Attenborough and the alchemy of on screen talent, Netflix’s push into the world of unscripted, and why we keeping sending comedians to do travelogues?

This week, as Sir David Attenborough’s new doc arrives on the small screen, Peter and Jimmy discuss the lightning-in-a-bottle that is on screen talent, and explore the peculiarly British appetite for eccentrics on TV. As Netflix set out their ambition to create “unscripted universes” on the platform, we unpack what that really means, and why, as the cost of making high end drama keeps rising, big returnable unscripted formats look all the more appealing. And we ask whether the time has come for the PSBs to consider merging in order to compete with the financial heft of the streamers

Plus, Jimmy remembers a lunch with Boris Johnson, Peter commissions listeners to help devise a cooking-dating crossover format, and Richard Osman, renaissance man. 

Jimmy Mulville is the co-founder and Chief Executive of Hat Trick Productions. His list of hit shows includes Have I Got News For You (series 69 now airing), Father Ted, Derry Girls, Outnumbered, and Episodes. In the US Hat Trick launched Whose Line Is It Anyway in 1997 which ran on ABC for seven years and was the first British series to be recreated for American network television by a British producer.

Peter Fincham ran TalkBack, where he executive produced many of their biggest shows including I’m Alan Partridge, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, and Da Ali G Show. He went on to be Controller of BBC1, then he was Director of Television at ITV, before returning to the independent sector as the co-CEO of Expectation, the company behind Clarkson's Farm and Alma's Not Normal.

Our email address is [e-mail], or you can get in touch via our socials at @InsidersTVPod.

 

New episodes every Friday.

Insiders: The TV Podcast is an Expectation and Hat Trick co-production.

The producer is Owen Braben.

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