Another Telegraph Sale Twist - And Are There Too Many Studios?

0:01Hello, welcome to the Media Club. I'm your host Matt Deegan. In the club today, the Mail agrees to buy the Telegraph, but can it afford it? And will the government wave it through? Privatised Adam McQueen, writer on the mag street of shame, tells us more. Also on the show, the budget offered no new tax credits for the film and TV industry, but at least there's another new studio being built. Kara Kochie, co-founder of post-production house Residence Pictures, explains what it means for the sector. All that, plus Michael Prescott faces MPs, as did various BBC execs. A lost Blackadder script goes on sale.

0:36And in the Audio Network Media Quiz, we connect three more underreported stories from the week. That's all coming up in this edition of the Media Club. Come on in. Hello, both. Cara, lovely to see you here for the first time. Thanks for having me. Adam and old lag. That's what we've had you before. A media entrepreneur. You were MD at 5050. Now founder at Residence. But first time here in the Media Club. You've got your membership sorted. Thanks very much. Who's your plus one? My plus one is actually Lorraine Hegesy, who, phenomenal business leader in our industry. First female controller of BBC One, obviously did a turn as CEO at Talkback Thames and is now most recently.

1:23She's been chair of the Grierson Trust and she announced her that she would be stepping down in June. But I was at the Grierson Awards last week and I wanted to bring her in because she's such an impressive business leader. But everything she's done in the documentary space, bringing in a whole raft of fresh talent with a real focus on diversity inclusion, I think she's got to be in the club. She's very, very welcome. And Adam, Private Eyes, hack of hacks. Lorraine Hagersey always sticks in my memory as the woman who had to tell Richard Bacon he was a very naughty boy. I didn't include that in my intro, funnily enough.

1:59She absolutely was. Richard has let himself down and all of you down. Very true. Anybody who has not let themselves down this week? Well, I will bring along, I'm not sure I definitely want to sit next to him at the Media Club, but Chris Evans, not the DJ, but the editor of the Daily Telegraph, who managed to wangle a firm commitment from Lord Rothermere that he will stay as a Daily Telegraph editor when and if the DMGT takeover of the Daily Telegraph goes through. So do you think that was just lucky because he wasn't very positive about the potential previous owners? Well, he was extraordinarily positive about the previous potential owners, Redbird Capital, right up to the point until they recruited Matthew Garrahan from the FT to a sort of unspecified senior editorial role, which did look very, very obviously like he was being lined up to take over as editor when they signed the deal.

2:51At which point, suddenly the Telegraph editorial team took violently against Redbird Capital and started running pieces about their links, not only still with the United Arab Emirates, with China as well, and the entire deal was sort of sabotaged from within and abandoned. Well, it would be fun to have in the club, especially after a drink, to find out exactly what happened there. Speaking of the Telegraph, more about that after the break.

3:19Welcome back to the Media Club. So will the Mail's bid for the Telegraph succeed? Adam, Telegraph and the Mail combined, that's quite a combination. It's a hell of a combination. It would be, by my count, four daily newspapers, two Sundays as well. But four daily newspapers is twice as many as Rupert Murdoch ever owned. And that was quite a big deal back in the day. What are those four? So those four would be, the dailies would be the Daily Mail, they would be the Daily Telegraph, the Metro, of course, the big free sheet, which is an enormous share of the market, and the iNewspaper as well, which is one that everyone always forgets.

3:51that the mail group bought from Johnson Press when they went bankrupt a few years ago. I mean, the mail were always sort of in there as a potential option, but sort of historically people have gone, oh, no, competition problems. They'll never be able to have it. But the way the government is at the moment, they might be quite pro. Well, I mean, the argument possibly in the government and in the Telegraph office and mail office, certainly in the private eye office, is that, for God's sake, let's just get this deal over with so we can all stop worrying about the Telegraph takeover, which seems to be going on since some point in the Paleolithic period now.

4:22But, yeah, I mean, the competition issue is a very different one to what it was when Rupert Murdoch ran into trouble with the Monopolies and Mergers Commissioners was back in the 80s because, you know, the newspaper market has fragmented. I mean, the share of printed newspapers is sort of almost irrelevant now. I mean, newspapers are not only largely online, but they're largely global businesses now. I mean, certainly in the case of Daily Mail, an enormous presence in America. And they've specifically said in their statement about it, DMGT said that they're looking to expand the Telegraph in America as well.

4:52That's where they very much see the market going. And that would seem to be a sensible thing because the Telegraph in recent years has gone very, very MAGA. So that would seem to be sort of sensible editorially. I mean, the real issue with this is more where is the money coming from? Because as you said, the Daily Mail were in the running early on in this stage. If you can cast your mind back to about three upsets in the sale ago. The problem was when Redbird IMI came in, which was the fund which was almost entirely backed by the United Arab Emirates government, the law was changed so that initially no state money would be allowed, sovereign wealth fund money would be allowed to take over British media organisations.

5:30At that point, Lord Arnold said he was out because he'd been having discussions about raising the money to buy the Telegraph at that point with various Middle Eastern governments. I think Qatar they were certainly talking to. I think probably some others as well. Now, however, he seems to be saying, well, he has specifically said in the statement about the New Deal, that there will be no money from any kind of foreign regimes or sovereign wealth funds involved at all. So the big question remains, where is the money coming from? Because they're paying full sale price as well. They appear to be offering the full 500 million, which was paid by Redbird IMI, which even The Telegraph itself has been agreeing in recent weeks is an overvaluation of the company.

6:10Would you spend half a billion quid on The Telegraph? I don't spend£3.99 on The Telegraph. No, that's an absolute lie. I've got a subscription to it. Of course I have. I have to read all the newspapers for my job on Street of Shame at Private Eye. It's an odd one. I mean, Maurice Sarchi, who was another person who was in the running and who actually looked to me as if he might be coming back into the running. He was given an op-ed in the Daily Star. I think the Sunday Trenograph a couple of weeks ago. Are they just backing all the potential owners that wouldn't be so bad for them? well i mean the daily mail are a very effective newspaper group i mean in in sort of um put if you take the politics out of it i mean they they they they are a good fit i think they would be very very good at it no um but it struck me um morrisacci was sort of given this op-ed which you know looked like a bit of an overture of kind of come in and be friendly he he absolutely refused to go above 350 million at that point he was talking about making a bid with um lynn Forrested Rothschild, who owns but is selling a very significant share in The Economist.

7:09So there was a sort of clue there that she might be, you know, that bid might be coming back. But that certainly wasn't going to go above 350 million. So the idea that Rothenberg is now just happy to shell out 500 million seems quite a surprise to me and to a lot of people. Cara, it's interesting. The Competition Commission issues historically a problem, seemingly less of a so. All markets are kind of changing. Who are your competitors? So it's different. It's not just very narrowly focused anymore, is it? No, I mean, I found in terms of the competition thing, and obviously print isn't my background, but I found it quite interesting that an article I read at some point this week was highlighting, and you sort of, you know, were hinting earlier, but were highlighting that the way we consume media or our press, our print press, our news has completely changed.

8:00And because of that, where they have obviously got, you know, if this deal goes through, and I'm interested to think what your opinion is and whether it would. But if this deal goes through, they'll have a significant share of, you know, daily news. But we read our news in so many different ways now. I mean, I am still a bit of a, you know, I'll die hard for the Guardian every day. But, you know, huge communities, especially younger communities, are reading their news on social media platforms. And it's a real global digital entity, like the digitization of news. So I find that in terms of competition, yes, there's a significant share of the press, like the daily news, as we sort of formally knew it.

8:37But actually, when you think about, I mean, Meta must own a significant share of our news intake every day, and as does X and TikTok probably. And, you know, I find that fairly horrific. But that's quite an interesting take on it in terms of competition. Who is it about advertising competition within print? print because didn't don't the daily mail do the telegraphs advertising they do indeed as well and i think i'm right in saying the daily telegraph do the mails printing so there are already sort of synergies already going on within there i mean if i was in the sort of backroom departments at either of those newspaper groups i would be sort of looking quite nervously to uh to my job at the moment um because you know there's there's obvious uh synergies they call them don't they but which usually means i'm a load of you're going to lose your jobs uh i mean saying that an enormous number of people on the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday lost their jobs just at the beginning of this year when those two newspapers and the Mail Online were kind of shoved together in a slightly unlikely...

9:33I mean, the Mail is an investor. It is an investor. It's not a super cost cutter. I mean, there's tidying up the business and it went private, didn't it, in the last 18 months or so. It did, yeah. Rothermere now owns it outright. And it's not just a newspaper business at all. It has an enormous events wing, but that's where a lot of their links are actually in the Middle East and all over the place. And in terms of the financing, I mean, it's very, very hard to kind of unravel because it's all controlled through these various different entities known as sort of Rothermere Continuation and various permutations of that name, which are all based offshore, so Jersey and Guernsey mostly.

10:09And then I think some of it flows through the Cayman Islands. But our Richard Brooks at Private Eye, who was a kind of genius at unraveling balance sheets, had a go at this. And he noticed a transaction recently where one part of the sort of Guernsey-based entity was sold to another for around 900 million. Don't know any more than that, but it looks like the money is certainly being shuffled around. Whether they would want to go into a bid outright, I think is still interesting. I think we're going to see some other kind of possible partners in it emerging. And I do know as well that there are concerns being brought up by it elsewhere.

10:39So I think Standard & Poor, the credit agency, have already raised some concerns about the Daily Mail's possible future profitability and safety if they go through with a deal on this sort of scale. Well, having it as a private entity makes it much easier to hide behind some of these cash exchanges. Yes, and also you don't have any shareholders who are going to kick up a fuss about it and you've got to prove the worth of it too. Well, speaking of money, it was the budget this week. Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced nothing new for the sector, despite a concerted campaign for improved tax credits for film and high-end TV.

11:15Cara lots of people are asking for things they haven't changed much but there doesn't seem to be anything new no there certainly isn't anything new they haven't taken anything away but there isn't anything new and I'm not that surprised by that I think obviously I mean I don't know but I would think that the government would say they've done a bit of a solid in their April budget where they increase certainly the visual effects tax incentive that we've got in the UK and they have also maintained rates of relief for studios. So, you know, they have, and we do have, you know, a high-end TV tax relief and we have an independent film tax relief.

12:00And it's a lot of money here. It's up to billions of pounds. Yeah, exactly. For a sector that obviously generates billions of pounds and the idea is that, you know, we're trying to generate, you know, a stronger sector here and bring more business in from abroad and within our own shores. So in our industry, there was quite a bit of disappointment in yesterday's budget. I mean, the BFC, British Film Commission, put out a statement on LinkedIn and they seemed quite happy. I haven't seen that many positive takes, but they were quite happy in the fact that at least the studio rates relief has remained as it is.

12:35but there has been you know a call from prominent leaders in our industry asking you know lobbying the government for an increase to the HETV tax relief Jane Featherstone who's a really well known figure runs a production company called Sister Pictures she does they do amazing work Black Doves the Split I'm obviously just missing loads of her significant credits but she's very well known in the industry successful businesswoman and you know she was quite vociferous in trying to make her case known um for on behalf of the industry uh and that hasn't materialized in the budget and uh there's a bit of an argument about uh it covering a broader selection of types of television yeah because as i think it's got more expensive actually even kind of comedy and things like that yeah and maybe something that should be considered yeah i was doing a i had a conversation with a leader in a production house on who sort of makes entertainment and factual tv which absolutely isn't included in any of the tax incentives and and they're very obviously very keen for for that to be recognized because they're a significant um part of our industry obviously and quite exportable as well formats and absolutely yeah yeah exactly and obviously you know the globalization of the tv industry our content goes around the world and and the uk you know outside hollywood and there's not much going in hollywood at the moment but you know we are the leading film and TV hub in the world, you know.

14:02And so in terms of the talent we've got here, the infrastructure, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, we're right up there. So it is disappointing. It's a very difficult market at the moment. And, you know, there are companies that are struggling, there are freelancers that are struggling, you know, they're all asking for support from the government. So yeah, there's disappointment for sure. I mean, you do VFX at your GAF. How important And is the tax credit for keeping that work in the UK? When the VFX uplift came in April and you were allowed to, if you were shooting, you know, from January, you were allowed to start claiming for that, obviously after April, but you were allowed to include it in your budget.

14:43So that was a really positive step. But, you know, it took a lot of lobbying from industry bodies to get that over the line for a long period of time. And, you know, the Labour government, when they came in in July last year, were, you know, they were quite vocal about the size of our industry and how they see that as worth investing in. So I think that's why there's quite one of the reasons there's quite a bit of disappointment. But in terms of visual effects, yeah, I mean, for my business, our business, we we are constantly talking to clients, you know, within the UK and beyond about the benefits of finishing your projects.

15:21using the visual effects tax incentive in the UK. But there is an education process to go through. I mean, obviously it's out there, but we're trying to tell people, did you know that if you did this, you can get this much back? So you're looking at, in some ways, 30 % back really after tax. So that's got a significant saving. They also removed, there used to be an 80 % cap, but that's been removed now. So, you know, it should lead to a stronger sector. It should lead to, you know, obviously a bigger spend. I think it's too early to tell because, you know, it's only just happened, really. I mean, you could look at the stats of how many of our, you know, well-known visual effects houses that have had a very difficult time this year.

16:09Some have not have closed their doors. and so but that's not necessarily down to tax incentives the whole whole the whole culture of our industry is you know it's it's changing it's transforming there are there are just generally less of those sort of high uh very shows with a big visual effects count you know and that they just don't get commissioned as much as they did and you know that's just the way it is currently adam no mention the bbc uh in the budget sort of would have been some options around the world service and that sort of funding uh nobody in government's keen to grasp that third rail of talking about the bbc they've kind of crept back in with the world service haven't they because it was george osborne that said the bbc had to fund them out right and they've successive governments have kind of put put back in a lot of the funding which came from the front of the foreign office for the world service but it's not something they ever happen they ever want to boast about is it i think the fear is the kind of the way that will get um greeted by particularly the right-wing press who never like any money going to the bbc or anything going to the bbc at all and and the idea of you know it can very easily be presented as why are we funding tv and radio for foreign people rather than our own uh stuff which of course they're not really keen on either but um uh very aligned very aligned vision um okay just before the break uh bbc board members faced mps on the culture media and sports select committee this week uh adam it's first time we'd heard from michael prescott a person who in my mind has emerged from nowhere but was has been a journalist Mine too.

17:33Quite a long time ago. Well, he's consistently introducing all the coverage of this whole fallout of the Trump speech and the Prescott dossier and the resignations as former Sunday Times political editor. And you think, well, there's former and there's former, isn't there? It was 25 years ago. And he's been working in kind of corporate PR and communications ever since then, hasn't he? So that kind of thing, what he's been doing and what clients he's been representing since then, I would suggest might be slightly more significant to where he's at now than what he was doing at the Sunday Times 25 years ago.

18:00He didn't really sort of slag off the BBC as much as everyone expected. No, it felt like they were all piling in to say how much they loved the BBC and how wonderful they thought it was. Do you think they were slightly aligned in their views before they went into the room? I think they might have had a word or so. Well, I mean, they were lucky in that Samir Shah, the BBC chairman, there was a famous incident when he'd faced down staff at the BBC and said, you are not to criticise other board members, specifically Robbie Gibb, who people were complaining about at that point, who's seen as this sort of Tory stooge by a lot of staff on the BBC and a lot of people outside of the BBC as well, for quite good reasons.

18:33The kind of long view on this, because I've been around a while, is I think the mistake the BBC made was a long way back. Do you remember when James Purnell resigned from Gordon Brown's cabinet, kind of expecting everyone else to resign along with him and bring down Gordon Brown? It just didn't happen because Labour are rubbish at coups. But he then went and got a job at the BBC, which really, really put Tory backs up at that point, because giving a Labour cabinet minister pretty much directly, getting them in to a senior creative role at the BBC. And then he was doing radio and audio. Yeah, he was sort of next level down from director general.

19:05And I remember talking to people at the BBC at that point who were flabbergasted, not because he wasn't good at his job, but they just said, just get a Tory in as well. Just show that you're in balance. And I think then there's been sort of reaction by the Tories and specifically by Boris Johnson, who kind of, in a Boris Johnson-y way, just wanted to make mischief everywhere. You know, he was trying to make Paul Dacre the head of Ofcom. He was trying to make Charles Moore the chairman of the BBC at one point, wasn't he? But he just thought, shove Robbie Gibb in there. And they felt justified in doing that because, you know, having James Pinnell in a senior role had previously been seen as being, you know, a big skew to the left.

19:36So I don't know. My idea might be to take all ex-politicians out of it. Would there be some journalists in there as well? Just a thought. There's a lot of discussion about whether there should be a deputy director general, perhaps with more of a news head role, which used to exist at the BBC. Well, it existed. We had Mark Byford, didn't we, who everyone complained about and said was no good at all. and we didn't need a deputy director general, which is sort of why we haven't had one ever since. Also, it fell into the sort of saving money, sort of generic saving money that doesn't really save money, but it sounds like you're going to save some money.

20:06Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he was paid an awful lot of money, certainly. I mean, this excuse about people at the top of the BBC not necessarily knowing about news, I always find a bit nonsensical, because you remember when Peter Fuhrman had to resign over that edited documentary of The Queen, where he, you know, it showed, it was Studio Lambert, wasn't it? Walking out the direction. Supposedly showed her storming out when actually she was coming in, possibly not in the best of moods to a photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz. But one of the excuses there was that the, I can't even remember which, yeah, it was, we didn't lose a director general, we lost so many director generals, it was just the head of BBC One who went there.

20:39And one of the excuses there was, well, you know, he doesn't have a news background. It's like, well, I mean, to be honest, a sort of 21-year-old turning up for their first week's work experience of Private Eye, I would expect to be able to spot that the Queen's storming out of a photo shoot when she's never done anything like that before over 60 years of her reign might be a little bit of a news story. You don't need that much training to spot things like that. And, you know, equally, you know, you don't need that much news training to know how Trump and his followers would react to a misleading edit of his speech.

21:10I mean, Cara, you're not in the news biz, but we're all affected by the BBC. And we talked about money there being, you know, a challenge for TV productions. Kind of anything that's unsettling drags us all in, doesn't it, somehow? I was thinking earlier this week, I was thinking, God, wouldn't it be nice if they could move out of defence mode? I just feel it's like the old sporting analogy. I mean, when I used to play sport, the coach would say, just don't defend the whole time. Otherwise, you don't get to, you know, deliver your game plan. And it's this I was thinking about it and I was thinking, yeah, I mean, we don't we hear.

21:41I mean, inside the industry, obviously, which is where I am, you know, there's a huge support for BBC's huge love. Nobody. I mean, it shouldn't even be questioned whether it should stay or go. But everybody, you know, wants to do their best to support this amazing institution that we have that delivers such a varied raft of content, you know, obviously from news. And I know the Trump story aside and maybe some other previous scandal, but the integrity of their journalism is there. But, you know, from the live sports and the live music and the kids TV and the programming set up for different communities and different languages and all of it, you know, that has to be protected.

22:19but yeah I would really like them to find themselves in a bit like to sort all this mess out and you know I don't know I'm not inside the BBC of course I don't know but I just think with any business sort out the leadership team sort out that board give that that main structure and so everyone can go okay we're solid aren't we because these guys know they're together they're joined up they know what they're doing we've got a new leader if it makes business sense bring in a deputy I mean to me it makes absolute sense but you know the DG is like the CEO effectively they don't need to know absolutely everything they don't necessarily need to be a journalist but they need to understand every little aspect of that business in order for it to run effectively and I think at the moment that core is just like dishevelled I mean and you can feel that infighting Adam can the BBC ever get on offence?

23:07They never seem to I know what you mean about the defensive thing but they don't even seem to want to kind of showcase and show off about the things that they do and no one else does They always kind of feel like, you know, they've got to be justifying themselves against Netflix. And I would think the way to do that is to say, well, look at us. We're the BBC. We're giving you an exemplary news service most of the time. Really, really good kind of rolling news and bulletin stuff and trusted brands like Panorama and all the current affairs stuff. A local radio network, which is something that no one else is going to offer or have the ability to do.

23:38And yet that that's one of the things that constantly is being slashed back. and that they seem to want to pull money out of rather than put money into. The support for the rest of the cultural areas, through the proms and through Radio 3 and all the orchestras and things like that, these are the things that no one else out there commercially is going to be doing. And they're the sort of things that people value. And you could sell yourself. And if, I mean, I think inevitably we are going to see the end of a license fee. But if you're going to go into the subscription market, I think you say, that's what we're selling.

24:04That's what no one else has. And people will appreciate that. But is the issue, these are the people that you cover week in, week out. It's very well organized. The people in other news organizations, one, sometimes there's a political bent and a desire to do something. But also, you know, a smaller BBC News website is excellent news for the people who charge access to their own websites. And they are never going to be able to face down the scale of that activity that's coming from that direction. No, I mean, that is the difficulty. When your opponents in the market are the people who have the most ability to speak out against you and run stories about you, then that's not a very happy position to be in, is it?

24:44I think just going back to your list of what makes the BBC so brilliantly unique and trying to sort of, you know, compare themselves to Netflix, whether they do or not. But iPlayer is one of the best performing streaming services in the world. I mean, and that's significant for where we are today in the way that we consume content. And, you know, there isn't really anything like there is not anything, an institution like the BBC in the world. And I think one of the reasons why it comes under fire so much is because the taxpayer and funding that it receives, everybody feels like they have a part of it.

25:18So when one thing goes wrong, when one piece of, and don't get me wrong, there has been a phenomenal amount of scandal coming out of that institution. And, you know, I think people feel like that's, that's, that we get to have a, we get to have a go at that, don't we? Because that's ours. And actually, it's a much loved institution that we should protect. OK, when we return, some big news about some new studios. I'll see you in a sec.

26:05So what's the best way to keep your feed and your socials active while you work on your next series? To find out what we think, head to podcastdiscovery.com. That's podcastdiscovery.com. If you don't want to face a barrage of MPs discussing the quality of your video podcast, maybe you should head to Podshop Studios where we record the Media Club. They've just opened four super stylish studios in Shoreditch. Each one has its own distinct look and feel. This week, we're back in their sort of Instagram-friendly lounge, one of two identical sets you can hire. They're all professionally designed and fully equipped for broadcast-quality video recording.

26:46Check out the whole range at podshoponline.co.uk. And they're offering Media Club listeners 25 % off their first booking if you use the code MEDIACLUB, better than any Pack Friday offer. That's mediaclub at podshoponline.co.uk. Welcome back. Here's a few other stories we've been talking about in the club this week. And it's congratulations to all the winners at the Audio Production Awards, the APAs, particularly to Crossed Wires Festival, who picked up a special trophy for championing the industry. And the publisher of the year was Fix Radio, a radio station for builders featuring the bold builders breakfast show from 6 a.m.

27:23or obviously just when they turn up. just for the budget on Wednesday the James Cameron backed Marlowe Film Studios project was approved by the government, 18 sound stages will now be built in Buckinghamshire at a cost of£750 million 18 months after the original proposal was denied and Richard Curtis has revealed that there's a long lost Blackadder script and that you can read it provided you stump up the cash, the Christmas special was never filmed and the auction which stands at the time of recording is at 4k and you can donate or try and bid for it until the 1st of December. Links to the bid and all of our stories are available on our weekly sub stack.

28:02It is free to sign up at themediaclub.com and you also get a copy of Briefed, our Monday morning email with a review of all of the other media podcasts. Yes, apparently there are some and what they've been talking about both in the UK, US and also Australia too. Head up and sign up for free at themediaclub.com. That's themediaclub.com. Cara and Adam are still with me. Cara, there's been quite a few studios sort of popping up around the UK. Also, there's the James Corden Fulwell one in Sunderland that's been talked about, Versa in Leeds, maybe one opening in Stirling as well. Is that good news for the UK?

28:40Yes. Isn't it wonderful that the investment in our industry and in our community, that's got to be seen as positive? I think that in terms of studios, there's, like you've just said, there have been many, I mean, even since post-COVID and particularly in the southeast. I mean, I know the central one is... Yeah, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, a lot popping up around that area. Yeah, I mean, Shinfield Studios in Reading. There's the Wharf in Dagenham, Sky Elstree, just across the road from original Elstree. And obviously you've got, you know, the fantastic Elstree Studios, 100 years old this year.

29:13You've got Pinewood, which is obviously, and they're expanding, Shepparton, they're expanding. There's a lot, you know, and I'm missing names off this list. I mean, Three Males is obviously one of our longstanding players. And so, yeah, I mean, it's interesting that another one has, I mean, it was, it didn't go through, it's gone through on appeal, hasn't it? Yeah, so there's a lot of a nimby reaction to it, but it's sort of the government have a sort of more of a view now that Greenbelt is OK to build on if it's for kind of growth of the country. And that's why they sort of gave it the tick. Yeah, I mean, and so I did have a bugbear about this a while ago, which was it's all very well building these studios.

29:57And I think that's, you know, from from an investment perspective, I think that's a really positive news story. what I have struggled with previously is where are you getting the trained crew from you know the crew that work in these studios they have it's a niche trade you have to be skilled yeah I know the Sunderland operation is sort of I think phase one sort of started but they're having trouble funding phase two and there's a bit of a discussion about are there enough people and skilled people in that area and I think that in some ways previously it's been sort of robbing Peter to play pool it's like well it's fine And I'm going to get my crew from here.

30:32And then but then those where they're going to get, you know, it's like what you've really in my opinion. And I've got a big bugbear about training. You've got to build a sustainable future. And what I did find quite interesting on the Marlow Studios deal is that they are, you know, front and central on their Web page. And I really hope they stand by this. And I'm sure that's part of the reason it got through is that this is meant to be a campus and they're meant to be training the future of that part of the industry. And I think that's phenomenally important because, you know, we do have this, like I've talked about already, you know, this amazing creative hub in this country.

31:08But, you know, parts of our industry, you know, they might be, we have to train the next generation is what I'm trying to say. And that has to be diverse. It has to be inclusive. We have to search far and wide for our talent and uncover fresh talent from areas, you know, who might think, perceive our industry as being close to them. It's not. We're very much open for business and we have to train the next generation to continue to have our really prime position in the global market. We were up in Salford last week and they've obviously built that over time with a lot of different organisations in the same place.

31:41That's actually helped them establish themselves. Yeah, I think what they've done is create a destination. And that's what needs to happen, I think, with Molo. And it feels like that's what they're trying to create, just looking at some of the media that's gone out about them. but Manchester Salford is a really good case study and I quote this all the time you know that is an amazing hub now and recognised as you know a leading hub in our industry in terms of film and TV production you know for live, for scripted, for all kinds of genres similar's happened in Cardiff as well hasn't it? Cardiff, yeah Glasgow you know but they all take 15 to 20 years to make that community to make that sustainable industry So you're not just shipping talent up from the southeast.

32:27You're actually training and creating an amazing hub in that area. And that's what they've done in Salford brilliantly well and in Cardiff and in Bristol. And, you know, but you've got to start, you've got to be real with ourselves. like brilliant that you're investing brilliant that you know you've clearly got a heads up on the pipeline coming into this country and it seems like if you've played your cards right there should be a significant amount of tv production work coming brilliant but yeah you've got to be real with yourself this is going to be a long process these people aren't just going to pop up and you know we can't cut corners with that because that's what gives us our our position in global film and creation I guess.

33:08So Cara talk to me about residence talk to me about your place um so working on some I was looking at the website working on some great shows recently. Thank you yeah so residence pictures we are I'm in post-production I've been in post-production for for 20 plus years um and for anyone sort of listening or watching who might not be in the industry post-production is literally as it says on the tin the the stage of production after production so where someone might go out and film something they'll come to studios like ours and they'll get it edited and they'll color grade and they do visual effects and the sound mix and it's that polished bit to get that piece of content to air.

33:47Residence Pictures we launched in 2022 and we only do the final piece of the puzzle so we do the picture finishing so we do color grading visual effects online which is the sort of cleanup and making sure everything's polished and you know technically and legally sound, and we'll deliver it to streamers and broadcasters. That's what we do. When you're doing colouring, obviously it's got a, the amount of work, does the amount of work depend on how it's been made? I mean, it can do. Yeah, I mean, so. Do you get some things like, oh, this is a big job versus others going, oh, they've set us up to do this really easily?

34:23Yeah, I mean, colour grading is a significant part of storytelling. You know, it really supports the narrative. And, you know, if you're watching TV at home or film and you're not in the industry, you shouldn't know that we've graded it in this way. But you should be feeling that we've graded something to make you react to the content in some way. It's one of those things that you notice when it's not there. Yeah, absolutely. It's a bit shoddy. You can't necessarily say why. Yeah, exactly. Obviously, it doesn't come out of residence pictures. But, yeah, no. So we work really strictly in scripted episodics and features.

34:57And we do a little bit in feature docs as well. So we set our business up in reaction to how this industry is changing in reaction to the fact that the streamers arrived 10 years ago. And that really created a more complex delivery that we have to make in technical terms. So our business was set up to kind of go, OK, we can see this is happening. And actually, what you need is a specialist pair of hands to deliver extremely high production values, which we all expect now, everything we watch. So we deliver that efficiently, economically. but to make sure it's still got that really beautiful filmic feel and deliver the vision of the creators, which is our clients, the production company.

35:37And we've recently worked on a lot of shows this year but one show we did which came out earlier this year, Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue, it went on Amazon and BBC and that really encapsulates what we do. You know, the production arrived and we use amazing, our team are amazing. And we had the color grade on that really delivered a sort of premium feature sort of film feeling. But we stepped up and had to deliver, you know, over 800 visual effects shots in that series, you know, sort of creating a jungle sort of feel for the context of the show. and it was you know but you know making sure that the client we could deliver it efficiently because we're now working with such you know compressed budgets and how are we going to make that work but still you know deliver something that looks premium.

36:29Also especially if you're delivering if someone's making something for Netflix they're often not going to see much any any back end from that since they've got to make all their money up front. So saving money and doing things more efficiently is pretty essential to that model. It is absolutely essential for any model you know we work with you know public service broadcasters in the uk and and beyond we work with streamers you know we work on feature films and all of them come with a different um complex almost that house of cards funding model now and it's and you know you have to make sure that what you're delivering can fit within that model and it's and it is efficient and no one is being punished because you know uh of you know legacy technology or legacy people or just legacy thinking that our business is very progressive.

37:16It's quite new. It's four years old. So we've set it up very much with a forward thinking mindset. And that is ultimately to deliver, you know, for clients that need, you know, that specialist craft feeling, but they need to get that show out efficiently and effectively and looking great. Adam, Private Eye continues. That's a low bar, isn't it? Still here. but the podcast which you've been a part of for quite a long time has now gone fully visualised it has you've joined us in your own version of this lovely studio yes yes page 94 the Private Eye podcast myself Ian Hislop who people may be aware of Helen Lewis and Andrew Hunt-Murray my colleagues and various other of the hacks at Private Eye pop in and out as well so it's fortnightly yes and we have taken the jump this is something I didn't know I wasn't really interesting because we were talking about making TV look as good as people expect it to.

38:10I find it extraordinary that also there has been this move to visual podcasts now, which, I mean, we are in a fantastic studio and no doubt we look absolutely amazing, but people are prepared to accept a sort of lower quality, lower tech kind of finish on those kind of things. People are watching on YouTube, people are watching podcasts on YouTube on their tellies as well and are quite sort of happy to accept that slightly lower. I think it's all merging into one. I think the more specialists you get, the more forgiving people are but the more the broader you are about something or the kind of more entertainment you are i think there is probably a better higher expectation uh for for what to deliver um i mean we don't have to to to grade this yet uh but suddenly if if everybody else is you can see this this demand to move that way i think it's horses for courses though isn't it i mean sort of genre wise i know the visual podcast is relatively new but it's it's essentially you know we're in a studio it's a studio show isn't it and so we've never really you might give it a one pass to make sure that your expensive presenter looks great um but really i mean you didn't you wouldn't put that through a post-production process but certainly when it comes to features and dramas and and feature docs which have you know much higher production standard than they ever have before and that's from you know our friends coming over from the u.s you know 10-15 years ago and starting to we started to sort of see their content on our screens and it just changed the game so I think with things like this you wouldn't really expect to have a filmic colour grade on us right now, I mean I can totally sort you out but I don't think we weren't expecting you.

39:45Always pitch in. I think we should get them. I can make some calls. I think that Mexican style colour grade would make us look really good, really pretty. Do you know what the biggest mystery for me is? Who made the decision that all podcasts have to be filmed in 1960s living rooms it's g plan furniture is the is the visual language of course adam at pod shop studios there's a whole range of studios that people can book and if they're media club viewers they get 25 percent of their first booking is it like the crystal maze could we be in like the aztec yes that's very true you mentioned uh in his lot uh earlier then and he appears on on the podcast as well uh do sales or sales in the mag or views gone up when he's on Have I Got News For You and it's in series?

40:29It's very hard to kind of follow that through in the same way that it's quite hard to see. People may be surprised to know this, but we do have a social media presence now with Private Eye as well. Because you were quite digital rejecters for quite a long time. Well, we never put our stuff online. We never became our own competitors, which is why the print sales have held up. I mean, there's still sort of 235 ,000 or something at Fortnite, which is the sort of thing that a lot of newspapers these days dream of. That's so interesting. You never became your own competitors. yeah I'd never thought of it like that yeah of course we also I mean what is very useful is that we have an army of readers who are very good at doing our kind of social media presence for us as well and they put up things particularly what works really really well on social media is the little number crunching boxes which are done by my colleague Louis Mian mostly so give a shout out for Louis there but they you know quite often people will take a snippet just literally photograph it on their phone and put it up and you get a lot of kind of traction from that but just as it's very very difficult to translate that back into how much of that turns into people going to the news agents buying a copy of that week's magazine or into subscriptions.

41:26You can't really quantify, you know, whether Ian's on how I can do it. It must have an effect. It absolutely must do. I mean, although I would say he's not introduced as the editor of Private Eye, and I don't think he's been since about series one in 1992. So people either know that or they don't. I mean, for an awful lot of people, he's just that bloke who's on the telly and is quite funny on Friday night. And has done it sort of forever. It really is quite a long time now. Over this long period of time, you're talking about how long you've been at Private Eye. Has coverage of the media changed or has your covering of the media changed?

41:58We find ourselves doing a lot more correcting the media because I think a lot of newspapers have fewer resources and have become more sort of politically partisan in the meantime. So there's more of an element of that. It used to be a lot of sort of gossip from behind the scenes. We still do an element of that. But how much most readers who are outside the industry are interested in whether or not what the night editor of the Daily Star said to the down table sub after he came back from the pub last week. I'm not entirely certain. So there's a bit less of that. Are the press better behaved? Oh, God, no.

42:33Well, yes, I mean, on a kind of larger level, I mean, the really bad practices and phone hacking and unlawful information gathering and things are pretty much a thing of the past now, partly because of the Leveson inquiry and changes to the law and changes to public issues, partly because there's just no money anymore. I mean, no one can afford to hire private detectives to do any of this kind of stuff these days. But the other thing that I think is really interesting is most of the other, a lot of the rest of the media has abandoned looking at the media. And apart from your good selves, I mean, there used to be the Media Guardian on Mondays, which used to be an enormous supplement, which is down to the advertising going online, that disappeared.

43:11The Telegraph used to have a superb media diary, really, really good. And then that was binned by the Barkley brothers who weren't very keen on people writing about press proprietors. But there was sort of an immerta that the press doesn't really cover the press. I know, it's fantastic. It gives me three pages to fill every week without competition. I don't mind giving the BBC a kick in, but they don't want to mention each other's owners. Yeah, I mean, that was, of course, broken. Except maybe their own owners. Yes, very close. That was, of course, broken, you know, famously by when The Guardian went after the News of the World.

43:40And that was, but there were, I mean, at that point, there was a, we described it in private, as a Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that Alan Rusbridger had made with, I can't even remember which editor of The Telegraph it was at that point, that was like, you're not going after us. Not that I'm saying The Telegraph will guilty of any of the things that the news of the world will be guilty of at the time. But there is, you know, there is an unwillingness to put too much scrutiny on your counterparts, lest it fall on you in the other direction. You don't care, though. We're not very worried about that. OK, just enough time for the Audio Network Media Quiz.

44:14So three media stories connected by one theme and then shoehorned into a format of an existing media property. This week, it's called Just Connect. Yes, I'm Victoria Corrin-Mitchell. I'll give you three words. All you need to do is find the media story that connects them. And once again, Alex at Audio Network has taken that shamelessly plagiarized brief from producer Matt Hill and created a playlist of music to score today's game. It's the best of three. So buzz in with your names if you know the story. So Adam, you will say. Adam. And Cara, you will say. Cara. Let's play Just Connect. Okay, here are the words.

44:56Paramount Skydance. Donald Trump. Cara. Yes, Cara. Is it the Donald Trump calling his mates to get Rush Hour 4 over the line? Yes. The third word is going to be Jackie Chan. Yeah. A green light rush hour for is apparently the work of President Trump who intervened to make it happen. Was it happening already and it's just going to get a cinematic release? Well, I read that it had been sort of knocking around Hollywood for a fair number of years and they couldn't get it off the ground for various reasons. And I think for some reason Donald Trump must have taken it upon himself to call his mate at Paramount.

45:36and they're in quite good favour with each other now. If you can't get sequenced your favourite films made, then what is it for? Is this what America voted for, Adam? Do you know what his favourite film actually is? He's on record as saying, Sunset Boulevard. Really? Yes. He's the campiest man in the world. He genuinely is, Donald Trump. So, personally, we could be getting Sunset Boulevard too. He might put the order out. You can't imagine Keir Starmer ringing someone up and saying, I would like this film made. God, I'm trying to think what film Keir Starmer would want, Escape to Victory 2 or something.

46:06Okay, here's connection number two. What links? The Daily Express, Douglas Adams, and Dale Vince. Oh, I don't know too much about it. Excuse me? Oh, Cara. Cara, yes. Gosh. How do we know who you are? Cara. I don't know too much about it, but it's this Vince Dale. What's his name? Vince Dale. Dale Vince. Dale Vince. The guy with two first names. He is a prominent, he's a business entrepreneur and he's very big in the sort of environmentalist world. Ecotricity. He's launching an eco paper or something. Is it something? Yeah, so ecotricity owner, he's teamed up with former Express editor Gary Jones to launch Babblefish, a quarterly magazine about green issues.

46:56Babblefish being Douglas Adams' reference. Babblefish. Babblefish, yes. From Hitchhikers. Do you think it would be a success? He'll have a market out there for it, certainly. It'll be hate read by a lot of people as well who will want to pick up on. He's a seller, bizarrely, for the Daily Telegraph. Anything they write about Del Vince gets a lot of kind of hate views. And they even commissioned him to write a column quite recently, which I was so intrigued by that we got in contact to say, is this part of a, because he was suing them at one point, I said, is this part of a settlement or something?

47:29He said, no, no, they just asked me to do it because it gets them page views. Wow. So potentially, yes. Okay, one more to go. Connect these things. Stranger Things, music request shows, and Global. Oh, come on, Adam. Adam. Yes. They're doing a pop-up radio station or something to publicize the new series of Stranger Things? They are. So Global have launched WSQK The Squawk, which is a Stranger Things pop-up radio station. In the TV show, in the new series, The Squawk is a radio station. What's the WSQK stuff? Well, WSQK is like a call sign. So WSQWALK. Right. But yeah, they've sort of taken something from the show and they've created a radio station for it.

48:17What's amazing is the Anoraks, who hate everything Global does because it's capital and it's heart and it's all those radio stations. They don't have anything good to say. They're all incredibly positive about this because it's like a very old-sounding 80s radio station. It's what they would all like to return. But it just shows, doesn't it, that if you kind of come up with a creative idea and a creative concept, it can really cut through with listeners or viewers. I thought it was really interesting. I'm actually not really into Stranger Things. I've obviously got a phenomenal audience and has done extremely well.

48:48But I'm actually really into the idea of this radio station. They just play 80s music all day long, apparently. Did you remember Grand Theft Auto, Vice City, which was set in the 80s? They had, I think, five separate fake radio stations with people like Debbie Harry being the DJs. I think might have done one of them. We've got the box set at home. It's fantastic music. What a time. It's just brilliant. Well, congratulations to Cara. Beginners of luck, obviously, for the quiz. Very much so. And as your prize, you get to go off and work out what pop-up radio station we can reinterpret the media club is.

49:21You can come back and tell us all about that. Also, thanks again to Alex at Audio Network for supplying today's music, something that she and they can do for you as well. just head to audionetwork.com. Right, that's about it. Adam, how can people keep up with your good work? You can buy Private Eye and all good news agents. You can take out a subscription, which is just ridiculously well-priced. And also, of course, there's the Private Eye Annual, which is the solution to all of your gift-buying needs this Christmas. Available in all good bookshops and some bad ones too. Yes. And Cara, how can people keep up with your projects?

49:57well we I mean most of our projects are on streamers and uh and broadcasters I mean always go into our website residents.pics um p-i-c-s uh but yeah you can catch some of our work on uh BBC Film Club at the moment Amy Lou Wood's new show Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue we worked on Steve for Netflix um I'm missing dozens of shows here but they're the first three that come into my head check out I've got Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue on my uh watch list at the moment. Have you? I'm going to go home and watch it tonight. Watch it tonight. It's an excellent whodunit. And I will take particular note of the colour grading.

50:31Please do. Please do and feedback. And thanks to you for watching and listening as well. My name is Matt Deegan. The producer is Matt Hill. It was a Rethink Audio production with visual support from Podcast Discovery. We'll see you next week.

50:52So Retrospectors brought historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of Today in History. On Monday, the anniversary of the treason scandal that divided France. On Tuesday, we explain how America fell in love with ice rinks. On Wednesday, they didn't come from Harlem and they didn't travel the world, but the Harlem Globetrotters still broke the mould. On Thursday, Britain's first black member of parliament, who was surprisingly pro-slavery. And on Friday, long before the national mourning for Princess Diana, the nation stopped for Lord Nelson's funeral. That's Today in History with the Retrospectors.

51:2310 minutes each weekday wherever you get your podcasts.