It's a mistake. It's a catastrophic mistake.

Nobody on any side of this discussion is happy. Everybody is unhappy with everything that happened.

There was a huge mistake that happened in the middle, which is there's a lack of communication.

You know, I had messages from people who are at the thing saying to you, oh, my God,

this has just happened and it's, you know, so everyone heard it. Everyone knew it. And it did not

get through from the floor to the truck. It did not get through from the truck to when it's

delivered for broadcast as well. And it took another 24 hours for that to get through. Listen,

I absolutely certainly they can find out what the issue was and they can find it out quickly.

It is definitively no one has done this on purpose. But it is, you know, in the climate we live in,

as you say, you know, with social media and what happened at Glastonbury, it's sort of

extraordinary that it wasn't picked up. And it has caused such upset for everyone on every side

of this argument that you sort of feel, come on. I'll be honest with you, there was a point

last week where I thought, perhaps awful as this is, this will lead to something better and it will,

and I think lots of people did. And there will be more awareness and there'll be more understanding

of Tourette's and the understanding of that in this situation, why it's particularly unique,

that it's a neurological thing that someone can't help. I don't know if you've seen Saturday

and Night Live did a sketch on, I think they may be cussed it from the broadcast, but they've

put it out deliberately on their social media in which some of who they've identified, all decided

of the worst people in entertainment, Mel Gibson, Armingham, Bill Cosby, they turn up and they blame

all their various scandals on the fact that they just have Tourette's, they can't help them say

in these things, okay. I can't, okay, SNL, you want a good target? Like the BBC is right there,

really self-important award organizers are right there. If you want to be brave, you could do

two very low level operatives in a truck having to have a very high level debate about competing

rights against the clock post a decade where identity politics was given primacy over everything.

I mean, that might have been something to do. Instead, you've punched down, I mean, sorry,

I already knew that SNL were basic and depressing and not funny and that 90 percent of the

sketch just go on too long, two minutes too long because they can't work out how to get out of them

or maybe it's just self-indulgence. But you know what? Now I also know that they do disabled jokes,

okay. Tell your friends, SNL punched down at people with disabilities. They had many other targets

they could have chosen. Of course, they should have made something about, you know, you're not going

to not do it address this unless you're particularly wet, but the idea that you've made Tourette sound

like something that, you know, people just say they make up to get out of bad things they've done

is to me, mind-blowing, and no, I no longer think something good can come out of something awful

that happened the weekend before. I think it's indicative of the fact that in the UK,

Tourette's awareness has has quite a long history and a lot of work has been done and there's there's

so much by John Davidson. So much by John Davidson. And there is another more of an understanding in

the UK about what Tourette's is and people do understand that if you have a tick, you're not saying

your deepest darkest desire, you're saying the opposite, which is you're saying that the worst thing

you could possibly say, that's the point of it. It has that self-destructiveness in it. And that has

been something that Tourette's campaigners in the UK have dealt with for years and years and years

and years trying to get people to understand that. And you know, I'm Pete Bennett who went on big

brother and things like that. It's something culturally we have come to understand a little bit more.

It becomes apparent that that that has not crossed the Atlantic. But in the wake of this. And there is

an award-winning film that will explain this. The whole thing. It is all there.

There were so many videos posted by black people with Tourette trying to explain and essentially

defending John Davidson. And listen, as I said, it is absolutely horrendous. The Michael B. Jordan

and Darrell Endos stood up and and heard that and it was I you know, I wish that they had it hadn't

happened. But to end the week, a whole week on when you would think that all sorts of different

awareness of a neurological condition might have been increased to end it. Punching down at people

with disabilities is so depressing. Shame on SNL. I wonder what the the the Ministry of Culture

and Dubai would have to say about that. Marina, I just wanted to I've just unticked a box. I was

going to talk about Olivia Dean and why the biggest setting song in Britain at the moment is

not number one. Let's do that next week. You know, if you're a geek like me about the charts and

about things like that, then there's a really interesting story happening in the charts.

Can we do a deep dive on the charts and how we're there? Yeah, because I don't want to detract from

that grand finish. Okay, recommendations. I am going to recommend on Amazon Prime. A brilliant

documentary made by Morgan Neville called Man on the Run about Paul McCartney and the sort of decade

after the Beatles split up essentially a way of Paul McCartney finding a way to be the most famous

man in the world and have a family and make music. It's really, really, really beautiful and

interesting and the music is great and he takes so many wrong turns, which is incredibly honest

about. You can see he's obviously sat in an edit and looked at this, but you can see that every

single thing that Morgan Neville has put in their Paul McCartney's gone, okay, fair enough,

because there are bits in there where you go, oh, because we all make mistakes. It's really,

really, really lovely and if it's possible to think even more highly of Paul McCartney,

than you already did, then you do by the end of this is Man on the Run on Amazon Prime.

I would like to recommend the secret agent, which is a brilliant Brazilian film. The story's

extraordinary about living amongst corruption and paranoia and I'm ashamed to say that I knew

so little about that part of Brazil's history. I need stuff about Chile, about Argentina,

but I didn't know about this and it stars Wagner Moran. It really is. The production design,

by the way, you cannot believe and there's huge crowd scenes in lots of different parts.

You can't believe that this film wasn't shot in 1977. Everything, the color of it,

that every single, every thread of the clothes, every single thing seems that you're right there

and there are a couple of bits where you kind of are in the present day and it's so interesting

to see just the completely different lighting, just the way everything looks completely different

anyway, but it's a really interesting story and I've been thinking about it ever since,

so that's the secret agent. See you all on Thursday.

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