The Secret Digital Producers

In this anonymous edition of TellyCast, Justin Crosby is joined by two experienced digital-first producers who speak candidly about the realities of building sustainable businesses in social video, YouTube and podcasting in 2026.

They discuss why digital producers are suddenly in demand, how broadcaster strategies are changing, and why success on YouTube is far from guaranteed for traditional TV indies. The conversation digs into budget expectations, premium versus low-cost production models, the need for multi-skilled teams, and the growing importance of community building over single commissions.

Rights and IP are a major focus, with the guests explaining how current broadcaster deals work, why ownership of audiences and channels matters, and what a future industry framework for digital-first production might look like. They also explore branded content pricing, fears of a race to the bottom, and whether new industry standards are needed to protect producers.

The episode closes with predictions for the rest of 2026, including the impact of the BBC’s new digital initiatives, creator cross-overs into television, and what the next phase of the digital-first production economy could bring.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to another TellyCast . I'm Justin Crosby. Every so often we produce a show with anonymous contributors as guests. The secret producer aims to get the lowdown on what's really going on in the content industry as they feel free to share thoughts that might prove difficult. Otherwise, if attributed to them, we use AI tech to keep them secret.

This week we're speaking with two secret digital producers as they talk us through the pain points, offer some solutions and dispel some preconceptions about digital first production today. So here we go with this week's episode, the Secret Digital Producers. Hope you enjoy the show.

So my first guest is the digital first producer operating in lots of different spaces. And I'm really in interested to [00:01:00] understand, you know, what the pain points are and, uh, the challenges are there. So listen, tell us about, first of all, what's it like being a digital first producer, a specialist in this area right now?

So, bringing a digital first producer in 2026, uh, feels finally great. It's a time where it's been taken seriously. Um, mostly because the money's moving. We are seeing the traditional industry, um, obviously in decline, um, financially. And so what we're seeing is. The money moving into projects that wouldn't have normally, normally been funded, but it, it's a new way of bridging the gap for channels of broadcasters.

We're even seeing [00:02:00] streamers coming into the digital first space, buying up podcasts. Um, we've seen Disney and Netflix, but announced that they're gonna move into the vertical content space. But, um, I think the, the biggest. Thing for producers that have been in this space for a while, is that widely, it feels like there's a bit more respect for what we do, uh, as a business because it's now, you know, the proof is in the pudding of where the audience has moved to and, and how users are actually, um, being the ones that are driving that forwards.

So, I mean, for, for years I've always seen. A lot of traditional, uh, let's call 'em traditional linear producers or, you know, traditional TV production companies, really sort of turning their noses up at, at digital first 'cause of the budgets. Various reasons, but mainly 'cause of the budgets, let's be honest.[00:03:00] 

But it must feel pretty sweet now to, to be one of the businesses that's on the end of lots of calls. Particularly on the back of the BBC now saying they're gonna start making content directly for YouTube. Yeah. What does it feel like? Well, it, you're right because for years there hasn't been the budget, but there's a difference in, there's this model that I think people are starting to wake up to, and it's something that those that have been building in digital for years have always known about.

Um, but it's a very different model to the traditional television model. Pre traditional TV is, uh, it's B2B, so you get paid by a channel or a broadcaster to make something. You either manage to get some rights and retain that, and maybe you will make more money through ball mat sales, tape sales, um, or it might just be work for hire if you working to a streamer, but the money is.[00:04:00] 

It's, it's finite in a sense because you are delivering a certain length product and getting a return on that investment. And then that's the way that beef subscription and advertising model has funded, that if you work in digital, you know that it might take three to five years of building something to get to a point where you could start really making some serious money books.

Digital producers will take that risk. They've got that foresight. They understand how to build audiences, how to create loyal communities, and how to monetize them. That's much more of a B2C model, and what we're seeing with broadcasters is them now having to get their heads around that because their budgets are in decline.

Um, audiences are shifting. I know we still see the BBC celebrate getting nine point plus million, uh, viewers for the traders. But [00:05:00] we're being honest, starting strictly there were, there were two horse show. Um, that's not like having a stable of 20 incredible digital brands that make money monthly, um, all year round.

Um. So there's, there's sort of two, the world's dividing very quickly. There's two, there's sort of two camps. There's the, there's the sort of the traditional TV and streamer world, which is about hits. That's about finding dig hits and getting those, um, standout in a crowded marketplace and about putting the budget behind those things.

You know, and we still see things failing in that space. Um, but then on the six sides, there's the other camp, which is, um. Which is low cost, high volume, always on building a brand and sticking to what you know and listening to the audience and finding multiple ways of building [00:06:00] revenues around things that people love.

I think that what we say now is, is, is a division and we're saying broadcasters going, right, well, I can't afford to be investing in multiple big brands, so I've got to start up. Thinking about spreading my mo, like my bets about future proofing. So we've got to start investing into spaces where the audiences are actually moving to.

And the truth is, you only have to look at Lilia to know that it's not got long left. Let so and so with, with all of the statistics and the constant news coming that digital is on the rise. Um, you know, I, for me it feels like. That's the thing that is, that is really exciting and it really is the tipping point.

Do you think there's a, I maybe I, I know the answer to this already before I ask it, but do you think there's an unbridgeable skills gap in the TV and digital first spaces? [00:07:00] What's really irritating is that for a long time, I don't think the TV industry. Respected the digital industry. You are those, you are those future guys.

As little guys doing low budget stuff over there, not understanding that lots of companies were building big multimillion pound empires through digital publishing and video. Um, but um. And so there was usually a lack of trust of the digital companies being able to make television, which isn't, I don't think, isn't true.

I think there's something incredibly talented producers in the digital space that are as good of, as good as if not better than a lot of teary producers because for a start, they have to make things look better on a lot less money. [00:08:00] Um. And so I think rather than might, you know, the, the gut instinct from the industry might, might be to tell the TV industry to fuck off.

But actually I think, no, I think, I think the foundations of television production are really needed and of our, um, you know, is the thing that can help. The digital world grow up in a sense, um, and learn from. Having said that, I think that there are parts of it that are wildly different, and so there is a lot of training needed, um, certainly, certainly unlike the, for the, um, buy side, production management and the social media side.

And so you can train TV personnel to become digital. You need a blend of both, because having digital native, [00:09:00] um, cre and, and staff I, I is, uh, it's invaluable kind of production. So if you look at, you know, look at many production companies, uh, now, and actually the way the, the, a lot of the TV industry is, is, is structured for getting freelancers for a, for a second, you know, the, the, it's, it's really hierarchical, isn't it?

Uh, there's people who operate in. These roles where it's head of production or you know, whatever those roles are. Development producer, that's the role that they've performed for various different indies, either on a freelance basis or they've been in-house for a number of years and they would never consider doing anything else.

But that's all changed, hasn't it? If you're still working high introduction, high end tv, then that remains. But the truth is those jobs are very few and far between the. The thing in digital is that the aim of the game is to be as [00:10:00] cost effective as you can for your budget. That doesn't mean the budget can't be huge.

It just means that you are investing money into something that you want a proper return on. And so in order to really. Get the most bang for your buck. You've got to have people that really are multi-skilled and have that ditched your first way of thinking and approaching production. Those are those, those things are are key, and so you're right.

You need people that can do more than one, wrong. People that understand why you are doing what you're doing. People that have. Second guess every part of the process so that you can get as much content, um, you, you, uh, or your production as possible. Because if you think about the dixter world [00:11:00] that all, a lot of the content that you produce is similar to a TV world, you still need to take photographs for your key art.

But in the. Out for, for posters and for, you know, when you are marketing things on your, on the streamer or on ads for shows in the digital world, you're doing the same, but you're doing it for thumbnails and then you AB testing, um, the best thumbnails to see what's gonna stand out in a crowded marketplace on platforms like YouTube.

And so having people that really understand why you're doing it, um. It, it, it's really, really important. I depo think there's enough money anymore to be able to have those individual roles. Um, certainly not in digital yet. And what about rights? 'cause this is something, when I speak to digital first producers, there's lots of conversations about rights now and obviously IP is really key to [00:12:00] digital First Studios being able to create their own empires and become.

The Super Indies of tomorrow. How do you see the rights landscape right now in terms of, if you're dealing with a broadcaster, for example, what, what are the conversations that you are having and how should they change in the future? Well, I think when you are creating projects, um, smaller budgets, because you're starting in digital and you're growing ip, that's a brand.

Whoever you do it with, you need to make sure that if there's not enough money to pay you. It the real value of that IP in the first place. You need to make sure that you get somebody back for that when that could either be rights. So you own the digital rights outright and so that once it's done its license with the TV business, you can do what you want digitally with it, or you might carow that with them.

Um, or you might want to be able to. Geo blocked your format. Now that's something that is [00:13:00] starting to emerge in the market and feels like it's becoming a real big thing. Wein, um, hot ones is now being reproduced in Germany. And so different language models of digital performance just really shows you how, um, our mainstream digital content's becoming.

Uh, so I think, I think it's really important and, uh, for us certainty, like. We're always looking at how, if we're gonna make something cheaper, we've got to find a way of making our money back later. So if we rebel believe in it, then we won't have that backend on the digital site. 'cause we'll, we'll be the ones that knows how to exploit it best.

Finally, let's, let's have the prediction. We're one month into the new year. I've seen an enormous amount of uptick in the digital first space, even just in the last few weeks, uh, once everybody's got back. It feels like everybody's going, okay, it's our priority now this year. How, how, you know, how do you see, see things [00:14:00] changing in the, specifically in the digital first space?

By the end of the year, you're gonna see so much more activity. I think 26 is going to be the real launch launchpad for broadcasters, um, rights holders, uh, distributors score switching onto lifts now. Because the, the traditional world really is, you know, starting to, to weigh. I know that there's a lot of broadcasters out there that still say that, you know, they still do huge amounts of money, hundreds of millions through their TV revenues.

I understand that. Um, and, and I understand that that is still a very, very important part of their business. But when the graph is only going one way and the digital graph is going another, you cannot ignore it. So you've only got to look to the markets, mcom mip London. You look at the digital content forum, how that's grown over the [00:15:00] years.

It really is a sign of of where things are going. Anton Deck have just launched their podcast into the market now. That is a huge signifier, if ever I saw them. So my next guest on this week's Secret digital producer show. Is an exec who's been working in this space for a while, very experienced. Welcome to the show, really glad that you could, uh, spare some time for us today.

So, 2026, we've entered the new year. Finally, it feels like the pendulum has swung in the, in the direction of digital first for a number of different reasons. We, we won't go into the, into that in, in depth. We all kind of know about the state of linear commissioning. Digital first. Is it? Is it the place where.

Everyone can go and start making money off the bat in, uh, in 2026. First of all, I think it's [00:16:00] important to say that yes, it is a, um, 2026 is gonna be a great year for digital. The swing of the pendulum is exactly the right term. We've all wanted this for some time as, um, people that love digital content, people that have been making it for ages.

We've always wanted the eye of Saron to swing towards us and go, what you guys are doing is great, and it's the important part of how we're gonna grow the UK content economy. It's not easy to make money on YouTube at the moment. In fact, I'm concerned that there's an awful lot of indies out there listening to the narrative around YouTube who are gonna lose a lot of money while looking for a solution for how their business works in the future.

And I think it's about time we. All collectively have a bit more of an honest conversation about where it doesn't work and where people are potentially gonna lose a ton of money trying to make something work on YouTube as a platform. Okay. Well, well let's, let's dig into that a little bit. So producers losing money, is this just a [00:17:00] case of approaching you, um, producing for YouTube as a native platform?

Is it just a case of the budgets being too high? Do you mean an AdSense? Not, you know, the, the ads that are being served onto that content, not recouping the costs, uh, that it comes to produce it. Uh, it's simplest is exactly that. Justin. Yeah. Uh, I think there are an awful lot of incredibly talented producers in the UK that who are interested in YouTube.

We talk to them all the time. It's really exciting to see that, that level of, um, optimism of people wanting to get into the space. What seems to be sort of a consistent misconception is that, um, we, uh, look at those enormous success stories like. Is the biggest one like Mr. Beast. And you look at a kind of content he's making you look at, at a parallels way of big TD production there, or sometimes for a slightly sort of snobby lens, but that they look like the scale of a a, a TV [00:18:00] show.

And that's what lots be within, not necessarily that scale, that this is a space in which I can be producing things that, um, have the same. Level and, uh, and scale of things that I might have made with broadcast or I might have made for someone who was paying for it upfront beforehand. The, the reality is that someone like that creator miss the beast.

They're all young ones, or even way smaller creators have been on enormously long journey to get to a point where they can make that video and monetize it. And if Nerd had made that video on day one of their YouTube channel would be immediately bankrupt. Right. And I think the reality is as well that lots of those creators, as we see making stuff, even small scale studio shows, for the most part, doing it knowing it's a loss lead because actually what they're really doing, and not that anyone should.

But they're also making super low cost content, like really, really low cost content that, um, is the things that really prop up their, their networks money wise. Um, and I think [00:19:00] until TV production who want to get into the space that really cracked away of saying, here's a way that we really lower our expectations of what the things we are, uh, making looks like while still doing what you odds to do.

Telling a story, getting subjects out there, owning a bit of. A vertical, particular expertise or vertical until we will go collectively say, well, it has to be necessarily that much cheaper to make any money back and then build an audience to one else to do stuff in particular. That's where the business is gonna grow.

I think we are currently in a bit of a state where that expectation hasn't shifted yet. And people are gonna running in. I'm really admiring there. Lots of companies are gonna run into an original content strategy and not make any money back, and therefore lots evil. I that will be a horrible outcome for them as businesses, but they as an industry, uh, with all suddenly go, oh, that could work due to stop this future for, uh, what we gotta day.

Or people will creep tear their backs on it as a opportunity. I think we wanna really like [00:20:00] recalibrate. Well, we should be recalibrating what that looks like to make original c you know, um, later the news publishers that we look at, um, they, they have a visual publishers, but you know, legacy news publishers and newer news publishers, they build their entire networks on.

Licensed and free content, right? They're not making original content to make money back. They might be making original content as the bits that go in, show rows and with awards and, um, get brands on board, but they're certainly not making it so that they couldn't have a healthy button, like on their, on their targets.

So I think we just need to be mindful and careful about where people are actually making money. How they're making money, and have a proper interrogation of that before people run into things too quickly. Yeah. Okay. So it's not necessarily the magic bullet that, uh, that. It might be sort of, uh, purported to be in, in certain quarters, but, um, let's [00:21:00] delve into that a little bit more then in terms of, is that just an attitude that businesses that are moving into digital first need to hone before they start actually making any content?

It's a case of what can content, can we make. With one person and one camera that's gonna have build an audience. Is that, is that the way for them to approach it, do you think? Rather than you see a lot of established, uh, TV production companies who call themselves premium. And this is what we do. We are a premium.

You know, they start getting sort of little bit obsessed with their own brand and, you know, and understandably, because they might be, become, uh, renowned for that in the industry and had a steady set of commissions because. Everyone knows what they do do. Is it a case of they just need to completely rethink the way that they're approaching this and literally strip it back to its bare [00:22:00] minimum before doing it actually making anything?

Yeah, I think so. I think we need to, um, have a, a think about what premium actually is. And so like sometimes premium doesn't necessarily mean the same formatting or the way something shot as, uh, as TV does. I think it could mean the people we have cooking on there and the experts you employ. Uh, it could be mean a certain approach to a topic.

It doesn't necessarily have to mean premium in the way that we think of TV and streaming as premium. Okay. So let, let's talk about the, the studios that are in this business and this star list. So again, we talked about the positives of 2026 is bringing lots of. Companies established already over a number of years and they're, you know, they're clearly gonna be seen as the go-to companies.

Many of those companies are small, medium sized businesses and have been built on that very, very bare [00:23:00] bones philosophy in terms of, you know, creating what you need to create for that audience and iterating and understanding what that audience means as you can then become more sophisticated as you grow.

You know, now we are looking at, you know, we saw the B, B, C, uh, we've seen it v we've seen channel four, uh, we've seen, uh, channel five talking in the UK about in moving into broadcasting. So, you know, all the major broadcasters, sky as well. And, uh, lots of new publishers are also, you know, very much prioritizing this space as well.

So, lots of big corporate gorillas coming into digital First. You know, but lots of obviously creativity and success being having by small companies. What do you think, you know, is there, what are the risks there that that presents to small studios? Well, it's so exciting that like the, those broadcasters now have digital strategy that, that feels like it's.

[00:24:00] Genuine and here for the long haul and good, like it is broadly good for, for, um, small digital indies. And actually, do you know what? I don't think we've needed broadcasters more the digital part of the industry. I don't think we've needed broadcasters more than we need them right now. Um, and that's maybe a bit of an uncool thing to say.

It seems to be like the cooler narrative to say, God, we, we don't need telly anymore. We don't need broadcasters. We're gonna do this all ourselves. From what? So what I was saying, uh, a moment ago, getting digital brands up and running is hard, right? Launching something new, building that community is really difficult.

And if broadcasters want to lean in and help make that happen, that's really brilliant because ultimately that's what lots of the UK broadcast sector and the PSBs is there to help the industry do, right? Generate IP that then as an industry we can then monetize and secondarily distribute [00:25:00] elsewhere. But I think, you know, the changes, obviously that secondary distribution is no longer independent producer saying, I've had a hit with the BBC.

Now I'm able to go and, um, make that hit for another broadcaster or another country is actually saying, I've launched this brand within partnership with the BBC and now I can. Monetize that and grow that and exploit that by secondarily distributing that on my own YouTube channels or on other digital platforms.

The danger and the trickiness for us as an industry and for digital producers is making sure that the rights are in the right place for, to allow us to do that. And I think that's been something that we haven't quite got right. As an industry in the past, in, in allowing digital producers to exploit content in the right way.

Lots of the broadcasters had a run at what that should look like. But ultimately there's always some kind of holdback or exclusion or part of an agreement in [00:26:00] place that doesn't allow a producer to, or doesn't fully incentivize a producer to grow a digital brand beyond being paid to make the content. I think that new BBC announcement is really exciting 'cause that actually points towards where I think we should be heading in terms of.

Um, like really long-term retainers, people having ownership over a thing to grow it. I don't think the rights around that deal aren't quite clear yet, but if that, we could nail that, it feels like a conversation that starts to get really exciting. We need the broadcasters as digital producers to lean into this bit of the industry to help us grow bits of IP that we can take on and grow even further in the future.

Like I say, that seems to be a bit of an unsexy narrative at the moment where everyone wants to say they don't need broadcasters anymore. But actually I think we genuinely do. We just need them to get the rights right in order for us all to be incentivized to grow it properly. [00:27:00] Okay, so, so very simply then, what is a typical rights deal now?

So if you are making some content for. Let's say channel four. How, what is the rights position? What rights do you retain as as a digital indie, a digital studio? And what would they, as the commissioner if you like, what do they insist on retaining and what's the impact of that? And what do you want to see next?

How do you wanna see that evolving through this BB, C deal, for example? It's really interesting. That is a very interesting question and I'm not sure I currently have the answer, but I also think, um. What we should be thinking about as an industry is more, can we have a conversation in the way that, you know, terms of trade is negotiated and discussed rather than how it's currently done, which doesn't seem to be in consultation [00:28:00] with those digital indies who are working on the content.

I think Channel Four's rights are, are very good in terms of like the assets that are being created. Producers do retain the, the rights of. As I believe, I haven't looked at current deal terms for some time in the assets to come back to them. The thing that um, I think is interesting though, is thinking about where value is these days in a digital.

Project. The value is often not in the content you're making, particularly if you're making it specifically for a broadcaster with very specific needs. The value is in the audience you're building and the community, not the content that makes it, if that makes sense. Like the actual bit of content doesn't have an awful lot of value to a producer.

Once it's done, the job of growing a new audience, the audience has grown, is the thing that, um, that actually has that value. And what I'd like to see is a conversation down the line with those broadcasters [00:29:00] where it's the producer who's making the channel, who owns some kind of IP and that channel and that, and it's incentivized to help to grow that channel and retain some rights in the future rather than the content that lives on it.

Um. I think there's a big distinction there, right? We still think of channels analogously as a TV channel, not as a show, really A YouTube channel that one is growing is more like a show than it is a broadcast channel, isn't it? So I think right now the rights broadly model those of a TV show commission whereby you own the right in the asset that's being created in the format around it, rather than the community and the audience you're building.

Which is actually the job, you know, that's where we are really being signed up to do by those, those broadcasters. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And so for, we've talked about this a lot on telecast before with a number of different guests about, you know, this idea of the octopus strategy, having you IP in the [00:30:00] center and exploiting it across different, many different platforms.

And you know, in the real world, in terms like merchandising live, all of these different ways to make money. I mean, where does that currently sit? You know, typically in a digital first deal. With a broadcaster currently. So it, it sits with the broadcaster for the most part, which, um, which is tricky, right.

Uh, the rights to, to secondarily exploit a brand that you are building, I believe in the lots of the, the, again, a channel level on the show level sits with the broadcaster, which. Sort of understandably renders a relationship with that broadcaster as quite, um, transactional. In as much as you become, as a producer, you become the person that's delivering the content to, to sit on that channel rather than someone to grow the channel.

I think if you were to self-fund a channel, if you were to self-fund, let's, you know, take something like, [00:31:00] um, the goal hanger suite, uh, be incentivized to exploit that brand as much as possible through, as you say, like live merch, et cetera. 'cause that's not just growing your revenue line, that's also getting that thing out there.

As far as possible to as many people as possible, the difference, I suppose, if you are, what you are commissioned and signed up to do is deliver that content, is you will deliver that content and you won't be incentivized to go beyond that, to actually grow that thing and make it a success. Beyond what you deliver as a podcast, like you're just not gonna be incentivized to do more than the minimum thing you are signed up to.

So I think, again, like for me, it's a question of incentivizing producers properly with those rights in order to get them to do more. And I think understandably, as producers, the um, when times are tough, you are trying to make a margin work, you will just deliver the bare minimum product, right? Unless you're incentivized to do otherwise.[00:32:00] 

So how does that, uh, how is that going to happen then, do you think that sort of switch in, uh, rights positions? I mean, it, it seems like there is a lot of, you know, there's a lot of digital first indies out there. Obviously there's not a great deal of broadcasters, but you know, the, there, it seems to me that broadcasters are still in a, a relatively strong position here.

You know, what, what, what needs, how are things going to change? I think having thought through various ways of making that happen, I think what we really need is the equivalent of a digital pact or as they have in the advertising world, the a PA, the regulatory body to help producers negotiate and get the rights right and rates right to make it work for everyone.

I think through necessity, the industry has been the relative wild west for a while. I mean, I hate that term because it. It employs that we are not doing things properly. But it has [00:33:00] been different producers of different parts of the industry making up the rules for a better, of a better description.

'cause there haven't been been any. But now we're at the point where we can properly sit down together and say, what does the industry norm feel like? And as a result, how do we sort of work together to make sure that we have those checks and balances in place, that we're all getting the right rights and we're all, I guess, charging the right amounts for the, um, for the stuff we're making.

Yeah. Well, I guess, I guess that's the other thing, you know. Market forces. If you are, if you are desperate for business, every business owner knows that, knows that that situation where you are, you need to take on work almost at a risk of, or certainly not losing money, but basic, basically breaking even a either to, you know, to keep people busy in the office or.

Be a, a great first opportunity with a broadcaster to prove yourself. [00:34:00] So, you know, there's the whole pro, the promise of future business, and obviously you can see that is that there's always going to be that 'cause it's a free market. But, but you are saying there really needs a little bit of, uh, knowledge sharing and maybe, you know, maybe regulation or at least some clarity about what, what people should be charging.

And, you know, maybe some sort of, uh, guidelines really that's, that's shared amongst, you know, the group of, uh, group of digital indies out there who are doing this work on a regular basis. A hundred percent. I think like what we've seen over the last couple years in particular, particularly in the branded space, I'd say, where the tendency recently has been for producers to go direct to brands to do work rather than through a media agency for a broadcaster through the more traditional means.

What that means is there are no published rates for how much that should cost. Right? There is a real disparity of [00:35:00] what that content is from like a self shot, bit of a mobile phone content that a creator would make all the way through to like a three day big cinematic shoot with a studio shoots in between somewhere.

You know that everything's sort of viewed through the same lens, which means there is no real rate as to what that should cost. Which means there is has been a real tendency for digital production companies to undercut each other and win that business by offering that business at a cheaper rate.

Ultimately, that's only a bad thing for all of us, right? That only ends with either production companies taking the hit and you know, we've seen people going outta business as a result, or the people making that content. Cruise producers and all the team behind it. Not necessarily getting paid the rates they would've got paid in the past for that advertising content.

And neither of those things are a good outcome. So, um, or I suppose the third version or the third outcome there is the content [00:36:00] gets worse and none of us wants that either. So I think from a rights perspective to have someone who, uh, a body who is in the position to negotiate terms and deals. And incentivizing deal structures in a way that PACT does for the TV industry.

And then from a branded perspective, someone who can really monitor and regulate rates and the fair payment of what we're doing to make sure that we are not a kind of race to the bottom of offering cheaper solutions to people. Those feel like two things we desperately need and again, naturally need at this point in the digital industry's lifecycle.

So that we can make it grow as an industry rather than just keep doing the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, these, these things are, are interlinked, aren't they? Going back to what we were saying earlier on, it's like, you know, the, the rights position and the incentivization, you know, if you can help build a brand for a broadcaster, but then monetize that and [00:37:00] have the opportunity to profit from.

From taking out on the road or merchandising or, or having a stake in the brand when it's turned into a, you know, consumer good or something like that, then, then that would make a lot more sense. You can have a sort of broader conversation on that basis because this is, this is the new content economy, isn't it?

I mean, it's, it feels like the deals that are being done are still have a sort of a TV. Template at the middle of them, and maybe that needs to be, you know, really looked at in that through the lens of, of how people are making money in digital today. I think you know at, at the heart of it, it's really super encouraging that what we're doing now is talking about digital content, but what we are rarely doing is talking about the digital industry.

When we are talking about the progression and the exciting new future with brands and broadcasters, we need to sort of go, now we are on the same page of what people are [00:38:00] watching and the kind of ways they're consuming things and what that content looks like. Now we need to go a step further and say, how do we go back to very basics of deal structures, commissioning agreements, rates, understanding of what that takes to make content and start bottom up, like rebuild everything with that knowledge now using those templates that lots of the creatives that we love have started, but using them, um.

Not just for the content they make, but the way they make it and how they do all their deals. I think that's, yeah, the natural extension and someone to do that on everyone's behalf. So everything is kept like fair and until equally incentivized I think would be brilliant. So finally, looking ahead to the rest of 2026.

We're already at the end of January as, okay, so this is, the digitals are fast moving. Sector. Sector. Is there anything that you've seen already in January that makes you think differently [00:39:00] about the rest of the year? Or are there any sort of clues you're getting? I mean, obviously the BBC deal was a massive one that, uh, there's a long time coming, but anything else you are seeing and hearing and when you're speaking to people, uh, about this space?

In the last couple of weeks that that, that, you know, the change has changed your opinion of what 2026 is gonna look like. I mean, the BBC deal is enormous. I think it's for the first time for a long time, a digital strategy that's been announced that has heft and real weight and real commitment behind it, which is really exciting.

Like that brief that's out at the moment for two indies to run a channel for a year, that's a proper bit of work or a proper bit of cash flow behind it. That will mean two indies, one of which regional like that. That's a great bit of industry growing strategy. And commissioning. That's really exciting. I think the other thing that's increasingly happening is, or I'm just still getting my head around, what it means for us [00:40:00] is, on one hand there's lots of people with the sort of success of seeing people like George Clarkey on Strictly and Angry Jin John, I'm a celebrity, and all of that kind of great work that creators doing in the TV space now, starting to think properly, looking towards a creative hunt to say, are you a future hit for us?

The flip of that is starting to talk to that talent and then increasingly saying, but I don't want to do it for them. I need to keep the focus on growing my channel and for my audience. So making sense of that and making sure that the creator economy doesn't end in creator's burning out because they're trying to do everything, but also keep the community that they've grown on one platform, satisfied with loads of content whilst doing those other things.

That's an exciting thing to fix or work out in 2026, but I think that we do need to work out in 2026 to really take advantage of how good that bit of the economy [00:41:00] is. I think. So, I know you are in the middle of a production, so I'm going to, uh, I'll leave it then let you get back to, to running the ship.

But, uh, thank you so much to our, uh, second secret vigil producer for sharing some thoughts with us. And, uh, and all the best for, uh, for 2026.

Well, that's all for another week. I hope you enjoyed the show. This week's telecast was produced by me. Don't forget to check out the Telecast Digital Bootcamp website and how to make money in digital via the links in the episode description. We'll see you again next week. Until then, stay safe.