‘They wanted a host without much personality’: Evan Davis and Peter Jones on Dragons’ Den
‘The left-hand driving glove was madness – while the baby dream machine and the armchair that converted into a gym for older people made me laugh’I was running a fairly successful telecoms business and had a phone call from the BBC saying that they’d like to come and chat,I was intrigued enough to say yes,I was late for our meeting and while he was waiting for me, Martyn Smith, the BBC’s producer, was watching people coming into my office saying: “What do you think of that? Should we do this?” He asked me, “What were those people doing?” I said: “Coming in and pitching ideas,” He said: “You’re not going to believe it …”He explained that Dragons’ Den was a format in Japan and they were thinking of putting together a UK version,He said: “All you have to do is sit in a chair as people come in and pitch you ideas.
” I thought: “Being an entrepreneur is pretty lonely.But here I’m going to get to invest in people.I’m also going to be on TV so my mum will be proud.”Six months later I was in a warehouse in London filming the pilot.It was near a train track so every four or five minutes we’d have to pause filming for 10 seconds as another train went by.
Investing your own cash back then was quite left-field and very unique.Today it might seem more normal.People would ask me: “How can you possibly make a decision about whether to invest £250,000 in 10 minutes?” My first Dragons’ Den investment was £175,000 for Wonderland, a magazine publishing business that Duncan and the other Dragons said wouldn’t survive a year.Twenty years later, we are the largest stylist magazine group in Europe.The left-hand driving glove was madness.
A baby dream machine and the armchair that converted into a gym for older people made me laugh.It’s great that the BBC have never lost control of the original thought process.I call it “live to tape”.We still have no idea who is going to walk into the den and pitch their idea.When I sit in that chair waiting for the lift doors to open, I genuinely wonder: “Am I going to meet the next Levi Roots? Am I going to have the opportunity to invest in somebody and make their dreams reality?” There’s competition, fun, rivalry and investment – every single dynamic you could want.
There’s not many better feelings than sitting in that chair.I was economics editor at the BBC and got a call from the entertainment department who said: “We’ve got this wacky Japanese series and are thinking of making a BBC version.Can you offer us any advice who might make a good presenter?” Obviously it was in Japanese, but it seemed to me quite aggressive and ferocious.I said: “I think you want someone without much personality because the personality has to come from the Dragons.” They said: “That’s exactly what we thought.
We thought you’d be perfect for the job,” I probably should have taken it as an insult,When you buy in a format, you have to keep close to the original,The Japanese version was called Tigers of Money and took place in a white space,The BBC changed the name and picked this warehouse look.
No one could agree on a title.“Dragons’ Den sounds too Dungeons and Dragons-y.No one will know what it’s about,” someone said.But the silly names like Life’s a Pitch didn’t work either.There was much more voiceover in the first series because they thought the viewers needed hand-holding through all the negotiation around equity and all of that.
I take my hat off to the early entrepreneurs for walking into something they knew nothing about.Originally they had to walk up a flight of stairs to face the Dragons.Anybody in broadcasting knows the combination of being nervous, adrenaline-fuelled and slightly out of breath is fatal.We always knew Dragons’ Den would tip one of two ways: towards the more business end of television programming or towards the entertainment side.It took a bit of time for it to find its groove.
“I’m out” only became a catchphrase by accident.I have always been in awe of the entrepreneurs for taking their ideas as far as they have.A juice blender that attached to the internet seemed so ridiculous at the time.I’ve seen the Harry Enfield spoof.When people start using the language and catchphrases, you know you’ve got a hit, and it happened quite quickly.
I think we knew by the end of the first series that it had earned its place on TV screens,Dragons’ Den returns on 9 January at 9pm on BBC One and iPlayer,
Six big US banks quit net zero alliance before Trump inauguration
The six biggest banks in the US have all quit the global banking industry’s net zero target-setting group, with the imminent inauguration of Donald Trump as president expected to bring political backlash against climate action.JP Morgan is the latest to withdraw from the UN-sponsored net zero banking alliance (NZBA), following Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs. All six have left since the start of December.Analysts have said the withdrawals are an attempt to head off “anti-woke” attacks from rightwing US politicians, which are expected to escalate when Trump is sworn in as the country’s 47th president in just under a fortnight.Trump’s vows to deregulate the energy sector, dismantle environmental rules and “drill, baby, drill”, were a big part of his campaign platform and are expected to form a key part of his blueprint for governing the US, the world’s biggest oil and gas producer
Great Britain’s grid operator calls for extra electricity amid freezing weather
Great Britain’s energy grid operator has asked power plant owners to provide extra electricity by Wednesday evening as freezing temperatures take hold.Demand for electricity is expected to climb between 4pm and 7pm as fresh weather warnings take effect across England, with snow expected as far south as London.The National Energy System Operator (Neso) – which manages the energy systems in England, Scotland and Wales – said it needed an extra 1,700 megawatts of power generating capacity to avoid falling short of the electricity required to power homes and businesses within its normal safety margins.This shortfall, which was flagged by Neso on Tuesday evening, is roughly the equivalent of the output of two to three gas-fired power plants, or the amount of electricity needed to power about 850,000 homes.In an official market notice, the grid operator said: “We would like a greater safety cushion [margin] between power demand and available supply
Elon Musk’s Tesla has received almost £200m in UK grants since 2016
Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company has received almost £200m in grants from the UK government since 2016, according to analysis.Tesla, which is run by the tech billionaire who has become increasingly vocal about the UK government, has received £191m from Westminster through grants, according to Tussell, which analyses public contract data.The bulk of the funds came from the Department for Transport (DfT), which has given the company £188m over that period.The transport funds related to the plug-in car grant, which was designed to encourage the uptake of EVs and plug-in hybrids. Introduced in 2011, the grant provided a discount towards the cost of new plug-in cars, initially at £5,000, until the scheme ended in June 2022
Meta scrapped factcheckers ‘because systems were too complex’
The co-chair of Meta’s oversight board said the company’s systems had become “too complex”, as the chief executive of Elon Musk’s X welcomed its decision to scrap factcheckers.Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the co-chair of the social media company’s oversight board and the former prime minister of Denmark, has said she and the departed president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, had agreed “Meta systems have been too complex”, adding that there had been “over-enforcement”.On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg made the surprise announcement that the Facebook owner would move away from using third-party checkers to flag misleading content in favour of notes from other users.The 40-year-old billionaire said that, starting in the US, Meta would “get rid of factcheckers and replace them with community notes similar to X”, as the company moves to prioritise free speech in the run-up to Donald Trump’s return to the White House.The move came only days after Clegg, Britain’s former deputy prime minister, left Meta after six years at the company, most recently in the role of president of global affairs
Peter Hain urges South Africa to protest Afghanistan game at Champions Trophy
The veteran anti-apartheid campaigner Peter Hain has called on Cricket South Africa to challenge the ban on women’s and girl’s cricket in Afghanistan. In a letter seen by the Guardian, Lord Hain urges the Cricket South Africa’s chief executive, Pholetsi Moseki, to take up the issue with the International Cricket Council before South Africa’s Champions Trophy match against Afghanistan in Karachi on 21 February.In a particularly striking passage, Hain draws a direct parallel of apartheid with the Taliban’s oppression of women’s rights in Afghanistan. “Having struggled long and hard for black and brown cricketers to represent their country like whites did exclusively for nearly a century, I hope that post-apartheid South African cricket will press for similar rights for all women in world cricket,” Hain tells Moseki. “Will South African cricket please raise the plight of Afghan women cricketers in the ICC and express firm solidarity with Afghan women and girls who wish to play?”Hain, who rose to prominence by challenging the South African rugby and cricket tours during the early 70s, reminds Moseki that female participation in sport has been outlawed since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021
The Spin | ‘Deep, minging, unpleasant’: cricket’s flooding problem is getting worse
ECB has been in touch with 27 clubs so far this storm season as the climate crisis bites. What can game do to stay afloat?The water started flowing into the New Road practice area at about 4pm on Monday afternoon, and just kept on rolling. It flooded the entire ground and half the car park, as well as the nearby racecourse, the rowing club and the public footpath – which is now a popular hang-out space for swans. The head groundsman, Stephen Manfield, a man of a remarkably perky disposition, sits on the balcony of the club’s sports bar watching the fourth flood of the season do its business, the water coming in from the burst banks of the Severn as well as round the back across the fields. For the benefit of Spin readers he pokes his measuring stick into the water – “four-and-a-half feet in the shallow end” – and still rising
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