Thom Gulseven on Strong Watch, Channel 4 and the Future of Social Video

Strong Watch Studios co-founder Thom Gulseven joins the show to talk about building one of the UK’s most exciting digital-first production companies. He reveals how lessons learned at LADbible shaped the launch of Strong Watch with Ben Powell-Jones, how their channel People Are Deep became an award-winning social video hit, and why Channel 4 trusted them to run its new comedy channel A Comedy Thing. Thom also shares his take on the next phase of the creator economy, the rise of streamer-led digital content, and how traditional media can adapt to the social video revolution.

Sign up for The Drop newsletter

Transcript

Justin Crosby: [00:00:00] Hi, I am Justin Crosby and welcome to another episode of TellyCast. This week we've got one of the OGs from the digital first scene in the uk, Thom Gulseven from Strong Watch Studio. Hey, Thom, 

Thom Gulseven: I've not been described as an OG before. Facts. 

Justin Crosby: Well, I mean, you are though. I mean, you know, going back to through, you know, channel four, lad Bible, you know, you've really sort of been one of the.

Execs at the forefront of the digital first scene. And uh, now you have your own business, strong Watch, which is two years old, right? 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. Two years old in September. The last time I think I was on the pod, I was at LAD and we were, I just joined lad, so that Right. So a couple of years ago, and we were chatting about the plans there.

So it's nice to come and give an update. 

Justin Crosby: Absolutely. Well, yeah, that, well, let's start with that. So, Strongwater Studios, as I said, I think it was, uh, two years ago in September. Yeah. That, that you launched it. 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Uh, with Ben Powell Jones. Yes. Your, your partner. You're working with Hatrick as well in terms of, you know, so 

Thom Gulseven: we're part of the Hatrick family.

Yeah. Yeah. Hatrick and Jimmy invested in us early days as, um, as [00:01:00] part of their overall suite of businesses. And so, uh, yeah, so strong watch came about, I guess, from finding ourselves in the really privileged position of having that mixed experience. Ben and I. As she mentioned, I was at Channel four, Ben was at Enderol as a format exec, so we both have that sort of history and broadcast me like on the TV and digital side of things.

Ben did a bit of TV and digital, uh, Enderol and then we both got the call up to Lab Bible, uh, to go work there. Ben, a little bit before me. Uh, looking at Ben was really looking after all of the original output for Lab Bible. I was across business strategy and what the reasons why we were doing lots of that content and some of the branded content too.

Um, and strong watch came about, I guess from Ben and I talking about that mixed experience and being really fortunate to be in a place and time where we'd been in TV and we knew what was happening there. We'd been in digital and we'd known that was a growth area we'd. Been talking to lots of people about whether something similar could exist, something similar to what we were doing at Lab [00:02:00] Bible could exist for them as other digital publishers or broadcasters.

And it occurred to us. That might be our moment to say, well, we could do it for lots of people and set up a business that does it in various and different ways, which is. As you say, two years old and still coming, so, um, yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: So, 

Justin Crosby: which is an age in digital first actually, if you, if you think about it.

Yeah. In many ways. Yeah. Um, we'll talk about strong watch in a bit more detail in a sec, but going from channel four to lad Bible. Yeah. So going from a, a broadcaster to a publisher. 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: That must have been a bit of a, a, a, a massive change, right? Yeah. From a, for a TV exec going into a publisher and, and, and a one of the world's biggest digital publishers.

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: So what. Did you learn at Lab Bible that you then took forward and applied to strong watch studios? 

Thom Gulseven: Well, think about like the biggest. Change. The biggest gear shift for me was a commercial one. And you know, channel four is, I love Channel four. I worked there for an awfully long time. And I think lots of people who work in [00:03:00] our industry similarly love Channel four, right?

So unique as A PSB that has its remit and we all love it for, uh, for various reasons. And that's why I stayed there for so long. I loved all the content we made there, but moving from there to Lab Bible, I realized. How important that ROI was at everything we were making. When you don't have a remit to also work into, and actually what you're doing is kind of very, very commercially driven, making those budgets really work and maximizing how we can make revenue out of every frame we film was something that was like a, a steep learning curve, should we say, having come out of a.

Psb. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: But one that then Ben and I apply to everything we're doing now, you know the, and actually try and find that, that mix. We work with the PSBs, we work with Channel four an awful lot, a strong watch. So trying to find that mix of something that is kind of. Fulfills a remit, but obviously has a good return on investment and can make a bit of money as well.

So that, yeah, that's merging those worlds is a big part of coming outta channel four and going into lad. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. [00:04:00] And of course you both worked on some of, uh, lad B's biggest brands out there, like minutes with, and, and a number of others that, that, you know, really so successful and, and you know that again, that must have been, must have been a huge amount of learnings about, you know, how.

Digital brands. Yeah. You know, and channels and shows and, or many people call 'em channel brands or Yeah. Or show brands now as well. 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Um, that must have been, you know, a really different way of thinking. 

Thom Gulseven: It was for, for like. So many reasons I probably couldn't list them. Now firstly, like lots of those brands, big shout out to Ben.

Ben was there before me and set those brands up and that's really his kind of his babies, like starting those brands. I guess one of the things that we really learned that we've taken through to lots of the projects we do not least, our own YouTube channels we run and ones we're doing for broadcasters is like, you know.

When we were working in tv, I think you have a real tendency and a correct tendency to come up with the idea and then hold onto that idea and sort of see it through as that [00:05:00] idea, you know, like regardless of what the audience is telling you, regardless of what other feedback you get, that's the idea. You make that idea, it goes out.

The biggest learning for me and what we did at Lab Bible was if episode a hundred is the same as episode one, you've done something wrong because you should be learning on the way and you should be changing it constantly. And I always think back to a show that. Ben and his team made, uh, agree to disagree.

The first iteration of that show was like a sort of debate format, a kind of social issues debate format where people were debating, I think they even did like a, a Brexit or anti Brexit, a remain episode. And over time they changed that to a sport format where, you know, you got a man United fan and a a man city fan and then changed it into a kind of like Hollywood.

Junket format where you can have the rock debating, uh, Kevin Hart and to watching that brand go through all of its many and various iterations was something you look at and go, God, if that was a TV format that would've been locked into that first version that got pitched and commissioned, and you probably wouldn't have had to take it on that journey.

And that's the thing that, yeah, [00:06:00] we think about a lot. How are, are there big fundamental changes we can make to the stuff that we are producing that kind of follows our nose to where the audience wants it to go? Basically. That's really interesting because as you say, 

Justin Crosby: this is all about test and learning and invol evolving an initial kernel of an idea.

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: But equally, one of the sort of key tenets of YouTube in particular is turning up at the same time every week with a format that people know and expecting and, and, and trust. 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: So. For a format like that or for any format that you're working on, how far can you stretch that before you know the audience says, nah, this is not what I'm turning up for.

Thom Gulseven: Well, well, I think the beautiful thing is the audience will tell you, so how far, how far you've pushed it, right? And so in that instance, and thinking about what we're doing at the moment, we have our own YouTube channel. People are deep as our factual channel. Award-winning people are deep. 

Justin Crosby: Best 

Thom Gulseven: new 

Justin Crosby: channel 

Thom Gulseven: that digital video awards.

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: There we really [00:07:00] tried to push the edges, aim casting, you know, we started our, our suite of, it's a, it's an interview format. It's a factual interview format. Sitting down for like an hour with a really, really interesting person, right. And just giving. That person, the space to tell their story. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah.

Thom Gulseven: Really simple. Really effective. We started there with a lot of the casting that we knew very well from lad, you know, crime, uh, people with interesting jobs, that kind of territory. We tried the edges though of, uh, where an audience might go to with us. And so we tried people that were kind of ex reality stars that had a story to tell other people in media.

Um, we tried. Other angles at crime, like crime scene cleaners, that kind of thing. Tried, really tried to push the casting a little bit. We tried a wedding organizer, a wedding planner. That was fun. Not what we would've done in the past, but we really wanted to see where the edges were. Some of those really took off, particularly like stories in the media.

People. We had Jet from gladiators in. People really wanted to hear her story. We had, um, ex quarry stars in X Britain's got talent stars in. People really wanted to hear those stories, which was a [00:08:00] surprise to us in testing and learning. Mm-hmm. And the audience told us they were war, though we tried other things.

Sadly, the wedding planner that we had in that, I had a great hopes for. No one wanted to hear that story, right? So we knew not to, to push further down that road. But I'd say, you know, obviously all of the testing and learning we do are controlled and we have a plan for them and we know what we're testing, but the audience.

Pretty quickly tells you if they want more of it or they don't, you know, and, you know, um, 

Justin Crosby: so, so for example, with the wedding planner story, which is 

Thom Gulseven: he was brilliant. It, like, he was brilliant, right? Like, it's not his fault that episode didn't do well, but yes, his, 

Justin Crosby: so when you, when you, when you saw that, that didn't take off in the, in the way that you'd hoped Yeah.

Uh, in the same way that perhaps previous episodes hadn't. 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: What do you do? Do you change title, change thumbnail, go through that process of actually changing how it appears on, you know, on YouTube to people to begin with? 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Do you then take it and re-edit it in a different way and do you, I mean, I guess, do you try all of those things 

Thom Gulseven: So we will throw everything at it, [00:09:00] so yeah.

Thumbnail changes and we're always iteratively and constantly changing our thumbnails anyway based on what we are seeing working elsewhere based, you know, now one can, uh, multivariate test thumbnails on YouTube using that functionality an awful lot. Yeah. Even down to like what colors we're using in them or, and all the stuff that people are testing.

Um, so we'll try all that, but the reality is like there's no good. For our subscriber base, if they're not into it straight away, no amount of tweaky is necessarily gonna get them into it. Yeah. Even more. And what we're really building is a community of people that love the stories that we're telling.

Right? Yeah. So even if we find a totally new audience that might not be the community we are building, so we will, we will try everything to make those episodes work. We try a lot of interesting stuff in short form, so we'll reedit things and try telling the stories in a different way for nine 16 platforms on reels and TikTok.

But fundamentally what we're trying to learn, particularly in a channel like that, that's still kind of in its relative infancy, we're about to hit a hundred thousand subscribers. I think we will do by the end of the year, I hope. But what we're trying [00:10:00] to learn with a new channel like that is who the audience is really.

And you know, then we can start to build on top of that community that as we go on. Well, it must, that's interesting 

Justin Crosby: because say you get a sort of an outlier hit or a breakout hit from your, on your channel, which is perhaps not what, not what you were expecting. What, there must be a, a real temptation to say, okay, this is working.

We're gonna do more like this. 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: But then that might be taking, it might be, it might have attracted other viewers from elsewhere, other than your channel subscribers. Yeah. Or people that are coming to your channels. So, so you know what is. There must be a temptation to say, okay, let's do more like this.

But actually that might take you away from the original reason for doing the channel and the original core audience. Yeah. And, and so that, how do you balance that sort of, uh, and 

Thom Gulseven: it's, it's that just, it was a balance basically. Yeah. So, um, when we were casting episodes, we are brilliant producer, Mariana Brown, uh, working on the channel.

It was part of [00:11:00] her job to sort of balance that casting to make sure we had enough for the core fans. And then we were sort of testing a few hunches in there as well. And, you know, making sure that we weren't straying too far away. And then maybe a few complete outliers. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: Wedding planners. Yeah. To, to go in there to, to really test the edges of where, uh, we could put new content or where we could move into subject-wise.

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: But it's. Controlled testing. I think the most important thing, and one of the things that we really learned from LAD is that, you know, when you say you're testing things, you really need to know why and have a bit of rigor around that test. Yeah. 'cause it's very easy to retrospectively justify or kind of do away with the results of the test when you, what if you haven't sort of been upfront about what your hypothesis is first, why you're doing 

Justin Crosby: that?

Because you can tell yourself different things, I guess. Of course you can. With that much data, you can tell, you can convince yourself. 

Thom Gulseven: We've all done it, we've all like written a deck where you're sort of, uh, writing your own reason why, um, a certain numbers means exactly what you want it to mean. Yes. But ultimately, who's that really [00:12:00] helping us, particularly when you are running your own channel.

So that's what we, we try to be controlled about the test we're doing. We try to replicate things. We sort of put it through its paces and a bit of rigor and it's working, like I say, like that channel is gonna hit a hundred thousand subs. In a very short amount of time. Thank you very much. Just gone on Pluto as well, which is quite exciting.

Right? I was having at it last night on my tv, but at our actual work on the on Pluto, which is um, that exciting opportunity and hopefully. You know, we can find ourselves on more fast channels soon too. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Well, let's, let's, um, I've kind of gone off on one slightly about, you know, getting into the detail of thumbnails.

Great. Let's still got thumbnails. Let's, but let's, let's, let's bring it back to Strong watch then. Yeah. In terms of those two years, we obviously report a lot of your news on the drop, you 

Thom Gulseven: know, thank you very much. 

Justin Crosby: Pretty regularly. And you're in the new Drop magazine, by the way, another plug for that. But, but yeah.

What, what's, uh, what's, what are the latest developments of the company? 

Thom Gulseven: Latest developments. I mean, we are, you know, thankfully touch, we're busy. So you, lots of people think of us like [00:13:00] as a digital production company, like I was saying earlier, because of our sort of mixed experience. We think of ourselves as a digital production company that understands tele.

So we do lots of broadcasters because we understand that world. So right now, uh, un streamers and sort of as they're moving into the kind of. I suppose creator led world working with streamers as well. Lots of branded content. So right now we're, um, working on a big streamer creator series. Really, really exciting, sort of really shows, can't talk an awful lot about it, but it shows a direction of travel of where the big stream of platforms are as they come and, you know, find those elis elusive younger audiences who wanna set up their first account with them.

Like, yeah, that's, that's a really exciting project for us still. Uh, we, we run a. Big, the content, the digital content for a big charity football match out in Doha. That's happening again for us this year, so we're gearing up for that in January. Nice bit of winter sun will be, um, uh, nice to get out there after Christmas.

Justin Crosby: Well, there might, might be a a, there [00:14:00] might be a, uh, a report from the ground there for TellyCast. You never know. It sounds quite 

attractive. 

Thom Gulseven: We, we'll, we'll try and find some time to, to, um, to chat about what's happening. Yeah. So, so stuff like that. Lots of branded content. We just wrapped on a project for Beavertown, the brewery.

Right. Um, so, you know, mixing that kind of. Brands as broadcast, as brands, as commissioners that, well, we've heard an awful lot of, uh, uh, recently working directly with them, stuff through agencies. But like the, um, we were chatting about it just before, uh, we started with, currently the long running project for us is the one that we're doing with Channel four, the comedy channel called Yes.

Confusingly a comedy thing. Yeah. Um, so that's kind of been. Become part of the backbone of our production state, really, and, and what we're doing year round. 

Justin Crosby: And that's a really significant step for you, I think, in, in, in terms of presumably the, the scope of that. And, and, and just take us, take us in inside the, the amount of content that you're creating and, and what building and running that channel means in terms of Yeah.

You know, day to [00:15:00] day. 

Thom Gulseven: So we run the Channel four, channel four from a production perspective. So we make a new episode of long form, let's call it long form, 15 to 20, 25 minutes YouTube content for every single week, every Sunday. With that comes like a whole. Bag of social edits as well. So we are really kind of going out there with a flood and volume of social cuts of those formats.

We run the channel, so we have a channel manager in house at Strong Watch that runs the channel on behalf of Channel four, which is a real significant thing for us. And I think for them 

Justin Crosby: it must be, 

Thom Gulseven: so, it 

Justin Crosby: must be because they've got enough channel managers in their own business, right? 

Thom Gulseven: They absolutely do.

And they're so supportive. They're so, uh, the, all the guys over at Four Studio are super supportive and. Uh, help us like, you know, navigate all the, kind of the, all the tricky parts that we need to do in working with A PSP and making sure we're getting everything right. But I think there's a real strength in IH Channel four C as well, real strength in, uh, having a channel manager sitting inside production [00:16:00] basically and, and working that way.

Yeah. So, and, and, you know, working really closely with, and this is. The real joy of it really closely with a set of the best comedians in the UK at the moment to build that channel and, and make it happen. They're, the comedians themselves are, you know, as much part of that channel growth as we are as channel four are.

So, you know, b, to be the production company, it's also managing the channel that's managing that relationship really brings all that together to make sure we're all getting the most out of it, I guess. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Fantastic. So just picking up on something you, you, you, you mentioned earlier on about streamers.

Yeah. And, and sort of broaden it out a little bit in terms of, you know, certainly you are establishing strong watch studios has also coincided with this, you know, huge move forward. In some of the more traditional media companies moving into the, the digital first space and the creator space, and that seems to have really accelerated in the last 12 months or so.

Thom Gulseven: Yes. 

Justin Crosby: So, obviously, you know, [00:17:00] very smart move for you to do that and, and, and to see that developing. But how do you see things moving forward in the next 12 months? Because it seems to me it's like, it's really supercharged over the last 12 months. I mean, is 

Thom Gulseven: is that what you are seeing as well? I think so. I think it's fair to say that everyone, not just the streamers, I mean.

You know, everyone's eyes are turning towards the power of creators in what they're doing and moving audiences onto their platforms. I think it's gonna be a really interesting 12 months and how people do that. 'cause I think there's, you know, it's not new that people have worked with really brilliant bits of talent that have appear on digital platforms, but I think, you know, people are still kind of finding their feet as to how it works.

Best. Mm. What I've seen an awful lot of, I guess in the last couple of years is people really for what a better description, borrowing people's audiences rather than, you know, really building community and, um, longstanding relationships with fans of a creator, which is fine if you're a brand and you're running a campaign and you want, I'm [00:18:00] only using 'em 'cause it's the first, uh, name that came to my head.

But you want chunks in your campaign. You want chunks as audience. Great. Put chunks in your video. But be aware that like after that video, that audience then might disappear again. Yeah, so I think in the next year what we're gonna start seeing is brands broadcast, the streamers, building a bit more of a, I guess, long term.

Longstanding community relationship with those creators and then building some stuff on top of that community. 

Justin Crosby: When you say that, what, what do you mean? Like retaining, basically negotiating retainer deals with, with, with, with creators for in the same way that broadcasters have and you know, and yeah, 

Thom Gulseven: potentially, like, I think how that plays out could sort of be different for who that client and who that brand or broadcaster or streamer is.

But ultimately the, one of the things I've been thinking an awful lot about is. You know, think from an audience perspective, why does that audience like that creator? They like them because they're part of a community that creator is built, right? Yeah. You only need to go on to [00:19:00] use, like the biggest example is you go on side men's channel and look at the comments on the side.

Men Sunday, all the comments are kind of in jokes about. Past videos, you know, about, I don't know, J'S music or, um, the kind of comments about Ethan Rage quitting or stuff like that. Stuff like from old videos that come up again and again as almost catchphrases that audiences use and communities use because it shows they're part of that wider group.

Justin Crosby: Yep. 

Thom Gulseven: That's why people love creators 'cause they're kind of buying into a big group that makes them feel part of a part of a whole, you know? 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: So thinking about how, um. You know, brands might use that, or streamers might use that. They need to start creating their own new communities around those creators, I think, and really building like a good foundation of what it means to come to you to watch, you know, those creators in different contexts.

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Otherwise, 

Thom Gulseven: you're sort of. Borrowing all those in jokes, borrowing all that, um, 

Justin Crosby: you are borrowing their audience, right, aren't you? And, and, and maybe even just [00:20:00] fleetingly. 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Um, so, so that, so you might get an in initial sort of uptick in the videos that, you know, popular creators feature in, but you know, but they're not gonna necessarily stick around.

Right? 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. And we, and we've seen it recently with, um, a comedy thing that we're, we are making, we've seen that, you know, that at the start of our journey with that channel, we, loads of the comments we got were, I guess. For what? Better description in jokes or law? Like LORE law is the word I keep on using.

It's gonna be my word of 2026, and I'm sure that all my team are already fed up a bit. But the, like, you know, the comments and the law that were, um, sort of we saw under each video was inherited from all of the comedians you work with, podcasts, you know, like it's Yeah. Comments that pertain to things that had happened on episodes of their show, you know, months and months ago.

Yeah. Because there wasn't any built in community and law of our own. Mm-hmm. Increasingly we're starting to see some of those comments turn up referencing old videos from a comedy thing, which is like really gratifying. 'cause all of a sudden we've got a [00:21:00] community there that are coming for our content and the history and the legacy that we are building.

And I think, you know, that's only happened 'cause we are still really early in that journey. We're channel four, I think we're like, you know, 16 videos in 17 videos in which is not much in the greater scheme of things. So, you know, 16, 17 videos we're starting to see that kind of community build. Will there be brands?

Will there be. Broadcasters, will there be streamers that really invest in the same way of like building that relationship? So they're building their own in jokes, they're building their own legacy, they're building their own kind of catchphrases, which are related to them, not the stuff those creatives done in other places, you know?

Justin Crosby: Yeah. So the, tell us about. Where the channel came from. Then little take, take us back into, you know, what the, the purpose of the channel and the sort of genesis of the idea. 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah, well it's sort of gratifyingly and full circle wise. One of the first things we pitched actually as strong watch, like back in 2023, I think.

So we, we were noticing, Ben and I were [00:22:00] noticing, well, two things. One. Not rocket science. Less and less comedy end was being commissioned for TV and streamers and everyone really. But secondly, the spirit of comedy s and whether it's like clips from old comedy end shows or the kind of games that you might see on a comedy end channel was sort of wr large on YouTube and short form platforms, not least on two channels in particular, dropout TV that you might know, which the kind of.

The rebranded college Humor World and an Australian channel called YM mad, which is huge, huge YouTube channel that built a lot of their followers and views on YouTube shorts when YouTube shorts was new and really rode that wave. Very, very different channels, very different types of comedy. Dropout is kind of very American improv.

Brilliant. Like, but games that really lend themselves to improv. Yeah. Mad is, you know, dad jokes like kind of straight for the jugular, head to head [00:23:00] telling gags basically, which is why it does say brilliantly on, on short form. But we looked at them and we thought God, there was like, at the same time, so many like incredible, like so good UK comics that weren't getting the opportunity to go.

On TV because those shows didn't exist and you kind of, they like, you know, in years gone by, by that point they would've been on a big panel show and their career would've been doing, you know, that path that everyone knows very well. But instead they were all brilliantly, you know, having their own podcasts or pacing off a lot of clips of their crowd work and, you know, building their own social presence.

Just made us think, God, there's got to be something we can do with this brilliant generation and set of comics and that mentality that those channels like dropout and, and er mad were, were building. And I suppose, you know. That's where the start of that pitch came from. It was very much a strategy with the start of an idea, but just saying you should really, in fact, that's where the working title, a comedy thing came from.

We [00:24:00] went, first of all to Carl Warner when he was still at Channel four and said, you guys should really be doing a comedy thing on YouTube, and then that name. Didn't change from that point, really to the launch of the channel. That's, that's a, that's a massaging of the truth, but kind of something in that, that, that range, it sort of looked like that, that name, that at that point I've got a deck, someone that says a comedy thing on it, I think, and Carl really loved that strategy and Carl really backed that strategy and took it to Sasha, who loved it too brilliantly, who then took it to his commission editor, Charlie Highland, who similarly loved it.

Which, you know, it was great. Everyone was sort of really behind this idea of building a. New comedy brand and I guess the, the, you know, we did a bit more work as strong watch into that idea. The thing that, I guess us as strong watch, and particularly Charlie who's got a great, like, keen sense of how this stuff works in the, the digital space, we knew that what was really fundamentally important to channels like Dropout or ym Mad was the kind of chemistry between those [00:25:00] comedians.

They, they kind of. You know, I, I pay A dropout is a SVOD service, right? A, a subscription service. They've got loads of their content on short form platforms, but really the majority of everything goes on a, behind a paywall. It's like 5 99 a month. I pay that to watch the content, but b, because really, I.

Like to, you know, pay for the idea that I'm part of that friendship group. That's basically the what you're getting outta that transaction. You're buying into a friendship group in the same way that, you know, fans of Side Bend buy into being part of Side Bend by wearing their merch. Yeah, that kind of felt like a similar thing.

So from really early doors. We as strong watch Charlie Sasha were really clear that what was gonna be important with a channel like that was the mix of the comics on the channel. Mm. And getting the right group of people. So we really work hard. Together and building, you know, set of seven initially.

Comedians who all worked with each other an awful lot, were all mates, all appearing on each other's podcast and I when then we shot some pilots with [00:26:00] channel four and you could sit, it was just such a brilliant morning that run through pilot day of sitting down with all of the communities you're working with and like immediately when the cameras switch, I'm like, yes, this is the kind of chemistry and the.

The relationship that's going to really sort of, people will see through the lens and um, and wanna be part of as well. So yeah, spent a long time with Charlie and Sasha building that set of comedians. And since that, since the point it was green knit, we just sort of straight out, like that's the big thing with a channel like this.

Once you start the conveyor belt, the Convey belt is just moving, right? Yeah. You stop, stop making, you'll stop posting and then you've lost that consistency. You, uh, talking about that YouTube loves so much. We do an awful lot of different kinds of formats on there from like the kind. You know, YouTube, staples of lineup games.

We've got out and out joke formats where those comedians kind of gag writing skills are really tested. But the, but ultimately the joy is we can do something [00:27:00] different every single episode. 'cause it's what we're really building is that network of faces. You come back for each time. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I guess, uh, other than, you know, and that all of that makes complete sense when it comes to, you know, the, as you say, the drop off of, uh, of linear commissioning and comedy as well, but there must have been.

Compelling data in terms of how comedy performs on YouTube. Yeah. That really, that made, makes the business case for that, right? I mean, w what W. Is, is that, you know, presumably comedy is one of the biggest genres on YouTube as well. I mean, it's, it's 

Thom Gulseven: on YouTube after music. I think the biggest, the second biggest, um, genre on TikTok, the biggest.

Right. And obviously comedy is a really broad change. Like it means a lots of, uh, point of, it's very, very subjective. It means lot of different things to different people, but I suppose the fact is people go to those platforms to be entertained. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: You know, so yeah, the, the. There was an awful lot of kind of business case building for us to channel four in terms of why that was a really [00:28:00] worthy investment.

Largely around the size of audience in comedy, similarly around the kind of brands that were attaching themselves to. Funny stuff. Yeah. And, and that opportunity there to, um, I guess the more branded content and sponsors. Similarly around live events, if you look at like the really brilliant, rich suite of, um, comedy podcasts in the UK at the moment, well globally at the moment, but particularly in the uk.

They're all touring and they're all doing really well out touring. Think about things like fin versus history, you know, fin Taylor podcast with Horatio Goul. They've just, I think, sold out a run in the uk. Also saw this morning that he's selling Christmas crackers with gags that he's written in it. That is a brilliant merch extension of a, a brand like that.

But opportunities like that are kind of the thing that you get when you start to build those communities, of course, or build that, that following. And that was a big part of the pitch for a comedy thing as well. Like how do we build a brand that people will love enough to come and buy a ticket [00:29:00] to a show or buy a Christmas cracker?

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean it, it's really sort of plays back to the sort of the May one of the key tenets of Digital First really is having your IP in the center of that and then being able to spin off. You know, memberships, live events, podcasts, merchandise, and all of these opportunities. And, and that's the way that you are hoping to take the channel and, and yeah.

And take advantage of all those opportunities. Opportunities. So we might see a comedy thing, live tour right around the UK 

Thom Gulseven: comedy thing, live tour. We did a live night in Edinburgh this year as a kind of test run early days. Yeah. What does it, what would it look like? But could that be a, a live tour in the future?

Who knows? Could we, um, you know, lots of the, just like at Lab Bible, when Ben and I were looking for opportunities and the, the whole team, they were looking for opportunities of turning formats into physical products. Could there be a card game that spins out of a comedy thing? Could there be all those things that we know that reach people have gone down with, um, you know, turning their IP into real [00:30:00] world products?

That's a really exciting thing to, um, think about particularly. In partnership with someone like Channel four who have got their kind of future strategy, that's gonna have to pivot towards those different revenue streams. Yeah. But hopefully working with someone like us allows them to do that quite nimbly rather than trying to pull together all the bits of the business to, to do it in different ways.

Interesting. 

Justin Crosby: So coming back to something you, you mentioned earlier on, obviously 

Thom Gulseven: Sasha, I, I, very quickly Justin, I, I would be remiss not to mention you've mentioned like launching podcasts off the, uh, the back of comedy thing. This week, literally this week in two days, we're launching our first podcast from, or podcast from the comedy thing brand called a News thing, which is a cocom with the news and current affairs department of Channel four.

Between, you know, Charlie, Sasha, and digital department and Louisa and her team in the, the news team. Specifically to use comedy to find an audience that's not necessarily going to, well, watching the news and getting the facts behind stories. So [00:31:00] that's something we're launching this week. I'm really excited about it.

'cause you know, what we do on the comedy thing is often silly. It is kind of, you know, games that allow those comedians to muck about and be funny with each other as friends. 

Justin Crosby: Yep. 

Thom Gulseven: But this is a sort of different side of that as well, like being funny, but also rather to get some facts into people as newsfeed as well.

So look out for facts coming this 

Justin Crosby: week. Alright, well, will do. Well, uh, who better to produce that as well is the, you look after, have I got news for you? YouTube? We do look off as well. Funnily enough. Yeah, yeah, 

Thom Gulseven: yeah. Um, funny Takes on the news is not something that's alien to the building in which we currently 

Justin Crosby: see.

No. Fantastic. Well just, just picking up on, on something you mentioned earlier on, which is, you know, there's lots of interesting moves around the digital first space at the moment and big media if you like. We, you mentioned Sasha, he's obviously going to Sony. Yeah. Which, uh. He's, you know, the interesting things that, uh, that Sasha and Matt Ford are gonna be building over at, at uh, at Sony.

Uh, we've seen, you mentioned news, ITN they're looking to, you know, right. [00:32:00] Senior creative director over there. Hearst are also moving into this space with Hearst Canvas, obviously ITV studios with the Zoo 55. 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: And we already know BBC studios is, you know, is investing heavily in this space. It's an exciting time, isn't it?

Thom Gulseven: It's so exciting. It's so exciting stuff like the, um, the new Sony team, like Matt is a stellar team. They're building over there between Sash. Uh, Matt, as you mentioned, Matt, like is brilliant and worked with uh, Matt and the party, like absolutely fantastic person. That role. We've got Danny Re over there.

Danny worked on a few shows of us at Strong Watch and back of the day at Lab Bible. Yeah. Great kind of person to have in the kind of creative hot seat to uh, be thinking about what a creative world looks like. 

Justin Crosby: Yep. 

Thom Gulseven: So exciting what's happening there and all of the people you've just, just listed Justin, it feels like, um.

You know, back when I was at Channel four and I was sort of, you know, me and anyone else working at digital C were really banging the drum and saying, this is gonna be an important part of the future. This is what everyone's gonna be thinking about in the next 10 years. It feels like it's happening. Yeah.

And then [00:33:00] I talk to people like, um, you know, Matt Campion, who I know you have on, on All Lot, and Sam Barkov, that all those, they, the proper OGs, like those, and the remarks over Channel war, you know, people've been chatting to for, uh, ages about this thing, and it feels like a genuinely exciting moment. We we're, you know, all that stuff we've been talking about.

Yeah. It's actually happening. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: And all of the kind of big, I suppose, super indies and bigger kind of corporate media getting into that now, just sort of, I suppose, further legitimizes all those thoughts and I guess, opens up the playing field for everyone, doesn't it? Yeah. The thing that I think is, um, super important, I've been, I've noticed in kind of real sharp focus over the last couple of years.

We've all known that like digital is super entrepreneurial. Even in those corporate environments where you can make money, how the platforms are working, what brands want to do, what kind of broadcasters strategies look like, they sort of change really regularly because the landscape changes really [00:34:00] regularly.

You know, Ben and I built our bus part of our business model when we first pitched it on Snapchat. That revenue isn't net anymore. Like that. Snapchat don't monetize in the same way anymore. Yeah. So similarly with meta platforms, we built a lot of revenue lines in our business plan on them. They're not there anymore.

It changes an awful lot and we've had to pivot in loads of different directions to have those variety of different revenue streams. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: What, um, what's gonna be really interesting with those bigger, bigger corporations is how flexible and how entrepreneurial they can remain in a time where it feels like a ton of different opportunities come in loads of different directions.

Can they be as, can they allow the people working for them to be really entrepreneurial and can they remain? Entrepreneurial whilst having that, you know, huge structure as well. 

Justin Crosby: Well, they, they need that, they need to give those departments and those teams the ability to fail and, and have that mentality of like, failing fast and, and test and learn and, and almost like a challenger brand [00:35:00] attitude to, to that.

And, and I, I guess they're going to, you know, succeed or fail by almost, I mean, they've got the teams in place and many of these companies, and certainly we talked about so many, but, you know, the ability, as you say, to, to almost leave them to it is. But that's, you know, that's gonna be interesting 'cause not a lot of big corporate media companies are used to that.

Really. It's typical, isn't 

Thom Gulseven: it? Like you, you kind of, everyone is looking for very, I suppose, quick wins. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: For a fair description. Like everyone, like digital I think represents a kind of a bit of a life raft for lots of people. And you don't necessarily want life, RAF come in five years time. You want it to come Thomorrow, 

Justin Crosby: but it's a long term life raft, isn't it?

And I think it's not, it's not. That's, that's the thing, isn't it? It's digital. It's like you've gotta pivot now to. To hopefully save the life raft is, you know, the ship's sinking, but it might not sink, sink for five years. And that's maybe the, the analogy, right? Yeah. Because yeah, changing direction right now.

I mean, some companies it might already be too late. Yeah. Others who are these forward com, the forward looking companies we're [00:36:00] talking about, they're. They're seizing the opportunity, but, you know, realizing hopefully that it's not, it's not a quick win. This isn't going to replace all of that linear advertising revenue that they had five years ago.

Right? 

Thom Gulseven: A hundred percent. I mean, and shout out to Charlie and to, um, Sasha at Ford to recognizing that in some of the stuff we are doing with the comedy thing, that is a real long play. And, um, yeah. And something that we, I hope we paid back in the future. But like I say, the, um, the, um, yeah, those other companies getting into it is a sort of.

The, the flip side of that, the flip side of that need to need to remain agile and commit to it, is that they have deep enough pockets to commit to it. Mm. And that's part of the challenge isn't, yeah. Like we talk a lot about our YouTube channel crossing the Moat and um, you know, sticking with a channel long enough that you've crossed over into untouchable, basically.

Yeah. All your videos will do a certain amount of views if you stay consistent, all of your. Followers will be served the same amount of content because the algorithm knows it by that point, knows what you're doing, trusts you, knows you're consistent, and you've crossed that moat. [00:37:00] That's, I suppose, the job of those bigger corporations now to allow their new projects to cross the moat.

And like I say, for the most part, they've got those really deep po pockets to allow them to do it. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah, I can imagine lots of chief financial officers kind of peeking through the glass, uh, windows. Yeah. Yeah. In some offices going, uh, when's the revenue coming? And it's, I mean, it, 

Thom Gulseven: it's, it's. No, it's a eminently un forecastable world, isn't it?

To go. Yeah. Oh, our YouTube channel is not doing well now, but in five years we'll have a live tour. In five years we're gotta sell a Christmas cracker. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Um, yeah. It's not, is not stuff that CFOs have to see on their, our balance sheet. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: But it will happen for loads of people and I think.

You know? Yes. Ben Dole. Yeah. Ben Dole's. Brilliant. And, uh, always talks about thinking like a creator, right? Yes. Like to work in our environment, even if you're not a creator. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: You have to think like a creator. Uh, you know, that's hard for us as a indie, imagine how hard it is for a. BBC studios or a Sony or a fan to think like a creator, [00:38:00] like that's even more protracted.

So that's gonna be a really interesting thing to see how that gap gets bridged. I think 

Justin Crosby: we, we are just a few days from the, uh, digital content forum. 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: As well, Thom 

Thom Gulseven: feeling 

Justin Crosby: looking forward to seeing you there. 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. And, uh, are you 

Thom Gulseven: excited? 

Justin Crosby: Really excited and it's exciting to see already, you know, this event growing over the years.

Yeah. We, we started this with, you know, almost a, not quite a handful of people, but four years ago it was, you know, a number of people who were all, all talking about actually now, you know, member of the, many of the companies you talk about, like, you know, uh, Sam and Barcroft and, uh, after party and yeah, lots of, lots of the other guys who were there that first year.

Now it's grown 30% year on year. And so, you know, this year is gonna be the biggest ever and it's gonna be really exciting. We're doing, covering loads of new areas. We're covering, we're covering a lot of, uh, investment. We've got an investment panel for the first year. So, uh, businesses invested in creators and supersizing their businesses.

We talk about news, we've got a news, uh, a news panel [00:39:00] as well as well as lot, you know, lots of, lots of other, uh, you know, panels that we're focusing on. So, so yeah, that's, that's a real, it's a bit of a sense of the growth of the industry as well, of the sector, you know, it's amazing, you 

Thom Gulseven: know, congratulations, but like, it's, 

Justin Crosby: thank you.

Thom Gulseven: We were, we were there on the, the first one. 

Justin Crosby: You were. Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: Um. Panel with Mel and Jordan, I remember that's right. Back then. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: How much has changed just with being met with Jordan, I was really good. But it's like, yeah, real, really incredible and yeah, great resource for us all as well. 

Justin Crosby: Just fantastic. We look forward to seeing you there.

So we gonna go on to a story of the week, Thom. So, which is a, is there a new story that, uh, in the past seven days or so in the digital first space that you've seen? That you can highlight and say, actually that was really interesting. 

Thom Gulseven: Um, not quite this week, a couple of weeks ago, but, um, we see Fox investing in holy water, the um, uh, vertical video brand vertical micro dramas.

Yeah. And AI powered [00:40:00] dramas. I think it's just really interesting direction for that kind of content. We've heard, I'm sure you admit, had loads about. Nine 16 micro drama and the kind of, uh, the growth of them. I think it's really exciting. I think it's still finding its way and I think like the use of AI and that and stuff is gonna be really, really interesting.

But with Fox investing, it sort of seems like that's gonna grow an awful lot. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Well they were talking about bringing that some of their talent to, you know, what, up to this point has been, you know, really something that's, you know, very, been very popular in China in particular. Yeah. But the sort of content is.

Slightly Mills and Boonie and, uh, a little bit. And there's Tony Novela. Yeah, yeah. Uh, which is great, you know, and, and super, super popular is the most important thing. And there was also a recent OMD survey, you know, talking about the growth and the, and the potential for micro drama. And it's, you know, it's gonna eclipse fast.

It already has, I think in terms of, you know, revenue potential. So Fox and, and these big Hollywood studios moving into vertical. 

Thom Gulseven: Yeah, 

Justin Crosby: it's kind of interesting and, [00:41:00] uh, a little bit circled back to, uh, when that, uh, launched about, what was it, it was almost like six, seven years ago. The, uh, the, the original micro drama.

Platform. I'm trying to remember the name of it 

Thom Gulseven: now. Quibi. 

Justin Crosby: Quibi. Quibi, yeah, exactly. Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: Um, I mean, what's really interesting about all that, and particularly the, the success in China is the platforms on which those, that content is built, which is really a kind of microtransaction That's right. 

Justin Crosby: All app based.

Yeah, 

Thom Gulseven: yeah, yeah. App based with, um, ways of buying those. With credits, right? Yeah. As, as far as I understand. And that's gonna be really interesting to see how, whether that model translates as well as the content itself. That's all super interesting. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: The other thing I, we, and it's interesting to me because, you know, as I mentioned, we're, we're investing by Hatrick.

We work an awful lot with Hatrick and one, and obviously Hatrick make a ton of incredible sitcoms. And one of the things I've been thinking about recently is, you know, we, we've heard loads about micro dramas, but where are the micro sitcoms thinking about those, uh, yeah. That those. Big departments in tv world Drama and comedy.

Yeah. And scripted comedy. Like, um, [00:42:00] surely that's an opportunity as well. We've seen loads like we are not sure in the UK of some brilliant sketch comics on short form platforms. Yeah. You know, just doing incredible work in 60 seconds of sketches. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: Increasingly, you're seeing those sketches coming from the same precincts and the same location with the same characters, you know, edging towards sitcoms already.

Yeah. And that's a really exciting kind of development and future. And hopefully more stuff like that, Fox still will push it even further. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Well, uh, that certainly feels like a direction of travel and we can be, you know, seen perhaps more recognizable faces in micro drama and Yeah. And then again, micro drama, moving into the factual space.

Moving into scripted comedy, you know, the, yeah, the, the whole vertical. Video storytelling. Uh, it seems to be, you know, having a bit of a moment. So, uh, 

Thom Gulseven: it's, it's gonna be fascinating to see whether, you know, because part of the success of one of those projects will rely on whether that content lives on one account or it lives on a broadcaster account, or it lives on a myriad account.

[00:43:00] That's gonna be really exciting to see how distribution, how, how people distribute it, and if they have the confidence to say, this is. This show is account and this is the only place you can get this show, or it gets lost in the mix of loads of other things, or it doesn't get lost in the mix of other things.

That's gonna be a really interesting development. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Yeah. So now it's time for here over the week. Thom, what is a one person that, that you think deserves a shout out? Doesn't need to be in the digital first base. Could be, could be any walk of life who you think, you know is deserves a little bit of recognition.

Thom Gulseven: Right. I'm gonna be really, um, careful about how I articulate this. Um. A, a couple years ago, maybe three years ago, channel four commissioned a comedy musical called Prince Andrew the musical? Yes. If you remember it. Commission from, from from Hatrick. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: Um, really funny, like really, really, really good. I dunno if you saw this story, but whoever was running the homepage for Channel four streaming the other day, I'm running the, the VOD platform.

Changed the name of that musical [00:44:00] in line with the, 

Justin Crosby: to Andrew, Andrew WinDor, the musical, 

Thom Gulseven: or it's just called Andrew the Musical now, which is amazing. With a line through the Prince, which, you know, take a, a aside the, the story itself. I just, it was really one of those really good examples of how someone like Channel four could still be cheeky and very Channel four, even in the way they present something on their homepage, like incredible day.

Reminded me when I worked there, one of the homepage editors, remember the David Cameron Pig Head? Oh yeah. Story. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Thom Gulseven: That the day that story broke, they put the episode of Black Mirror about the Prime minister of the pig. Yes, yes. On the homepage. It was like that, that idea that Child war can remain.

Cheeky and channel four and on topic and you know, alive to what's happening around it. Yeah. Even in the way they promote their shows on the web platform, I thought was really cool. So whoever did that as the homepage editor, they're the hero of the week, I think. 

Justin Crosby: Alright. Okay. Well, whoever it is at, uh, at channel four, who's responsible for that?

Yeah, yeah. Drop drops an email or, uh, or, uh, yeah, let us [00:45:00] know on socials who it is and we'll give you, give you a proper shout out. And who or what are you telling to get in the bin? 

Thom Gulseven: That's tough, isn't it? What do people normally say? People are like, I'm normally very diplomatic about this kind of thing. I was gonna say something about like BA and um, Louis oos podcast and uh, yeah.

Um, the story around there, I was also this morning when I was on the train looking at, I was gonna say the general public for voting. Ellie out strictly, we were a strictly household and we, like me, my daughters love belly. That was, um, terrible news this morning. They dunno yet They've not watched the episode, so I, well we've never had 

Justin Crosby: the great British public putting them in the bin, but 

Thom Gulseven: yeah.

Yeah, they're rubish. Oh right, right. Um, but also I think my actual villain of the way, the person that I'll put the bin was the person that nicked all the sweets off my doorstep on Friday night that I left out for Halloween. 

Justin Crosby: No, 

Thom Gulseven: I took it a lot not, and also I've got it on a ring, um, camera, so maybe we will put that on YouTube and so happens.

Justin Crosby: So hang on to, that's a very strange strategy. You what you leave at Tub of Sweetss out. You don't open the door every time. Yeah. [00:46:00] It's a bit lazy. I have to say. 

Thom Gulseven: I was trying to be efficient, Justin. Actually, maybe in a way, my efficiency, my attempt at efficiency is backfired and they deserve all those sweets.

Justin Crosby: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yes. Well, I, uh, exactly. Let's, uh, let's name an shame and, and put them, uh, pro on YouTube. Yeah, exactly. Thom, thank you for joining me. It's been brilliant as always to chat with you. We're going through much Right. And, uh. I'm sure let's, let's do it in again in another year, because I think 2026 feels like this year, it feels like the scales have tipped slightly between traditional and digital.

First. And, you know, it's really exciting what 2026 is gonna bring. So, uh, maybe we'll do this again, uh, sort of round Halloween again and, uh, yeah, yeah. And see what, uh, see what's changed. 

Thom Gulseven: Yes. Thank you very much for having me. I'll see you next year, Justin. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah, absolutely. Well, good luck. Well, I'll see you on Thursday, first of all, so Well, that's about it for this week's TellyCast.

Thanks very much to Thom Gosman from Strong Watch Studios. We'll be back [00:47:00] again next week with another show.