Ben Frow Takes A Bow

0:01Hello, welcome to the Media Club. I'm Matt Deegan. In the club today, Ben Frow takes about five. After 14 years of Yorkshire vets, cruise ship murders and all creatures great and small, broadcast Heather Fallon is here to tell us who could possibly follow him. Also on the show, new launches are down on broadcasters and streamers alike. And so are the bank balances of the people that make them. IndieLab founder Victoria Powell and what small indies can do about it and what we can look forward to at GrowthLab next month. all that plus Lisa Nandy is minded again all the gossip from MIPCOM Marina Hyde goes digital and in the Audio Network Media Quiz we gather the suspects in the drawing room that's all happening in this edition of the Media Club come on in so joining me are two club members to discuss the week's big media stories first a welcome return to Heather Fallon Senior Reporter at Broadcast pleasure to be back no worries it's been another busy week it feels like when is it not at the moment it's just news story after news story at the moment yeah it's good it's good for us i'm not sure it's necessarily great for people in the sector no no uh but um you obviously a long-standing member here at the club uh who do you like as your plus one this week i would like to invite someone who in the words of louis staples has caused a millennial quake in the last week uh i would love to invite lena dunham ah yes um i'm generally quite anti-reboots but i'm gonna i'm gonna go for it again i'm really excited about girls coming back as someone who watched it as a teen i'm really excited i'm hoping that it won't disappoint me but i think the the video that she did um where she's kind of gathering all the old gang back together was really savvy it was really fun and as louis staple said caused a quite the social media disturbance i think it's brought a lot of attention to it i saw an interview with her and she was saying that um she sort of catches up with all the characters and where they are kind of in her head yeah and it sort of pops into her mind one day well i wonder what's happening to that character i think they'd be doing this now yeah it must be hard when you are a creator of something that's kind of much loved definitely i mean i go back and re-watch it and think like what's what's the baby doing now what's happening so i guess i'm gonna find out yes no dates yet for it no i think yeah production next year okay who knows hbo how long do these things take indeed i'm making her media club debut victoria powell founder and ceo of indy lab spent the last decade helping uk indies grow you're now a member of the club congratulations thanks thanks having me that um who would you like as your as your plus one so i'm gonna invite um alex gibney because you know hats off uh essentially taking on the world's first trillionaire and you know anyone who's got the kind of uh the sort of strength to make a four hour film about musk uh i think deserves to be in the club and actually you know not only is it a four-hour film but it's been like a long battle to try and get the film out there um and you know with I mean people who are litigious like that these are the people that we need to make films about so um yeah it had its premiere in the UK at the weekend at the London Film Festival and it's now out in the US uh and according to Alex uh who said earlier this week Universal and he are now in sort of serious talks about having it released internationally so um I think I will certainly be eating before i go and see the four hour film but um yeah it you know it should be interesting and yeah hats off to him because i think it's important that we take on uh figures who uh need a little bit of investigation i saw an interview with him and he was saying that when they submitted the sort of the trailers to run as adverts on everything kind of meta tiktok x um they all mysteriously just didn't get approved um and when they inquired about this it was like oh no there's no there's no issue it's like it's a bit weird though isn't it a little bit weird and i think it was it was the same day that that all of them were at the white house um talking about some ai initiative so yes the collection of billionaires they can they can be difficult on their own but together can be pretty pretty powerful so musk called him a douche straight away as soon as he announced he was making it and then i think because it had its um sort of you know venice premiere didn't it and i think musk's comment was um you know it's uh he makes it it's a hit piece that misses so i suspect that we'll continue to get they'll continue to be further quotes coming from x i think if i was asking me i would keep um feeding the beast to make him talk about my new documentary uh right uh in a moment after 14 years at channel five Who on earth replaces Ben Frow?

5:03We'll see you in a sec.

5:10Welcome back to the Media Club. Ben Frow is stepping down as Five's chief content officer. He'll leave the day job next summer and his wider role at Skydance at the end of 2027. Heather, rumours have been bubbling for a few months about this. It's not even the first time he's sort of tried to leave. Are we surprised? I'm very sad. Is that just he gives good copy? He does give excellent, excellent copy. But it's one of those things where it's kind of the boy who cried wolf. Like there's been so many times where I've had someone tell me, oh, I think Ben Frow is actually planning on leaving. So when it actually happened this time, I almost didn't believe it.

5:46It was only when I saw the note from Rima that I was like, oh my God, he's actually, this time he's actually going. But hey, I think it's a well-deserved break after a very long service at five. Do we know why? I get the impression that I mean it was I think after um the pandemic he did that Edinburgh session where he said that he'd been really burnt out and that he was kind of he'd wanted to leave then but he'd ended up changing his mind and staying I suppose um it's a natural perhaps time for him to go at this point you know I'd say he's very much earned his stripes I think he's really proven what five is capable of but now that we've got all this you know these question marks with Skydance and what's going to happen.

6:32I think it probably is the right time for him to start moving away. Even if there's no real changes, there's a lot of meetings to do on there, I imagine. Yes, I think there's going to be quite a lot of painful wrangling of teams and there'll be more channels actually once this merger is complete and potentially whoever steps into those shoes is going to have a bigger remit, more things to tackle. so it's probably I think you know if he's not ready to do that then I think it's a good time time to call it what's his legacy it's a pretty good bunch of shows meaty legacy Yorkshire Vets, Cruising with Jane MacDonald my favourite is The Good Shit Murder yes Rich House, Poor House all crews grow in small love a bit of celebrity casting they got Michael Palin back didn't they absolutely, Philip Schofield on Cast Away yes controversially down down for a few edwards yeah i think what he did do really well though was you know actually we pointed out in our story that um ben frowell actually won a lot of awards you know he won channel of the year not just at broadcast but edinburgh and other places um they won baftas during his time and i think you wouldn't typically consider five or channel five a place that made that kind of content and actually it's been very impressive the kind of rehabilitation of five's image i think he's left it as a place that indies do take seriously and they want to have their projects there um you know he always reveled in this kind of outsider status um but you know i think i don't i wouldn't call channel five an outsider at this point no even if you know that's the image that that he likes to portray i think he's very much made it part of mainstream tv media i mean victoria fit for indies uh a lot of people talk about him making sort of quick decisions which doesn't necessarily happen so much uh at tv broadcasters normally i think five's been an amazing champion of the uk indie sector actually right so like decisions like taking the neighbor's money and spending it in the uk understanding more about how to kind of really speak to regional audiences so i know ben always used to talk about how the audience for channel five was a sort of mom and daughter in middlesbrough and actually he really sort of understood that how do you create really uk-centric content but also has a broader appeal um so i think it it's a great loss actually and i think i really sort of key time you know he's a fantastic risk taker you know and risk taking is what we need in the indie sector so to back indies to sort of really understand how to sort of encourage emerging talent and diverse talent and talent for you know from the uk you need to take risks and what he was really really good at was taking risks that paid off you know he learned that channel four really well honed it sort of took it from channel four to channel five turn channel five into the kind of bold risk-taking channel and um and that's going to be a really tough act to follow uh he's never been shy uh he's called some rival shows lazy second rate and mediocre um and that's why we love him um how much of what he's done sort of sits within five's dna for whoever comes next chris um chris kess actually wrote a piece today that said that he's kind of shaped five in his image and i do think that's true i think you know there's a lot of the strategy you can really see is is formed by him and actually Seb Cardwell in the drama side of things as well.

10:12And obviously Seb also announced that he was leaving. He's leaving at the end of this year. So I do think it will be a very different world that the next person walks into. But it's worth saying as well that it's really impressive how much that Channel 5 commissioning team has been retained. I mean, most of those people have worked there for decades, which is something you don't really get on any of the other channels. And I think they all really get it in terms of they know exactly what 5 is and because Ben has been so honed on that audience for so long, hopefully that will be retained. But I guess it is a slightly new world of what Ben Frouwer was really good at was increasing that share, getting those splashy dramas that would overtake Channel 4 in the ratings because he loved to talk about how he would outdo Channel 4.

11:02But it is just a slightly different world in the way that people consume content now. maybe that is slightly becoming a thing of the past so it's a shame yeah we'll see victoria do you think skydance have got to think about a different kind of leader you know heather was saying probably this person would be sort of a lot of other channels we've got discovery channels and uh all the um ex-warner brothers ones as well there's a lot this person could could have on their plate i imagine we're at a kind of key sort of changeover moment right it's like all chairs are changing not all but there's a lot of change both with cuts and you know job cuts plus you know david brindley now channel four who's going to be there at five making those key creative decisions uh you know what does itv sky look like later on hopefully stronger and better uh and you know the bbc too so where where are we going to find this fantastic indie sector and kind of UK creative sector of the future.

12:02And I think Five's got a key part to play in that. So let's hope that they focus on that and deciding who takes Ben's role. Well, talking about Sky and ITV, just as we were recording, news broke from Lisa Nandy saying there's reasonable grounds to believe the deal, this is the ITV Sky deal, could affect free expression in the media and the variety of Britain's news landscape. It talks about lots of things in a letter she wrote to ITV and to Sky. they're interested in news polarity and editorial independence their sky's potential influence over itn concentration of broadcast ownership dominance of live sport regional news cuts potential the future of itvx and sort of free-to-air television and also i thought it was interesting she talked about uh how it might affect stv and will it put them in a weaker position everyone tv which is the thing that runs kind of free view and free sat that sky have been involved in in the past and was sort of chucked out of slash kind of moved out they can obviously scoop up itv's share shareholding in that um and then the other thing they talked about was uh adding kind of a new thing for the government to look at and that's the available of a wide range of high quality broadcasting and on-demand programming trying to maybe add some commitments for for itv and sky it's a bit of a surprise this is sort of suddenly arrived these letters i think it's kind of semi-expected but also kind of horrible timing and also just adds complication to what's already an enormously complicated deal um so i'm sure that sky and itv won't be thrilled having already spent best part of a year trying to thrash out this deal in the first place i mean i think some of the things that they're asking for are to be expected in terms of news guarantees but i mean i'm sure that itv would argue that they're more than serving that purpose already um so hopefully not too much of a bump in the road for them but we've seen with sky and um sorry skydance that that is actually it's not simple these big mergers um so i suppose this is uh the uk iteration of a mega merger yeah there's also there's also referencing a letter to uh i've talked about like 200 million pounds of cuts and like what the effect that will be on on sort of on sort of programming you hear a lot from the government that is sort of wanting to keep the status quo or deliver the the same sort of things you get for the bbc discussions as well but it's kind of impossible to to achieve that in today's world yeah i think i mean it's again a similar conversation with the warner brothers and paramount where it is just it's inevitable that there are going to be job cuts and there is going to be streamlining and it's not good i would say for the sector but it's also just seems to be an inevitable part of it and actually for sky and itv to be able to come together and kind of be this great force up against the likes of netflix and disney and stuff that actually um i would call it probably a painful necessity um and again you know channel four have got cuts up incoming bbc have got cuts incoming so whether or not sky and itv had come together there probably would have been cuts regardless um and hopefully the fact that they're coming together will actually perhaps make things easier in the long run victoria i mean if you're if you're a small production company even a large production company we want certainty in the market and does this just add another bit of uncertainty for everybody trying to get on with their business i think it's perhaps time for a bit of collective thought about how one protects the really true emerging part of the indie sector um you talked about everyone tv but everyone tv's um august uh story and report about how actually you know you end up with this much more impoverished sort of whole tv ecosystem if you don't support uh small and independent production companies and actually that there's a sort of spiral of decline um if you know if we if we in fact i may be slightly putting words in their mouth but this is my view that actually you know you really need it's like you wouldn't sort of forget about early years in schools if you wanted great a level results right and actually we really need to make sure that we protect and encourage an environment that allows for emerging talent to set up new production companies and to succeed at them and that really helps you know with diversity and you know regionality of program making as well and actually I think the great danger when you've got giant sort of tectonic plates moving like this and everybody's thinking about budgets is the easiest places to cut are the risk-taking that you do with really really small indies and we've seen that recently like so for the ono and packed numbers around the amounts of money that have been spent with really small and emerging companies really affected um especially at five actually interestingly it's certainly in 2025 um from quite a small base but right down and you know if if we if we sort of cut off that whole part of the market well you know then where do we get the sort of success stories of tomorrow and you know so yeah i that's that that would be sort of my concern right now is that in this giant shift that's happening in the market is that you know collectively we think about that emerging part of the market too moving on and it's mipcom this week which means a flurry of new reports about the state of the tv industry most striking were figures by glance showing new series launches falling across 48 territories um have the linear broadcasters and netflix are down 12 disney 41 apple tv uh 45 prime videos broadly stable uh if it's not going on new shows where's the money going yeah some of those figures were really stark like the disney one is what 40 something percent 41 um i think some of that is a bit of a maturing so you know disney plus launched in the uk in what 2020 and obviously out the gate you're going to want to have loads of new shiny shows to be like look this is why you should have your subscription and come to our channel and i suppose now that it's a bit more established you don't necessarily have to have that same kind of content churn because you can say well look we've got this brilliant library um and the other thing i think that that report highlighted was that there is still a lot of um third library um third library third party acquisitions to their library so you know i think the the issue that all of the streamers and linear broadcasters have is now that there's so much of a focus on streaming is that you just have these huge unwieldy libraries and it's like people can't physically watch all of that stuff so they're all leaning in i think to that fewer bigger better model where they're just going for really big hits um to the detriment of the indie community where they can't commission as much stuff and also some uh live events for all the streamers pretty much are jumping into into that space as well luke littler coming up yes i think are you going to be watching the luke littler darts live show victoria it's not on top of your list damn oh yeah next time i mean one thing with mipcom and the distribution of tv uh i mean all companies now have to kind of co-fund their material don't they they have to find other places to to bring in the money uh if they're keeping hold of the ip somebody's not paying for all of it are they look a very difficult job has been made much more difficult over the last few years and you know there are i mean look there are opportunities out there for for savvy smart independent production companies we did a bit of analysis recently and about which you know we got a bit of coverage for put something out in the guardian about it around you know the health of the sort of much smaller part of the market and about a third of uh those smaller indies from an hour from our analysis um are growing and they're growing through sort of diversification and and finding out you know uh and finding pathways to that sort of international co-production um so uh yeah so you know it's if you can make that market work for you then i think you know with commissions down and new commissions down really the you know why is it that giant uh organizations like banaget are diversifying out you know diversification is the way to expand what you know maybe it's acquisition or it's diversification uh so actually diversification is something that 100 is on the radar of all small companies it's something we try and get very very involved in in terms of helping companies navigate that well speaking of diversification just over a week after her final guardian column marina hyde has launched always on a personal media brand in a joint venture with goal hangers columns on sub stack a new youtube show and social content with more formats to follow it's the first launch from goal hanger x a new arm built around distinctive voices from the podcast company victoria goal hangers co-founder Jack Davenport says the aim is to keep Marina firmly at the centre.

21:30That means the talent owns the brand. The production company supplies creative audience and commercial infrastructure. I mean, she's sort of the latest person to sort of jump on this sort of talent-led bandwagon. Do you think it's going to work well for her and Goldhanger? I suspect it's going to work really well, actually. The guys at Goldhanger know what they're doing. and it's a really great evolution i think of what they've been doing for you know for the last few years and you know i know from talking to tony about it that you know they were obviously getting like endless pictures of the rest of rest is this the rest is that and you know can you make the rest is hockey or the rest is basket weaving like probably not you need to go somewhere else with you know with your sort of you know the incredible podcast business that you've built and actually this you know makes them into a sort of a studio a publisher a rights manager you know and they're bringing their advertising revenue back in-house in January so I think it's really savvy it's definitely something that's working really well in the US building these kind of big IP platforms around journalists and other sort of public faces and Marina's you know she's uh she's incredibly witty she's a sort of really um you know she's a female journalist who can cover so many different bases politics sport media royals celebs and she brings that incredible kind of you know acerbic wit to it so i think it yeah i'm certainly gonna be tuning in uh will you be signing up though uh i've already signed up okay good good good good uh heather i mean if you're if you're a legacy broadcaster or publisher you're always having having a bit of trouble already about the way the world's changing and tension difficulties yeah and in the old days at least at least you had the control that the talent had to come and work for you very much not the case anymore and when we have conversations with some of those places they're kind of scrabbling about a bit trying to work out what their their place is in this world yeah i thought it was really interesting in the release that goal hanger the quote really centered on um giving marina the freedom to be able to do to tackle things in the way that she wanted but actually you know whenever i'd read her guardian columns and i think they're excellent i think she's a brilliant writer there was you know she covered all sorts of subjects i don't think that you know they were too restricted guardian problem yeah on on what she was able to to write about but i mean i guess ultimately if you're doing something for an organization ultimately they're going to own the ip and i suppose that this does mean that she is in a lot even more control uh in terms of the subjects that she writes about and i did think it was really interesting that a big part of that is going to be that she will have a sub stack and you know that people will pay to be able to read her content um i'll be very interested to see how quickly that builds up because again you know she is a real personality and i think you know she's built her own brand as a journalist and she can absolutely do her own thing on her own but um you know when you've had something for free and then you suddenly have to pay for it um it's not always an easy conversion yeah and there's there's a couple of hours a week of free marina hyde on the podcast as well isn't that already uh okay when we return can you really fit one whole industry into the barbican for a day i'll see you in a sec

25:04Hello, Media Club listeners. Patrick here from Podcast Discovery, the podcast marketing company, where this week we've been thinking about guests. That's because the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, was recently on How to Fail. They're a client of ours, and we've been looking at how many new people that episode exposed the show to. Unsurprisingly, it was a great success. We can't all have the PM on every week, but we can help you think about who is going to help your show reach new people who might stick around for the long haul. Get in touch at podcastdiscovery.com. That's podcastdiscovery.com. If this week's news tells us anything, it's that brand new shows are getting harder to come by.

25:44So when you land one, you'll want somewhere to make it properly. Like Podshop Studios, where we record the Media Club every week. Each studio has its own distinct look and feel, professionally designed and fully equipped for broadcast quality video recording. You can check out the whole range at podshoponline.co.uk and they're offering Media Club listeners and viewers 25 % off their first booking. All you've got to do is use the code Media Club on their website. That's podshoponline.co.uk. Welcome back. Here's a few stories we've been talking about in the club this week. The BBC has asked a federal judge in Miami to make Donald Trump sit for a deposition.

26:20This is for his own$10 billion lawsuit over Panorama's edit of his January 6th speech. The trial is set for February 2027. Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade has told Deadline that Fox Creator Studios, launched this year with a food roster led by Gordon Ramsay, is in it for the long term. We're not here to flip a house, he says, which is reassuring given the Murdoch's love of online real estate businesses. And Ian Hislop is marking 40 years as editor of Private Eye and has been talking in a round of interviews about his career. some interesting tidbits were kept for his own podcast though including the independence owner ledvedev once tapping him up to run the paper links to all of our stories are available on our sub stack just head to themediaclub.com that's themediaclub.com uh okay i have that victoria still with me uh victoria growth lab london a month away 17th of november at the barbican go on give us the cell what is it who's it for well i mean it's you know like our sort of mission with this event really is to try and find a way to give people just this incredible event in one day that allows them to hear both really what is important about what's happening in the sector at the moment from the perspective of tv podcast digital and kind of all of the revenue streams that exist for ip and talent now really across the kind of tv landscape as well as masterclasses, which we've got.

27:50So we've got our main stage, we've got fantastic content. And then we've got our masterclass stage, which is really about bringing great kind of how-to content on really kind of key things around diversifying into digital podcasts, also AI, as well as brand entertainment. And then we also have this market hall with we've got eight broadcasters and streamers um so we've got you know bbc channel 4 itv uk tv we've got netflix apple disney plus i'm sure i've forgotten there's eight on the website um and then you know a whole you know collection of fantastic distributors to me plus podcast partners uh digital partners uh and talent agents and so on so you know the idea is you can come along you can do a lot of business you can do a huge amount of business in this uh one event on one day uh and yeah really kind of get up to speed with what's happening uh well it's good uh busy schedule you've got itv's kevin ligo uh as well as bbc chief content officer kate phillips uh speaking to clive myrie uh line of duty there uh zy bennett patrick holland it's good it's good big big lineup uh what what do you hope what do you hope some of those people say what do you hope they reveal god i'm not gonna put words into their mouth christ um look you know it's important that we get these that we have these moments in the industry where we can kind of come together and uh focus on what's coming next right so that like fundamentally that's what this day is about it's you know on that main stage we're really keen to hear you know where what are what is the view from patrick holland zy bennett and amelia brown who are collectively sort of in charge of about 45 50 of uk production what is their view about where uk production is going that's going to be really interesting to hear as is what you know kate uh kate phillips of course and kevin ligo uh interesting times uh you know are gonna say uh we've got yeah we've tried really hard to kind of get a great mix of the kind of you know creative and commercial successes of the moment across all of these different genres and parts of the industry uh to really kind of i think just kind of look forwards you know things are not easy but where are we going yeah what's the direction of travel yeah i mean your background you're a producer you sold your production company v good films to illumina which i guess was all three it's hard to work out the links all of those things um is when you look back at that time so 2008 yeah yeah um when you look back were there things you wish you knew then or do you think as the world just changed significantly if you were talking to a production company in the same place that you were the way i would sort of tackle that question is i'd say what if i was running a production company now what you know what what do i feel is important to know now actually you know forget then because it's just a complete it's like so that's kind of history it's sort of over that market doesn't exist anymore um and actually you know now what's what's kind of really key now is to sort of fully understand both you know your access to ip and talent is absolutely critical like your development of ip and your talent relationships and you know how can you build a business around those in a market which requires you to really think about the international market in tv but also then bolt onto that a whole variety of other revenue streams and there's a whole range of things that that could involve and figuring out what your usp and your vision is within that is is critical really and go to the go to the barbican next month and you can learn something um heather so we talked about mipcom you know wraps in can today uh micro dramas had their own program um it's the hot new thing is it is it a real business is it just good thing to chat on panels about well i think it's one of those things where it's like it kind of makes me think about quibi but maybe i'm being quibi was right all along the vertical short form i really backed quibi and no one else clearly did um yeah it's something i mean we did um a whole kind of podcast on it and the broadcast podcast and weirdly it was one of our most listened to episodes so i think it is it's something that people are really interested in but i think still people haven't quite grasped it and there is something where if we're writing up a story and it's like oh it's a five by one minute show it just doesn't have that same appeal you know it doesn't quite feel and i've seen you know there was a micro drama session at edinburgh this year but i just feel like people still don't fully grasp it i'd be interested to see if the broadcasters try and have a go yes um so what was what was buzzing from the broadcast slack channel with your colleagues over there yeah i did ping them a message and say what's going on um essentially what i gathered is that it feels like everyone's in this weird transitional phase obviously we've touched on the fact that Skydance is still in the process of emerging we don't fully know what's going to happen again especially with job cuts I think the overall attendance of MIP was down quite a lot this year and also the news about Netflix cuts came out while I was there so there was lots of cocktail chat but I think it was all kind of waiting to see what happens so it just made it meant the atmosphere was a little bit strange perhaps where yeah we're in this kind of transition of a lot's going to happen but we don't quite know how it's all going to play out yet it'd be perfect for a vertical drama to follow all of those people okay just enough time for the audio network media quiz three media stories hidden within an existing media property this week it's the drawing room it's the moment in every classic murder mystery and producer matt tells me an awful lot in the Ludwig when the detective gathers the suspects together and reveals who done it so I'm going to lay out the clues you tell me which media story did it and once again Alex Audio Network has taken that highly suspicious brief from producer Matt and created a playlist of music to score today's game so buzz in with your names when you've got it so Heather you will say Heather and Victoria you will say Victoria let's play The Drawing Room this group of friends was last seen together in 2017 now ten years later five of them have returned ooh Victoria oh yeah go on Victoria I forgot to say my name well it's Ed's favourite drama she's thought it already so you know yeah it's a bit of a sort of preview on that one so girls returning sadly not with Adam Driver which is a bit of a shame there we go HBA bring back girls five episodes 10 years after the finale uh and as we talked about earlier production starts in 2027 um actually one of hbo's first announcements post skydance yeah so they didn't put it on ice they're very happy to have it have it out there okay here's the second case everyone in this crime claims not to have seen the shooter and yet the evidence suggests several shots across several minutes how can this be i put it to you this is not solely the work of ai it has someone's fingerprints all over it.

35:36Yes, Heather. Is this Liquid Studios producing video content for Pod News? Yes. Not Pod Studios. So Pod News, Daily Newsletter about podcasting, James Cridland who hosts that, has been quite down on the people who are doing, making this for him previously, in some of their previous incarnations, which is very James to have beef with someone and go, okay then, you show me, if you're so good, show me what it's like. And so they're sort of visualising his daily audio podcast. Very interesting that it is, they're cutting it in so many different ways. I mean, it works well. Yeah, YouTube version is vertical, social cuts.

36:18I watched the first one. I mean, it slides alongside what he talks about. I mean, if it was done by AI, they did a very good job of it. okay one more case to crack the scene of the crime the state of Leonida a high speed pursuit ends in multiple deaths but the soundtrack is what intrigues the detective all the suspects have been seen walking the streets wearing earbuds Heather yes Heather is this GTA's very complex bespoke radio channel well it's not just radio and podcasts yes I'd love to listen to a podcast pretend like I play GTA so GTA 6 will have in-game podcasts for the first time on demand through the characters smartphones which is good so whether they're on foot or behind the wheel they can tune in.

37:12If I was in GTA land I think I would be like walking around listening to a podcast they haven't approached broadcast to license it. I'm curious Rockstar have also revealed six radio stations with hosts including Bad Bunny, Lana Del Rey and Morgan Wallen the game is out finally on the 19th of November. Will you be playing GTA 6 when it's out? I have never played GTA. I very much doubt I will ever be playing it. It sort of was just beyond my video game timings. Yeah. It's not a game that immediately jumps out to us. I think to be fair to GTA, I think it did spawn like an entire industry in that part of Scotland.

37:52Yeah, it'll be a mega super hit. I mean, it seems like an amazing world they've built in this game, partly why it's taken so long. If you can listen to a bespoke podcast in this world, then fair play to it. Maybe James's video version of Pod News will be in there too. Okay, I think it makes Heather our winner. You get to, as a special prize, try and convert the media club into a vertical drama. If you can go do that, visualize it as well. AI on it. My thanks to Heather and Victoria, and also thanks to Alex at Audio Network for supplying today's music. Remember, Audio Network can do that for you too.

38:24do just head to audionetwork.com. There's also a link in the show notes. And before we go, Heather, how can people keep up with your work? What's coming up in Broadcastland? Now, I'd love to say I've not posted a thing on Twitter in ever so long, but Talking TV episodes out every Thursday and always a couple of bylines on broadcastnow.co.uk. So look out for me there, please. Yeah, current episode about AFP. Yes, funded programming. Programming is actually something that was highly requested. So we're delving into the world of AFPs. And Victoria, where can people get tickets to your event? On our website.

39:05So the Grace Lab London website, it's gracelablondon.co.uk. And yeah, so if and if people want to sign up whilst the sort of commissioner meetings are live and being booked, they've got about another 10 days, I think. and we've got yes an incredible collection of scripted and non-scripted and all different genres from all of those eight broadcasters and streamers so and there's some bursaries for groups and people from different regions and things as well yeah you know i've again we think it's really important that we make it available to as many people as possible and um yeah it's in london so you know if you're coming from scotland it's it's a long way yeah so yeah so we have nations and regions bursaries and bursaries for um other underrepresented groups as well great i hope it goes well uh thanks 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

40:12so retrospectors what historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of today in history. On Monday, when the world met Monty Python. On Tuesday, Yes We Can Can, opening night at the Moulin Rouge. On Wednesday, the politician who escaped the Prussian war in a hot air balloon. On Thursday, bang to rights, the tiny nation with the world's oldest constitution. And on Friday, we discover the first political assassination caught on camera. That's Today in History with the Retrospectors. 10 minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts.