YouTube viewers ‘do not care The Rest Is Politics looks like high school show’
The podcast is fronted by Alastair Campbell, former Downing Street director of communications and strategy, and ex-Tory MP Rory Stewart.
A YouTube boss has said that the low production values of the live version of The Rest Is Politics podcast are not of concern to audiences who are OK watching something that looks like a “high school” TV show.
The popular podcast is fronted by Alastair Campbell, former Downing Street director of communications and strategy, and ex-Tory MP Rory Stewart.
Pedro Pina, vice president of YouTube EMEA, told Wednesday’s session of industry event MIP London at The Savoy hotel that the podcast is “one of the most successful, I think it’s the number one podcast in this country, and we have a great partnership on YouTube”.
He added: “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 (with) 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.”
However, Mr Pina did say later that “a lot of creators are moving for 4k production, 5k production”, and content “organised by seasons, by episodes”.
The Rest Is Politics US election YouTube live show saw guests including former White House spokesman Anthony Scaramucci, historian Dominic Sandbrook and columnist Marina Hyde from other Goalhanger offerings contribute.
A clip of Mr Stewart’s disappointment after he wrongly predicted that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris would beat Republican nominee Donald Trump went viral.
The podcast also had episodes broadcast on Channel 4 before the 2024 UK general election, and has picked up the political podcast of the year award at the Political Podcast Awards and the podcast champion gong at the British Podcast Awards.
The show is produced by Goalhanger Podcasts, co-founded by Gary Lineker, and normally releases two episodes a week.
Mr Pina said that “the screen with the highest growth for us is connected TV in the living room”, and not a computer or a phone where YouTube flourished previously.
He added: “So this idea of teenagers closed in their bedrooms with their mobile phones was translated during Covid into ‘Hey, come to the living room and share with your parents’.
“They taught their parents to actually watch YouTube because that’s their favourite viewing.”
Mr Pina said “there’s a lot of misconceptions about YouTube, there’s a lot of fears associated to what YouTube represents”, and the Google video hosting platform has “no interest whatsoever in producing our own content”.
He added: “We’ve tried it a little bit. We did a few experiments. Those who followed us may have seen something called YouTube originals, at some point in time… we are known for, let’s try, fail fast and move on.”
Giving an example of how they work, Mr Pina said that the deal with Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo for a YouTube account – which shares advertising revenue – is the “same that we have with the kid that started the first video yesterday”.
Speaking about the move towards YouTube hosting Channel 4 content, including full episodes of TV shows, Mr Pina said they provide “extra reach in this country, and extra reach outside”, that “would not be monetised”.
He added that “one of the soft powers of (the) UK has been culture”, and called it “the envy of the world when it comes to fiction production”.
Mr Pina said YouTube gives “access to the world” through tools that break down “language barriers”, which he added “very soon will be done by AI, where you will be able to put content out there in any language you want and reach a global audience”.
