Apple Podcasts Pivots To Video, 1% Club Goes Global

0:01Hello, welcome to the Media Club, I'm Matt Deegan. On the club today, Apple announces a pivot to video podcasts, but has the cavalry arrived fashionably late? Jamie East, head of the Daily Mail's podcast strategy, explains what it means for creators. Also on the show, Sky still wants ITV, but does the deal have legs? Broadcast senior reporter Heather Fallon has been following every twist. All that, plus the 1 % club is quietly taking over the world. All the gossip from the Broadcast Awards and in the Audio Network Media Quiz, we seize territory in the media landscape. That's all happening in this edition of the Media Club.

0:38Come on in. Hello both. Hi. Hello. Lovely to have you both here. Join me once again are two club members to discuss the week's news. Heather Fallon tracks the deals, the drama and occasionally the disasters of the TV industry. Heather, who'd you like to honour with a membership this week? so I thought we should invite Mackenzie Crook back in I think he might have already been shouted out before um so I've been watching his new comedy small profits and I feel like it's a real word of mouth hit I mean it did quite well overnight you know I think we traded it got like 1 million which is pretty good for a comedy but I've noticed every time that we've been logging in doing the kind of video on demand ratings it's right at the top which you never really see you know the BBC up there you know it's normally Netflix or Amazon or what have you it's been doing so well and I think it's just so nice to see a comedy getting those kind of numbers in its first couple of weeks and also um it's just such a lovely show it's really warm and it's it's just I like I like seeing comedy do well so I want to applaud Mackenzie Crook my dad's told me that I should watch it this week that was his advice it's really good comedy gets slagged off so badly by the internet and everywhere it's really hard to establish a comedy show well it's so subjective isn't it you know another man's meat is another man's poison isn't it but i think what i liked about it just if you go in there not knowing what is coming i think episode two maybe all of a sudden you're like what the hell is just what is happening here it's a totally bizarre premise yeah it's okay we won't spoil it so go watch that on iplayer uh and also joining us jamie east perhaps the only member of the daily mail not in court with prince harry or consumed by the telegraph takeover yes who's your plus one this week uh i'm going to invite as my plus one every newspaper editor that is currently on half turn who today has had probably the worst day of their lives yes uh so so i poor you know i i invite with open arms any senior news executive that is currently on a beach, desperately trying to get away to message the office in the news of Prince Andrew.

2:55To cover Prince Andrew, of course. Yeah, yeah. He didn't have a great birthday. He was picked up on his birthday. No, Pizza Express at Woking has birthdays available tonight. Birthday parties available, yeah. So that's going to be a story that runs and runs. It's difficult to underestimate the size of this story, you know, from the ramifications to, you know, this is the third i weirdly despite everything andrew is the first arrest around the world for anything remotely uh linked to epstein that actually makes the uk look like we're on it well yeah i mean who thought it so so the ripple effect of what that's going to mean to trump to you know the investigation in america is is huge and also you know it's going to be very difficult for the royal family, I think, to say that they knew nothing.

3:49And the questions that are now going to be asked of that. Yes, there has been decisive action there, but, you know, people have got the bit between the teeth now. So from a news perspective, it's one of the biggest stories, I think, certainly for the past five, ten years. Okay, when we return after the break, Apple are getting into video podcasts. I'll see you in a sec.

4:18welcome back to the media club uh so apple has announced this fully embracing video in its podcast app um jamie apple podcast is sort of the og of podcasting yeah um what have they said apple have always allowed video onto their podcast feed but just by a very convoluted and almost unused way what they've done and and actually the best thing they've done is take a considered approach and i think the difference between apple's approach and spotify's approach is is stark one has done it very much with the creator and the publisher in mind the other has done it very much with the platform in mind so which one's which so spotify kind of sod it will launch it and see what happens apple in there you know as they do with all things is let's wait see let's see what allow other people to do their beaters and give us time to come in with a slightly more considered approach and it makes them bathes them in a slightly better light but crucially they've they they're launching with with the format called hsl video and what that means is that i'm going to test i'm looking forward to this i'm going to test my technical knowledge now um it's all to do with where the video sits when an end user uh is watching it now with an rss feed with audio you press play on your spotify or you know you listen to the media club podcast when you press play it goes and grabs the entire file from wherever you host your podcast whether it's acaster audio boom or all of the others with hsl video it's slightly different in as much as it's and this is where it gets slightly woolly in my mind but it's all to do with advertising so it allows a far a far better relationship for creators to have with their end users from an advertising perspective yeah so it sort of chunks up the video and sends it from your host to the provider yeah um and it's it's sort of easier to insert dynamic advertising uh in uh but interestingly apple are going to potentially take a little bit of a kickback for for delivering those ads to yeah so And I think they've taken the best approach.

6:31You know, we all know that Apple take a kickback of everything. They always have, whether it's an audio book, whether it's a ringtone, whatever it is, Apple are always getting paid. They're making their cheese. With Spotify, however, they launched and basically said, you can't make any money from this. And by the way, it's going to sever your feed. And no, we're not going to tell you any data, et cetera, et cetera. They will get better at it. They have to now. you can give video to Spotify as we do, so some people might be watching this, but you need to be part of their partner program to get paid.

7:04Which is what media will call an old boys club. I'm sure they would disagree. Sure they would. It's a little opaque, but based on consumption, you get, in effect, a chunk of the subscription money from subscribers. It's a non-ad. They chose Spotify to go down a non-video advertising route and Apple have gone for a video advertising route. Yeah. And a non-video advertising route is pretty unsustainable for all parts. Whether, you know, someone somewhere that's costing a lot of money, whether it's to make it or host it or serve it. What this means for creators is significant, I think, because I've been video averse.

7:48and I still fundamentally remain video averse. Despite all of this, there has not been one single shred of evidence to show that video is working as a medium. Now, whether that changes because of Apple's involvement and the podcast app is a beautiful piece of software and the UI is good and I have no doubt that it will feel like a really baked in and great part of the Apple ecosphere. that doesn't change user behavior. And there is still that nagging voice in my head that is still saying, they might be pressing play on the video, but that phone is immediately going in someone's pocket. Doesn't it more like with this show, we know we can see some of our stats on Spotify and about half the people that consume it watch the video and half don't.

8:42And I think if you're on a train, you might watch it. If you're walking the dog, it might be in your pocket. I completely agree. Heather, is it just all telly? Well, I was just thinking because I know that Spotify released all those stats recently that were like, what is it, like over 90 % in the last year video podcasts have increased in terms of viewership. I don't know what that number was previously. So it looks like a very impressive stat. I don't know how popular that actually is. but I mean it does seem to be a thing that like young people especially are increasingly watching it in the same way that people watch YouTube videos because it feels like you're getting this authentic conversation with people but in terms of I don't know I just I I feel a little bit skeptical of it because I also saw that like Apple it's these new Apple videos are not going to also carry on to Apple TV which feels like a bit of an own goal where it's like if you're trying to encourage people to start watching tv kind of podcast tv why would you not i think phase two will almost certainly see that handshake take place between apple podcast and apple tv would it would make perfect sense because what that what apple have said is that actually the the user journey between audio and video when you swap you know you can hit a button which you can do on spotify to be fair but it will crucially it will serve you different ads so it will be able to tell whether you're listening to the audio version or watching the video version and the ads that you're served with that will be different ads that's interesting which is interesting and actually quite quite good with different cpms attached with different metrics you know audio ads are completely different to as we know video ads you know um well one thing i think a bit about apple podcasts is apple podcasts basically the bbc one of podcasting so it's still huge and really essential but i'm not entirely sure there are new people coming into it that may well be true i think you know from my interactions with apple on a professional and a personal level i think um they do care deeply about the product they they champion good stuff um they're apple they're huge they don't have the same uh business model as spotify they're less inclined apple don't follow fads i don't think and they're less they don't really sway to they're not you can't you can't kind of like flutter your eyelashes at apple you can't do a deal with them they don't do deals you know whereas other companies are open to deals and they're actively more flighty and actively seeking deals so what i think what i hope apple keep on doing is championing the good stuff and by that i mean you know we can't get away from the fact that the podcast industry was built on an audio only product and that's how people discovered it and also if we move to a completely video product we are we're discouraging a vast swathe of amateurs and home podcasters from entering the market i don't know i mean there's a bit of me that goes you see a parallel track with YouTubers who did do video.

11:54But it's very different stuff. Could Griefcast have... But was it of its time? But maybe, but those stories aren't really video stories. You know, I would argue that Off Menu is not as good on video as it is on audio. And that's no... That's not a detriment. It's not me saying anything bad. But I think it's one of those my favourite podcast out there. it has suffered because they've begrudgingly gone on to video. No one looks like they want to be being filmed on this. And quite understandably so. It does add a level of pressure where you have to be like, right, I need to make my background more presentable.

12:35I still do it for women as well. I have a much harder time with video podcasts. Every TV producer I talk to talks about getting into podcasts, whether they've done it or not. There are a lot of people who have never touched it before who are suddenly like oh my god i need to make a podcast because you know even like the traces uncloaked and stuff is a perfect example of how it can work really well and also i think in an increasingly risk averse commissioning environment if you can be like hey but look at this podcast that we already make and it already has x amount of viewers people are using it almost like as a pipeline to tv in a way that i think the kind of original what a podcast was it was never a pipeline into television it was its own standalone thing yeah whereas now the lines i think are becoming increasingly blurred i think traitors and cloaked is still both an average podcast and an average tv show and they've both suffered because of that and i think tv love traitors and cloaked because it does not cost you know i did i did the spin-off show for big brother for three or four years that That cost on average about£230 ,000 an episode to make.

13:45I did Thronecast for Sky Atlantic, another spin-off show, on camera, and it grew in budget to this huge behemoth, you know, with me and Sue Perkins doing it with all the cast that we flew over, guests were being paid tens of thousands, all the rest of it. So TV loved Traders Uncloaked because it probably cost about£30 ,000 an episode to make. I'm not sure that the content, we are benefiting from that being on television. I just you know I don't I don't know whether to watch it or listen to it the budget thing Heather's interesting because I think when I talk to tv people about podcasting they are often surprised at the budget and are very used to making tv style stuff do you think they've got the skills to to cope with this new medium I think it's it's a weird one where actually I think people tend to respond better to visualize podcasts where they aren't that polished and I think the kind of TV instinct is to make it look really good almost like a chat show like a kind of Graham Norton show but with a kind of podcast sensibility and I think sometimes it's a kind of trap that TV makers fall into where they think it needs more formatting and it needs because that's the kind of instinct that they would naturally go for but actually what does tend to work really well with especially the podcast i listen to the most is it's all very improvised it's a couple of people jumping on you know zoom or whatever platform that they're using and just chopping it together and that's why people like it yeah so it's i think it's quite difficult for tv producers to kind of move into that but i think if you can let the people making the podcast take the lead the content creators then i think it can work really really well TV people have the hardest skill already nailed.

15:38Good TV people understand how to create a narrative flow and story arcs and episode arcs and teasers, cliffhangers and all the rest of it. That's the stuff that takes a long time to learn and actually is an art form. The skill set is easily achievable. And I think there's a fear factor. There's also probably a bit of gatekeeping from the podcast community as well. So we don't have bloody TV people coming in and taking it over. I agree with you completely. It's the unpolished stuff that will make TV people's teeth itch. There are only a few what we would class as podcasts. Let's take the overlap as an example.

16:18Probably not a podcast. It was never... Looks like a TV show. It was arguably never really intended to be a podcast. It uses over eight... I think it's an eight-camera shoot, probably a team of about 20 or 30 people on that shoot with some of the world's biggest football stars. It's a highly polished, high production value chat show that is phenomenally well produced. There's only room for so many of those in the ecosphere. And there aren't many like that at all. Then you've got a slightly lower down one, which kind of has like this one, probably a layer lower than the overlap where it looks fantastic.

16:59The cameras are broadcast quality. The sound's great. It's beautifully edited and put out. Fantastic. Ironically, the most successful podcast in the world, the rest is history, is two blokes in their spare rooms with a£100 mic and a£130 webcam. And that is the most successful podcast in the world. That is shitting money. Well, going from one end of the spectrum to the other, Sky has proposed a£1.6 billion takeover, billion pound takeover of itv has reportedly lost some of its momentum um helen this is your story at broadcast um remind us what was the deal supposed to look like what were comcast after so the original um i kind of think it broke in november was sky proposing 1.6 billion to take over itv but specifically the media and entertainment division so that is not itv studios so channels yeah so all their linear channels and itvx which by the way is doing incredibly well and you know that might be quite a nice timing for them i think we wrote that in january it did its best ever performance in terms of it's hard when they say something like oh we got 383 million streams because it's like well what does that mean but it did very well it broke it's breaking its records at the moment so itv media entertainment division is in a good place but i I think 1.6 billion, when you look at it, feels like it's on the lower end of the scale, especially when I think Comcast originally paid something like 30 billion for Sky.

18:32That broke in November and then it was actually Reuters who posted this week that talks have slowed down. And that seems to be down to kind of two factors. The first being that it's been maybe harder than they originally thought in terms of actually dividing the media and entertainment division from ITV studios. It's actually a lot more complicated than maybe was anticipated. I mean, people have looked at buying ITV studios God knows how many times in the last few years and it's never quite happened. And maybe again, that is because of this. and then the other side of things is whilst all this Warner Brothers Discovery drama is still rumbling on I think they want to see what the lay of the land is first and we are at a bit of a kind of crucial point at the moment so I think as we're speaking Paramount is in the midst of its seven day window in which I'm assuming that Warner Brothers Discovery wants the best offer and then next month they're going to vote at the shareholder meeting for whether it's paramount or netflix and then i think maybe once they know what's happening there then we will see because what happens yeah the other side of the pond in that deal netflix is after the studios bit and kind of the broadcast bit is going to be left and that might that could end up with someone like comcast or bits if it could if uh they had a bid in and then kind of walked away when it suddenly started looking quite scary over there.

20:02And Power Rock kind of won a lot, don't they? Would you spend 1.6 billion quid on ITV? You definitely get to have yourself back to host the Upfronts. I'm hosting it next week. I'm there next week. See you there, ITV. It's one of my favourite gigs of the year. Well, given the fact that Sky spend far more than that on the Premier League rights every two years, it feels like a bit of a steal, I have to say. I think it's, I mean, like you say, ITVX has been a bit of a dark, a bit of a sleeper hit. But I think you're right. The ITV studios, you know, when you look under the bonnet of these things and actually the practicalities of extrapolating one from the other is horrific.

20:40You know, I can't even begin to work. Imagine how that would work. I mean, even programs. I'm sure there would be a deal where Coronation Street would stay on ITV. But at some point that gets renegotiated, doesn't it? At some point that business has to live on its own. But is there an element also with these kind of merger deals where it's almost like a fishing exercise at first as well, just to kind of see, is this going to cause a rumpus? Is the shareholder going to revolt or is this going to be wider received? So I wonder if the initial kind of thing was, let's just see how the market reacts to this.

21:12And if you look actually at the share price, if you look like kind of over the last six months, there's quite a steady decline going through from, I don't know, from like the summer until October. It reached a real low. and then actually when this news broke in november it's like a comical jump up where suddenly for sky for itv okay where suddenly their value is massively increased although i will say i think it's about two weeks time they're going to post their next full year financial results and that might also impact things be interesting to see how they've done it's the year of the bundle after all well the interesting thing we talked about last week on the show sky have now brought together a lot of the streaming providers their business model is changing quite a lot i mean having a free a big free-to-air um speaker to talk about their other stuff would probably be quite sensible for that business yeah i think it makes perfect sense for sky you know it gets them gets them on to terrestrial you know whatever terrestrial is nowadays uh and finally before the break the one percent club is having a very good moment internationally um in the uk this is lee max show but the formats i think the real story here um bbc studios sells the right internationally um jamie it's big it's a big deal i love the one percent club absolutely love it my wife bought me the book for christmas that's how much i love it i will never scroll past like i mean there's a there's a there's a whole different industry of people that are just screen grabbing the one percent questions and you know i don't know the actual stats but i'm sure there's a reason why mail online every time there's a scandalous one question they put it they make there they do an article on it it's just catnip to to every you know it's just like it makes you angry it makes you feel thick it makes you feel clever and also just like from a format point of view just the perfect format because it's just completely transferable to every single language you don't even have to rewrite the questions it's you know it's it's genius i love it uh heather it's important for someone like bbc studios absolutely I think increasingly when you're making a TV show, the thought of distribution is so much more crucial to putting it all together and stuff now.

23:21And actually, it is very encouraging to see a UK format do so well, because I think historically we've brought a lot of stuff in rather than being someone that exports out. So it's nice. I think it said, I can't remember, we did a story that was like, it's like the best performing one in like eight years or something. Yeah. And also, you know, they took a risk with Lee Mac as host as well. I think it was a curveball hire because he basically does almost slightly risque kind of like he will like go in. He's lightning quick. You don't know what he's going to say. It's a little bit blue for the mums and dads as well, you know.

23:56And and, you know, I think that has a lot to do with it. They could have they could have got. It could be quite generic. Yeah, it could have been very generic. And I think the rapport between, you know, the toing and froing is a fundamental part of it. And also, like from a cost point of view, their audience are the contestants. They don't have the, they're not going to shepherd in a whole audience. And it's just, it's so clever. I love it. Get me on it. Okay, when we return all the gossip from the Broadcast Awards. I'll see you in a sec.

24:31While the 1 % Club can conquer the world from a British studio, and so can you. here from Podshop Studios. That's where we record the Media Club each week. It's a great place to start. Each studio has its own distinct look and feel now with two studio locations designed to different budgets and needs. All professionally designed and fully equipped for broadcast quality video recording. Check out the whole range at podshoponline.co.uk That's also the place you can get 25 % off your first booking. Just use the code MEDIACLUB when you book. That's Media Club at podshoponline.co.uk.

25:34discovery.com. Welcome back. Here's some stories we've been talking about in the club this week. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has officially launched a CMA investigation into DMGT's proposed takeover of the Telegraph on both competition and public interest grounds. Ofcom will also assess the public interest impact with both bodies expected to report back by the 10th of June. DMGT, the company behind the Daily Mail, say it welcomes the intervention notice as a step forward. New Rage Art Midas figures show that 26 % of the UK population now listens to a podcast every week, a record high. That's more than one in four adults.

26:11But it's also said that America is a few years ahead of us and is in the numbers 40 % of adults in the States listen weekly. So some way still to go. And in the ongoing Warner Brothers saga, which we talked about earlier, the studio has given Paramount a week to put its best offer on the table, pausing the preferred bid from Netflix. will david ellison pull a rabbit out of the hat links to those stories and all the things to talk about on the show are available on our sub stack it's free to sign up to just head to themediaclub.com that's themediaclub.com and as well as that you'll get briefed our weekly update on what other media podcasts are talking about heather and jamie are still with me heather you're at the broadcast awards uh this week i expect you to be there it being your news title uh set the scene for us it's quite a big night it's a pretty fancy evening it's one of the biggest events that happens at the Grosvenor and it is always it's nice to see how packed out it is um you know the kind of great and good of the industry come along and it is something that celebrates I would say not just you know the big dramas and stuff but we have emerging indie categories and you know best children's programs and I think a lot of shows that maybe don't get the spotlight in other places it's nice to just have an evening where we celebrate everyone that's making the telly but who were the big winners but who were the big winners well actually i think probably like the like big takeaway from the night was um the broadcaster of the year award went to netflix which is the first time that a streamer has ever won that prize and probably not the last but i have to say that night you know i don't think it will come as a surprise that adolescents took home the big new drama category prize and actually also Netflix won in the documentary category with Grenfell and I think and I wasn't personally judging for this category but I think it really shows that Netflix is making really British stories that have really big cultural impact and also considering it's a global streamer that has been so much put into the British production side of things um you know i would say adolescence feels like it had the same if not a bigger impact as something like mr bates versus the post office you know it feels like it could have been a bbc show or an itv or channel 4 show but crucially it was on netflix and it had impact because of that so it was nice it's nice to see the netflix team along there yeah she was there uh celebrating a The Traitors won Best Reality.

28:48Jamie, it's sort of defining entertainment telly of its era. I was talking about this to my friend Chris the other day. Neil Tennant once says that pop stars go through an imperial phase and Traitors is very much in its imperial phase right now. It's Teflon, everything it does. It just cannot go wrong. We all took a sharp intake of breath at the secret traitor. Is this going to be the equivalent of the six chair challenge? Thankfully not. It worked just, I would say. It takes someone to really hold their nerve to keep a format true to its original form without panicking and having to reinvent it every single time.

29:32I think that they've done a really good job of that. All things must pass, but whilst Traitors is on a high, I love it. It's great. I'm looking forward to the next celebrity version because the first one, it's a bit like the second laugh out loud. You know, it's like the first one, no one really knew what to do. And now people are going to go in there with some prior knowledge. The agent's going to be a bit more clued up in actually how it works in terms of behind the scenes and the amount of commitment. Because I think that was a surprise to a lot of the talent there. Did not actually realize what we actually have to do this, you know.

30:07So let's see if it gets slightly contrived maybe. But I, you know, I just, it's untouchable at the moment any snubs or surprises at the awards well actually just on that kind of making a format come back and keeping it as strong as it was we actually had another we changed the categories around a little bit this time around so we had best new drama which was won by adolescence but we also went for we added um continuing drama because not as in soaps but as in like a returning drama and slow horses actually won that and i think it's quite nice to be and obviously i would say this but i think it's good to have that as a category because you get it's so hard to when you're you have these really long lists of really competitive shows and you have something as good as something like slow horses but it's never really going to win if it's just one drama category because a lot of the time i think people tend to prefer a newer show unless it's done something you know absolutely insane yeah and i think it's nice to have some kind of format in which you can reward bringing something back and doing it just as well um you know stranger things sometimes when a drama comes out it starts to lose a little bit of momentum isn't it because the emmys it's almost the opposite things like game of thrones and breaking bad and madmen and stuff only won their kind of emmys towards the end of it and arguably it wasn't That was good.

31:35Yeah, arguably. I say that with Game of Thrones. Snow Horse's best trick is doing the trailer for the next season at the end of the finale. Don't they record two series at the same time? And so they've done premium telly rights that there is always another series ready to go. Yeah, it's really... I mean, they're filming now. They're on the South Bank, I think, the other week. It's just relentless. So if you watch Snow Horse's, it's tracking the books in the time period as well. so if you look at a phone it's a slightly older phone, they're all getting slightly newer something to look out for I've probably got a better iPhone than me and anybody bopping on the dance floor afterwards you know what, it's my favourite part of the evening is like heading down into that dance floor bit afterwards because we do get a couple of celebrities, it's not you know BAFTA levels but we had Davina McCall there because they got put in the Hall of Fame for Long Lost Family which is a very emotional VT of lots of families being reunited you know she was tearing up the dance floor, had like Olivia Atwood, Pete Wicks, people like that around a couple of paps outside which makes you feel very glam.

32:44I like they joined in it's important. Oh yeah, shoes off on the side. Good good. Right, just enough time for the Audio Network Media Quiz

32:56Three media stories connected by one theme and then shoehorned into the format of an existing media property. This week, it's Grand Strategy. You can't move for Hasbro adaptation, so we thought we'd have a go. So in homage to the great military strategy game, Risk, Civilization, etc., I'm going to read three stories as a battle dispatch. Heather, Jamie, identify the real media land grab behind each communique. Right. Love it. And once again, Alex Audio Network has taken that bellicose brief from producer Matt and created a playlist of music to score today's game. It's the best of three. Buzzing with your names if you know the story.

33:38So Jamie, you will say... Jamie. And Heather, you will say... Heather. Let's play Grand Strategy. I love this. Commander, our YouTube forces have crossed into new territory. The streaming platform to the east has been secured. Our short-form comedy units are now broadcasting from within their walls. Yes, Jamie. This is Channel 4 putting their... their comedy content on Spotify. Yes. Yes. We talked a bit about platforms earlier. I mean, this kind of makes sense. You've got it, put it on a place where other people can see it. Very similar audience. I think, you know, it's not a podcast. They're putting shows on Spotify.

34:17That's great. Do you think some of it works in a kind of eyes optional way? So if that phone stays in your pocket? I mean, probably not. I think, you know, comedy is generally very visual. otherwise it's just Radio 4. I don't think Channel 4 will care. I don't think Spotify will care. Channel 4 are happy to have another outlet. It feels like progress. Spotify are happy because it's a nice shiny signing that's not costing them any money, I would wager. And, you know, it's just nice and sticky. Heather, Channel 4 have been pretty good with YouTube. They're sort of leading edge compared to the other broadcasters.

34:54Yeah, I think they're very keen to kind of always be at the forefront and probably take a couple of experiments to see if it will work on Spotify or not. Even if it doesn't, again, it's kind of no skin off their nose. They can, you know, keep on going. But I know that, you know, Strongwatch, the team behind a comedy thing, and they're incredibly digitally savvy. So see where it goes. Okay, dispatch number two. General, the Northern expansion is complete. Leeds has fallen peacefully. The editorial divisions are moving in. production capacity expected by Q3 we have taken the territory yes Heather my own name this is Mill Media and an interesting proposal by them where they're going to open a Leeds office but once they like hit 500 subscribers which like it feels like you know like on YouTube where they'd be like I'm going to do this crazy thing if I get so many likes on a video then I'm going to lock them in Leeds until I so Mill Media they're the people who've launched things like the manchester mill sort of local news journalism which i always think is really nice to see because you know the industry is dying and that's quite sad um but i thought there was i think he put a comment that said you know subscription models are essentially the only way to make that kind of journalism work now i mean obviously that broadcast is also a subscription model it's more stable so i understand why they say like they need to get X amount of subscribers, but it is quite a kind of rigid number.

36:28Can you explain to me what it is? So they're saying that they... They launch a local news kind of operation, newsletter and website for leads if they get to 500 subscribers. If they get, so they're not even launching until they get to it. They've been very... It sounds like they're comfortable it's going to happen. Yeah. But they're sort of saying you need a bit of interest for us to... I mean, you know, I think we're all champions of subscription model. Well, Mail's interesting. Mail Plus has been pretty successful. Yeah, and I've launched the Crime Desk, which is a subscription true crime podcast network.

36:59It is the future. It's the, you know, people need to pay for journalism. Otherwise, it will disappear. I think everybody understands that. And I think the public are happy to pay for it as well. Are people, you know, I think male subscribers know that the business does all right. They, like, need the money. It's not like you're begging for it. Like, you're getting a product for it. Are people doing it because it's ad free? Are they doing it to get more content? What makes someone sign up? More content. You know, I think, you know, Mail are very bullish and DMG are very bullish about subscriptions as part of it and feel that whilst the model has to change and someone at some point has got to make a stand on that.

37:38And just say, if you want the nice shiny stuff, that's going to cost a bit of money. I think it's a transaction that people are, you know, thanks to things like, thanks to streaming, thanks to everything. You know, there's still people that can't work out why they get adverts on Amazon Prime when they pay for it. You know, I'm probably one of them as well, to be fair. But then I realized that actually that's the same for Sky. So I think people are happy to pay for things that they enjoy consuming. They get it. OK, one file on dispatch. It says here, do your best Sean Bean, Matt. OK, we'll try that.

38:11the wall titadel served us for jesus christ not mr bean the wall titadel served us well for two decades but our intelligence suggests rival platforms are forming alliances beyond the walls opening the gates selectively may strengthen our position more than holding the line Heather is this to do with the British Broadcasting Challenge? It isn't but it's a BBC thing Jamie, I think this is BBC and YouTube, isn't it? No, this is the BBC The opening the iPlayer Yes, opening iPlayer up to other broadcasters content, no point for you That's what I meant Good, good iPlayer does have some of the content on, it has S4C content on they're renewing that deal uh and they may run the live s4c channel on there with ads and things like that um is it a good thing for the bbc to host other british content well they they host movies and stuff i was on there i went on actually to watch small profits uh on my lunch hour today and noticed that like saltburn was just kind of randomly there it's just like oh right okay that's that's that feels kind of premium and i never think to look at like you know even itvx or or iplay i don't think to go to them for third party content um i'm i'm a big fan of open to all i don't think there's any benefit in creating islands you know it doesn't work users don't don't react well to that um so yeah open it up and then do the same for bbc sounds do you think heather the street other streamers might be a bit grumpy about the bbc going hey come and join our party well i think considering because actually i've been on itvx a lot because I was watching Love Island for my sins.

39:59And their deal with Disney means that now when I kind of go on ITV or Disney, they look very similar. Like they're both carrying each other's shows. So I think if PSB can work with a streamer like that, then actually maybe it could potentially be better for something like the BBC and ITV to work together. There's a whole carousel for ITVX on Disney +, isn't there? Yeah, it's like Coronation Street, aren't there? Well, I think that makes it a draw. so you can you can both you can both work together to get the media club on all of the streamers if you can do that as your special prize that would be great alright thanks to Heather and Jamie also thanks to Alex Audio Network for supplying today's music remember they can do that for you too just head to audionetwork.com or click the link in our show notes so how can people keep up with your good work Jamie?

40:49oh my professional work just look for any DMG podcast my personal work it's all about the instagram stories my friend you you like an instagram story is the understatement is disgusting yes uh if you don't want to look for anything on instagram just follow jamie and you'll you get it all sort of chosen for you i do do some work yeah yeah um find me on broadcast um i am so bad at my socials at the moment it's like a little 2026 thing that i've told myself is i'm going to be better at posting things but i am on blue sky Twitter although I haven't posted on Twitter for a while and watch this space for my Instagram I promise it'll be like Jamie's but well I am trying to post more of my work thank you both also thank you for listening and watching my name is Matt Deegan the producer was Matt Hill it was a rethink audio production with video support from podcast discovery I'll see you next week

41:52Thank you.