I prefer it when brands aren't trying to shove ads down my
throat. People can tie themselves in
knots a little bit when they're trying to hide the fact that
it's branded entertainment. And what I think creators have
shown, and a lot of brands in the digital space have shown, is
that audiences are way ahead of that when it comes to brand.
IP absolutely still has a place in the media landscape, but I
don't think it's any longer the most important currency.
Hi, I'm Justin Crosby and welcome to another telecast.
On this week's show. I'm joined by Joe Churchill,
former Digital Commissioning Editor for branded content at
Channel 4 and now Co founder of Fan Club, an agency that's built
itself around brands, creators and premium content and has
become one of the clearest examples of what a modern
digital first business looks like in 2026.
Fan Club helps brands behave like broadcasters and develops
formats that feel native to social video rather than
retrofitted from TV. Joe's got front row seats to the
shifts coming down the track in branded entertainment.
So let's get into it. Hey, Joe.
Hello, thank you. That's a more succinct
encapsulation of what we do than I've ever been able to come.
Up with Brilliant. OK.
I'll use that. Feel free, please.
Yeah, yeah, just just just drop it into AI and work as a, as a,
as a reminder, welcome to the show.
Great to see you. Yeah, thanks for having.
Me. Last time I saw you, we were in
a very sunny can, weren't we? I know I almost wore my winter
version of my big yellow shirt. Your big yellow shirt, yeah,
which is great. I thought I would just start to
look like that was all I had in my wardrobe.
Well, you. Would have been on brand, which,
you know, I kind of quite like that, but so tell us about fan
club then. I mean you, we, we talked a
little bit, but for anybody who hasn't seen that show and
listened, listened to the the compilation shows that we had
around MIPCOM, just give us a refresher about what fan club is
as a business. Yeah, great.
Well, so Fan Club is a digital agency and we have an express
mission which is we turn brands into broadcasters, which is, you
know, can be broken down in lots of different ways.
But effectively what that means is we're like a plug in media
partner for a brand. So we can help them through
their social channels and through YouTube to act like a
broadcaster, to connect directly with an audience and to grow an
audience on their own and operated channels.
So in the same way that brands traditionally partner with media
owners, whether that's like, you know, print publishers like
Conde Nast or broadcasters like Channel 4 or digital publishers
like Lab Bible and BuzzFeed, we offer everything that those
partners offer, but we plug into the brand and we do it all for
them on their channels. And I guess our USP or our kind
of point of difference is that we ultimately grow them
audiences. So when they work with us, they
get something that's lasting value that lives beyond that
campaign or that contract. Yeah, yeah.
And it's, it's, it's much more around entertainment becoming
entertaining entertainment brands in their own right, as
opposed to just advertisers and who are interrupting, you know,
whatever content you're watching on whatever channel it is.
Yeah, yeah. Well, actually randomly I was
talking to somebody in a shop on the way here who asked what I
did. And when I talked about brands
becoming like broadcasters, she was like, Oh, yeah, I've
followed a lot of brands this year, and it's great to see what
they're doing. And she was like, is it a good
thing that brands are starting to make content like this?
And it actually made me reflect for a moment.
And I was like, is it a good thing?
I was like, yeah, no, I think it is a good thing, which you would
hope, right? But.
Affirmation of your own business.
That's good, yeah. Yeah, well, not often you get a
chance to properly reflect. But, you know, I think for me
personally, as someone who is on these platforms myself, I prefer
it when brands aren't trying to shove ads down my throat, but
when they're just making something that's entertaining,
that's good, that's useful, or that just has something of value
to me. And I think, you know, the more
brands are leaning into that space, the more they're going to
get, you know, genuine, you know, sentiment like build
community around their brands and ultimately kind of create an
audience of like micro ambassadors who really care
about what your brand has to say and what you're doing.
Yeah, Yeah. It's interesting.
I mean, the, the, we've, we've covered branded entertainment
and brand from the programming, branded content and all these
different phrases that we can use for this sort of sector over
the years. And it seems like brands
becoming publishers become their own publishers or broadcasters,
if you like, seems to be just a much more efficient and
effective way for brands to communicate with their audiences
and own their own audiences as well.
Then then perhaps other other developments in this space.
Because the, there's another area that's been developing is
this unbranded content where brands are not involved or not
not they're funding the content, but they might be exploiting it
in different ways, whereas the content you couldn't tell they
were involved. So it's just that's a very
different approach, isn't it? And I suppose there's different,
you know, different approaches for different brands might,
might work. But to me, the, the brands as
broadcasters approach seems to be a lot of companies that are
doing very, very well for the sign in, for example.
And, and there's many, many, many examples of that.
I mean, where do you, you know how when you speak to a brand
who are interested in particular in social media and creating
their own channels and, and becoming like moving into this,
this area, what's, what's the biggest hurdles?
What? What?
Is there any real convincing you need to do?
Or they've already made their mind that this is something that
they want to do. Yeah, I would say, I mean, every
brand is different and every brand is on a different stage of
their journey. I would say it kind of goes
traditional advertising on the size of buses, on TV, things
like that through to working with with publishers and
partners where you're renting their audiences because you're
kind of dipping your toe in that world of branded entertainment.
And we're kind of the next phase on that journey.
I think where it's like this is about owning your own audience.
I think brands who who've never done brand partnerships before,
that takes a lot more convincing of why it's valuable and why
they should be doing it themselves.
You're trying to convince some kind of two things at once, a
why you should do branded entertainment at all and then
why you should be doing it on your own channels.
Whereas brands who have kind of done the brand partnerships
thing a little bit, or maybe they've worked with creators or
they've done influencer partnerships.
If it's less of a stretch to then say, actually you should be
really making a virtue of this and, and, and being proud of the
fact that you're doing it and so doing it on your own channels.
But I would say like the, there are lots of different hurdles as
well. Sometimes it is, you know, we've
obviously been doing a big kind of roadshow and education piece
around media agencies, creative agencies and brands themselves
and just just telling them about our offering and, and, and you
know, how we do what we do and why we think it's valuable.
And you know, understandably for some media agencies, the
question they have is like, well, hang on, we're a media
agency. Why are we, why are we going to
buy media through you when we could just do it ourselves?
And you know, then again, it's it for some media agencies that
might be a bit of a hurdle that we have to get over.
But it's about understanding or kind of working with them to to
help show where we can be really in the weeds of the content, the
distribution, reading the data and then feeding that back into
the content and adjusting the media plan accordingly.
So that we are working every asset and every bit of media as
hard as possible, all optimized towards audience growth.
And you know, there's lots of great kind of champions out
there who are really excited by this prospect.
You've got to convince them, then you've got to convince
their brands on their roster. Yeah, Yeah.
It's interesting you said that. I mean, if you're a media agency
and you make your money out of selling media and then your
offer is actually create your own media or build your own
media, isn't that just cutting them out of the the equation?
Well, no, we're finding that actually they're really good
people to be talking to because you know, because they they have
the partnerships budgets, essentially they're working with
their clients. A lot of media agencies are
already really, really well invested in branded
entertainment and they want to be the ones helping push this
forward. So we absolutely see them as a
partner on this journey because they understand the clients.
They have very good kind of long term working relationships with
them. They can help bring them on this
journey and also they can kind of, you know, educate us on the
client on what they need to get out of this.
And then we can, you know, figure out the best way to build
a media plan around that. So absolutely, I would say they
are, they're a partner that we work with rather than some week
someone we cut out. But of course there are certain
brands that that we would go to directly.
Maybe they don't have a media agency and, and we, we
absolutely work in that way as well.
And yeah, we're what's, what's really encouraging is that we're
finding that that we're having really fruitful conversations
in, in both the director brand and the the via kind of media
agency model. And do you think, I mean we,
we've seen a, you know, a few categories in particular, which
is you know, such as sportswear, leisurewear, etcetera that
there's sort of been blazing the trail for this, for this kind of
approach. Are we seeing many other
categories sort of adopting this then in terms of other brands
moving into this space? Yeah, and I think that's a
really, really good point because until now, I think
everyone thinks brands doing it themselves and they think for
Asylum, JD Sports, PrettyLittleThing, boohoo man.
It's very much 1 brand category and one niche of content as
well. But you know, the Dish I think
we can point to is like the gold standard in branded
entertainment that is mass market and, you know, broad in
its audience that that it's building.
And then it's really interesting to see people at M&S going into
that space. They just launched a series on
YouTube called Love That, which is I think, you know, trying to
do similar job to to what the Dish has managed to do, but with
a bit more of a kind of magazine format, which is interesting.
But then, you know, there are brands that are really
surprising, like QuickBooks doing a load of kind of creator
content on their own channels, which, you know, you would think
accountancy software might be the last brand that you would
approach with something like that.
But actually it it really works. And they've also found some
quite fun formats as well. Like Max Fosch explaining how he
carves up his income and how it works is like that's genuinely
something that I think an audience really cares about and
wants to know, especially a young generation of people who
that's what they aspire to now is becoming creators.
And so, you know, I think all of that is starting to show that
we're we're just at that tipping point where it's starting to
transition from youth culture brands to really every brand
should be in this space. And there's a great stat that
came out like last week, I think that Evan Shapiro jumped on,
which is the highest, the fastest growing sorry
demographic on YouTube is the over 50 fives at the moment.
And you know, that's not just my dad looking at people doing up
old cars like that is across the board.
So you know, whoever the brand is, whoever they want to reach,
the most effective way to do it is through these platforms.
So I think we're going to just see a lot of momentum for more
brands getting in there. And well, obviously, I'm hoping
very much to be kind of driving that momentum the forefront.
Of that and so you're six months old right It's a business just
six or seven months yeah yeah and can you tell us any any
brands any campaigns that you're working on yes, we've.
Got our first two campaigns which were in both in pre
production at the moment. The first, I can't mention the
brand because it's not been announced yet, but it's, it's a
it's a kind of appliance brand and that is that will be going
live in March next year. OK.
And then we are in pre production with a beer brand
called Primetime. We'll be going live with a
series with them in January, which is called the Low Cal Cook
Off. Prime Time are a low calorie
beer brand that's their USP and so January feels like the
perfect time for them to be getting into the content space.
Certainly does. We're all hitting the.
Gym, We're all trying to lose a few pounds, but they're their
kind of energy is all about it's bigger but better.
It's like, don't just try and like go yo-yo dieting or or be
really abstemious, but you know, find find ways to be healthier,
make better choices, but without sacrificing the flavour or the
fun. And yeah, we've got a really
exciting show. I think that kind of really
encapsulates that. Excellent.
OK. And, and do do all of your
shows, do they feature creators as talent then or what?
You know, how do, I mean, obviously there's two campaigns
that you that you're working on at the moment.
I mean, do creators need to be baked into into these sort of
shows to make them work or is that not not necessarily the
case? Not exclusively so, yeah.
But naturally we work a lot with creators and, you know, have a
lot of good relationships there. Also.
They do obviously work really well on those platforms.
So it'd be remiss of us if we just like totally discounted
them. But I would say there's quite a
broad range at the moment. I mean, it's early days, but I
would say it's roughly a 5050 mix in the briefs that we're
talking about between more traditional kind of legacy
talent, but in the social space and those kind of digital native
creators. What I always found at Channel
4, and we tried to do quite a lot is, is have a almost a
combination in in each series where you have someone that is
really speaking to that YouTube first audience and then someone
who's who was a bit more Channel 4 in that case.
But I think that that kind of chemistry works quite well when
you bring somebody who's not known for YouTube into the
YouTube space, but partner partner them with someone who
really kind of knows that dynamic and that vernacular.
Yeah. But yeah, it's so, yeah, the one
of the projects that we're doing at the moment is very much
creator LED. And the other one, it has a more
kind of legacy talent at the heart of it.
And I think the thing that really dictates that is, is the
brand and the audience they want to reach.
And you know, yeah, it's all really kind of built around
that. Yeah.
So 2026, you know, looks set to be really exciting time for, for
your sector, I mean, for certainly for digital first
studios and for, you know, there's lots of opportunity
around the World Cup and, and major events that are happening
next year. What's your outline?
I mean, I'm going to ask you for some predictions then for, for,
for 2026. I mean, clearly you're going to
predict that, you know, the branches broadcast is going to
be a big thing. That's the only thing.
That's going to happen. But but we will come back to
that. But what, what are the, what are
the sort of key trends that are you sort of expecting to sort of
pop off in 2026? Yes, we jump on the trends that
that were already in my other predictions.
Yeah, you. Can you, can you can talk about,
you can talk about anything that you like, right?
Yeah. I mean, I, I think the collab
posting on YouTube is, is going to make a change.
Like I think that's really exciting because I think it's
ways of sharing audiences. Whereas obviously that's been
going on on the short form platforms for quite a while.
And it's a really good way of kind of, you know, migrating
audiences across from a creator's channel to the to a
brand's channel or from a broadcaster's channel.
And I think being able to do that on YouTube, which is the
platform where brands can behave the most like broadcasters,
offers all sorts of opportunities.
Because I think especially where, you know, creators, if a
brand wants to be on a creator's own channel, they'll
understandably be very protective of that because that
is their, you know, that's their identity.
That's what they're known for. And so brands can only really
they'll, they'll kind of give them over a budget and then it's
like you do your thing with it, but there's not really any kind
of input the brand can have. And being able to collab post on
YouTube, I think will will make a lot of difference in, in that
you'll be able to get creators to appear on stuff that is brand
owned content. But you might, you may be able
to negotiate that they cross post it to their YouTube, even
on their YouTube shorts. And it allows you to kind of
access their audience without it being tied into like it has to
be exactly your editorial throughout the whole episode.
Yeah. So I think that could be a
really exciting development. And that's.
A relatively recent development on YouTube, isn't it?
For long form content in particular, yeah.
Exactly. I think that's the in the last
kind of month or two what's? Happened, yeah.
So, so yeah, we're we're really hoping to be able to use that
and for. For people who don't necessarily
understand what a collab post is, that is essentially bringing
your content, allowing your content to to be surfaced on on
your collaborating partners feed.
Essentially, yeah. And like, there's a lot of great
creators that are already doing it, where previously it might be
like KSI is going to appear in a video on Nico Emilano's channel,
but that will only appear on his channel.
Whereas now if they do that, that will get posted on both of
their channels. So the creators both get the
value of the video, but they also get that shared audience.
So it's a really mutually beneficial thing.
And so, yeah, I can see why they've made that change.
I think it really benefits the creators and we'll definitely
have a play around with how how we can make it work for brands
as well. Yeah, well.
Certainly for brands, you know, they're looking at creators
with, you know, two and a half million followers or a huge
audience. It's like that's our audience.
How do we get to them? This is a it's a relatively neat
answer to that, to that issue, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and, and, and what else
now? I mean, you, you, you've been
obviously before fan club, you were at Channel 4 for a number
of years as commissioner on the branded content side of things.
In general, how do you see the branded entertainment industry
moving forward in 2026, particularly in the in the
digital space? Yeah.
So I think it's so I, I, I feel like in the last couple of years
we've had some really big milestones of massive like
YouTube shows that have then gone on to become streaming
shows. Like inside is the kind of prime
example of that. Yeah.
I think the next kind of milestone in is in branded
entertainment is in a big branded show that's a digital
hit becoming a linear or streaming show.
Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the dish ended up on
Channel 4 or ITV. Me neither.
I think, you know, and I think that would be amazing.
They would kill for, you know, the kind of audiences that
they're getting. So I think when that happens,
that will be a real kind of shift, I think in the mindset of
of a lot of the kind of legacy industry people.
And you know what, what I really hope happens is I think a lot
of, you know, the old guard, I guess of, of broadcast kind of
hold their nose about branded a little bit.
They still do. Don't they?
They still do. I mean, it, it, it, it that used
to drive me what it used to drive me when I was APR before I
started telecast whenever I was working with a, with a
production company client who said, Oh, you know, we've just
made a chauffeur Red Bull or whatever.
You know, the TV trades wouldn't touch it because it's like, and,
and it was that overall industry kind of looking down the nose of
branded and entertainment branded content.
It's like, well, why, what, what, what, what does?
And it's like, well, there's this is there was this sort of
sense that it it wasn't pure entertainment in some way, you
know, it was like sullied by brand being involved in it,
which I could never get my head around.
But but you, I mean you does that still, Yeah.
Well, and no shades to Channel 4, which you know, got a lot of
love for that place still and all the people there.
But I, I think there was a slightly an undertone definitely
of snobbery towards branded entertainment.
I would say that that is changing.
Like there's definitely a shift under way.
And they had the cancer doctors with Cancer Research that came
out recently. It's the, it's basically like
the, you know, the people who was finding the cures.
It was like a series about that that was branded entertainment.
They've threw their weight behind it.
It did really well. It got a load of press like
that. That's great.
But I think my slight bugbear is that I think people can tie
themselves in knots a little bit when they're trying to hide the
fact that it's branded entertainment.
And what I think creators have shown and a lot of brands in the
digital space have shown is that audiences are way ahead of that
when it comes to brands. Audiences are used to all day,
every day being, you know, bombarded with stuff from
brands. When they see a brand putting
out a piece of entertainment, if they go this is from JD Sports
or this is from Waitrose, they're like, of course it is
happy days. And then you move on.
And as long as you're showing them something entertainment,
entertaining, they'll they'll like around and create is a
brilliant at that. They have like an ad read
message, but they make sure they put it in in a way that's funny.
Like a lot of the time it elevates the content rather than
like disrupting it or distracting the audience.
And I think it it means that you're actually building trust
there because it feels like you're not trying to pull the
wool over their eyes. And I've, you know, I think
occasionally, and we definitely came up against this at Channel
4, we would have to find very kind of subtle ways of
shoehorning in a brand or like, getting it in in a way that's,
you know, editorially justified. When if we'd have just gone,
we're here with Dulux, it'd been like, Dulux is happy, we're
happy now let's get on with the show and you don't have to worry
about the rest of it. So yeah, I think as I say, that
wasn't changing that. Wasn't that was that was from an
editorial point of view, wasn't it?
That wasn't from a regulatory point of view.
Yeah, and and not to get, you know, too diverted into the
technicalities, we won't. We won't go too much into the
weeds on that. But but no, Channel 4 applies
the spirit of Ofcom to all social branded entertainment.
And the Ofcom guidelines for branded entertainment are like
they're guidelines for linear first and foremost.
But also, I think they are quite outdated, which means that then
they're nowhere near keeping up with the stuff that's going on
on the platforms, which when you're commissioning for digital
does make it a bit tricky because you're having to do
something, you know, the, the platform would be, would be fine
with it, the audience would be fine with it.
But because we're working in a quite ATV way, there's some
guidelines that wouldn't be fine with it.
So, and I totally understand the rationale behind having that,
but it feels like the way the world has moved, moved on from
there. But yeah, as I say, I, I think
that is shifting. I think it's shifting at ITV is
definitely shifting at Channel 4.
And so I, you know, I, I think we're, we're on a kind of good
trajectory, yeah. OK, so that's my.
That's my. Way of not putting any any digs
in I saw. That Yeah, yeah.
That was, that was yeah, that was very, very definitely done.
So we've just seen Angry Ginge when I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out
of here. We've seen, you know, the rise
of creator talent over the last, you know, 2-3 years and it's
really exciting time. I mean, we've also seen, we've
seen lots of agencies and the and, and talent fees rising
massively as well. Yeah.
How do you square that circle then when it comes to working
with brands and creators? Because obviously you have
definitive, you know, you have defensive budgets, you know,
that you can't move on from. I mean, are you finding there is
a squeeze on tunnel tunnel talent costs at the moment in
this space? What I am finding is that, I
mean, yes, in it's, it's kind of in some ways I think yes, it is
a little bit the Wild West still because talent fees, yes,
they've absolutely gone up over the last few years in a, in a
kind of meteoric way, but also in a way that it's very
difficult to, to track and to kind of keep across.
So what I've been doing a lot more proactively is building
relationships with agents, really kind of understanding
where they are with their talent and having a kind of a bit of a
kind of spreadsheet. Not in that literal spreadsheet,
but like in my head of like who the talent are that we really
like and really want to be working with and roughly what
their fees are. So that when we're working on
briefs, essentially we're never putting anybody forward that we
don't know we could get them or someone kind of equivalent to
them. So I think, yeah, it is tricky,
but I think the way to navigate that really is to keep on top of
it and, and and have agency relationships, which was never,
you know, in my with my old Channel 4, Helen, it wasn't as
crucial because of that was the Indies having those
relationships. So it was a slightly more
indirect thing. But yeah, you know, and I think
I think it's kind of Fair enough as well.
You know, they know their value and they know their audience.
And so, you know, I think it's impossible.
It's important not to. Well, that's the.
Thing you, you, you the difference is you're buying
their audience as well or you're buying access to their audience,
should I say so? So that's the sort of slightly
different way of quantifying, isn't it, rather than just
having some talent on telly. Yeah.
And and just one final thing on on talent as well.
I mean, do do you, when brands are involved, I mean, some of
the more partnership driven talent formats might be, you
know, the, the, the creator because of the low production
costs that may be cut in as a deal that might be a sort of a
deal, which makes sense. You know, the creator's going to
give X amount of their time, but obviously they want to work with
a company that's going to build that brand and they can all, you
know, be successful going forward.
And, and, and we've seen more and more of that happening.
Does that tend to work in the in the branded space or is it much
more of a case of a much more simple kind of transactional
discussion? Yeah.
I mean, it can, it can work in that way.
It's there. There's definitely a bit of a
distinction between some creators are very used to just
being given a budget and be like, you're promoting this
brand, do your thing, post on your channel and it's a kind of
lump sum. And what we what we're doing is
obviously it's a bit more of an involved production.
It's it's more kind of formatted.
It's it's like broadcaster Jason Entertainment.
And so then it's about negotiating, you know, this is
an appearance fee, like it's for your time and we're not
contracting you to post about it, which is why it might not be
quite as much in your pocket because we're doing all of the
production and all this other stuff around it.
But ultimately then what, you know, what we're building is
affinity between that brand and that creator that could then and
often does like blossom into either like an ambassadorship or
further stuff that they do or they do something direct with
them, you know, on their own channels.
So there's lots of different ways that it could work.
There are also, obviously, you know, there's there's really
like great players in this space, in the kind of vodcast
space, which is definitely having a bit of a moment.
And I'm sure that's going to increase in the next year.
Like, you know, people like platform, we were doing very
interesting things where they're building kind of IP around a
talent and then bringing brands to that.
And I'm sure there's going to be, you know, in the future,
there might be talent and a brand launch channel together.
Like I could definitely see that.
Like, you know, that's something we'd be definitely interested in
doing. I'm sure everyone else is kind
of thinking in that space as well.
So yeah, it's, you know, it's that, you know, talent's never
not going to be an important part of it.
And yeah, yeah. Like, and there's, it's never
going to be really straightforward.
Like there's just a list of rates.
So you just like, ask them for a day.
Yeah, yeah. Of course.
So looking again forward to 2026, I mean, one of the biggest
developments in this space, in the space of social video has
been micro drama over the last year or two years certainly.
And I'm talking, you know, the awareness of this is in the
industry in the UK, whereas other parts of the world, it's
obviously already hugely successful and and established
businesses. Could you see a brand funded
micro drama, you know, becoming successful in 2026?
I. Yes, I can.
I'm working on one in fact. OK, so yeah, because STV, the
partner who invested in fan club, they're obviously
traditional broadcaster and traditional broadcast studios.
So what's great about that is you know, I'm I'm in the same
building as all these Indies who are absolute genre specialists.
So with one of those production companies, we're developing up a
drama, a micro drama series with a view to take it out to brands
it, you know, and what we really want to do, because they are,
you know, they're making shows for Netflix.
They want to they're they're interested in micro drama, but
their issue is like it's quite like soap opera and telling the
Valerie, which like I you know, and I get why it is like that.
But what we'd like to do is try and find a way to like really
elevate it and turn it into something, you know, that could
win awards that, you know, hopefully will will get a big
name star involved in. And I think you know that.
So yeah, yes, I think, I think that will definitely happen.
I hope we're the ones to do it, yeah.
Yeah, well, it feels like, it feels like the next step,
doesn't it, in many ways. And we've seen Fox Entertainment
investing in holy water and. And they've already said that,
you know, AAA talent from Fox is going to be coming into some of
their micro dramas over the next year.
So it feels like a real, you know, one of these is going to
really pop off and, you know, but potentially create another
sort of subset of this whole exciting developing genre.
So just thinking about what brands are asking for now that
they perhaps weren't asking for a couple of years ago.
I mean, obviously you're going to say, but you know, we want
our own channel. They're all.
Asking that they're all of them hanging on my door so.
Thinking about 2026 and how brands are approaching this
whole space, is there anything that you'd specifically
highlight that they're looking for now that they might not have
been looking for, say, a couple of years ago?
Yeah, I think there's there's a couple of things.
I think particularly when brands are interested in branded
entertainment, they want to know beyond social, beyond this
series, what can this become? So we talk a lot about like
we're creating IP here. How then can that IP become like
super valuable beyond the campaign window, the.
Rights, The rights question, yeah.
Yeah. So, you know, does it become a
live event? Like could it be experiential?
Could we, you know, turn it into, you know, some merchandise
or a book or like. So with pretty much all of our
pictures that we put together now, we always think like long
term, where could this go and what could this be?
And I think that's something that, yeah, brands are more
alive to than ever. So again, you know, coming back
to predictions for 2026, you recently wrote in the drop that
you're looking at potential a lot of mergers, a lot of
broadcasters buying up digital studios potentially.
What do you, I mean is that could you expand on that a
little bit in terms of what you know what you expect to happen
from a corporate perspective in in 2026?
Yeah. So, I mean, I think we can see
it like if you look macro at the industry, you look at Netflix
and Warner Brothers, like there's a huge mass
consolidation happening across the board.
And I think that's kind of trickling down to to our
industry. And I think there's also a lot
of big players in the TV space who are clearly looking at
digital, getting into digital, whether it's by hiring people to
lead the charge or buying studios like Global just bought
the fellas studios. So I think it's clearly, you
know, you can see anecdotally all of these different examples.
I think what's going to be really interesting is who has
the patience to really stick with it and and kind of commit
to something that is sustainable long term growth.
Because I think there's lots of ways that you can short circuit
your way to an audience and, and to, you know, you know, whether
it's buying channels, whether it's, you know, betting big on
massive talent. But I think a lot of those
things, they can be very costly, whether they're costly upfront
or they're costly down the road as, you know, creators become
more expensive. But you know, anyone who's kind
of in this in this world knows that the key to success is, you
know, high quality, consistency and really being in it for the
long game and just like committing to that audience,
building that audience. And that's why we're, you know,
doing what we're doing, which is taking that approach to brands
and saying like, look, if you commit to this, that the Sky's
the limit, this can really become huge.
And I think the thing that the thing that I see with speaking
about IP, IP absolutely still has a place in the media
landscape, but I don't think it's any longer the most
important currency. You know, this used to be the
thing that everyone valued above above all.
But now I think audiences have replaced that, you know, with
the distribution of of, of, sorry, with the democratization
of distribution, anyone can build an audience.
And that is the thing that people can can commercialize on
their channels. Your format is very difficult to
protect when anyone can kind of copycat it or make a few
changes. But no one can steal your
audience, so there haven't. Been that many really original
formats coming through have there that have really, I mean a
lot of them have been relatively similar to large TV brands that
we've seen, you know, really pop off in the last kind of couple
of years. Yeah, yeah.
Absolutely. And like with a different tone
of voice and different kind of energy to it and like feel a
little a lot more anarchic, which is great.
But yeah, I I think the studios and the big players who really
understand the audience is the new currency.
They'll be the ones that win in this new space.
And anyone who's really thinking like, no, actually, this is all
about clinging on to IPI think I think they might come across a
that's. Interesting, but but you're
still saying digital studios. You might find the bigger
distribution companies taking a shortcut and looking at the
buying of these digital specialists.
We might see a bit more of that in 2026, yes.
Yeah, I think so. I think so.
Yeah. Buy, yeah.
Buying studios and buying channels I think will be the
way. And now it's time for Story of
the Week, where my guests get to nominate the content industry
news story that's caught their eye in the past few days.
Joe, what's your story of the week?
Well, it's the AI bubble that everyone's talking about, which
I've gone down a bit of a rabbit hole on.
I think it's really interesting. I mean, obviously AI it is, you
know, it's, it's like the Internet, it's not going away.
But I think there clearly is a bubble.
And so there's going to be a massive correction.
And I've been reading a lot about the amazing graph that
someone did that shows that all of the big players are kind of
buying each other's stocks, shares and wares in a kind of
economic virtuous circle, which is massively inflating the value
of those companies. They're basically investing in
each other. And then the, you know, the
company that makes all the chips is selling all the chips to the
people who make all the data centers.
Yeah, who are selling their data to Open AI?
Who are buying all of the shares in the chip?
Company and it kind of. Goes round and round.
So yeah, I'm quite, yeah. I'm just quite interested in
what that's what's gonna happen in the fallout from, yeah.
Well, I mean, it's, it's just from a, from a product
perspective, I mean, it seems to be me every week that there's a
new, I mean the new Gemini Nano banana.
I think it is that, that that launched night last week.
So many experts. I mean, there's a lot of AI
experts on LinkedIn, right. So it's like a whole new
subsection. Do you mean they're AI, they're
experts who are actually AI or they're experts in AI?
Well, they're. Experts in AI that are probably
using AI to post, but, but I'm saying that, you know, it's
almost like a horse race when you know, a new version gets
released, whether it's 5.1 of ChatGPT and then nano banana,
you know, they're, they're leapfrogging each other on an
enormous weekly basis. So it's, it's really interesting
to see to think how anybody can actually compete with Google
when you've got Gemini baked into it.
And, and I think ChatGPT has sort of stolen a lot of the
headlines over the last few years.
But it now seems to me that their AI game seems to be moving
ahead in many ways. But of course, you know, that
might be better at reasoning or a better image generation.
The ChatGPT, as I say, we'll probably best speak into an AI
expert about that. But but but it seems so fluid,
this market and fast moving obviously, that it's very
difficult to sort of know. And if you were to buy shares in
one of those companies, how the hell do you devalue that?
And who do you stick your your your bets on?
Well, and when's? It going to be profitable
because at the moment you would we would all have to be paying
like thousands of pounds a month in subscriptions for it for them
to be even breaking even. And so they're losing money hand
over fist, but also the with, with things like the Internet,
the, the more advanced it got, the cheaper the technology got.
But so far with AI, the more advanced it gets, the more
expensive it gets. So it'll be really interesting
to see like at what point does the price come down?
Because at the moment it's just like, it's crazy.
I. Think I get the.
I get the sense that if, you know, you Google or Microsoft,
you'll be kind of all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But. Too big to fail too big.
To fail, Yeah. Yeah.
OK. Well, and what about Hero View
Week then? Have you got a person that you
can sort of give a, a light glazing to?
Yeah. My hero of the week is Zoram
Mandani and the new mayor of New York because not only because
he's, like, incredibly charismatic, like, has some
amazing policies, but his rise was in no small part down to his
social game. He had, like, incredible videos.
His wife did all of his branding and, like, the logos were
amazing. But like, they they really
understood how to use those platforms and to, to like, you
know, build buzz and, like, get people excited and.
And I thought it was like, that was really impressive.
Yeah. Yeah, it seems to me that to be
a politician, the social, your social game needs to be on point
there, isn't it? Absolutely.
And well, talking about
politicians, who or what do you want to throw in the bin this
week? Not not a politician, but
probably an aspiring politician. Grok.
Grok can get in the bin. Grok.
Right. OK.
We're back to the AI, right? OK.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
I mean, just the the fact that it's so kind of clearly tooled
up to be like ultra like right wing and terrifying, but also
just the hilarious ways that grok no matter what you ask it
about Elon Musk, Elon Musk always comes out on top.
Who was The Who was who was funnier?
Jerry Seinfeld or Elon Musk was like, well, whilst Jerry
Seinfeld is very good at observational comedy, Elon Musk
really takes the biscuit for his like crazy disruptive meme LED
comedy. And you're like, OK, grok, you
know? This is there's a room somewhere
dedicated to me making sure that Grok, you know, speaks well and
being on Musk and Tesla and all his other interests.
Yeah. All right.
Grok's going in the bin. Joe, thank you very much for
coming on telecast. It's been brilliant to see you.
Yeah, you too. Thanks for having me and.
Wish you all the best with those two campaigns.
You said prime time. It's coming out in in January.
So local lager, I'll I'll might be on the phone to see request a
couple of samples there. And good luck with your other
campaign as well. So and and and indeed with all
of 2026. Cool, thanks.
Very much, Justin. Well, that's about it for this
week's show. Telecast was produced by Spirit
Studios and recorded in London. We'll be back very soon with a
special 2026 prediction show for the world of social video, so
watch out for that one. In the meantime, stay safe.