TellyCast at MIPCOM (Part 1) — Jodi Whittaker, Emily Atack, Nella Rose, Holywater, Shaftesbury and more

TellyCast is back in Cannes for Day One of MIPCOM 2025 — bringing you the biggest new shows, the freshest formats, and the digital-first innovators transforming the global content business.

Justin Crosby talks to Jodie Whittaker and Elizabeth Berrington about Frauds — the hit ITV drama created by Suranne Jones and Anne-Marie O’Connor — as it makes waves with international buyers.

Then it’s format innovation with Richard Cowles of Lifted Entertainment and Jonty Nash and Chris Potts of Nobody’s Hero, joined by Emily Atack, discussing the making of Nobody’s Fool — the quiz-meets-reality hybrid co-hosted by Atack and Danny Dyer.

Mike Beale, Managing Director of Creative Network at ITV Studios, reveals the company’s new global formats including Celebrity Sabotage, The Neighbourhood, and Nobody’s Fool, and explains how ITV is working with creators across the evolving entertainment landscape.

From the digital-first front, Neil Francis of Night Train Digital talks about the studio’s new micro-drama partnership with Spirit Studios, while Bogdan Nesvit and Anatolii Kasianov from HolyWater unpack their landmark deal with Fox Entertainment and how AI and vertical video are shaping the future of storytelling.

Nella Rose, Specs Gonzalez join Callum McGinley (Callux) and Ben Doyle (Rvbberduck) to talk about her new show and After Party Studios.

Then we have Victor Bengtsson from Sidemen Entertainment on what comes next for the supergroup creator collective

Finally, Jay Bennett, EVP of Creative and Innovation at Shaftesbury, joins Justin to discuss the Canadian company’s digital-first strategy, its success with short-form storytelling, and how traditional producers can evolve to meet the demands of the social video era.

Recorded on location in Cannes, this episode captures the energy, creativity, and big ideas driving the future of global TV and social video.

Sponsored by ITV Studios

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Transcript

Justin Crosby: [00:00:00] Hi, I am Justin Crosby and welcome to the TellyCast TellyCast special part one. Coming up on this week's show, we are gonna be speaking to creators. We're gonna be speaking to Talen, we're gonna be speaking to TV industry insiders, and we're gonna be speaking to Digital First studios. So let's get into it. So my first guests on this week's mip com special TellyCast.

Um, it's, it's basically four guests in one. We've got, uh, Richard Cos from Lifted Entertainment. We've got John t Ash and Chris Potts from Nobody's Hero. And we've got Emily Atak and we're gonna be talking about Nobody's Fool, which is launching here, uh, at Cannes. So, uh, welcome everybody. How are you? 

Richard Cowles: Very good, thank you.

Enjoy sunshine. 

Emily Atack: What you all can't see is that we're all in this. Little hotel room. It looks like an after party of some kind. It's really fun. [00:01:00] It's really fun. We're having a great time. 

Justin Crosby: We are. It's, and it's, uh, it's extremely posh as well, which is what you expect and can. Um, so let's, let's, uh, talk about Nobody's Full, which is, uh, a really different, uh, kind of quiz game show, and it's a whole sort of mashup, uh, of different styles.

So, um, jti, tell us about the, the key premise for the show. 

Jonty Nash: Well, if it's okay, I'll start with the inspiration point. 'cause I think that really helps with setting up the premise and it's basically, well, I don't like, I wouldn't like to say I'm Chris's muse, but maybe I was a little bit for this because I'm objectively a stupid person.

Uh, I think by all measures, but logic, maths, general knowledge. I'm quite a dump, like, and when Chris and I first moved to la, nothing would make him more mad than hearing Americans think that I was intelligent because of my English accent. And he would like, and he would stew over this. And so for years, we've always have talked about this [00:02:00] idea of like preconceptions of intelligence and just how some people can surprise you both ways.

Someone you think is really dumb, is really clever, and someone who you think is really clever like me is actually a surprising idiot. And we, again, we, we love formats, we love quiz, and we're like, maybe there's something in this idea of putting a quiz inside a house reality show that explores all of these ideas, like the preconceptions of intelligence, um, having a quiz as this, a format engine.

So again, just to stop rambling like an idiot, um, in essence, the, the, the premise is. It's a really fun quiz that takes place in a house when no one knows how well anyone is doing in the quiz. And that really sets the scene for a load of, uh, drama, comedy, uh, backstabbing surprises. So, uh, yeah, I've probably done a [00:03:00] terrible job.

Again, I can't say how much an idiot I am, but, uh. If you pass over to the smart people, they'll probably help. 

Justin Crosby: Well, um, Krista, tell us about, um, how this, how this, uh, how, how, how it developed essentially, because it is, like I said, a mashup of different styles and different, uh, formats all in one. So, so just tell us about how you started to piece this together and, and how you, you you came to work with, uh, with Richard and lifted on this.

Chis Potts: Yeah, I mean, I think it is that it's piecing it together. We, you know, we come up with shows in all kinds of different genres. We come up with game shows, come up with riyad shows, come up with competition. So yeah, it was kind of a starting point of like, how do we bring all that into one thing? Will that be too much or will it work?

Um, which we didn't know until we shot it turned out it worked, which is good. Um, but yeah, and it was also, there are so many strategic reality competitions now, or psychological reality competitions, and it's always lots of people in a house and they're always scheming, they're always backstabbing. There are always been [00:04:00] devious in close corner.

But it sometimes feels like that's all that's happening. So we kind of thought, well, if you give this, if you have this kind of secret quiz going on, it gives all of that other stuff meaning and purpose. You know, everybody's playing this quiz, everyone's doing the same quiz, everyone's trying to build up this big money prize.

Nobody knows who is actually building it up the most and who's just pretending to. And so that question runs through the whole show. And then you have this reason at the end for the classic kind of, okay, we now need to eliminate someone. But it isn't just based on personality, it isn't just based on guessing.

It is based on who do we actually think is helping us win the most amount of money here? Um, so that was really the kind of. Key idea behind it. 

Justin Crosby: So it's, it's not necessarily about how clever you are, it's about how clever other people think you are. Is that right? 

Richard Cowles: Yeah, it's exactly that. You've basically, you, and this is what we did when we were approaching casting, is you want a group of people who, some are book smart, so [00:05:00] they really clever, you know, they pin to Oxford or Cambridge or whatever, and you know that they are super smart.

There are other people who feel that they're equally smart, but they're not necessarily book smart, and they feel that they can play a slightly different game and convince everyone that they're as smart as everyone else. Ultimately, there's sort of different ways within the show that you can, uh, you can prove yourself.

So you've got the quiz, which takes place in secret with Emily. No one knows how anyone's done. But then there are also other challenges. There's the smart house itself. So even to get a coffee, you've got to. Crack some sort of code. So can you go and get people coffee and prove to them that you're smart?

Or if someone asks for you, you for a coffee and you can't make it, you're exposing yourself as a bit of an idiot. Uh, and then we have the group challenges, which basically is a way for people to see how other people react and how other people play that game. And are people as smart as they're saying they are or are they not?

And then it all comes to a head in the valuation room, which is super dramatic. 

Justin Crosby: So, so Richard, tell [00:06:00] us about how the, uh, co-production, so it's a co-production between nobody's hero and Lifted. How, how did that come about? 

Richard Cowles: So, uh, we got, I mean, we love Chris and Jonty. They always come to, with ideas that are, uh, slightly, they, they're sort of familiar, but slightly.

Off kilter and slightly different, which we love. And I think what we always do at Lifted is we try and add a sense of mischief to every show that we do. You know, in Love Island, we take the piss out of ourselves in, I'm a Celebrity, we do the same. And I think what was fun about this was, it's a really serious endeavor, but there is a sort of an undercurrent of fun.

Everyone is enjoying and relishing the fact that they can quiz hard, lie harder. And then obviously with Emily and Danny, we could just ramp that up and it was, they sort of embodied the spirit of the show, which is that sense of mischief. 

Justin Crosby: Right. And, and you onto Emily, and we're gonna talk to Lucas. You are, you co-host, essentially with the Danny Dyer.

Right. 

Emily Atack: I love that. I've come off the back of the word mischief. Thank you. [00:07:00] Uh, so over to Emily. Um, yes. I, I, I did, and you know, DI think Danny and I we're, we are very similar and very different, similar, same kind of vibes as, as Chris and Jonty, but, um, it, I feel like. Danny and I, our similarity is that our entire lives.

Were growing up at school, not being hugely academic, um, but having, having enough about us to kind of do okay in life, you know, and people underestimated people like me and Danny through school, I think. Um, so that's, that's kind of, we, we kind of really, uh, we resonate with that. We resonate with the contestants.

You know, you've got these Oxford, Cambridge graduate types, bookish smart, and then you've got these very street smart people and it's, you know, who it's, it's a battle with, with between those two. And yeah, that's, that's kind of why I was drawn to it. 'cause my whole life I've been judged as a, a mischievous blonde.

Oh, you know what, can you know? What do you know? Um, but I like proving people wrong in my life. You know? [00:08:00] I, okay. Admittedly, my GCSEs. Spelt out the word fudge. But I, but no, I, I, I've done All right. In life, I would say. And yeah, I think Danny and I have always kind of bonded over that. Um, yeah, it, you, you don't need to be bookish smart to be, to be able to kind of, um, progress and, and impress people.

And you know, in these days, young people especially, they're so, they're so worried about their exam results. Don't get me wrong, stay in school kids. But it's like, but it's not all about that. And I think, um, yeah, and I think me and Danny, we, we kind of celebrate that. In the show a lot. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. And, and it's, it is about different types of intelligence, isn't it?

You know, like you say that the, the, there may, you may be bookish and smart and an Oxford graduate, whatever, but you know, you might not be able to figure out how to, I know, you know, not quite switch a cat on, but there may be other practical elements that, you know, that you can't quite work out. And is that really what this show sets out to explore?

Emily Atack: [00:09:00] Completely. And, you know, we love there, there's been so many reality shows now. Um, obviously we've got our love islands, our big brothers, everything. And that it's, it's, it's about so many different, it's about a. A lot of it is about popularity and, um, but this is literally about how you can outsmart each other.

Um, it doesn't matter what background you're from, doesn't matter what kind of education you've had. Um, it just gives it, it gives it a, a different edge. I think this kind of show, um, it's very fresh. Uh, I loved it. I got so emotionally involved in it. I mean, I don't wanna give anything away, but towards the, I couldn't believe how engulfed I was in it.

And at the end it's just, I, I just, I find it so incredible and you, you do become really involved with these people and you really care about them. And I think, I think that's kind of what Danny and I, again, we, we sort of bring to it. Danny, Danny will sort of say it a bit more bluntly than me. He'll go, you know, we are, we are not squeaky clean presenters.

That's sort of how he says it. We're not squeaky clean presenters. Definitely not. We, we are. I feel like [00:10:00] we are, we're more involved, we're kind of more emotionally involved, um, uh, because we can't keep our mouth shut and can't keep our opinions to ourselves. So I think that gives it a bit of an edge, um, whether or not it's gonna go on post watershed.

I don't know with Danny's language, but, uh, but yeah, it, it's, it's, it's interesting and it's, it's a different, it's got a, an edge to it. Congrats guys. It's very much better. It's amazing. It's amazing. And, and how 

Justin Crosby: would you describe your onscreen chemistry with Danny then? 

Emily Atack: Oh, I, I love Dani. I mean, we've obviously, we've done rivals together, so I've built such a great friendship with him.

Um, he is honestly the funniest person. In the world. Um, he says it, you know, the term says it like it is, says it like he literally says everything that is in his head. He has no filter. Um, he's so funny and he's so, but he's warm and he cares. And he's got the most caring nature, uh, of, of anyone I've ever worked with.

He's so, he [00:11:00] so cares about people. Um, and yeah, I'm the same. I'm very sensitive to people's, to how people are feeling and, and what, and you know, and Danny and I would go into the room and the contestants would be sitting there with their slightly scared little faces, but I think we get, give them a slight sense of relief.

We sort of helped them through it. And I think it, it, it just feel, it felt, well, it, personally for me, uh, it felt like we were a bit more involved. Um, and well, I like to hope that the contestants felt that as well and sort of felt like, you know, we were. We're gunning him, but also Danny Will will kind of be, he'll make it obvious when he thinks you're being a bit of a dick.

Like I leave that to him. But yeah, it's, it's, it's different. It's definitely different. 

Justin Crosby: You, you, you mentioned, you know, feeling a little bit emotionally connected with some of the contestants then, I mean, um, tell us about that, you know, without obviously any spoilers, but, um, but because you, you, you host a, a, a part of the show yourself called Quiz Pods, right?

Mm-hmm. And so [00:12:00] explain what, what, what the quiz pods element is. 

Emily Atack: Oh, those pods. Um, it, I, I loved the quiz pod because I, it was, it's like full, it's very different to the bits that where Danny and I together sort of giving out the tasks and things. Um, it's like my one-on-one. So it's, it's the contestants coming into my private little pod, um, which sounds very odd, but it, it will make sense when you see it.

They come into my pro and I'm, I'm the quiz master, the quiz host, and, uh, I, yeah, I, I literally give, give them all a quiz. It's the same quiz. And. They, they get their score, but they, it's up to them. They, they either lie or tell the truth about how they did in the quiz pod. Um, and it was, that was really lovely for me because I got to be one-on-one with the, with the contestants.

I sort of, you know, asked them how they're doing a little bit, even if I've got similar Maria going, come on Emily, move on. I'm like, how are you lover? Um, but yeah, it's, that was really nice for me and I'm really, [00:13:00] I'm really glad I got to do that. And you know it, you do get to know them more, uh, in on, in that one-on-one thing and yeah, it just, I really cared.

I really did care. Um, so that was really great. I dunno if I've explained that very well, but have I explained that very well? The, the pod? I think so. Yeah. That's what happens 

Richard Cowles: in the quiz pod. 

Emily Atack: No. What happens in quiz pod? I didn't know if I was allowed to say this. What happens in quiz pod stays in quiz pod?

Now this is a phrase I was trying to get. I was trying to make it catch on. I dunno if it does. We'll see. But, um, yeah, it's meant to be what happens in quiz ball stays in quiz ball, but they have to explain, they, they do have to say how they did, and it's up to you, up to the other contestants whether they believe the other contestant or not how they did.

Yeah. Does that make sense? Exactly. Yeah. Sort of. 

Justin Crosby: And so, so it format obviously, you know, plays with this paranoia deception and nobody knows who's winning until the end, which is one of the, uh, really different sort of twists to it. Um, uh, did that make it more difficult to film? I mean the, just that, that whole, just this [00:14:00] very, it sounds complicated, but it's not when you actually watch it, it's, it's, you know, it's all of this, uh, like I say, the paranoia that you're playing on, I mean, did, did it make, did it make it more intense to film?

Jonty Nash: I wouldn't say intense again, there, there were other sort, again, not, not struggles, but the thing that we really wanted to get right in production is. Really making sure that the, the whole show is incredibly play along for the audience at home. So every episode, um, there's a new quiz in the quiz pod and thematically the group challenge and the, uh, smart house challenge is related to that.

So for example, one day, um, was, was math and that maths, I've been in America too long. Math. Math, who am I? Sorry, apologies. My English family math. And then the, the group challenge was related to maths too, again. So [00:15:00] it gave gave everyone an opportunity to, to see how, you know, whether people were potentially telling porkies in how they did in the quiz pod.

So I think one of the, one of the hardest things was just making sure that we had the quiz and the group challenges really buttoned up in a way. That would create all this, these interesting storylines, uh, within the house. And, and it's, it's a new show. It's a new format, and you just hope that the contestants play the game that, um, that, that you want them to play.

Um, and they all did. They all did. It was just, and except, I mean, again, I, there are a lot of people very stressed, doing a very, very good job. I bumbled around just really enjoy everything. Play, playing along, watching the quiz pods in the, uh, in the gallery. But, uh, yeah. Chris, Richard, you wanna jump in? 

Chis Potts: Yeah, no, I think making a first series of any game show is kind of tense and stressful because contestants are being asked to play a new game.

They haven't watched it for 10 [00:16:00] years on tv, so they, you know, where they're waiting to get on and have their turn. This is completely new to them. And not only that, you're then asking them to play on a game show effectively, where they can completely lie about how well they're doing, which is another thing that is.

Not expected. When you're on a game show, normally everyone can see exactly how well you're doing. Um, so there was always that nervousness of like, are they going to latch onto this new game? And then are they gonna play it in the way that we're hoping they're gonna play it? Um, but I think the answer was yes to both.

So, 

Emily Atack: but it was, it was so interesting. Sorry just to jump in, but it was so interesting for Danny and I because, well, especially me doing the quiz pods, because they would, you know, I know I, I knew exactly how they did in the quiz pod and then, but then when we got to the, um, what we calling it valuation?

Yeah. The, yeah, the valuation room. Um, they, when I, when they all start sort of saying how they did and giving their answers, I know how they did it. So then you, then Danny and I, we start to kind of go, uh, like, you know, but you can't, 

Speaker 6: yeah. 

Emily Atack: And it's kind of like, yeah, but we're not allowed to, [00:17:00] because if me and Danny start going.

Oh, at each other. It's kind of obvi, you know? So yeah, everyone's gotta sort of have a game face on. Even Danny and I, and that's kind of where we are. We are all playing a game, essentially, because I can't let any of the other contestants know what, I'm a bit like a doctor. You know, I, I'm under oath. I can't, like, I, whatever they, whatever's been going on in, in my quiz pod, I can't let that be known in the valuation room.

Justin Crosby: So that's challenging for you as well. There's a bit of, not quite deception, but you've gotta be poker face. Right? 

Emily Atack: Hugely. Like, and I'm ter I'm actually terrible at that. So I, I, when, you know, if I see somebody give their amount that they said that they put into the pod, and I know, or when they're talking about how they did in the quiz pod, and I know that actually they did the opposite of that.

I have to stop myself going, oh, oh my God. But I'm just. Standing there like this, like, 

Speaker 6: mm. 

Emily Atack: And like, like there the, there are some moments where Danny and I would start to look at each other and realize, no, we're not allowed to do that. So that was, it's just so fun. [00:18:00] It's so fun. It's great. 

Justin Crosby: And, uh, finally, Richard, um, uh, the show is launching here at mip com, uh, to, uh, to international buyers and it's, it, it feels like a format that could really travel as well.

I mean, um, uh, what do you think makes the show stand out to buyers, international buyers? 

Richard Cowles: I think although it, when you see the show and when you see the sizzle and you see the show, you completely get it. It's quite hard to explain. We found this all the way through. Mm-hmm. There, it's fundamentally quite hard to explain, but the real, the simplicity of it is you go into a quiz pod, you lie about how you've done, and then people can try and catch you out through the day.

And then you get to the end to this final valuation room. And are you able to hold the lies all the way to the end and stay in the competition? And it's, um. It's really relatable. You watch these people and you do, like, as John said, you play along and you are kind of. I, and, and you bring all your preconceptions and you think, well, the posh bloke that went to [00:19:00] Eaton, he must be really clever.

And yeah, I'm not sure you know, that girl, she's a dancer. Does she really? And there's kind of, you bring all of your prejudices and then very quickly you realize that actually we don't know anyone and everything is, uh, a really great play along game as you go through. So, and I think that relates to any market, um, and you, and it's scalable.

We've done it in sort of, there's some quite big challenges in there, but you could do it in lots of different ways, uh, depending on, you know, what your territory will. Alright. 

Justin Crosby: Okay. Well, um, Emily, uh, thank you very much for joining us, uh, your first time in Cannes. 

Emily Atack: It's my first time in Cannes. I love it so much.

I was just saying I didn't think I was a materialistic person. I've been in every single shop pretending that it's not real money, it's, you know, monopoly money. Um, I love the Rose. I've been flirting with the waiters. Spoke to my fiance, he won't mind. Um, I've had a lovely time and I've, I haven't even been here for 24 hours, [00:20:00] so yeah, I've a, I'm having a great time.

Justin Crosby: Fantastic. Well, uh, Richard. John t, Chris and Emily, thank you so much for joining us and good luck with nobody's fault. 

Richard Cowles: Thank you.

Justin Crosby: I'm here with Elizabeth Barrington and Jody Whitaker, stars of Fraud, a brand new ITV drama, which has done incredibly well as, so congratulations on that. 

Jodi Whittaker: Thank, thank you much. We'll take full credit. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah, 

Jodi Whittaker: just US two. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: And we are here in Cannes and you're selling the show internationally, and there's lots of international buyers really, uh, interested in the show.

So for those who haven't seen it, well, it's on ITVX now for UK views, but, um, for those who haven't seen it, tell us about, uh, what frauds is. 

Jodi Whittaker: Well, frauds is a show that's been, um, created by Saran Jones and, and written by Annemarie O'Connor, and it centers around, I would say, a group of misfit. Who living out in Spain try and pull off the biggest heist of their lives, which [00:21:00] involves a well-known piece of art and a group of very interesting morally questionable characters, both of which we play 

Elizabeth Berrington: some of those arts.

Yeah. So it's, so, it's a really fascinating story about those friends that you should have dropped a long, long time ago by. We've all got them, Sara. Yeah. But you know, in their, their questionable moral code, as far as they're concerned, they're all doing the right thing. They're gonna do this one job, one and done, and then they'll be out, and then they'll really be able to be living the dream, which they all think they so richly deserved, but they're all running away from something.

They've all, you know, they're already living abroad, you know, they've escaped whatever they have in the, wherever they come from. 

Jodi Whittaker: There's a lot of secret. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Right. Yeah. They're a 

Elizabeth Berrington: messy, they're a messy, they're, they're a messy one. Messy, messy bitches. Yeah. Yeah. As I do call you and Sara, at one point, 

Justin Crosby: and this is, this was, uh, so set in Spain.

Yes. Um, oh, and what was the [00:22:00] experience like filming this? 

Jodi Whittaker: So we shot in Tene, which is beautiful. Yeah. It was really the, the landscape is so fantastic there because you've got the beautiful kind of arid, you know, the, the, we, we were able to get these incredible, like drone shots of like set in the scene.

Coastal Louise. Yeah. Really. But it has like a real western element to it as well. Um, and, and, but also within Tennery you've got this beautiful, lush kind of greenery as well. So there was, it has, it feels so authentic, but it has this beautiful kind of epicness to it, I suppose. And it feels like different to a normal British ITV show because it has this.

Huge Spanish element and with incredible Spanish characters and the, the, it it feels for us, like we're in an an a European drama. Yeah. Which is so exciting. Yeah. It 

Elizabeth Berrington: feels like a really lovely, you know, European show with, um, lots of sort of European actors in it and, and, and also that story [00:23:00] of the heist, which is so sort of international.

So there's definitely something for everyone. And what I love about it is there's women leading from the front and the center, but there's still plenty, plenty of guys in the show who really, really kind of make their mark. But it's also a show that you could comfortably watch with kind of family or young family who could watch it with your teenagers.

'cause there's no bit swear there's no women dead in a bush. Uh, which I've got a real kind of thing about this is refreshingly not crime, true crime. But at the same time, you know, there's jeopardy and threats. You don't, you know, they're all hanging on there by the skin in their teeth, aren't they? So you don't quite know what's gonna happen.

Next. 

Justin Crosby: It's interesting you say 'cause 'cause it's, it's quite rare for a sort of a female fronted drama in this, in this style, right? Yeah. That it's, it's interesting that it's never been, never been attempted before, but you know, it's, it's massively, you know, it's done massively well and 

Jodi Whittaker: I think that's the thing when Surround and Anne Marie were creating it, you feel like, you know, particularly surround, she, she an, an amazing actress, but she.

Knows what [00:24:00] she's sent, she sees the landscape of what's out there. And actually all of our characters feel completely different to anything that any of us have played. And so that is why it's such a joy to be in it. And it isn't just, it has this heightened heist, you know, kind of genre setting. But at also fundamentally it's about relationships.

It's about friendships, it's about guilt. It's about, you know, the, the, the toxic nature that some female friendships and the particularly bur and Sams can like tread such a fine line between love and hate continually. And it, it has, it is based within that. But because of annemarie's amazing writing, it can, you can be screaming and shouting at each other and then be absolutely laughing your head off at each other.

It has like drama within a laugh out loud moments and settings. 

Elizabeth Berrington: Yeah, like Jodi was just saying that incredible fight, which is so beautifully shot, it's so filming that they have in the swimming pool. So it's both sort of beautiful but really, really real. [00:25:00] Yeah. And that like possibly the first time that you see Anne's character bur throne when she suddenly Yeah.

Is faced with um, Sam's dark side. So she knows that this girl's gonna throttle her unless she can come up with the right answer. But then somehow after this really brutal in swimming pool, slap up, knock up, they end up having a sort of laugh about it. And also something else that she said as well about northern accents here in Cannes.

You know, there's quite a lot of sort of northern comedy vibes going on, which I think Annemarie write is from Bradford. 

Jodi Whittaker: And you can absolutely tell there's a lot of wit within it. Yeah. So that's, uh. It's, you know, nice. Always nice. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Well, um, thank you so much for joining us guys. It was like, you know, congratulations on fraud.

It looks fantastic. Thank you very much. And it's really, really enjoyable. So, uh, uh, and I'm sure it's gonna sell really, really well at this marketplace. And, uh, and, uh, and, and, and, uh, thank you again. We'll see you very soon. No worries. Thank you very much. Thank you. [00:26:00] So I'm here with Mike Beal, who's managing director of Creative Network at ICV Studios.

Mike, hello. Hi, Justin. How you doing? I'm all right. I'm very, very good. We're day one of mip com and feels like day five. Yeah. And it's, it's, uh, it's obviously a really big event for ICV studios. So, um, first of all, tell us about, uh, your role at ITV studios. What does, what does that mean? The managing director of Creative Network?

Mike Beale: Yeah, sure. So, um. We decide, obviously we're, we're 13 countries, 60 plus labels. Um, but what we wanna make sure we're doing is making sure that we're working together and that we're not sitting in silos. So part of my role is to make sure we're all talking to each other. Um, that's both studios, production and, uh, global partnerships, our distribution arm.

So I sit in a role that works across those, those things. Digital, um, gaming, uh, anything, any sort of vertical that we, we might be doing. Um, on the format side specifically, we try and drive a creative brief within [00:27:00] ITV studios. What do we need? What does the world need, um, and how do we deliver that? Uh, I'm also responsible for third party formats coming into ITV studios, um, and to some extent on, onto the network.

We work closely with ITV Network, of course. Um, and then finally, I, I have a team that, um, sort of manage all the brands, format brands. So, um, operating outta Hil. Uh, they fly around the world and make sure the shows are well made, um, made to brand and, uh, made safely. 

Justin Crosby: And these are some of the biggest TV brands in the world, aren't they?

So give give us a, give us a idea of the few of the brands that we've talked about. About, 

Mike Beale: yeah. So, so those key brand, it's the voice and all of its many spinoffs with kids and, uh, uh, seniors and generations and rappers. Um, uh, it's Love Island and it's various forms around the world. Uh, uh, hell's Kitchen, that's still traveling well for us.

Come dine with me, uh, and I'm a celebrity. Get me out of Here. Is is the other one that we, we spend a lot of our time on. And then below that is a plethora of other shows that we're. [00:28:00] Um, excited about, especially obviously the ones we've launched in the last couple of years, um, and sort of just trying to get them going and, and push 'em through things like a party to die for, um, which came out of Holland and Double the Money, which came out of South Roar in the uk, um, which is starting to travel now.

As, as you would've seen, uh, our press conference this morning. We announced a sale in Spain for that. So, um, we, we are, we are a support function, I guess, within ITV studios to help drive and support the, um, format community. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: And now TellyCast is obviously, you know, a really crucial event in the calendar for many media businesses and ITV studios, obviously no exception to that.

So, um, you've be, you've really used this event to launch new formats to international buyers here, of course. And, and, and new shows. Give, give us a taste of what you've unveiled, uh, at TellyCast this year. 

Mike Beale: Yeah, sure. It's, it's definitely a great moment in time. Um. Uh, uh, to focus everybody on the new stuff. So we, we've launched four new original formats here.

Uh, [00:29:00] nobody's full, which will be coming to ITV one next year. Uh, celebrity Sabotage also for IV one. Then we've got, now you're testing me, um, uh, uh, worlds Apart, which launched on Channel four just last week. Um, and Time Is Money, A new quiz, uh, for ITV one. Uh, but we also announced a new development deal, uh, with banjo formats, uh, with, uh, Caston, Barlin and, um, Kennet, uh, Christensen from Denmark.

Um, because we're still, you know, we're still wanting to push that creative, um, drive within it V Studios. So, uh, no, it's, it, it's a good moment. And look, everybody's focused on, on what they're doing for 26, probably 27 now already. Um, and we can see everybody and tell them what, what we're up to. Uh, and alongside obviously the London screenings in February, it gives us a great moment or two moments within the year.

Um, to say what's going on. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Now, mep, comm's key theme this [00:30:00] year is creator economy. Um, so tell us a little bit about how ICV studios is approaching the, the creator economy. 

Mike Beale: Yeah, sure. I mean, we, we've been doing a lot of work with creators already through our sort of key brands, um, over a few years actually sort of the voice, uh, uh, Saturday Night Takeaway originally, and, um, more recently Love Island, where, um, they want to talk about our brands and talk about our shows.

But that's definitely sort of the low hanging fruit. I think the, the next stage for us is, is how do we work with them closely? And I think that's in two key ways is, is how do we help them create, how do we help, you know, they create an awful lot of content. Um, and we know now that we develop an awful lot of content.

How do those two worlds marry? I think we've gotta learn that, uh, uh, actually, both sides have gotta learn that how, how could we do things together? And you can see within the creator economy, you, you know, even the biggest ones, you know, they're going back to their television heritage to make, to make their content.

So why not create. [00:31:00] Television heritage. Um, and then the other thing is there's still a desire from creators. I, I mean, the last time I was at your event, um, you had four creators on stage all saying they would like to get onto television. Yeah. So that desire is still there and we've seen it with, with Mr.

Beast and the Side Men. Yeah. Um, both going to, well want to, Amazon want to Netflix, so, um, it can be a two way street. So how, how, how do, we've just gotta learn how we make that work 

Justin Crosby: and talking about digital content from neat segue there. Thank you to, uh, to what we're gonna be doing together. Yeah. Um, uh, which we can, uh, talk about now, which is basically digital formats lounge.

Yeah. Uh, the bridge, uh, that we've, uh, we ran last year, but this year we're doing something different with you guys. Yeah. Which is gonna be really interesting. And, uh, so you are gonna be bringing a number of your. Brands essentially along, uh, uh, studio labels along. 

Mike Beale: Yeah. So we, we, I mean, and, and Oh, uh, I, I think I told you as, as I told them, we were doing it, the, the number that signed up for it already are, are incredible.

They, you know, they want to meet these creators. [00:32:00] They, they're talent, they're, they're amazing talent that we want to work with. So, but hard to me, you know, how do you, how do we get in touch with these people? How do we tell them what we do? So it's a, it's a brilliant opportunity for our labels to sit down with those creators and for those creators to sit down with our labels and, and start to answer this question that I've just posed.

Yeah. Is, is how and what do we do together? And, and there's no rules. It's, it's, um, proper partnerships. How do we, how can we help you in, in your world? Um, and, and therefore, and then how can we potentially help you come into ours? Yeah. Um, and hopefully on that journey we both learn something. Yeah. Proper creative collaboration.

Absolutely. You're talking about Yeah. Ab absolutely. Um, that, and that's what will lie at the heart. I mean, they're not, I mean, they're called creators. 

Speaker 6: Yeah. 

Mike Beale: Um, as are we. And, um, you know, I, look, I have a firm belief that, that, that there's a lot of, a lot of talk here about television and YouTube and I, I, I have a firm belief that those, those two ecosystems can operate or do [00:33:00] by the way, not can do, operate in perfect harmony.

Yeah. Um, we, we have to adapt in, in how we take advantage of that. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Well, we are bringing along a, a number of creators to meet with your team. Yeah. So that's gonna be really fascinating to see what comes out of that. So. That's really exciting. Um, so we'll see you there. Looking forward to it. 6th of November, BFI, south Bank, Mike, great to see you.

Have a great mip com. Thanks very much Justin. Take care. So I'm here with Neil Francis from Night Train Digital Neil, how you doing? 

Neil Francis: Very well, thank you. Thank you for having me. Good to be here. 

Justin Crosby: Great to have you on the show. Um, here we are at TellyCast. We're here on the beach. Beautiful. Sun's out. It's a beautiful day.

Um, so Night Train digital is, uh, uh, a relatively, uh, new entrant to the digital first space, although, uh, I think maybe a year or so have been established maybe a little longer than that, maybe 

Neil Francis: two years now. Uh, I'm, I'm on week three, but, but the digital team has been in place for, for nearly a couple of years, essentially, uh, as a starting point [00:34:00] to exploit the rights across the Night Train media group.

So, night Train made up of Echo rights, Bossanova Curve Media, um, exploit the rights and, and the productions that are happening across the group on digital. But hopefully as we move forward, looking to make some more digital first content and, and that kind of thing as well. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Well the, you had a, a really interesting announcement, uh, a week or so ago mm-hmm.

Uh, which was, uh, you are going into business with Spirit Studios to create, uh, a micro drama series. Exactly. Yeah. Um, so, uh, for those who may have missed that, tell us a bit about that. 

Neil Francis: So we, uh, we have co-funded a development project to begin with, with Spirit Studios looking to, uh, develop a, a micro drama between 60 to 90 episodes potentially.

Uh, looking to put a writing group together from both the traditional. Uh, kind of TV writing space, but also looking for some online talent, uh, online storytellers from, from the uk, uh, who can get together and look [00:35:00] to, to write a drama for us. Like I say, very much a development project, an experiment for, for both of us, but, but feels like a really good synergy.

Um, and to see what comes out of it really. And then look at what the distri distribution plans are from there once, once we get it off the ground. 

Justin Crosby: Well, when I saw that announcement, I mean, to me it was, um, it felt like a real, um, shift, uh, in the industry part, certainly in the UK when, uh, because obviously what we've seen in a lot of micro drama is content that's, that's produced in China.

Mm-hmm. Or a certain type of content that you might not necessarily call premium, but obviously shot on a very, very low budget. Mm-hmm. Um, but this is, you know, two established, uh, uh. Creators and distribution companies who are, you know, grownups in the TV space, if you like, in the digital space. Yep. Um, so I thought that was really interesting, a real sign of, uh, of, you know, the, the, the micro drama movement kind of [00:36:00] professionalizing in, in a little way, or certainly the content.

Neil Francis: Yeah, yeah, I would say so. I mean, it, it definitely feels like micro drama is, is the kind of hot topic at the moment. Like, even speaking to people here in the last day or so, uh, it feels like there's a boom and I, I dunno if you even saw, I read over the weekend, um, about Fox investing in holy water. That's right.

Um, and so it definitely feels like there's a movement from the more traditional world in, into that space. And we saw the same thing. We've, we've been tracking for a while. Like the team even before I joined have been tracking the. The kind of growth in the micro drama space, but just that shift in, in kind of audience consumption, I guess to, to the shorter form, uh, content style.

Um, and then when Spirit got in touch with NIT train about this partnership, it, it felt like a really nice move for us to make really interesting area to go into, both from the night train scripted content team, uh, but also the digital [00:37:00] side as well. Like this, this will be a first even internally for us to work really closely together on a project.

So that's a nice, uh, piece, especially as we look forward to the vision on the digital side for sure. Um, but like you say, hopefully being a kind of pioneer in the UK market for that, um. And definitely professionalizing, uh, that, that kind of content quality for sure. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Well, that's really exciting and you're right.

But, uh, yes. Uh, Fox, uh, taking an equity stake in Holy water was, was a story that, that, that just broke. I've actually just sat in the, uh, panel session, uh, where the guys from Holy Water were talking about their business models and, uh. Very, very exciting. 'cause they're all, they're also talking about moving into, uh, they want to talk, talk about it as vertical video, not just micro drama.

Absolutely. They're talking absolutely looking with Fox into the opportunities for unscripted Yeah. As well. Okay. When it comes to vertical. So I think, you know, it's a really interesting time that, uh, the number of media companies are exploring this space and, uh, [00:38:00] and I guess, you know, it's, it's all gonna be test and learn in the digital first way, isn't it?

Neil Francis: Yeah. That, that's exactly how we see it. But, but I, I also like to see it that, 'cause I, I think there's often like a gap between the tra traditional TV world and, and digital and, and maybe a, a fear in that space in a way around digital. I, I like to see it, that the kind of storytelling and putting a, a story and a piece of content together.

Doesn't really change that much. Micro drama maybe changes how it's put together in a way. Um, but ultimately it's just like where and how it's consumed that is evolving over time. Yeah. Um, and just keeping up with that and, and making sure you are where the audience are, I think is, is the most important thing.

Justin Crosby: So from a distributor's perspective, then working in, uh, in, uh, vertical drama. And what is the model? Because up to this point it's, it's kind of app based. Um, there's many, you know, there's, there's, there's probably half a dozen major, uh, companies like Real [00:39:00] Shorts and a number of others who are, who are, uh, uh, done incredibly well, uh, and kind of almost micropayment, uh, uh, approach.

Yes. What's, what's your view? It's probably too early to, to talk about that in detail, but, um. But, you know, would that, would that sort of distribution deal need to be exclusive with one, with one app, for example? Or is there an opportunity to talk about, you know, other social platforms? 

Neil Francis: Yeah, I, I, I see it in kind of two ways.

Like you say, it is very early. Um, some of those conversations are only just underway with, with various platforms around, um, how we might distribute with them and potentially fund the project. Right. And after, after the kind of development stage, um, from my side on the digital sphere, from Night Train, I see it as two different pieces.

So firstly, those short form pieces of content and looking at platforms to, to host those and distribute from my side. The other interesting [00:40:00] part is if, if you build a fan base and an IP for that. Uh, how can I take that, uh, all of those shorts stitch together as a single long form piece of content and also distribute that through our channels, potentially on platforms like YouTube as well.

Justin Crosby: Uh, that's really interesting. So, so, so that's, is, is that the, the approach then, you're looking at this both as a long form and short form project? For sure. For sure. 

Neil Francis: Um, and so like we, we definitely want to lean into to that true short micro drama pieces of content as, as in, and it's a very difficult format, right?

In, uh, it's specific in the sense of you need to tell a story each 60 to 90 seconds. You need to leave every single part of it on a cliffhanger. To make people wanna come back for the next episode, but also find a way that that story flows throughout all of the pieces of content. Yeah. Which is where the interest for me, when you stitch it together as a long form piece, that will be a really interesting story to view it as a 60 to 90 [00:41:00] minute piece of content, uh, will be really interesting from my side.

Longer term, when we look at distribution, especially with the nit train scripted team, we are almost depending on the success of this, we would like to think there's a world where the short form, uh, micro dramas potentially get a fan base and an IP to such a level that we can use it as a kind of experiment ground to then go and potentially commission a full long form TV series or a digital first series, um, where the fan base is behind it and then you maybe use it as a commissioning tool into a more traditional piece of content.

Yeah. So there's, there's various ways to look at it. Definitely down the platform route and, and supporting that kind of boom. Um, but also that longer form piece as well potentially. 

Justin Crosby: And, uh, we're speaking to Matt Camping tomorrow. Uh, so I'll be interested in chatting with Matt about what, what sort of role AI might play in this, because obviously, uh, it's hugely helpful for reducing [00:42:00] cost.

Yeah, and uh, and certainly, um, hearing the guys from Holy Water, you know, AI is completely integrated, the data that they're using, uh, and, and the, and and using in production as well Yeah. Is, is hugely important. So that's gonna be interesting to see if I can tease some information out of Matt 

Neil Francis: for sure.

Like from, from our side, uh, I think as a project we, we definitely want to lean in to AI to see how it can help us. We don't know is the true answer, how we are really going to use it yet. I still think there's an element of, um, hesitancy, I guess from the more traditional world in, in kind of jumping all in.

And my personal view on AI is you should absolutely use it as a tool to help you be more efficient, save costs. Um, but you still need the creators to be creative. Yeah. You still need the, the person to think of ideas behind it. We'll still need the writers to put the piece together, but how can the tools help them be more efficient in their processes [00:43:00] as well?

Justin Crosby: That's important to underline that you, you will have human writers as opposed to AI writers. Yes. And it will 

Neil Francis: be human first. Yes. Uh, with tools to assist them rather than let's get AI to write us a script Yeah. And have some writers tweak it. Yeah. Yeah. We, we are still absolutely gonna, uh, base ourselves in that cre creativity and try and promote the talent that exists in those digital first spaces.

There's plenty of writers, storytellers, creators in the UK that aren't necessarily getting the attention from traditional tv. This may be a way to bridge that gap and shine a light on, on the talent that's out there. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Um, and obviously AI Projects is, is not new to Nitrate Digital. You were involved in the, uh, uh, Michael Parkinson reboot podcast reboot, which absolutely.

How, how's that gone? 

Neil Francis: Yes, it, I mean, it was successful in terms of another experiment, right? Um, and so that it was before my time, but what we wanted to do with, uh, Parkinson [00:44:00] and team is put together is to almost bring back to life, right? Um, and have, have that, uh, very famous interview style brought back to life.

And, and it was another successful project for us where we could test and learn what works, learn what doesn't work, and feed that into future projects as well. And that's what we'll be continuing to do in that digital first space as we look to, um, invest in some content or strategies around what content we potentially acquire.

Um. In that space to be successful. 

Justin Crosby: I mean, you, you say you've just been here for three weeks at Nitron. I mean, to, to, you know, looking at Nitron, I'm, I'm really impressed with the way that, you know, you are approaching projects that other companies might shy away from. That might be a little bit, um, you know, uh, I mean the Michael Parkinson, uh, project in particular was really noisy.

Yeah. You know, um, and it caused, you know, quite a, a a lot of comment, but, which is a good thing, I think, you know. [00:45:00] Um, but, um, what's, what's next then for, for nit train? 

Neil Francis: Well, I, I think we need to like three weeks in view. Uh, we need to maximize first. My, my view is maximize what we've got access to. Yeah. Um, so definitely kind of bring together all of the content that's across the group, um, and, and maximize what we're doing with, with all of those rights.

Um, and bring. Bring those teams closer together with the digital team and, and try and, and try and work together more on those longer term. I would love us to be in a place where, where we really dive into digital first content, potentially looking at some creator led content. So again, like this is why, uh, this micro drama is such a nice project to, to bridge the gap between traditional and the digital team, but very much as a view forward as well.

Looking at how we work with talent that's already doing well [00:46:00] on the various digital platforms, but maybe give them an opportunity to make some, like more traditional style content with the background that we have around commissioning shows. Um, would, is an exciting area for me to look into. There's lots of opportunity out there.

Uh, it's for me to decide where we should focus our time. Yeah. I dunno that yet is the true answer. Yes. 

Justin Crosby: Okay. Well, we'll maybe you'll, you'll come back on the show in a few months time and, uh, yeah, I, 

Neil Francis: I would love to, but before the end of the year, we'll have a very clear strategy in place for, for 2026 and beyond, and I, I would love to come and share that.

Justin Crosby: Fantastic. Well, um, good luck at the market. Thank you. I hope it goes well for you and, uh, we'll see you again soon. Lovely. Thank you very much. Thanks. So I'm here with Bog Dan and Anatole from Holy Water Guys. Hello. Welcome to TellyCast. 

Bogdan Nesvit: Hello. Thank you for inviting. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah, not at all. And, uh, you guys are the talk of the market, I have to say.

And, you know, big announcement last week. Um, that's because of our shirts. Yeah, that's [00:47:00] it. Well, that's it. Yeah. And I love the branding as well, that, that's, you know, very creative. Love it. Um, so, uh, listen, for those who don't know about Holy Water, give us a, a bit of a brief rundown on your business. Yeah. 

Bogdan Nesvit: So Holy Water is an entertainment network.

Uh, we have, uh, different apps. Uh, each app represents a different content form. We have a books platform. My Passion, it's now one of the biggest, uh, independent books, publishing platforms in the world. Uh, so we test hundreds of books per month and the best books we turn into vertical video series, uh, at our platform, my drama, which is our biggest, uh, product, uh, it's called Micro dama, sometimes by the industry.

Um, we have 55 million users right now, and, uh, also experiment a lot with the AI to optimize our content production and speed of production. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah, well, I was gonna say that, um, I think, you know, AI must be, uh, integral to, I mean, you use it in presumably all points of the production process from development right?

The way through to, you know, production and post-production, right? 

Anatolii Kasianov: Yeah. So basically we [00:48:00] have. Two type of streams. So we have, uh, we use AI to speed up some things, for example, localization, dubbing that already available commercially models like 11 labs that you can use it without any risks. And another stream that we use is to create like pilots, AI pilots to get data very quickly.

And again, we also built on top of foundation models like VO three Sora that help us to create content. And we know that those foundation models take risk for anything. 

Justin Crosby: Right. Okay. And so, so just, uh, just for clarity, so for, uh, my drama for example, is that all AI generated generative AI content? Or is there, or is any live filming at all?

Anatolii Kasianov: Uh, it's not ai, it's live filming. So we just produce like in three months, one vertical show. It's very fast, very efficient. It's like 10 times cheaper, 10 times faster than anything done in traditional. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Uh, okay. I mean, um. I watched your panel discussion yesterday. It was really, really fascinating when you [00:49:00] were on stage with, uh, Fox Entertainment who have just invested, uh, and bought equity in holy water, which is really exciting.

So, um, tell us a little bit about what that deal means for you as a business. 

Bogdan Nesvit: Yeah. Uh, so for, for us it means, first of all, uh, access to, uh, great ips that are already loved by the audience in the United States, which is our main market and which is our biggest market as well. And it's gonna be like that, uh, in the future as well.

Uh, so access to ips and also an opportunity to elevate the quality of verticals right now because the space is called, uh, micro drama right now by a lot of people. And micro drama is about this genre that was, uh, invented in China. So basically the Chinese competitors recycle five tropes in different settings.

We believe that vertical is just another form of entertainment and it's gonna be huge, and we have to go beyond micro drama. And this partnership with Fox is, uh, the opportunity to go beyond. So elevation of quality is the second thing. And uh, also the quantity of series that we are producing. We want to become [00:50:00] the, uh, top one vertical video streaming in the world.

In order to do that, we have to double down on the quantity of content, and this is what we are gonna achieve with Fox. So access to talent, ips, um, then quantity of content, and then the elevation of quality together with them. 

Justin Crosby: So this feels like a really pivotal moment for vertical drama to use that term again, but, um, where we are gonna see some, you know, some famous household names appearing in, in vertical drama.

I mean, in terms of the business model for that. Um, obviously, you know, Hollywood talent is not cheap. Um, how do you, uh, without, without, you know, talking to about any particular deal, but, uh, in principle, how would you see that working? Would you see, um, uh, a, a-list talent, be a partner in a project as opposed to, you know, having a, you know, $10 million contract to, to appear in a, in a vertical video?

Bogdan Nesvit: Yeah, I, I think that there is, there is some indication of, uh, interest from, uh, ALIST celebrities and we already [00:51:00] have them. So I think, uh, there will be more and more people actually indicating interest because vertical series is just one of the forms of entertainment and engaging in your audience. And most of the actors and companies want to be where the audience is, and the audience spends a lot of time on social and verticals are perfect for social.

So I'm assuming that a lot of a celebrities and talent agencies are already looking into this space and taking it 

Justin Crosby: seriously. Yeah. Um, Anato, tell, tell me a little bit about, uh, user behavior on these apps. Um, because, you know, again, you're looking at all the data and it's really crucial for development.

Um, uh, when our. Typically when our, uh, consumers, you know, using it, presumably it's on their way to work or, uh, lunch breaks or things like that, just gives us a, a sense of when you see these user spikes during the day. 

Anatolii Kasianov: Yeah, so I would say it's basically competition to social media and, uh, engagement and data.

Very similar to social. So people watch in chunks and [00:52:00] they, and time goes very fast the same as you scrolling, like TikTok or YouTube shows like one, like 30 minutes feels like one minute. And that's how user engagement looks like. And basically small competition and getting audience from social media. To higher quality content as vertical series 

Justin Crosby: and, and when you're producing content.

Uh, so on average, how, how long is, is the drama that, um, uh, both per episode. And how long is the, is the mate is the one piece of content that you produce to, to, to, to, to cut that up essentially? 

Anatolii Kasianov: Yeah. So basically it's like feature, feature movies around 70, 80 minutes, cut into like one minute episode, average one minute.

And we produce like in three months, uh, from idea to Ready, production, and launch. 

Justin Crosby: Would it be in, in terms of the way that you produce it, could you watch that as a 90 minute feature movie? I mean, would it work as one piece of content or, because you have to have kind of cliffhangers every 90 seconds or something, right.

Is that, is that the sort of general [00:53:00] kind of, you know, cadence of a, of the length of a, of an episode? Is it, just talk us through that a little bit. 

Anatolii Kasianov: Yeah. I mean, audience love our content and basically it's the same that you can watch 60 Minutes on TikTok and content is very catchy. It's on based on hooks.

So all the people actually watch in like one go. The whole series because the time flies fast and there's just new way to reach audience to engage with the audience. And our content is much more engaged with what Netflix produce, uh, because at least that was, we see on social media and our content is built for this kind of social media consumption.

Right. 

Justin Crosby: Okay. Um, and do we see, you know, in terms of business model going forward, uh, bogged down, I mean, if you, um, I mean obviously at the moment the business model is based on an app, uh, and it's kind of closed garden if you like, or uh, uh, uh, situation. Do you think that we'll see eventually that moving across to general vertical social video, uh, channels as opposed to being kind of [00:54:00] living within its own app?

Bogdan Nesvit: Yeah. Uh, sure. Our, our content will be where our audience is. I think the first window will be mostly on our platform, but once we see a potential, for example, to, uh, spread our content and, uh, creativity of our creators to, for example, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, they're gonna publish there as well. We already doing experiments, publishing our series over there, uh, as a second window.

As a third window, and it works really fine. So it's, it's one of our distribution channels. Yes. That's the way we see it. 

Justin Crosby: Okay. Um, and tell us about the team then. Give us an idea of, of how big you team, so you guys are from Ukraine, right? 

Bogdan Nesvit: They're originally from Ukraine, yes. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: And, um, so do you, do you. Uh, a team still in Ukraine, but I think, I imagine you've relocated to Los Angeles, uh, or, or, or certainly in the States.

Bogdan Nesvit: So we, we still have team in Ukraine because Ukraine has amazing technical talent in terms of developers, and they're much cheaper than, for example, developers in the United States or in Europe in general. So there is still a big team in Ukraine, and most of the [00:55:00] leadership team right now is based in Portugal.

We also have an office, uh, in Cyprus. Uh, and, uh, I spend 50% of my time in Los Angeles. I think next year it might be even more. Uh, but we are mostly, we mostly spend myself and Antonio spend time around Portugal and Los Angeles. Yes. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: But presumably your production when it comes to the projects you're working on with Fox is gonna be LA based, right?

Yes. More, mostly yes, 

Bogdan Nesvit: but, uh, but it's not just LA it is gonna be 

Justin Crosby: across the world. Yes. Right, right. Exciting. Well, um, you, you started the business in 2020, is that right? Correct, yes. Five years. Five years now. Now Fox is already invested in the, what A journey, right? I mean. Um, I mean, did, did you start five years ago, um, with this very clear vision in mind?

Or is it something that you iterated, uh, as as you went through the five years? Yeah, 

Bogdan Nesvit: you know, the, the, there, there is a guy, um, I think it was Hoffman, uh, from, uh, the founder of LinkedIn. He compared building a startup is like, uh, you jump from a cliff and you build a plane on [00:56:00] the way down to, to, to, to, to the, to the, through the ground.

So it feels, it feels exactly like that. I was reading about this as theory before, but now I feel it in practice. So the, this is exactly what we did. We, we built a plane while we 

Justin Crosby: were falling down from the cliff. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and so the, the first project I think I, I, uh, uh, I, I heard in your, uh, panel session that, uh, is gonna launch probably around, around the beginning of next year.

Is that right? Is that, is that 

Bogdan Nesvit: the first project with Fox, you mean? Yeah, yeah. I I think it's gonna be sooner. It's gonna be sooner. It is gonna be this year. You are in 

Justin Crosby: production now, right? Yes. Wow. Exciting. Well, um, well, you, as I said, you are the kind of the talk of the market a little bit. You know, a lot of people are talking about you.

Um, you are going from one meeting to another, so I'm delighted that you spared a little bit of time with us. So I, we wanna wish you all the best of lot. I'll be, we'll be watching your, uh, uh, your development really closely and, uh, wishing you all the best. Thank you, Justin, 

Bogdan Nesvit: for inviting. Yeah, pleasure. Yeah, thank you.

Justin Crosby: So I'm here with two of the UK's best [00:57:00] known creators, or three of the best, uh, uh, UK's best known creators, and Ben Doyle as well from after party studios. So we've got Ben Doyle from After Party Studios. We've got Specs Gonzales, we've got Nella Rose, and we've got Callum McGinley Calex as well. Yes. Yes, from, uh, from, uh, after Party Studios.

Guys, welcome MetCast. Great to see you. 

Nella Rose: Thanks for having us. Great to see you, Justin. 

Justin Crosby: And you've just announced, uh, a new show. Nella, tell us a little bit about what you've just announced today. 

Nella Rose: Um, so basically I'm known for like being a judge online. I'm known for like, putting straight men into their places.

So I thought why not make my own show where I could just have the liberty to do just that. I'm talking like lie detectors, paternity tests, all the drama. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Alright, fantastic. Mm-hmm. And specs. Uh, great to see you here. Thank you. How are you doing? You, you're obviously a host of a number of after party shows, right?

Tell us about what the projects you work on with, uh, with after party. 

Specs Gonzalez: Uh, so, um, Skyport Scenes is one of the, uh, my main projects with after, uh, party. 'cause [00:58:00] obviously it's the, it's the third year 

Justin Crosby: award-winning. 

Specs Gonzalez: Award-winning. I would say. Gotta check my, my mirrors were on the floor there, sorry. Uh, and of course, uh, hear me out.

Yeah. The show Each other 4.0, um, where I host Nella. Seeing these crazy takes in front of the public and um, yeah. Trying to win a Marva. So it's been great. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Fantastic. Well, it's great to see you here and obviously this year, creator economy and digital videos a whole has kind of been embraced. Mm-hmm.

Finally by mi com, which is great to see. You guys have been in this space for a long time. Right. So it must be exciting to see the market coming to you a little bit. Is that what it feels like? 

Callum McGinley (Callux): It definitely like, yeah, we've been over nine years. I met Cal 10 years ago on a branded entertainment shoot for KFC back, like, and that was so far ahead of its time.

When I think back to it, my bosses at BBH dreamt it up and like they obviously had a crystal ball or something, they could see what was coming a decade later. Um, but yeah, it's amazing. It's nice to feel embraced. I think like, you know, we've been banging the drum for years and years and years. This lot of never stopped doing what they were great at.

Like that, [00:59:00] that this has never changed. And it's nice to see that this world has come to them. We were just walking down here, Ella's face is on the billboard out there, like how crazy. In the middle of Cannes. Unreal. And I think like. Uh, yeah, it's, it's nice to feel like the, the worlds are merging. I think that like we, we never see it ourselves anywhere as like us and them, that it's like we are in the digital world and they're in the traditional world.

I think young audiences see content full stop. They don't really think about where it is or what it is. They just want to see their favorite people doing the things that this lot want to do and, and, and them reaching their audience in the most direct and like, unfiltered way possible. So, yeah. No, it's amazing to be here and it's amazing to see, you know, the amount of fun conversations that have happened even in this morning since that talk is like, it's great.

Justin Crosby: Yeah. And, and you know, it's really in interesting to see every media me, major media group here is now talking about having to create your economy, uh, um, you know, strategy. I'm not sure if they had one 12 months ago, but they've got one now. They're gonna have that, that's all that matters. Right, exactly. I 

Callum McGinley (Callux): mean, it's better than some other industries though.

I think [01:00:00] like, you know, it's, uh, just an advertising event where the, the advertising world is. Fixated on 32nd TV ads, and it denies the existence of YouTube. So, uh, yeah, I, you know, this is Miles ahead, which is great. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: And now, guys, is it, uh, first time in, in Cannes for you? 

Ben Doyle : I was actually, I picked up the mic from Ben to tell you about that.

It's night and day between when I last came here. I think I came here in 20 17, 20 18, and it is night and day. I sit up on stage, um, with I think Maker Studios at the time, and we spoke about a project that was coming. Mm-hmm. So it's, it's very cool that we're here again. What, how many years? Eight years later.

Yeah. Yeah. To speak about that again. But it's like, it's night and everyone's super excited about Neller's show. They didn't, they didn't give a shit about mine. Sorry for my language. They didn't care about mine. Mine didn't get commissioned. You were head of the head of the game there, of the game. So it's, it's been, it's really interesting and it's, but it's, it's, it's amazing that it's finally happened because there were some points where.

After party, the direction [01:01:00] this, the vision could have strayed away from what it was. And I think the beautiful thing that, you know, all down to this guy really, because I, I've had some crazy ideas. I'm full of them, but he's kept us on the right track over time. So, um, shout to Ben for, for believing in the vision from, from day.

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Yeah. Well it must be, yeah, really gratifying to see that. I mean, tell us a bit for those who don't know, after Party Studios, tell us a little bit about the business and, 'cause you seem to be growing all the time. Yeah, every time I go on your website, there's more and more faces on there, 

Callum McGinley (Callux): but it's this line again, it all comes back to like, it's, everything comes back to the audience.

All we have done for the last decade is just make what the audience wants to make. Um, and yeah, so we started, so the backstory started in 2016 with Cow and I, my background's traditional, I'm a director, cow's, obviously a creator. And we were like, we meet in the middle of these two worlds where there was like a tension where we were on a shoot, there was shoot that we met on, we could fill that in the middle of this KA was just trying to make jump off a boat.

And they then production the side that I was on, we were like, you can't jump off the boat. 'cause the [01:02:00] client didn't agree and the assurance ain't signed and dah, dah, dah. And Cal was like, but the thumb down the title, that's all that mattered. And so we came back and we were talking like, if we made that ourselves, what would we make?

And that was where after the party came about. And then, yeah, the nine years since then, seen us grow into now 32 maybe more people that have, uh. I think that, and it, it feels like all we have done is just constantly come back to this thing of just making the stuff that these guys wanna be in, serving their audiences in authentic ways.

And it's attracted talent from across the industry, from both the, the digital and the traditional worlds that are just like the best in the business at interpreting what the audience is saying what they want. You know, also, so how do you innovate the Nella Road Show is like, how do you go and take, you know, it's the Henry Ford thing of like, don't wanna faster horse.

Like what is the, what's the car? How do we invent new formats? Now we're seeing the streamers coming along and coming into space, um, and we are constantly just like, how do we be at the forefront of this and keep pushing the space forward? It's what we've kind of done ever since. Back in our, one of our first projects that was KS, I can't lose a feature documentary that Sony Pictures picked up and [01:03:00] back then no one used to think about spend more, like everyone was just self shoot YouTube videos.

And then we were like, let's spend six months making a long documentary. But I mean, you guys could speak to it more. You've seen the space. Yeah. You've seen the space change. Yeah, like night and day. 

Nella Rose: I feel like, like before it was more, um, like with YouTube, you as your own director, producer, editor, you as the sound guy, you did the lights with the little soft boxes and the ring lights all set up and um, now that's kind of like the content that people don't really wanna see and where they want big productions, they want their favorite YouTubers creators.

Being authentically themselves in like bigger productions. Like I couldn't produce something where it's like 20 versus one and I'm in a white box and I'm telling me, getting there, getting there, getting there. Like it's just, it's, it's good that production companies that after part even give us the opportunity to do these fun shows.

'cause then I can add it to my show real. So it is great. It's a win-win for everybody, honestly. I love it here. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. So specs, tell us about what's next [01:04:00] for you. What's, uh, 'cause you, you are, you are super busy as well, you know, we, we've seen your, your success over the last, uh, few years. It's been fantastic to see.

So what, what's next for you? Well, 

Specs Gonzalez: yeah, I've been all over the place. One day I wake up, I wanna do YouTube. Next thing I wanna be a musician. Yep. As you can see, I'm doing music for some reason. There's no rules. But what's most important for me is like, uh, any idea I have. Like, for example, now I'm focused on my no show.

I know I can, you know, speak to Ben, speak to Colin after party and actually execute my idea. 'cause obviously as Nel was saying, it, it does cost. You know, for YouTubers to do a high, you know, production video, but now it's like, if I've got an idea, people after the party can really just execute it and get it out there.

Yeah. Facilitate. So yeah, for me it's, I might, I want, my dream is to do a, uh, uh, and I'm gonna, you know, propose this to the boys right now in front of you guys. Okay. Here we go. And Ben, exclusive. [01:05:00] And Ben, I would like to make a song with Sophie. Alex Baxter. Right. And Ella's going to talk in the intro. Yep.

And the outro. Yep. Um, and I want the music video to be in cans. Yes. Um, and I don't mind, uh, TellyCast as well. You guys can, you know, interview us. Oh, straight after. Perfect. Can I be done in the music video? Be in the music video? Yeah. Can I be Yeah, exactly. 

Justin Crosby: We use this for the music video. It's done. Deal.

Speaker 17: Yeah, done Deal. And we can we, there you go. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah, we'll just shoot it Here. Go look at it. 

Speaker 17: That's the beauty. Okay. Execute my idea. So that's, that's a year's time. 12 

Justin Crosby: months, Ben, make it happen. We're 

Callum McGinley (Callux): all about, we're all about making dreams come true, you know. 

Justin Crosby: Well, um, and then finally, so the, uh, the Nella Rose Show, I mean, ultimately that is a show, obviously, digital First World.

It, it means the content doesn't necessarily stay in one place. It can, it can, as you, you talked about earlier on. It can po possibly, we might see it on a major streamer in the, in the coming, uh, months or years. Um, you know, that's gotta be exciting there. This whole opportunity's opening [01:06:00] up, uh, for you nana.

So it's like, it's, it's great to see. I just, I don't 

Nella Rose: know. I feel like with the RO show, it is something that people have been waiting for me to do for years. I feel like when I come out, well we have come out and I can out it. It's like, oh duh. Like how come she hasn't got the ro show? So it's gonna be great.

We're going to be humbling straight men. So hide, go and hide. I'm, I'm out there. I'm coming for everybody. 

Justin Crosby: Thank you guys. Thank you so much for joining us. Uh, thank you. You're incredible. You, you were five minutes late to the interview 'cause everybody's stopping you on the qua all the way up. Yeah. Sorry about that.

Everything's gonna be okay. You're stopping the show. Brilliant. No one 

Callum McGinley (Callux): was stopping me, so I'll be here on time. 

Justin Crosby: Alright. All the best guys. I can't wait to see what's next. Thank you 

Ben Doyle : very much. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thanks for having us and what have you.

Justin Crosby: I'm here with Victor Benson from Simon Entertainment. How are you doing, Victor? 

Victor Bengtsson: I am. Slightly hungover, but fantastic. Like not actually hungover more like [01:07:00] there's so much champagne here. It's crazy. Yeah. Like everywhere you go it smells like champagne and, and cigars, you know. But it's been fun. It's been fun.

I'm doing good. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Well, we are in canne for MIP com and uh, MIP com has kind of announced the arrival of the creator economy. I mean, uh, the creator economy. It's kind of been growing and growing, growing for the last 10, 10 years or more. Uh, but obviously now it feels like a lot of the traditional legacy media companies are now waking up to the creator economy and the opportunity there.

Uh, now obviously you've, uh. Side men, you know, uh, the Europe's are one of the world's biggest creator groups, uh, creator, creator collectives, and you've had enormous amount of success with Inside, which is your own format. Tell us about that, Victor. 

Victor Bengtsson: Uh, yeah. I mean, the boys have been creating content for, you know, the past 10, 15 years, individually, or, or as the group sideman.

And I think since we started building out the company four, five years ago, the plan was always to be like, what do we do if we don't do [01:08:00] what we're doing now? And their initial creative thinking was kind of like, what does a big brother look like for Gen Z? So we created this show last summer, uh, and, uh, pushed it out in junior July in 24.

Uh, obviously got the attention of a bunch of different streamers, uh, and decided to go with Netflix to produce, you know, following seasons. Uh, the UK one hit number two, the American one went live a month ago and, and hit number one. So they get to walk around and say they had a Netflix. Number one. Number one 

Justin Crosby: in America, 

Victor Bengtsson: not number one in America, which maybe we'll get to one day.

I think it's for us to see the format as it is and we realize that we have a global audience. So it did incredibly well around the world. And funnily enough, probably like hitting the UK more than we thought it would. And then really hitting the Nordics. I just met with someone from Malta who were like saying that it was all over their, their island, like as we went live.

And they were like, like kids were having watch parties for [01:09:00] the finale. Wow. And we were like, oh, we have no idea. So I think for the first time really with, with this show, if you don't watch the side, man, we might be also like. Talking to an audience that we don't necessarily have. And that's exciting. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah.

Victor Bengtsson: Uh, but yeah. Well, I mean, we're doing tv. Like we're making tv. 

Justin Crosby: You're making tv. Well, um, what's next? A movie? 

Victor Bengtsson: I mean, I think there's so much exciting stuff now. So like we, we didn't even know the lingo really, uh, back a few years ago. So like, what you guys, well you guys, not necessarily you Justin, but like the industry, so like unscripted, what does it mean?

It's basically anything that's not scripted. Yeah. So now we took a stab at, you know, unscripted is not completely different to what the Sideman do. It's an unscripted show. What we do on, on our YouTube channels, uh, unscripted in reality for format is still more scripted, I would say, than. You know, how unscripted we are.

Uh, so I think scripted would be super exciting to take a look at. Not immediately. I think we wanna keep on building further ip. Uh, one big thing we obviously have is this segment charity match, which we did at Wembley this spring, and looking at how that IP can continue and [01:10:00] thrive and, and maybe, you know, look at live events would be exciting as well.

Like, how do we continue doing things that have been really successful? But I think in the next three to five years, it'll be super exciting to see like YouTubers and creators come together to maybe make this generations in betweeners or like, uh, Silicon Valley, but for the YouTube space and like something like that.

And getting behind that would be really, really exciting. And, 

Justin Crosby: and I can completely see that happening and it is really exciting to, to see this, this development. And again, you know, what's, what's, what's really means, uh, the, the real digital first, um, uh, uh, uh, ethos, if you like, that sidemen have been true to all the way through.

And now that the industry's moving towards you. And, uh, I mean, you must be getting, you know, approached on a weekly basis with different ideas and TV companies thinking, oh, we want, well, a, we want those guys and we want their audience because all of our audience is left and gone to social. Right. So that's, that's essentially what, what they want.

I mean, it, do you find that you are [01:11:00] batting off, uh, approaches all the time or, you know, how does that work? 

Victor Bengtsson: I think, like I say this all the time, like I feel like I'm like, I'm offensive on purpose. I say this sentence all the time, which isn't necessarily to be like offensive to the people. 'cause what I do think it exists now is an industry where so many talented people sit within such great companies.

When it comes to individual skill, it's more the infrastructure. And the intention and the strategy of how they treat those people that, that, that I disagree with. And I think we've lost a bit of the fun. It's like we look back at, uh, early days, MTV, we look at what jackass was. We look at, uh, like, almost like when Mil before the millennials.

I speak to my dad about this a lot. He was like, there was this moment in time where everyone just made shit, TV wood. It was the greatest thing in the nineties. And I'm like, what happened? Uh, like it got, it became glossy. It became pretty, it became overproduced and it took longer and longer, and it became prettier and prettier.

And we're kind of now ripping it back to being like, hi, anyone who would like to go back to that fun era, [01:12:00] that's kind of what we want to do. We wanna make fun content that doesn't have to look perfect. I mean, we have this, another guy like that use this as well. It's like how much does a laugh cost? Like, how much should you have to spend in order to make someone laugh?

Because often genuine. Like connection between an audience and a, and a creator or a production company or a film or a series or whatever comes at, uh, being real. And it doesn't come at how much you manage to squeeze outta something. Of course, I wanna have like sustainable salaries. I wanna have people be able to build, make a living outta this.

But I think there is a time and this place now where we can challenge what it means to work in production. Uh, and I'm getting those pings and that's just exciting. Seeing people who go like, oh, I really love what you guys are doing. Could I have a conversation? Then again, I put out like, we are currently hiring for a producer.

Anyone saying this? You know, uh. And then you get fucking loads and they're like, that sounds like fun. How do I get in on that? Yeah. Um, and that super exciting, super, super exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so, 

Justin Crosby: so talking about, you know, the, the, the normal sort of publishing cadence of the [01:13:00] side, man Yeah. We've talked about inside, which is, uh, but, but in terms of the regular side men Sundays and another conduct, te tell us through what, uh, what a publishing schedule kind of looks like for the Sidemen and mm-hmm.

Victor Bengtsson: Um, the company now, sideman Entertainment consists of 50 people. We just crossed over 50, uh, full-time staff with our freelancers that we use regularly. So what we consider the whole sideman machine, we're 92, uh, each week we produce 11 YouTube videos, or site plus videos is accounted for in that 11 as well.

Uh, and that operates independently through different teams with key stakeholders. So there's a key stakeholder leading the main channel. There's a key stakeholder leading the post-production. There's a key stakeholder leading the second channel and the third channel, and there's a key stakeholder leading the, the side plus.

Uh, so collectively they produce alongside, you know, very standard setup. You will get in your creative producers, they will pre-prod, they'll go into shooting, and then they go into to post, uh, and they almost independently run next to all the other machines that kind of in parallel are standing next to each [01:14:00] other.

And when things get rough, we call everyone in. It's what we call trenches season. So when we're doing inside, we all, we all go, okay, this is shit we don't actually know how to do. So let's all come together and we use this. Um, referencing back to it, we say that we're kinda like a band on tour, so everyone just pulls up to a set that we haven't really been on that much and we all kind of just.

Fucking go for it. Uh, and then you walk out of it and you're like, this was fucking horrible. And the best thing I've ever done, my favorite thing that's happened is we, when we were on the American season, we had um, a producer come in, her name's Tab Tabitha, and she was like, what in the fuck is going on here?

Day one, she was looking at these 23 year olds running around. Like I told 'em, I said like, it's gonna be some 19-year-old that tells you're doing something wrong and you're just gonna have to accept it. Uh, but if they're rude, you fucking tell me. 'cause we're not rude. Like we just, when we're right, we think we're right, but you're not rude to each other.

And she was like, what the fuck is going on? And then day five, she sat down in our morning sink where we talk about the story and stuff and she goes, I'm having so much fun. And I'm like, when was the last time we said that on a set? And I was like, I don't know, but, and then someone went, [01:15:00] we need a costume for today.

And she said, last time I went to a a Halloween party, I was a burger. And she sent someone to her house. And one of the key moments in the show now is them buying her a burger outfit and then getting eliminated in it. And I was just like, would that have happened? Like, why did you feel the confident confidence to do that?

Did you feel comfortable around us? I think we're building this sort of like momentum of it's fucking fun, and I know what happens to that. It's not forever. I know it's not gonna be forever the same way the nineties wasn't forever the same way. Like Big Brother wasn't forever. But right now it feels like we're, uh, just creating something that's really fun.

And the week on week is like, you have like 75% of your work is like, get these videos done. 25% of it is let's fucking find something out. Yeah. You know, that's, that's kinda how it runs and how it looks. 

Justin Crosby: Well that was, I was gonna ask you actually, um, you know, you've just, you've had such an innate, well I'd say probably two, three years as, as opposed to last year.

But, uh, and that, that general growth and, and, and uh, uh, I'll say acceptance by the TV industry or the media industry as a whole, but you know, you've very [01:16:00] much moved into the mainstream. Um, what have you learned in that time? Personally, 

Victor Bengtsson: I thought making videos was this experience where a bunch of friends come together and you press record and you come up with something fun and it's a cool idea.

Making TV is fucking hard. That I think is a major, like you can't just walk around and say, we can fucking do anything. You have to kind of look at it and go like, there's a reason They became what they became. You could have stopped earlier, but there is structure, there is quality control. There are things in this industry that, and there's a real art to it as well, uh, which I'm often like very against the idea that I don't want it to feel artsy.

I want it to be entertainment. I love people who are proud of unscripted, for example. Um, and I just love the idea that if you create something that makes people laugh, that should just be hail. There's something really, really great. Uh, but I've learned that I think it takes more than you expect. And if you're the new kid on the block, it's easy to go and say, nah, fuck this.

Uh, we're gonna do it our way. But there's a reason that it's done a certain way. So we have accepted some of that to bring that [01:17:00] into our, to our production as well. Uh, the second one is that there is actually real, like. Almost like a cozy vibe in tv. And I think even coming here now, I never even knew what, what this was like a week ago.

Right? Uh, but like everyone's kind of friends, even if they've like lost the commission or if they've like been at it during a production, everyone kind of seems to come together and be quite friendly. Um, which in our world it feels more like there's this corporate beast that, that stands off in the horizon.

You're kinda like terrified of them. Uh, and when they come close, they do one thing, they kill the fun. Uh, but it doesn't seem to be that case here. It's a lot of people having fun doing things, uh, and like really thinking about what the future this is. And as you said, I think there's a real announcement here, and I, I wasn't here for the last year's one, but they seem to be very much saying the creator, the creator economy, or the creators in general.

They're probably part of this now. And we have to kind of see that. Um, so that's also like a learning that we are being more accepted and, and, and being seen. I think. 

Justin Crosby: Well, final question. We are gonna be, uh, we're gonna be having a chat on stage on the [01:18:00] 6th of November, the digital content format You 

Victor Bengtsson: are.

Justin Crosby: And, uh, we've called the session Inside, inside the Simons Guide to creating, uh, winning formats. Yeah. So, uh, what can, what can anyone expect and what can other delegates expect from our chat? 

Victor Bengtsson: I think that what we did with inside the was to challenge, and I mean, I've said this a couple of times. We challenged what a post-production, pre-production and a shooting experience should look like.

And we have adapted from the first season, but we were challenging what it means to produce a reality format. Uh, we challenged what it means to cast. Uh, I know that there was very clear like, uh, character roles that you have to cast for when you do traditional. Uh, we have basically taken every single aspect of making a reality show, questioned it, and then kept what we thought was right.

And fucked off what we thought was wrong. And I wanna tell that story and maybe also price point. Okay. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Good. Okay. Well, um, Victor, enjoy the, the flowing champagne of Can. [01:19:00] Lovely. And, uh, we'll see you on the, on the Crot, I'm sure later on tonight, and we'll have a drink together, but it's, it's brilliant to see you.

Thanks 100%. 

Victor Bengtsson: Thank you so much. 

Andy Fry: Okay. Uh, hi. My name's Andy Fry. I am here at TellyCast on behalf of TellyCast and the Drop. And I'm with Jay Bennett, who's a senior strategist at Shafts. Ray Jay. Lovely to see you. Yeah, great to see you in the flesh after so many years as we were saying. Yes. Yeah. And, um, tell me first of all a little bit about your role and about Shaftsbury.

Jay Bennett: Yeah, certainly. Uh, Shaftsbury is one of Canada's leading, uh, producers. I'll use the word of content, really, of television, uh, long running drama series, both script, uh, uh, episodic and serialized. But we've also for, oh geez, since early 2010s, been playing in the digital space, original branded scripted entertainment, um, social fan engagement, building fandoms across platforms.

Uh, recently we've gotten to the ROBLOX space, uh, fan activations, touring symphonies. So we're really, and, and great credit to Christina Jennings, [01:20:00] the CEO. She's always looked at not just making shows, but building brands. And so my role has been for the last, on and off, 15 years with the company, um, coming in and helping to do that.

So we've got the show now. How do we build that out, extend it, find new ways to bring audience in with discoverability, et cetera. 

Andy Fry: Brilliant. So I, it's interesting 'cause I think we're, our conversation's gonna be very much about TV's intersection with digital, but, but in your, your notes in a ahead of the interview, you were talking about, um, being marketers, which has quite an interesting idea.

So, so tell me about that, that idea of being, uh, producers as marketers, and particularly around your, your flagship show. The, you know, the Murdoch Mysteries ab 

Jay Bennett: Absolutely. Uh, broadcasters are wonderful, but I think more so than ever, they can only, and, and sometimes we'll only do so much when it comes to marketing, and so I think that puts a lot of onus on the producer.

Um, but we're up to that challenge. And so, look, it's not working with [01:21:00] huge dollars, nor do I think you need to work with huge dollars to do that. I think you just need to think about where your audience is. Um, I think, in my opinion, in Jasper's opinion. Um, profit is not first, right? It's, it's more like showing the value of the brand, the love of the brand, showing broadcasters the power of the brand.

So with Murdoch, which is season 19 now, that's incredible. Yeah. Over well over 300 episodes. Yeah. You know, how have we been doing that? Um, number of ways, uh, we've launched Fast channels, uh, in Canada and now, um, with our partners moving to the US and Europe, we've looked at fan activation. So as I mentioned earlier, we're doing, uh, touring symphonies across Canada.

It, it's fascinating to see the power of that. At a recent one we did in Victoria, bc, over 50% of that audience had never been to the Symphony before. Mm-hmm. And at the same time, uh, a traditional symphony that's selling about 66% of the house doing these activations with Murdoch Mysteries is increasing that house count to 90%.

So that's a [01:22:00] new way to find audience. We've started a curriculum project with Murdoch Mysteries. We're in schools piloting now, so we're in 50 classrooms. The pilot we did last year with five classrooms. A couple great stats outta that. It actually raised test scores. So average, uh, test score from 77% to 90% Wow.

In grades five to nine. But then for the brand, 60 few percent of the kids who took part said, I wanna keep watching Murdoch Mysteries outside of the classroom when I go home. Um, we've been playing in Roblox as a place to meet our audience, and we did that as part of a, an extension digital series we did called Macy Murdoch.

Um, we've now turned those into a series of movies. We're very lucky in Canada. There's a lot of, um, great support from funders that allow us to do that. The Shaw Rocket Fund, uh, the CMF, um, the Bell Fund help us do that along with broadcasters. Right. Great power to CBC who've been very. Willing and open to helping us, uh, explore this.

Uh, starting next week, we're doing live [01:23:00] tours. So we have a three year waiting list for our live tours. People coming from the uk, from America to come for a seven day tour, explore sets, meet our cast, do special activations we've created. And even when it comes to m and l, um, we're launching a tea soon. Uh, there'll be a board game coming next week, uh, next year.

So in that sort of broad stroke ramble, right? I think all of that and more is always about, okay, how do we ultimately bring them back to the show? How do we bring them back to the brand? But what we're seeing is new audience come in through all this, and it's not just that core audience we're bringing in youth.

We're bringing in new audience from other places. Yeah. 

Andy Fry: Yeah. Interesting. Let's dig into a couple of points. So, what would happen if, um, if God forbid, Murdoch Mysteries was canceled? Would the content you have still be enough in itself to, to kind of keep, keep the world of, of your brand extensions, your brand activations going?

I mean, have you got a big enough asset now that it can live forever? 

Jay Bennett: Uh, it will live forever. [01:24:00] Yeah. And, uh, you know, God forbid, look, things have their cycle. We, we are, uh, uh, quite bullish about the, the power of, of this brand in the market. But to that, uh, yes, I think we see it as building, and it's that word fandom, but I think fandom has strength, fandom has value, um, and what we've done, I think by building that strength across a number of platforms that we ultimately sort of, I, I don't say that word om, but we can speak directly to them.

Hmm. Whether it's bringing them a new way to activate the show, bringing a off. I do have this. You know, bold vision, dream that, yeah. You could get to that point. And I think maybe it's part of the, the models that we're seeing here at the market that could you turn to an audience, not today, but if you build that strong enough, three, five years ago now from now, and through some subscription, through some [01:25:00] fan funded experience, self produce a season.

Yeah. The model is developing. I I, I think that's absolutely a possibility. Yeah. 

Andy Fry: Yeah. Go a bit more into Macy Murdoch. Really interesting. What, what, what did you do there? What's Macy Murdoch about? 

Jay Bennett: Uh, Macy Murdoch is the great-great granddaughter of Detective William Murdoch. So, Murdoch Mystery set in 1910.

How do we reach younger audience? Eight to 12 plus was the, was the objective. We figured out a way to bring Murdoch to modern day high school in 2025 through his great, great granddaughter's eyes. Just so happens she discovers a time machine and jumps back to the past to solve mysteries alongside her great great grandfather, uh, started as a digital series.

We've done two seasons there. Season one. Great. I think we really discovered the characters season two in, in partnership with CBC. We, we really set out for discoverability, how do we reach wider with this? We did that in a few ways. Um, one, all episodes went on YouTube and with CBC's support [01:26:00] globally, not Geoblock to Canada.

That was a. Step. That was a big change. That was awesome to see. Uh, we put up the episodes on TikTok as verticals. Again, a new discoverability engine that drove a lot of interest. And then we did a collaboration with a popular Roblox game to bring to life a, a portion of 1910 Toronto. You actually get to, with Macy travel back in time and solve a mystery in Roblox that approached as a marketing activation as opposed to a let's build a Roblox game from scratch that did over 128 million unique plays in five weeks, which ultimately led a portion back to YouTube.

So, so great views on that, but we're always trying to think, as I think everyone is, how do you do more with this content? We've cut them into movies. So we have two movies here at the market, rainmakers distributing them. We're also looking for other ways to sort of promote the brand. Uh, Shaw Rocket Fund, who's a a, a great, uh, supporter of Canadian content is helping us.

Even do, you know, we, we've, we've [01:27:00] put out some, some ads to promote those movies, the Roblox pieces. So yeah, that's a bit about that. But, but I think, again, even if you go back to what I said about the curriculum project, it's allowed us to put this teenage Macy character into that. And so as we're talking to young kids, high school students through the eyes of the brand, well, in a way now we've given them a, a contemporary to see the brand with.

So, you know, it, we're, we're always trying to look at how we can find value in sort of a, a rubric of, of not just one activation, but what are all the different ways we can use it. 

Andy Fry: Uh, so, so all of the learnings you've had from, from the Murdoch franchise, how are you taking that out into other shaftsbury ip?

Jay Bennett: Great. Uh, it's, it's our time machine moment to sort of take these learnings and go back now to, to new projects we're bringing to life. Uh. One would be slow pitch about a, a queer female baseball team. Uh, slow pitch, uh, it's called, and it's coming to market as to [01:28:00] just going to camera now. Um, there we've, we've thought about doing talent integration.

So we've got a great, uh, female Japanese baseball player, the first ever woman to play for a men's professional sports league. Okay. She's a character in it. We've done a brand integration with an excellent, uh, beer company, and not just beer for beer. One that really reflects the queer values of the series and is connected to baseball.

So I think there'll be lots of earned media opportunities around that story and future, as well as we've actually have a product. We've created our own beer that will be on shelves when the the show launches. Um, we've also got a, for instance, we're doing a new show, a vet series, uh, um, one hour vet series that how do we think about building content?

Beyond what I'll call traditional EPK. So there we're looking at actually creating, let's call it a parallel brand that can exist well before the show launches. And well after that would use YouTube [01:29:00] as the primary hub and then breakout on social. So to do that, it's, we've got these animals, we've got these great characters we know from our show, Hudson and Rex with a dog.

Dog. Content destroys on social. People love that. And we have sort of that, how it's made animals on tv. So we're gonna embed a team into the production for the, for the entire duration to each episode with three animals. Think of all the interesting stories we can tell, not just about how that animal is trained for that stunt that might take place.

What are they eating? How do they prepare for scent? I think we can go and create that parallel brand on social that could support the series and that would create opportunities maybe for brand integration around that. So those, those are two examples of us sort of trying to take the, the learnings and apply them to the 

Andy Fry: future.

Brilliant. So obviously we're here in can you are, you are here, um, selling programming, which, you know, TellyCast has traditionally been about buying and selling programming and financing programming, but there's been a very strong emphasis on the creator [01:30:00] economy. Yeah. YouTube have been a big presence. What do you make of that?

What do you make of YouTube's presence here at the center of this TV market? 

Jay Bennett: It's, I, look, I've, I've attended some of the pr, uh, the panels, um, uh, brand summits also here, uh, as a, as a major player. And so look, it's fascinating to sit in and see it through, I guess my eyes having experienced it, but at the same time see it through, let's call it traditional producer's eyes.

I think it's absolutely no longer the outlier of the conversation. I would say. I think the piece missing as we talk about, and, and look every panel ends with someone saying, don't be afraid. Get in the space. You should do it. Which, which everyone should. I would just say, I think there needs to be a bit more conversation around how long it actually takes.

Mm-hmm. Right. It, it, it sounds like it's, I'm on YouTube. It's all yes. But to build audience and to build sustained audience and build meaningful, true engagement, [01:31:00] it, I would say, look, time is money, but it's, it's not really necessarily the high cost of it because it doesn't need to be high cost. You can be in these spaces with, with a point of view and a phone, but it is not instantaneous.

And I think it needs to be consistent. It needs to be, as everyone says, great content, but it also needs enough runway. And if I think back to some experiences I've had in the past making original scripted for brands, that's always been the big challenge. And I think still is, is brands view the timeline for a story still through the timeline as they view an ad, which is, this is a three week campaign.

This is a six week campaign. But I think to build meaningful fan. Around a story that's a six to 18 month journey. And so I would say it's great that YouTube's here is great that we're talking about brands. My wish would be, I think we could go just a bit deeper into the realities of [01:32:00] doing that as opposed to necessarily just the great case studies.

Yeah. 

Andy Fry: And of course you have experience. I mean, you, you, years ago you made Carmilla. Yes. Um, and you have your own channel, don't you? Is it kind of 

Jay Bennett: tv kind of TV right now? Uh, yes. Carmilla for us, we, we did about eight original branded series. From working with Walmart to the Royal Bank of Canada to Tetley Tee, uh, Carmilla with You by Cortex was absolutely our greatest breakthrough there.

I think we hit the right, uh, niche of niche, I'll use that word. I think we found the right audience in the right place at the right time. But it's interesting, right? Even there, there's lessons. I think for us at that time, we were really proud of the organic engagement that this is back in 2016. We were so excited about what you could do without Ad Buy.

So we were driving millions of views, millions of fans around the world. We did three seasons short form, but a hundred episodes. We did a fan funded movie, we did a book, we did a tour, but we were doing that all organically. I think the time machine moment for me there [01:33:00] is, is we should have at that point gone and actually used almost now the rules of digital, which is it, you do have to put dollars behind your content to, to, yes, the organic will give you that bump, but then you need to, you need to sort of continue to bump the balloon into the air.

That would be my lesson there on that one. Yeah. 

Andy Fry: Brilliant. Um, let's wrap up with just a couple of general thoughts. So, um, again, talking a lot about the creator economy, how, how are creators beginning to impact on what you do? How are you working with creators? 

Jay Bennett: Uh, great example. Back to Murdoch Mysteries, uh, uh, Jason Muse, um, who is most famous as part of Jay and Silent Bob.

From the Kevin Smith films we discovered, he reached out to us a like a huge Murdoch fan. Um, more so than, than some of us. Like his knowledge, he's watched every episode. Thank you Fast Channels. Mm-hmm. Um, we gave him a, it started traditionally, right? How about we give you a, a guest spot in an episode.

He'll be in one in later this season, in season [01:34:00] 19. But while on set, we were already thinking about rewatch podcasts. How do we go and create more original content that that can allow these new audiences in? I think that's a, sometimes a barrier, right? With, especially if you think 300 episodes, where do I even start?

How can create a vehicle to allow new audience in? And Jason as this fan who, who was out there telling the story himself on, on social to his friends, Hey, you should watch this show. So we've gone and done a pilot. It actually launched about five days ago. Um, we did an hour and 40 minute rewatch podcast of season one of episode 19.

We had our star Yannick Basant on it. Uh, we had Countess Luann, who's a, um, big Bravo star who also had a guest spot that's doing exactly what we hoped. So I looked yesterday hundreds of comments from all these people who had never even heard of it talking about, thank you Jason. I'm already six episodes in, I'm already one season in.

Um, I think that's a great example of, and [01:35:00] now our hope is to do a full season rewatch and see where that goes. More and more, we are thinking about how creators can use our ip, our brands in a con, in a, in a respectful way, a controlled way to tell those stories and reach new audience. Um, yeah, 

Andy Fry: that's a really interesting point.

I was gonna be one of my questions. I mean, you have to be willing to let go your IP to some extent. Don't you Let people play with it, which is not, not a traditional mindset. 

Jay Bennett: I've had that conversation. Look, I've had that conversation a few times and I think through a traditional lens, that's scary. I have two points to that.

One. Um, they'll do it anyways, but, but two, and this is the truth. Any creator worth their salt, they, they, they have a brand. So they're not in the business of going and starting to do things that are harmful to your brand. They want it to be successful. So I think you just want to be clever in, in who you're partnering with and make sure there's a value alignment.

But other than that, what a [01:36:00] wonderful opportunity to reach new audience in new ways. And again, as I said, bring them back to the print. I, I'm very pro that. Yes. 

Andy Fry: Okay. Final question. Um, so, um, this week, I think the hot topic of the week perhaps has been micro drama. Vertical drama. Uh, om d said that it's gonna be twice as valuable this year as fast.

Yes. Um, what do you make of micro drama as opposed to fast 

Jay Bennett: First lesson, and this is a, this is a MIP lesson. Vertical and micro drama as I have, I now understand it are different things. Micro drama is very much like saying, these are my words, a roTellyCast, right? It is a genre. Vertical is a format, so I'm gonna talk about vertical because vertical is what's exciting to me because that can move beyond I think what we're currently typically associating with that format, which is more soapy, but, but vertical that can do drama, that can do comedy, that can do horror.

That's really exciting. I wanna do some experiments there. Absolutely. I've, I've already wondered, and look, this is a first test, but could [01:37:00] we shoot our next digital series in both formats simultaneously? I think that's interesting. Again, putting out the same story on multiple platforms, one 16 by nine, one vertical, and then two, when I was at the, um, the panel with Holy Water and Fox and Foxes in that space, 200 originals they're doing.

I'm interested in that, right? Like I, I think about again, shaftsbury as a. A company that is very comfortable working in many different mediums, telling quality stories at a range of budgets. I absolutely think that's a conversation we want to be in. Again, how can we not only create new IP and new audience there that could move, but I'm also of the belief, and as I'm, I'm sure many are, you might not have to move.

I, I do think vertical is a meaningful format that has, that has long legs. I don't, I I think we agree that it's not a flash in the pan as some [01:38:00] other, you know, uh, uh, flavors of the moment have been in the past, uh, vr, which is still not finding way. I think vertical could move much faster than that. Yeah.

Andy Fry: Yeah. It'd be handy to have that time machine now to know whether you are right about that, wouldn't it? Brilliant. Well, Jay Bennett, lovely to talk to you. Yeah, great. And thank you for your insights. Yeah, thanks so much. Thanks. 

Justin Crosby: Well, that's about it for part one of our TellyCast TellyCast special. I hope you enjoyed the show.

Check out our second episode coming up next week. 

Speaker 6: Thanks.