Disney’s AI Gamble, MediaCity & Substack Growth

0:28Hello, welcome to the Media Club. I'm your host Matt Deegan. launch a new show and in the audio network media quiz we tabloid the news that's all happening in this edition of the media club come on in lovely to see you both hello lovely to be in your neck of the woods as well um stewart thank you for hosting us here at audio always you're very welcome um a newish studio and i guess probably the first time you've been in it yourself yeah it's a bit weird sitting this side of the mic and the camera but yeah we've been at media city since to be launched in 2012, but in this space in the White Tower for a couple of months.

0:59So you're very welcome. So founder and MD at Audio Always. Obviously now you've got your Media Club membership handed to you in person. Great. But who would you like as your plus one this week? I think Sarah Cox has to be on the list. I think after her amazing Children in Need speech to raise more than£10 million, we were involved with some of the audio and the packages and the recap bits. We were close to it here, audio always, as she did it. But a true queen. So please can I bring her with me into the club? You can and she'll be lots of fun. I mean, 10 million. I mean, she's really pushed it for a sort of celebrity contribution.

1:41She has. A tough challenge, big star, and also a great platform in Radio 2. Yeah, yeah. And I think also kind of seeing the reaction on the streets in these towns and villages in North Yorkshire, as she kind of made her way down, just kind of goes to show the power of being in those places and the impact that can have when you're walking through with a pudsley bear in the tipping down rain. It was great to see. Also joining us, Kat Lewis, CEO of TV Indie Nine Lives Media. Nice to see you again. It's a great place up in Salford, up in Manchester. It is amazing, isn't it? When people come to Media City, they kind of can't believe that it exists really with Salford University and lots of fantastic companies, including audio always and it's great to see the studio here and we're based just the other side of the road.

2:29Slightly cheaper. Always the way, that road makes all the difference. It does, no, so it's very good that, you know, there's lots of kind of places that independents can secure a kind of slightly cheaper rent, which is great. And who's your plus one this week? Well, it was going to be Sarah Cox. Oh! But I think that perhaps Tommy Nagra deserves a mention as well, you know, because he's stepping down from a wonderful career at the BBC and also from doing children in need. So he was the one who was partly responsible for casting Sarah, who's clearly now a household name. She's just done brilliantly, hasn't she?

3:11It's amazing when you go to the Asian Media Awards, which are held up here every year. everybody comes up and says, oh, Tommy launched my career. You know, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Tommy. And it's so lovely. He's a good friend. And I think he's done a lot of favours to a lot of people in television, bringing their careers on. OK, when we return, more about the BBC, of course, but not before some interesting developments about Disney. We'll see you in a sec.

3:45welcome back to the media club uh will you soon be able to generate your own content for disney plus um stewart it's what bob eiger the boss at disney has hinted at this week isn't it yeah it does feel a little bit like someone's gone you're not mentioning ai in your in your report so we need to kind of add ai in yeah i spotted what are they saying well in effect they're integrating user-generated content into Disney+. There's talk of protecting Disney's IP, which is kind of the thing that struck me. Disney is renowned for being very hot on, you know, how every part of it is used, as we can all expect.

4:22But I read it and kind of went, I don't quite understand how they're going to be able to achieve what it sounds like, as you mentioned at the top, creating your own Frozen, whilst also upholding the things that Disney feel or that they're famous for and they have to be. Kat, the media leader wrote about it this week saying Disney had had productive conversations with unnamed AI companies. So a little cautious, but should they be more brazen? You know, this is a thing that's coming to the media industry. Should they just grab it by the horns and try and tame it? I think they're almost reaching out to the younger generations who have grown up as gamers.

5:01And obviously people can watch content on games platforms. And I think that Disney are probably wanting to get in there and think that people can kind of play along and create along. Kat, there's something interesting about sort of creating content with your audience. So we're sort of used to broadcasting to them. A lot of people listen to this is sort of historically broadcast. Even podcasts can be quite one way. Have we got a look at ways to work with our consumers rather than just broadcast at them? I think so. And I think the technology is allowing us all to do it now. So I think it's really important for platforms.

5:37But interestingly, in terms of advertising, it's Netflix who were a predominantly subscription model who've now started taking adverts. It's actually reduced the advertising revenue on YouTube rather than it being the other way around. You know, we've got our own YouTube channel called A True Story. And, you know, we've noticed the revenue's gone down since Netflix started taking adverts. So I think it's more kind of that way around, really. Would you look to AI to enhance any of your productions? Yeah, we do use AI already and we certainly kind of start using it more. I've been reluctant, kind of, a lot of people have been asking me to kind of pass over all my rushes to AI companies.

6:21And I did think carefully about that, but decided not to do it because I just think that it's, we don't want computers to end up kind of in charge of content. So talk about those opportunities. I hadn't really heard about that before. So is that just more training data? Supposedly. But the thing that's really weird is there's lots of middlemen and women who've got into that marketplace and they're all saying, oh, you know, if you give us kind of all your rushes, and obviously we've got, you know, thousands, many thousands of hours of rushes, then they will do a deal with an AI company and they will come back to us and, you know, we will earn some money.

7:02But to me, it just feels wrong. Are they getting the final programme as well to sort of work out what you did? Is it more just they want lots of background video and just lots of how people move? I think they're worried that the government, you know, quite rightly, is going to say to digital companies, you can't just rip everything off YouTube, you know, and use that as your kind of teaching model. So I think this is in preparation for legislation. So they want kind of legitimate footage that can be used by AI companies. But I mean, I'm with Paul McCartney. I'm going to start making programs with nothing in.

7:44Organic, organic programs. Stuart, all those podcast rushes, all that content you've got, maybe there's a second business model. Well, we've had a similar approach and took a similar approach to Kat. It's not something that we've done. And we thought about it because, you know, there's potentially money to be made for stuff that's sitting on the shelf. But I think not fully understanding how it's being used, where it's going to be used. And also, I think that we have to accept that a lot of people have lots of different views on AI. And we work with presenters and producers, as you know, Kat does.

8:14I think we have to respect the fact that people might not want these rushes, these audios, the long form interviews that, you know, don't get broadcast or put out on podcasts to be used for things that they might not agree with. So I think it's a bit of a moral challenge as well as the practicalities of, well, how is this being used and what will it be used for? Are you finding AI restrictions in presenter contracts from talent agents? Is that still early days? No, it's early days. I mean, we don't really, you know, we're not including rights to sell, you know, on a practical point. You know, quite a lot of our contracts, we couldn't have kind of just sold stuff to AI companies.

8:50But it's something that's being talked about. and I think there's a real honest conversation about, you know, how it's being used. I think where it's coming up more for us is we do a lot of audiobooks here, and I think that's kind of where, especially the publishing industry, for what it's gone through in terms of books being ripped and being used for learning. So from a voiceover perspective, I think there's a lot more focus being put on that. From a presenter perspective, not quite as much, but the conversation's there, it's happening, and it's important for us all to be across it. OK, at the time of recording, President Trump is expected to file a lawsuit in a Florida courtroom against the BBC.

9:24He said he'll be seeking five billion dollars in damages, up from one billion last week. So we'll see where that goes to. Kat, we've sort of gone over that fateful idea, resignations of Tim Davey and Deborah Tanness. From what you see in the papers, has the BBC started to get a grip on all of this? I think it's been difficult because obviously those resignations, which, you know, I think were really unfortunate, but they've left a big vacuum. So yes, you know, there have always been very rigorous processes in place. Nobody really yet knows how this mistake happened. But, you know, from our point of view, we've always found, you know, the Panorama team and our speakers kind of were one of the biggest suppliers.

10:07As an independent, you made panoramas with the BBC. Yeah, we make probably more panoramas than anybody else. I mean, we're doing four at the moment, got two in production and two that they're very keen on. I kind of feel that, you know, it's such a rigorous process that it's really hard to understand how this happened, you know, for those of us kind of on the inside. because the BBC is extremely good at kind of making sure that everybody knows, you know, what's in kind of every shot and every word of the script is really carefully thought through. So goodness knows how it happened. But the truth is it wasn't broadcast in America.

10:47And it seems that the general legal consensus is that Trump hasn't got a defamation case, much as he might like to shout about it. I mean, he doesn't need a case. It never bothers him normally. And he's pretty good at shaking down media organisations. Yeah. And he's been bullying a lot of media organisations in America already. And it's really important that the BBC and everybody else stands firm. I mean, it's it's so ironic. You know, it couldn't be a kind of more ridiculous situation when you take the kind of wide view of it. I mean, it was a concern to us that it looked at one point as if the independent sector might be being blamed.

11:30Yes, I sort of expected October to be thrown under the bus, but that doesn't seem to have particularly happened. And it seems to be a lot of the maybe the BBC end of the process that the issues were. I think it was. Yeah, it was one of those programs where, you know, there were a lot of in-house people involved in the whole thing. I think October had come up with an idea that the BBC were keen on, but perhaps the BBC were already working on something. And sometimes we've ended up doing that as well, where you work very closely with the in-house team. But also you've got to think, yes, that there were problems with the Gaza film.

12:05And I have to say that, you know, some years ago, I'm talking kind of 15, maybe even 20 years ago, Channel 4 became very aware of the fact that it was incredibly important for independent production companies to feel that they were able to kind of speak about anything at any stage. You know, because fear was stopping people, you know, within the independent sector from talking to Channel 4 about problems that they had. And so Channel 4 were really good at the time. And the BBC have followed that. And everybody that I know in the industry, you know, deliberately has a kind of no fear culture, you know, speak up culture.

12:45And so, you know, it's quite unusual for these, well, certainly for the Gaza film, you know, for that problem to emerge. But obviously they've all got to be investigated once there are people back in those positions of power to kind of, you know, make sure that these mistakes don't happen again. But prior to these two recent examples, the other big stories, the big problems that happened in recent years were all kind of internal. So I don't think it shouldn't really matter, you know, because it's a casualised freelance industry anyway. You know, whether you're working for BBC Studios or whether you're working for Nine Lives, you know, everybody has to know how things are done and it's just got to be carefully regulated and managed.

13:35When you sort of saw it all blow up, did you sort of think, therefore the grace of God for things you've worked on Or did you just think this is an outlier? It's one of those crazy things that's hard to plan for. I think we're all human. And that's why they've got to be kind of ways of asking tough questions, you know, of your suppliers and of your producers. And that has to be taken very seriously. But to be honest, it is. So and I'm not going to, you know, step into a kind of judgmental role when I really don't know anything about how these these these things happen, particularly on the, you know, on the Trump program.

14:20All I can say is that in my experience, you know, the editor of Panorama, Karen Whiteman, is absolutely brilliant. The team are as well. You know, the executive producers, commissioning editors that she works alongside are all really, really good. And everything is checked so rigorously. I mean, if anybody could see, I have to say it's my husband who leads on our panoramas as the executive producer for Nine Lives. And he's often on a Zoom for literally seven hours going through every word of a script. And if people could see that, they would recognise why Tim Davey was applauding kind of BBC journalism and how rigorous it is and how thorough it is.

15:01And so it's just really, really unfortunate that this has happened. Stuart, you're a big supplier for the BBC. You make a lot of hours of output on the radio side. do issues like this sort of flow down to you or? I mean I think we shared that similar kind of nervousness of oh this is an indie who was part of this story so there was that initial moment to go how does this impact the reputation of external suppliers I think what's interesting for me is actually how well certainly from a radio perspective we as a radio supplier and other indies were treated in this moment I think it would be really easy when the BBC are going through this to kind of go, you know, it's an internal thing.

15:43But senior management at the BBC made themselves available to our teams if they had any questions or concerns. And it demonstrated that when stuff like this happened, it's not just about the BBC, but it's about the wider media community. It's about suppliers, internal teams, external teams. It was good to see that in that moment, it wasn't like, you know, you're external. They appreciated that these news headlines would impact lots of people no matter where you're working in that supply chain for the BBC. Does it make the staff nervous, like your staff, as you suddenly see something on the screen?

16:16And I think, like we've talked about, you think, oh, it's an edit, you know, it's an edit choice. And OK, maybe it should have been picked up. But whoever was in charge of that edit themselves must be thinking, oh, God, look at all the things that happened from it. Not their fault, you know, it should have been picked up by somebody else. Is that a challenge? Yeah, I mean, in moments like this, it all kind of, you know, to Kat's point, you know, everybody's human. I think it does highlight that the decisions that programme makers, whether it's TV, radio, whatever, you know, whatever you're making, the decisions that you do make on a daily basis, innocent choices, you know, whatever that choice is, however it happened can have huge consequences.

16:54So, yeah, it's, you know, I certainly, you know, read the headlines and went, oh, it is unnerving. But I think, as I say, I think when the dust settles a bit and you zoom out, it's testament to how the BBC work with the in-house teams and external suppliers to make sure that issues like this are, you know, are limited. I think about the Trump lawsuit. Part of me thinks it's quite good news for the BBC to have what seems more and more a crazy lawsuit. is it actually a good discussion for them to have? Will the public be on their side or does it just drag this out even further? I'd be really interested to see how engaged the public are with it because I think that certainly the people that I've spoken to outside the industry, you know, just find it quite hard to understand A, how it's happened, but B, you know, the kind of crazy figures that Trump's kind of speaking about.

17:51And obviously everybody has their own opinion on Trump. I mean, perhaps if the BBC is perceived to be being bullied and the license fee payers are thought to be threatened, blackmailed almost, then perhaps that will kind of encourage people to get behind the national broadcaster. I just hope that he moves on to something else and find somebody else to be angry about. I mean, Brits don't like bullies as a country, but there's quite a lot of people, particularly on the right in the UK, that are championing Trump, ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He was sort of saying he's sort of doing the right thing.

18:35It's kind of interesting sort of British politicians sort of playing against the home team. Obviously, you think there's more value there. Yeah. And, you know, each to their own in terms of political opinions. But it's also highlighting how precious the BBC board value that license fee. And I think in a conversation on lots of political spectrums on the value of the license fee and how the BBC should be funded, I think the BBC standing firm to go, look, we're not spending license fee payers money on, you know, costs like this, I think is highlighting the importance of putting every pound into programme making.

19:09OK, just before the break, the Edinburgh International Television Festival is changing one of those words. Kat, which one of those words are they changing? Unbelievably, Edinburgh. They say they might do. They're just opening up the opportunity for the TV festival to move to a new location. Is that the right thing to do? I think they need to shake it up. I think it needs to be much more forward looking and it needs to be cheaper. It's become very expensive and that makes it exclusive. But unfortunately, the big companies and the big broadcasters that used to fund it effectively by bringing a lot of their staff along, even they can't afford it as much anymore.

19:55So I think they have to do something. But I go to the Creative Cities convention. That was in Bradford this year. Yes, it was in Bradford this year. And I think next year it's going to be in Liverpool. And that's kind of made a real kind of unique selling point of it, travelling around the country. And it's mainly about and for companies in the nations and regions. And so I think it would be quite sad, really, if Edinburgh kind of ends up doing the same, particularly because I love going to the comedy when I'm up there. Well, that is one of the nice things, is you get to take part in the whole broad Edinburgh festivals that are happening.

20:32But it is expensive. Accommodation is expensive. Travel is expensive to get up there. And as you say, the ticket is pretty pricey too. Would you like the festival to come here to Manchester and Salford? I mean, yeah, it'd be great. Easy. I'd have been to Edinburgh TV Festival. So I think my view is based on not having been and experienced it. So, hey, it might be wonderful. And maybe Edinburgh is the perfect place for it. But I think, I imagine there is a core group of people, like Kat says, who go there in and out, you know, you're in, you're out. But there's also probably a lot of casual people who are involved in the industry who want to get involved with, you know, sessions, talks, networking that can't do it because of where it is.

21:09So I think any opportunity to bring these events to different places, I imagine that the core group that go every year will go wherever it is, but being able to open it up to other parts of the country is, yeah, sounds interesting. And Kat, the festival has been sort of under fire a little bit. The TV sector has been so affected kind of post-COVID, lots of people out of work and having an expensive event. They've got to think differently about what they're doing. And they are taking a lot of time to think about the way forward. And I do think that as the industry is changing and as more television producers are making podcasts, for example, I just wonder if there isn't a kind of way of kind of turning it into the broadcast festival or the content festival rather than it being stuck as the television festival.

22:01It has to be future-proofed. I'm not sure moving it out of Edinburgh is necessary, but I think that they could consider other venues up there, perhaps working with the university or, you know, find a way of kind of cutting costs that isn't necessarily about moving away from Scotland. OK, when we return, Substack's having a bit of a moment. I'll see you in a sec.

22:34Hello Media Club listeners, Patrick here from Podcast Discovery, the podcast marketing company, where this week we've been thinking about brands. Podcasts can be valuable for brands and lucrative for producers when they're done right. But doing it right is the key. How do you make sure you're actually making something the target audience will choose to listen to? It's something we've got plenty of experience with, which we'd be happy to share. Just get in touch at podcastdiscovery.com. That's podcastdiscovery.com. Welcome back. Here's some stories we've been talking about in the club this week.

23:10The Telegraph has shaken off another suitor and is back on the market for the third time in almost three years. It follows a concerted campaign by the editorial team of the paper to expose links to China for Redbird and Redbird IMI. There are now calls for the House of Lords to let an independent body oversee the sale. Meta has won a major antitrust case in the States, meaning that the Facebook owner won't have to break off WhatsApp or Instagram. The judge's ruling suggests your Meta business suite is safe for as long as TikTok is still operating in America. And the Financial Times has launched our sub stack.

23:49The new product around FT Alphaville is a markets and insights blog aimed at putting the brand in front of younger replenisher audiences. Links to all of our stories available on our sub stack at themediaclub.com. It is free to sign up to. And you also get a copy of Briefed, our weekly roundup of all the other media podcasts and what they're talking about. Our guest is still with me. So Substack from the FT, we've seen quite a lot of media companies going into Substack, even when they've got their own subscription products. Is it a good thing for them to do? Yeah, I think so. I mean, we have the kind of constant Patreon versus Substack battle from a podcast perspective.

24:28It still feels like Patreon is the more natural place for us. But I think, you know, there's some amazing examples like Lenny's newsletter, for example, you know, what that team are doing on Substack is amazing. is amazing. And, you know, we build our podcast business on advertising and revenue, but the subscription being able to kind of help us ride those highs and lows in the advertising market is interesting. So I think particularly for kind of storytelling and, you know, true crime, for example, I think that's where it's an interesting space for us, for those audiences who just crave a little bit more, a little bit more in depth, which makes total sense why the ft are going down this route and people maybe aren't so aware but you can do quite a lot of subscription things on a sub stack subscription video and audio as well as as well as text it can replace a platform like patreon yeah and i think that's one of the reasons why it's become so popular is it in effect is it's it's everything it's everything you could want it to be in in one place it's kind of taken all of the the good bits of patreon and and got rid of some of the the less good bits of patreon so um i think it'd be interesting in the uk how it how it pans out It feels like we need a few more kind of media companies to be embracing Substack and kind of putting their subscriptions there for it to get a bit more traction.

25:43But it's certainly one to keep an eye on. Kat, FT obviously have their own subscription platform and a big subscription business. They're sort of seeing Substack as a way to reach audiences that live in that place. taking one step back from that decision what's happening is the new mantra is go where the readers are go where the viewers are so for example i was at the itv non-scripted briefing day yesterday and they were talking about the importance of youtube so they've launched a true crime youtube channel and we do a series for them a returning series called tiktok murder gone viral And that's actually done it did under a million for the first viewing on ITV, unfortunately, of the second series.

26:28But it's done two million on YouTube already kind of within the first week. And on ITVX as well, it's their highest factual series. So that's, you know, and it's mostly younger viewers. So I think that they're looking, you know, for that exactly the same kind of model. You know, the FT needs younger viewers. All the legacy media companies need to be reaching out to young people and you have to go where they are. Thinking about sort of platforms, Stuart, we've obviously seen lots of discussion about podcasts moving to Netflix and some of the video platforms. What did you feel when you saw that news?

27:04Do you think, hey, I can get some of that Netflix money? Oh, Netflix money would be lovely. Yeah, I mean, look, they've they've sometimes they commission, sometimes they don't. sometimes they're licensed sometimes they don't um we as i'm sure every other podcast producer are kind of you know actively trying to have those conversations quite often podcasts come in and out of favor with broadcasters um and maybe some of the you know different models around licensing is something that i'd quite like to see we don't necessarily need it to be kind of commissioned but i think the quality and the content that's coming out of podcasts in the uk and around the world is up there with a lot of the content that's on these streaming platforms.

27:41So licensing as well as commissioning is something that I think is quite an interesting conversation for us to have. When you're thinking about new shows, is that also in mind? Like, is this show something that could work on a TV streaming platform? Absolutely, yeah. And I think we sit across kind of entertainment formats, which is quite easy to, like this, chatting around a studio and getting that on sort of visual platforms. The challenge comes with podcasts that have a bit more story-led, in-depth, sound design. How do you kind of transfer that? I think that's a challenge that we need to face as an industry without kind of upholding the quality of audio and that audio craft that the industry does so well from an audio perspective.

28:25But we're always thinking about video when we have to. Kat, when you think about your projects, which is a sort of TV projects, but when they're digital products, Is it the same content that just happens to be distributed on a different platform or is it different things for different people? It has to be different because what's changing is that the advertising revenue that we've relied on for so many years in television, it hasn't kind of gone to one other place as a nice big chunk that we could follow, as in follow the money. It's basically been split in a million different ways. And the whole advertising industry is totally different now.

29:02We all know that we all, you know, use these different platforms and can see that for ourselves. What that means is that you can't really replicate from a YouTube advertising revenue, the kind of programs that we make for the broadcasters. You just can't. So what you can do is podcasts like this, you know, which you film. So very much interview based programming. And you're looking at budgets of kind of, you know, instead of 250 ,000, you're looking at a budget of 5000, you know, for an hour. And that's the difference. But what's really interesting, because I think television can sometimes be accused of, you know, getting kind of so complex and, you know, so snobby, to be honest, creatively, that it's become kind of more and more complicated and the production values have gone higher and higher and higher and it's become more and more expensive as a consequence.

30:01And actually the viewers often just like something that's kind of, you know, cheaply made, that's very authentic, where they can make decisions for themselves. Things aren't edited in the same way because you don't have the budget to edit them. And viewers actually love that. So I think it's really interesting and I love the fact that it's made broadcasting much more of a level playing field so that you know any kid with a camera you know can make a film and put it out on YouTube and if they're entertaining and if they're persistent and if they you know have a little bit of luck and grab people's imaginations then they can kind of take off with their own career.

30:41So talk to me about your current projects where is the time of you and your team spread at the moment what are they working on so i've mentioned the panoramas already and um we've got a uh an important kind of documentary that we're doing for um the bbc that's that's presenter-led but it hasn't been announced yet so i can't um say more about that but it's i'm very excited about that um and then we were hoping to go back into production with our true crime series tick-tock murder gone viral for itb so we're just waiting to look at the figures because it's not about the overnights anymore it's about kind of the 28 day consolidated figures so we're just waiting for those to come in and looking at how it's worked across platforms and the number of kind of 16 to 34 year olds it's brought in etc good good and how about you Stuart what's um keeping your teams busy at the moment well we split our time across radio podcasts and audiobooks so um lots of uh radio right now it's it's getting stuff ready for christmas pre-records which is always the always the fun looking ahead to Christmas.

31:42But yeah, lots of the team working on radio programmes and in the podcast space lots of original podcast launched over the last couple of weeks. We've welcomed the Girls' Bathroom, a huge kind of YouTube podcast into our network and those girls are brilliant. So how does that work? So it's an existing product, were they making it themselves? Yeah, they've been making it themselves very successfully and we're now working together for our team to kind of enhance that production and support them with production support them with commercialising it and in effect kind of helping them take it to the next level I mean they were all doing brilliantly they were already doing brilliantly before we got involved but they've got a new studio, a new set they've joined us in our space in Farringdon in our podcast studios there and we're actively looking for ways to help them grow And is that for a podcaster?

32:32Obviously they often have to do a lot themselves so one probably gives them some of their own time back I imagine they can concentrate on making the show and does it ideally increase the yield of that show and how much money they can make from it? Yeah, I mean, we've got a team here that are kind of making always-on podcasts all day, every day so then being able to plug into that infrastructure and the workflows that we've got often makes the production cheaper, more efficient but we've also got an active commercial team who are working across podcasts and a lot of our podcasts are full, thankfully and commercially are busy So our ability to be able to kind of cross sell podcasts and, you know, sell the network and not just individual podcasts.

33:17It's kind of the economies of scale that come with that often means that, you know, creators who are making YouTube audio podcast content, joining a network can help them, you know, grow in all definitions of the word grow. Do you think that's a challenge for the sort of the ACASTs of the world or do you still work with them or how does your stuff sit alongside their stuff? Yeah, I mean, we work with ACAST. ACAST are brilliant. And, you know, they are servicing and doing a brilliant job servicing lots of big agencies who are getting, you know, lots of podcasts and lots of plans. We then sort of supplement that internally with direct sales.

33:53So working with maybe smaller agencies, direct brands, those clients who maybe aren't using a big media agency, but are still interested in podcasting. So we kind of cover the whole market using the power and scale of ACAST with also the kind of the bespoke, more direct approach that we have with our internal teams. And again, that sort of overall commercial view of the market means that some podcasts that we work with might be opening up new channels for revenue that they weren't maximizing before. And one of your big shows, How Priceless to My Boss, is back on tour again. Back on tour, yes, playing arenas in March next year.

34:33That's amazing. Yeah, it's great. And, you know, Sexton is an amazing podcast. It was our first original and kind of led us on our original journey. William and Jordan are brilliant and wonderful in front of a live audience. And, yeah, we're supersizing it next year, playing Manchester Arena, Wembley, Glasgow and Cardiff. And we're currently looking at budgets for making William Hansen fly. so who knows what that show will be but it's testament to how popular podcasts are and how much audiences really want to be part of that experience and see it and feel it and be in the room with these people who they listen to all day every day so yeah we're very proud to be taking that on the road Our tickets are on sale, they're about to go on sale?

35:16They are on sale, yes they are flying out the door like William Hansel was flying on stage Good, good It struck me, I think it's about 15 years since Media City kind of opened its doors you talked there about kind of Farringdon studio and and and here studio in Salford what is the relationship with London oh we love London it's just cheaper up here no I mean look you know all media businesses you know there's a reality with you know where the you know the centre of the industry is you know we will always have a link to London and you know we've invested in facilities in London because of a practical perspective when we're recording stuff you know we have to be there but the north is kind of our our home it's where we um it's where we love to be and i think um as kat said earlier i think a lot of people are surprised by the community here how vibrant it is and the opportunities that exist here and and what can be done and and you know seeing children in need here back to children in need on friday night and just the scale of programs that can come from media city it's um it's it's brilliant to see and hope it continues for a long time.

36:20Kat, is there still strong gravity pulling people to London or is that less of an issue? It's less of an issue than it was, definitely. I think things have really improved. And I think, you know, obviously I ran the campaign to tighten the out of London criteria with Ofcom. And I think that that helped as well, you know, because that meant that real jobs had to be created out of London. And, you know, people had to make the programmes that they were registering as being made out of London, actually, and offices, you know, beyond and outside the M25. So yeah, I'm pleased about that. And I think that it's incredibly important that everybody has a chance to work in the media, whatever aspect of the media they want to work in.

37:07It's just really important that it's not just those people that happen to live in London, happen to be born in London, that are able to work in television or radio podcasts. You know, all these different programmes are just so important because it's the nation reflecting the nation and it's got to be the whole country and not just one part of it. OK, just enough time for the Audio Network Media Quiz.

37:36Three media stories connected by one theme and then shoehorned into a format of an existing media property. This week, it's shock news. Producer Matt has sensationalised three already quite exciting stories by giving them a front page tabloid twist. Basically, name the story from the heavily punned headline. Once again, Alex at Audio Network has taken that convoluted brief of producer Matt and has scored the music, creating a great playlist for today's game. It's a best of three. So buzz in with your names when you know the answer. So cat you will say. Cat. And Stuart you will say. Stuart. Let's play Shock News.

38:20Lineker plans to fry your brain. Stuart. Oh, cat just there, I think. Maybe the sound got to me early. Yeah, maybe. Cat. Sorry, Stuart. Especially because it's a podcast question. I was going to say, I should get this. Yeah, so Gary Lenniker's company is creating a new podcast all about science. Yes. So the rest is science. This is the rest is science with Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens. Do you think a good pairing? Yeah, and I think they're going to televise it or certainly video it. And it's exciting. I think it's fantastic that they've done so well with all their podcasts. Goalhanger say that it's a video first podcast.

39:04Fry and Stephen's good on socials. You know, they're both in the US and the UK. Do you think they're the right pair? Are they doing it to try and break US and UK simultaneously? Yeah, I mean, it's a genius pairing. Hannah's great. I'm not, as across kind of Michael's work, but I think it's really telling that they've kind of got that American host in there. It's sort of a YouTuber resource, one of the first kind of successful learning channels, I guess. But it shows their ambition. It shows their scale for America. And I think that especially with content like science, which is relevant no matter where you're listening to it, watching it, I think it's a really smart move to kind of pair those two together and make it transatlantic.

39:43And I guess they've got the cross-promotional capacity across the rest of their network. Yeah, I'm intrigued by a rest is history, rest is science crossover, like those historical moments in science or the science of football. I think, you know, they do an amazing job in terms of cross-promotion. But I think the opportunity they're building there to really drive audiences in terms of content with the talent they have is, yeah, it's exciting. Okay, here's front page news story number two.

40:10British outfits in record-breaking$1 billion heist. Ooh. So Britain's done, Britain's sold a billion dollars. Oh, Stuart. Yes, Stuart. Okay. It's, I don't, it's TV deals? Yes. Okay. So this is sales. I'll give you the point just about. So sales of British shows to American buyers sawed above a billion dollars for the first time last year, according to Pact. Kat, I mean, it's great that we have a market for our wares. It is. It's just a slightly odd story because I know people that have been going to MIPCOM for literally kind of 30 years that didn't go this year because it was so anticipated to be so dead.

40:55and apparently it was so dead, but maybe it's because of the London content market taking over. I mean, fantastic news and I hope it continues. Yes. Is it sustainable? Are there sort of peaks with big formats or a lot of interest in what we're doing? It's really difficult to know because it also depends upon advertising revenue being available and advertising revenue funding programmes, you know, across the world, not just here. so the costs of making programs have gone up and that's one of the reasons why the figures are bigger but now if you do get a drama commissioned you've got to have all that pre-sales money you know to put into the budget to actually make it work so long may it continue Let's see Right, one more to go Kelvin McKenzie in shock praise for The Guardian Cat.

41:54Yes. So this is about the hacking scandal. And amazingly, Calvin says he knew nothing about it. And he's very shocked and he applauds the journalism that The Guardian have done now with 2020 hindsight. At the time, he was very critical of The Guardian. But I'm glad that he's in his old age coming around to realising who was purveying the truth in the first place. He said about Rupert Murdoch's appearance at Leveson, he said it was a total act. Murdoch had empathy extracted by a major surgeon in New York City when I was about 22. I admire him for his acting ability. Maybe Calvin in his old age now is very happy to throw bombs at the old boss.

42:42It's quite interesting. I was kind of thinking because one of our sons has been living in New Zealand for the last couple of years. And in New Zealand, they didn't allow Murdoch in, you know, so they didn't have any Murdoch newspapers. And it has crossed my mind whether Brexit would have happened and, you know, how history could have been changed if we didn't have him here. Yes, definitely would have been a different media sector. Well, congratulations, Kat. You're the winner. Just about there might be Stuart's Inquiry. Stuart's Inquiry. And as our winner, you can investigate selling our podcast for up to a billion dollars to the US.

43:18Please come back and tell us how you get on. Also, thank you to Alex at Audio Network for supplying the music in today's quiz. And remember, she and they can do it for you too. Just head to audionetwork.com. There's also a link in the show notes. Thank you both for joining me today. Where can people keep up with you and your work? Yes, so 9livesofmedia.co.uk and also our YouTube channel, which is called A True Story. So yes, tell me about A True Story. What's on there? So it's all our past programmes. We actually, it was Sonny Kang, one of our producer directors who started it when he was new to the company about 14 years ago.

43:57And then we started monetising it in June 2022. And it's just gone great guns. It's got a lot of true crime as well as human interest stories. So there aren't that many other channels doing what it does. So, yeah, it's done very well. And now we're taking other producers' content and giving them 60 % of the gross profits. No costs. You know, we just cover our costs out of the 40 % that we take. Yeah, and long may it continue to grow. because I think it's so important for all producers to be involved in YouTube and the other new platforms as well. And Stuart, how can people keep up with your work?

44:38AudioWarrows.com and AudioWarrows on all the other places too. Excellent. Thank you both. Thank you for watching and listening. My name's Matt Deegan. The producer was Matt Hill. It was a Rethink Audio production with visual support from Podcast Discovery. I'll see you next week.

44:59So, retrospectors, which historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of Today in History? On Monday, the anniversary of the day Magic Johnson made an announcement that shocked America. On Tuesday, we discovered that in the early days Tom and Jerry were a cat and a dog. On Wednesday, spend a penny at London's first public toilets for women. On Thursday, the day Malcolm X came to Smethwick. And on Friday, the cool true story behind cool runnings. That's Today in History with the retrospectors. 10 minutes each weekday wherever you get your podcasts.