Nick Hilton

I have a newsletter – Future Proof – where I write bitter musings about digital media, from podcasts and YouTube to movies and TV. Basically every post is free and harmless, and I like seeing the subscriber ticker going up: so please sign up!

Would any authors be willing to chat with me – for a newspaper feature – about the questions of a) whether men are reading fiction, and b) how to engage more men with fiction? DMs open (I think) or just nudge me and I'll send you an email 🙏

Can it really have been Netflix’s intention to counter-programme its expensive live darts extravaganza against the finale of The Traitors?

Anyone know journalists based in/around Southport UK?

The BBC's self-imposed commitment to making £500m in cuts within 3 years reminds me of the Climate Change Act binding the UK to – frankly, impossible to achieve – Net Zero targets. The BBC is trying to appease its critics by setting itself up for catastrophic failure.

I love the idea of joyless leftists feeling like "oh, i guess i have to read these Sally Rooney books then - must be pretty politically right on stuff!" and then discovering it's just hundreds of pages of humanities students being sad, skinnily.

Delicious intersection between my two passions: mob justice and celebrity gossip. Cycling Mikey catches Taron Egerton scrolling Raya while stuck in traffic 🤌

I love to oscillate, as a journalist, between being staggered by how little I can be paid for a day's work and astonished at how much I'm paid for doing something so fun/easy.

What's cool is that they commissioned a project so fundamentally misconceived for the current market that they are now having to weigh up which dumb option to go with. There is no smart way to release these films, so they're going to have to do something dumb.

I’ve been workshopping (in my head) a joke that’s something like: A rabbit is having an existential crisis. “What’s Updike?” he asks, ruefully. His name is Harry Angstrom. I can see 2-3 ways it doesn’t work, but is there perhaps 1-2 ways it *does* work?

Currently, the 14th, 32nd, 52nd and 64th most popular podcasts in the UK are all blow-by-blow accounts of the trial of Russell Brand (no analysis, as that would be contempt of court). Just gawping and grim. This, in a landscape where no-one can afford to commission longform audio reporting anymore.

RJ Mitte made Walt Jr one of the most realistically annoying teenagers in TV history. It was a great, and important, performance.

Time review: when it's good, it's really good – but it's also trying to cram too much into a three episode season.

Made this today, in the bath, just in time for the new Celebrity Traitors episode.

BBC executives saw Reform receive donations of £72m in 48-hours this summer, and then announce plans to launch a "national publishing organisation". And their response to that? Kowtowing to voters who don't want impartial news, by continuing to hollow out public service broadcasting for generations.

I think the BBC could hold mini-referendums on these cuts, but only announce them live on Radio 4. That way, people who actually listen to the radio could decide the fate of these programmes, rather than executives caving to random weirdos tweeting on X or writing columns in the Spectator.

Twice in the past week I’ve had strangers come up to be in Tesco and quite insistently ask to use my Clubcard. They say it’s “win win”, which I agree with on paper, but I instinctively find it suss. It’s not like clubcards are very exclusive. Am I missing something? Or just being overly cautious?

God bless the real time engagement farming on LinkedIn.

Now available on catch-up: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Celebrity Traitors starts tonight at 8pm, which probably leaves you with a big entertainment gap between 7:15 and 8 o'clock. Thankfully I'll be on the Front Row review show, looking at Digger, The Standard of Living, and War. Tune in and it will finish perfectly on time for The Traitors.

East of Eden, proper telly.

Winter, don't bother.

England is a great country, because once we name a village, that name becomes a sacred, immovable thing (however horrifying the image it conjures may be).

I think I'm about 6-8 weeks away from reading the word 'Burnham' and not still assuming they mean Bo Burnham and being momentarily confused about why Bo Burnham is committing to abolishing the triple lock.

Instinctively like “weird use of the word woman in this headline…” only to discover that the chess community believes that ‘grandmaster’ is a gendered title, and anyone female (regardless of age, apparently) is a ‘woman grandmaster’.

Getting her hooked early on @jonnelledge.bsky.social books (you can’t hear it but instead of nursery rhymes, we’re playing old episodes of Skylines).

The devastating impacts of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the closure of the strait of Hormuz etc continue. The Harry Potter play producers feel that, after a decade, they can no longer charge tourists £175 twice 😢

So delighted for Gordon Brown winning MrBeast’s “who can stay in a paddling pool filled with orbeez and bat guano for 24 hours” contest. A much deserved second act 👏

The "Today's News" tab on X vs the BBC News homepage. But people on X will tell you (over and over and over and over) that the BBC is no longer a serious news organisation.

"One of the worst things in the world is being spat on," the Millwall v West Ham commentator just said. Let it never be said that the football community is out of touch.

LinkedIn notifies you about midlife crises now. Cool new feature!

Wrote about the new Miss Marple continuation novel (the headline does not quite represent the review)...

Finally, after a decade in journalism, a drop intro to be proud of.

No disrespect to this bloke’s family who are obviously grieving, but what is the point of this BBC push notification? Like, what is the suggestion here? That the police should not investigate crimes?

This is a press release about six very famous people, and one woman who said “faithful, faithful, not sure, traitor, traitor, faithful, traitor, faithful, faithful, faithful, that's it!" on The Traitors.

It is absurd to have a 'finale' to 7 Up. We should have followed them to the grave, and beyond.

Was the line-up for this festival always so mental? Mariana Mazzucato, Bryan Johnson, Louis Theroux, Dasha Nekrasova, Kwasi Kwarteng, the guy from Rizzle Kicks. This is rage bait booking.

My most egregiously Westminster-pilled brainworm is thinking to myself “truly a GOVErnment of all the talents - welcome Michael” any time I see Michael Gove doing anything. No longer even sure if that’s the real wording of the tweet, or if the tweet ever even happened.

It reminds me of how the advertising industry had a period of trying to commission “viral videos”. Like, virality was a consequence of excellence (or notoriety), not something you could design.

Finally! A politician brave enough to pledge growth 👏