Happy now? Google adds an AI Opt-Out

0:01Hello, welcome to the Media Club. I'm Matt Deegan. In the club today, what does the new opt-out mean for publishers who don't want to be in Google AI Overview? Switched on journalist Alex Hudson on whether this is the breakthrough we need. Also on the show, how do you make the most documented conflict in history feel fresh? Simon Willgoss is the chief creative officer at Newtopia, the company behind the new series World War II with Tom Hanks. All that's plus the BBC loses its comedy boss to the indie sector. Netflix ponders its own married at first sight response. And in the Audio Network Media Quiz, we test whether our guests can spot the elephant in the room.

0:39That's all coming up in this edition of the Media Club. Come on in.

0:46Joining me are two club members for a chat about the week's biggest media stories. First, welcome back Alex Hudson, journalist, digital pioneer. it says there anyway uh who would you invite as your plus one this week i am inviting jem collins so she's the founder director of jona resources she's social it's a social enterprise they're launching their grads club which is for anyone who's just come out of university or from a qualification to make sure that they are offered a mentorship program which runs over six months so she's doing god's work as far as making sure that like bringing people through and giving them that track which once upon a time the industry used to provide but actually she's stepping into that gap and doing really important work in that space it's really hard it's not just uh publications you know there are lots of different places to work in journalism and there isn't the more traditional route that there perhaps used to be local press internationals where digital comes local press have these sort of old hands and the traditional journalists in there but also if someone wants to become an independent journalist what are the tools they need if they what do the kit do they need how and also given that journalists is a contact sport as my old journalism tutor used to say hate that phrase the principle is true if you come into this cold if you're not from the traditional backgrounds where you've been you've handshaken with every other person to just get in that room is a really key part of that mentoring process and busy week for you did you head by south by southwest london we are just five minutes away here from south i spent all of yesterday there meeting a lot of strangers talking to a lot of strangers trying to network with a lot of strangers and then we recorded the podcast late at night which i don't recommend doing after doing that but i think there's been so much interesting stuff going on it's been tricky because south by south london south by southwest london it's in its second year and it has to live up to all of the hype of south by southwest in texas yes it's such a high bar that's a very very high bar which if it wasn't called south by southwest london it would be an incredible conference but because i spent three or four years out in texas covering it south by the original one that buzz and that feel of that place is unbelievable i mean it takes over the whole city it does take and also there's so many different counter festivals and alternate festivals happening so it does take over the whole city london it hasn't even taken over the whole of shoreditch but it's a work in progress i've talked to the organizers they're doing really great work it's hard it's hard to get people to say yes like michelle obama's been there like all of these good people have been there so i'm not here to criticize just to say it's tricky it's got to keep going it's got to keep going and making his media club debut today simon woolgoss chief creative officer in Newtopia.

3:18Welcome. Thank you. Lovely to be here. Really nice to have you. Emmy-nominated producer and a PhD in history. That's just showing off. I'm responsible for getting Tom Hanks to retell the Second World War, which we'll talk about a bit later. So you're in now. Who would you like to bring as your plus one? Stlightly less meaningful selection by me. I'm going to go with Anthony Gordon, the former Newcastle, now Barcelona player, who managed to successfully navigate the potential media nightmare of shifting countries and languages and wowed everybody by suddenly being able to speak Spanish at his first press conference, which is originally greeted by quite a lot of cynicism.

3:58But it turned out he did genuinely learn the language as a kid because he dreamed of playing in Spain. Okay. I bought into it. I think it's true. If it's not true, then he deserves a place in the media club even more. He sold it well. He sold it well and has won over the Spanish press almost immediately, which is unheard of. It is unheard of. It just sort of shows, doesn't it? If you make some effort, if you make a connection in whatever you do, it can really reap rewards. Yeah, I think so. And it's actually uncovered a whole other layer to Anthony, who I didn't know anything about before this story, but apparently practices meditation and has visualization techniques before games.

4:38I like these stories where there's a positive sort of spin on these guys who normally get quite bad rap by the media. And actually, they're living very glamorous and successful and profitable lives. But yeah, there's more to the story sometimes. And I've enjoyed that one this week. I was watching Dear England on iPlayer and a lot of talk about Gareth Southgate, the word story. And what is the story you want to tell of yourself? of the club and maybe that's that's him sort of framing his own story starting to write that story yeah no well he's got a good first chapter what do you think of Dear England I'm two episodes in I've enjoyed we were talking about it at home and you see it's theatre background I saw it in the theatre yeah it was perfectly acceptable there I can see why the reviews have not been as kind in its current oh I quite enjoyed have you seen it I enjoyed I saw it at the theatre and I was very surprised.

5:38I was not expecting I'm a football fan, but I was not, so therefore I was not expecting to enjoy it, but I kind of did. Ralph Fiennes did a great job. I thought he did a great job of looking and embodying Gareth Southgate. You're not convinced. He did, but he's still a Fiennes. And it's weird because he did a very good job, but it's still too soon to be far enough away to not just think it's Gareth Southgate. I should have got him to do it instead. Okay, in a moment the CMA takes on Google's AI overviews. That's all after the break. Parles-tu français? Hablas espanol? Parli italiano? If you've used Babbel, you would.

6:16Babbel's conversation-based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55 % off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com slash acast. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash acast. Rules and restrictions may apply.

6:58Welcome back to the Media Club. Publishers have been watching their traffic drain away ever since Google started answering questions at the top of the page rather than pointing people towards their websites. Alex, we talked about this story a little bit on the club over the past few months. What's changed this week? So now it is, well, there are a number of things that have changed this week. So since your last episode, there were a couple of things. So Google has really pushed this front and centre. So it is now front loading. It says it is the revolution. So it's AI first, results second. But the second thing that's come through is that the publishers can now block that content from Google's AI summaries without having to block them from the main search results.

7:37So before you could choose to opt out of Google if you were absolutely mad. And so that would take you out of both. But now you can just choose to be out of AI summaries, which you could argue is also absolutely mad. So it's because publishers have been furious that their traffic has been declining. it's because they're furious that they're not getting the click through and people including the new york times have been furious that there's this ip theft the head of new york times calls it and in reality twas ever thus you are the horse has bolted the ship has sailed the grok has xed you are so far behind on this this is a thing that had to be done within the first six months of llms becoming meaningful in a world where we're already seeing that shift to agentic and so if we're talking about where regulation should be so you say about agentic that's um that you'll you'll send something off to go and get your information anyway you won't even see perhaps the google um summaries at the top so a startup i am using at the moment every two hours i will get about eight or nine telegram messages filtered through my journalistic beat lenses so i work through three different lenses it will send me a pressy of every news piece that i should be caring about over that course of that those two hours a colleague of mine on on the podcast i run called crashed he's built his own cold storage modeled on him that works as a newsroom so he doesn't even see the stories but they they send him pictures whenever they come and they're scary good well that's at the top end i guess at the the the middle people who are using google being diverted this way um if you're a publisher i the conde nasbos i think was on on vergecast and he he talked about um basically saying to his teams you should assume there's no traffic from google So that's the right way to think about it.

9:23Again, already since 2021, over half of your traffic has come from bots. So this isn't this thing that's miraculously arrived, just suddenly publishers like, oh, yes, this LLM thing is suddenly catching on. It's been 50-50. It's just crossed over now. It's about 53 % bots, 48%, 42%, 7 % humans. So that's already happening. The Economist now run those Q &As. They run Q &As that are specifically aimed at bot scraping, and they run a separate site for humans. so it's fair to say that we i think i've i've been on this if you want to dig out the clip if you've got loads of time on your hands i said google zero was happening i was too ambitious or too premature but it was always going to happen and so what the publishers now have to do is think you're going to get less traffic but it's so more broadly 92 percent of businesses blame ai for a lack of traffic to their sites so they can't sell things but what they're seeing is sales are going up and so if that is more broad on the sales thing because people trust llms and they will make their purchasing decisions on what an aia will tell them so for media news what is your sell what is your ask what are you trying to get them to do well clearly the sound has come to the media club over his listen and watch is much better simon are you looking are you using chat gpt and claude as a search engine in your in your life is it replacing your google usage i would say it is actually yeah and increasingly in the way that people are responding to here it's instead instead of it's an instinctive reaction to go to Google instead of chat to GBC.

10:50So being able to access that AI intelligence through the Google interface has become, I guess it's become a default actually without even realizing it. I mean, it's interesting from a production company perspective or broadcast perspective, discovery has always been hugely important. And, you know, in the old days being on BBC One at eight o 'clock really helped you. Then you're into EPGs and now I guess what the algorithms decide. how much are you thinking about Discovery when you're pitching shows or making shows? Yeah it's become for some time it's been at the heart of the development and I guess presentation pitch of shows.

11:28I suppose when you're pitching a show you always have to think what does the audience want or what does the network broadcast platform want for their audience and Discovery is obviously top of that list so being able to build in the sense of marketing from the poster down to discovery is is you know not as important as the idea but it's uh it's getting there uh alex on on the llm front um one of the arguments is that the new york times or whoever deciding to opt out of being included uh in in those summaries it might give them some leverage to get google to pay for access um do you because there's some discussion and some of the llms have done deals with with publishers to have access to their data in their systems Do you think it's something that Google may go for?

12:13I think if you look at the business that Reuters has done across the board, that is really intelligent business. They did it early. They took decisive action, and they are making a lot of money from those deals. Yeah, deals with the LLMs directly. Yeah. So now, if you look at where the LLM traffic is going, it's blogs, it's Reddit, it's aggregation, it's social. If you look at the news list of actually the most popular ways that LLMs serve results, it's third. So a lot of UGC is around it. it's a user-generated content, and news is less vital to Google than other forms. And if you are giving a straight news story of just this has happened, that's become even more of a commodity than it ever was.

12:55So the news industry and the publishing industry has to get better at being able to tell the story and the people who tell the story. Who do you trust? What story can you tell? And what is the captivating bit you can't find anywhere else? And how do you build a community out of that? It's almost very repetitive. I can feel myself always saying this for years but if you just rely on giving the news you're going to fail and and as much as a publisher might like to think that they can give the news just straight news better than anyone else it's the stories that they tell and there's a whole separate conversation about how hard it is to do investigative journalism who pays for it and that the IP there is no good answer for and that needs some sort of third sector intervention to make sure that maintains but on more traditional publishing again you are too late to fix that So how do you build community, build people that others trust and community and added value around that so they feel like they're in that conversation about what the story is?

13:47I'm sorry, it's kind of interesting about the sort of news versus documentary or I guess it's telling particular stories back to story again. It's very easy for an LLM to say we did not take this news article from someone because it's, hey, it's out there, it's current events. Actually, if someone's discovered something, it's something new and fresh, is that a little bit easier to protect? I think definitionally it is, I think legally it is as well I think if it's out there it's hard to protect but you have to if you bring a particular angle or you bring a particular revelation or detail that's new then that's easier to protect and should be much easier to protect I think.

14:25It does get into the grey area where there's even in history but especially in more contemporary subjects when it's hard to define what a distinctive angle is I suppose and where the line is between out there or a specific protectable take is is tough and i think we're still so new york times has spent over 20 million dollars in lawsuits since the end of 2023 on finding this out and at least from what i've seen there aren't that many public rulings about exactly where this ends up and where this doesn't so it's obviously being kept out of decision making so that's that's the real question of when there is that full legal ruling more broadly what what happens and who's responsible and that's where that question that you took really unravels and speaking of rulings and investigations so whilst you've been away the Panorama investigation into Married at First Sight UK took place and Channel 4 has apologised to two contributors who had alleged that they were raped by their on-screen partners.

15:17CPL Productions make both Maths UK and the Netflix show Love is Blind. And at Sub-Southwest London this week, Netflix new UK scripted boss Saida Atzali said publicly she feels confident CPL followed all the protocols on Love is Blind. the panorama allegations about maths are pretty serious um simon you think potentially that gives sort of uh reputational damage around cpl it's quite a hard thing to defend against it is i can't comment on uh cpl or channel 4 obviously people have made their their statements around it including saida um i think it's it's interesting how reality i think there's almost a perception that the bad days of reality consigned to the noughties, this re-evaluation of the noughties kind of idea at the moment.

16:09And actually, it kind of hasn't obviously gone away at all, and it still looms very large. And the formats have evolved, and the world around the formats has evolved as well in terms of the social media component of those shows. And I just wonder whether the duty of care has evolved appropriately alongside it. But I couldn't comment on that specifically, but it's an interesting thing, I think. for production companies and for broadcasters you know the the money isn't what it used to be uh the expectations are higher uh i don't think it's that there's a a lack of care i think there is strong duty of care in these shows is it just harder to be more comprehensive when there's there's less money to go around i'd have i'd have thought that's the thing that you'd protect in the budget that's the that would be the thing that you'd ring fence first um so i can see the challenges in other areas but i so it's a hard uh it's a hard line to yeah i mean also i guess our expectations from those shows uh we want a bigger emotional response they're bigger ideas uh they're naughtier they're you know what the the public want from them is is stronger as well and you i guess you've got to you've got to cope with that too i think that's i think that's what I mean is the formats evolve and yeah become more uh ambitious and in some ways ask more of the contributors the the the setup and processes around them in terms of GTF care has have to evolve and uh I'm sure they are but clearly there's still issues that manage to happen but I'd have thought that in this today there there is more focus on that than there ever has been before um but clearly in some cases there hasn't been enough or it's certainly questionable.

17:56Alex, is we follow protocols the right message when Panorama is saying that the protocols failed? If you want to have a full ethical storytelling framework, if you want to have mental health and talent well-being front of mind, it would be difficult to argue a case to maintain producing reality TV. So if you take that, and again, that's such a polarised argument and I get there is new ones so if you take that in mind and there have all been processes you it it's a particular subset of people who are willing to put themselves through this absolute rigmarole of public facing revealing their very soul and all of the moments that end up going viral on tiktok are all of all the moments where people are at their worst best most vulnerable bearing their absolute soul into these things heightened emotion any which way and so to follow protocol and if you fully engage with with ethical storytelling you make a really boring program and of course it is always a always an absolute balance and there is so much there is and there is a there's there are different types of reality tv but fundamentally it comes back to if it if the story is about the people they are always at risk and there are so many mitigation there are so many things that should be followed and I think without going into the specific allegations of Channel 4 that's nothing to do with protocol that's nothing to do with what is alleged is obviously horrific so trying to draw out wide conclusions from such a horrible thing there is no good answer for that but then it's a case of if you're making reality TV like you say if the budgets are tight that's the thing you cannot skimp on because you are at some point literally putting these people's well-being at danger if not their long-term health Well, some more moves news this week.

19:47John Petri, the BBC's director of comedy, is leaving after five years, heading to Tattrick Productions. That's the indie behind Have I Got News For You and Derry Girls. He's going there as creative director. During his tenure, we had Ludwig, Such Brave Girls, Dreaming Whilst Black, as well as returning hits such as Ghost 2026 and the Gavin and Stacey finale. Simon, losing your comedy boss to the sector you commissioned from. Does that, does it matter? swapping sides they seem to be disappointed about it I'm sure they are I don't know I find it it doesn't surprise me that after a stint of five years a broadcaster if you come from a producing background which he clearly does that you'd want to you'd want to get back there at some point so you know maybe it's a surprise that he stayed there for that long yeah his replacement search is now open what sort of profile do you need to do that scale of job at a broadcaster at the BBC see he was he was good because he had it's a hard job isn't it because you have to be mainstream but you have to be original and he did a pretty good job of that i thought he mainstream hit shows but smart and i suppose that's probably what you need to look for but it's very hard when you're looking for that type of person to to accidentally slip either side of that perfect bullseye um and keep making things that are funny i mean it's also any new comedy series gets slagged off this isn't funny this isn't funny you need some nerve to commission that and to stick with that stuff totally running a big department at the BBC is very exciting and big job but actually a pretty terrifying one in some ways Alex is it a sign of health that good people keep moving around?

21:30oh they keep leaving the BBC it is a sign of health that the industry is buoyant and people can move it could just be a coincidence that the whole one in ten BBC staff are shrinking and was it half a billion pounds is coming from the BBC budget. And if you look at the way that's being managed, it's more and more people have more than one eye on the commercial sector with studios hiring, somehow still continuing, where the BBC's British arm is less likely, politely, to hire. So we were talking about his salary earlier, and it's already very high. Yes, you can look at it online. It's about, I think,£230 ,000,£240 ,000, which is not an insignificant chunk.

22:10Because I assumed it was just jump for the money while BBC is unable to really increase any spending. But I'm not that familiar with how much he's about to get paid. But also, like he talked about the idea that he wants to turn from gamekeeper to poacher, to your point. So he wants to get back into production. And I think just being able to not have the oversight of the BBC, both with its sort of public sector remit and that studio's how do we make money, is a double whammy of oversight that if you really want to make stuff, it's an easier life to be away from. Simon, when you talk to colleagues and friends at the BBC, do you think, as Alex was saying, there is a bit of a worry about whether that 10 % comes to get you?

22:51Do you get out first? Or does everyone sort of assume, oh, it probably won't be me? I can't speak for anyone specifically. If it was me, I wouldn't be looking to jump immediately. I'd probably assume it wouldn't be me. But I think if you're in one of those jobs where you have to make confident decisions, you probably are relying on your decisions to support your continued employment there. But no, it's clearly a difficult moment there and a lot of people who are probably not used to being a threat of this sort of thing are and that must be an unusual situation for a lot of people. Yeah, you were at the big British castle for quite a while.

23:26Nearly a decade, yeah. Cuts come every so often to different departments in different areas. Do you think it does push people into making career decisions or is it head down and hope for the best? I wrote a sort of long opinion piece about this a while, a long time ago. Wow, too long ago. And it's the point where the people who are the most ambitious and most exciting and have those brilliant ideas are more likely to jump. And so you're left with this. Everyone who works for EBC is, of course, brilliant and they've worked their way up. But there is that. Some of the most brilliant. Ben Zand is a really great example.

24:00who's now, I think he won a ridiculous, well, could have been a BAFTA, for his brilliant documentary-making skills. And there's a whole, Sophia Smith-Gaylor, similarly, brilliant trailblazer in what vertical video could be, BBC, left the BBC. And it's people like that you need to grab hold of, hold on to and make brilliant partners of and move the BBC, particularly BBC News, into new directions, whereas what you're getting is people who are willing to stay the same at the Beeb. And that is one of its, the curse of that, is it's robust and it's brilliant it's establishment but it makes it harder to make new ideas when all the people with them are not allowed to flourish and they have to move elsewhere to do so yeah i mean it's the real implication isn't it of the license fee being you know up for up for discussion every 10 years and and the money being cut how do you how do you motivate the teams to to stay producing great stuff for the public yeah and there is an interesting shift in kind of commissioning brief and strategy around that kind of uh moment of renewal um but yeah it's a really it's a really good point i think you want to you need to in these environments encourage people to take big swings and be able to make mistakes in some of those with some of those swings and the more more moments there are like this where it feels like there's a sort of an existential threat for a lot of people is only going to discourage that it did used to be the used to be the training ground for all producers really it's like it was the right passage almost and it it has sort of lost that sense i think now certainly among the new generation of producers who don't see it in that way at all maybe maybe see it as maybe see it as too restrictive in some ways um rather than the place that you have to go and do your apprenticeship yeah the bbc is the end of it like max fosch who's been producing videos for a decade is now just breaking into the bbc as a sort of that's where you sit and rest and that should never be what the bbc is never what the bbc was you worked your way up through local local radio through radio 4 and the weird late night slots and then you worked your way up into a BBC Two late night show and that was your way through.

25:55Now it is Instagram, podcast, YouTube and then eventually, maybe a decade, somebody will take a risk on you presenting a polite daytime quiz on Radio 4 like Max Fosh, Brave Commissioning. I'm always there for a polite quiz on Radio 4. Mohit, you know, you know it's cool. Right, speaking of big swings, in a moment, Sky's new telling of the Second World War. See you after the break.

26:25Hello, Media Club listeners. Patrick here from Podcast Discovery, the podcast marketing company, where this week we've been thinking about tracking. Podcast advertising is great. Audiences are super engaged and trust their favourite hosts more than many other forms of media. But how do you measure the effectiveness of your campaign? And does where you advertise affect the data you're able to see? We have the answers. Get in touch at podcastdiscovery.com. That's podcastdiscovery.com. If this week's news tells us anything, it's that in this industry, the rules keep changing and only the well-prepared survive, which is exactly why you should be recording at Podshop Studios, where we record the Media Club every week.

27:08Each studio has its own distinct look and feel, professionally designed and fully equipped for broadcast-quality video recording. You can check out the whole range at Podshop Online, and that's the place you can get 25 % off your first booking. Just use the code MEDIACLUB at podshaponline.co.uk. Welcome back. Here's a few things we've been talking about in the club this week. YouTube has overtaken Netflix as the most watched platform globally. And that's thanks to the platform's TV app. Netflix still has more minutes per day in the UK, but it's tight. On average, subscribers are watching just one more minute than the video sharing site.

27:46now speaking of YouTube KSI rapper, boxer and BGT judge has announced he's leaving the Sidemen to the UK collective that he'd helped set up 13 years ago the remaining six members say they'll still continue and the White House Correspondents Dinner has been rescheduled for July 24th with Trump accepting an invitation to speak improved security will surely be a must for both intruders and keeping the booze off the tables links to all of our stories available on our sub stack just head to themediaclub.com that's themediaclub.com all free uh give us your email address right now uh alex and simon are still with me uh simon uh world war ii with tom hanks uh launched on sky history in the uk last week uh and on history channel in the us uh before we get to the show tell me about you how have you got to this point what's your what's your cv what's my cv uh well you did allude to my academic history past right at the top, which I don't talk about very much, to be honest.

28:46But no, I did come out of having done a history degree, which is apt given the show that we've just launched. And Utopia was one of the first places I went to as a producer and ended up back there about 10 years ago in a head of development role. And since then have been either in development or production on shows and have been in the chief creative officer role for three or four years now. And yeah, it's been a wild ride adjusting to the shifting sands of the industry over that decade. Yeah, so Newtopia's Calling Card is sort of pairing huge subjects with huge names. Chris Hemsworth, Will Smith and now Tom Hanks.

29:25How do you make sure the talent sort of serves the story, I guess? Yeah, it's a big part of it. I mean, we didn't start off as a company that intended to work with A-list stars. I think the mission, I suppose, or the passion of the people that work there is to take quite specialist subjects and try and turn them into mainstream entertainment, I guess, and bring them to really broad audiences, which is a really long journey to make in terms of storytelling, which is why it's enjoyable. And that coincided with a moment around streaming, the streaming boom, when scripted stars were beginning to look at unscripted projects.

30:03And you have to think carefully about the pairing and sometimes the idea or the passion comes from the celebrity first and they'll come to us with a subject or story that they're interested in telling. So I think now you're certainly in a place where nearly every project, there's a genuine connection with the story or subject and a passion for it. And then finding the role for them in the show, in the storytelling is pretty organic. I think the days of simple sort of stick a host on is gone. I think the bar's too high. And in fact, the demand from A-list talent to be involved in the unscripted space is high enough that you get really good, amazing people telling incredible stories.

30:46And Tom's had a huge passion for World War II his entire life and has obviously been behind some of the biggest scripted shows and movies related to it. So he was the obvious person to embark on this journey with. And it's been a very exciting and rewarding one to do it. Do you think for kind of big A-list talent, there isn't always the movies. There used to be those mid-market movies. It's either kind of like mega blockbusters or smaller things. And you see a lot more sort of A-listers do TV series, obviously driven by the streamers. Do you think that's made the talent and their agents kind of more open to some of these discussions as well?

31:28They're not sort of just living in one rarefied area. I think it's really easy to, and it's easy because I used to do it as well, to look through the lens of the commercial lens the whole time. And you realize when you work with these people, they have genuine passions for these subjects. And they also want to spend their time doing things that they care about. And often they're at the level where they can choose their projects. And some of the movies and schedules these guys are on can be pretty taxing. And the prospect of working on a show about a subject that they're passionate about, sometimes traveling to places they wouldn't normally dream of going, to experience things they'd never thought they'd experience, we find that it's their favorite thing they're doing.

32:17it might not be paying them as much but it's certainly the thing that is i mean we've been in the crazy position where chris hemsworth for example is on graham norton promoting a movie or supposed to be but wants to talk about limitless the show he's making with us uh and the last show we made with will smith he's he went all out to promote it on social media and and talk about it and be interviewed about it and there's nothing in it for them more than promoting a story in a show that they love. So it's refreshing. And it gives that sense of authenticity that audiences want to adjorn to. So it's win-win.

32:57And that means the shows tend to perform because they have that exposure and people enjoy watching them, hopefully normally, because they can see the genuine connection between the story and the person. Well, World War II is probably the most documented conflict in history. Wall Street Journal said your show, it says here pulls off the seemingly impossible by offering a fresh perspective was that the aim or just a lucky lucky reviewer line no it was it was very much the aim and it's not easy to get a good review from the water so that was that was pleasing though it's obviously it's a story that's been told a lot but it's also a story that means a lot to a lot of people so getting these and often we'll be telling stories or exploring subjects that have been explored previously so we're always i think the the lowest barrier for entry is finding a new perspective a new way of telling it and yeah it's been 50 years since world at war the huge itv series in the 70s and it's amazing since then how much even new stories new research new archive uh since the soviet archives opened up and others in eastern europe so there was actually a lot to tell that hadn't been covered in world at war and i've been actually pleasantly surprised not just with the reviews, which I thought would cut.

34:13It's a really well-made series. Steve and Katie did a fantastic job with it. But the number of people who are watching it has surprised me as well. You know, it seems to have... The ratings seem to be really good, really strong. I think it's number two on Apple downloads at the moment, among all the scripted shows as well. It's found an audience who don't know the story or don't know the story in full. and that was part of the thinking behind embarking on this at the beginning there is a whole new generation of people who didn't really grow up necessarily with a family member who was involved with it or being fed endless stories or documentaries um so it seems to have seems to have resonated also coming up you've got a clickbait clinic with stacy dooley for bbc one quite a different different different take on it what attracted you to that project That was, yeah, we don't make a ton of shows for the BBC, actually.

35:06But we had this, our head of development, Sam, had the idea of a series that would explore viral health trends and really get to the bottom of them. And that was before viral health trends were the main way that people really consumed medical information. So it became more and more apt. And something like one in three Brits go to social media first before anything or anywhere else to check medical information. So it's a cool format where she, with some doctors, searches out the patient zero, if you like, the post zero of these trends, and then gets to the bottom of the story, the influences that are promoting them and whether there's any truth to it, any utility.

35:47Alex, do you use doctor Instagram? All the time. No, no, what is it? Instagram or meta platforms are the second biggest search network, and Amazon is third. So actually, the search is happening. and yeah who doesn't want to watch those videos about this is how you fix this really complicated problem i would like this influencer to tell me it's very easy i'm sure the doctors are just searching uh as well um i guess it's the so the the hank series on comforting multiple platforms in in different places i mean it's kind of one of the the challenges for production companies now like knitting together the funding of these things is that taking more and more of your time to to to get these things through the door?

36:25It's certainly changing. It's one of the most interesting aspects of the industry, I'd say, at the moment. It's the biggest upshot of the digital YouTube revolution moment. I think there's lots of different ways to get a project funded. And the big shows are normally fully funded by one or have been previously. But I think even that is now more up for grabs. and whether it's the traditional co-production route or whether it's working more with brands or foundations, there's so many people who are interested in partnering on a project, even if it just involves funding. And I think the one thing that the YouTube revolution isn't doing is impacting the demand from audiences for a certain type of content, especially sort of the premium content as well.

37:15It's affecting the middle, I think. The distribution method the platforms are changing, but actually the demand for the content still there Yeah, and it's just about finding the people who want to support them I mean history is as I mean does incredibly well on YouTube There's an amazing amount of channels that are doing some really good work in this in this space Yeah, a hundred percent. They were well ahead of the game. I think I think This is my own research. I think technically the biggest history creator if you like or in terms of a channel That's dedicated to the subject. I think they're the they're the biggest and they do an amazing job of we make another show with them with David Duchovny of X-Files fame called Seagrass Declassified.

37:52And it's jam-packed, the show, with stories. And that's partly because they like to cut them up and put them on as clips to their YouTube channel. And it works. They were very... Although they're not always associated with this, they're actually a very innovative network in terms of how they distribute, how they program. And even taking big swings on the World War II with Tom Hanks show, it's a huge risk in many ways. But it's paid off, I think. there's a lot of credit to them too right uh just enough time for the audio network media quiz

38:27three media stories all forced through the prism of an existing media property this week it's the elephant in the room uh just like a biopic funded directly by the participants i'm going to skirt around the story uh at the center by talking about everything else the pr approved version of events you tell me the story i'm not quite saying and Alex Audio Network has taken that brief from producer Matt and scored it with some upbeat documentary music, serene, domestic, nothing to see here. Best of three. So buzz in with your names when you know the answer. So Alex, you will say. Alex. Simon, you will say.

39:03I will say Simon. Let's play The Elephant in the Room. A senior government figure attended a conference in London this week with warm words for the creative sector and a general sense that things are moving in a positive direction. The audience appeared to receive the speech thoughtfully. Alex, it could be Streeting or Nandy. It is Nandy. They both were received in similar ways. Yeah, so Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy at South by Southwest London admitting the government got it wrong on AI copyright, having initially proposed an opt-out model that would have allowed AI companies to scrape creative content unless rights holders explicitly objected.

39:46Are they now on the right side of AI? I don't know that any meaningful government policy is happening, particularly before Makerfield election on the 18th. And definitely not while there is that sort of vacuum with Burnham Streeting and others and whatever happens over the summer. There is no right side to this debate while that is ongoing because it's such a huge picture. But the two principles are, do you move further towards the US regulation or do you move further towards the EU regulation? And that will really define what happens over the next few years of politics, both in many ways, but AI is becoming this canary in the coal mine of which side that chooses.

40:22Simon, do you assume that people have scanned all of your material? It's a good question, probably. Probably I should assume that. There's a lot of discussion with production companies about selling access to full archive material or even rushes to help train some of the models. I think that's another good source of cash for people. It's probably not ideal. I know that Netflix are doing, there's lots of discussion around how Netflix, with their purchase of Interpositive and what the purpose of that is. I think that's a really interesting story that's probably got more layers than we can currently see.

40:59There has to be residuals. If you build it out to sell that archive, the archive becomes no longer necessary. The residuals thing is the unsolved problem and that is the real meat of it that no one is getting to grips with. Will they ever know? OK, question number two. A well-known media company has received some good news this week. It came in the form of a list. Simon. Yes. Yes. That would be the best places to work. Yes. Victory for Bauer. Yes, so Bauer Media Audio UK, home of Kiss Magic, Absolute and Greatest Hits, named in campaigns Best Places to Work 2026. only media owner on the list and subsequently one of the top five large companies it's interesting isn't it those staff surveys I always wonder if there's like some boss going you must say good things about our company or it's a natural response to good places nothing is ever real what was the thing all of the music industry all of the viral content you think you're consuming none of that is real, all of it is fake no good deed exists particularly on that scale without there being somebody pulling the screens behind.

42:06I should be less pessimistic and sometimes nice things happen, but we're not allowed nice things. Company culture is an important way to be a successful business though, isn't it? If you have that focus, that can be a way that you can win as an organisation, right? Yeah. I'm slightly less cynical than maybe I would. We actually, I mean, we do, this is how I read about that, we actually take that stuff kind of seriously, but maybe not for the reason that you think. we did originally, but it's actually an amazing, you get an amazing data set, you get an amazing amount of feedback from those. It's all anonymous, but you do get a healthy dose of reality about what the people who are working with you and for you feel about the company.

42:49And every year we make changes based on that feedback. So yes, it's worthwhile for surprising reasons. Okay, question number three. A major technology company took questions from publishers and journalists about the company's new commercial model. The executive was positive about the direction of travel and spoke warmly about the company's existing partnerships. Alex, is this the OpenAI not giving any money to anybody ever for any reason under any circumstance because it's their money and they'll do whatever they want with it? They've said there are no plans to show advertising revenue from ChatGPT with publishers, even as they roll out ads to free-tier users.

43:26The VP of Partnerships said, not at this point, when asked directly at the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress this week. I mean, it's probably sensible, isn't it? Just start with that. It's all down to the IPOs. So as we're in the year, the big three are organ IPO. So this is OpenAI, Anthropic, the people who do code. And SpaceX, which incorporates. SpaceX, which is X. Everything Elon Musk has ever thought, excluding Tesla. and his desire to be a trillion there well his desire $135 a share which puts the valuation at$1.8 trillion just under so they need to make sure that their market cap is as high as physically possible until that happens and then miraculously a couple of months after that IPO some opinions might change across the board there was a huge, we're doing this huge thing on Crash next month about what that bubble becomes and just the downfall of if they crash what is the consequence well i think that makes your winner alex as your special prize you can go go off and get us all ipo shares for all these three companies that'd be great thank you very much um also my thanks uh to alex audio network for supplying today's music remember audio network can do that for you too uh just head to audionetwork.com and there's a link in the show notes uh right before we go how can people keep up with your good work uh alex tell us about the podcast.

44:53Crashed on all good podcast platforms or crash.org.uk or you can follow me at Alex Huds, A-L-E-X-H-U-D-S on any social network you care to mention. And Simon, how about you and your company's good work? Newtopia is at newtopia.com and on all social media, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and me personally on LinkedIn. Lovely. Thank you both. And thank you to you for listening and watching. My name is Matt Deegan. The producer was Matt Hill. It was a Rethink Audio production with video support from Podcast Discovery. We'll see you next week.

45:51Thank you.