He blamed a BBC obsession with diversity and a changing culture for his decision to leave. This week there was disquiet in the ranks with the departure from Radio 4 of Nigel Rees, the presenter of Quote… Unquote, who resigned after 500 episodes. Perhaps there had to be a podcast version of this story because BBC Radio is putting more emphasis on podcasts, and seemingly moving away from more traditional broadcasting. The podcast is long, but so light on scoops, answers or insight that you get the sense that even Meghan and Harry would be fed up of hearing about it all by the end. The most newsworthy nugget is from the extended interview with the Duchess’s lawyer, Jenny Afia, who dismisses palace staff’s accusations of bullying against the Duchess by describing “bullying” as a term “used very freely”.
Rajan’s podcast may not have been that difficult to make, actually, as it’s essentially the same entity as the TV series it was due to launch alongside (the TV version is trailed at the end of each episode) before it was pushed back to this year. Fair enough podcasts are tricky to make, as many discovered when they too decided to start their own during lockdown. That’s still the only episode ever released. At Christmas in 2020 they launched, with much fanfare, the “holiday special” of their new podcast venture, Archewell Audio. The Sussexes have previous with podcasts.
There are the same guests, the same interviews (audio-only here), and the same overall narrative: that Prince Harry has lived his entire life in a glaring media spotlight and eventually got sick of it and moved to America. If that subject sounds familiar, it’s because the podcast essentially repackages material already used in The Princes and the Press, a BBC TV documentary from the end of last year. Did the Duchess of Sussex get to wear her first-choice tiara at her wedding? Did she have time to try it out with her planned hairstyle before the big day? Was the Queen cross? These enormous questions and more are addressed at length, though never firmly answered, in Harry, Meghan and the Media (BBC Sounds), a podcast presented by Amol Rajan looking at media intrusion into the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s lives. Surely there’s only so much royal intrigue a person can take.