Should the BBC ‘Be More Elvis’?

0:01Hello and welcome to the Media Club. I'm Matt Deegan. In the club today, a little less conversation, a little more action, please. The BBC's Director General wants the corporation to be more Elvis. Well, our very own Elvis Goldwaller's Faraz Osman is here on the mooted cuts that are making staff all shook up. Also on the show, we're about to celebrate National Magazine Day. The Week Juniors editor Vanessa Harris on why children and adults are still reaching for paper. All that, plus Channel 4 has announced a new content chief. Warner Brothers wakes up as Skydance. And in the Audio Network media quiz, we roll up the shutters on some abandoned lockups.

0:37That's all coming up in this edition of the Media Club. Come on in.

0:46Joining me are two members to discuss the week's biggest media stories. First, welcome back to Fraz Osman, MD of Indie Gold Waller. who would you like to give your plus one to this week? Is Elvis in the building? He may well be. I'm going to give my plus one to Alex Thomas who is an incredible director and he has just delivered the Damalola Taylor film which is, I mean it's just amazing it's just a really great film it's really well directed looks beautiful but it's just such a harrowing story I moved to London when that tragedy happened and kind of seeing it now seeing all those people grow up um john byaga's in it and he talks about how he went to school went to the same school and kind of talks about how he it could have been him um it just really reminds you of like a you know the power of television and documentary making um and how kind of stories we kind of live in a world where stories go so quickly kind of appear in the news and disappear in the news and so kind of seeing something looked at properly and the impact it had um it's just a really it's a really brilliant film and um incredibly sad story um but alex has done an amazing job of it so um very much advocating for his membership here to the media approved she's allowed in also returning vanessa harris editor of the week junior the weekly magazine that explains the news to eight to fourteen year olds um after this week at the bbc maybe we're gonna need it uh something explained to us um who would you like to honor with a plus one well i think mine's a bit more cheerful actually i would like to bring now very young um but i hope that's okay um krish the podcaster okay and he his podcast is absolutely brilliant it's the fourth bookmark and he is all about encouraging he's incredibly passionate about books and he seems to read everything um and he has this brilliant podcast and he invites uh authors on to talk about books and he's about kind of encouraging uh other children to read and just sharing his joy in books and he was at our recent book awards we had our book awards on the 28th of september and he was interviewing all the winners and he's just absolutely brilliant so yeah i think he'd be a real addition he was your red carpet reporter i think wasn't he yeah um how old is he uh i want to say 11 but i think he might be 12 now okay all right definitely starting young I've got to be careful, these podcasters trying to catch up.

3:11Book Awards was a great event. I was there too. I mean, children's books, there aren't loads of places for them to go. Obviously, this podcast, Fun Kids, we have authors on too. I mean, it's such an important part of the book sector. I sort of felt that when I saw all the authors there, they're a group of people who very much are work from home. Oh, yes. And then have to spend loads of times with children in libraries and in school. so a night out with some booze was pretty lucky for them all. Well, I wouldn't like to put words in their mouths but they did seem to be having a great time. I certainly had a great time despite having, I was getting over tonsillitis so I was a bit worried my voice was going to pack up or I'd start sounding like Lee Marvin which I did a few days earlier.

3:52A good event and two good new entrants so we might have to have a special alcohol-free environment for Chris. Yes. Yes, of course. Okay, in a moment the big changes that are coming to iPlayer perhaps. That's all after the break. Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like.

4:29And that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average$21 with insurance and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the U.S. offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average.

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5:34Welcome back to the Media Club. This week, Matt Britton stood up in the BBC Radio Theatre and told staff he wants the corporation to be more Elvis. Faraz, what did he mean by that? Apparently he wants a little less conversation and a little more action, please. I think that we all know that the BBC does a lot of navel-gazing, it does a lot of self-flagellation, it does a lot of defending itself, has to do those things, it's a public body and it's um you know it's a very very big tanker um but i think matt britain is clearly somebody who is pushing for things to actually happen um and and i think that that is probably right and you know i i find him incredibly impressive i saw his um uh i saw his chat at the edinburgh tv festival you know we were talking about it afterwards it's just such a he's such a really um inspirational speaker in what are quite desperate times and and that is a real unicorn um so i think the bbc are really lucky to have him in this moment um however you know there is a bit of you know he he is talking a lot and the things now need to happen i think that there's been a lot of waiting around about what these cuts actually look like who is going to suffer them what's going to actually happen and and this may be a bit of trial ballooning to kind of go it things things are going to get announced now and you've all got to brace yourself that the changes are going to happen yeah i mean you're still in that period where you can say other things like nothing's your fault and you can talk about all the things that you'd like to do and hey here's what we should should do and can explore how long have you got before people expect to to see some action that you've been doing well exactly i think it's an incredibly nerve-wracking job and there are you know there are bits that that perhaps aren't performing as well as they'd like but yeah uh i mean bbc3 or bbc scotland i mean yeah horrible i would hate to do it but i find it actually quite triggering even thinking about it just that thing of um i don't know if you ever had this but being being being called to can everybody come to the boardroom at half past 10 or 11 so they've had enough time to talk to the lawyers beforehand oh oh awful feeling well yes some expected him to announce channel closures there's been some talk as you said about bbc3 and bbc scotland going instead staff got decentralized decision making is important uh digital can be flagship uh and there is permission to experiment and fail they demonstrated an ai agent for iplayer called iggy um i thought when i read some of the press reports got a bit of a kick in for the gimmicks um it's i hadn't heard about iggy this is like i mean i feel like you've got to get a bit of a kicking if you could anything iggy but there was also vegas mode for they called vegas mode for iplayer where it randomly selects some programming obviously the the q a from the staff's pretty tough at these things uh it's always going to be like that is there no way through there's a story about emojis that was the bbc wasn't it A hilarious emoji story.

8:35The sort of the tech end of things were explaining some cuts and you couldn't leave comments, but someone left the emojis on. So there were floods of emojis over the screen and someone sent out a note telling people off. Yes, they had to send an email off. I mean, look, we joke it is not a pleasant time for anybody across the industry, not just at the BBC. This is, as you say, it's a really horrible period. I think, to be honest, for everyone involved, The experimentation stuff around iPlayer is interesting. I think... This is one of his big things. He says iPlayer hasn't really developed as much.

9:12Which I kind of agree with. And mainly because of how other streamers, of which I think iPlayer is now a really, you know, is one of the biggest streamers in the UK. It's not the biggest streamer in the UK. Probably. It's certainly, you know, there or thereabouts. But the issue with iPlayer is that they haven't got the same level of investment into algorithmic decision-making and programming. And as we've seen by the huge rise of TikTok, that's just kind of, you know, seemed to have come out of nowhere and completely took everyone. All of that was based around it having a very strong algorithm.

9:46Now, Netflix have seemed to have caught on to that. They are pumping a lot of money into making their algorithm as tight as possible. So when you open the app, it gives you what you want before you realize what you want. You know, there was many jokes back in the day about how you would spend all your time just scrolling through Rails before you actually selected something they obviously want to push past that iPlayer are going to need to do the same thing and it's it there is a bit of a like okay I think this is the kind of thing that's happened across every single sector which is if we leave it long enough then we can just ask an AI to do it for us we don't have to invest the money into building and coding it so so maybe they're at that point now but certainly something needs to happen with iPlayer that's not just it's got great content on it it also There needs to be a great platform that serves the audience in a really intuitive way.

10:31The other thing that's been axed, was announced yesterday, was Radio 4's You and Yours has been axed after 50 years. Vanessa, is this going to make a chunk of Middle England very unhappy? Middle England quite enjoys being quite unhappy. Is that an awful thing to say? Is that an awful thing to say? They said that whilst it will go, they will put some consumer programming on the network and do something new. is this just a great excuse to to maybe cut some things they've wanted to cut for quite a long time but haven't had the guts to do it yeah i think so i mean i think um a friend of mine has just been made news director of uh to the abc australia he's just um headed back there he is australian and uh we were chatting in the pub before he went and i thought oh yeah you know there's because you are being brought in to change stuff uh of course and uh some people adapt to that better than others and yeah I would find that I would find that very scary also that because he they can become the person who clears out the stuff that nobody else quite had the nerve to do never let a crisis go to waste their reasoning for this is you know we're sitting in a podcast studio and actually over the life of the media club and what was the media podcast and what was the Guardian media like you know we have seen as you know this collective in this room the rise of of that sector and radio has not kept up i mean it's just you know it is incredibly habit-forming radio it does have a you know it does have lots of value in that space and the people who really love it hugely advocate for it and therefore are very very noisy but if you i think if you look at the wider picture people have moved to podcasts when it comes to talk radio and it kind of makes sense that radio 4 look to reshape things in that space and if you and yours doesn't work as a podcast, I think that's a fair assessment.

12:21I was looking at the press release and Jonathan Wall from BBC Sounds was quoted in there. It seems like he has a sort of super speech role that they haven't really talked lots about, I think across Radio 4 and 5 Live. I mean, this is the sort of digitisation of all audio, isn't it? Is this similar to what's been happening in iPlayer and channels in telly? I think what I think channels and telly is slightly different because because tv you know there are like daytime tv has been very impacted by the move to streaming because daytime tv is habit forming you kind of put it on in the background it's your friend that kind of is there while you're doing the ironing and and and you plan your day around whoever is on the this morning sofa or whoever whatever quiz show is on at that time that has now moved on radio is still kind of there but i think the difference between radio and tv is radio does that throughout the day so i think a lot of people treat radio as something that's just on in a room throughout the day and and that world has moved on quite significantly where people want to select their own things curate their own channels create their own podcast curate sorry their own podcasts and create their own podcasts um so so that is that has opened up like more disruptors into the market that can kind of get in there without having a broadcast license and and that's kind of why i think radio has has been more impacted by this than than video has but you know there is also infinite choice in video as well um and i guess what i'm trying to say is that a radio show i don't think it's a straight analogy for a tv format so you can take a tv format off a broadcast network and put it onto our player in a much cleaner way but taking a radio audience and a habit and putting it onto a platform is much trickier.

14:07Doing a couple of different jobs. Just lastly, just on BBC Three, it's sort of foregone conclusion that that's going to be gone. I think you made My Mates a Muslim for BBC Three. I did make My Mates a Muslim for BBC Three during lockdown. Yeah, that's right. Do you think it's a shame we're losing the channel or actually have we just gone past that moment? As long as they're commissioning the programmes, does it matter? I've been thinking about this a lot because I think that like one of the first articles I ever wrote for broadcast was about BBC three being shut down how I was first time first time gosh and how I was very anti and I was very anti at the time and and the reason I was particularly against the idea there were two reasons I was against the idea the first reason was I at that time certainly was like well that audience don't need another streaming service they are you they were already YouTube native why are they losing something they're not gaining something elsewhere because they're already very well served on youtube certainly they were far better served on on youtube than every any other audience was but they were incredibly underserved on television so you're you know you're reducing a platform for them and particularly when it comes to kind of license fee and why they should pay etc that you could see you know there was a bit of a shocked pikachu face when they were a bit like oh young people aren't paying the license fee and i'll be like you weren't making programming for them what a surprise the the other thing i was objecting to was the fact that actually it was a a shield for the fact that they were making significant cuts in programming um so if they had kept the same amount of investment in programming for that audience then i'd be like fine you know you can experiment with it and put it in different places but they weren't doing that they were closing bbc3 and closing lots of lots of lots of commissions in that space and there was there would talk at the time where they were going to have bbc one plus one i think it was and you They're using that network for repeats and et cetera and investing more in drama and so I was a bit like, well, you're just literally abandoning young people.

16:02Now, in this market, it's slightly different because they have launched a number of YouTube channels. Deepwatch is a bit of an investment in that space, which is their YouTube channel there. And they are obviously looking at BBC Sounds and how they can do more content for that age group. And they are doing a YouTube strategy and a TikTok strategy. So they are seeming to take younger audiences more seriously. and I think we can all accept that a TV channel isn't necessarily the first port of call for that I mean Vanessa if you talk to your audience and try and explain the concept of linear television they would just look back blankly wouldn't they yes yes they absolutely would they absolutely would and the idea of that kind of collective experience is now obviously as they get older they will have that and they you know they go to the cinema and things um and things like that and And at one stage in their lives, perhaps they'll stay on hold for ages trying to get Glasto tickets.

16:56Who knows? But yet what I the first time around that BBC three looked like it was getting it in the neck. What I really objected to was not only the fact that the youth audience was not being represented, but also it was kind of a test bed. And I thought, well, where's that going to go then? And if you've only got prestige channels, not knocking BBC Three in any way, but it was it felt like more of a kind of playroom that you could that more experimental stuff could. I mean, experimental by the BBC standards. But yeah. And so that's what worried me. But it seems that maybe, yeah, things have moved on.

17:30Vanessa's right on the experimental side. You need some experiments on YouTube. But that's almost even worse because no one will find that at all. Yeah, I mean, this is the problem. And I think, you know, you mentioned about that. That was one of my first commissions with this company. And I think a lot of people had their first commissions with places like BBC Three, Channel 4.0. You know, when you have kind of innovative spaces, they're more interested in working with newer companies. So from a talent perspective, both production talent, but also on screen talent as well. The BBC haven't had a great job in developing new talent for quite a while.

18:02and I think one of the reasons for that is that they haven't had a youth strand that allows them to to bring up those names that actually when we see the big names are on tv now Anton Deck, Davina McCall, Holly Willoughby all of these names came from children's television and from young programming and there's no and now they're all racing to influencers on what's going on on YouTube a lot of that audience a lot of that talent doesn't translate to presenting in its most formal sense and and now i think is creating a crisis in in the new new talent both from a production and filmmaking point of view but but also a presenting point well speaking of new talent channel four has found a new content chief uh two four ceo david brindley is set to replace ian katz after a grueling five round process uh where apparently the final two was brindley and former sky and bbc3 boss steward murphy uh broadcast was first with the news uh for as um um sort of channel for returning to sort of having an indie chief uh running their their content good choice yeah i mean this has been incredibly well received i haven't heard one um uh one bad word to be to be said about david brindley he's he was successful successful at channel four he commissioned i believe 24 hours in a and e he commissioned a lot of the big hits that still remain on the channel now he then went on to to two four they've done destination x they've done um some shows for apple tv they've um they've had a lot of big hits while he's been he's been there and and 24 is a very big well-regarded british you know the format unscripted indie so i think everybody feels like he's got the the beans to make this job work and and look ian had a lot of criticism about the fact that he wasn't from the indie sector he didn't know how that business worked and he never he never really had worked in television before he worked in journalism um and he never really worked in television before so so this it feels like it's what the market what the indie market has been asking for for a long time they now have it it's whether it's whether it's a case of it's if it's going to deliver yeah it's not quite cat's old job is it so under priya dogra's new structure the director of programs sits a level with louisa compton who looks after news digital and audience trust and kieran nataraja who's working on content strategy um finesse do you think it's good to sort of split that role three ways and have three people working on the future of channel four rather than just having one boss saying hey we're doing all content this way i yes i do i mean you know um decentralization and and all that yes i do think so because um things move so fast now and with um scandals that can blow up very quickly particularly on social media especially on social media i think you have to be ready for for anything and yeah some jobs just get too big um and and then it's easy to miss things and then of course the pylon gets even gets even worse and and so yeah i would yeah split it um far as um everyone says the same thing about channel 4 it just needs some hits can you just can you just make some hits is he in a better place to just make some hits well he is a hit maker like he has made hits and he has delivered hits and he has produced hits and he's commissioned hits do people only give hits to channel 4 there's a challenge with channel 4 right now and I have been you know being a bit like hang on a minute we all need to take a step back and have a bit of think about what channel 4 is actually about and what it's purpose is those shows that I mentioned they're brilliant shows you know educating Essex and Educating Yorkshire.

21:37That's made by 2-4 as well. You know, these are shows that are really, really brilliant. However, they are, I think, shows that could be seen on the streamer. You know, they make I Kissed a Boy for BBC Three. That could be a Channel 4 show. That could be a Netflix show. So it's like the distinctiveness of what Channel 4 is and its purpose is actually the biggest red flag for me. And I would like to see a really big swing from both Priya and David and Louisa and Kieran to kind of go we want to put our flag in the sand and say this is why channel four is is different um it isn't just like another place to make hits now i've been saying a few things and i you know these are just kind of ideas but my belief is that um uh channel four i think should be going back to its roots about supporting emerging indies and um and you know i've been saying that perhaps the first run of any new unscripted programming should always come from a british indie that's not owned by a big label like freemantle or what is now the huge banaget you know uh setup it's it's we don't they don't need a channel for commission it is honestly companies like mine regionally companies diverse companies new companies who want to do something different and would be would see a channel for commission is completely life-changing to their business and then puts them out for an opportunity to get acquired by one of those bigger places and And that puts the creative engine and juice back into the market.

23:02And I think only Channel 4 can do that. Well, Vanessa, people talk a lot about purpose with Channel 4. Is the world just too complex to do what Farah says and go, you know, actually, we need to do all these things? Like, it's in trouble. It's finding it difficult to have scare. It's finding it difficult to have hits. Does it just concentrate on surviving rather than trying to re-find its heart? No, I think identity is really important. I mean, that identity can be quite broad, but I think you know where you stand. I mean, I hadn't really thought about Channel 4. It was really interesting hearing what you were saying.

23:38I hadn't really kind of bothered to think about Channel 4. But yeah, it is a bit of a mishmash. I mean, it's got shows on it that I really enjoy. But to have an identity so that people know that there's going to be experimental stuff. I mean, I do seem to remember a fair amount of Hungarian animation in the very early days. but um we're so used to having stuff kind of organized for us that i think actually knowing that's my thing i that's that's a home for me i know i will find stuff in that's interesting but i absolutely understand the impulse to kind of think throw everything at the wall and hope for the best so i that's a really interesting point because i have been hearing a lot across the whole market around how the the way to unlock success is by building community so you know there is a community around traitors for instance there is a community around the side men and that's why they've been included they've built a you know a real sense of advocacy from the audience and from the community that is what a hit is now it is not what the numbers are or whatever it is actually where people are going out and organically advocating for the content you're making i think and certainly when i was growing up and i was younger that's what channel 4 had like it was one of the i used to say this there was there were two places in the uk where you would wear the t-shirt of a of a channel and that was channel 4 on mtv right you would people would think you're cool if you had a big channel 4 logo on your back or a big mtv logo on your back today that's like a24 right people would buy a24 merchandise i don't think people would buy channel 4 merchandise anymore and my point around supporting grassroots um creators taking risks doing something a little bit different yes hits are important but do we need to see another jump do we need to see another even bake-off or taskmaster those have got communities in their own right but is it feeding into the identity of what channel 4 is about it does pay for the channel though bake off bake off cash on those ads but that doesn't that's fine fine it pays for the channel but that's for me that's just not enough that's the purpose of why channel 4 exists can't be that it pays for itself because then you're just a purely a commercial channel why are you a public service channel channel 4 is is owned by the public and it is you know it's yes it's commercially funded but it has to have a reason to be and and that and that reason has to be believed in by the british public and i'm not convinced today we that the british public are advocating for channel 4 we are as indies and as tv makers and you know as as as meteorite but like i don't i don't necessarily know if you go and speak to somebody on the street now in the same way they did when i was growing up they would go oh yeah channel four that you know they're part of british culture and private identity and that's what i hope that priya and her team are going to get back to well speaking of ownership uh one more story before the break at farewell warner brothers discovery uh hello skydance uh david ellison's paramount completes its 110 billion dollar takeover on tuesday this is after supreme court justice alina cargan uh declined a last minute bid to halt it so cbs HBO, CNN, two major film studios now all sit together in one company.

26:42Over here, one owner now has Channel 5, as well as the old Discovery channels, TLC and TNT Sports. What does this mean for UK producers? Anything? What does this mean for UK producers? I'd very much like to know that. Look, I mean... Is it just some different American at the top? No, I think this is a big concern. Like, it's a big concern for everybody in the industry. I'm concerned that, you know, you mentioned that there are channels that they now own in the UK, but the attention that the Ellisons and Skydarts have isn't going to be on the UK. They're not interested in what's happening here.

27:23They're interested in what's happening with American sports and what's happening with American networks. And obviously there's a whole conversation around CNN. Are they really that interested about what's going on with 5 News? You know, discuss. us are they even honestly are they even interested in the premier league rights that tnt have got in this country i i think that it's one of those things that feels like it's such a big colossus of a of a you know behemoth of a of a portfolio now that you know when i i always say that like when i was growing up i thought that you would know you'd make it if you owned a house where you didn't know what was behind every door like you know and if you say like you know can you imagine being a kid that's hideous but imagine being a kid kind of going oh my gosh there's like a whole other room there i never discovered before like that feels like what what david ellison has now this is a bit like a one day he'll wake up and kind of look through this story goes oh i own bet like that's interesting what does that mean and and that i think is a it sounds great for him but i think for the market that that lack of focus and attention about what these what these brands are for and a purpose and what audiences they're serving is is a real real concern the other thing is to say is that all of those things that he now owns are real legacy things um you know and that that goes we think about warner brothers for instance which is obviously a big part of this deal they have a a lot of brands that were going to go back to community and go back to audience they have a lot of brands that were beloved by a particular generation harry potter friends big bang theory um i'm not sure that warner brothers or md tv and and viacom have had that recently i can't i personally couldn't name you one thing in this generation that they have made that people would you know would rally around and and i think that's a real concern well you talked about some brands so vanessa cbs news and cnn now share an owner at the moment they're saying that they're two news organizations that will stay separate do you think that's something that will last i don't know and actually that's my that is definitely a concern uh for that i've been yeah worrying about because because news gathering organizations they're really important to us i mean just simply where we get our news from to to you know put in the magazine um we've been around for 10 years 11 years we're coming up to our 11th birthday actually um thank you very much um in that time i feel that news standards have changed in some ways across uh across media and yeah i'm really worried and we're not just talking about kind of making news more popular that's okay that's fine that's great you know if people are finding out more about what's happening in the world but but it's editorial voices and what makes the story interesting why why i should tell this story and that's really important to have a to have a a multiple or many many voices telling those stories um uh because let's just let mush less individuals making decisions and having a diverse selection of views bubbling up you don't mean to but of course you you you send your team to follow up stories that that you think are interesting and i mean i only have to talk to my father to realize that different people closely related and find the same stories not interesting at all you know um so yes i mean Yeah, they say they're not going to do anything with CNN, but news is expensive.

30:49And I can see that that's a big temptation. But please don't. Do you think Mark Thompson, they've said lots of nice things about Mark Thompson, that apparently his contract runs out in sort of beginning of 2027. Do you think he can hold on steering the CNN ship or even the larger? I would really hope so. And hopefully there'll be enough other stuff going on that they just will leave. If it's working well, just leave it. you know um at least for at least for a couple of years not awful that we're just kind of thinking you know yeah exactly like when you were saying that you know they don't care what's happening in in the uk i'm thinking in some ways because i've worked for an american company that's great it is what i would say though that i think is quite curious is that when this was all first coming around there was a lot of chat about the midterm elections this this deal has closed i would argue too late for that influence to take hold.

31:42So it will be interesting to know what happens once, you know, once we get to the next presidential election and where the tone is going to be there then. Because by all indications, it's going to be a bit of a bloodbath for the Republicans who are, you know, leaning towards the Ellisons and the billionaires. And Trump has been very, has advocated very heavily for this deal to happen. But it might have happened a little bit too late for him. So we'll see what happens. OK, when we return, how do you get a generation glued to screens to pick up a Mac? See you in a sec.

32:20If this week's news tells us anything, it's that the big beasts of entertainment are moving in together. But if you'd rather have your own space, why not check out Podshop Studios? That's where we record the Media Club every week. Each studio has its own distinct look and feel, professionally designed and fully equipped for broadcast quality video recording. You can check out the whole range at podshoponline.co.uk. And they're giving Media Club listeners and viewers 25 % off their first booking. All you've got to do is use the code MEDIACLUB when you book online at podshoponline.co.uk.

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34:17Here's a few stories we've been talking about in the club this week. And the bids are in for taking over production on Doctor Who. Deadline reports that Hattrick Mercurio is pitched with Boss Jed Mercurio attached as the exec producer while STV Studios have teamed up with Screen Scotland on a plan to move the TARDIS from Wales to Scotland it can go anywhere, it's fine and also World Productions is in the mix too there's an expectation there's going to be two BBC Studios labels going to bid as well interviews begin in January Goalhanger is bringing its sales in-house from January complete with a planned goal hanger up front.

34:54The rest is producer has sales of 37.9 million pounds last year and says it's on track for a billion full episode views in 2026. And BBC News finally has a permanent boss. Former Panorama editor Rachel Jupp starts this month as director of BBC News and Current Affairs, almost a year after Deborah Tanness resigned over Paramount's edit of Donald Trump's speech. she'll lead around four and a half thousand people and interim chief jonathan munro returns to his deputy role links to all of our stories are available on our sub stack why not go and sign up it's free you get a lovely email from me every week just head to www.themediaclub.com that's themediaclub.com okay frazz and vanessa are still with me vanessa next wednesday i'm sure everybody's got it marked in their diary 14th of october national magazine day it's the first one it's the first one ever yes um why do you need a day of your own i mean i wish every well every day is a day of my own for me anyway it's a campaign really to encourage and to help children read because magazines are a brilliant vehicle for that they're a brilliant route into reading yes a natural year of reading as well this year exactly so kind of everybody's working together Let's say Media, Egmont, Kennedy, Your Publisher, Future, DC, Creature & Co.

36:20I mean, it's sort of enemies working together. Not at all, not at all. And there are also the National Literacy Trust and Children's Book Project. And yes, it's about getting magazines into children's hands. So I think more than 70 ,000 have been sent out. And they've been distributed through, well, lots of places, community hubs, breakfast clubs. food banks and because I know I shouldn't say this but magazines can be quite expensive particularly if you're on a tight budget but they're designed to be easy to read and for children who might be reluctant readers or simply haven't seen the joy of of magazines this is a way to kind of get them in because you know we're agnostic about what children are reading you you know, comics, magazines, books, but magazines are a great way.

37:11And because it's great that so many publishers have come together and been able to do this, because I'm a huge, huge fan, always have been, of magazines. So you may have to fire some kind of tranquiliser or something to stop me talking about them because I just think they're magnificent. For adults as well, I mean, you know. There's been a schools competition, which went pretty well. Yes, yes, it did. And yes, and I think if your school was nominated as well you got a you got a voucher um so it was really to go to get as broad reach as possible um because there is something kind of magical about uh about magazines um i think it goes back to to what we were talking about before about building a community um but i think as well it's design it's beautiful design i mean i think nowadays there's there's there's a feeling for you know things have to be authentic and of course it's quite managed authenticity but why not just get somebody who's just really good at something and I think seeing design absorbing really good design that's graphic designers that's really good picture choices and the synthesis of those with the words I think opens the door to a sense of what beautiful and good design is and the variety and how you can induce a mood from visuals so if you think about you know going going way back where you know the face or id i mean a very very design led magazines even wired when i was working there was extremely andrew dipro's art director um uh was um uh extremely design led and and and brought in brought in a mood and and and made you feel like a member of a club and then you think about the the anarchy of fanzines which obviously we made on a much lower budget and stuff but but again that design sends out a message before you've even read a single word and i think that's really powerful i think you're right there i mean often uh digital particularly because it's designed for mobile phones has very little design elements yeah you don't want that yeah you've got to sort of just get to the words yeah and you do i think you do miss out even though you build it you know the back end i mean there's a you put the text in here you put the text in here you insert a picture here and i think um you know i mean there is still very very good design happening i mean obviously my um art director uh dave kelsell the absolute genius um but you know the guardian on saturday magazine whoever has been doing their covers really really interesting they take they take an idea and they just they make you think oh i wouldn't have thought of handling that and that's really refreshing particularly i know we've been saying how great it is to have content that's served to you through the algorithm.

39:55But actually to be taken by surprise sometimes, I think, is a good thing. The team at Witch, Ian Ascot and the art team over there, they do amazing things with their covers. You think of Witch as just being testing white goods, but they'll find a brilliant way of showing that in a way that is very, very arresting. And I think those skills are lost. And I think they answer a hunger because people have been graphic designers for a long time before the digital world really took off. Think of album covers. Faraz, you've made some kids TV shows as well. I think kids media is going through a very strange evolution, sort of coming off a lot of television.

40:37Some of those linear channels are disappearing. On Demand World, going to get social media ban coming next year, maybe a YouTube ban for kids as well. um is vanessa right that actually magazines or media that makes it more club-like for children is where there's an opportunity you know what i so you know i have a i have a son and a daughter five and nine and um i so i see this you know from a from a consumer point of view as well as as a parent and and kind of through their eyes and i think that there's a there's a there's a there's a worry about screens generally for parents and for kids and it is it is exacerbated by the fact that you know the the proliferation of ai and you know what are they watching and how are they watching it the the issue around television and children's television is it is so much cheaper to make animated content and now you know ai animated content you can localize it much more easily which you know my pet pet thing is you know i think it's really important that british children see other british children and and people see other human beings like children see other human beings and not just animated dogs love an animated dog but like there is a there is more to the world yeah but there is a but there's a genuinely weird thing that actually if you take bluey and dougie and paw patrol like kids can spend more time with talking dogs than they can with talking children and that is not a good thing in my world and it doesn't matter how good those shows are i think it's really important that children see other children both in the uk and around the world to understand empathy and understand the difference and understand the world around them and and that is becoming increasingly challenging because it's expensive for television and uh and youtube is a you know all these social media channels what's why the social media band is coming in they are designed for addiction and it's much easier to put um flashing fast-paced images to to drive that addiction than it is to have young people look at things in with curiosity and pacing and that's why all those things are challenging in the digital world however having said all of that i have been always fascinated about how print and the and the printed word is just so incredibly seductive for children it's they're they consistently go back to it um we bought my daughter a kindle she would much rather go to waterstones and she's reading good night mr tom now a book that i read when i was a kid she is reading the printed version of that is there anything about ownership like magazines or books like this is this is my device this is my not device this is my thing this is my I think we found that when we were when we sent out the magazine, because we go out unbagged, it's we.

43:09So the subscriber's name or the child's name, sorry, is printed on the magazine as part of the address. And so that was something that was that was really special. And actually going back to what you're saying about empathy as well, of course, reading is has been proven time and time again that it improves empathy. and a big part of the campaign was to get people, to get children reading as a family or with their family or in the family. And the thing about a magazine, obviously it depends if it's perfect bound. I'm going to get technical now, but if it's perfect bound, that's more of a problem.

43:41But a Saddle Stitch one where it just opens completely flat, it is there. You can pick the bits that you want. You can look at it together. You can cut it out. Yeah, it always makes me really sad. And, you know, yes, our readers will make stuff out of kind of papier-mâché or découpage or whatever using the magazine. And I think that looks really cool like that as well. But, yeah, there are so many aspects to reading and so many aspects to magazines in terms of building that community and encouraging empathy. So, yeah, I'm really excited that it's, you know, we only have the first day, but. But I think, you know, as somebody that works in video and television, there is so many learnings to be had from this space.

44:23Because there is a, the value of reading, right? And the value of the printed word is seen across generationally and in government and in schools, etc. There is no argument that children should read. If you see a child reading a book, you're kind of going, oh, that's, you know, they're doing well. We don't have the same thing in video. And my view is that video is incredibly powerful. When there is really good, strong video, that can be very valuable. You know, we spoke about Damanola Taylor's documentary at the beginning of this. video has a real key parts places but for some reason there is a demonization of children watching screens in a way that that doesn't exist when it comes to children watching books you will never look at a child and go they're not reading a very good book right that might not be a very well written book it might have some issues with what's being said but the fact that they're reading is always seen as a good thing and i think you know for purely from a commercial point of view and a cultural point of view i think that we as video makers need to take some lessons from the printed word to go what can we do to make sure that people see the value in good visual content as opposed to just good written well earlier you're talking about um addiction and fast pace which brings us on to the audio network media quiz

45:36three media stories hidden within the existing media property this week it's media storage wars in the classic us format storage wars bidders get one look through the shutter of abandoned lock up before the auction starts and then hope there's treasure under the tarpaulin. In our version, we're going to open up a badly labelled hard drive and describe its contents. You tell me which media story is inside. And once again, Alex Audio Network has taken that mouldy brief from producer Matt and created a playlist of music to score today's game. So buzz in with your names when you know the answer. So Faraz, you'll say.

46:15Faraz. And Vanessa, you'll say. Faraz. let's play media storage wars okay hard drive number one pdfs of old sheet music but they've been badly labeled it just says george on them but which george is it i guess it doesn't matter oh faraz oh i know i said this is i'm gonna be i'm just gonna say the right george oh i'm not gonna say the right george because i can't remember his surname now which is really awful but he's the person that, he worked on Gandhi and the Newsnight Theatre. Can I get a point for Fenton? Yes, you can. Fenton, there you go. So, joint points there. So this is BBC Radio 2, has apologised for a production error after paying tribute to the wrong composer called George on Monday.

47:00Was it DJ Spoonie? I'm not sure. It was meant to be George Fenton, composer of themes for many radio and TV shows, but instead played music by George Benson. Oh, I just, oh, it's so, yeah, working in magazines, you know. and it's gone and it's out there and it's awful. A very small error that becomes a big error. George Fenton did both the Planet Earth and Teliadix themes. Oh! Well, it did make me look up that story about Jackie Wilson, Jockey Wilson with Dexys. And then I was reading a thing that actually it's an urban myth and apparently Kevin Rowland said, yeah, no, do, it'll be a joke, put up Jockey Wilson.

47:34I don't know if I believe that. It was certainly earlier when you were chatting in the news in brief, you were talking about world productions doing Doctor Who and I thought you said world of wonder who make drag race and i'm like drag race doctor who is amazing great option write it down okay okay hard drive number two this one has a spreadsheet called king's place shift cover uh book via rota old delete now final dot xls king's place shift cover book via rota oh oh that's clever is this is this sorry vanessa so sorry i don't understand the rules of the game at all they're really simple um is this the guardian um uh rearranging getting rid of um casual yes so this is the guardians the guardians and it's decades-old use of casual staff, replacing them with new rota shortfall roles.

48:37Big numbers, yeah. Rota shortfall. Which is a terrible name for a thing. Why don't you just call them grout or something? So Press Gazette say up to 315 people will lose their work through the previous casuals. I mean, they're sort of bittersweet. So the NUJ is welcoming the end of sort of a two-status workforce. And there's even some things with casuals you can work for like 10 months of the year, 11 months of the year. Oh, the stand-down thing. yeah when I was doing I mean I've never worked at the Guardian but there was a thing where it was always a bit tricky because there was considered if you worked somewhere too often then you'd set up an expectation of work and exactly and I just remember talking to people what if I tell you I'm not expecting it does that mean that I can just keep on working but yeah and that's a lot of people and I think that's a real I mean it's not just legacy like that's how it's always been done and it's a bit weird well i but i i don't know i mean i feel that it's it's depending on the roles obviously um but i think it's a good way to get people in who uh are learning the ropes i think that kind of um casual work pattern sometimes works quite well for women uh rather than something more restricted um so And I think having done a job show once at Condé Nast, it depends on the cycle of what you're working on as well.

50:02But I job shared with somebody, and obviously it was on a monthly magazine. And so they got, I think it was two weeks on and two weeks off. So it meant that they got two pairs of eyes looking at a piece of work, looking at Vogue it was, you know, for the price of one. Didn't someone just got the deadline and the other one got the nice first two weeks thinking about things? Because it wasn't quite, no, because deadlines were quite slippery there. So eventually, it would work out in the end, yeah. All right, this one is an actual lockup. Let's open up. Unit 3 has a dusty telescope, a box of leftover stargazing live mugs, diagrams of the universe scrawled on the back of BBC envelopes, an old radio mic muff.

50:49the owner is dispensing with it all for a ring light and a box from Sony a box from Sony? a box from Sony is this? yeah okay Vanessa oh goodness Vanessa I'm in such trouble with a teacher Brian Cox yes Brian Cox and his new career going digital he's the latest person to join this world he struck a long term deal with Sony Pictures TV's digital studio to make a portfolio of science formats for digital platforms it's the studio's second big signing after Tommy in its 100 questions um he's also i think for us he's set up a podcast who's involved in a podcast as well is he brian cox just becoming a youtuber this is news to me and obviously there's a news about amal rajan doing something very similar and he's setting up his his youtube channel i think that what a lot of these people have recognized is is that podcasts youtube channels etc are very talent driven so if you've got a big talent name Holly Willoughby's tried to launch a YouTube channel as well.

51:50If you are a known piece of talent, then that could drive lots of audiences. I can see him doing well as a digital content creator. He's got a lot of followers, I think, across all the platforms. I mean, in the millions. Yes. So, yeah. Yes, I was reading something that was saying, you know, science does well in the digital space. And I was thinking, well, cool, let's hope. If anything should be going well, it should be science. well I think it makes Vanessa you a winner congratulations you can't play by the rules but you can win that's how I won as a special prize you get to turn Faraz into a digital content creator and put him on all the platforms my thanks to Faraz and Vanessa and thanks again to Alex Audio Network for supplying today's music remember Audio Network can do that for you as well just head to audionetwork.com or click a link in the show notes so Faraz where can people keep up with you what are you making at the moment what's coming out next next week we are filming we make a dating show in BSL the first ever dating show in sign language we are going into the record of that next week I am both incredibly excited and I'm in that kind of fear zone this will be fine right, it will be absolutely fine but the team have been doing incredible work around that we're recording that next week our CBeeB show, What's in Your Plant Pot is on air now, the next batch of episodes drop this week I've got some kids books out I'm very proud of that I launched some kids books, kids books.

53:16So that came out a few weeks ago. That's now sort of an evolution from a TV idea. Yeah, we had this idea of like turning football stories into exactly as you're saying about how important it is to just just to read books. We did some research around dads in particular reading to their children and found out that actually even just reading the back pages of newspapers was enough, particularly to newborns. The sooner you read to them, the better. So we took that idea and we've taken classic stories of football and turned them into kids stories. And they're really, really fun. It's called Match at a Bedtime and there's a collection of seven.

53:51It is seven. I think it's seven. It's not 11 yet. So we've still got a few more spots to fill for a full squad. Available now. And Vanessa, how can people keep up with the week, Junior? And where can they grab a copy? Where can they grab a copy? Well, subscribing is best, obviously, I would say. but I think in I think it's in Waitrose and Sainsbury's can I also plug as well that we just launched our word of the year so we are looking for children to come up with their word of the year so what's going to happen is they send in their ideas we then come up with a short list or turn them into a short list and then they can vote on those and we'll be doing the big reveal at the end of the year I'm really excited existing word or new word they have to come up with a new word no no no what sums up 2026 for them how cool yeah so pretty exciting I mean, it could be, I don't know, hot summer by a tapestry eclipse.

54:40It could be, you know, there's been a lot of really interesting, weird things going on. Or, you know, I always think I might know what readers will come up with and then they blindside me. Oh, like last year, Riz or something. Yeah, well, we did say, you know, if it's a kind of slang or a character or something that you really like, just it's over to you. How cool. I'm down with it. Right. Thank you very much to both of you. And also thank you to you for listening and watching. My name is Matt Deegan. And this was a Rethink audio production with video support from Podcast Discovery. I'll see you next week.

55:29So retrospectors, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of Today in History? On Monday, when the world met Monty Python. On Tuesday, Yes We Can Can, opening night at the Moulin Rouge. On Wednesday, the politician who escaped the Prussian war in a hot air balloon. On Thursday, bang to rights, the tiny nation with the world's oldest constitution. And on Friday, we discover the first political assassination caught on camera. That's Today in History with the Retrospectors. 10 minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts.