Who’s Buying? Commissioners And Superindies In The Spotlight

0:00Right, it's time for our annual listener survey. If you can spare five minutes to share your opinions on the show, not only will you help shape the future of the Media Club, but one lucky respondent will win a£50 John Lewis voucher. Do it now. There's a link in the show notes or at themediaclub.com. Hello, welcome to the Media Club. I'm your host, Matt Deegan. In the club today, all three quiets on the M &A front. Why are super indies reluctant to spend on new ideas at the moment? Stephen D Wright, journalist and TV producer, tells us what's going on. It's also about to get quieter in the audio sector, with the colour Wondery sending shockwaves through the burgeoning podcast sector.

0:42Chloe Straw, chief exec of Trade Body, Audio UK, gives us the mood music and which strategies that could help your business. All that plus has Destination X been mistreated. Apple TV starts selling its shows to terrestrial broadcasters. and in the media quiz we fix up some old media properties that's all coming up in the media club come on in hello to both of you uh steven lovely to have you here in real life tv producer on such glorious shows as the word and x on the beach reviewer of times radio writer at broadcast who would you like to see uh get their reward for their great work this week uh well i've been thinking about this uh i've got a couple of names first of all graham linihan he's had a good week he's gone back onto the front pages again but maybe not for TV purposes yes then you've got Steph McGovern who's apparently got three new series which is quite a lot of Steph McGovern it's a lot to have plus she's doing Smoggy Queen's series two and then there's the guy I had lunch with today who told me that he's got three dramas that have been in production and another three in development and I was a bit like what?

1:52you know, who are you? So Chris Lang, the writer of Unforgotten, booming at the moment, that sort of drama world. Did he put it down to anything? Just his amazing talent? Well, his amazing talent, obviously. But basically, that's still the boom sector of TV. And they can't get enough of it. So he's getting busier and busier. And I think he's seeing somebody tomorrow at Sony. And I was just a bit like, what? It wasn't like the olden days. You know what I mean? It was like, oh, my God, TV when it used to have money. But yeah, so he, Chris Lang, should be your next guest in to talk about drama. Yes, we should go and speak to him.

2:25There was a bit of chat at the TV festival about sort of like a golden circle of writers and talent. He's definitely in it. Yeah, and it's something that we go and fish in that circle, which is my metaphors. I think there's only about six or seven people. Yeah. And nearly all dramas are one of those people. And Chris is definitely scoring very big at the moment, particularly with ITV. Yeah. Well, he's very welcome to join the club, and we'd love to get him on the sofa too. He's putting a good word for us. Absolutely. Chloe, you represent members of the audio sector in Trade Body Audio UK. Who are you nominating this week?

2:58So I'm going to go for Lizzie Pollitt, who is the Chief Communications and Brand Officer at ACAST. Yes. So you may recall that earlier this year at Audio UK, we did a Power of Podcasting event, which was all about advertisers investing more in podcasting, showing them why it's a good idea. And one of the major themes that came out of that is that there's still quite a lot of confusion about how you advertise on a podcast. which is understandable. We got some sort of questions before the event and I was not amazed but it was really eye-opening to be like oh these are quite basic questions we assume a lot of knowledge and so Acast have recently launched a kind of advertising in Audio Academy online and if you're a marketer or an advertiser you can go on and do these two modules and it gives you a really good idea of how and like why you'd advertise in podcasting so great thing.

3:52Back in the kind of mists of time, I did something similar in the radio world. And we had lots of new grads would come in and find out how radio advertising worked. And bear in mind, they were booking like half a billion pounds of advertising. You would assume that they knew more than they perhaps did. Maybe we all should be better at just going back to basics sometimes. People don't like asking, do they? They get worried it will make them look stupid. But I'm a big fan of asking questions no matter what level you are. and anything that, you know, enables more advertising and podcasting, which, as we know, is a wonderful medium to advertise in, is a good thing.

4:25Well, Lizzie's definitely welcome. Why does the same news story sound completely different depending on where you read it? That confusion is exactly what Ground News was built to solve. It's an app and website that compares news coverage, allowing you to see how each story is framed across the political spectrum and the world. For the recent story about the U.S. signing the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, their vantage plan shows us that Right-leaning Daily Express framed it as a historic peace deal, while left-leaning NPR notes it resulted in the president's approval hitting record lows.

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5:39And if you want a hand, our podcast specialists are there to help you launch with confidence. This is podcast advertising without barriers. Get started at acast.com slash advertise.

5:54Okay, into the media news we go. Or rather the absence of news. Stephen, fascinating piece in Deadline about all three media who expected to buy up a number of studios or production companies this year, but haven't. Why? I mean, I can't really believe you're asking me why. The answer is fairly obvious. There's no work. and so if there's no work why buy companies to try and find work i think that's basically in a nutshell when of course that's the the recipe to disaster if you don't produce new ideas produce new work it will all die but because of the slowdown that's they're all sitting on their their hands they're not buying up companies that you know the odd one there was one announced the day morella uh brader is now running sea monsters with sam pollard uh which is i think all three media i think it's all three media but um which is a kind of a nice thing to see um but they used to happen all the time and they're so rare now but this is this problem that you know why pay money to be in some high flying creatives without actually guaranteeing an income and so that's that's the to me that's the the basic answer i mean obviously it's kind of the same as well banaget freematter like no one's particularly doing it um is that the the companies aren't getting new work so there's no one that's the the big new thing ish yeah yeah i mean it you know it comes down to the fact that the commissioners aren't buying if the commissioners aren't buying why bother selling if it's going to cost you do you see what i mean why not just keep you know waiting there i think they're all waiting you know this is the thing there's a lot of high-priced tv creatives out of work sitting waiting to start launching companies but they need to be paid it's that thing it's the money the money behind the wages the you know the infrastructure that's What's stopping all this?

7:38Also, I saw a mention of all three media developing feeder labels. Did you see this? No. What's the feeder label? Basically, sort of internally developing ideas and then kind of pushing them out to other... Well, I mean, they did that at the BBC. They called it, what was it, Development Central. I worked for them for a moment, and it was basically bringing people in to punt out ideas because we were good at ideas, and then they would give them to sort of unsuccessful departments to sell. You were just trying to get a sort of super development unit. So that's probably what they're talking about.

8:08Is that more efficient? I mean, these companies are large companies. Does it sweat their assets better if they're doing that? The thing about TV particularly is the ideas cost very little. The infrastructure costs a lot. So you can get an ideas person who doesn't need a desk, for God's sake. A laptop and a mobile phone is all you need. So you can still create what would be a company in the old-fashioned way. Then when you get the commission, then you hire all the people that are sitting around all the desk space or whatever it is. it's always money at the end of all this but ideas don't need a huge infrastructure to come up with it's the it's the program making part that needs that so if you've got if you've not got enough stuff coming out you need more people with ideas that's all uh we're going to talk about a new uh company that's appearing on the scene a little bit later on before we do that though um i mean chloe tv companies have been sort of getting to podcasts as well i mean our podcasts and kind of feeder labels is it allowing people to play with new ideas are we seeing any tv companies becoming part of the podcast sector yeah for sure um i mean i was going to joke that podcasts are a cheap way of developing ideas i'd be really interested i mean we work with companies raw tv is the best example i can think of who are obviously very successful um in telly as far as i know very successful there you go good got that right um and they have a big podcast department as well making um i think wondery were a big client but also a lot of other areas and you know podcasts are shown to be a really good way to cheaply develop ip um ironically it's narrative podcast primarily that if you are in the audio world feel like they cost a lot of money but i imagine if you're in telly cost feel like they cost about 3p compared to developing something into a tv format so the relationship you know we um at audio uk earlier this year did a um kind of networking event with pact which is the audio uk equivalent for tv and film which was very much about bringing um podcast producers and tv and film producers together in terms of that kind of shared development of of ip i mean the problem with development ideas or development producers people who come up with ideas is you you over the last 10 years it's gone from being paid a wage being paid when you actually get a commission.

10:23So it's a very, very, you know, risky financially. And of course, that's the reason why these companies aren't necessarily going into buying up the talent because most of the time they're sitting around talking and looking out the window, trying, waiting for inspiration to hit. Now, if you can do that by freelancing somebody or whatever, or just buying it in from a feeder or something, that makes more economic sense. It's horrible for the industry because it destroys the creative people, but it's good for the companies. Well, we talked a little bit earlier about Wondery. So in a few weeks since Amazon announced layoffs at that podcast network, kind of moving a lot of the Wondery people into Audible or a lot of the programs into Audible, maybe not the people.

11:05And moving some of the projects into a sort of central creators department. So for kind of people who are sort of high value talent. Chloe, I mean, Wondery, a huge commissioner of content from producers in the US and in the UK. and I was reading some reports that Wondery may be the second largest commissioner after the BBC so what's the mood like amongst your members? So I've thought about this a lot because there's obviously been you know it broke mid-August I think I was on holiday I have really good relationships with a lot of people at Wondery so from a you know from their personal jobs point of view and the team's point of view I think it's um really sad um and you know there's particular people that we worked with we'd always worked with um Barney Lee who was in charge of marketing there on the audio production awards um and so you know there's an enormous amount of talent out there so I guess the first point is if anyone is looking to recruit like you're spoiled at the moment and a lot of people are looking to recruit um I know a lot of the the Wondery team have sort of created a uh a shared spreadsheet of people who you want to be listed who've lost their jobs so it's a really interesting resource yeah it's really good i mean i have so many thoughts on that on this and i tried to break it down and whilst i was doing it i thought maybe i need to write an essay on it i think um i think the there's two different elements to it so there's the video side of it and kind of video podcasting and then there's kind of the death of narrative podcasting what's going to happen.

12:40And I think a lot of people have sort of said, oh, this is the death of narrative podcasting. What are we going to do? And without sounding like a sort of old fogey, I entered this industry about 20 years ago. There were very few indies. I worked for something else, which is now Sony. The only way you could get commissioned was by the BBC. And you'd be lucky if you got a 30-minute documentary on Radio 4 once a year. I'm not saying we should go back to that. But I think often because this is a relatively new industry, people think that when sort of something happens or something goes wrong, it's the end of everything.

13:21And it's not like industries are living, breathing beasts. And, you know, they expand and contract and you'll find that there's more jobs over there in video and there's less jobs in narrative. And I think it's really important as a creative in this industry to make sure that you have your fingers in a lot of pies. So it's very rare for any of our members to rely on one commissioner. And in fact, it's increasingly rare for any of our members only to make commissioned content. So they will make commissioned content. They will do branded partnerships. They will do partnerships with other, you know, with places like iHeart.

13:59And increasingly, they self-publish and are ad-funded. and I think you know if you're looking at the biggest growth area it's subscription revenue and you know companies like Noisa do really good narrative podcasting a really sort of inspirational company and very much looking at subscription models subscription funding so I think I feel for the people I think as an industry we are still absolutely on the up and I think it's important to sort of pause and have a moment for Wondry because it was a wonderful thing but also to you know expect a big tech platform not to be i don't know the financials but i presume looking at the bottom line and it's tricky having an audible and a wondery and an amazon music and i know amazon like to have their own individual labels but that's really hard and actually as you say you know the narrative can go to audible and the more kind of celebrity focused um video podcasts yeah can go to amazon music and so you know it makes sense if you're looking at it from a business perspective i mean some people have talked about it being kind of death of uh narrative which i think is slightly overawed but i think there is a thing that you is it chat shows are now video and audio is it an acknowledgement that you need to sort of deal with them in a different way?

15:24I actually find this whole debate really frustrating. So it's not on you. That's like to break our industry down to something as simplistic as audio and video makes me want to scream and doesn't, you know, doesn't think about the innovation of our industry, the brilliance, like if there's anything about this industry, it's hugely innovative. You know, if you look at, obviously, Goalhanger lead the way in video podcasting, you look at Goalhanger, and Tony and Jack are very clear about saying that their video is additive. So additional audience on top of their audio. So there's still a huge audience who consume audio.

16:03The video is building as well and it's not necessarily, it's not taking away from the audio. And I think that's really important. And then you have Rusty Quill who managed to be hugely successful in monetizing audio only horror drama, like incredibly niche. They don't do videos at all. but they make millions of pounds on merchandising and board games. There's so many opportunities, I think, to break the industry down to kind of death of audio, hurrah for video. Video is important. It helps with discoverability. But there are also so many other ways. I was looking back to, again, very old. I've been in the industry for a long time.

16:44I feel very old. I come from production. So my first kind of job at something else was producing shows for BBC Music. And I was thinking, when I was about, I don't know, 25, we all, the producers, taught ourselves how to use Final Cut, how to do lighting in the studios at something else, and how to use cameras. And I was looking back, and the very first video I did for YouTube was in 2008 for a section called Hype on the Mic, for an Asian network show with Limelight and Candyman. And I watched it today because I was thinking about this. And I thought, I mean, it's appalling. The MCs are amazing.

17:23My lighting, I'm like, can't actually see their faces. But we were like, we'll just have a go. Like, we're radio producers. We don't know what we're doing. But we had a go. And that was 2008. And I looked and YouTube only started in 2005. Instagram didn't start till 2010. The fact that video is a new thing to the audio industry is absurd. like it we've been you know having to do it for ever again it's just a change it's just a move of all these different parts and you know we need to innovate so when i was looking at some of some of this sort of audio video split for amazon and them kind of doubling down on talk shows being basically cross-platform i did think for talent i mean talent's in a great place with the digital future like we talk about their woes of production companies woes of broadcasters quite a bit um previously, you know, talent was subservient to their broadcast masters.

18:17They are not anymore, are they? No, definitely not. They're like the parasite that's going to grow out. But it come out my eyeball and, you know, it's feast on my dead body. Yeah, no, that's the problem. Celebrity is everything. I hate using the word talent because that implies they're clever and good and talented. But aren't they? They're the ones making the money now. They are. They're the servants. They should stay down below stairs. No, no, that's the thing. it's changed the celebrity world has become more important than anything else and one of the worst things of course is that celebrities now think they're journalists or documentary makers or whatever and that's a bit annoying you know i mean it's like how much income do you need because you know they're starving the rest of us um but if the audience thinks they're journalists or documentary filmmakers i mean it's you know it's not really the talent's fault it's the commissioners the commissioners went insane for celebrity-fronted programs celebrity-fronted format celebrity celebrity it's like that's not you know they used to you know journalists used to present things you know uh talented filmmakers used to present things and become famous now you have to be i don't know an ex-reality star with a kind of an itch to scratch in you know why are so and so happening oh i've discovered you know women are treated badly by whatever you're like for fuck's sake you know it's it's sort of there's a lot stating the obvious but it's done with you know somebody famous and they're famous from being on love island it's like they're not even real fucking talent sorry but it's wearing going on but isn't if if that uh if those people find that audience and those audience like them and discover them on those platforms uh isn't that the more honest way of doing media rather than having a commissioner at the top of the chain should we follow the public yes i mean you know begrudgingly yeah you can see how i'm willing to embrace this new world um yeah no it's it's yeah it's just it's difficult because because as it's one of these worst it's one of the terrible things about the celebrity obsession it gets worse and gets more of it gets you know it used to be said i don't know 50 celebrity now it's 150 celebrity it's so much and of course people now forget that they're they're you know they're just they're just it's it's sort of it's spiraling and spiraling and there's no obvious stop you know You just have to get in bed with these celebrities.

20:34Chloe, do you agree? Do you think the talent are in control? They shouldn't be? Or is it good that they've released their chains? Released the beast. Podcasting is a bit different. Of course, there's talent-led formats. I guess Jamie Lang is a huge example, got his own production company, seems to actually be very good at what he does, which is good. But then, you know, I think with podcasting, you still get a lot of people who aren't celebrities, You know, where could you say that Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland were really like well-known celebrities before they started the rest of history?

21:08They were, you know, well-known in their fields, but not really. Yeah. And so I think that's, again, what's nice about podcasting. It can I mean, it's not an even playing field, but it can be more of an even playing field. And I think that still exists. I think talent has also opened up a lot for the independent sector. I think it's actually driven a lot of moves away from everything being with the BBC, which I'm sure if you're the BBC is really annoying and there's certain things that they're doing around that. So Indy's working with talent to create shows and co-end them all, work together on them.

21:47Yeah, and I think in the podcast and audio world, people were shackled by commissioners. The budget's a crap, like they're nothing to do with nothing like TV. they were shackled by it they were shackled by talent being in these you know not being able to come out of the broadcasters that they're with and actually it has democratized quite a lot but it's a you know it's a different industry so well finally just before the break let's get back to those broadcasters itv studios have announced a new entertainment label headed by lily wilson and tom williams um steven no name yet but what's the aim and there's something kind of slightly odd about this announcement as we think about it.

22:28It feels a bit odd. It feels like it's going to be a new company, but actually it sounds like they're rebranding Potato and 12 Yards IP. I love the way they keep saying 12 Yards IP, like they're just a drawer in an office. Yeah, so Potato and 12 Yards were ITV labels. Were ITV labels. 12 Yards was shuttered a few years ago. Yeah, so they're sort of formats, so things like The Weakest Link, sort of in the cupboard being deployed. Yeah, they were the game show kings for years, and then somehow it sort of just all dried up. But this looks like, to me, it looks, from a cynical perspective, it looks like ITV is sort of putting one of their own, their commissioner, into an ITV company in order to commission more work from them to ITV.

23:08So thus keeping the money in-house. That's how I look at it. And do all the people remain? Do all the potato lots look around? It seems to be they are keeping the talent, but I'm not sure at this stage. I mean, the press release is pushing the new big names. coming on from itv but whether or not this is a good thing i don't know because it doesn't feel like it's they're going to be pitching to the bbc it feels like they're pitching straight back to itv yeah everyone everyone sort of the tv festival was talking about the big formats everyone's sort of abandoned in the middle it's not coming back uh we need big international shows that we can ship around the world ala the traitors and all of that stuff is it their go at going right let's just try and do big formats yes absolutely it's it's nobody wants anything that's not a major uh you know global franchise type thing whether these two can do it who knows but it's also a way of itv not necessarily spending money uh unnecessarily on other independents but perhaps keeping it in keeping it in house all the channels seem to be doing it now they seem to be all oh you know channel five channel four they're all starting to feel like we'll just commission in house like BBC Studios, you know, that sort of thing.

24:18Which is all great if you're running those networks, but it's terrible if you're an indie. That's the problem. You know, indies are out there trying to, you know, get anything. This sort of slightly cosy backdoor relationship seems a bit off to me. It might not be. I might be being horribly prejudiced here, but I don't think I am. And still no one to buy up you as a small indie either. Well, nobody's bothering. I mean, that's the thing. Nobody will take a risk anymore. I mean, you know, 20 years ago, or whenever or 10 years ago, maybe they were still buying people, buying individual producers.

24:49But that seems to have gone forever. Okay, when we return, our guests perform a little health check on the TV and audio sectors. And we look at some media brands that need fixing up. We'll see you in a sec.

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26:53Welcome back. Here's a few stories we've been talking about in the club this week. Apple TV Plus has finally sold a show. The streamer has always held its own properties tightly, but they signed a deal with the BBC for the sitcom Trying. Will this open the door for Slow Horses and Ted Lasso to head to broadcasters. I guess we'll see. The TV platform Roku is getting into the world of fast channels, launching over 40 ad-supported channels in October. These are linear channels focusing on a single show or genre and target those not able to pay for subscription services. Channels announced include PGA Tour, Unsolved Mysteries, Nature Time, and simply Old House.

27:34I look forward to watching that. And 2-4's Destination X has been given a rough ride by critics, but ended its run with its second highest audience. A feat broadcast noted that put it on par with the first season of The Traitors. Links to all those stories and all the things we talk about are available on our free sub stack. Go sign up now at themediaclub.com. That's themediaclub.com. Get a lovely email from us every week and maybe something special coming soon. So sign up at themediaclub.com. Chloe and Stephen are still with me. Just thinking about that, Destination X has had a bit of a hard time.

28:11Numbers, though, not actually dreadful. Well, are numbers important? This is where I go all philosophical and Buddhist. Do you know what I mean? Numbers aren't important anymore, apparently. Is that overnight? It's all about noise. It's all about reach. It's all about whatever. Are people talking about it? destination x they are not talking about it and that's the problem it's overhyped it's very expensive you know how many producers could they employ on this show thousands it seems like but the format oh a mishmash of of awfulness but last year everyone was talking about destination x being yeah but that's the thing that was going to be great you know previews are always kind of positive international versions and things like that what's that international versions and who cares I mean, from a business perspective, fair enough.

28:57But from a viewer's perspective, it's a load of rubbish. It's, you know, it's, what do you call it, race around the world, plus a bit of that one on the coach trip, plus a bit of so-and-so. And then you're like, ugh. And I just, I'm very jaundiced about these shows because, you know, you think you've been in the big game a long time. Christ, I'm about 100 years old. I've seen all these things before and I can still remember the other formats. I mean, this is, you know, it's as if you're making them for babies. you know somebody who's never seen traitors is going to go oh isn't uh the inheritance great no it's a ripoff it's a rehash you know honey stranded on honeymoon island it's a bit like shipwrecked it's a bit like so and so it's a bit like it's a bit like that's how commissioners do it now they they patch together a little patchwork quilt of bits of formats and the viewers i think are getting a bit bored with it so destination x is quite a sort of solitary lesson in that respect it hasn't done that well well it's a linear figures we're only about 20 percent adrift from the traitors so it's sort of yeah but people talk about the trade of course of course they do but does that matter if the numbers are there i mean you know for for for the bbc numbers don't really matter at all you know they're not selling ads in that classic well do you know i mean but this is the thing you know the old-fashioned thing about ratings overnight because people don't watch linear tv in the same way i'm one of the few people that still does you know and people are shocked when you go on i'm going home to watch something what you know because you can watch it on your phone whenever but that thing of it's it's been it does feel like it's been a bit overhyped it's been extremely expensive i don't think it's expensive as honeymoon uh standard on honeymoon island but they're super expensive so they suck up i don't know 70 of the year's budget for other shows and if they don't hit immediately they feel like flops whether this is going to be a flop i don't know it could grow it could grow it could grow do you think it's going to come back is i think it's got to come back it's got to come back you know it's one of those old things when you can commissioning that really big flops always get recommissioned because you have to kind of cover the tracks but at the same time that's always a lot of tracks all those big buses well exactly you know the other thing is the more you show something more people watch it and so you know people always forget this is a great fact that friends was a flop the first time it came out it only rated when they repeated it in the summer and students started watching it and a lot of shows have been not been you know huge hits but have grown into it so destination could still be the next big show.

31:21Chloe, did you do Destination X for your Destination X household? Yeah, so I, it's interesting you say it's for babies, and I hate it when people reference their children as if they represent the whole world, but I'm going to do that. So my kids love it. So we struggle as a family to find stuff because I have a 12-year-old, a 10-year-old, and a 7-year-old. Who knows how old they are? Let's forget the third one. And so they don't want to watch the same thing. So the only things that we can watch, which are, you know, Traitors, Gladiators, Destination X. I'm not that into it. If I get an hour of peace, that's great.

31:57I don't care what I'm watching, frankly. You should be the next commissioner of DC. Honestly, I'd be so good at it. So I can't, you know, I can't really speak to the quality of it. Thank you, Rob Brydon, for giving an hour. And then they've obviously got the funny online thing where you put the X. but yeah I mean half the time we're like what is going on? It's an absurd programme isn't it? With these clues, they could be the right clues, they could be the wrong clues We checked that after episode one I was like they're looking from left to right, I'm not really sure what this is I just want to pick up on some other telly stuff for you Stephen Format reboots non-stop, educating Yorkshire back on C4 loads of publicity for a big radio camera now i i immediately taped that to see how old analog i i skyplossed it so i haven't watched it yet um but that has a that has a sort of validity because education has gone through a massive change i mean people now talk about their children being from a sort of alien generation because they've had to grow up through covid or not go to school or everyone's got ADHD or whatever.

33:09And so the idea that a school's the same now as it was 12 years ago, there's a rationale for repeating. So to me, that doesn't feel like as cynical as reboot as most of these other ones. Cynical's always a good word. It always means that the commissioners don't care. They just want an easy hit, whatever. These are not passion projects. But Education Yorkshire, I think, is slightly different. I think that has a bit of its own niche. and therefore, you know, did you watch it? I will do that. Yeah, but it's one of those ones where you think, oh, hang on. And it had a lot more heart, you know, when it went out.

33:43I mean, this is the thing. These kind of shows aren't, what's the word? They're not reinventing the wheel, but they show you real life. They show you real honesty, emotion, et cetera. Great people. Those things are timeless. Yeah. You know, so shows like that work. That's why Destination X and all these other shitty fucking super formats or whatever we call them, they're all full of reality show wannabes. They're all doing the reality show. Oh, you know, I don't like her. And then there's always a girl who's got lips puffed up like this. The fuck are these people? They only exist to go on reality shows.

34:12They don't feel real. Do you think some of the reason that Educating Yorkshire's come back is because of adolescence? Yes. People have re-engaged. I think people have suddenly realised that, well, you know, kids and adolescents are a different breed. There is a generational divide, you know, whether it's generation digital or COVID. just that thing but also the mental health thing people don't know now what their kids are doing the kids are upstairs potentially you know uh communing with sex pests and and and paedophiles you know rather than going out and playing with their friends in the street you know i mean so there's a kind of massive anxiety amongst parenting what are my kids doing you know people are still panicking about them going off to university it's like no no they're adults now but there's this sort of modern you know uh madness of parenting so there is there's definitely a kind kind of services, a need to show what kids are still like.

35:05Are kids still the same? Yes, comparatively. But have they gone through a different, therefore, yeah, get a TV show and stick the cameras on. Well, back in the day job, take your mind off that as well. We've talked a bit on the show about the Creative Industries campaign. If someone's a new listener, do you want to give them the quick one minute version of that? Yeah, I'll try to go for one minute. So we work closely with DCMS and government. at government level, you have defined creative industries. So film, TV, advertising, fashion, publishing, anything you could ever think of, except for podcasting and audio.

35:45And what else is missing? Influencers and creators. Yes, yes. We do work with YouTube actually. I'm going to see the head of policy next week. So, but yeah, really missing. And I think that, you know, those categories are defined pretty much on how much money those industries make. You could look back X amount of years and go, OK, maybe radio was niche. You come to now and you go, it's a bit more difficult to argue. There's a billion quid spent on it, both BBC and advertising on the radio end before we even get to podcasts. Yeah. But then if you think of, you know, audiobooks worth a billion, podcasting worth who knows how much, but a lot of money.

36:26And if you add them all up together, you're approaching a lot more that really sits alongside those other industries in terms of what they do. Also, a lot of global, creative, cultural influence, soft power we always talk about. Why is it important to be recognised as being a creative industry? So most of it is government support and money. So we launched a campaign at the start of the summer. open letter letter to your mp did a lot of adverts on podcasts so please go to our website and sign those things they're still going um it's important so audio podcasting doesn't have a seat on the creative industries council makes a lot of influential decisions at um such as the creative industry sector plan which came out earlier this year and that's where the funding and the money goes so you look at the creative industry sector plan there's a mention in the executive summary of podcasting, but then nowhere else in the entire, however many, 80-page document.

37:25There's no targeted support. There's, you know, there's nothing. So, seat on the Creative Industries Council to have that influence. Audio, book and podcast production tax relief, similar reason. There's a lot of reason for us to do it. You know, DCMS have had our plans, blah, blah, blah. and just overall support in terms of having that influence at government level. Has government just not realised, oh, I'm sorry, we forgot to put you on the thing. Is it the existing ones going, we don't want anybody else in our gang, we quite like everything and the cash coming our way or a bit of all of that?

38:02Yeah, I mean, they have noticed because we've been going on about it for quite some time. So certainly since I started Audio UK, which was four years ago, and I know my predecessor did work around it as well. You know, there's always a kind of size of the pie. I mean, I don't know. I think we have a joke where we're like, every MP like has a podcast, will have a podcast, has been on a podcast. You know, Lisa Nandy, day after she's elected, day after Labour get in, sorry, where is she? She's on The Rest is Politics. But, oh, I'm sorry, we can't support you. So, yeah, DCMS, have a podcast. like it yeah i'm i'm sort of at the rage stage which doesn't take long for me to get to if i'm honest like we come a bit like everything's absurd um but i my hope is that they've just not realized yet and now they will and how can people support the campaign um so i must just shout out hannah brankin who's our policy and regulation lead who's done a lot of work on it and katie bannam who does marketing for us because they've pushed the campaign forward really hard um just go to the website audio uk.org.uk in the policy section or just google our open letter have a look at our linkedin it's all there um and we're sort of coming to the end of the first push on it and we'll be packaging it all up and taking it to various departments great that's just enough time for the audio network media quiz let's see how much attention you've been paying to the media news this week.

39:28Okay. This week's quiz is called Media SOS. This is our take on DIY slash garden SOS, where we're going to supply some old formats and brands, and you can guess how they've been given a glow up. And incredibly, and incredibly, Alex Audio Network has taken that minuscule brief from producer Matt, and she's come up with an entire suite of music to score today's game. Okay. best of three are buzzing with your name if you know the answer so Chloe you will say Chloe and Stephen you will say Stephen let's play Media SOS this media mogul was in desperate need of renovation thankfully Charlie Dimmock has a neat hack thanks to a ton of pembers a ton of what?

40:21pembers? I'm not very good at quizzes I've never run anyone's team so the keywords there This is like being on Destination X to be honest Matt A neat hack thanks to a ton of Pembers short version for Pemberton Pemberton Stephen Pemberton Oh right, okay Stephen, Stephen, Stephen Christ, that was hard So this is Steve Pemberton formerly League of Gentlemen brilliant actor who is now appearing in The Hack, which is a new drama all based on the hacking scandal at the News of the World. And he, so that's starring David Tennant, but it's also starring Steve Pemberton as Rupert Murdoch. So he's a good pick to be Rupert Murdoch?

41:10I think he'll be brilliant because he is a brilliant actor. And I think the thing about Rupert Murdoch that people don't seem to realise, because he's demonised so much that we don't know what he's like as a person. And, you know, I used to work for his daughter and it was always that thing of, well, what is he like? You know, because he's just a man. You know, he doesn't have horns growing up his head. Apparently. I mean, I only met him once and he fell asleep in a screening. Of course. No wonder he's just flown in. It was like, Christ, he was so jet lagged. But, yeah, no, I saw the picture of the recreation of the government, what do you call it, when they sit around?

41:43The select committee. The select committee, exactly. And that was the one where his then wife, Wendy Dang, punched somebody. So do you remember that? That sounds amazing. Someone threw a pie at him, didn't he? And then she got, she literally jumped up and punched hell out of somebody and it was like, wow. But I remember that, watching the actual selectivity, Murdoch appeared to be sort of a little bit sleepy, a little bit old, and then started talking and you went, he knows what he's doing. You realise this guy, he's not where he is out of sort of, you know, just nothing. He's a smart cookie. But Pemberton, I think, is going to have a fantastic chance to, well, you know, humanise him, but also give us, we've got to see an unknown character.

42:25So really interesting. I'm looking forward to this. And Chloe, are you going to watch The Hack? Sure. Good, good. We'll leave it at that. Right. Your kids will love it. Yeah, it's going to be amazing. Better than Destination X. Here's renovation number two. Right. Poor Handy Andy can't believe this shoddy workmanship. Everything has been wired up badly and the contractor seems to think it's one big joke. These are too hard for people like us. Shall I take a guess, Chloe? I mean, it could be, is this the AI journalist? Yes. Okay, so as I understand it, and please do correct me, there was someone who'd been submitting stories that had been written by AI, effectively a fake journalist, who had been published, so no sort of fact-checking didn't pop it into the, has this been written by AI, AI generator or whatever, across a couple of different publications.

43:23Then I start to lose the thread a little bit. There was something to do with an X account and then someone came forward and said it was them and I was lost. So made up seemingly journalist Margot Blanchard sent in a little bit of stories. Yeah. I heard Margot, yeah. Published by Wired. No, they're sort of like decent publications. Realize AI, they kind of all pulled it. Then someone called Andrew Frelon has popped up. Great name. Is he the fake guy from Nigeria? He's the one who does fake things. So it's like, has he just, is he co-opting someone else's fakery or is it his own fakery? Press Gazette, who've been investigating Blanchard, believes that this still might be a hoax.

44:09Great. It's just, it's hard enough writing an article. You know, I think, bring on the fake journalist. Do you know what I mean? They'll be better than the real ones. Okay, our final big renovation. Imagine this is from the start of an episode. There's lots of wear and tear on this property from the 1990s. It's one careful owner is leaving. Oh, Stephen. Yes. I know this one. What's his face? Melvin Bragg. Melvin Bragg, yes. Melvin Bragg, who's 500 years old, and he's basically, he's about to be cryogenically frozen. I think his head's going to get stored in a tin somewhere. and his very long-running BBC radio thing is about to finish.

44:52Yes, you only get the point if you can name the long-running radio thing. In our time. I do split you half each because you've got his name, which I'd forgotten. So he's leaving the show after 27 years. Fascinating, though. So first of all, your brain goes, why is he leaving? Like, no one leaves anymore because they... I mean, people do. I don't want to... So my first thing when I read it was like, why is he leaving? just seems to have decided to leave because i think it's just too well just really tired i think you know that thing of people don't go on forever no well he's done over a thousand episodes which is incredible and uh the article said it was the first ever bbc podcast in 2004 which i thought was a great thing and very popular and um 35 anyway i love a stat i thought they were interesting stats?

45:38Obviously it's a prime show. It does really well as you said there. Who are they going to find to do this? Somebody who was on Love Island two seasons ago. Jamie Lang's production company can take it on. Perfect. Excellent. And that makes the winner, I'm not sure, probably you Stephen Just. There we go. You can go and find a great influencer to present in our time. That could be your prize. Thank you both for joining us. Also thank you to Audio network uh the support the quiz and remember if you need uh audio or music for your production uh get in touch with alex at audionetwork.com that's audionetwork.com uh we'll put a link in the show notes as well uh so stephen and chloe uh where can people find you when they're not listening to you on the podcast well i'm normally sat outside railway stations selling big issues um you may have seen me there before no i'm i'm basically in the ether you know i'm i'm attached to small startups that don't seem to be doing anything.

46:39I'm pitching ideas that don't seem to be working. So I'm around. I also hear you popping up on Times Radio a bit as well. I do the Times Radio quite regularly. I'm reviewing the TV and I'm trying not to be too cynical and foul-mouthed. Honest, yes, exactly. No, I'm just floating about. I'm available. Let's put it that way. I'm available for work. Excellent. Chloe? You can find me on LinkedIn. It's probably the best place. I quite enjoy LinkedIn. I don't think I play by the right rules. I'm not very serious on that. I think I probably should be. It's probably not doing my career any good. But my most recent post was a comparison of podcasting and La Boo Boo.

47:20Well, go and find that at Chloe Straws LinkedIn. Thank you both. And thank you for listening and watching the podcast today. My name's Matt Deegan. The producer is Matt Hill. It was a Rethink Audio production with video support from Podcast Discovery. And we'll see you next week.

48:05We'll see you next time. launch. And if you want a hand, our podcast specialists are there to help you launch with confidence. This is podcast advertising without barriers. Get started at acast.com slash advertise.

48:21Right, it's time for our annual listener survey. If you can spare five minutes to share your opinions on the show, not only will you help shape the future of the media club, but one lucky respondent will win a£50 John Lewis voucher. Do it now. There's a link in the show notes or at themediaclub.com.