The Brittin's Empire - New DG Set To Be Announced

0:00Hello, welcome to the Media Club. I'm Matt Deegan. In the club today, Matt Britton is expected to be the next Director General of the BBC. What does Tim Davies' swan song speech tell us about the task ahead? Media analyst Kate Bulkley joins us to discuss. The Trump administration threatens news outlets that don't tow the White House line. Adelman's Karin Robinson tells us what it means for journalists and their bosses in America today. All that plus Reach takes the BBC to task over local news, Adolescence sweeps the BPG Awards, and in the Audio Network Media Quiz, it's time for the weekend update.

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

0:46Welcome to the club. Two Americans who have made Britain their home. Karen Robinson, Senior Strategy Director at Edelman UK. Welcome back. long time club member but who are you bringing as your plus one this week? So I am bringing this week a man called Michael Abramowitz who just won, he's the head of Voice of America and he just won a court case this week that is putting a thousand journalists back to work so the Trump administration under Akari Hill had put all of them on indefinite leave so they were still getting paid but they were not allowed to do their jobs a court ruled that that was completely illegal and unconstitutional, and those people are now going back to work, although they now need to figure out how to bring the networks that have been switched off for nearly a year back online.

1:33Has it just been dark? It has. Well, so some of the – it has been – they used to have, I think, over 70 networks operating. They slimmed down to a small number, I think five or six, that were still operating, and the rest have just gone dark. So they now need to come back online. Such a travesty. That's a great person to recommend. In Currie Lake, she's still knocking around. They've sort of made her a sort of deputy CEO or something, haven't they? Yeah, she's no longer, thank goodness, in charge of Voice of America because it was ruled again by the same judge that she was unlawfully appointed in the first place.

2:10But yeah, Trump's going to keep her around. I mean, after having lost a senatorial election, she's apparently we're stuck with her for a while. Good, good, good. And Kate Bulkley, media writer and analyst, freshly returned from a winter in the States. Welcome back. Thank you. Who gets your plus one this week? Well, and this kind of talks a little bit about the BBG Awards, but I would vote for Adil Amini. He runs something called TV Mindset, which, as you know, is sort of a, let's say, a champion of freelancers and trying to make sure that they are basically taken care of and, you know, sort of duty of care and not sort of thrown on the slag heap.

2:47And I think it's a really important thing. It's not like not other people are doing it. There are other groups that are looking after freelancers, but his is kind of a ground up group, if that makes sense. He is a freelancer himself. And so he is very passionate about it. And he obviously knows what he's talking about. So I would definitely bring him into the club. I think he's an important addition as we think about the media going forward. He is. Both excellent additions. Okay, in a moment, what do we need to know about the next boss of the BBC? I'll see you in a sec. If your eyes are the windows to your soul and your glasses are the windows to your eyes, then it's pretty important to find your perfect frames.

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4:29Welcome back to the Media Club. Matt Britton is set to be the next boss of the BBC. That's according to Guardian reporting yesterday. Always liking Matt doing well. Kate, what do we know about Matt Britton? Well, we know a lot about Matt Britton. He's been around for a while. He's sort of taken a year off, which is good in the sense that he's available. You see what I mean? We don't have to wait for him to do a gardening leave. He's also a very interesting guy. He is British. He loves television, but he hasn't been in the television business. What was his last job? Google. Basically head of EMEA for Google.

5:04So he is a guy who's run, let's say, worked inside of a very large tech company, but has worked out here in the hinterland, not in California, had to figure out how to report into Americans, had to understand sort of the mechanisms of how big tech works. And yet he has a sensibility of European and obviously a Brit. And I've reported on him for, I don't know, at least 10 years, 12 years. And I've always found him sensible, forthright. He's a very smart person. You know, Tim Davey, it was funny, who's the outgoing DG, said, you know, you really have to, I mean, this is not for the faint heart of this job.

5:44And Matt, I think, has the chops. I mean, he, you know, he's had to endure. I mean, Google's not an easy place. And he's had to endure all kinds of things. I mean, you used to be in the advertising business, you know, the advertising industry with YouTube and all that. I mean, he had to take all that flack. Remember, there was all that sort of losing credibility in the advertising. I mean, I remember him on a stage at one of the campaign conferences, literally just taking flack from everybody. You know, well, YouTube is blah, blah, blah. And he was just taking it calm, controlled. I think he'd be very good.

6:16And I hope he gets it, actually. He had a slight hiccup on the select committee over his salary. He didn't kind of have a number to give the select committee. So he's got a bit of experience because he'll be in front of one of those quite regularly if he's the new DG. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I think anyone who wants to take this job is mad. You know, is mad. No, but you have to want to be a public, you know, help the public broadcasting system function. And I think he's the right person. I mean, you could argue that you should have somebody who's been in the business. You know, somebody like Jane Turton, you know, who's run all three media.

6:55I mean, she's been in the business. She knows where the bones are buried. She knows how to produce. She knows the economics, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, in some ways, maybe it's better not to have been in the business and yet understand how the big business works. And this kind of gets into what Tim Davey has set out for what the next stages of the BBC must be. And as he has said in his sort of swan song speech at the RTS that she gave recently, he said, you know, I mean, we have to be strategic and we have to be, you know, we have to take that leap of faith. We have to take risks. And one of those risks is we have to really move into digital.

7:29And we have to make partnerships with people like YouTube. Because this is the future for distribution. Whatever you may say about it. And it's not all, you know, roses and sunshine. But it is a very important, powerful sort of fort. So, you know, Matt Brin used to run YouTube Europe. So, I mean, I think, you know, you can kind of, it makes sense to me. I think it does make sense. Some more BBC news this week. It looked like Lisa Nandy might be giving outgoing DG Tim Davey a blessing to one of his requests to have an infinite charter. So will this be the last charter for the BBC? Yeah, I mean, let's see if she's able to keep that promise and fulfill it.

8:08But certainly I think the political context right now would make it smart, smart to move now ahead of the possibility of a reform election in the next election cycle. And it doesn't just make a lot of logical sense. I mean, the BBC has become a political punching bag. And there's no particular reason why every 10 years they should have to go through this process. It's arguably not great for them fulfilling their mission. Doesn't mean that the government still can't have oversight or kind of. I think Lisa made that clear. He wants oversight. But that existential threat every 10 years. I mean, imagine if your business was operating on that function.

8:43And basically, yes, you have to do all the normal work of running a good business and fulfilling your remit. And then every 10 years, you may or may not be put out of pasture. I mean, that's just not a way to run a functioning organization. I was talking to a senior BBC exec at the BPG Awards, actually. And they were saying it'd be great to get an unlimited charter. but that's the easy thing for them to get and the worry is that that's that's that's free for the for the culture secretary to sign the tough bit is working out how do you fund the bbc and if that stuff gets passed over they're still a bit stuck i mean it's it's always going to be challenging the funding aspect of it but i think that removing that one hurdle i think at least takes away one of the sticks with which the bbc has been beaten and one of the things that arguably has been kind of an unfair lever on the way that BBC has been able to operate.

9:36So, as you say, it's free money, but why not take it? I saw Tim's kind of exit interview was with The Rest is Entertainment. Did you see this? Yes. Gary Lineker's company, obviously, he's sort of fallen out with Gary Lineker. I mean, who fired Gary Lineker? Yes, yes, yes. They're all friends now. Interesting place to do it. And Rich Dossman popped up, I think, RTS to interview him as well. I mean, good to go on that sort of thing. Well, it was great. Obviously, Tim, I think he's a great speaker. There was lots of serious stuff, but he was also some lighthearted moments. I mean, I loved it when he said, he says, one of the things I remember is when I had to escape using my neighbor's back garden to avoid the snappers at the front of the house.

10:20you know who who knew that you know i would have to be doing that as the director general of the bbc so he was he's lighthearted but he was also sort of saying you know this is this is we are the bbc is on a knife edge that's a quote from his um his speech he says we have to we have to be take risks and we have to move decisively to do something one of the things i thought was really interesting is he talked about you know an ai enabled uh personalized you know bite-sized bbc meaning for children and adults, you know, parents, that there's so much potential to take technology even a step further.

10:55And one of the things that he's done, actually, it's just, I think, happened in the past couple of weeks, is they've taken BBC R &D, which obviously has been a huge driver for the BBC. It created BBC iPlayer and various other things over the years, you know, color television back in the day. And he's put that together with BBC research. And so it's like the technology and the R &D is all going to be one new company. You have to remember the BBC is sort of this huge behemoth thing. And so he's pulling them together and sort of saying, well, it's not a commercially viable thing yet. But hopefully we can at some point, maybe that will become a commercial center.

11:31Sort of like the way he turned around BBC Studios. Remember, he used to run BBC Studios. BBC Studios was created as a way to drive money back into the BBC, which has worked relatively well. Private Eye painted quite an evocative picture of the room. Greg Dyke, Michael Gray, John Burt all in attendance. Also Jane Turton, who you mentioned earlier, that's all three media's current boss and who's going to be the deputy in the new Super Megacorp. Now, she's been touted as a potential DG candidate. And you could argue that maybe Tim Davey was sort of pointing to Jane Turton, who could be the next DG.

12:07Do you think she'll stay as a deputy for long? In my opinion, it would be hard for her to go from the number one slot to the number two slot. Obviously, the Banagé, all three media merger is going to create a very large independent production company, which, of course, is the whole idea. Scale, scale, scale. That's how all these folks are hoping to continue to be around in the tech-driven media world we're all living in. but Jane you know she's not unambitious I mean this is a very smart very senior you know and seasoned I can say executive she's she's certainly put in her time she understands the business you know she would she would be a good choice if she wanted to do it I don't know if she wants to do it I mean there was a lot of there are a few other women who have pretty much publicly turn it down Jay Hunt is a good example of somebody you know she was a BBC person for a long time then went over and she ran Apple, right?

13:02If I'm trying to remember now, I think it was Apple. So there's some other people that have been in the frame that sort of said, well, this is maybe not for me. It is a pretty complicated job. And you've got to be able to hop those fences and escape through hedges. Yes, escape through hedges when needed. Moving on, a new policing and media charter has been launched this week, committing every force in England and Wales to answering the phone when a journalist calls, publishing press office numbers online, and releasing custody images for all custodial sentences. Karen, from a kind of comms perspective, why did this relationship go bad?

13:38Well, first of all, I just have to say I find it hilarious. It's lovely and I'm glad that they've come to this place. But as somebody who works in PR, journalists don't answer their phones anyway. I love that. I was like, phones? What was the last time a phone rang in our office? so but yes I think that it all broke down over the Levinson report obviously the police had been for years according to this report complicit in arguably illegal activities in collaboration with the media there were recommendations made and then the police just stopped talking to the media so that's not acceptable it's a institution that has public it has a responsibility to the public.

14:22So it's nice to see that they've come to this agreement. And yes, that there will be contacts available feels essential to making this institutionally work and frankly, restoring trust in the police. I think there has been a lot of public wrongdoing on the part of the police forces, particularly the Metropolitan Police for us over recent years that have made it especially important that we restore this faith and trust and collaboration in a constructive of way between these two institutions. Kate, do you think it changes how journalists interact with the police or has the world moved on? Is it just saying you have to answer journalist questions no matter how they get in touch and you have to exist or pretend that you actually really do exist?

15:02Well, I think as a journalist, you know, you do your story. Maybe your sources aren't actually the police itself or maybe they're off the record police people or maybe it's people that know what's going on. But then it's really nice if you can actually find somebody inside the police to say, I'm running this story. Hey, you have a comment or, you know, prove me wrong if you think I've got the wrong end of the stick here. So I think this idea of sort of having someone you can call is not such a bad idea. I mean, look where we are in America right now with, you know, ICE running ramshot over stuff and they have happily no public scrutiny.

15:38I mean, they're doing whatever they want. Face masks. So I think, I mean, I'm very glad that they're doing this now you know how it actually plays out who knows uh what was there was some wonderful quote you know you can lose trust in a minute and it takes a year to i like that too it's like um it take it's like a tortoise gaining trust that's it uh but you lose it like a horse like a horse exactly so it's like really you know fast so how do we build up trust again i mean that's hard i mean you're in pr it's very difficult when if a journalist doesn't trust a source you know that's a hard one to get over.

16:12And obviously, the police are worried about trusting journalists because so many of them got burned. So yeah, it's absolutely right. I mean, Edelman's been running our annual survey on trust for 26 years now. And unfortunately, I have bad news for you all. Trust has been declining across all institutions for most of those 25 years. And for example, the media is now widely distrusted globally, as well as in the UK in particular. So I think we have a real trust problem and you're absolutely right um you can have a sterling reputation for a hundred years and it only takes one mistake um or one false move to um have that all go horribly wrong so trust is a trust is a not a one-off it is built over time and it is lost instantly but then you know you you have to think about how you win it back and part of how you win it back is actually outside the public eye it's by building those relationships that actually give you the infrastructure so you know i think to for the police it's definitely in their interest to kind of work collaboratively with the media and build that back up.

17:13Well, speaking of journalism, Reach, publishers of The Mirror, The Express and dozens of local titles has filed its response to the BBC charter consultation. And it's not kind. Karen, Reach says the BBC's share of local online news page views has gone from 20 % in 2022 to 34 % in 2025. It's quite a big leap. And they estimate there's now 300 million BBC local page views a month, which is like, when I saw that, that's a phenomenal number. It's incredibly impressive. And obviously they're pretty grumpy about this, aren't they? They are particularly grumpy about it, which I can understand. As somebody who doesn't have a dog in this fight, as we say in the States, I found it really interesting.

17:51And what's good news for someone is always bad news for someone else. But particularly when you dig into it, part of the things that they're saying is that because the BBC has very clean pages, because it's digitally, it's structured in a way that really fits the need of the search engines, of the LLMs, because it doesn't have advertising. That's one of the reasons why it's driving so many views. Well, another way of saying that is they have really user-friendly as well as digitally-friendly web pages. Now, I understand that when you've got advertising, you're trying to get that in front of the user, but I have long been of the view that the advertising industry is doing itself a disservice by making its advertising so unpleasant as a user experience.

18:35I understand that people, there's this kind of race to the bottom, but I think they should think carefully about maybe can we just build the pages to work better? Out of every news publisher, Reach's websites are the worst. Yeah. So, yes, the BBC pages are clean. Everybody's pages are clean compared to like 97 ads units. Be less bad. Now, when they're challenged about it, they're like, hey, we've got to run a business. Of course, I understand. But then there's a trade-off. It'd be nice to have advertising that isn't interfering with your consumption of the news. Thank you very much. I mean, I really, I take issue with Rich Tate.

19:10I mean, I think it's great that BBC is being read, that local news is being read, for God's sake. The people in the hinterland are reading BBC. It's fine with me. Let's get a participatory society. Well, part of their response is they talk about the local democracy reporting service, which is them pretty much funding 230 journalists in commercial media, part of a previous government settlement with the Beeb. And that's half a million stories generated by that, including a decent amount of people in Reach as well. So the BBC are supporting it. I mean, Reach would like there to be even more investment in local democracy service and the BBC to get out of local and stay in regional.

19:50Just like make your service a bit crapper. I mean, one thing I would say, you know, although, you know, we've had a go at Reach, but I do think it is fair to say that a healthy local media economy is what we're all looking for. And it is true that we have seen media outlets shuddering across the country and frankly globally as well. So local media is more and more hard to find, which means the BBC's, you know, it's not a monopoly, but the BBC's strong position grows even stronger because they have that buffer. So I think there is a fair point to argue. But I also think they can work to make their product better, especially when they know that they need to adapt it to suit the needs of an LLM inspired marketplace.

20:27Yeah. Also, I'm sure Reach's reduction in page views is also driven by Google's changes and their AI changes, probably more so than the BBC. Well, I mean, it's worth noting in context that views of all media outlets, local and global and national, are down across the board because what the user behavior is turning into is people don't click through to the actual outlets. They're consuming content in the AIs and in the LLMs directly, which is going to have catastrophic impact not only on the media business, but also on our own kind of ability to process information. because as we all know, the LLMs are not famously as accurate as the stories from which they're hopefully pulling.

21:09So there were a lot of challenges. It's a complex environment. Yeah. I mean, gone are the days when you would see something and you would click and go to the actual news site or source, whether it was the BBC or the New York Times or whatever it was. Now you just read it on Google. You read some AI compilation, and most people don't go beyond that. Yeah. So the news outlets are losing the views. They're losing the revenue if they're commercial. I mean, it's not a good situation. I thought one thing, they sort of made six asks from the government. I thought one of the things that I did agree with was linking out more for BBC News articles.

21:44So linking to other coverage of it, particularly if they've taken inspiration from some of those other pieces. I think the BBC should be a better internet citizen than maybe other outlets would like to be. Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that. And I actually do think the BBC is a little stingy with its links. I have frequently caught it referencing things that were either first reported by someone else or just original content produced by someone else that they referenced. So, yeah, you're right. I think there's a lot of them if they lose a bit of reach or a bit of usage that day, whereas for a commercial news site, it maybe would.

22:17Well, and again, coming back to the point about the LLMs and the information infrastructure, the linking helps build a better kind of picture of what the actual news environment looks like for those search engines. So I think it's important technically as well as conceptually. OK, what happens when the nation's journalists run an awards night? I'll tell you in a minute.

22:45If you're a local journalist wondering how to hold your own against 300 million BBC monthly local page views, you might at least start with a better studio. We record the Media Club at Podshop Studios every week at 40 Clifton Street in London. Each studio has its own distinct look and feel or professionally designed, fully equipped for broadcast quality video recording as a set for every style of podcast. You can check out the whole range at podshoponline.co.uk and they're offering Media Club listeners 25 % off their first booking. Just use the code MEDIACLUB, that's MEDIACLUB, when you book online at podshoponline.co.uk.

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26:00The BBC has asked a US court to throw out Donald Trump's lawsuit against the corporation, and Trump's legal team has raised the claim that AI-generated imagery was used in original reporting. The BBC strongly disputes this. Apple Podcasts has announced a new distribution partners for its video products, widening the platform's push into video alongside Spotify. Podbean, Captivate and RSS.com have all signed up. And Sky is pondering whether to end its relationship with the UAE amid accusations of broadcasting state propaganda. The license for Sky News Arabia is up for renewal, but a number of recent stories, including a report containing genocide denial, threatens to tarnish their brand.

26:43Links to all of our stories are available on our weekly sub stack. Sign up for free at themediaclub.com That's themediaclub.com Kate and Karen are still with me. So it was the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards last night. I was there as my capacity of chair. Kate you were there too. A good turnout I thought. Oh it was a very good turnout yes and we had lots of stars there which is always fun. We had lots of people who actually make the programs which is great because these are the people that are doing the hard work. Writers Jack Thorne was there, who wrote many things. Adolescence, Toxic Town, The Hack.

27:18He won Best Writer, and he's a lovely man, very tall. Then we had Stephen Graham, who, of course, is a fantastic actor, and he won for Adolescence and A Thousand Blows, which are very different pieces, and he's quite short. And there was quite an Adolescence gang, wasn't there? So the average was middling. Yes, exactly, exactly. There was quite an Adolescence gang, exactly. Adolescence, boy, they've won Best Actor. Best actress, best miniseries drama, best writer, and best newcomer, right? So the young boy in adolescence won the best breakthrough award. So it was, yeah, it was great. I mean, we've had other years where we've had, let us say, there's been a standout winner.

28:04I remember the year that Parades End won and they just won everything. And it was like, it was great because we had Tom Stoppard there and we had Benedict Cumberbatch and we had all these people. It was like, OK, well, it's OK. We were running best right. So it's nice when that happens. But what I also liked is because we kind of expanded the awards, talking with the executive committee of the BPG, we sort of said, OK, well, let's have some special awards because there's some things that are really special that are happening that maybe aren't adolescents that don't have the huge headlines. And that was really nice, too.

28:33So, yeah, a deal he mentioned earlier. Also, Melvin Bragg, he got an award for basically doing In Our Time for a long time. Was it 27 years or something like that? Yeah, and he got a lovely standing ovation. He did. And he's, you know, he's a big brain. And what I like about that, I mean, Simon O 'Hagan is who's is on the BPG and he heads the audio committee. He said, you know, the thing about Melvin is that he interviewed academics. academics. And, you know, you'd think, I mean, how boring is this? It was fast. It was just fascinating. It was actually big brain, interesting, deep topics. And isn't that lovely that we can find a place for that?

29:10Now, he did tell a funny story, Matt, you remember. He did. He said, you know, when I, you know, I was basically thrown off of the show I was working at the time. This is a long time ago. And they said, well, you know, what do we do about the Thursday morning death slot? He said, well, they actually called it the death slot. So they offered it to me. And so I said, okay, well, I'll interview some academics. And, of course, it worked. He said, so my advice to you, and he looked in the audience, he says, if someone offers you the desk slot, take it. Take it. Yes, good advice. Also, Bill Nighy won an award for his podcast, Ill Advised.

29:42He gave a great speech, but he was sitting just behind me. And so when the VT was running of his podcast, he had his fingers in his ears like this. He was like, did not want to hear himself. So he never watches himself or listens to himself. He did a great speech. And also the Harvey Lee Award had a great recipient as well. Yeah, Sally Wainwright, who obviously has written so many things, it's hard to even remember all the things she's written. And she was there, and she's a very self-effacing person. This is not a person who blows her own trumpet. And she was obviously quite moved that we were giving her this award.

30:21She's amazing. And she writes pieces about the north of England, which is kind of a particular place. It's not London. It's not South England. It's very particular. And she has that voice. She knows those people. And it's just, I mean, anyway, so that was a sweet. And I think not overdue because the thing about that award is kind of our Lifetime Achievement Award. She's obviously not over yet. I mean, she's going to be writing more things. Still alive to live. exactly so there's moments when you think well is this the right moment it seemed like a good moment you know riot women is the most recent thing she's done but she's done so many things we just thought you know this is the right moment to do this and it was really nice to have i can tell putting together the vt when we got all the clips like this is going to go on for hours i found really mean trying to like save 10 20 seconds because there's just so much great material right um uh karen you kind of work in a sort of interesting intersection of kind of media and and what's happening in PR, and you've got a political background as well.

31:25I thought it was interesting looking at the FCC in America, this sort of their Ofcom is always driven by whoever's in power. And their views on kind of independent news are quite stark at the moment for the Trump administration. Yeah, well, they don't believe in independent news anymore, would be another way of putting it. Well, if it's self-criticizing, yeah. They don't want anything that goes against them. Yeah, the FCC is the regulator, but it also issues the licenses to the broadcast network. So they have a lot of power. We talked about the BBC being kind of held over a barrel. The FCC chairman could at any given time, if he so chose, threaten to or actually yank back licenses.

32:05Now, the Trump administration has been, you know, and his FCC chair have been making statements about the war in Iran and claiming that accurate reporting on the war in Iran was propaganda and all kinds of things. I think one thing to watch out for is this is it may or may not be the case that they actually tried to take this action. I think they may because they'll do literally anything. If it did happen, I suspect it would not stand up in court. because I think it is clearly unconstitutional to use the power of the administration to put the thumb on the scale of media coverage in terms of content.

32:45But they don't really care about that. What they're trying to do is create a chilling effect on the media, which they've been very good at doing. It has completely worked. They've been very successful at it. They've used threats of against merger requests. They've used lawsuits that the president himself has directly launched against networks. What was the Stephen Colbert that said? It was one big fat lie. It was like a payoff, right? It's a bribe. But basically, they have been handing Donald Trump personally millions and hundreds of millions of dollars for lawsuits that they definitely would have won had they taken it.

33:22But it's been handed over. And the president's quite good about using media vulnerability. So picking a moment when they're trying to expand or they're looking to merge, not going to the news divisions, but going to the CEOs and saying, hey, nice, nice, nice network you got here. We ashamed if something happened to it. So it's classic New Jersey mafia behavior. So I think my concern is primarily that the FCC, not that it's going to be able to deliver on its threats, but that the threats itself are enough to get what it wants. Obviously, it controls local licenses and local broadcasting. It doesn't control, I think, on cable television or the Internet or YouTube or any of those things.

34:05Now, no one wants to lose a license, but would it matter if NBC lost some of its affiliates? Should they not be worried about these analog licenses? In the short term, I would argue yes, because actually people tell, yes, I know we all do streaming. And yes, I know the trajectory is moving in that direction. But don't underestimate the huge size of the existing broadcast channels. And the advertising money. Advertising money are huge. And also, they have cultural power. The decisions taken by local network affiliates about kind of what programming they'll run, what news broadcasts, anchors they'll have.

34:43They're culturally very important. They're strong, strong signals, members of the community, parts of the community. And they have millions and millions and millions of viewers, especially for live programming where people tune in. So, yes, it would matter hugely. It would be a big loss of prestige and a big loss of money to these networks. Kate, you've just come back from the States. Do you have been chatting to any journalists or media execs in America? What do they think of what's happening? Have you sorted that out? Oh, God. You know, that, I mean, it's just, it's almost like an existential moment.

35:18You know, you see the big tech companies kind of moving in on the media in a big way. And everything, you know, from print, you know, Jeff Bezos, Washington Post, then he fires, what is it, 300 journalists, I think. You've got Bennehoff, you know, Mark Bennehoff, that's Salesforce.com, another tech bro, you know, owns the Times. What was it? Yes, the Times. And you've got, I mean, it's just like Ellison, Larry Ellison, David Ellison, the Paramount, Skydance. And now obviously they're going to get their hands, looks like, on Warner Brothers Discovery. So it's difficult. I mean, Stephen Colbert's show has been canceled because Trump doesn't like it.

35:56Really? Wow. I mean, that's a comedy show. But, you know, in America, a lot of Americans watch those late night shows as their news source. Yeah. So I would say it's a chilling time in terms of media in the U.S. It's a very scary time to be a journalist. Very much so. These people do not fundamentally believe in the concept of free speech. They use words free speech to mean you can't say what I don't like, which is the opposite of the intended meaning. They should be more patriotic. Yeah, there you go. Maybe put America first for once. Okay, just enough time for the audio network. I'm sorry for deploying that.

36:36It just had to be done. Okay, just enough time for the Audio Network Media Quiz.

36:45Three media stories connected by one theme and shoehorned into an existing media property. This week, it's called Weekend Update. That's because SNL UK launches this Saturday. So I'm going to present three coded media stories in the style of the long-running topical news feature Weekend Update. You tell me what the story actually is. And once again, Alex Audio Network has taken that relatively flimsy brief from producer Matt and put together a playlist to score today's game. All right, so best of three. So buzz in when you know the answer. So Karen, you will say. Karen. And Kate, you will say.

37:19Kate. Let's play the weekend update.

37:32Good evening. I'm Matt Deegan. Our top story tonight, a major American entertainment company has confirmed it will not be moving forward with a beloved 90s property. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yes, what about it? It is not, the pilot for the reboot is not going forward and I am devastated. Yes, the revivals were in development for a while, they've decided not to proceed. That's quite a surprise. Recycled IP, people love it. I would have thought it would have been a huge property. And what's interesting about it is that they had been working on it for some time. I think there were some criticisms of an earlier pilot, but they had revamped it, according to notes.

38:09And, you know, by all accounts, what I heard was that the revamped one was looking pretty good. I feel like it was very buzzy as well. They had Chloe Zhao, who's the brilliant director who just did very well at the Oscars with Hamnet, who was a huge fan of the show. And she was going to be directing it, which would have been an extraordinary coup. and poor Sarah Michelle Gellar found this out while she was, I think, at the launch of a movie that this property that she cared so passionately about was not happening. I don't understand why they nixed it. I mean, I can't quite get into the story. A spokesperson described as, and I quote, creative considerations.

38:45Is that everybody fell out on set? Sarah Michelle Gellar seemed to hint that there was one particular executive who did not like the original Buffy show and that person is wrong. so there's still time for a reboot okay question number two

39:06in business news tonight a major global entertainment corporation has confirmed its exit from a kids cartoon venture citing Kate yes Kate the octopod close no Octonauts Octonauts that was called Octonauts I couldn't remember so what's happened What's happened to the poor Octonauts, Kate? Wasn't that the Chinese, you know, they were having this legal, yeah, the Octonauts, whatever it is. The Chinese, they were having some legal dispute. Sony has been fighting with them legally, I think, for at least a couple of years. And so they finally said, you know what? You can buy it from us. Pay us the money that we were suing you for, which is like 49 million or something, and take it off our hands.

39:44I feel quite sorry that the Octonauts have been forced off. So, yeah, so Sony walked away from the franchise. their withdrawal means that the Chinese rights holder Vampire Squid Productions which is brilliant gets full ownership so it's quite an international hit obviously it does pretty well in China so he just gave up question number three

40:09and finally tonight a new comedy programme launches this weekend promising to bring a beloved American format to British screens for the very first time cake SNL Yes. Saturday Night Live. Live from New York. It's Saturday night. Except it's going to be live from Isleworth. Live from Isleworth, the Sky Studios. Yeah, I mean, it'll be very interesting to see if this works. I thought the SNL is kind of a one joke show, to be honest, in the States. I'm hoping that as they write it here, they will be sensitive to British audiences who I think are in some ways a little more sophisticated than American offices in terms of humor.

40:49irony you know satire those kind of things and so i'm hoping it'll be it'll it'll be more sort of you know uh spitting image than you know sort of recycled um i don't know just again and again wigs you know trying to play trump with golden hair or something so i'm hoping it'll be good and we'll see was it tina fay tina fay she's gonna be the first the first guest host yeah she's gonna be the first guest host and she did a very weird um promo where she played Mary Poppins. And I thought that was a bit odd. She actually tried to do the accent and then she decided to ditch it. Because, you know, every time, well, you know this, every time Americans try to do a British accent, it doesn't really go over very well.

41:26It'll be fascinating to see how it plays out. I think there have been attempts to do similar things in the UK before, and they have not succeeded. And I will be slightly surprised. I'm wishing them all the best, but I'm slightly surprised if it succeeds here now, partly because it's actually on the decline in the U.S. as well. SNL is not what it used to be. People who grew up in the 90s will appreciate that the main purpose of SNL was something that you could watch when you were slightly drunk very late at night. You were not paying all of your attention to the show, right? It was great for college kids and teenagers to get together, families after the parents went to bed, etc.

42:04So it was a very specific zeitgeist. Nowadays, it's actually, its impact in America tends to be more the clips that run after the show. And they've done a really good job of taking the bits of content from the show that work for viral videos, clipping them, getting them shared, et cetera. So I think that's the model that SNL is following at the moment. But the other thing about SNL is that it's always there. They've only commissioned six episodes of this, as I saw. And that's not the thing. The thing in the US is the quality is mixed, but it's kind of a staple. It's always there on a Saturday night.

42:38It's kind of become something that you can regularly rely on. I don't know that it can build the same cultural cachet. With six. With six. The other difference, though, is they do have a huge writer's room. Yeah. I mean, and that's not typical in the UK for comedy shows. I mean, I think there were 12 or 14 people in the writer's room for this one. So that'll help in my mind, but I agree with you. I think they have it all to prove. I also, I think social media on comedy, people are really mean. And like already, I was looking at some of the comments on the promo. I mean, super mean. And you've got to try and give this time, but maybe six just might not be enough.

43:14Yeah, I don't think it's enough to give it the start it needs. But hey, I mean, like you say, I'm happy to see comedy writers getting hired. I'm happy to see them giving it a go. And I would love to see it succeed. Let's see what they do. Well, I think that's basically a draw on the quiz. One and a half each. Thank you. You got the octo and I got the nods. You can decide who's Sony and who's China. Oh, I'm Sony. Please, please. but as a special prize because I think if there are two people that can get Buffy rebooted somewhere else maybe a UK TV version you two can go and do that you can report back next sounds like a plan we'll pitch it somewhere else absolutely my thanks to Kate and Karen and thanks again to Alex Audio Network for the music and remember they can do that for you too just head to audionetwork.com or click the link in our show notes so before we go how can people keep up with your good work Kate?

44:02I write for broadcast and obviously I also post things online And what is your social network of choice at the moment? Well, I'm moving into Substack, but at the moment I would say I'm still LinkedIn. Very good. Karen? Well, I am on Substack, but only for my fiction writing. So if you want to read about fairies and politics, then follow fairy politics Substack. You can also look at me for all my other comments and opinions on Blue Sky at KarenJR. Lovely. Nice to see you both. Thank you for watching and listening as well. My name is Matt Deegan. The producer is Matt Hill. It was a Rethink Audio production with visual support from Podcast Discovery.

44:40I'll see you next week.

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46:09On Wednesday, were the Luddites actually ahead of their time? On Thursday, yes we Canberra, why Australia's capital isn't Sydney or Melbourne. And on Friday, how a 3 ,000-year-old civilization came to a violent end. That's Today in History with The Retrospectors. Ten minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts.