Hi, I'm Justin Crosby and welcome to another telecast.
On this week's show, I'm joined by someone who needs no
introduction in the world of social media.
Sam Barcroft is back on the frontline in a major new role at
SWNS Group, and he's stepping into 2026 with an ambitious
remit as the news industry repositions itself for the video
first world. Sam's always been ahead of the
curve, from building Barcroft into one of the most influential
factual studios of the digital era, to mentoring the next
generation of creators and helping traditional producers
unlearn old habits. Now at SWNS, he's gearing up for
a year of serious growth and today he's going to lift the lid
on what the business is planning and where he thinks the smart
money is going in 2026. Hi, Sam.
Justin, good to see you. Lovely to be here.
It's been a long time since you last on the show.
I can't even remember how long, but it's it's.
Had a glow up. It's had a glow up since then.
It has, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
No, we've kind of poshed new studio and everything but but
new surroundings, you're in new surroundings now.
I am. I am.
So, so we're going to talk about all sorts of different things
today, but first of all, let's start with your new role as
group CEO of SWNS Group. For those who don't know about
that business, because it is, I mean, it's it's, it wasn't a
surprise to me you taking over that role because it really sort
of reunites you with your early career in the newspaper
business. But many, many people in the
traditional TV business might not be aware of them.
So tell us about SW and S Group and your role.
OK. So, yeah, I got a call earliest
this year offering me the opportunity to go into the group
as Group CEO. And it just was one of those
that sat with me and and the more I thought about it, the
more excited I got about it. And so, yeah, I found myself
today kind of 3 1/2, four months into a new job there and it's
really exciting. So SWNS Media Group is 6
companies and part of me joining was bringing Creative Hill into
the group, which is a business I founded a couple of years ago.
And now we're really such an inflection point in the media
scene globally, especially in the UK, that it's an amazing
time to be part of a group that has lots of different ways of
doing business in the content and in the news media
specifically. So the group's got Creative Ill
in IT, which is a video consultancy.
So we help business leaders figure out how they can succeed
with video from startups all the way up to major broadcasters and
publishers. We've also got SWNS, which is
the original business, which is 50 years old.
It's the Uks largest supplier of news content to major news
brands, the mainstream. So it's like.
A wire service really isn't it. It supplies national newspapers
with news from all around the world.
That's I assume, not just UK. Yeah, we have brilliant
journalists and photographers and videographers all over the
UK and then we provide content globally and we've got people in
the US as well. And essentially when you read
the online Daily Mail or the Mirror or the Guardian or the
Times, often a lot of that content will come from SWNS.
You'll see the picture by lines. And it's a business that was
started in Bristol 50 years ago and is acted over a long period
of time to become the most kind of well known independent
newswire in the UK. That's grown out because it's
founded by people who really love innovation.
So it's grown. It grew out a company which is
now 25 years old called 72 Point, which is one of the top
ten consumer PR businesses in the UK and a really exciting
business. And then they've acquired other
businesses in the space. So we own a business called
Oath, which is a remarkable design graphic design studio who
have clients like Netflix doing design work for them.
We also have Pinpet, which is the UK's leading commercial
photography business for public relations and 1 Poll, which is
the kind of second most sighted polling company in the UK.
So it's this amazing set of businesses that really work in
synergy extremely well to deliver unbelievable value for
brands and for news brand news publishers as well.
And so getting back into that game was really exciting,
especially at a time when it's changing so fast.
Yeah, well, it must be like coming full circle for you
because when you were talking then I remember, oh, you did the
Barcroft wire was was obviously a photography wire service and
then which expanded into video, which then took you into the
whole world of videos. So it's like, so it's
fascinating now taking your experience in your learnings all
the way through building Barcroft Media and selling that
business and then advising lots of other companies to, you know,
now as you say, interesting inflection point going into 2026
is really exciting time, isn't it?
And I mean, I was going to ask you what what, what you've
learned through all the those years that you're going to be
taking to SW and S, but I suppose that's too big a
question. Not really.
I mean, there's a lot of lived experience.
I've made a lot of mistakes over 20 years of running a similar
business previously. And that's actually quite
valuable because I know where not to go, if that makes sense.
And often when you're building businesses, the common sense
next move isn't actually the correct 1, you know, So we all
trust our own common sense. But when you say common sense,
do you mean safe or perceived? No, I just think this, the thing
that pops to the front of mind of most reasonable people in
innovation is often the wrong thing to do, you know, and
that's, I can't really explain it, but it's something that I've
found quite often through my career.
And so knowing when you should concentrate on something that
feels counterintuitive, that's experience, you know.
And so I suppose I bring experience to the table.
And I'm also aware that moving companies through change is
challenging. You know, that's what I've been
doing a lot of in the last few years, helping businesses with
change. And so I bring that to the table
as well. But mostly I hope I'm going to
bring enthusiasm and try and build great culture, positive
culture. The biggest challenge that our
industry and content has at the moment, I believe, is an apathy
about the future. You know, and you really need
growth culture if you're going to succeed.
And growth culture is all about getting excited about what's
possible rather than terrified of what feels impossible.
Trying it right? Yeah.
And the way to do that is to be brave, to hold hands, to go at
things together and to accept you're not going to win every
battle. You know, you have to think like
a attacking midfield player, not like a goalie or a defender
sometimes. And so I'm getting quite excited
about supporting teams to be brave and to imagine what's
possible, you know, and then to try it and if it doesn't work,
to be around each other and say, hey, we gave it our best shot,
let's go again, you know, not to worry about getting this act
next week because they've messed up.
So, so really I'm trying to bring that energy of expensive
thinking or thinking outside the box.
And I'm thinking how we can actually move things forward in
a really positive way, not just for ourselves, but as businesses
within our group that really exists to service the wider
content economy. How do we make our clients feel
bold and excited about things? You know, how can we support
them better and better? You know, because that a rising
tide lifts all boats and I think bring a new wave of energy and a
new ways of doing things should be quite exciting.
You know, I'm on a mission to build EU KS most exciting new
Media Group. That's what I'm here to do, you
know, and that might feel bit odd in the creator economy that
I'm working in a traditional new sector, but I actually think
that combination of decades of deep experience and editorial
integrity has built a remarkable trust.
SWNS has trust like pretty much no other business in the UK.
If you then add that ability to speak to people all over the
world on multiple devices in multiple ways, you know that's
super exciting for. Me.
That's the opportunity, isn't it?
I mean, and that's, that's really interesting for a number
of different aspects. First of all, the trust and the,
you know, truth essentially, which we, you know, we're
starting to be challenged by AI, obviously.
I mean the amount of AI slot that I'm seeing on pretty much
all of my video feeds right now. It's hilarious, but it's not
great for us. Well, society, you know it.
Kind of, yeah. I mean it, it kind of is
hilarious, but I'm starting to find myself really annoyed by
them. You know, it might be, I don't
know, AI think I saw something of a swordfish jumping onto a
boat or a boat or something like that, you know, and, and, and it
was you could just it's that 5%. You can tell.
And my, my annoyance is that I just wasted 10 seconds of my
life watching this, this piece of AI generated slot, right.
And, but, but I think the opportunity, as you say, to, to
combine that, you know, trusted new sources with, you know,
amazing content and creating content that that people are
going to consume and people are consuming in many different ways
today is, is, is definitely an exciting one.
It's something that that you covered off in their recent
digital content forum panel with the Sun and Sky and ICN.
And that was really, I thought that was really interesting and,
and you know, perhaps points the way to the way that those news
organizations are looking at communicating with their their
subscribers and viewers as well. Yeah, I think the challenge for
established news brands is that for many years they were trying
to hold the line. They were trying to get people
to come to them. And they felt like by not fully
engaging with social media or the creator economy, they would
move people to come directly to their broadcast products, you
know, And the truth is that did work for some time, but now it
isn't working anymore. And so those people are now in a
race, you know, they really have to move very, very aggressively
towards those platforms now to try and regain the viewership
that they basically let through their fingers, you know, and.
Well, as a subscriber, he was like desperately holding onto
the subscribers, particularly newspaper Sense.
And that obviously massively changed and.
It's worked very well for broadsheet newspapers.
So when you look at businesses like the Times, you know, that's
in rude health and doing very well.
The New York Times in the US has proved that you can build an
amazing business out of games and recipes, but that that
supports A vibrant global news brand, you know, And so we've
got the examples of how to do news well, the challenges,
especially in what you might call free news or lower market
or popular news, that's been very challenged because the free
model doesn't work anymore. The advertising doesn't add up
to the sum to the cost of producing quality content
anymore. And so that's a massive
existential challenge to I, I think many levels of media, not
just news, you know, I think news in particular because news
is expensive and it doesn't have a shelf life, you know, whereas
if you're working in fact tent or entertainment, you can build
something that can make a lot of money over many years.
It's a bit tougher in news. The big problem is there's not a
documentary industry left in the UK.
You know, we'd like to pretend there is, but it's, it's a wafer
thin industry compared to just 10 years ago.
Yeah, it's interesting. We just saw Sunnyside as
shuttered as well. You know, which is the biggest
documentary festival in in Europe.
Yeah. It's such a shame, but literally
we've lost a whole industry, you know, and I think it's so sad.
You know, I aspired to be a documentarian for decades, you
know, and I was lucky enough to achieve that when we had strong
broadcasters in the UK commissioning lots and lots of
documentaries every week. Now it's an event.
If there's a fresh documentary on APSB, you know, it's
literally maybe one or two a week if you're lucky.
And so unfortunately the, the industry has been decimated as a
result and will continue to be. So really I'm interested in
continuing the the battle of bringing helpful information in
entertaining ways to the general public in the UK that is true
and real and actually based upon proper journalistic standards
and practices. You know I care about that.
And do you see parallels when it comes to the news industry and
the challenges that it faces now and the solutions that you're
coming up with with the traditional TV industry?
Well, it's interesting isn't it because the news industry peaked
in the 90's, the newspaper industry particularly, and it's
had and it had almost reinvented itself in recent years to quite
a stable model. What it had done is it had
worked out that if it wrote hundreds of articles a day on
every website and absolutely obsessed over SEO and thinking
about how it could make sure it reached as many people as it
could through search, that it kind of had a viable model.
And that was greatly aided by Google Discover, which pushed a
lot of traffic to reputable news brands.
Then a couple of years ago, Google Discover changed its
algorithm to favor smaller niche brands of factual content and
that destroyed the UK news industry.
You know, from a from a that online website perspective, the
difference in television is much simpler.
Actually, it's not one actor changing the way an algorithm
works. It's actually all about the
shift from scheduled viewing to streaming on video on demand.
If you've got a brilliant video video on demand site like a
Netflix or an iPlayer, you don't actually need very much new
content on the day. You know, you actually only you
need the the shows that everybody must watch the high
value shows. You don't need lots and lots of
features series 8:00 or you don't need lots of topical
documentary at night because you don't have any slots to fill.
You look at Disney Plus, how many new things are there on
Disney? Very, very few.
How many subscribers that they got over 100 million all paying
money every single month, regardless of the fact that
there's hardly any new things appearing on there, certainly
not to the volumes that they would have been across a UKPSB
kind of schedule. So really television is a live
events business, broadcast television now, you know, big
entertainment shows, large sporting events and major
breaking news. That's really all that's left in
television and streaming is now all about high value drama and
the odd pinnacle documentary, you know, and it's desperate to
get into the sports, live sports space as well.
So that's what's left. And so if I'm starting a
production company now, if it's not in those spaces, then I
really need to have a strong word with myself or I've got a
brilliant idea that nobody else. Has got caught on to yet.
You know, so it's a, it's an interesting moment and quite a
tough one for a lot of people. So for for your business, then
obviously you're very much focused, you know, you've
established group of businesses that you're looking at ways to
to incorporate the creator economy approach to, to the news
industry and, and the way that your your businesses work with a
wider world. It's from a service perspective.
Can we expect to see any new you talked about documentary brands,
because obviously that's something that Barcroft was, you
know, regularly #1 news service when it on YouTube for in the
UK, in the UK for a number of number of years.
And can we expect to see new brands being built?
You know that new consumer brands, are you going to go
direct to create new channels as well as well as servicing your
clients? Would you, would you, would you
look to make a return to to the sort of the the the factual
space when it comes to original channels?
Well, look, don't hold me to it Justin, because things change in
start-ups. As you know, although this is an
established group, you know Creative Hill is still a start
up within it. So that gives us a space to play
in those areas. I think there is interest in the
group to do that. We're looking at a number of
opportunities right now. I think that there's a gap, you
know, in that space because it's been hard to find ways to make
that make money. And so as an entrepreneur, I sit
here and think, well, is that a gap that needs filling?
You know, do, is there an unmet need in the audience out there
to, to, to, who are desperate to watch that kind of content, who
aren't getting it from other places?
Now we're just working through that at the moment and figuring
out where the demand lives. Because the one thing I've
learned from 20 years of messing it up and a bit of success along
the way is there's no point deciding what you want to make.
You've got to focus on what people want that they can't get,
you know, And that's the difference between a producer
and a publisher, you know, you know, and, and so you have to
have a publisher mindset, which is what's the, what's the
customer need that needs solving.
So for me, I'm working with colleagues at the moment to
figure that out and also figure out the crossover within the
wider group because obviously at SWNS we're reporting dozens of
exclusive news stories a week. We've got incredible access to
news based IP and stories and access.
And so that's really exciting. And looking at how over time we
developed that into a funnel of incredible potential IP and then
join content and then joining that up with what we can do at
Creative Ill, which is to build consumer brands from the floor,
from the ground up. That will hopefully lead to some
really interesting things. We've got incredible
journalistic colleagues, SW and S who have already had some
great success in selling access for some of that IP over the
years. And so we're looking at the
moment a couple of projects to get that going.
And then thirdly, really the big opportunity within the group is
the fact that in the wider group we have so many brilliant brand
con clients, you know, and when you think about the challenge
for brands, consumer brands, if you're a High Street brand, how
do you reach your audience through media anymore?
It's really tough. Before it was very simple.
You put some money in radio, you put some money on outdoor, you,
you, you bought some slots on TV and then you knew if you had a
campaign, you'd get extra people come in and buy your stuff.
Now it's very difficult to find your audience.
And so as we know, brands are seeking much more diverse ways
of reaching their audiences. Now we've got all this IP over
here, we've got all these clients over there, brand
clients really interested in new ways of telling stories.
Making that ecosystem work offers a a remarkable
generational opportunity I think.
And in the public relations branded content space, there's
there's a, there's a moment waiting to happen, an evolution
that's kind of brewing quite nicely at the moment there.
And so it's exciting times at 72 Point towers over in Farrington,
starting to figure this out and starting to work out how to
marry those two worlds of brilliant creative ideas and the
creator economy, you know, creative or working with 72
Point is also super exciting. And that's more about sort of
pull marketing, IE creating amazing content for brands or
brands creating that content, brands as broadcasters.
That's right, making content that people genuinely want to
see rather than interruption marketing, which is the old
advertising model. And there was a lot of money in
that, you know, in that space, maybe not so much anymore, but
there's brands still, you know, need to need to communicate and
find new ways to communicate with their audience.
Yeah, and if you go on TikTok shop, it's hard to differentiate
product anymore, right? You know you're just saying
stuff all the time. There's a million and one
services and products out there, so brands are struggling to cut
through just because really the shows we make at brands, but
also, you know, the stuff people want to sell at brands and it
all converges. And what's interesting to me are
companies like Car, Wow. I don't know if you're familiar
with it, but it's a brilliant car brand on YouTube, which does
remarkable videos that get anywhere between half a million
and 1,000,000 1/2 views per video.
And it's essentially a cool new Top Gear full of races, reviews,
fun, all the shot at absolutely top spec.
Well, it's not a car channel. It's actually a a car sales
business that has a YouTube channel put on, but it's really
now both a brilliant media brand brand, a brilliant car sales
company, you know, and it's turning over what fifty £60
million a year now by making videos that are so good that
people choose to buy their car from that place, you know, and
spend 40 grand on a brand new car via this YouTube channel.
And so though that is the way that content becomes a brand and
real life purchases and services or brands is now coming
together. We all know about Red Bull and I
don't know if you've seen the recent Everest, skiing down
Everest, Red Bull film, 20 million views in a very short
period of time, a brilliant documentary.
I think there'll be people out there that in the world that
don't realize Red Bull is a caffeinated soft drink.
You know, they'll just think it's an adventure channel, you
know, and and it can make a lot of money just out of its content
now, which is. And so as we go forward that
that kind of ability to build proper big consumer businesses,
which Mr. Beast is, I suppose the the biggest example of with
his new, you know, prospectus is it's really exciting.
And I think it's how the existing industry that we're
part of that's so good at the story selling element starts to
make sure it understands the elements that it's not as good
at and and is humble enough to realize that it needs to think
like that if it really wants to do another 20 years of being
commercially valid. Well, that's really interesting
point because I mean, you've spent a lot of time since you
sold the Barcroft business and since you exited future advising
TV, more traditional TV production companies.
And so, and just something you just said there is that, you
know, there's companies that are willing to adopt the practices
needed in the next generation of media because it feels like, I
mean, we were chatting just before we came on air about, you
know, 2, two years ago, it seemed to be the red flags were
really out for everybody. I mean, you've been working in
this industry for two decades, so you can see it coming for a
long time. And I think many others of us
that have been working around this space could see that
happening a long time. But the TV industry was like,
well, I'm not listening, we're not listening.
And obviously that's a broad bridge stroke talking about all
the TV industry, but I'm speaking specifically about TV
producers, independent TV producers in many cases who've
just been wedded to the way that traditional way that the
industry's worked for 40 years. But you know, and, and again to
an earlier point that you talked about, you know, that they are
producers because they are producing for those those
broadcasters that have got a need.
And now it is about thinking like a publisher and, and being
much more commercially minded about it in, in all of those
companies that you spoke to, do you, you know, do you think that
the traditional industry is willing to make that change?
You know, I mean, again, all the companies that you spoke to,
what's, what's your take on on to the traditional TV industry
now? Well, it's, it's as you'd
expect, it's a big, it has been a very big industry in this in
the UK. So there's lots of different
touch points, there's actually loads of success that you can
point to in there in in different parts, you know, so.
Yeah, so I realized it's a very capture.
No, but it's. Statements, we're talking.
I suppose I've had a lot of frustration because having made
that transition myself with my colleagues, you know, a big team
of us figured a way through the jungle, you know, And so we want
everybody else coming through the jungle.
We want to say, hey, this is the path, come through here.
You know, it's going to be all right.
Yeah, there's going to be a few dodgy bits, but you can make it.
Come on, let's go. And that's why I set up Creative
Build because I really wanted to help people get down that path
and to and to because there's never been a lack of interest in
improving people's businesses or those people wanting to be part
of the next stage. That's not been the issue.
The issue has always been a lack of understanding of how to do
it. We did it at Barcroft because
quite frankly, we couldn't sustain our news business
without getting money from publishing.
You know, we needed it to survive.
It wasn't an option. It was an SST.
So we have no choice but to lock in, go 100% in and just focus on
it. And, and we were very lucky in
the end that that came through, you know, and that worked out
well for us. We built 15 shows that made a
lot of money on social advertising and that actually
helped us sell our business alongside ATV production company
and that they both work really well together.
So we're very lucky that that in the end came together.
It was hard for a long time time.
Now the challenge is for people. They know they want to do that,
but they don't know how. So we we come in and we help
people with the how. And there we are.
There is a playbook on YouTube that is free that everybody can
download to say how do you make? But what the problem that most
TV producers have is not that they don't know that there's
instructions. They're all very bright people,
very talented people, and it's that they confuse the model.
So they think that there was this model in television where
you went to see a broadcaster with a great idea and said, hey,
I want to make this brilliant film.
And they said, oh, I love that film, what a great idea.
We'd love that. And they'd say, we'll give you
200 grand to make that film and the producer will go away and
figure it out. Maybe it's 220 or 210, but
they'd make a deal. Then they give the producer 1/3
of that money upfront and say go on, then go and make the film.
And then they give them a bit more and, and the producer would
essentially be cash flow for that whole piece of risk.
And then they get paid all the money when they deliver it, and
then it would get sold around the world, and they'd take most
of that money as well. And it was just an amazing
business because you got to go and make films that you wanted
to make all over the world. And somebody else was paying for
the whole thing, right? Who's not going to love that?
It sounds, you know, when you talk about that now, it's just
so. Ridiculous, right?
Yeah, Yeah, it's like a bubble. It was a 40 year bubble.
And so essentially that was based upon the independent TV
kind of sphere. And people like John McVey did
an amazing job of getting ridiculous terms that that
nobody would ever look at anymore, you know, these days in
terms of trade and things like that were absolutely
unbelievable for the economy of the UK.
The economy of the UK has been media economy has been smashed
to bits by YouTube and everything else.
And the establishment has looked away the whole time.
They haven't figured out new ways of managing that.
It's only just in the last year or two they've figured out that
those big companies needed prominence in YouTube and social
media. They left it far too little, far
too late. So the challenge now is you've
got TV producers saying, hold on, can I go to YouTube and they
give me 200 grand to make my film.
And it's like, no, it's a hard no.
They tried that a bit 10 years ago and they went, this is
ridiculous. Let's not do that because
they've got 10s of thousands or well, millions.
There's over 100 million YouTube channels out there full of
people like you just in just getting on with it, just making
the stuff and putting it out there and finding ways to build
a business out of it. That's the the offer.
The offer is YouTube says we'll share your content with everyone
in the world or 2 billion people in the world for free.
And then if that helps you out, brilliant.
And actually we'll try and sell some ads and if we can, you can
have half the money, right? It's a pretty good deal, you
know, and so. You'll see that's, that's the
important thing that people often don't quite grasp, I think
is that it's, it's about finding the niche.
It's it's just like, almost like narrow casting if you like, it's
finding the exact niche, but that niche, however, however
small it might seem in the UK, it's a global niche and that
could be many millions of people.
That's right. And and if you become number one
aquarium channel, you know, fishing, I, I wrote an article
about it called the Blue Cheese Channel.
And I said if I was going to make one channel as a individual
producer right now, I'd make it about soft blue cheese.
Yeah, right. Because there's no, I went on
YouTube and I love blue cheese, right.
And I went on YouTube, I was like blue cheese and there was
nothing, there was no blue cheese channel.
And I thought to myself, well, that's a massive opportunity.
It sounds ridiculous, right? Why would you do that?
Well, because you start making film about blue cheese, yet you
love it, You talk about it, you do taste tests you, you travel
maybe to a dairy somewhere to, to actually see them making the
blue cheese. You you meet other people who
are brilliant at blue cheese. All of a sudden you'll get 100
subscribers that absolutely love blue cheese.
There might be some blue cheese makers or sellers or
delicatessens in there. There might be some travel
writers or whatever. And you build a very small
community. But those people all absolutely
love blue cheese. You've got a community, right?
And once you scale that past 1000 people, if 10% of them buy
your blue cheese Christmas box, all of a sudden you'll make your
money, you know, And then if you think about it, if that then
builds to 10,000 people that like it, and all of a sudden
you're collaborating with a wine channel and they're trying to
talk about your channel, all of a sudden you've got something
that really starts to mean mean something.
The biggest problem that TV producers don't understand is
that YouTube is a 5 to 10 year game.
It's a third Horizon play. You, you, you start, you show
up, you do it for ages and ages and ages and you get nothing
back. OK.
It's like shouting into the void.
It's really miserable and it's really difficult.
But in the end, if you keep going and you keep listening to
the comments and seeing which what elements work of your
content, in the end it will start to work.
And when it does, it will can be transformative.
And so the truth is, that's why TV producers run a mile from
YouTube. It's because it doesn't fit
their business model. And most of the time, because
they've had a remarkable business model for so long, they
just can't get past that. It feels like they've been
cheated upon by the better. Half, you know, like it's.
Just a a piece of grief that they just can't move around.
And so, but if you're 20 and you're sat in your bedroom and
you want to do a channel about K pop demon hunters and you get
really excited about it and you make a costume and you do some
impressions and all the rest of it and you start getting well,
all of a sudden you've started a career as a YouTube and and you
don't have to go and work in the bank if you don't want to
because you can build something off your own back.
Now that sounds very trite, but it's true.
And the biggest entertainment brand on the in the planet,
Netflix, spends hundreds of millions a year on its YouTube
channel. It's because it's a remarkable
ecosystem that actually helps build brands like pretty much no
other, you know, and, and I don't, I'm not the biggest fan,
but it is what it is. And so the TV producers, I think
most of them should just not bother anymore.
Stop talking about it. If you're not going to find a
million or £2 to spend over, you know, 5 to 10 years and just
commit to it 100%, just shut up and get on with pitching your
shows to the same people you've always pitched them to and hope
that you'll get one of the handful of commissions that are
still available. You know, because that's your
business. And it is a handful.
Yeah, it is a handful and you've got to be really honest with
yourself, strip it right back, keep those, those two or three
people in your business that really, really make the
difference and slog it out and keep going and just focus on
what you are the very best at within your niche, within TV
production. And in the end, you'll, you
know, hopefully the business will find a way to make that
sustainable for you. But don't think that you've got
a lifeboat called YouTube that's going to come and replace your
business with a similar model because it just doesn't exist.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. When, when we, when we look at
YouTube and we see all the other social platforms as well, it's
giving producers access to data that they've never had before.
And obviously that can be quite daunting because it's like,
well, OK, that's great. But you know what, what do you,
what do I do with that? You know, and there is this sort
of very much the, the, the archetypal marketing funnel
isn't there when it comes to, you know, the amount of
impressions and then coming down to how long people have watched
the shows, etcetera. What is the single most
important metric that you look at from a YouTube perspective?
Let's let's talk about YouTube specifically.
Well. I don't think there's a, there's
a single one, you know, like when I look at YouTube Studio,
which is the back end analytics tool within YouTube.
I suppose I do care a lot about views because subscribers, you
know, it's complicated, but essentially it's anybody that
ever thought it was quite good on YouTube might click a button
that doesn't mean they're ever coming back, you know.
And so I think subscribers is kind of like a a commitment
metric for how long you've been going and how many people have
at certain stage liked what you do.
I think views is what's more important.
So if I see channels that I've got sustained amount of views on
their network, that's important as a starting point.
But then it's all about engagement because as we know,
some brands will just pay a click factory in Vietnam money
to just rack up false views on. And it's pretty obvious because
you'll see something with 100,000 views and two comments,
you know, and you know from miles away that that means it's
it's all fake views. So, so it's a combination of
that. And most people don't realize
that the best feedback on YouTube by 1,000,000 miles is
actually qualitative. It's not quantitative.
So it's about looking at the comments and actually reading
those comments because those comments are what you can act
on. Yeah, it's really easy.
If you've done 5 videos in a row and they've each got 100 views
and then one gets 10,000 views, you definitely know organically
that there's something different in that video.
That meant YouTube put it in front of many more people, you
know, So that's a big signal, right?
But the other signal will be why?
And the way to figure that out is usually sits in the comments.
And so it's really about combining quantitative and
qualitative, but really digging into the qualitative because
that's where all the secrets are.
That's really interesting you say that and again, you know,
without harking back to much of the digital content forum, that
was one of the really interesting take outs that I, I
took from the investors panel and we had three of the biggest
investors into YouTube businesses there.
And they were just talking about that's how they're valuing
channels now and they're going in and super sizing channels,
investing in them, sometimes buying them outright and seeing
the potential because again, it's about community, isn't it?
That's, that's the, that's the other single biggest difference
about creating for YouTube rather than creating for TV.
It's like it's, it's, you're building a community and you're
listening to that community, nurturing it and, and listening
to what they want and creating for them.
And you can. So that's quite different to TV
where it's like you deliver the show and then that's it.
And you might get, you know, the overnight you know to e-mail to
you like 2-3 months later. Yeah.
And, and I think it, yeah, that's the definition of
broadcast, isn't it, is to share something in the air and then
basically walk away. So, so, yeah, where's the
receive mode? There's not a receive mode in
that, you know, and actually YouTube is about building a
community and it's just basic IT, right.
So the IT guys are going, well, how do you get people to stay on
this site a bit longer? Well, you say, well, everybody
wants to be heard. So if we allow them to put
comments on something and they can have a conversation, then
that means a lot more than just watching something and going and
trying to talk to people down the pub about it or at school or
whatever. So, so it's just basic in, you
know, retention stuff like most of these platforms couldn't give
a monkeys about your content as long as it's legal, you know,
they don't care what it is. They're just interested in how
do you keep people on reels for that extra 10 seconds?
How do we serve you a few more ads, you know, there?
And it's a remarkable business. You know, Mark Zuckerberg said
he's going to get, he's on a run rate of something like 50
billion on reels advertising this year.
You know, it's an unbelievable amount of money, you know, every
year just on reels. And he doesn't even give any of
that back to the content providers.
You know, like he keeps all of it.
Like a few years ago, he just went, hold on.
We're giving these people that make the videos money, but
there's no point. They're not going to go away if
we take it all away again. And he was right.
So so he took all the money away.
And people are still putting all their videos up on there because
they have decided that being able to broadcast to everyone in
the world and get all that voice share of voice is actually worth
the money to pay for actually making it and sharing it
themselves. And so we have to be really
honest with ourselves and say, this is a remarkable business
model and how do we use it to be able to facilitate us to share
the stories we want to share. You know, we have to come away
from we deserve this or it shouldn't be like that and just
accept it how it is and lean in if that's useful to what you're
doing and trying to build. But instead of building a, a
business that just makes content for a living, which is getting
more and more difficult, I think if you, if you really want to
build a robust business, the models I'm looking at are
subscription layers. So like how do we create
businesses that people are happy to pay to have that content?
And then on the set on the second hand is or you build
communities that you can monetize in lots of different
ways like you've done with so successfully with telecast.
When you look at your events and magazine and other things that
you built here, that they're the two models that I think standard
test of the next turn of this the next decade of this game.
You know, it's look at the rest is history and how brilliantly
they've built a paid layer for that.
And the rest is politics and all the rest of it.
Look at how many businesses are now building these multi revenue
stream models that give the content away from for free for
free. But because they have a
community and they stand for something and then number one in
their sector can build a whole business out around it.
You know, that for me is they're the two models that I think are
most interesting. Yeah.
And, and talking about video podcasts, because we've seen
remarkable growth in that and we've certainly seen companies
like Gold Hanger have, you know, huge success.
And we've just obviously seen a Netflix deal for Gold Hanger
around the 2026 World Cup, which is really, really fascinating.
We've seen, you know, some real success for companies like Cold
Glass who were doing Dish, the dish podcast, but with Waitrose,
which is, you know, amazingly successful as well, and lots of
other companies. Diary of Aceo Flight story
obviously had huge amounts of success.
To me that seems like an obvious move for the first move for ATV
production company to try and get into the digital world
because? It's relatively inexpensive and
whether it's a a two person chat show or discussion show, it's
it's, you know, production costs are fairly low, limited.
You can do, you know, a deal with talent which isn't, you
know, a percentage deal with talent which is, you know,
relatively easy to do. Surely that's the easiest step.
Would you say that that was the first step that a TV production
company might might take? It really depends, because it
depends what problem they're trying to solve, you know?
And at the end of the day, if you're in business, there's no
point doing things until you know why you're doing them, you
know? And yeah, try some stuff out.
By all means, if you, if you feel like you need inspiration,
make some things and put them in different places and see what
happens. I think that's the most
important step to some extent, is to do something rather than
to talk about it and do nothing. However, most people that are
interested have already done that and most of them have been
underwhelmed because they've they've done it far too quickly
and given themselves far too small a chance of success.
I don't think there is an exact right move.
If if you decide what it is you're passionate about and what
the business you want to build, then you've got to look at how
you then resource that and what type of content is going to be
right to promote to give yourself the best chance.
I think video podcasts work really well on YouTube because
they they are fantastic for YouTube because you they're
often half an hour to an hour long.
YouTube now allows you to put an advert break every couple of
minutes into their feed. And so that means that instead
of five years ago when you had one advert at the beginning and
maybe one at the end in 1/2 hour podcast, you can maybe have 8910
hour breaks, right? So they're making 10 times the
money from you watching that. OK, so, so it's not because
YouTube like podcasts, it's just they're finding more ways to
make money. That's as simple as that.
So at the end of the day, podcasts are a brilliant medium.
I love podcasts and I'm delighted for all the companies
that have really lent in and taken advantage of that.
But they've done it because they had stories they needed to tell
and that was the best way to do it for for their businesses.
I could say that there are other businesses out there that have
gone and made a hour scripted special and dropped that on
YouTube and had remarkable success from that.
So there's no perfect right way. Tik Tok's probably the easiest
platform to reach pure audience and to then commercialize it
through TikTok shop, right? So that's having a huge moment.
So I think Substack's another one.
If you want to build trust, Substack is a remarkable way to
do that. So, so for me, you've got the
toolkit. The, the question is who do you
want to influence, you know, and how, how are you best going to
do that on which platform? And and that's where I would
start from if it was. It's like setting up a business,
isn't it? It's like it's actually, rather
than just creating content, it's like, you know, this is a
content business. Yeah.
You know, what's the business model, what's the opportunity?
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we all, because we
are all content producers for a living, we all obsess over
content, but that's not how the world feels about it.
You know, what problem are you solving for a portion of the
world, you know, and how can you be the number one at doing that?
And and you got to start from there.
And then content is either a small or a large part of that,
you know, and the truth is better to try very cheap to try
now very difficult to raise money to start a content
business now because everybody knows you can do it for nothing
essentially. And so I think anybody with
business plans saying I'm going to start a content company,
probably don't waste time pitching it.
Just find the way to start it without requiring any money from
anyone. And because most of the time now
that's pretty much doable physically.
And so that barrier to entry has disappeared, which means, and if
you're ATV production company, you've got as much, you know,
clout as you have if you're a college student.
And you just got to accept that, you know, and work with it and
use it to your advantage, I think.
So 2026 we talked about earlier on, you know, it really does
feel like a real inflection point.
I probably should have probably said that at the end of every
year since I meet this podcast having started it in in
lockdown. But what do you think you know,
any, anything that you're looking at in 2026 outside of
your own business, you know, in terms of trends, content trends
in terms of opportunities, you know, what's your sort of what
are your key predictions you think for 2026 in this in this
industry? Oh well, they're all going to be
wrong. So let's just start with that.
I think news influences are going to start to become more of
a thing. We saw a bit of it previously.
It's ended quite badly for some in that space, especially the a
few of the right wing kind of influencers that have tried to
become news influencers. But I think in the world of
influencing, news is a very underserved vertical.
So I think we'll see more and more of that.
And after our panel at the Digital Content Forum, it was
clear that a few of those bigger news businesses were looking at
how they could create a. Strategy for their.
Generation of talent, yeah. And so I think we'll see that.
I think the World Cup will be huge for digital in 2026.
I think the rest is football going is a is a indicator of
that. But I think we'll see so much
more content than we've ever seen before from a World Cup,
you know, on every level. And so I'm very excited to see
what innovation comes out of that.
And I think in other ways, things won't change very much.
I think we've kind of found a new social and streaming balance
now, you know, that's the industry we're in now, social
and streaming in video and and I think it's it's now a proper
ecosystem. I think the Netflix deal with
Warner Brothers is looking like an absolute car crash and I
think that will be difficult on many levels because they will
have to be rebundling across television for television to
survive in the shape that it is in the moment.
So I think you will see more and more consolidation across TV,
possibly in the UK, definitely in the US and Canada and other
places. So I think there will be a lot
of change in television, but not a lot of changing streaming and
social. The other big movies in the UK
is Paramount winning the Champions League for 2027 and I
think that will shift a few things around this year for next
year. And I think potentially the male
buying the Telegraph will do the same thing.
I think that you'll see further media consolidation across
publishing in the UK as well. So consolidating at the top
level of traditional media. But I think streaming is 1 and
the winners are quite happy with how they're doing and how things
are. I think social is very
established and essentially will become more and more of the
marketing mix, you know and and kind of Rd. value in other areas
of marketing. So the mainstream media will
consolidate to survive as a result.
Yeah. And, and being a bit more
specific about we've seen micro dramas, you know, really kind of
sweep in from China and and Asia and, and, you know, really some
of the these apps that we've seen really, really, you know,
making enormous amounts of money around the world, also in the
States and to a lesser extent in the UK.
How do you see vertical video moving forward from this point?
Because obviously at the moment it's mainly app based, but you
would imagine that that will probably different monetization
models will bring that onto the likes of you know, likes of
TikTok and the likes of Reals. I mean, you can see that they
won't do that. I I think it's still relatively
minor business model outside of China, you know, so, so I think
there's a move. It's essentially just another
way of watching a soap opera. So, so, you know, will it work
in sport? Will it work in comedy?
Will it work in other formats? I'm not sure it will actually.
You know, I think there's something about soap opera
cliffhangers that's just suits to two-minute kind of vignettes
that that you can come back to and it's a certain community
that really like them. So I think it's slight red flag,
if I'm honest, not red flag, red herring rather.
So I think it's an interesting way to get people to pay for
content, but I think it is genre specific right now and I think
it's potentially a bit limited, but I'm not a fan.
So therefore I've got a particular bias probably against
it. So I'm probably missing
something. I remember Evan Spiegel telling
us in a room once that TikTok was going to be a massive thing
when he was running Snapchat. And I kind of thought probably
overplaying it a bit here. Evan, you know, And he was spot
on, wasn't he? So I think I think things that
you don't understand you shouldn't write off, but I think
vertical video is here to stay. I think it's just another
Snapchat event I went to. I said, why are you all in
vertical video? And they said, and this is right
at the beginning of Snapchat and they said it's because it's just
more natural to hold a fan, a phone upright than it is to hold
it on its side. And so that's why we're going
to, we've taken a bet on vertical video, which is a
differentiator for them. Back in the day, nobody was
doing that. I think that I still watch
sports highlights and vertical video and you can't see the
ball. There's still lots of things
that don't work about vertical video as a kind of as a bat for
TikTok. I think they're still going to
get bigger and bigger and I think in the end, TikTok is
going to continue to disrupt YouTube more than anything else.
And YouTube is 1 television and TikTok is 1.
Social is probably what I think we're going to start to see more
and more in 2026. All right.
Well, now it's time for Story of the Week when my guests get to
nominate the content industry news story that's caught their
eye in the past few days. Sam and you've just mentioned a
few, I don't know, is it one of those going to be?
Yeah, I mean, my story of the week is Warner Brothers
Discovery being bought by Netflix and now apparently being
bought by Paramount instead. So as of today, it's changing.
Every day, right? Yeah.
And so Trump came out yesterday, didn't he?
And he said that that could be a problem, which is a which means
it is a problem. Well, and then when you read
down that story list a little bit, you realize that Paramount
is now owned by Skydarts, which is David Ellison's company.
And David is the son of Larry Ellison of Oracle fame, who is a
big pal of Donald Trump's. And so Donald Trump has decided
he doesn't like the Netflix deal, despite Ted Sarandos, Co
CEO of Netflix, going to be friendly with Trump at the White
House in recent times. And it's just really depressing,
although I think if Netflix don't that seal that deal, I
don't think it's the worst thing in the world for them.
I saw a brilliant article by Evan Shapiro yesterday about the
value of the actual value of that deal.
And I think it's been well overinflated.
And I don't see that buying those assets in the medium term
makes any sense for Netflix because it'd take about 40 years
to pay back, you know, by evidence estimates.
So even if you half that 20 years to pay back is a lot of
money and a lot of time. And so I think Netflix are
seeking to bundle up, but I still think they've got the
brand equity not to have to do that.
You know, personally, I'm not inside their business.
I think Paramount need more mainstream media very quickly
indeed to get scale because so much of what they do is aging
out. And so I think it is a more
dramatic deal and requirement of them and that's why they're
bidding so aggressively to win it.
I think if they do win it, hopefully Netflix find another
way to come again. It was interesting that their
lawyers, Paramount lawyers actually, you know, waved a
flag, didn't they? And actually came out just
before the Netflix deal was announced, I think a day or two
before sort of crying foul a little bit in terms of that
deal. But it's it sounds like this is
a tussle that's going to go on a little while.
Yeah, doesn't it? Possibly.
And you know, I think it's disappointing because it doesn't
feel like it's a apples and apples comparison at the moment.
And it feels must be quite worrying to work in those bigger
companies and realize that the deals aren't necessarily being
assessed on it in a completely scientific way by the powers
that be. Well, let's move on to Hero of
the Week. Sam, who or what is your hero of
the week? What is?
Is there somebody out there that you want to sort of glaze, as my
daughter would say? Glaze.
Yeah, I love a glaze so I'm going to glaze Curly Media, a
company I'm not sure you know about.
Not many people necessarily will yet.
Run by Emma and Laura who just dropped the Spotify Unwrapped in
the UK. So Spotify Unwrapped commissions
an amazing film and that's had been unbelievably successful.
That came out last week. And you'd expect that to come
from a top kind of advertising production company.
But no, it came from a proper original digital company who by
working super hard for Spotify on a number of other tasks and
got the opportunity to to do the big one.
And they've absolutely smashed it and it's relevant.
It's brilliant. It's all those things that you'd
love it to be. And it it's full of the best
talent and the best creators. And it's all if you know, you
know, references and it's just a wonderful piece of work.
And when you see things like that coming from companies, I
mean, I've been lucky enough to work with them for the last few
years and, and you just think sometimes the good guys get what
they deserve, you know, it's a lovely moment.
This week. Well, that's good to see that.
Well, there we go. That's curly media getting
glazed there. And who or what are you telling
to get in the bin, Sam? FIFA.
Right. Yeah.
I'm just, I just think we should put the whole of FIFA in the
bin. Oh, my God.
And I think we should like, then staple the bin shut.
And I think we should put Sellotape around it again and
again and again and again. And I think you should set fire
to it. And then I should think we
should offer it to Elon Musk to send to Mars and then explode.
Yeah. Yeah, Oh my God, 2 1/2 hours
that show. But let's do enough vibes in my
life that I've never gained, yeah?
I'm just very glad that they brought about World Peace,
because like, if they hadn't, it would have been a bit of a
stretch, wouldn't it? You know?
But now they brought about World Peace.
It's actually fine. I love Trump putting the medal
on himself. That was a beautiful thing to
see. And and the kind of banter
between Rio Ferdinand and the floor was like just was not
working. And it was just the biggest
cringe moment of the year, I think.
Yeah, well, Dubai's newest full time resident, Rio Ferdinand.
Is that right? Apparently so.
OK, Well, yeah, he was a Leeds player for a short amount of
time, but he went, he chose, he chose the wrong path after that.
But there we are. Sam, thank you so much for
coming on the show. Brilliant to see you.
Really exciting what you're doing in the new business.
So I look forward to hearing more about that over the next
year or so. And you know, I wish you a great
Christmas and point your feet up out there at On the Farm.
Yeah, Thank you, Justin. Always a pleasure to be on
telecast and be part of this amazing community that you've
built. You know, kudos to you five
years in, it's a really impressive thing that we often
and everybody in the industry loves what you're doing and feel
very supported by you and your team, you know, really helping
us all come together in in brilliant way.
So thank you for that. Thanks, Sam.
That's brilliant. OK, well, that's about it for
this week's show. Telecast was produced by Spirit
Studios and recorded in London. We'll be back next week with
another show. Until then, stay safe.