Channel 4 to become Channel ¾

0:01Hello and welcome to the Media Club. I'm Matt Deegan. In the club today, Channel 4 confirms the biggest job cuts in its history. That's a quarter of the workforce gone and all by the end of the year. Broadcast to Rebecca Cooney on whether the broadcaster can afford it and what happens to its promises to the nations and regions. Also on the show, as advertisers pile back into audio, Bauer Media Advertising's MD Simon Kilby joins the club to tell us where the money's going and why. All that, plus the independent production sector's cash reserves. Are they dangerously thin? Ofcom throws broadcasters an olive branch on ad rules.

0:36And in the ever-changing Audio Network Media Quiz, this week's format is a Bobby Dazzler. That's all happening in this edition of The Media Club, now available in video through Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and in your ears there and elsewhere. Come on in. joining me in the club two members to discuss this week's biggest media stories welcome back rebecca cooney uh insights editor at broadcast and no stranger to a bruising week in tv um let's start with some positive news first though um who would you like to join you in the club this week honestly it was a bit of a you know i was sort of chatting to people in the office going who should i who should i nominate everyone's like it's been and we were in the middle of reporting all of the job cuts at channel four just god um and i nearly went for like 11th century uh embroiderers in canterbury because obviously their work the bay of tapestry is being displayed yes but then um actually i thought tim cook has had a very good week uh he has departed from apple with you know squillions in his pocket um he obviously is the guy who's sort of pushed apple into doing services and into moving into services and kind of you know was in the setting up of Apple TV and yeah he gets to ride off into the sunset with a lot of money and not having to kind of kowtow to world leaders and make nice with with various world leaders anymore and yeah I think that's probably a good week yes I love this on his last day the whole um Lake America stuff uh exploded and he just got to say hey John you do you do this one I'm off I'm off uh and then obviously left some decent products to for for the new guy to launch as well yes indeed yeah yeah Yeah, we've had a big product launch, which is a must watch in my household.

2:15Not me, but yes. Are you going to get a flip iPhone? I probably will end up getting my husband's one when he gets the update. Right. He'll look at me and go, do you want my old one? So yeah, give it a couple of years and then I'll have one. Good, good. Currently, no. And making his Media Club debut is Simon Kilby, managing director of Bauer Media Advertising. Get the names right. So traditionally in radio brands, but also increasingly into digital cross-platform activity. Yes. Welcome. Thank you. Nice to be here. And who would you like to bring as your plus one this week? Well, likewise, I've done some shimmying on this this week.

2:52I started with a clear idea at the start of the week. On Tuesday, I have to say, my head was turned by the departure of Jacob Coxon from Anthropic. I just thought that was an incredible story and maybe something we could touch on at some point. It's his sort of tweet saying it's all a little bit dangerous. It's all very, very dangerous. But I've decided to be incredibly positive and go for the absolutely amazing Zoe Ball, whose show, the Zoe Ball show in the afternoon, launched on Greatest Hits Radio on Monday. I have been a fan of Zoe Ball from right back in the day. And we did an event at a hotel recently to get some clients in.

3:33and you know there's moments where you meet someone and you just go a bit gooey. She was amazing and yeah it's just a massive coup for us you know one of Britain's greatest broadcasters and she's now positioned between Ken Bruce and Simon Mayo on Greatest Hits Radio which is fantastic. Commercially it's great for us we've got BT as a headline sponsor. Yeah and I mean she obviously people think about her being on radio too but actually she's been on commercial radio before she was on XFM for a number of years with Andy Ashton who's now her new boss. Absolutely. Greatest hits. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're saying there, obviously, BT on board and also Waitrose on board.

4:07Waitrose. BT is headline sponsored for 12 months and Waitrose is there to sponsor one of the features in the show for initially three months. So we're really pleased. We're delighted to have her on board and it kind of continues that poaching BBC talent. Yes. Well, we'll talk more about that a bit later. Also still to come, we're going to chat more about those cuts at Channel 4. See you in a second. Business is booming. Is your fulfillment ready for peak season? Switch to ShipStation now and handle more volume with confidence when it counts. ShipStation connects Shopify, Amazon, TikTok Shop, and over 200 more integrations with one platform that does it all.

4:42You can manage orders, sync inventory, track returns, all automatically. Everything your operation needs, all in one place. Right now, qualified shippers get a real dedicated person to get you set up and switched over for free. So when peak season hits, you're ready to go. Switch today at ShipStation.com, code audio. A-Cast powers the world's best podcasts. New school year, new podcast obsession. Hit play on this. Welcome, crawlers. Do you like books? Do you like cats? Do you like dangerous subterranean games put on by ultra-wealthy alien corporations? If so, then Fantasy Fanfellas is the podcast for you.

5:19What is Fantasy Fanfellas, you ask? Well, it's a bookish podcast where me, Stephen, will be guiding my buddy Hayden through his first time reading Matt Deniman's smash hit, Dungeon Crawler Carl. So if you are a first-time dungeon crawler Carl Reeder, or you've already finished it and want to see Hayden struggle to guess what's next, then you'll be right at home. Episode 1, covering spoilers for chapters 1 through 11, goes live on Wednesday, September 9th. We hope to see you there. Bye! Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts. Class is always in session at acast.com.

6:03welcome back to the media club channel four is going to cut 28 of their workforce before the end of the year it's the biggest round of redundancies in the broadcaster's 43 year history uh rebecca talk us through the scale of this because it's going to be pretty painful yeah um i mean we've sort of known it was coming for a long time you know priya docker gets the job in march announces the review in april it's sort of been coming down the track yeah the scale of But I think, as you say, it will shock people. So we're looking at about 340 job losses of sort of just over 1 ,270 jobs in total, I think.

6:39And yeah, it's kind of across the board. I mean, within the commissioning team, my colleague, Marion McHugh, reported earlier this week that essentially we're looking at 50 % of the commissioners. They are consulting on their jobs, so they won't necessarily be made redundant, but they've been told their jobs are at risk. which obviously is is enormous and they're on the front door for lots of information companies those are the relationships that turn into commissions yes yeah and like you know we've got another kind of you know several weeks and weeks of this consultation what does that mean for those production companies who are kind of going well is it worth me pitching to this person is it what is is this thing going to get made is this worth my time um so yeah it's it's definitely you know it's sector wide within that there's also going to be a restructure of the different departments so um sort of all the unscripted uh so um sort of uh specialist factual factual reality entertainment um fact n are all getting combined into one um and looks like scripted and comedy may well be kind of combined as well or drama and comedy into a scripted um so yeah there's just a lot of uh everything's up in the air that sort of scripted non-scripted split is sort of that happens in Netflix a little bit.

7:54Yes, yeah. Because her background, was she Warner Bros Discovery at some point? She was, yes. Is she sort of looking at how other people are doing it perhaps? Entirely possible. So Priya Dogra, Channel 4's chief executive, yes, she was at Warner Bros Discovery. She's had a lot of experience as well at sort of managing like mergers and acquisitions and things like that. So I think she'll be very used to kind of looking at a team and going, what do we actually need? Which you've got to admire, at least kind of coming into a job and going, all right all of you lot are going and you know and and seeing that through um it is obviously enormous and you know devastating for people at the organization if you don't know if your job's going and you know it's the sort of thing you know if that many people get made redundant what does that mean for the morale of those who are left it's probably not going to be great is london going to bear more of a brunt or do we know what's happening in the regions because they made commitments to the regions yeah it's not clear and i mean this is the kind of you know conversations we're having in the office with my colleague, Marion, who is the Channel 4 reporter, sort of going, well, you know, there are certain teams where most people are outside and if there's one job or two jobs going, it probably will be the people in London that will bear the brunt of that.

9:04I think that is sort of, it feels terrible to say when someone's going to lose their job, but like you sort of hope that, you know, the nations and regions push would be maintained because it has been so important to the industry. It's something that Channel 4 has really put its weight behind and you sort of hope that that isn't the sort of thing that just goes out the window as soon as cuts are made but who knows i mean simon channel four a huge part of the advertising community and obviously they rep their own channels but they rep uk tv as well and and other broadcasters they're likely to be hit as well within this i would have thought yeah so i mean lots of media companies are going through change and i agree it's a really shocking time for people who work there and obviously you know i really hope it goes as well as it can for all the people involved i look at channel four as mostly as a consumer and obviously working in advertising and they do a lot of societal good you know whether it's the paralympics i love the channel four news at seven o 'clock it's the one i watch every day or whether you just like watching bake off they are suffering from a wider issue in the ad market about more and more money moving to the platforms.

10:14And I think if you look at the TV market overall, we then had, not that long ago, Sky announcing the purchase of ITV's broadcast business, something that was unimaginable even five years ago. And everything that I hear is that that is likely to get the go-ahead from the CMA, which again, five years ago... There was not the discussion there was back then. How could that possibly happen? How can it happen? So I think it just gives you an idea of the scale of change in the market. and for me that question as you know as you said bauer magazines audio and out of home all trusted platforms to me the question here is around the amount of money in our market that now is going to platforms that in complete contrast to channel four do not do societal good but actually increasingly are doing societal harm are taking huge amounts of money which ultimately is to fund their investments in AI infrastructure.

11:07For advertisers, do advertisers look at these changes and does it change how they think about things or is it sort of business as usual? Well, I'm not sure it'll change in the short term. I think in the medium term, you have to think about the impact this is going to have on the quality of the programming. And I also think that in the wake of the acquisition of ITV's broadcast business by Sky, Channel 4 would probably have quite a tough time anyway when that goes through. So to me, this puts Channel 4 in just a more challenged position in the market. I mean, Priya touched upon this, didn't she, in her statements?

11:42Yeah. So she was saying advertising investment has gone down by about 400 million since 2019. And then she sort of actually, you know, Channel 4's revenue has remained relatively stable. The problem being operating costs have gone up by about 25%. So she was saying for every pound that we get in revenue in 2019, it cost us 32 pence in operating costs to get that. Now it's closer to 40. and she's just saying that's not sustainable we can't be making we can't put revenue into shows if we're you know using that on our running costs and there is a sense within the industry that and that's something that we've been hearing you know you know we regularly hear from indies kind of there is a bit of a sense that the commissioning team was very very chunky and perhaps that it could have been slimmed down i think people have been expecting that to happen for a while but yeah like you say it's it's you know the scale of this but it is it is just that you know the revenue is not coming in to to make up for the rising costs you think there'd be program budget cuts in that as well or do you think these changes to try and keep the money on the screen ostensibly i think it's to try and keep the money on the screen whether or not that's gonna that's gonna happen who knows well channel force cuts are the sharpest version of a story that is kind of playing out across the sector at the moment.

12:56Some other news this week, Rebecca, 40 % of small indies could run out of cash within two years, according to Indie Labs analysis of over 200 companies. I thought this was quite an interesting thing. It's sort of about how much money is in the bank, so how you can kind of cope with things that are variable. Yeah, so essentially if something goes wrong mid-production, can you kind of keep going till payday, basically? And yeah, they were sort of saying that, you know, the average was about 40 ,000, I think, that Indies had in the bank, which, you know, in production terms is not a lot of money.

13:28I've had to reshoot a day on set that would vanish by mid-morning. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, it's one of those things where they are shocking stats. It's not surprising. And again, they were sort of saying, you know, this had dwindled, you know, from about, I think, 52 ,000 or something a few years ago. it's just dropping and dropping and dropping the amount that the average small company has um but yeah it's shocking it's not surprising i think we've been hearing for years when we do our indie survey you know we sort of asked do you think there'll be you know more or fewer indies in the next couple of years and you know it's 97 of people are sort of like yeah there'll be fewer indies in the next few years and i think there probably are a lot of indies a lot of those smaller indies that probably have stopped operating in practice so they employ one or two people who go off and do other stuff and maybe if they were to get commission, great, but functionally the company is not operating as a production company.

14:25And then obviously we've had closures of indies in the last few years, you know. Does that particularly have an impact on UK content, UK-created content? How do you mean? Well, just in terms of, you know, these small production companies are producing content for largely the public service broadcasters. Yeah. You know, that tends to be UK-created and that has an impact on... Yeah, I think that's fair. I think that's just the issue with they aren't getting the commissioners to make that content. But yeah, like, you know, we may well see kind of a reduction in sort of the different ideas and different British-led ideas that are available, certainly.

15:04And also you've got that split between sort of the big sort of super indies and the sort of super mega indies are operating at one end, often at the larger end. Yeah. And you've got kind of more and more smaller people because it's kind of who's left having to deal with the other end. Yeah, absolutely. And obviously the bigger guys are getting bigger. All three in Banerjee are merging. There is more of a split in the market, as you say. It's interesting. You see this from the transition from radio to being more kind of cross media. You know, a lot of those companies up at the TV festival the other week, going to podcasting, going into webinars, going into other things to apply their skills.

15:48You can't really just sort of stick with what worked in the past anymore, can you? If you think about a brand like Kiss that we have, we over the last 12 months have really refreshed that brand because the brand was, you know, quite old now compared to some of the brands that have come into media recently. So we've given that a complete refresh. And yeah, you know, you can still listen to Tyler and Chloe on The Breakfast Show, but it's about making sure that content is available on as many platforms as our audiences want to consume on, whether that's YouTube, whether that's social, whether that's podcasts, because they do a podcast as well.

16:25So, yeah, it has changed really significantly, I think, in the last three years, particularly the scale of that change. How much of that is following the audience versus following where the cash is going? I think it's a bit of both. I think if you think about a brand like Kiss, you know, young people are consuming content in a completely different way. So we need to be there on those platforms. But also in terms of ad money, I think that's moving as well into that sort of 360 podcast social video space as well. So I think it's a combination. What are advertisers asking for? Are they sending the same briefs to everybody?

17:00Are they thinking about kind of you guys and global and those in one pot? Are they thinking it goes to everyone? That's a really interesting question. We're doing quite a lot of work on that at the moment because we want to get on as many briefs as we possibly can. I think there's I think as a company like Bauer, we tend to get access to pretty much all the briefs in the market. I think the question for me is, is that are there briefs that are going out to people like Ladbible that we're not getting? And so that's a kind of commercial challenge for us to make sure that we widen our net as far as possible.

17:28And I guess it doesn't necessarily matter about volume of cash today. It's where that cash might potentially go later on. Yeah, I think it's part of the same point around discussing around Channel 4 as well. It's about less money in the market because Meta and TikTok and YouTube are taking it. So actually, you know, we're having to work harder, diversify our content and find new commercial opportunities. Well, finally, before the break, Ofcom has set out a package of measures this week aimed at giving public service broadcasters more room to manoeuvre. Rebecca, what's on the table with this Ofcom consultation?

18:07So essentially, it's about relaxing the rules around advertising, product placement, sponsorship and things like that within kind of PSB content. So like on ITV or Channel 5? Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously, the BBC is still its whole own other conversation. For the moment. For the moment. Matt has lots of thoughts about this, famously. But yes, so yeah, there's definitely a move to kind of say, OK, could we relax this? Could we make it a bit more flexible? Because there is that interest in, you know, one thing we're seeing the rise of is sort of advertiser-funded programming. So rather than, we've made a TV show, would you like to advertise next to it?

18:47The advertiser comes in at conception and sort of says, okay there's a cruise liner company that sponsors sort of wonders of the frozen south and you know they do these cruises off to different parts of the world and it's kind of a travel log but also you know the brand is there they are getting that advertising and there's you know there's a lot of interest in that from advertisers and whether or not you know sort of this rule would make that easier to do would sort of relax on the rules. Broadcasters are quite enjoying sort of acquiring programming that they don't have to pay for to fill slots that still fits in with with their brands we've seen a lot of podcasts starting to move piz morgan's on channel five uh rest of politics was on it was on channel four it's a way to make the content budget go further in the other slots yes yeah yeah yeah you've already created this thing can we just can we just have it i mean simon broadcasting is there's still a lot of rules aren't there compared to particularly some of the dishlony brands yeah are we are we are we all sort of trapped in the past slightly i don't know if we're trapped in the past slightly i think you know i think you're you're looking at two really distinct areas unregulated and regulated i think the changes that are made that they're proposing to make in in tv were made in radio i 15 16 years ago before i got into radio and that was it had a really positive impact on our business and that's been a growth area so i kind of welcome it um i I think the idea of rules put on traditional broadcasters and it being a new world, I don't quite look at it that way.

20:18I kind of look at the dangers of advertising on unregulated, untrusted platforms. Well, should they get some of our rules or is that us trying to just force them into our whole? Well, personally, I think there has to be a level of regulation, even if you think about what the government's going to do in banning it under-16s. And there's kind of cap code things and there are some things that... Yeah, to me there's a role and responsibility for the advertisers in this as well. Understanding the impact that those ad dollars have and increasing those ad dollars are going to the platforms to fund their AI infrastructure.

20:57And I think, you know, if you think about the court case that we saw recently in the States and Meta being found liable and up to an 18 billion dollar fine if YouTube and TikTok are brought in as well. You know, I think that is that is really significant. Well, they're now saying that they're at the forefront of. Yeah, they pitched it and obviously they deny any any wrongdoing. But but those those changes will only apply in the States. you know they're not going to apply in in this country to to uk kids and actually the challenge is is that if they do implement those changes less attention less time and less money and this point i made about they need the money to fund their investments you know that they're not going to change how they do it until they're made to do it uh rebecca do you think we'll just see this sort of nodded through this is the sort of thing that would have provoked lots of discussion in the past because you can see content on youtube and tiktok that doesn't need to follow these rules or follows a sort of more watered down version it'll just be kind of waved through i think quite possibly yeah it's that sort of thing and i think it goes back to what you were asking about sort of british content that you know the psbs have this responsibility to do public service content and british made content and content that is good for us socially and if they are operating on an unfair playing field compared to kind of, you know, algorithms online which don't have that duty.

22:23This is quite a good way to support that content without actually necessarily costing the public person much more money. Yes, things that don't cost government money, they like that. Right, when we return, the new ad products coming to a smart speaker near you. I'll see you in a sec.

22:41And thanks to everyone who filled in the listener survey over the summer, I can reveal the winner of the prize draw is Richard Hilton. Congratulations, Richard will be in touch over email. We read every response. Why wouldn't you with this much media talent listening? So if you would like to feedback on the show, there's still time, help us improve. And there's a link on our website to do just that, themediaclub.com. That's themediaclub.com. Hello, Media Club listeners. Patrick here from Podcast Discovery, the podcast marketing company, where this week we've been thinking about data. Spending money and spending it smartly aren't necessarily the same thing.

23:17At Podcast Discovery, we're determined to make sure every pound spent on marketing is learned from, with campaigns designed to collect concrete information, not vibes. Sound dull? Get us to do it. Get in touch at podcastdiscovery.com. That's podcastdiscovery.com. Of course, it's hard to do product placement when you're not in video. That's why we use 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. Check out the whole range at podshoponline.co.uk and they're offering Media Club listeners and viewers 25 % off their first booking so you can experience it yourself.

23:58Just use the code MEDIACLUB, that's all one word, MEDIACLUB, to get 25 % off when you book at podshoponline.co.uk. 500 orders a month was manageable. 5 ,000 is madness. Embrace intelligent order fulfillment with ShipStation, the only platform combining order management, warehouse workflows, inventory, returns, and analytics in one place. What used to take five separate tools, ShipStation does in one. Automate fulfillment and rate shopping to ship up to 15 times more with up to 90 % savings. Go to ShipStation.com and use code audio to try ShipStation free for 60 days. Thumbtack presents Tile Trouble.

24:41Every single time I use my sink, I make eye contact with the uneven grout on my kitchen backsplash. The crooked corners eye me and I'm haunted by more tiling questions than I thought possible. What kind of pro can fix a backsplash? Can I replace one cracked tile or should I replace them all? What? What if I just use Thumbtack? I can hire top-rated pros, read reviews, and compare prices with a tap, all on the app. Thumbtack knows homes. Download the app today. Rubrik is the security and AI operations company built for what happens after an attack hits, not just the moments before. AI has turned the threat landscape into quicksand, moving too fast for any human to fully predict.

25:20That's why an agentic cyber resilience platform matters. Automated recovery, clean data, a business that keeps moving no matter what hits. One platform, not a patchwork of stitched together tools and gaps. Don't wait for the next attack. Secure and accelerate your business at rubric.com. Again, rubric.com.

25:41welcome back here's a few stories we've been talking about in the club this week could we see a mass walkout at the bbc unions have rejected an improved pay offer from the corporation who have doubled its proposal to an average of 2.1 percent as a pay rise but the nuj and other unions dismissed it as still below inflation a new bbc dg matt brin called the rejection disappointing. The Trump administration has waded into a UK row over online prominence, warning the government that plans to force platforms like YouTube to give more visibility to the BBC and ITV risks facilitating censorship. The intervention echoes YouTube's own objections, voiced at last month's Edinburgh TV Festival, that the plan amounted to forced prominence.

26:26Netflix has put up its UK prices again. The cheapest ad-supported tier jumps by a third from£5.99 to£7.99 a month, while Standard and Premium both rise too, taking Premium above£20 for the first time. Check your direct debits. And Zoe Ball began her first greatest hits radio show this week. As mentioned, she's hosting 1 to 4pm, summaries between Ken Bruce and Simon Mayo, both of whom jumped ship from Radio 2. Her first song, I've Got the Music in Me by Kiki D, links to all of our stories available on our sub stack. Go visit it. It's at themediaclub.com. That's TheMediaClub.com. You can sign up for free.

27:04Rebecca and Simon are still with me. We talked a bit about Zoe earlier and about some of those brands. When, Andy, your colleagues are picking talent, do they ever ask you guys upstairs in advertising, like, would this be a good person? Would this help? Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things, you know, my background worked in newspapers for 15 years, and that was very much church and state. You know, they kind of just viewed us as quite an annoyance, I think. Or maybe that was just me. But one of the things I love about radio is that, you know, all our departments work really closely together.

27:39So I work really closely with Gary Steen, who's our programming director, and the individual brand programmers just to talk about which talent will work. Because it's not always, I mean, radio is sort of bought by ratings similar to TV. but there are some talent and some characters on air that drive disproportionate revenue for the audiences they have. Yeah, and we're really hoping that Zoe is going to be one of those. And the indications are that she is. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's not just about on-air talent as well. Our business is far more becoming about utilisation of talent in the content that we produce and then commercialising it, whether that's in podcasts, branded content, whatever.

28:23You know, the amount of work that we've done with talent over the last year compared to the 12 months previous is it's an enormous jump. Rebecca, there's a lot of TV talent or a lot of talent conversations at the TV festival. And I sort of felt we've definitely hit this point where the talent don't need telly as much as they used to. But at the same time, they still want to play with it, party with it. Amelia de Moldenburg, who this week said that she's going to stop doing chicken shop dates, has a film being worked on and she's got a TV show she's developing with the BBC. Yeah, I think for a long time there was a bit of a sense in TV of like, oh, these creators aren't going to want to work with us because they don't want to give up control.

29:03Which is true to an extent that, you know, if you are making a good living yourself and not having to have a producer and a commissioner telling you what to do, great. But I think there is the sense of, look, mum, I'm on TV. um and you know yeah and and money you know um i interviewed for um the edition of broadcast that we took up to edinburgh um i interviewed the three new hosts of uh the grand tour who were all from a kind of content creation background and i was like you're doing your own thing why do you want to do this because like because it's the grand tour and it's top gear like obviously we want to do this um you know the scale of it was the answer they kind of had like i can't afford to get jump jets and whatever going on like yeah um you know we can do stunts we can we can operate at this scale um so um the so two of the guys run uh run a youtube channel called throttle house over in canada which is very kind of car review show basically car jazz and then the other one is francis bourgeois who does the train spotting on tiktok also a master petrol head it turns out yeah yeah they're all they're kind of just lovely blokes like i went to feed them and they were so they were lovely um and yeah clearly having great fun with it i mean the talent it's the ball is a little bit in their courts do you have to sort of pitch the talent more now than we did in the past where it was like you're kind of lucky that we're going to give you a breakfast show and i was like will you will you come and please do our breakfast show i i think there's still a massive kudos about doing a breakfast show and there's lots of people want to do it i think it's more about us understanding which talent works with our audiences on what platform and what commercial value that can drive.

30:36I think that is the thing that we spend more time thinking about now than we have done before. Well, looking at, you put out a report called Soundcheck Europe, about works in lots of different markets. And it talks about advertisers, a lot of advertisers, nearly most of advertisers, playing to hold or grow their audio spend, which maybe works against some of the things we've been talking about. Is there a reason that audio remains as relevant? You know, everybody's sort of challenged with there being new platforms. Yeah, so that piece of research, because we work in nine audio markets at Bauer, that was over a thousand marketers and agencies across those markets.

31:16And the feeling came out that audio was a really booming sector and they were going to invest more in it. And if I kind of macro out, I've been in radio for 14 years, left The Guardian to go to Absolute Radio in 2012, two years there before it got bought by Bauer. When I left The Guardian to go to Absolute Radio, people internally and in media were going, what on earth are you doing? You're leaving this kind of digital pioneer to go, you know, it's the box in the corner of the kitchen or listening in the car. and I think the change that there's been in radio becoming audio and just diversifying in that time has been really really significant what hasn't happened is that there has been growth commercially but the the share of spend doesn't reflect the the time spent and that that's what we still need to work on.

32:03Yeah I mean this is something that's it's not a new thing is it so this is what you just said there the amount of time that people spend consuming the different medias and then how much money follows it you would assume well if people spend 30 % of their time with television 20 % of the money should go to television it doesn't work but it's a nice illustrative point isn't it but that shift and I know that when I did more kind of commercial radio stuff when you meet planners that sometimes are younger than the people they're buying advertising for their own views can sometimes drive that spend is that the case or is that me being annoyed with No, I think that definitely used to be the case.

32:44I kind of feel now that, you know, say radio has gone from this perception of being old and analog to now being mobile, always on and actually just diversified away from the radio into lots of other areas. So I don't think we get that as much now. Is there a sort of a halo from podcast and streaming that we've sort of, radio's borrowed? Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's just, as I said before, it's like this whole area of podcast, video, social is kind of coming together and audio is allowed to play in that space now. So there is a big opportunity there. It's also a really competitive space. especially at the younger end yeah uh you talked a bit about kiss um kiss relaunch uh i mean that's one of one of the challenges of aging brands obviously the audiences uh who grew up with kiss still quite like it and you need to reignite it for yeah yeah yeah well history yeah and at some points history is sort of neck and neck with yeah or bigger than the the the core brand um surely it's got a big conversation of like should we just start again with something fresh versus should we reboot this thing?

33:53I think there's a huge amount of love for the KISS brand. I do think that the work we did was at the right time and we were really encouraged by the first set of Rage Arts we got, particularly on the back of the new Breakfast Show. But it is, it's about taking that brand and pushing it out into platforms and places that a young audience are. So I don't think you should start with something else. I think the KISS brand has a lot of heritage and a lot of love for it. It's just about moving it into a digital forward-facing world. And that's got to be, in your organisation, there are lots and lots of brands.

34:22Lots of radio brands, there's mag brands as well and there's dishlady brands too. That's got to be a battle for who gets the cash. I'm sure Zoe, the truck of cash arrived at her house to say, please come and do the afternoons. And then it's like, what does Kiss think over here or what are other brands magic over there? We have simplified our radio portfolio a lot, as you'll know, in the last kind of 10 years. We've gone from having nearly 100 radio brands to significantly less. we've now got full national brands greatest hits hits kiss magic absolute um and i and i think that's also matched a change in the way that radio certainly in terms of spot advertising has been bought you kind of moved away from this line by line station by station to more true national brands so i don't think that's i don't think that's as true as it was again 10 years ago yeah for a lot of people who think of radios like a local national split um when i think about like historically try to remember now so local revenue um you'd get quite good yield on on local revenue but obviously national money was sort of easier to to buy because it was going on all the stations um what's that sort of split now between local advertisers versus national advertisers how does that how does that work yeah so we have a even though not just us but global as well have lost a lot of those local brands we can still target advertising really clearly now particularly particularly with digital audio so that becomes less about the brand and more about the audience in that tsa i would say at a headline if you think about what we spoke about earlier about you know the growth in the platforms meta particularly you know our direct or our local markets the area where we're most under pressure from that yeah so i guess this was like in the old days car dealers could kind of only really advertise with the local radio station yeah now they can hop on meta business so so we so we really in in those in those direct markets now we lead with digital audio because that can give exactly the same kind of targeting metrics and accountability that the platforms can so just before the quiz uh you got a new campaign running own every moment what's that pitch to advertisers own every moment so we we've been working with our really good friends in barometer outdoor for about 18 months now and we've been thinking about how we take ourselves to market how we approach our customers and how we really you know capitalized on having audio out of home and publishing in the same stable.

36:47So that own every moment is our new proposition effectively. With Bound Media, you can own all these millions of moments every day. Advertisers can take advantage of the trust and the brands that we have to connect with audiences. Is that a big, is that trying to change their views internally? Do they sort of see all operators and all publishers as, you know, they're historic and they come from this certain area, they do radio really well or they do mags really well and needing to sell it a new message and just sort of encourage them to catch up with the way that the businesses have shifted. Yeah, I think on that.

37:20So we, one thing you learn, because I've learned a lot about Out of Home and how it works in the last 15 months or so, you know, we operate quite differently to the audio business and the publishing business. To me, the exciting aspect is understanding where we join up for advantage for our customers and for us. And we did a lot of work. we carried out a big bit of market sensing when just after we'd finished the acquisition and the one of the working phrases that we come up with is stronger together specialist within and this is idea there are areas of our business that we can join up if you think about those that's around you know branded content how we utilize out of home and our branded content offerings or how we work in those local markets with direct advertisers but there's lots of our business where you know out of home works really well and publishing works really well and audio works really well so for me it's really about understanding where we gain value and where we deliver better for our advertisers by coming together great right just enough time for the audio network media quiz three media stories hidden inside an existing media property this week it's called going going gone now there's been a few stories in this week of veteran talent making way for bright young things so what better way to cover them off is in the guise of a daytime Antique Show.

38:42I'm Fiona Bruce Dickinson with three lots for appraisal. You tell me what the media story is behind each of these clues. And once again, Alex Audio Network has taken that brief from producer Matt and put together a stylish playlist to score today's game. Now it's the best of three, so just buzz in with your name when you know the answer. So Rebecca you'll say. Rebecca. And Simon you'll say. Simon. Let's play Going, Going, Gone. For 23 years, it has stood proud in the corner of the garden, tended and turned over every week without fail. But even the most cherished pieces need a rest eventually, and this one's owner has decided it's time to hand it to someone else's care.

39:24Simon. Well, I think Simon just squeezed it. That'll be Monty Don. Yes. Hanging up his trowel. After two decades, Monty Don is stepping down as presenter of BBC Gardeners World. Rebecca, are you a consumer of Monty's work on the television? I'm not. My mum is. My mum's a big fan. She in tears. I don't know if she knows yet. I haven't told her. We'll see. My mother will be devastated. Do we know who's been tipped to get the trowel next? No. Okay. Cessier Francis Tophill is probably tipped. I don't know who that is. No, I don't. Is that someone, Matt, just nod, is that someone gardening-y? Yes. Yes, he says yes.

40:01You can have mum in next time. Good. Right. Okay, here's lot number two. this one came with a full set of provenance 86 years old still performing beautifully but the paperwork's fallen through at the last minute and the seller insists it's nothing to do with quality Rebecca yes this is Tom Jones leaving the voice Sir Tom Jones Sir Tom Jones I apologize yeah he's been dropped as a coach yes indeed um so yeah there's a bit of a question mark about this like because it sort of initially it was kind of oh you know he's deciding to leave and then he kind of put out a statement which he'd been knifed yeah suggested that it was and it was sort of implied i mean i read it as as that essentially itv had decided that the insurance costs of having him on set presumably in that twirly chair yeah it's dangerous standing up to see the risk assessment for that as you get older exactly that yeah essentially he sort of said it was it was it was financial issues and i think to do with insurance so yes i read that as like someone told his agent obviously we love tom and we'd love to have him still involved but you know it's getting very difficult things like insurance are really expensive and obviously they told tom yeah he was not happy about this because they sort of said he was gonna exist in the show still that does not look like it's gonna happen no it doesn't does it um and they're gonna bring in cheryl yes i know an x factor a lot of discussion to come back rumors come back and i mean one thing x factor did when it was on air their press team liked pushing stories and it sounds like they're back to their old tricks of trying to kind of knife the voice to try and get it off the air as well yes indeed and we'll see how both of those do right okay one more a lot to go and this time a reversal you'd expect the newer piece to fetch the higher bid but sometimes the room falls for the item everyone's seen a thousand times before and the shiny new arrival goes home unsold son oh yes rebecca so yes this is uh so itv had a big new um uh entertainment format called the box which where they essentially put a celebrity in a box like think somewhere between a coffin and a porter cabin in bright yellow and take it somewhere.

42:20The celebrity doesn't know where, like it could be the top of the I-360 in Brighton or like the middle of a woods. And then they just open it and go, go. Off you go, get out, deal with the challenges in front of you. Which obviously was quite expensive, quite flashy. You know, I think - Big push at Edinburgh. The big push at Edinburgh. And I think sort of post the traitors, everybody wants the big new entertainment format. It's going to keep everybody gripped. and yeah so the box went out and I think it was the second episode in the series was beaten by a repeat of the Antiques Roadshow in the ratings by quite something something like I want to say 1.4 million for the box to 3.3 million for the Antiques Roadshow it was quite a trouncing poor old Gary Lineker yeah yes Gary Lineker's fronting the box which yeah and it's the sort of thing there's this kind of you will hear people say we want commissions to take risks and big swings and that's what we need.

43:19And then when it goes wrong, they sort of go, well, why did you take a big swing on that? And I think that is the consequence of taking big risks. Sometimes you get your ass kicked by the Antiques Roadshow. And obviously it's sort of cold on the heels of the neighbourhood as well. ITV have taken a good few big swings that they should be applauded for. And it's easy here that we can kind of jeer a little bit, but they've tried a couple of big things that haven't quite worked. But it's always difficult, isn't it, anything? New ideas versus established brands, established media, established hosts can often be ignored at their peril because of the drivers of a lot of revenue and a lot of audience.

43:57Yeah, I think it's interesting, isn't it? I think it is a risk. There's no such thing as a surefire win, except maybe Zoe Ball. We'll see it in the latest, Rachel. And I think we do forget, and I'm sure I've said this on the podcast before, but we forget how much sneering there was about how much the BBC had spent on the traitors before that first episode landed and everybody was hooked. There was a lot within the industry of like, oh my God, just because it's Studio Lambert, they've spent a fortune on this. And that paid off, you know. Well, I think that makes you our winner, Rebecca. As part of your prize, you get put in a box and taken to an area and you just let go and you have to deal with what happens.

44:35Does that mean I do the antiques road show? Yes, you get to take a small plate to an old home to see what they think of that. My thanks to Rebecca and Simon. Thanks again to Alex Audio Network for supplying today's music. Remember, Audio Network can do that for you too. Just head to audionetwork.com and there's a link in the show notes as well. So Rebecca, where can people keep up with you in both written and audio form? Yes, as ever, broadcastnow.co.uk you will find everything I'm working on and everything my colleagues have been working on and lots and lots of coverage of the Channel 4 story.

45:08and then we also have the broadcast podcast Talking TV which is coming back 1st of October. The first episode will land for the next series. So yes, do look for us wherever you get your podcasts. It's just lazy, just lazy, taking months to come back. It's fine, it's fine. Get it wherever you're listening to this one. And Simon, where can people keep up with your good work with Zoe Ball and others? Well, I'm actually, I'm presenting at the Future of Media conference in Manchester on Wednesday for anyone going. a three-point plan to try and deal with advertisers dealing with rising spend on the platforms and what we should do to balance it.

45:44You've hinted at maybe some of your thoughts on that. So get that in person on Wednesday. Thank you to you both. And thank you for listening and watching. My name's Matt Deegan. The producer is Matt Hill. It was a Rethink Audio production with video support from Podcast Discovery. We'll see you next week.

46:35We'll see you next time. Switch today at ShipStation.com code audio. Here's a tip for you. There's a podcast out there with fans waiting to be your next customer. They tune in every week. They trust the host. And that host wants to talk about brands like yours in their own words to their audience. The problem is you just haven't been introduced yet. We're Acast, where that introduction happens. As the world's largest podcast marketplace, We let you browse shows, see who's listening, and book host-read sponsorships or run your own ads all from one platform. Transparent pricing, real-time data, complete control.

47:13Start advertising on podcasts by visiting acast.com slash advertise.

47:22So retrospectors, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of Today in History? On Monday, the Yankee rebel who took on the British Navy in a one-man submarine. On Tuesday, how the Tasmanian tiger went out with a whimper. On Wednesday, how you doing? Why the sitcom spin-off Joey failed to find friends. On Thursday, the drunk driver who crashed his electric taxi in Regent Street in 1897. And on Friday, why the real Lord of the Flies were actually quite nice to each other. That's Today in History with The Retrospectors. Ten minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts.