C (6:41)

Quick question for you. If we put aside, you know, the lying and you know, the hiding, all of that, this new. You said what's norc?

B (6:55)

So it's norc runs this poll. It's called Dash D A S X. Yeah.

C (7:00)

Is that so? Do you believe in that as a solid source of truth or. That's not even the point anymore. I'm trying to understand whether, you know, well, clearly the gauge is useless. Anyone who uses it and comments on it now that we know they're just going to go back and I mean, forget it. Is that showing a clearer picture and should be what we should trust moving forward. This Dash thing, the results from Dash,

B (7:33)

I don't understand how you use a panel to measure usage in the day where, in an age where consumers are watching everything wherever they want on different devices, on different days, at different times, on different platforms. I think usage data from the actual platforms itself. I was at Tubies Upfront yesterday and they talked about closed loop measurement and trackability. And so they are using third party data solutions, but they're tailoring it per each deal. So if Procter and Gamble comes along and wants a specific data pool to be their metric of success and then they want to track lift in sales, well, then that's the deal you make for that transaction. But the idea that we would use a panel of, in the case of NORC, it's 11,000 ish people. In case of, in the case of Nielsen, it's 42,000 homes for a country of 330 million people. It's just, it's bonkers. And it is, it is not in keeping up with the Times. It's nice for a poll to see if maybe, you know, it's prediction and it gives you an idea of what, where things are headed. But to really measure consumption based on polls at this point in time, it's like trying to deliver the mail with Pony Express. It's just in an era of, of digital everything, the fact that we're still using these analog things to measure, you know, consumption is, it's just insanity.

C (9:08)

We did an episode in March last year exactly at the same time. And if you remember, we, we, we called it, you know, measurement mess. It looks like it's even messier. But okay, let's see how this unfolds. Very interesting to see this happening in the U.S. let's take a quick look at what's happening in the UK because we've had some news.

B (9:28)

You know, when Channel 4's CEO Alex Mahan left, we talked about who should take that job. We also talked about how. And you, you, this is one of your predictions at the early part of this year is that there's this tremendous amount of leadership transition happening in public service media around the world. And last year, or yeah, last year Tim Davy announced that he was leaving not by his own choice necessarily because of controversy at the BBC. And there's been this great swirl as who's taking the job. And it's. You and I both said it's time to put digital natives at the head of these major public service media organizations. And it seems like the BBC may have been listening to us or not, but they hired Matt Britton who was the ex president of Google in Europe. This is somebody who has actually worked in traditional broadcasting but then spent a really successful career at Google running their enterprise in Europe. I think this is a brilliant, brilliant choice. I think he is the, you know, the, the right person for that job. I don't know why he took the job. It's the hardest job in media. It's hard to win at this gig. But I think, you know, this is somebody who's made a really nice amount of money in his career and he probably sees this as public service, which is what the job really is. I mean, I think Tim Davy did a really nice job for the, the lion share of his tenure there. But it is time to hire someone who comes from pure digital and understands that world in this moment in time. I'm understand you were in London last week and, and his name, Matt Britton's name was being floated all week long, I think leaked by the BBC. As trial balloons to see how it was going to go. But what's the sense there?

C (11:10)

Yeah, I mean, honestly, quite fascinating to see that they made that move because I've said it. Yes, at the top of the year, we're seeing a new generation of, of, of CEOs, but what we've seen is we have Priya D', OGR, Channel 4, but she was at sky and she was at HBO. Then Clement Schweibig was at Warner Bros. He's going to be the new CEO at rtl. But those were still people, you know, within the broadcasting world. This one takes it one step further and you are going for, you know, a bit for the big bad company. Right, because so I was in London and fascinating to see that this is a frenemy relationship. People know they have to work with Google, know they have to work with YouTube, find a way to do that, but are at the same time not happy with the way those relationships actually unfold on a daily basis and are all saying, yes, the audience is there, but the money is not. Or, you know, there's so many things that, you know, actually folks at YouTube, Google in Europe can't really, you know, do and tweak to make it specific for the region. A lot of the decisions are still, you know, made in the us so fascinating to see the bib in the hands of an ex Google because it's a precious thing, the BBC for the British. So it's going to be exciting. I think we're going to track him down and, and, you know, look at how he's doing.

B (12:39)

And I'm going to try. Yeah, we have a lot of people in common, so I'm going to really see if I can get him on the pod at some point, you know. Yeah. It's going to be fascinating to watch these two cultures, to his, to their credit, they really threaded the needle here, which is they got somebody who understands the bib and has lived inside these organizations previously and also understands big tech. So I, I think this is, I, I, if there can be a perfect choice for this incredibly difficult job. When, when Obama got elected president of the United States, the Onion printed a headline which is black man gets the worst job in the world. And I think this is a really kind of interesting analogy. This, this, this guy has probably one of the greatest challenges in all of media, but it's not a job he needed. Right? He didn't, he, he, he, this is a job he's taking, I think, because he thinks it's his duty to do it and I hope he succeeds. I, I, I love the Beeb. I want them to survive. I've, I've been a very harsh critic of the last couple of years, of their lackability, lack of ability to transition to digital. If there's anybody on earth who can pull this battleship into the modern era, I think it's this guy.

C (13:56)

Nice. Okay, so you're betting on him. I love it. Okay, now it's time to move on to our guests.

B (14:00)

Yeah. Speaking of digital.

C (14:02)

Excited?

B (14:02)

Yeah, me too.

C (14:04)

You did.

B (14:05)

You chased this test for some time. So congratulations.

C (14:08)

Since last May, I wanted him at an event we were at in Spain. I was so keen because I see him as an agent of change in the media industry. So we're going to welcome on the pod, Jordan Schwarzenberger. He's the co founder of arcad Media. He's the manager of the Sidemen, one of the most successful creator groups in history with 2,44 million followers across all platforms. Your journey is incredible, Jordan. We cannot wait to spend the next 45 minutes with you. Welcome.

A (14:40)

No, thank you so much for having me. Very, very excited to get into it. And just to say as well, I do think that Matt is the perfect choice for the BBC, whatever he's, I, I think to your point, they needed that tech bridge and somebody who has been in a movement at the cutting edge rather than from, you know, get into that sort of the legacy world out. I think that's been their challenge and I'm very equally as optimistic.

B (15:02)

What's interesting about you is you're, you're kind of the reverse translator. Right. So you're taking creators and turning them into media companies, whereas he's going to try to turn the BBP into a creator. It's a really interesting point of view that you have and you've also been at it. I mean you look extremely young. Said the old white guy. But I do think what's interesting is you've come up at a, from a very young age through traditional media into digital. So you've worked on both sides of the industry. Can you just tell us about your origin story just a bit, you know, when starting at like 18 advice.

A (15:40)

Right? Yeah, I mean, yeah, to that point. Right. I've been very fortunate because thinking about actually the creator space, a lot of creators haven't actually worked in traditional media companies. Whereas I was able to come through media in a traditional form and then into this space as it evolved out and became a fully fledged thing. So yeah, I mean, I'm 28 now, so I started my career 10 years ago out of school. I went to go to start at university at King's College, studying a degree ironically called Digital Culture, which is, looking back, a weird irony because it was so, so not digital and so not culturally relevant. And what happened, I had this instinct that it would be terrible. And it was. And I remember before going, I tried to find the one company that I could think of at school, which was a company I could maybe one day work for, that I loved. And that was Vice at the time. This one, Vice was, was at its peak. I mean, when you're at school, you don't really know about the industry. You don't know about the commercials and about the agency side versus editorial. Any of those things you have to learn through really being in the industry and working. But I had Vice as a company in my head. That was a great company and they had a role which was a creative. And I thought, hang on a minute, you get to work and make money being creative. I don't know what it was, but that sounded great, right? Of course. That's what I wanted to do. So I emailed everyone that I could find advice through a friend of mine. Actually, you had about 20 emails when he did work experience there in our year 10 work experience at school. And I asked him, please forward me the email you have. He sent me the email with all of their names. And then I emailed everybody and said, this is me. I'd love to come in for a coffee. This is all the different, different projects I'd been working on at school. I'd had like a. I'd had like a little music thing I'd done and I had a few blogs, had a film magazine, got invited to screenings, everything these things I'd done when I was 15 to 17. So I put all that together and said, look, can I come in for a chat? Went in for a chat with them. And that then led to me doing work experience with them over that summer before I then started at Kings in September, and then after I learned more in those six weeks, advice, advice, being on top of the world at that point than I could ever have done at uni. And so then having to go from that back into unique. And I was doing four days at uni, Monday to Thursday. I mean days, you're doing like an hour a day and spending a fortune on those hours. But then every Friday I was advice. It was this funny dichotomy of digital culture. Degree at Kings, doing like nonsense stuff that made no sense and then actually working at the heart of it, Vice every Friday. And very quickly I was like, this is where I wanted to be. And it got to the Christmas party that year advice, which as you can imagine, was quite a fun Christmas party. Being 18. Vice, a vice event. And I remember speaking to the creative director and the associate director and the managing director of the agency, who's the person who brought me in and said to them, look like, hey, uni, it's a waste. I feel like it's a waste of time. I love being here. This is where I get so, you know, get so much from. And they said, look, we'd love to have you full time as long as your parents won't come and try and hunt us down with pitchforks for getting you out of uni. I said, no, no, they'll be fine, trust me. And they said, great, well, if you want, we would love to bring you on as a, as a junior creative to start. And I was, I think I was the youngest creative that. I mean I was 18, right. So there's good many legally younger than me. And so I started with them. I literally went home the next day, told my parents they were totally fine and they trusted what I'm saying and dropped out and then didn't come back after, after Christmas and started Advice in the January of 2016. And that then led to me working there for three months actually before. Ian Richardson, who was managing director of Virtue in the uk, he took me for an ominous walk around the block. He was like, oh, do you want to just come for a coffee? I kind of remember it now. Just come for a coffee. And we end up walking around. And he said to me, look, I've been asked to go to Lab Bible to build their agency function and basically copy the similar model, but put it into that business. And Lab Bible, for those who don't know, was at the time the biggest Facebook publisher in the UK and around Europe. I mean they had, yeah, 50% of 18 to 30 year olds were following them. This was in that Facebook moment when Facebook publishing became a thing. And so, I mean, look, I'm 18. What's my gonna do? I said, yeah, for sure, let's go. He asked me if I wanted to join him and I went with him and started a lad. And then LabBible grew over a year and a half that I was there from being this sort of scrappy, FHM 2.0 type business into a fully fledged media company with an editorial and a commercial team and an agency function. And it really well and joyride which was the name of our little agency model inside of it did played a real really significant role in that. And now, you know, then Lab went on to go and float publicly for 360 million and is now the biggest or Facebook led publishing business in the world. But then about a year and a half in I said Look, I'm, I'm 19 now. Like I know, I know everything I know I'm doing, I can go start my own thing. Obviously I didn't buy, so I thought I did. And so I decided to take the experience of working with brands my age, which I saw as a real differentiating point for me being that I was young enough to have worked in the industry and understood it and understood economics and how to engage with brands, how to sell campaigns, how to, you know, translate commercial objectives with editorial output. That's what that was my role as a creative in both of those agency structures. And so I went and started my own Gen Z agency to help brands connect with Gen Z. So I did that in 1990. It was called Roundabout. It's the first one of its kind at the time because I was the youngest Gen Z entering the workforce and I'd done enough within the year and a half to be able to go

B (20:31)

what year was this? What year was this?

A (20:32)

2017. 2017.

B (20:34)

So people were really talking about Gen Z?

A (20:36)

Yeah, exactly. Well, that's it. So because I was, I was the only Gen Z in the industry really, I was one of very few. So I was able to then translate that and said well actually there's a moment for me to be relevant and I'd understood that actually you can have relevance at the age I was at for a limited amount of time before you then become sort of old and part of the, the machine. But if I bottled that up and turn that into something which people could buy in that I was the generation that they were to be targeting and trying to reach and I can help them decipher and understand what we want because I'm talking to me and my friends effectively, right. And then that can be quite compelling. So did that, had a great six months doing that, working with MTV and Boiler Room and Dugout which is a football publisher at the time that then became Football Co and then through that process ended up going to a company called James Graham and James Grant was at the time the biggest sort of TV management company in the UK and they looked after everyone in across ITV and Channel 4 and some of the biggest presenters, people like your Anton Dex, Keith Lemon, Patty McGuinness Holly Willoughby, Phillip Scoville. Don't say that anymore. But Phillip Schofield, the sort of your slate of real sort of headline presenters and TV talent. But then they'd also just acquired music agency in the States called Dextar, which has Steve Aoki and a bunch of other DJs. Blink 182. They'd also acquired Troika or about to, which is, I mean looking back is really tragic that that business fell apart. But Troika had everyone now who's doing unbelievably well from an acting side. Everyone from Daniel Kalia, Michael Fassbender, Karen Gillan, Richard Madden, Matt Smith, they had like Anya Taylor, Joy, unbelievable roster of actors and scripted talent. And that sadly sort of fell apart partly due to the acquisition into yme. But then, you know, from there I realized, hold on. Talented people, personality brands paired with Social was effectively a new model of publishing. And it occurred to me that the model of Lab Weib or the model of Vice, there's no difference to the model of really a business like a James Grant. Because you look at that and you say, well, there's 200 clients across the roster. Each of them have a million followers, 1.5 million wherever it might be. They've collected them just by virtue of being present on TV when TV obviously had its cultural dominance at that time. And if you turn them into media brands and if you work with brands as a publisher would, and you integrate them into original formats and franchises and shows and ip, then that's a massive opportunity that currently is not even being thought about because at that time anyway, it's still largely to this day, but less so. All of those, the talent, we don't really like the word talent, but you know, the presenters, etc. They were looking at themselves as just, you know, run and gun pay for play presenters rather than having any media of any value. They couldn't, they didn't know that that was valuable. And so that was my role really, to come in and help them to future proof and to think in all of those ways. And we started off as an agency play through Roundabout and then I loved it so much that I joined them as their chief creative officer at the beginning of 2018 to lead centrally that transformation into this new world. So yeah, and that was amazing. I loved every minute of it. It was four years, it was, I consider that like my business degree. I was, you know, 19 or 20 when I started there and now I know what that must have been like as well. Having a 20 year old like C suite person coming into a business full of like actual grown ups going like who the hell is this kid? But they're all very nice, very patient with me and yeah, we loved it. I mean my doing things like, you know, bringing in people like Amelia Moldenberg obviously Chicken Shot Date like signed her there. That was the first thing I ever did because I'd met Amelia through Lab Bible. I think we tried to buy Chicken Shot day for like 25 grand or something stupid and she thankfully said no. But then we, I had a number and we stayed close and I thought actually she's obviously, I mean say no surprise, she's had the best years of her career since I left. But at the time it was, you know, actually you've got, I think she had 20,000 followers on, on Social and maybe Chicken shop date had 100,000 subscribers. But you've got a cultural property that's really resonating because it had been going viral on Lab Bible and that's what that was great about lad, right? You got to see what, where the cultural temperature was because you saw the engagement towards things like Chicken Shop Date or the Chicken Connoisseur. It was interesting Chicken Connoisseur show that came out here with a creator who reviewed chicken shops went massive. It was big before all this stuff was big. And you saw that on Lab Bible bubbling and bubbling maybe three or four days before it became a massive thing because you could just see it was like a trend pool, right? It was amazingly valuable and Chicken Shop Date was another one. And so yeah, Amelia came over people like Zach and Jay, Woody and Kleiny over time. People like Munyu Chihuahua, the Satirist and you know, various other creators or creator first talent who could expand into the more mainstream. That was really the role. And yeah, my job was also to launch people at anton deck on TikTok like what's the strategy for that? How do they become more relevant on social? How can they build, you know, new formats and franchises etc podcast people like Happy My Happy Baby, Giovanna Fletcher, all that kind of stuff. So my role was really helping all the different divisions to future proof themselves. And then Fast forward to 2018 and had my first baby with my wife and I know I felt as if I was at a point of reflection personally where I was looking for my time back a little bit or to have more control over my time. I, I felt like I'd learned so much but was more servicing now rather than really innovating and being as entrepreneurial and it was just a seed that was planted and then was ultimately fulfilled by meeting Sam and Aaron. Aaron who was in the accountancy side of that business and then he gone off to manage some TikTok is just when TikTok became a thing from being musically. And then he met Sam who is our third co founder in arcade. And Sam has basically been the YouTuber accountant for the last 15 years. He's looked after everybody, the Sidemen, the V1 of the brickfruit era. You know, his best friend at school was Marcus Butler who was a big YouTuber. His friends are Zoella and Alfie Days and he kind of built builds this roster as they start making money of everyone. And so he'd always seen the sidemen as a massive opportunity. I've obviously grown up, I'm 28. So we've grown up with the Sidemen and YouTubers as being the most culturally relevant people in culture. But there was no infrastructure around them at the time. They had no one building their business, they had zero staff, they had non exclusive agency relationships and nothing else. I mean they had the merch business, cyber and clothing, but they didn't have any infrastructure, any business. And we sort of sat down, the three of us, because I met Sam and we came together on a Zoom call just during COVID as it started to cool off and we said well look like we can go and speak to them and actually propose like really building their business for them and helping them to go from where they are to you know, an actual company with people and infrastructure and a vision and a strategy. Because for creators like they never felt from the world of business, they don't come from sort of corporate infrastructure view. They actually, you know, they rely a lot on their, their accountants. So Sam and then a lawyer typically often Sheridan's who are both of our lawyers and obviously Sam being Sam to help them with that stuff. But they don't have people really building for them. So the opportunity was take the methodology of YMU and the sort of strategy led approach to building brands around talent and bring that to the sidemen. And so we sat there on Zoom with them all was quite intimidating. The first time you jump on Zoom is seven, because there's seven of them. It's just a lot. But they loved the vision and the whole aim was that we're not going to even focus on brand deals. Like you have a number of people doing brand deals. So you were going to build your own brand so that you never have to do a brand deal again. And let's go on the journey together long Term and they said yes. So, yeah, fast forward. And that initial strategy had I think 15 things in, in there and we spent the last sort of four or five years knocking through that list. So, you know, it's gone from now zero to cyber entertainment, having 55 people in that, in that team led by Victor, who's the CEO, and he started off running side plus the membership club. He was the first hire we made on their behalf to run that membership club that was, you know, doubled their revenue and was incredibly successful. Still is three, four years in now and that's £6.99amonth start model. And it has bonus content and a podcast and a sort of dedicated community, which is amazing to see. Besides the fried chicken chain's got seven stores opening, Glasgow and Liverpool this year. We've got Singapore, Malaysia and others coming. India coming too.

B (28:01)

I think there's something central there though, which is, I think there are a lot of people who think that creators are just basically influencers, that it's not a professional job. So there's that part of it, but then there's the other part of it, which is when they think about big creators, they think it has to be pure scale and ads, and that's kind of just the tip of the spear of a business. So can you talk about, you know, the talent at the center of the IP hub and how, you know, really clicks and views is really just a kind of small part of vanity metrics and the, the business enterprise is much larger than that.

A (28:38)

Totally. I mean, I always say that management is the icing on the cake, right? But you have to be the cake as talent or is great. And the challenge often is you, you know, there can be a reliance and a dependence on third parties. And in reality, right, the sidemen at seven years was already absolutely massive. You walk down any street and they get mobbed. They've been building organically themselves. They bootstrapped an audience up to scale. So then when you have an audience that's connected to you through consistency over seven years of content and through being incredibly consistent around, for example, Simon, Sunday, their, their weekly Sunday show, which we're thinking probably is the biggest show every Sunday in the UK in terms of the numbers, if you were to actually look at it fairly, but obviously there's a TV bias, which we can talk about, and talk about measurement, et cetera, that maybe doesn't, it doesn't even come into the equation, but it gets, you know, 5 to 10 million views a week. And if you look at the consistency of that Alone, which has been going since 2019 as a Sunday show alongside more side men. Their second channel alongside reacts. There's an ecosystem of long form with YouTube at the core of it, which means that there is that ritual and the connection. I think the ritual is probably the biggest word I would say around, you know, determining success for creators on YouTube. Are you part of someone's ritual every week, every day? When, when are they going to, when are you going to show up in their lives in a way where they will spend time with you? And actually that's why streamers, we can get into this, but you know, the kick streamers, twitch streamers, that's why they're doing so well, is because they are part of people's daily ritual, or at least their weekly ritual. And you're spending hours every week on the same time with these people. So you feel very connected because they're a part of your life. And I think sidemen did that amazingly well before us. And then we have this Lamborghini to then go and take out to the world. No one's seen this Lamborghini before. It's amazing. So if we didn't do what we did, I think it'd be a failure. It's not so much us, it's, you know, 90% them, I would say. But what we were able to do is to build an infrastructure around that to enable it to become automated. I think the biggest challenge is when you have that level of content going out. You know, they have 15 pieces of content going out a week now. And there are, there's multiple touch points of people in their lives across different times of the week. It's very easy for that to get overwhelming and for you to burn out. And so you need infrastructure, you need people running those. Never mind the other businesses like Sides and XX Vodka, Best, the venture capital fund, upside, all of that stuff is ancillary to the core YouTube business. So. And it was KSI JJ who said actually in a meeting once that if the YouTube side falls, everything else falls. So double, triple, quadruple down on that. And if that starts to become poor, if we start failing on that side, like scrap everything else almost. That was the essence of what he was saying. And there's truth to that. That is the absolute lifeblood is that ritual connection that you have, richness, connection you have with an audience through YouTube is the long form platform.

B (31:12)

And why do, then why do the Netflix deal? I mean, if YouTube is your main platform, why. I mean, obviously, I'm sure Netflix wrote a really nice Check. But to your point, they're kind of a self fulfilling money machine unto themselves, right? What does Netflix add to the equation?

A (31:30)

I think Netflix adds a lot, actually, because, I mean, I would always say if I was speaking to any creator, you want to be on two platforms, Netflix and YouTube. The reason why Netflix is valuable is because they can editorially tailor content in a way that allows freedom for that content in a way that you don't have on YouTube. YouTube is by virtue of the algorithm and the way that it trains the algorithm against an audience. You will be relatively capped with the audience size that you can generate based on the content you create. So there's only such, there's only so much that the sidemen's existing content will grow beyond their existing base of an audience unless they do content that takes that into new territories. For example, collaborations with people like Speed, right? That video gets 30 million views. The content that they can create in terms of their team, their time, like the works for them, but also for their core audience, might never break out into your 50 million, 100 million. So in order to engineer that, those level of views and to break out that audience from a subscriber perspective, you have to be doing content that is very different, I think, to the content that they're doing. They've got a captive base of 5 to 10 million people who are there consistently. Will that grow massively? Not really. And Vic actually said this, he said, I think at the time that they're relatively capped. And that's why it's because what works for the seven of them to make it work for them every week across 15 different pieces of content is limited by YouTube and by the algorithm to a certain amount of audience. Whereas with Netflix you can do a show that can be editorially pushed and YouTube is never editorially, or they have done in the past. They've kind of flooded back and forth between are they editorial, are they just a platform? And they did the commissioning side with originals and they backtracked on that and now they're just, they, they remain neutral. And so it's all driven by the algorithm. Whereas on Netflix they can push, they can recommend, they can serve content up in a way that pushes, puts it into people's viewership, right? And that then opens up the audience. So I think that that's why, and you know, yes, of course, then the money to be able to derisk it and to have it funded and to have a partner who can scale it out. So I think there's, there's benefit I'd Say the audiences as Netflix 7. We spoke to them. Right. They're the same audience. It's just providing it in a different setting for them. And I think, yeah, in that sense it's. It's been very valuable to have both

C (33:26)

and so on that if I. If you're able to share a bit about the exact strategy you've had on there. Meaning I'm looking at Mr. Beast and you know what he did with Amazon? He built something completely new for Prime. What was your approach to those who don't necessarily were not watching the Signmen on YouTube? What's the difference in terms of the programming, the creativity you've put into this? Does it work as a flywheel or is it in a bit in silos also, because Netflix love to be very exclusive about the content it invests in.

A (34:04)

Yeah. I mean, so it was an interesting one. I think it set a bit of a blueprint, actually for the way that Netflix works with creators. Because the interesting thing is the sidemen don't need Netflix. Right. And this is to your point, Evan, like, that's the leverage point. That's different today. The Simon don't need Netflix. It helps and it is value adding because it worked for them. But in theory, they released inside on YouTube, they were having half a million people wait in the lobby for the episode by the time it got to Thursday in that week, because there was such demand live for people to watch it on YouTube. So they had the captive audience. It did incredibly well. Season one, it was the most viral thing in the country. And that was all driven by their own distribution. Right. And their own funding. But ultimately with Netflix, it had to therefore work for that. Like, are they going to creatively empower that show? Are they going to make sure that it's funded to improve it and go beyond the amount the sideburn would be willing commercially to put in. Because, you know, the show probably cost a million and a bit to make season one, but the Sidemen did make that back commercially. It would have probably taken a couple of seasons to get brands involved and then that's a lot of work. Has to go in to cover costs and then make a profit. Could have been done, but again, the audience and the capping of that audience with YouTube, the numbers are with the side, but it's already so big. There's only so much more that it could probably grow from that point. So from a brand perspective, and they'd be about building confidence in the market and working with the PS of the world, et cetera. And it could have Been done. But there's a. I guess there's a sense of risk that comes with that. That means that they can't then look at the next thing. So for us and for the. For Victor, really, and for the boys, it was around how do they create new IP that they can test and distribute themselves and then graduate up to Netflix for that global editorial distribution, which isn't capped to the algorithm and doesn't have those. Those, I guess, boundaries, which the algorithm does place around content and how it has to be made for it to work and break out. So I think the combination of the two, but then also what's great is the leverage of. But ultimately, if you guys don't want it, the sidemen can always go and distribute it themselves. Means that the deal structure becomes slightly different. It means that the, you know, the conversation around the future becomes different. And also the IP is the sidemen's. It's the sidemen's IP they made it for. They made it already. It already existed. So similar to Ms. Rachel or maybe Mark Robin, some of these other deals where Netflix have been, I think, very innovative in the way that they're not trying to land grab with creators because they know that this ip, this IP already existed. The value we're getting was already there. So they're almost taking the benefit of the tapes that they're making. But they're not trying to own Ms. Rachel. They're not trying to own. They couldn't do that and they couldn't do it with the sideburn either. And I think that's a healthier relationship, I think.

C (36:21)

So they're giving you a platform to be creative in different ways. You're releasing a new season just this week or just last week, right?

A (36:30)

Yeah. So season three came out. Season three of the UK version came out on Monday this week and went to number one overnight, which is great.

C (36:39)

Good for you. And when you're saying that they don't need Netflix and that they have an audience already, have you seen numbers showing that, you know, it has had a bit of an. A Netflix effect? It's something that we see very often. It's always the same example. It's this TV show called Suits. It's been existing for years, but the minute it was on Netflix, a when, you know, gangbuster everywhere, because

B (37:06)

it happens every time. Are you seeing the same thing?

A (37:08)

I don't think so. With, you know, interestingly, I don't think so. I don't think the Netflix effect and even interesting for. I don't think it is the way that media and culture shifted. I don't think the scarcity of Netflix exists in the same way that it did. I think I see it almost as it's one part of a bigger content world that you're consuming, but it doesn't have that sort of special feeling in the same way because it exists amongst so much noise that you're watching. And so back in the day, I say back in the day five years ago, six years ago, decade ago, a show on Netflix would be the biggest, most talked about thing in the world. We can get onto the idea of the monoculture and that shift away from that sort of central institutional media landscape. But it means that, you know, for example, the talent on, on Inside, I remember you look at their socials and maybe if you were to watch a reality show on Netflix five years ago, every person who goes on that show gets a lift of this. That doesn't happen anymore, right? Like they don't really. They maybe grow a little bit and they get the fact that the opposite.

B (37:57)

They're bringing the lift to Netflix, right? They are the lift. And let's, let's dig into the, to the monocultural thing for a second. I was, I was on a call yesterday with one of the most important production companies and management companies in Hollywood. Very traditional, right? And I was talking about how they have to start to understand how to go direct to consumer before they take a pilot out to sell. They have to build a community around either artist or a piece of ip. And that after having done so, after having become undeniable on a social video platform or a podcasting platform, then the gatekeepers, the green lighters, will all compound on their door. And this was such a kind of unusual way of thinking for them. But it's how you think and it's because Hollywood and Fleet street, you know, those as the center of the monoculture, that's, that's completely dead. You have to go out and build it directly with your own consumers before you become culturally relevant. Am I getting that right? Is that the right way of thinking?

A (38:59)

100%. I think it's. Everything exists in a decentralized world, right? Where you don't have central distribution and audience that's captive anymore. So the audience of cinema used to be relatively stable because people would consistently go to the cinema as the only place that they could experience X film or X media. And so it had a rhythm and a consistency. Same for linear distribution on tv. Talk about the UK TV landscape, right? Is a good example of this, whereby the numbers have just Slid and slid and slid. And every time you look at comparables for comic relief, right, 2 million viewers, the lowest in their history, and it peaked before 13 million 10. So like, you see this decline or something like Saturday Night Live uk, which kind of embodies this right, whereby if that show came out 10 years ago, be the biggest show most talked about, it was brilliant. I didn't watch it live. Probably part of the problem. I didn't watch it live, but, you know, had 250,000 viewers. That was the overnight 250,000 viewers. And that show must have cost a fortune in terms of the staff and the writers and everything else. So you've got this mismatch between the audience that is within the distribution that is still incredibly well funded and arguably overfunded and overpaid for by brands with an audience that just isn't there because they've moved on and they've moved to decentralized choice at scale with five or six or seven platforms that they're consuming on every single day. So the competition for people's mindshare and their attention is just so vast that no longer can you rely on those old forms of institutional distribution.

B (40:22)

Which means that I watched most of the Saturday Night live from the UK on TikTok and it was really good, by the way. Very, very funny, very timely to a certain extent. Had they reverse trended that and, and done the sketches at a low cost on TikTok first, with the same exact talent and built an audience there and then launched on sky, they probably would have done a lot better. And that's now the new norm that, I mean, that's how your whole agency works, right?

A (40:50)

100%. But also, I mean, even, even that, or whether it went on YouTube and became a YouTube first property, which was live, I mean, there's a need for that, there's a need for more of that. But also the had economics that match that. And this is the reality of the industry, right? The economics that we're used to in production in, you know, in terms of the team you can afford and the talent you can get. Like that has to measure against the reality of the income reality of YouTube, which is relatively capped. I mean, you know, there are ways of overcoming that. Like we've got, for example, in our business, we have a business called Creator Access, which, you know, has a partner sales license from YouTube we can directly sell to market. But that's a whole journey to take the traders at WPP or a publicist on in relation to the content and the channels that you have access to in that case. Look, though, we can take a CPM from A$12 on auction up to A$50,$6, whatever it might be and sell directly. But that's. That's very bespoke and that's quite case by case. Sky actually have one, which is why I don't understand if they'd have released it. I mean, I get. Because the advertisers and the amount that they would have to. To have sold the show in order to justify the budget would need linear, because that's still the default. But you're dealing with 250,000 viewers. And actually the amount of noise they were generating, the amount of social impressions, 250,000 live viewers versus 1.9 billion, they've said in terms of social impressions, that's a mismatch there. And shows the audience is here, it's not over there. And the problem is the industry still thinks that the audience will come over and they just won't. I will not watch it on Sky1. I will watch it on clips, and most people will. And so you're in the wrong place. You're simply not distributing the show to where the audience is today. And that's again, this. This kind of monoculture transition that we're into, we're in at the moment, whereby the old world needs to economically check itself against where the audiences are today and find a way to generate more value from those eyeballs and from where the audience is now, which is ultimately YouTube and Social First. I did also think, though, that if it was on Netflix, it would have been probably the biggest thing. And actually that's because Netflix is again, where audiences are but 250,000 viewers. And that's not uncommon. Comic Relief, Britain's Got Talent go through the list of shows and they're all in this point. So, yeah, I think the monoculture is. Is, I think, an interesting way of understanding the shift from ultimately centralized media to decentralized media and the lag that's taken place in terms of brands and the industry recognizing that fact and going to where the audience now is, which is definitely not where they were 10 years ago.

C (43:04)

And so you've actually, you've taken a step forward just a few weeks ago in building that flywheel with, you know, talent and IP at the center with the creator access. Do you want to tell us a bit more about that?

A (43:17)

Yeah, for sure. So creator access is essentially the next era. We think of, you know, selling creator media as tv. Like, the way that we view it is that creators on YouTube are simply TV 2.0, 3.0. It's TV for the generation that are consuming primarily through the pipe of YouTube versus through the pipe of sky or Virgin or Freeview. Right. So it's simply the transition of that and obviously they will be right. It's infinite content, it's decentralized. There are much, much better technical products, whether it's live premieres, et cetera. Podcasting is all like. It's a much better experience. Of course, it's doing so well. That's why YouTube is, you know, the biggest entertainment company in the world right now, even though they don't produce any entertainment. And you know, I think for, for that though, you have a world of brands that are trying to reach an audience that's now moved, who's helping them to move with those times and how are they gain access to the Channel four, the itv, the Channel five of this new era. So creator access is our proposed, our proposition to solve that. And that's with a partner sales license from YouTube, which for those who don't know, it's quite a technical thing, but as I was saying, it allows to directly sell the media within our CMS, which is the content management system on YouTube, to brands and set the pricing and set the takeovers and set the integration ourselves. So that means that rather than a brand buying an audience demographic through YouTube, they can buy a specific channel with us, so they can buy sidemen, which you could equate to a Channel 4. They can buy Channel 4 with us, and they can buy that in a way that, you know, let's say for the World Cup, a brand might come to us and say we want 75% takeover of all of the sideband content over the World Cup. Or we say, well, we've got these shows coming out and a brand can in advance buy share of voice and buy buy takeovers over that content, which means far greater customization of planning. And it allows us to do that for sideband, but also other creators as well, which means that we in theory become the destination that brands can buy premium YouTube inventory from the best creators in the country and also the world. So that's our, that's our sort of. Yeah, what we think is the next part of formalizing.

B (45:15)

There are a couple of nuances around this. First of all represent more than just the sidemen. Not just the sidemen, but you, you, you, you represent a bunch of creators beyond them. And so I think that it's crucial to, to recognize that. But then secondarily, two things. One, I think you're the only non broadcaster in the UK that has this, this license, this partnership program from YouTube, correct?

A (45:39)

Yeah. So Sky, ITV, Channel 4 and now us.

B (45:43)

And, and when we talk to. And Marian and I have had this debate numerous times on, on this podcast which is the mainstream publishers, they say, well, we're only making pennies on YouTube, we can't make the money there. I tell them, my answer is you're selling it incorrectly. You do not know how to sell the platform. You don't have to worry, you don't have to suffer along with, you know, $2 CPMs. You can really name your own price if you have the right intellectual property and you know how to package it. There are big broadcasters who have, you know, this partnership, the partners program license here in the US and in the UK and around the rest of the world, they just, they're not selling it and packaging it correctly. So they're not getting the CPMs and they're not doing the branded takeovers. They're not doing all of the things that you're doing. Can you explain how you can turn YouTube sales like that into an actual proper business that is just as good, if not better than Today's television business?

A (46:43)

100%. And you know what? This is going back to my career and my start advice in Lab Bible. It's the exact same setup that you need. And it's a leap, I think from a lot of people in the space who don't, maybe don't come from those worlds of publishing in a new media that doesn't have the luxury of just being the media that everyone trusts already. So you have to prove the case. So I think the way I would set, the way I would suggest one sets up, and the way we're setting up is you have two wings, right? You have editorial and you have commercial. And the editorial wing is about the creativity and about the output that's building the audience and nurturing that without the brands. And then you have obviously your commercial so agency function which is the filter or the, or the, I guess the vehicle for brands to engage with that audience. This was the thing at lad, that's why we came to set up Joyride. A brand coming to LabBible and saying we want to promote X on your page and here's some money gets you 10% of the potential value. Where you get to 100% or 90% is when you say, right, this is the brief that you have. Here's a creative campaign that can work around that brief, that can engage this audience because of this strategic rationale that we put aside and the data and insight side that we've leveraged to actually interrogate that brief for the audience we're trying to reach and the challenges and the ways that they need to connect with your product for it to land. And here are the, here's the inventory that we have and here's a matrix of inventory that covers social. Example label days would cover Facebook, we'll cover Instagram and that became more efficient. But also cover on site ads would cover, you know, long form integration, short form integrations. And you build a matrix that enables, you know, a compounded CPM to be quite high, the compound value quite high, but for the brand. So the effective CPM is, is efficient for them. And then you can do things like discounts and you can have, you know, economies of scale in that model, but you need the inventory to do it. And this is the problem. There's not enough inventory. And we've talked, we talked about this before, right, that, you know, YouTube requires more inventory than we think. And to make a media company, you need media company inventory. Because brands need impressions and they need compounded impressions to build a plan that's meaningful and of high value. You. So one video is not enough, one integration is not enough. You need packages, you need economies of scale and also you need planning. And this is the bit that most creators are struggling with is they can't plan enough in advance because The Sidemen have 55 people in their entertainment team. They can have a content plan for the next six months in terms of sidemen Sunday content, more sidemen content side plus they can measure that all out. So, you know, a planner might be setting their budget in Q1 or 4, Q3 or 4 in Q1. So if you don't have the properties to sell them or you don't have the consistency and the cadence, you're not, it's not going to work. Which is why so many creators struggle with integrations. And they can only really work with typically digital products. So, you know, games or VPNs, that kind of stuff where there's a trackable ROI versus being able to go to a media like a publicist or a WPP or any of the bigger planners who are managing, you know, hundreds of millions of pounds for brands and engage them at a much higher level, which is what we're doing. So we're taking sideband. The biggest goal for us from an owned and operated perspective is taking them on the same journey. That was the lab web journey, that was the Vice Journey how do you take the inventory you have and the vast amount of audience that you have and build that into a media company that can be understood by planners? And that's the bit the most creators don't do and they need to do. I spoke at Adobe's Creator Live the other day and I said exactly that, like, creators need to think like media companies and they need to be bought and understood on a plan and on a media plan. And most creators don't even know what media plan is, but that's how media is bought. It's bought on a spreadsheet table, essentially based on CPMs, effective CPMs, you know, economies of scale, et cetera. And that's what a planner needs in order to take that and get a much bigger budget signed off. Otherwise you'll always be dealing with the small sort of trickle down from influencer agencies who I think will die in a few years anyway. But those sort of small influencer agency budgets, which is so little in terms of value versus the media that you probably have in your.

B (50:17)

But let me ask you to teach you now that's how you teach creators how to think like a media company. Now reverse this. Let's pretend you're not talking to creators and you're talking to traditional media who are trying to grapple with their, their inability to get the same CPMs on YouTube. How do you teach them how to think more like you do around their approach to YouTube? So they understand media plans, they understand how to plan out in advance, but they don't know how to package in social video. What's the lesson that you could give them?

A (50:43)

Well, I think it's, it probably goes back to that, that, that point on, on cadence and volume and inventory still, I'd imagine, and you see most, right, there isn't enough inventory across social, across long form, across all the different touch points that you can have with an audience. So how are you putting that all into a matrix of different, different touch points and then building out enough editorial content consistently to then create that inventory organically first? And so how are you with your rollouts, how are you making sure that there's enough spread in terms of content across different platforms in different forms, whether it's stories, whether it's, you know, short form video, whether it's carousels on Instagram, whether it's, you know, Facebook, whatever it might be? How do you have enough inventory touch points from one long form episode? Let's say if you're dealing in long form, that can then build out a compelling plan because ultimately planners want impressions and they want to see a big impression number that can be guaranteed. Are you getting to those bigger numbers by being creative in the way that you're rolling out content? Especially today when there isn't as much vanity around feeds or around, you know, what you post. It's more about volume, to be honest, more than anything else. How are you producing enough and then also packaging it in a way that's creative enough as well? Often it's the simple badging exercises is that's kind of old. How are you integrating brands into content in a way that is more creative and is more thoughtful versus just the reads? I mean that kind of read culture is very much a 10 year old thing of, you know, a brand just sponsors and badges how you, how are you bringing a brand into the story and the narrative? Which is why I was saying that agency function, which is the key for us, that creative function is the key. That's what built vice into a 4 billion company, was being able to help brands as a creative partner who understands this world, not just as a, oh, we have this media and you can buy it and badge onto it. It needs to have that creative interrog and the ability to translate the challenges of the brand into the editorial in an authentic way. And that's that bridge is the bit that most people miss. And that's what is missing both ways. Typically, the more traditional don't have it going into social and creative first and creators definitely don't have it going into traditional brands.

C (52:33)

And this past year, and especially in the uk, I have to say we've seen, you know, traditional media invest more into YouTube and be a bit less. This is just a promo platform really, investing, building teams, etc. We've had several of these people, whether that's BBC Studios, Channel 4 on the pod, but you know, more, you know, more generically, what have you seen? Are you seeing good practices, mistakes that are being made by those companies? And this time less so on the media portion of it, but more while the buying, the selling against inventory, but more on the content strategy itself, on how they're being presented on that.

A (53:15)

Yeah, I mean look, we're yet to see BBC and that plan. Obviously I know the team there well and I think they're going about it in an ambitious way. I mean they'll even, they'll be the first to say it's probably 10 years too late. Right. But they're going for it now. And I think, you know, it always baffled me that there wasn't more of A. An originals focus on. On YouTube, especially with the BBC, where they're not measured in the same way, they're not measured by money as a commercial broadcaster would be in terms of roi. Right. They just need audience affinity, obviously, need to manage budgets, but there's more freedom there to take risks, actually, which is. Which is the value of the BBC, that they're not beholden to commercials in the same way. So we get to see that. I think channel 4.4.0 has done a great job, actually, in terms of building scale. I know the team there also really well, and I think that they've done it in a brilliant way. The only thing that I've said to them, the only thing that I struggle with a little bit, is that maybe if they'd spun out the assets into individual channels, it would have been a better use of the resource. And I do. I do worry that there's a bit of broadcaster thinking creeping in. Well, oh, it needs to sit all on one channel. And I look at that and go, yeah, but guys, that you've invested millions into this channel and you built all these formats. But YouTube is about consistency, it's about clarity of audience. And if YouTube's not. It's not rocket science in this, you know, in a way, right. And it's not about. There's no Some mythical algorithm. Ultimately, YouTube wants to take your content and over time find who the audience is for it. And so the more specific that content can be on that channel, the more likely it is to keep a retained audience, which is how the channel then grows and builds a proper community, which is why podcasts do quite well and shows that have the exact same thing every single day or every single week. But you always see people do it. The Telegraph do it. And I think the Telegraph have. I think the Daily T, for example, I think is a really good example of a daily regular show that does this really well. But it frustrates the life out of me that it's on the Telegraph channel because you see that and then you have, you know, as an individual viewer, I'm going on that, let's say, and then I'm, you know, I'm not watching the next 10 things. So that is a signal to YouTube.

B (55:06)

You would say that the Daily Tea that. You would say that the Daily Tea should have its own channel.

A (55:11)

100%.

B (55:12)

Yeah.

A (55:13)

And that's a very.

B (55:14)

Broadcaster mindset. Traditional.

A (55:16)

Yeah. And it's a broadcast mindset that all has to be aggregated into one central space. And the future of media is really that One person may have 15, 20, 30 media like smaller worlds that they're engaging with versus, you know, I engage with Channel 4, it's one. Oh, I engage in Channel 4's show, whatever the show is. Right, exactly, exactly. And that world. Or I engage in Chicken Shop Day, or I engage in Track Star or engage in Subway Takes, or engage with the daily or the media odyssey.

B (55:41)

There's this thing that you said that there's not enough content out there. There. There's not enough. Yeah, I think that there, people look at YouTube or any of the other social platforms are like, it's, it's infinite content. How could be adding more to it be successful? But in reality, your theory is there's not enough good quality inventory out there. And so the more good quality channels and IP that you can put into the marketplace, the more quality impressions in quality environments, the better off you're going to be.

A (56:10)

100%. I think that YouTube is very underserved. And I see this from, on a personal level, when I watch content on YouTube and I don't know again, how many people in the industry yet it's always been a thing how many people are actually engaging with YouTube every day. Like how many people are really watching content. How many people have subscribe, you know, have channels that they love? I think probably fewer than we think in the traditional world actually. And if more people did, they, they'd realize that, oh, you run out of content quite quickly. Like if you're looking for more stuff, you might be, you may be, I don't know, whatever you're doing, whether you're listening and you have premium and you can listen on your headphones or your commuting, there might, there's probably. You get to a point, I think everyone probably does who uses YouTube properly, where they go, I want more, but it's not here. And that's a signal that there isn't enough quality content. Because it's not just me saying that on a personal level, you see the sentiment online. A lot of people say, the UK YouTube, for example, fell off and it's not very good because all the YouTubers have tried to become too optimized. But also there's not enough of them making content. And the reason why is because YouTube is hard. Right? It takes a lot of time, a lot of resource to get right. Which is why the default is podcast, because podcasts are relatively very easy from a production perspective in comparison to your big studio shoots and your out and about videos or your challenge videos, where there's a lot more Planning and cost. So podcasts are relatively low risk. But if you take that out, there's still a massive lack, I think, of consistent regular programming that is of a high quality nature that is part of your ritual every single day. And again, it goes also back to that point on, as I was saying, rituals, which is the word of this new era, right? Are you involved? Are you in someone's life consistently? And you're showing up again and again for somebody every every day or every week, and even every week is kind of outdated. And this is the bit that I think a lot of people need to realize that the world of consumption is moving on to the point where we are watching so much more than we've ever watched, we're engaging with so much content and we have a craving for more. Like the human soul is insatiable in that sense. There is a never ending hole of this demand for more content. And so ultimately now the expectation is to show up every day and like streamers. If you think about streamers on Kit, Twitch, et cetera, why are they winning? They're probably winning the most out of anyone in content and creators today. And the reason why is because they're showing up so much that you build a relationship and you have more mind share with your viewer. In terms of rituals. I might watch somebody's stream. I don't actually watch that many streams myself, but you might watch a long form stream. You might then see the clips, you might then see them on this platform or that platform and you're showing up again against. You can't not see this person. So you feel a little bit of connection to them. And in a world of total decentralization and also saturation, connection is the key, which is why there's such opportunity, I would say the biggest opportunity today. It's all like what the Daily T do or what, you know, streamers do. Showing up every day. Why they're not more daily shows. America's been way ahead of this for so long. I always look at the best example of this probably in the world, regardless of opinion about them, is probably the Daily Wire, actually American Conservative Media Network. They've been going since 2013, 14. And they had daily shows with personalities and they showed up every single day, 20, 30 minutes, 40 minutes a day. And they built up up to, at their peak, a subscription base of paid subscribers, 900,000 of them. Why? Because they had such a ritualistic consistency within people's lives. They were there every single day. So you feel connected to these people, you feel a relationship with them slightly parasocial, but you do, and you come to them, you have a reason to show up. They're part of your habit. And so getting into people's habits is the key. And people doing one, you know, once a week podcast, is that enough? Is that enough in this world? Probably not. I don't think so. By the time it gets to, it is even going to be relevant to someone. Whereas if you can find a daily habit from, as a creator or as a broadcast or a production company to get into people's lives consistently, you stand, I think, a much greater chance of being a part of their ritual and therefore something that they actually connect with and they want to engage with and

B (59:42)

support, you know, so, Marian, we have to go every day.

C (59:47)

That's the. The perfect. I wanted to ask you for final advice. I think that's an amazing advice.

B (59:54)

I agree.

C (59:54)

We could take that advice, too. We're putting one episode a week, and it's been difficult already, but we do.

B (60:03)

To his point, to Jordan's point, we both post every day on LinkedIn, and that's why people have this parasocial relationship with us wherever we go. Jordan, we have learned so much from you, mostly because you put more words per second than any human I've ever met in my entire life.

A (60:20)

I said I speak quick. I said I speak no.

B (60:24)

You are a knowledge machine, and I hope this is not the last time you come on the pod. We want to hear what's going on with your new enterprise. We want to keep up to date with you again. You are an incredibly impressive, still very young man. So we really appreciate you spending time with us today. Thanks so much.

A (60:42)

Thank you so much for having me.

C (60:43)

This was an amazing episode of the Media Odyssey podcast.

B (60:47)

That was Evan Shapiro and that was Marion Renshett. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you again next week.

C (60:53)

See you next week,

A (60:56)

Sam.