Format Fever, Sky's Gamble, and The Creator Economy Grows Up

0:04If you're heading to the podcast show towards the end of May, be sure to say hello. The Media Club will be hosting our very own session. Yes, we've assembled a crack team of pundits to answer the question, what podcasters can learn from print pivot to video? Join us on Thursday, May 21st, and I'll see you there. Hello, welcome to the Media Club. I'm Matt Deegan in the club today. Is breaking news a broken product as Sky News downgrades its point of difference? Where is the news channel going to find its income? Also on the show, how do you know which medium to take your great idea? CMG Productions' Claire McArdle joins us to talk about bringing true stories to the small screen.

0:44And 200 companies pitch for it, but only two have won the big new mega format from the BBC and NBC. Goldwaller's Faraz Osman joins us to talk pitching, process and whether the prize is worth it. All that, plus the Ankla packs its bags and leaves sub-stack. Patreon launches what might be the most polite social media feed in history. And in the Audio Network Media Quiz, things take an unexpected turn. That's all coming up in this edition of the Media Club. Come on in.

1:16Joining me today are two more members of the Media Club. Faraz Osman, founder and MD of Gold Waller, has made shows for CBB's Channel 4 ITV in a long list of brands. You're also a broadcast magazine columnist. But who are you going to give your plus one to this week? It's Simone Pennant, who recently received a special award at the BAFTA craft ceremony. I kind of like the idea that you win a BAFTA and then you get membership to the media club, like alongside, I don't know, like three months of a car membership and a tote bag. from like, it's like, it's the goodie bag for BAFTA now. But no, she is a marvel.

1:57I'm actually like, very, very pleased that I've been part of some of the things that she's done. So people don't know her, what she... So sorry, so Simone Penance, she runs a thing called the TV Collective, which she's been running for a while now and it's effectively championing and showcasing minority talent, ethnic minority talent across the TV industry. But she's been kind of been doing this for a long, long time. Like, you know, It's kind of in vogue and in fashion. Simone's been doing it for a while and she's always been at the forefront of it. So it's kind of one of those things where you watch it and you're a bit like, hang on a minute, Simone's not got a BAFTA special award.

2:33I would have thought that she would have been given that years ago. So I think it's incredibly well-deserved. She's already got an MBE. So I don't know if you win a BAFTA, you get more letters after your name. I don't know. But she is a well-deserved winner and stands now next to Martin Lewis, money-saving expert who i think is getting a special award at the tv awards next week so she's in very very good company so she can save us money she can get those tips and also get all sorts of work then then she's the dream ticket excellent well she's very welcome to join the club uh and making her media club debut clare mccandle co-co of cmg productions uh cmg develops original ip across sport crime and documentary and you've just announced a new podcast partnership with Stack, which I think we'll talk about a bit later.

3:17But now a member of the media club, who would you like to tag along with you as your plus one? So I'm going international with my entry. I am going to invite the South American director, Luiz Ara, to join the media club. Luiz directed a documentary about Ronaldinho Gaucho, the famous Brazilian footballer. and I am absolutely in awe of his ability to get that man in a room for long enough to make a three episode fantastic sports documentary which was commissioned out of the Netflix team in Brazil but has done great guns all over the world. I think it's just a really good example of a documentary where somebody is sitting down and you are not varnishing over any of it.

4:08you're really going into the difficult bits, the mucky bits, the whole sort of kit and caboodle. And I hope that's a signal that we're sort of moving back to a more honest version of sort of sport biopic. Yeah, so there's obviously been lots where the participant is the producer. Yes. And some of those perhaps don't always cover everything. And I have done some of those as well. and for full disclosure Luiz directed our film Brazil 2002 that we made about that World Cup winning team a few years ago it can be challenging it wasn't in that circumstance but I think that there has been a leaning in on sports docs to maybe be a bit more hagiographical and less interrogating the subject or going for let's commission the best story and sometimes that's not the most famous person.

5:05Yes. Well, he's a good addition, both great additions. Thank you both. In a moment, the results of the biggest format pitch in British television. All off to the break.

5:21Welcome back to the Media Club. The BBC and NBC Universal have named the winners of their unscripted format tender. So for us, it's a collaboration between two companies that maybe you wouldn't have necessarily put together. When you did the intro I thought you were suggesting that I'd won it. I was a bit like, hold on a minute. Have I won it? I've got a big check here. I'm going to hold it up. Guess what you've won? You've won your future of a company. But what's your rights position? What is my rights position? Exactly. It is, oh my god I've forgotten who it is. It's Peglazoid. Yes. And I feel like I'm already in the media quiz.

5:58Peglazoid and Expectation. And Expectation, that's right. Which is kind of Clarkson's farm. Yes. And Peglasoid, they made Sarah Davis's quiz format. I think it's a quiz format. And they've teamed up to do this. It's always nice when you see companies share the spoils or something like this. It was a big tender. Full disclosure, we went for it. We didn't get very far. I'm not hugely surprised about that. When you look at the shortlist. So what was the process? What was the process? So it was, so to kind of, you know, I just think that everybody knows about this stuff. and I realise actually, like I sit in a very insular world in television.

6:34So there is a TV show called The Traitors. It's very niche. But that show is for the BBC when they commissioned it, they commissioned it with NBCUniversal. So the American version and the British version are filmed kind of back to back. So it's the same castle, they have different hosts, but it's effectively them sharing the production costs of it. and it was very very successful um saeeda who is now moves on from the bbc to netflix um she was a key part of it and uh it was so successful they were like let's do it again and they did it again with a show called destination x um and uh that has again that was a competitive tender um but i believe again had a had a collaborative relationship between nbc universal and the bbc but they were looking to see how they can use this formed relationship that's been successful now twice to find a new format um and so they had put out a open tender to all and sundry in the i believe just a uk unscripted community to say tell us your ideas and we will shortlist 10 companies who will then go into a development sprint with some bit of cash um from the bbc and mbc universal and and then we will select one winner as i'm saying this out loud it feels like a like a really weird beauty maybe this should have been the the the game what they pitched yeah and you know what it wouldn't surprise me if somebody pitched like because they all i was actually talking about this yesterday at one point in every production company's life they have pitched that thing where they're like what if it was like we make a tv show about pitching a tv show like wouldn't that be an amazing thing but then you do actually see some things that are really successful like like succession which is a tv show about a tv network um uh so the um uh so anyway so it was a big tender.

8:23A lot of companies apply for it because a lot of companies are kind of... A nice bit of Dosh, a nice bit of IP. Yeah, and they know that it will be backed hard by the BBC. It's a big swing. And actually, I think this is characteristic of the fact that we are seeing some big swings, which I think is a good thing. Obviously, Sky have done SNL, which is a big swing. This is a big swing for the BBC and we've seen things like The Neighbourhood at itv so people are seeming to kind of want to go big or go home when you look at the shortlist i mean i obviously i'm going to say this because i run a small independent indie the shortlist was you could have probably written that you know when the tender opened about who was going to be on that short or the decent size you know and and i i have to say do i think those indies need 10 000 worth of license fee money into their development pipeline to develop i'm unsure um and uh perhaps don't need it as much as some other people do.

9:22It's always nice to have some money. I run a small production company, but like, you know, and at the moment with the state of the industry, everyone needs, you know, some kickstarting fund. And what it does do, it means it focuses thoughts onto NBC and the BBC in a world where everyone's thinking about what's the big hit we can get to Amazon and what's the big hit we can get to Netflix and Disney, etc. So I hope it's really successful because, you know, we need more hits. It employs more people. All of those things are really important. I think everyone is chomping at the bit to see what the idea is.

9:55Yeah, so let me describe it. The format's described as... Do we know what it is? Is it a game show? Well, it's described as... Oh my God, this is... Sorry, this is breaking news. Can I get comfortable? I didn't know that it was announced that this is what it is. It's a studio-based. There isn't a lot to there. Okay. It's a studio-based game show with an innovative and compelling twist built around a shared location or hub. Claire, what did you think when you... So I think the interesting bit of this is obviously in NBC, BBC, sort of legacy media. How do we become greater than some of our parts when, as you say, if you come up with like a stonking format, are you going to an Amazon, a Netflix, etc.?

10:34Whereas back in the day, you'd make your stonking format for the BBC and then that would be your secondary revenue stream would be taking that out to other broadcasters and selling that internationally. which was my sort of point about what's the, thank you for my big check, what's the right position? The hub element of it is interesting. And I think that's something we're seeing more and more. It's something that Fox, coming into Ireland and doing a lot of like the production in Ireland and those kind of big game show formats, they did it with the circle. it's easy it's it is more cost efficient to fly people in to the uk or ireland than to make those multiple versions but you can push into more markets more easily but that i mean wipe out we're doing this years and years this is exactly what i was thinking about years ago yeah so um i think that's interesting i think we're it's i think we're going to see more and more of that as a way to sort of reduce costs.

11:35We are not in the format business. We don't, we sort of toyed with it when we first set up the company. And I think that's why you're seeing the list of 10 that you're seeing in terms of who was sort of initially shortlisted is making a successful format, doing, and we used to do this back at Maverick when you're hiring, you used to hire the church hall around the corner in Houston and you're like running through it and running through it and running through it. And where there's... When you're a small indie without sort of bigger backing or you're not from that format's world, it's just, that's not a swing that...

12:13Hard to do. We've made the decision not to take those swings. But some of that expertise we do... Rebecca, for example, who I co-run the company with, she was setting up all of those production hubs across Europe for MTV back in the day when they would do Ridiculousness or X on the Beach. It has real advantages. I think that's the bit that I found interesting. I think that the combination of who's winning that pitch is exactly who you'd expect to be winning it. You talked there about people kind of working together. And I was just thinking about Last One Laughing was, was it Sepertron and Initial?

12:53I know they're the same kind of parent company, but they both pitched with slightly different areas of expertise. We're going to see, we see more of that. Well, the garden studio Lambert have done stuff together. They do squid game, the challenge for Netflix together. With STV and studio Lambert working together. Yeah. Primal media, I think STV. And, and there's, I think that there's a kind of, there's movement back and forth. Cause it's a bit like, is that a good thing? Is it like a trust thing? Do you really need to have two big companies come together to make something bigger? question mark.

13:27I will bang on and think about the thing that I've been banging on for about a lot, for a long time, which is a thing that I was talking about, which I call the GoPro, which is why I just don't understand why it doesn't happen the other way. I think it would be, I mean, for me and, you know, I understand. What do you mean the other way? Well, I think if you look at those 10 companies that are on there, from a public service point of view and for an acceleration of British creativity point of view, wouldn't it be lovely if all of those 10 companies as part of this tender were told that they had to, team up with a regional or diverse led production company that was fully british owned that had a revenue stream of i don't know under five million and they needed to as part of their tender they needed to put in a plan that demonstrates that they are not just going to come up with a big hit but they're going to come up with a big hit that has a a big impact on uh on british creativity and and returns a value to the license fee beyond just a great tv show and for something like this where it's in such demands you can sort of force people to do anything really if you know i mean that's that's my argument that i mean i've been saying that for a while and i think that companies like mine and and now you're seeing companies like primal media who are part of stv are now being told that that they need to go and find a bigger company for them to work with and it's kind of like this crazy russian dolls thing where it's a bit like at what stage do we um uh do we just all kind of coalesce around a big all-consuming i'm trying to think of a pun that includes the word ban and jay into it at the same time but it's there's a you know that can all be a super mega indie if we work really hard right but but i i just think that the i would i would really like to see um those sort of opportunities and i'm and i'm not suggesting the big swing the big swings do have to go to the bigger companies i understand that because you know the risk involved in them is absolutely huge but we uh we do need to see something where we can see kind of like similar size transformative um tenders but for uh for for the things that and you know claire and i used to work together at channel four and i think the reason that channel four is so beloved by our generation is is because it did create all of these production companies that were all doing kind of zany and zany?

15:38I can't be using the word for zany. There was quite a lot of zany. It was a while ago. What's the word you use now? Irreverent and experimental productions that really did kickstart the British creative community and why we continue to be the best in the world about it. I worry that in a world of consolidation and mega indies, we are seeing less and less of that. And I think that now we're kind of veering into another conversation, but when you look at what's going to happen at Channel 4 next I would like to see a return to going how can we make sure that we invest in kind of British creativity British ideas maybe from smaller companies maybe doing things on a tighter budget that's less attractive to the bigger indies but it results in kind of like really interesting experimentation and ideas that you wouldn't ever see anywhere else around the world I think part part of what we're experiencing now though because of the sort of the shrinkage that has occurred in the industry is that even those sort of lower level plays that previously your big indies wouldn't even have wouldn't have bothered with they are finding a way to okay well we've got in we've got in-house post-production that's we've got people on staff we can make that no we can do that we can make that and so that level is kind of being starting to encroach it's being it's being swept up as well and i i think it's much it is much much more prevalent in the in the format space and i think it's across the board now i do think it's across the board now i think you're seeing like you know obviously we talked a lot about visualized podcasts and this sort of thing we're seeing a lot of big indies you know park their tanks on that lawn as well and and and i think that the uh i 100 agree with you we've lost work for fairly small things and then when you find out who won that work you're a bit like whoa yeah we're obviously never going to win that.

17:22I think there is a lot of people looking at a lot of different revenue sources. Speaking of which, Sky News is going through what its MD and executive editor Jonathan Levy calls a premium video first transformation. He was unusually candid about it at the Press Gazette's Future of Media Trends event in London this week. This is Sky News stepping back slightly from live because it's got commoditized and they've got a subscription app and premium podcasting on the way. The bit that I found really interesting in all of this was about just recognizing that you need to go where your audience are. The audience for news is consuming video content.

18:08This seems to me at the same time, both an obvious move for Sky News to make and a necessity. Their video news is coming up a hell of a lot more in my personal feeds. I was talking to India, our development producer, about this, and she was saying she is getting served a lot of that in TikTok. Yeah, so Sky News was saying that their TikToks reached 11 million followers. With the Iran war, they've generated 597 million minutes of consumption online in March, which is sort of a nine-month high. So they're doing very well in that space. Yeah, and they very openly, TikTok, they are trying to get a younger, It's a younger sort of female audience.

18:51I've increasingly seen as well that US users of social media are sharing UK media outlets to talk about saying, this is how Sky News are dissecting this comment about the Iran war. This is how the BBC have reported on Pete Hegsgett. This is international news is covering things that are US focused in a way that the US news services and audience feels maybe they aren't. There's loads of questions about people are impressed with our interviewers and the questions that our journalists ask people in power. And they don't feel that their home team do that so much. And I think a lot of that is because of anybody who's coming up through TV news journalism in the UK has done that through a public service broadcaster.

19:42And it is drummed into you in terms of that sort of the Ofcom regulations, how that how we approach those subjects and the job of the news media to be to hold power to account. not to and it's and we are now starting to see sort of partisan news in the uk but it's not news more views more views than news more views and about the the the thing that really interested me in this as well was the comment that video news was less what was the i had to write um more protected from ai replication which was the one but i would question in terms of surely video news is more open to AI. And then I was thinking, does that mean actually just like new, are they talking about new scraping or is that sort of looking at that and thinking there's a loss of revenue?

20:37I think that's what it's related to. It's like the Google AI summary, like when you type in Iran war and you just see the Google AI summary and then that's it. You don't go further than that. It's harder to scrape that. I don't think it's like... I think just because it's live and changing fast, the models can't catch up so much. I'm interested in the products they're launching. So there's a defense and security app and then also premium podcasts with ad free listening bonus episodes from their from their key talent. Do you think they've got the ability to drive a subscription audience? So my understanding of this is that in 2028, I believe it is, Comcast who bought Sky, they guaranteed to continue funding Sky News to a higher than inflation.

21:22Yeah, so to get the deal through. And before that, there'd been previous Murdoch commitments to Sky News as well. So part of the reason Sky News has been funded at such a level historically has been not necessarily market driven. As well as Murdoch's personal interest in the British news media, Comcast have less interest in it. And so my understanding is that come 2028, Comcast don't have the same obligation to provide Sky News and certainly rolling news in the way it does now. And it is always and always has been, as far as I'm aware, a lost leader for Sky. so it isn't you know it is no surprise that they're signaling quite heavily that this is what all sky news will look like once that is done because comcast want to show that they are still committed to it but they can do it on a in a cheaper slash different way i think that newsrooms are incredibly important and they're arguably more important now um than they have been ever in the past and i think that um to claire's point around what's happening in the u.s you're seeing reporters suddenly become secretaries of defence or of war or whatever it is or you're seeing kind of podcasters become the head of the FBI like there is and that's probably why you see people interested in how our interviews are doing things so he interested in how Ed Balls' interview with Zach Polanski and it is interesting that Ed Balls has gone from politics to now being a news reader or a presenter and if he thought politics was tough in politics just think of the politics of breakfast television Well, exactly.

22:52Absolutely. But I think that there's a bit more of a kind of cynicism around it. You know, obviously Farage has got a show on GB News and LBC has some criticism about who they have as hosting their shows. And I think we as an audience are far more cynical about it than we see in other parts of the news media around the world, specifically America. So I think people have got less of an appetite for it here. I hope that continues. But I do think it's interesting that if you look at the stats around, you know, we talk a lot about GB News because it's the new player in the space and they are clearly, well, not clearly, they seem to be more partisan than others that have delivered news in the past.

23:33They are doing incredibly well on social. And I'll be interested to know what Sky's numbers are against GB News's numbers when it comes to, you know, how GB News have managed to find an audience on those platforms. so there is a there is it's not a clear cut like well we're sky news we can just kind of turn it on on tiktok and suddenly everyone's going to come and watch us they do need to entice that audience there is a worry for me that the easiest way as ever on social platforms digital platforms to entice audiences is by being argumentative and well emotion emotion work exactly exactly and and do we need that is that should we be defunding a newsroom to fund views like Should we defund news to fund views like it's question mark?

24:15Well, two other big moves in the creator economy this week. First, the Anklers left Substack. The Hollywood-based newsletter has around 150 ,000 paid subscribers, which is about$10 million of revenue. Meanwhile, Patreon has just launched what it calls Quips, short-form public posts that appear in a new home feed designed to help creators be discovered by people who aren't already paying subscribers. There's also a collaboration post, an updated recommendation algorithm and a redesigned feed as well. Patreon says early tests are driving over a million new members to creators each month. Claire, I thought this was interesting.

24:54Kind of Ankler saying Substack did a great job for them to start with. Now they've got some scale. They're going to do it on their own terms. I mean, I think that if you're building a business, which they are with Ankler, I think following the dispatch and Billwork did a similar thing. They've got an audience. They can own their data. From a business perspective, I think it makes a lot of sense. I think Substack tends to take 10%. I mean, they do a lot for that 10%. They run everything for you. But if you're making$10 million, that's a million dollars of cash. And you think, well, if we build our own for half a million dollars, then we've got some more money dropping to the bottom line.

25:33But I think what the Ankler have done and then other sort of more sort of news focused or politics focused providers on who've grown as big audiences on Substack and then sort of moved them off. I think it does speak to our concerns around legacy press media ownership, again, specifically in the US, but also impacts on us here in terms of they often lean into a sort of a POV. but can I trust who is sort of behind this? Well, Patreon generates a lot of cash for creators. They've obviously introduced these new features. They're saying it's generating more paying members. That's a good thing for creators.

26:20It's a great title as well, isn't it? Quips is a great title. It feels like post-Twitter, I think we can say post-Twitter now, Twitter does not exist anymore. So in this post-Twitter world, I had thought that we had started calming down, there was obviously kind of that gold rush, you know, is it going to be Blue Sky, is it going to be Thread there was something else as well, I swear there was another platform that kind of came and went and Mastodon, that's correct oh yeah I had a Mastodon account and then it was like it's going to be federated and it's going to be across all platforms and there was like, there was seemed to be not necessarily a money gold rush but certainly kind of a a brain gold rush, whatever that might be, to kind of figure out what this next text, quick text platform is going to be.

27:06I don't know if we've figured it out. And I thought, actually, perhaps in my naivety, that it was Substack and Substack and Threads had kind of won the war. But it doesn't seem like it has settled down. And I think this news, both from Patreon and from the Ankler, demonstrates that actually it probably isn't going to be one platform. It is going to be lots of different things. And my there was a while where everyone's been like, it's going to be email newsletters again. Everyone's going to get email newsletters. And then it was inboxes filled back up with email newsletters. And then they got ignored.

27:38And and so this is another turn of that wheel. Is is this going to be it? I'm unsure. And I think that the I think that the there is still a demand or at least there seems to be a hunger to figure out what text based media is. certainly in a very quick fire way i still think it's probably notes on instagram like i think it's screenshots of the night staff on instagram i just i just think that that's what the thing that gets most read and um and i'm no because if you have a screenshot of notes that means you are admitting to something or saying something terrible that's happened that's that's it really but but i think personal statements if you make a if you make an announcement as a as a piece of text on instagram that's probably going to get you the most amount of engagement and obviously like meta have done a fairly decent job in kind of pushing people from Instagram to threads.

28:31I mean, I think threads is, in effect, about the same size as X is now. Yeah, but that's because it's about growth hacking. And, you know, it's because they've been pushing people over from one app to the other. And they've done that fairly successfully. But it's not, it isn't like Twitter in the sense that if something major happens, people run to the platform to find out what's going on. And I think Substack is a really interesting platform because there was a lot of controversy when they did re-engineer it about what they would allow people to say and who gets paid and who doesn't get paid.

28:58And there were some kind of fairly not nice things that were being written on Substack and those people getting paid for it. But it does seem like a lot of people have been attracted to that platform. And so when I saw the story, I was quite surprised about it. Because while you are right, that like there's 1 million from, you know, the 10 % of 10 million is 1 million, that may well be true. But the other side of the equation is like, how many people are they drawing to the ankler? as by being on the platform. Is it 10 % to Substack? Is it 10 % or is it more? And they've obviously done the maths about it and felt that they can bring their audience onto their own platform.

29:33Well, we definitely, we have a Substack here at the Media Club, themediaclub.com if you want to sign up. But we see a lot of recommendations and a lot of flow that way. And again, that's what your 10%, that's what it's going towards. Right. Can I just say very quickly, I see Substack sitting in a completely different world from the other social media platforms and that Substack seems to have, has developed into a place where there is proper journalism happening on Substack that doesn't have a home in other places, which I think makes it very interesting as we move into a place where we have almost content creator journalists when legacy media is not employing those people.

30:15So I think it serves a different purpose. I think particularly if you can bring your own audience, obviously it helps straight away. didn't Substack try to do a Quips thing? They had their own version of tweets and Quips. So in the Substack app, they have short form content as well. And what you tend to find with all these platforms, both Patreon and Substack, if you subscribe and paying for a few different things, you actually start using the apps more because you want to get the value out of your subscription. Both Substack and Patreon, a lot of the option of sending content for free or content behind the paywall, on that now is text and video and imagery and live.

30:52And they're both kind of harmonizing as a product doing similar things. Okay, when we return, we'll dive into IP generation. I'll see you in a sec.

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32:36Welcome back. Here's a few other stories we've been talking about in the club this week. Reports suggest that iHeart Media and Sirius XM are in merger talks. If it goes the whole way, it would create the largest audio company in the US and makes Global's current 30 % stake in iHeart very interesting. The Barclay brothers have settled their dispute with HSBC at the High Court, avoiding what would have been a significant and very public bankruptcy case, disappointing dozens of journalists in the process. and the Royal Television Society has a new CEO. Sophie Jones takes over one of the industry's most venerable membership organisations as it contends with the rise of the US streamers and the reduced heft of the PSBs.

33:18Links to all those stories are available on our sub stack. We mentioned it earlier. Why not sign up? Just go to themediaclub.com. That's themediaclub.com. Free to sign up right now. For us and Claire are still with me. Claire, talk to me about your career arc. How have you come through to CMG? What's been that route? Do you want me to start way back with the ecclesiastical history PhD, if I bring it slightly further up? So I started out producing live comedy shows and live comedy shows at the Fringe and also with a whole sort of host of comedians, but also developing out, working under April Chamberlain, who was absolutely phenomenal boss to work with.

34:03really early on she was taking a completely sort of 360 view on on sort of ip and stuff like that which i've taken through sort of my touch on late slightly later but it was a really interesting place to work at that time because they had just got a whole host of rights back after the new pack negotiated the new terms of trade and and so suddenly they're sitting on all of this kind of legacy Scottish content things, you know, working with like Rabsy Nisbet and Steel Game and so how do we sort of expand that out? And we would be putting DVDs on the front of the Daily Record and working with Paul Hembree at the BBC on DVD releases, who now is part of BBC Talent.

34:53But greetings cards, but all of that. If we've got a piece of IP, how do we turn it into something bigger? turning TV shows into touring shows. And it was just a really great place to work in terms of getting that both a creative, you know, they're doing brilliant creative work and worked on the first Limmy show and things like that. But alongside a real idea of how the business side of things could work. Through that, I met Stuart Cosgrove because I produced a live show that he did with Tam Cowan at the King's Theatre, which took me into Channel 4, where Faraz and I worked together in education but I was part of that sort of nations and regions bit of Channel 4 and having sort of a I think it's quite rare at that stage of your career I was in my 20s to be getting that sort of a real overview of what the landscape looked like for Indies and what the challenges were, a lot of the conversations that we are still having today.

35:55All that ip work and you did for ip as well yes channel four um did that give you a real focus for what you wanted to do with cmg because that's a business around kind of ip around sport and crime well so so we have sort of historically done a lot in that in that space the the sport piece came through um from my time i worked at a sports platform called octro and worked with all of the biggest sort of footballers on the planet, like Messi, Dave Beckham, Zidane, Neymar at the time. Rebecca and I came together on that sort of 2020-ish. From the start, we were very focused on how do we retain the IP in what we're making from the get-go?

36:45How can we do smart deals around our... and we were in sort of dock space. But how, so we start, the sport thing kind of came naturally because of the relationships that I'd had through working at Otro and that's how things like the Brazil 2002 film came about. And that has sort of developed over the last sort of three or four years where we've been going, okay, well, maybe this piece of content or this story fits, are there other places where this fits? can we take this story and create IP that's unscripted, but ultimately its home could be a feature film. Ultimately its home could be scripted.

37:28Is there a way that we can work with this narrative to say, okay, well, let's think about what that would look like if it expands out into a bigger world. So is this connected to the new deal that you've announced with Stack? Yeah. Because if people don't know, so Stack, sort of quite an OG podcaster operation. Football Ramble, still very popular. They've done a bit of scripted as well. Historically, they've done some shows, haven't they, about football and different things. So it's not just chat casts. No, no. And the strand that they have, the legacy strand as well, which is real sort of investigative journalism.

38:05They recently won award for their real deep dive on the New York Ballet and a lot of sort of the scandal that was occurring within the New York Ballet. and so they have that investigative side as well. So why work with them? So I had been very honest on a panel at Broadcast Sport. I heard about this. About the state of, just around sort of docks and sports docks and sort of touching a little bit about what we talked earlier and just I really feel there's a gear change to be had there. We need to switch things up. we need to go back to being able to, you know, making sports docs that, you know, like The Last Dance or Icarus or, you know, that aren't safe, that it's a world that has everything.

38:56It has drama, it has controversy, it just lends itself so strongly to filmmaking, to documentary and to scripted. And they approached me after seeing it at the panel and said, we'd love to have a chat. and we got on like a house on fire because their approach to what they're doing is very similar to our approach. So we've identified sort of a slate of projects that we're co-developing and taking out and pitching and speaking to commissioners about, but also looking at sort of potential projects that could be self-funded within that. The idea is around, yes, that these are projects that absolutely can sit in the podcasting world and make sense to that world and to those audiences because I'm a, from my time working on different platforms, working on YouTube, being in that space, trying to shoehorn something and sort of going, oh, I've got this idea that never got made as a documentary or shoehorn it into a podcast.

39:56It has to work in that space and for those audiences. But then looking at, okay, once that IP has been created, where are the other places that that story can go. We sort of don't really think of ourselves in a sort of traditional production company way. That's not how we came together. That's not our backgrounds. We sort of worked across multiple spaces. For example, I mean, Rebecca did a huge amount in live events. We ended up producing the opening and closing ceremonies for the Ryder Cup in 2020. There's a whole host of sort of skill sets there. But we're a small company, so we have to think carefully about sort of where we put our energy.

40:35But I think in today's market, you absolutely have to be flexible around where is the best place for a story that you think can reach an audience. For us, Goldwall are eight years old now. God, you're making me feel old now. Yeah. What's your take on that? Well, I think Claire and I are, But honestly, quite fortunate that we're still here. There's a lot of production companies that have gone... Speak for yourself. What are you not here anymore? No, no, no. Quite fortunate. Worked to be here. That's for you. That's for you. But what I mean by that is... Sell yourself short. There have been a number of production companies that have gone to the wall.

41:20And I think that what we've identified, and it's echoed in what Claire is saying, is that if you are a production company that just lost one thing, then you're making a like you're making a lot of hard work for yourself you know there used to be a time where you could just be a blue flashing lights production company or a natural history production company or a science production company or or even just a formats and entertainment production company and and i think and and just make television and you could run a fairly decent business out of that and probably get acquired and and everything will be happy as larry that is not the case anymore i think that you do need to be a production company that does some podcast stuff or works in different genres or looks at different platforms and the job of being an exec and being a production company head has now changed from being somebody that really gets great editorial to also somebody that really understands the industry as well and can spot those trends you know we were earlier just talking about what's going on with patreon and sub stack and and it will change again like buddy by this time next year or change again there'll be different consolidation there'll be new platforms at launch and i think our jobs are to identify where those opportunities are and as honestly smaller players where there are many big players and uh and creative production companies kind of all is fishing in the same pond we need to make sure that we can spot spot spaces that uh that we can grow our businesses before others do i see you got nominated for the indie impact award yeah we did at the new voice awards 2026 alongside people like um warp films not about not bad company to keep no and we and it was won by fully focused productions and i think that fully focused are a you know if you're going to lose to a company like you want to lose a company like fully focused productions they are they're brilliant at what they do they have created so many incredible opportunities for so many people from marginalized backgrounds um and and have really created an impact in the industry um i feel like i'm that person like when you kind of like nods and claps when they lose but I was I you know I sat next to them and I was a bit like yeah it would it would always be embarrassing if we if we had won that over them because they do do such amazing work within the industry from a um social outreach point of view and yes of course it's lovely to sit next to what films you know after the back of the success they've had with adolescents and and be in the same category as as companies like that but but I think that when you look at companies like Fully Focused you can really see how they are genuinely making an impact um with new entrants into the market and those from marginalised background, which is what we're trying to do as well, but I very much look up to them as a company that are doing incredible work in that space.

43:54I think we've just got enough time for the Audio Network Media Quiz.

44:00Three media stories all squeeze through the prism of an existing media property. This week, it's Expect the Unexpected. You may know that bit in true crime documentaries where a major twist is revealed by the narrator well it's that bit but with media news uh just guess the story from the melodramatic voiceover uh and as is their duty in this feature we sent ben at audio network a brief uh that builds dread uh and that we can use to score today's game so buzzing with your name when you know the answer so faraz you'll say and claire you'll say let's play expect the unexpected. This soundtrack sounds like the soundtrack to my life.

44:41As I just walk around this industry, the impending dread and doom of what's coming around the corner. Wait for the dogleg. She's just landed the biggest job of her career. Everyone assumed she'd be going bigger. But then she went small. Oh, and Sparaz. Yes, Sparaz. Is this about Sarah Cox? Sarah Cox. Sarah Cox? Sarah Cox? Sarah Cox. Sarah Cox. Is this about Sarah Cox? Glad we've established that. who is now going to be taking over to do the Radio 2 breakfast show. Yes, that's a big thing. Big gig. I don't know why she got that gig. Apparently stuff happened over Radio 2. So she's landed that gig.

45:15Glad you qualified that. I think she's very well qualified for that job for us. She is very, very well qualified. I think she's... But what is the small thing? The small thing is she's also doing a TV show. Well, she's done a TV show. It's been recommissioned about miniatures. Yes. And it's been very well received. Yes, so 20 episodes up from eight. it's called The Marvelous Miniature Workshop I have not seen this I've not seen this either probably because it's very small it's too small to see well here it is this is Don Bird who set up Early Bird and this is sort of their debut commission it's not their debut commission though is it it was a pre-existing commission I think it was involved with what does tell us anything about broadcasters are looking for at the moment very small things telling us they want big things and then commissioning very small things.

46:05Yeah, it's a 45 minute long, which may be longer than normal and 20 episodes of it. Longer than a normal what? Well, Oh, program. Sorry. Would this normally be half an hour? Talking better than that.

46:17Oh dear, sorry. So I think that this is one of those shows that it is one of those shows that just works really well on socials, right? So if you see a small miniature version of something on Instagram, you'll be like, oh, that looks quite cool. So it is a very clippable show and I think that they've hit on something that makes a lot of sense from that space. It's not a huge surprise. And also they've lucked into having the Radio 2 Breakfast Show host as their host. I'm quite confused by this programme. I've never seen it. Sorry. Sarah Cox presents... You're not miniatures. I'm just a minute, but why are people making small things?

46:52Sorry. Well, why are people making cakes? Or why are people selling stuff? To eat them. People like small things. Some homework for you to watch Series 1. Can I watch one episode? Yeah, one small episode. Okay, here we go. Question number two. The lawsuit was already filed. Legal teams on both sides were preparing. The case was complicated enough. But then the president gave an interview. Claire. Yes, Claire. Is this Donald Trump? Yep. now claiming that in the case of the spliced BBC interview from the... Are we still calling it the storming of the Capitol? Yes. I think it's been rebranded. I love the fact that Claire's terrified she's going to get sued by Donald Trump as you're giving this answer.

47:43They're going to come for you. That, in fact, none of those words came out of his mouth and that they were in fact all created by AI. Yes, Donald Trump, I'm not sure he knows perhaps everything that's going on and I think he believes whatever he says is the truth. Or whatever is the last thing he's been shown, possibly. For us, does this make it easier or harder for the BBC? So firstly, I don't think it's quite that. I actually think it's one of those things where people are confusing editing and AI. like I genuinely think that he thinks that people editing stuff is because it's a computer I mean he famously doesn't use computers he has somebody that takes all his tweets to and I don't think he's ever used a keyboard before and so I think that he just thinks it's quite hard when you've got very small hands he should be on the miniaturist can you imagine that's a booking like there you go forget somebody calls Sarah Cox and tell her she's lost the gig Cox and Trump go miniaturist so maybe that'd be in the settlement yeah exactly um I think because I think sorry I was going to say a small cox but I'm not going to do that um I think in some ways you just did him going more madder with this is good news for the BBC case oh yeah the case holds no water whatsoever I think it's and you know there's another case going on at the moment around AI with Sam Altman and Elon Musk and Elon Musk is never going to win that case unless you know the sky falls down and I think Elon Musk knows that he's not going to win that case I think Elon Musk is any like if Elon Musk does win that case I don't think that's his plan.

49:16Elon Musk clearly just wants to humiliate Sam Altman and I think that people like Donald Trump are using the legal system to humiliate his perceived enemies. Which he enjoys much success at. Exactly. So I don't think that, like, he's not paying for it, he's not paying for his lawyers. So he can humiliate the BBC and then there is a, you know, the BBC has been growing in its influence in America and I think that it's probably a briefing that he's had where it's a bit like you know, here are the more left-leaning or centrist outlets that are having some influence, these are the ones that you're going to need to discredit.

49:49Okay, how do we discredit them? Let's sue them and people start asking questions. Okay, it's one point each, so let's just do question number three. She had been investigated over a social media post. The matter had been dropped. No charges. Eight days after the statement went out. It seemed to be over, but then she came back. I'm pausing because I really want Claire to talk about this story because I don't want to talk about it. Claire, fine, fine. It's Alison Pearson. I have nothing more to say about Alison Pearson. This is cleared by a High Court judge to take Essex police to trial for defamation.

50:23Do you know what? This is such a complicated story. My understanding of this story is that she tweeted a picture. Well, according to The Guardian, the picture that led to a police investigation or led to a complaint, a police complaint, was a picture that she said was of the Met Police standing and smiling next to people that were showing support to somebody that was at a Palestinian rally. It turned out that that flag wasn't a Palestinian flag. It was a flag of a political party in Pakistan. And it wasn't the Met Police. It was Manchester Police. So she basically got her facts wrong. She deleted that tweet.

51:02But in the intervening time, somebody made a complaint to the police that she was staring racial hatred. The police knocked on her door. The Telegraph, who she writes for, would like to remind you again and again and again that police knocked on her door on Remembrance Sunday. And they believe that that is an affront on the freedom of speech and how dare the police do that. And my understanding is that there was an investigation and the police were cleared in that investigation. But she is now being given the option or the right to sue the Met Police. So with that, actually, I think it's a draw because you both sort of got that...

51:42I think we fudged it. ...joined forces on that final question. So well done. As a prize, you can go and investigate making the Media Club a miniature show if you can come back with some proposals. On sub-start. That would be great. On sub-start, yeah. Or Patreon. With quips. All fine, all fine. Give it a quip. Thanks to our guests. Also, thank you to Ben at Audio Network for scoring today's game. Remember, Audio Network can do that for you as well. Just head to audionetwork.com and there's a link in the show notes. So before we go, Claire, what's coming up next for your gaff? What are you working on?

52:15Oh, goodness, what are we working on? All of our, the podcast was stack. We've also, so other side of our business, we didn't really talk about, we do lots of production services and leaning into that. So we've got a few things that we're working on on that side. And we've just been through one of those big development pushes, lots of stories, lots of access, lots of stuff going out. So hopefully exciting. And how can people keep up with your work? I am on LinkedIn and also CMG Productions is on LinkedIn and all my other social media is private because I'm not an idiot. Nice. Faraz, all your social media is private in public.

52:51What does that mean? It means that I really need the attention because I'm a middle child. I'm a middle child too. Maybe that's why we get on. Maybe. What's coming up next? What's coming up next? Our CBeeBee show is on air now. What's in your plant pot? We're having lots of fun. It's something miniature. some episodes are miniature some episodes are very big we've got a tree in one episode it's a delightful show with lots of actually genuinely really amazing kids and incredible people that have been planting stuff I mean it's really hard not to be more proud of a kid show because it's just like it just feels like it's this small corner of the content world where you can just make nice things I know you know this from Fun Kids there's no agenda there's no politics you don't have to talk about all the madness that's going on in the world you can just make nice things that make kids smile what more could you want out of life so that's on cbb's now please watch it please love it um there isn't enough unscripted content on children's television so the more that it exists the better it is um we are also chatting about a few other things which i don't ever talk about quite yet but what i would say is that we have done some stuff for lumo tv um and they have went down very very well okay so if you'd like to watch a dating show on on in british sign language in british sign language you can do that on lumo tv we're very proud of it and i think the channel and I'm very proud of it as well.

54:07Excellent. And thank you to you both. And thank you to you for listening and watching. My name is Matt Deegan. The producer is Matt Hill. It was a Rethink Audio production with video support from Podcast Discovery. I'll see you next week.

54:32When do the images we see online become too much for us to handle. Job at Writers Theatre is an intense psychological thriller that skewers the insidiousness of the internet, the meaning of work, and the ramifications of a secret revealed. The off-Broadway sensation and edge-of-your-seat thriller about big tech and even bigger secrets is on stage at Writers Theatre April 9th through June 14th.