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Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart's podcast looks like ‘high school' TV show

Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart's podcast looks like ‘high school' TV show

Telegraph26-02-2025
Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart's podcast The Rest Is Politics looks like a 'high school' TV show, a YouTube chief has said.
Pedro Pina, Europe, Middle East and Africa vice-president for the streaming platform, said that this is because the podcast has low production values.
Speaking at Wednesday's session of MIP London, an industry event, at the Savoy Hotel, he said it is 'one of the most successful, I think it's the number one podcast in this country'.
The show, launched in March 2022, has frequently topped the charts as the nation's most popular podcast.
Mr Campbell, Sir Tony Blair's former spin doctor, explained the episodes are roughly planned but unscripted, meaning 'it can go off in all sorts of directions'.
His co-host Mr Stewart, the ex-Tory minister and a former tutor to Princes William and Harry, reacts to Mr Campbell's musings, with the aim of their podcast to 'disagree agreeably'.
Mr Pina explained that despite the low production costs, the political podcast has seen numbers continuously increase.
He said: 'When you look at their podcast, their live transmission, which was on YouTube [covering] the US election…the production values was one of those – [it] feels like a high school put together a couple of tables, and yet the viewership was tremendous.
'And so guess what? The viewers determine the production values that they're prepared to accept.'
The Rest Is Politics co-hosts provided 'real-time analysis' live throughout the US election night last November.
Mr Stewart went viral on social media for wrongly predicting that Kamala Harris 'will win comfortably,' on the podcast before he clarified the following morning, saying: 'For the record – I was completely wrong about Kamala Harris. It is heartbreaking that Trump is now the president.'
The pair's coverage of last year's elections in the UK saw each episode between the end of May and beginning of July receive more than 700,000 audio downloads.
Following the news, Mr Campbell said: 'It fills me with hope that so many people tuned into our show across the general election. Rory [Stewart] and I aim to fly the flag for balanced debate and real clarity amidst the constant noise of 24-hour rolling news, and we're delighted to see our audience respond in such positive ways.'
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