0:01

BBC Sounds, music, radio,

0:03

podcasts. Hi, I'm Katie

0:06

Rassell, and this is The Media Show from

0:08

BBC Radio 4. This week, we've

0:10

got a lot to pack into the hour. I

0:13

can promise you, I hope, some real insights from

0:15

the top of the TV industry, as we're going

0:17

to be joined later by Alex Mahon, the chief

0:19

executive of Channel 4, and

0:21

by the co-founder of the production company 11, which

0:24

is behind sex education, 10-pound poems,

0:26

and much more. We're also

0:28

going to be trying to find out why

0:31

a Taylor Swift correspondent is actually a thing

0:33

for some in the media, and

0:35

Jake Cantor, Investigations Editor at Deadline, is

0:37

here throughout the programme. And Jake, we

0:39

have also got the small matter of

0:41

a breaking story that's broken in the

0:43

last few hours, the fact that Hugh

0:45

Grant has settled his privacy case against

0:48

the publisher of The Sun newspaper. I

0:50

think I'm right that this has only emerged

0:53

because some BD journalists saw it on page

0:55

18 in a footnote of a document that

0:57

News Group newspapers gave to the court. It

1:00

certainly surprised me. That's right, yeah. It's

1:03

emerged in quite a strange way, but Hugh Grant

1:05

has obviously now taken to ex and

1:08

written about the settlement. It's

1:11

a surprise, I think, for some.

1:14

He's been a thorn in the side of the

1:16

British tabloids for well

1:18

over a decade now. And

1:20

there's been a thought

1:22

that Prince Harry,

1:24

who's been taking legal action against newspapers, has

1:27

emboldened others to do the same, and he

1:29

is part of that process. So it could

1:31

be a blow to the proceedings if

1:33

they go to trial in January. Yeah,

1:35

we're going to talk about that later, all

1:38

of that. But first, I do want to

1:40

look at some of the issues for the

1:42

media raised by the Cass Review. That's the

1:44

report into gender identity services for children and

1:46

young people that was published last week. Dr

1:49

Hilary Cass recommends a new approach

1:51

for clinicians, but what might journalism

1:53

do differently in the way it

1:55

covers such a polarising subject? Hannah

1:58

Barnes is associate editor of the Royal Institute at the New

2:01

Statesman. She used to be an investigations producer

2:03

at BBC Newsnight and then she went on

2:05

to write a book called Time to Think

2:07

which is all about the Tavistock's gender service

2:09

for children and we've also got Rebecca Coombs

2:11

who's head of journalism at the British Medical

2:13

Journal here too. But Hannah if I could

2:15

just start with you, when

2:17

did you first come across the story? I

2:21

first came across it at all

2:24

in 2017. I was off on my first

2:26

maternity leave and there was a piece in

2:28

The Times by Janice Turner

2:31

which was talking about this

2:33

really rapid increase in the

2:35

referrals of teenage girls to

2:37

JIDS, the Gender Identity Development

2:39

Service and she had

2:41

spoken to two clinicians

2:43

who worked at the service. It

2:45

wasn't really a big sort of

2:47

whistle-blowing piece but they had talked

2:49

to her and said what they'd

2:52

seen and it just, I thought it was

2:54

very interesting but I was off and you

2:56

know spending time in my baby and there

2:58

was also a documentary

3:00

that same year on BBC2 about a

3:03

gender clinic, a children's gender clinic in

3:05

Canada and then I didn't

3:07

do anything. I came back to work here

3:09

at Newsnight, well here at

3:11

the BBC for Newsnight then and

3:13

it sort of was

3:16

the time when the Gender Recognition Act was being

3:18

debated quite a lot and I was

3:20

one of the output editors on the programme and I believe

3:23

you contributed to a big

3:25

programme we did on that and you were

3:28

interviewing people like Kath Stock

3:31

and then it was really a leak of

3:33

a report in the autumn of 2018 going into

3:37

2019 that really got me interested in this which

3:39

was a report where

3:41

ten members of staff from JIDS had

3:45

gone to a

3:47

doctor called Dr. David Bell, he's an adult psychiatrist

3:49

at the Tavistock and they had relayed some very

3:51

serious concerns and I just thought we

3:53

don't often get NHS whistle-blowers

3:56

to have ten from a tiny service, something must be

3:58

given. going on and that was... What were you doing?

4:01

Were you approaching them at that point? Were you trying

4:03

to find out who these whistlebirds were or they were

4:05

in the public domain and you were trying to get

4:07

access? What were you trying to do? I just started

4:09

trying to speak to as many people as possible, both

4:11

those who had written about this very early because there

4:13

wasn't that much around about it at the time. I

4:16

spoke, I was talking

4:18

to a couple of clinicians, I

4:20

met them face-to-face in that spring and I

4:22

spoke with an Oxford

4:26

associate professor called Michael Biggs who'd

4:28

found some unpublished data

4:31

on a study that JIDS had done on

4:33

puberty blockers and that's where our first film,

4:35

myself and Deborah Cohen, who was who was

4:37

health correspondent at the time, that's where

4:39

it started. Yes because I was going to

4:41

say, you know, as you mentioned I was working

4:43

with you at Newsnet at the time, I remember

4:45

you and Deb Cohen doing this series of reports.

4:48

How would you, so that was for Newsnet, how

4:50

would you characterize media coverage of this story more

4:52

widely? Pretty

4:54

woeful? I think in what way? It just,

4:58

it hasn't,

5:03

I don't think the media has done

5:05

itself, it's not really, it's

5:08

not had a good episode here. I think

5:10

there are exceptions. I think

5:12

Lucy Bannerman at the Times, the

5:15

Sunday Times has done a really great job

5:17

and actually Sanchez Manning at the Sunday, the

5:20

man on Sunday started many years before we

5:22

did at Newsnight but

5:24

it's been left to, with the exception

5:26

of Deb who is medically trained, but

5:29

really the running has been done by

5:31

generalists, predominantly by female

5:34

journalists and all

5:36

of the health and science specialists

5:38

have been absent and

5:41

frankly it was left to Newsnight to do

5:43

it for the BBC and when we did

5:45

do it with the support of an amazing

5:47

editor in Esme Ren and then later when

5:49

I took the story on myself under Stuart

5:51

Maclean, there

5:53

really wasn't the support from the

5:55

wider BBC. Emma, back to Cuny's if I could bring

5:57

you in, your head of journalism at the British Medical

5:59

Journal. journal. Would you

6:01

agree, would you say that science journalists

6:03

avoided this subject? I'm

6:06

afraid I would actually. Why? Why did

6:08

they? I think there

6:10

was a real hesitancy and I'm hopeful

6:12

that post-Cas the

6:14

hesitant might be more courageous and

6:16

still stepping into the silence. I

6:20

think there was a real mishmash

6:22

between evidence and

6:24

advocacy and

6:27

that became a problem. So I can

6:29

talk from the BMJ perspective that when

6:31

you get that kind of, we're

6:34

very evidence based at the

6:36

BMJ, we're a medical research

6:38

journal. And when

6:43

doctors are involved as the

6:45

BMJ stories, it's natural for us to take an interest

6:47

in this and approach it from evidence based perspective. And

6:50

I think what we had to do is do

6:52

what Cass did, which Hilary Cass did, which was

6:54

to remove the political framing and

6:57

focus on what is the evidence and

6:59

not to be sort

7:03

of blindsided by some of the

7:05

backlash we got from

7:07

the stories that we ran. And when we were

7:09

very aware of the work that Deb and Hannah

7:11

was doing, we previously

7:14

covered the interim finance of the Cass report.

7:16

Hilary Cass came to us. She wanted to

7:19

talk directly to the profession. So we

7:21

ran an opinion piece by her. But

7:23

when we got involved with

7:25

investigations is looking at

7:27

the fact that in the US,

7:29

the transgender health guidelines, they

7:32

changed so that it would leave the age

7:34

of initiation up to the clinician. So

7:37

there was no minimum age of

7:39

treatment. And so we got very interested in

7:41

that and decided to look into the actual

7:43

guidelines and look at the evidence that was

7:45

being used to build up the guidelines which

7:48

were being used by doctors. But

7:50

when you say you were aware of what Deb, Karen

7:52

and Hannah Barnes were doing at Newsnight, were these the

7:54

kind of conversations being had? I wonder whether it's the

7:57

kind of conversation we had which was they're doing it.

7:59

We don't know. really want to touch it because

8:01

it's so polarised or is that unfair? I

8:04

don't think at the time it was just an

8:06

editorial decision. I mean we've, it was no reason

8:09

why we wouldn't have done it and I'm certainly,

8:11

we covered some of the work that you were

8:13

doing. Yeah you're right, we wrote a piece for

8:15

you. You wrote a piece for us, Debbie used

8:17

to work for us as investigation editors so there

8:19

were always sort of links on that story. And

8:21

were you looking at the evidence and trying to

8:23

hold the NHS to account at all? Do you

8:25

see that as your role? Yes

8:29

I do. I mean I think

8:31

we've just published the eight systematic

8:33

reviews that form the backbone of

8:35

the CAST report. When

8:39

we did the piece on the American

8:41

guidelines we went to evidence-based medicine specialists

8:44

and got them to opine on what

8:46

they saw as the quality of the

8:48

evidence and actually what they found

8:50

is very similar to what's come out

8:52

in the CAST report which is threadbare evidence.

8:54

I suppose the issue is exactly CAST was

8:57

talking about weak evidence, you know this was

8:59

new medical territory, you know how do you

9:01

approach stories when you're reporting on this kind

9:03

of medicine? Well the same way that you

9:05

would any story, you know

9:07

you speak to the people who are experts,

9:09

you listen to them and it's

9:12

really, I think

9:15

it's a really unique feature of this story compared

9:17

to anything I've done before. I'm a generalist, I'm

9:19

not a health journalist but generally

9:22

speaking if you ask questions

9:24

or you critique an evidence base and

9:27

really we have known for a very

9:29

long time that the evidence base is

9:32

practically non-existent, when you do that you

9:34

wouldn't usually be accused of hating or

9:36

wanting to kill the patient population

9:38

who are being treated by that. But

9:40

you're saying that's what happened to you? Well

9:43

yes it does happen, you know

9:45

I guess to ask questions you're

9:47

then accused of being transphobic and

9:49

you know which is silly

9:51

and I think what's happened here, I

9:54

mean I spoke with Dr Cass upon publication

9:56

of her report in a short interview and

10:00

You know, much is made of groups

10:03

like mermaids and pressure. Now, it is

10:05

normal. It's part of NHS, isn't it,

10:07

to listen to the voices of service

10:09

users? Of course it is. And she

10:12

said to me, and this is a

10:14

quote, but obviously not to the point

10:16

where you're not following the evidence, which

10:18

is what's happened here. I suppose there's

10:20

a question, isn't there, around quite often

10:22

with journalism, you're looking for a case

10:24

study, particularly when it's complicated. You want

10:26

an individual who typifies what's going on.

10:28

And this is the human voice

10:30

behind the story, if you like. And is

10:32

that the instinct? Was that the instinct here? And

10:34

was that the wrong instinct? I think it's the right

10:36

instinct, but I don't think there's one case study that

10:38

typifies it. I mean, when I was recently,

10:41

there never is. Well, no, no, you're probably right.

10:43

But you know, I don't

10:46

doubt that, you know, we've heard

10:48

many of these voices in the past week and

10:51

I've spoken to them myself and that

10:53

that some people feel that

10:55

pubes, blockers and hormones have been

10:57

life saving for them. And

11:00

similarly, I've spoken to people for whom

11:02

it has been absolutely disastrous and harmful.

11:04

Now, what all this is saying is

11:07

we can't go on anecdotes. We just don't

11:09

know. We haven't got long term data that

11:11

supports this. But if you approach this like

11:13

you would any other area

11:15

of health care, the

11:18

evidence isn't there to support this

11:20

intervention. And I agree with that. I don't

11:22

know how much truth you're going to get.

11:24

I think that I'm every patient experience is

11:26

a different one. And in turn,

11:28

that in turn is completely normal. So

11:30

it's very hard to capture an average patient experience.

11:32

Right. And if we look at what Cass, you

11:34

know, not only the cast writes in her report,

11:37

she says one of the major challenges for the

11:39

review has been the difficulty in having open, honest

11:41

debate, as people with differing views can find it

11:43

uncomfortable to sit together in the same room or

11:45

on the same stage. That slightly points to the

11:48

sort of culture wars, conversations or

11:50

feelings around this subject.

11:53

Rebecca, did you feel any under any pressure

11:55

from any groups as to how you cover

11:57

this subject? Yeah, absolutely, we did. And

12:00

I'm not just talking about the online

12:03

retribution that we got after we published

12:05

our American story. I

12:07

think we had,

12:10

there are factions within the profession, obviously,

12:12

who have very strong views

12:14

on this. And I

12:16

think that we, to deal with

12:19

it, we had to hold a line

12:21

and say, just

12:23

because you're a professional society doesn't mean that

12:25

you have the appropriate skillset to appraise

12:27

the evidence. At

12:30

the BMJ, we've been focusing

12:33

on evidence-based medicine movement for many,

12:35

many decades, particularly around too much

12:37

medicine. So whether that be for,

12:40

I don't know, gestational diabetes or

12:42

thyroid cancer. So what

12:44

we had to do is treat this as

12:46

part of that so that gender-based care for

12:48

adolescents was an issue of too much medicine.

12:51

And Jake, Andrew, if I could bring you in from

12:53

deadline, I wonder what your assessment of how

12:55

the media reports on trans issues is.

12:58

And I suppose whether the media has

13:00

a role to play in polarizing opinion,

13:02

when it could actually be bringing people

13:04

together potentially. I think it is

13:06

polarizing opinion. I think what this

13:08

shows is that newsrooms around the

13:11

country are treating this as a

13:13

culture war story rather than a

13:15

health and science one. And it's

13:17

testament to the news night that

13:19

the story was pursued in this way. And

13:21

I think it's a real shame

13:23

that, you know, original

13:25

journalism is being gutted from news night

13:28

now. And we may

13:30

not see stories of this ilk in the

13:32

future from that particular show. I suppose

13:34

that's an interesting thought, isn't it? That actually for the

13:36

BBC, and I think they gave us a

13:38

statement which said, you know, we

13:41

recognize it's an important topic. We're proud that Hannah

13:43

broke the story while at the BBC with news

13:45

night. We understand many people hold strong views on

13:47

the topic and we remain committed to covering the

13:49

topic impartially and thoroughly for the benefit of the

13:52

audiences we serve and day-to-day editorial decisions about stories

13:54

and made by news editors according to the events

13:56

of the day. I mean, one thing that I

13:58

was wondering about with news. night was actually that

14:01

was a place to explore a

14:03

really complex topic and a controversial

14:05

topic without putting it on the

14:08

main bulletins where, you know, actually

14:10

it potentially could inflame

14:12

tensions. I don't know what you all think

14:14

about that. Or

14:17

were you begging the BBC to cover

14:20

your story more widely? Well, I

14:23

totally agree with what Jake said

14:25

that this has always been a

14:28

healthcare story. It's part of specialist

14:30

commissioning of NHS England. It's

14:32

not a cultural war story. And yet

14:35

one of the things that Deb and I were very

14:37

keen to do and we insisted upon, and I

14:40

continue to insist upon as I

14:43

went on, is that when our stories

14:45

were written up for online, for example,

14:47

that they sat on the health pages.

14:49

Now it was a battle to even

14:51

get those pieces online

14:53

at all, but it's

14:56

striking, isn't it? And I don't mean any disrespect

14:58

because I'm very, I think he's an excellent reporter,

15:00

but the first time our health editor, sorry, our,

15:02

it's a habit, I apologize, I'm not hearing the

15:04

word, the first time the BBC's health editor covered

15:06

this story was on the day of the cast

15:08

report. Now there's

15:10

a whole team of health specialists here and

15:12

they haven't touched it. So I, you

15:15

know, it's lovely to hear that they're proud of it,

15:17

but I don't, I don't think, I

15:19

don't think the BBC has covered

15:21

this impartially or if

15:24

you took away every article written by either

15:26

myself or myself and Deborah, I

15:28

don't think if you only consumed BBC

15:30

news in this country, you would have

15:32

any idea that there has been

15:35

debate over the evidence of this area

15:37

of healthcare for vulnerable children. And

15:39

Jake, Hannah says the BBC is not covering it as

15:42

widely as they perhaps should have. What's

15:44

your sense of somebody you've previously worked at the

15:46

Times of whether, you know, how

15:49

those newspapers, how places approach these

15:51

issues and the impact they have?

15:54

They embrace these issues. They want, they want

15:56

to write about them because they drive huge

15:58

engagement and interest. And I was

16:03

encouraged to pursue stories where

16:06

the media and these debates

16:09

intersected because they

16:11

were controversial, because they stoked opinion. And

16:14

for the BBC, it often

16:16

finds itself at the centre of these

16:18

storms when it's reporting on these issues.

16:22

People on both sides of the argument criticise

16:25

the coverage. It has

16:27

often had to make apologies. I mean,

16:30

for example, it has apologised to JK

16:32

Rowling twice in the

16:36

past year or so because she's been

16:38

accused of being transphobic on air. And

16:41

it's an incredibly delicate balancing act, I think,

16:43

for the BBC. And Rebecca, it seems just

16:45

to bring you in at the end, you're head of journalism

16:47

at the British Medical Journal. I mean, one thing I should

16:49

say is that in Cass does it too, you know, in

16:52

the absence of evidence, don't we have to,

16:54

as journalists, listen to the voices of people

16:56

in pain? Yes,

16:59

we do. But I also think this is

17:01

a call to improve sort of scientific literacy

17:03

amongst health, not just health janitors,

17:05

but against politicians.

17:10

Because what we saw

17:12

was a real sort of mismatch

17:15

of a kind of

17:17

activist blogger might be placed as a

17:19

highly placed source in a story alongside

17:21

a research methodologist, which

17:23

just didn't really make any sense. So I think

17:25

that this should be a call for the

17:29

media to, you know, step into the silence

17:32

and just be more confident about asking

17:35

those questions. Feels like a good moment

17:37

to end it all, I'm afraid. Rebecca Coombs

17:39

from the BMJ and the British Medical Journal

17:41

and Hannah Barnes, now at the New Statesman,

17:43

previously on Newsnight. Thanks so much

17:45

for coming on the Media Show. Thank you. But

17:48

I want to now return to the

17:50

breaking news story I mentioned at the

17:53

top of the programme that Hugh Grant

17:55

has settled his privacy case against news

17:57

group newspapers. If you remember, he was

17:59

claiming what's called lawful information gathering

18:01

by Sun journalists, including burglary of

18:03

his flat and office and

18:06

bugging of his car, all denied by News

18:08

Group newspapers. The actor was one of a

18:10

number of people, including Prince Harry, who is

18:13

suing the publisher of the Sun in the

18:15

civil court. And Jake Counter from

18:17

Deadline is still here and will be through the

18:19

programme. What's happened? I think, you know,

18:21

we don't know the terms of the settlement, but

18:23

Hugh Grant has made very clear he did not

18:25

want to do this. No, he

18:27

talks about reluctantly settling.

18:31

He said that he

18:33

had been paid an enormous sum of

18:35

money to put

18:38

these claims to bed and

18:41

that he would be using that cash to

18:45

repurposing it through

18:47

his mission at hacked off, which

18:49

is a campaign group against some

18:51

of these excessives in the

18:53

media or the allegations of these excesses. Because

18:56

he's explained, doesn't he, why he felt he had

18:58

to do it, which is quite an interesting thing

19:00

that people won't necessarily understand to do with how

19:02

our legal system works, certainly in the civil court,

19:04

which is he says that, you know, he offered

19:06

this amount of money, which is an enormous sum,

19:09

as you say, then he's told if he proceeds,

19:11

if he turns it down and proceeds in

19:13

the civil court, then if he loses, even

19:16

if he ends up being offered less than

19:18

the settlement that was made pretrial, even by

19:20

one pound, that means he has to pay

19:22

all the other side's costs as well as

19:24

his own. And he said his lawyer said

19:27

that would probably amount because he's going to

19:30

have very good lawyers to about 10 million pounds.

19:32

And he said, you know, I'm shying at the

19:34

fence. He just didn't want to do

19:36

that. Yeah, he he

19:39

he's clearly got a limit to what he

19:41

is prepared to do in terms of his

19:43

fight. And this is

19:45

a fight as far as he's concerned. He is,

19:47

as I said earlier, he's a thorn in the

19:49

side of the tabloid newspapers. He has settled twice

19:52

previously. So perhaps it's not a massive surprise. He

19:54

settled phone hacking claims against the news of the

19:56

world. And he also had a similar

19:59

claim against mirror group newspapers,

20:02

both of which he settled recently and so

20:04

well in the last decade at the very

20:06

least. So, you know,

20:08

I think for the newspapers themselves,

20:10

this is a stink

20:13

that stubbornly refuses to lift

20:16

and I mean, it is worth saying, by the

20:18

way, newspapers obviously issued a statement saying, you know,

20:20

they apologized unreservedly in 2011 to the victims

20:22

of hacking voicemail interception by the

20:25

news of the world. Since then, they've been paying

20:27

financial damages to people with proper claims. Hugh Grant

20:29

had made the claim that it was a billion

20:31

pounds they've already paid out. I think that's lawyers

20:34

costs and settlement. But what they say is

20:36

there are a number of disputed claims still

20:38

going through the civil court, some of which

20:41

seek to involve the sun. The sun does

20:43

not accept liability or make any admissions to

20:45

the allegations. And they point out that a

20:48

judge recently ruled that some of Mr. Grant's claim that

20:50

was a bit about hacking was out of time and

20:52

they'd reached agreement on the

20:54

rest of it without admitting

20:56

any liability. So that's what they're saying. I

20:58

suppose what the question is, I've covered these

21:00

cases a lot, mainly because they involve Prince

21:02

Harry, there's quite a lot of them coming

21:04

down the tracks and that have been coming

21:06

down the tracks. I

21:08

guess the question is, is Prince Harry going to

21:10

be the last man standing? Is he the only

21:12

one who has pockets deep enough to keep going

21:15

with this and not accept a settlement or do

21:17

you expect that he might settle at some point? Well,

21:19

I mean, this suggests that

21:23

the news UK might

21:25

be trying to pick people off and to

21:27

settle individual claims. There's still about 40 claims

21:31

unresolved and heading

21:33

to trial in January alongside Prince

21:36

Harry. But this is a

21:38

vendetta for him. And he

21:40

has shown that he's got results. He got

21:42

results against the mirror in December last year

21:44

in a landmark ruling. And my

21:48

instinct is he wants to get

21:51

the biggest scalp possible. And that would be Rupert

21:53

Murdoch, I think. Right. Well, we'll

21:55

keep watching him reporting on that. Jake, can to stay

21:57

with us. I want to turn to somebody who's well,

21:59

even bigger than Prince Harry or Rupert Murdoch,

22:02

you could argue it is Taylor Swift.

22:04

She is Taylor Swift, permanently in the

22:06

headlines. She's a massive driver of traffic

22:08

for the media, even bigger this week

22:10

as her 11th album, The Tortured Poets

22:12

Department, is out on Friday. Her promo

22:14

video for it dropped on Instagram last

22:16

night. And of course, anybody with a

22:18

teenager or indeed anybody else will know

22:20

that her era's talk comes to the

22:22

UK this summer. The film version has

22:24

become the most viewed music film on

22:26

Disney Plus ever, and Disney Plus paid

22:28

a ridiculous amount of money to start

22:30

streaming it just a few weeks

22:32

ago. And ITV's This Morning has

22:34

appointed its first Taylor Swift correspondent.

22:37

Joining me is Laura Snapes, Guardian's

22:39

deputy music editor who writes a

22:42

weekly Taylor Swift newsletter called Swift

22:44

Notes for the Guardian, and

22:46

Alguster Sarivat, Bloomberg's economics reporter who coined

22:48

the term, and this is a good

22:50

claim to fame, Swiftonomics. Laura and Alguster,

22:52

thank you so much for coming on

22:55

the media show. Laura, if we just

22:57

start with you, why did you start

22:59

Swift Notes? There's

23:01

so much coverage of Taylor Swift in the

23:03

newspaper, especially at the start of the year in

23:06

the run-up to the Game East, and also when her boyfriend,

23:08

the football player Travis Kelsey, was headed to the Super

23:10

Bowl, and it made sense to have a sort

23:12

of one-stop shop to contain it all, and also

23:14

to sort of zoom out and do some slightly

23:16

more sober analysis of her, but also of the

23:18

coverage itself, because I do think she's of a

23:20

scale where it's very easy for people to sort

23:22

of lose their heads about it and sort of

23:25

be wowed by scale as opposed to going, what's

23:27

actually going on here, let's analyse it. And what

23:29

is it like covering Taylor Swift? I

23:33

mean, it's very varied, you know, you can write about

23:35

anything from music industry things to,

23:37

as we talked about, Swiftonomics to

23:39

her potential impacts on the upcoming

23:41

US election to, you know, gossiping

23:43

things, and then also the actual

23:46

art of the Sunrise, which I think is something that

23:48

can get lost in the wider discussion of her. So

23:50

yeah, it's very varied, you know, I knew others

23:53

called the Torture Poets Department, poets doesn't have an

23:55

apostrophe on it, I've read whole articles about what

23:57

that means, you know, even though... And wait, can I

23:59

re-use anything? Are you furious about no apostrophe

24:01

or are you waiting with gated breath to see why

24:03

it has no apostrophe? I think

24:05

it's supposed to be like Dead Poets Society, you

24:07

know, it's like the name of a department as

24:10

opposed to a possessive. Okay, fair

24:12

enough. And do you think she's taken

24:14

seriously in newsrooms? And

24:16

has that changed over time? Yeah, I think

24:18

she's taken quite a bit seriously in newsrooms. She

24:21

does huge traffic and so that's something that editors

24:23

pay attention to. And I think

24:25

specifically since 2020 when she put out the

24:27

more folk albums, folklore and ever more, I

24:29

think they reach a more adult audience because

24:31

they were made in part with Aaron Anderson

24:33

from the National and they featured other members

24:35

of the National and also Justin Vernon of Bon

24:37

Iver. And so I think a tier of adult

24:40

listeners who hadn't paid attention to her before suddenly

24:42

woke up to her and realised that,

24:44

you know, this is a smart songwriter, not

24:47

somebody they might previously have written off just

24:49

as a sort of superficial pop star. And

24:51

I think the combination of that and the

24:53

stratospheric economic impact of the era tour has

24:55

made people realise like this is a very

24:57

serious artist and business woman.

25:00

I read a stat that said

25:02

that the GDP from the era

25:04

tour, sorry, the profits from the era

25:06

tour alone would make her the 36th smallest

25:09

nation in the world on that alone in

25:11

terms of GDP. So there's 35

25:13

countries in the world that are not making as much as

25:15

the era tour. And you

25:17

are rare because you have actually had an interview

25:19

with Taylor Swift. She's a difficult person to pin

25:21

down for an interview. I've been culture editor for

25:24

quite a few years now at the BBC News

25:26

and certainly haven't had an interview with Taylor Swift

25:28

as yet. What was that like? I think you

25:30

went to her apartment in Nashville, was

25:32

it? Yes, I did. Yeah.

25:35

So it took about a year of meetings to make it happen. I had to

25:37

pitch really hard. And yeah, take a lot of meetings and work. But

25:39

then, you know, for somebody who's so sort of secretive about

25:41

what she does, I think one thing that was

25:43

really interesting is that there were no questions around the interview.

25:45

There was nothing I could and couldn't say. There was nobody sitting

25:47

in the room. There was, you know, a relatively strict timeline that I

25:50

think I got about 10 minutes more than what

25:53

I had been allowed for. But

25:55

it was a surprisingly loose experience for somebody who is

25:57

so sort of... monumental

26:00

and you know where there's by necessity such secrecy

26:02

around what she does. And do you think

26:04

the media's afraid to be critical of her now?

26:07

Is she that big? Yeah

26:09

I think some elements are, I mean there's various

26:11

aspects of it. I mean you've got to, I

26:13

mean as is always important you've got to be

26:15

briefly accurate about everything that you do about her

26:17

because she is known to be litigious or has

26:19

seen more respond to things that they think are

26:21

you know particularly egregious examples of

26:24

inaccuracies or all misinterpretations

26:26

of what she's done. I think some

26:28

critics are scared to be critical about

26:30

her because she's got a very different

26:32

sandals online but I do think that

26:34

serious news organizations are still testing her

26:36

to account about her business practices which

26:39

are not always you know they're not always the

26:41

most favorable to other artists let's say you know

26:43

as with her music returning to TikTok last week

26:46

and her being one of the only universal artists

26:48

who is still on there. Yes

26:50

just explain that because that shows her

26:52

power right the fact that she's taken

26:54

her songs are back on TikTok just

26:56

explain why. Yeah so she's part of the

26:58

universal music group label which is the biggest people logo in

27:01

the whole world it's one of the big three and earlier

27:03

this year they pulled all of their catalog and all of

27:05

their publishing catalogs from TikTok and industry

27:07

over songwriting royalties. She's the only artist

27:09

who has managed to get back on there. I think it's

27:12

believed that she broke a deal with TikTok

27:15

independently and because

27:17

she's so big she is allowed to

27:19

make exemptions from her UNG contract

27:21

so it's interesting that you know comparably big

27:23

stars like Ariana Grande and Billy Eilish have not

27:26

been able to do this. So I think she's previously

27:29

also made decisions in a way that has

27:31

specifically benefited all the songwriters and she's spoken

27:34

out about that quite a lot. I think

27:36

people are quite intrigued that this decision doesn't

27:38

seem to be a rising high lifting all

27:40

ships. Right well let's bring in Augusta Sariva

27:43

from Bloomberg Economics. Well

27:45

you're the economics reporter at Bloomberg and

27:47

as I said earlier you coined the

27:49

term Swiftonomics. Well done how

27:51

did you start reporting on daily Swift?

27:54

Well it actually started with a personal question

27:56

which was why can't I get tickets right

27:59

so once She announced that tour in

28:01

2022. I was

28:03

essentially trying to get tickets myself and

28:06

they were sold out immediately.

28:08

So the next morning, and I mean,

28:10

like you said, I'm an economics reporter.

28:12

So I cover things like inflation, the

28:15

labor market and consumer demand. So

28:17

the next morning I was actually talking to my

28:19

boss who has, who's a dad to two girls.

28:22

And he also tried to get

28:24

tickets and couldn't. So we did ask

28:26

ourselves this question, what does this say

28:29

about the US economy? Because I don't

28:31

know to what extent people in the

28:33

UK were following what was happening here.

28:35

But back then in 2022, everyone

28:38

was afraid of expecting a recession.

28:40

All of the Wall Street economies

28:42

were really expecting one to

28:44

come eventually. So the whole Taylor

28:46

Swift demand story seemed a little

28:49

off. So that's why we started

28:51

looking into Swiftonomics of what eventually

28:53

became Swiftonomics to try and understand.

28:55

That's what you meant by Swiftonomics.

28:58

Yes. So essentially it just became a theory about

29:00

supply and demand and what is sad about the

29:02

US consumer and now about the global consumer, right?

29:05

And what's written today? Because we've seen the same

29:07

story. What do you think it says? Well,

29:09

it says something about pent up demand

29:12

and what the pandemic did to demand,

29:14

right? Because before the pandemic, and I

29:16

don't wanna get too wonky here, but

29:18

before the pandemic, we did see people

29:20

spending more on services. And of course,

29:22

when we were locked into our homes

29:25

during the pandemic, everyone went on Amazon

29:27

and all of a sudden, everyone was

29:29

buying goods online. So we kind of

29:31

like forgot about experiences. And

29:33

then what the era

29:36

story did was that in a way,

29:38

it opened the floodgates for services spending.

29:40

So it's not a Taylor Swift that

29:43

was the only one driving spending in

29:45

the US because eventually we saw Barb

29:47

and Hymer and Beyonce, but

29:49

she did accelerated that recovery in

29:51

a way. What

29:54

do you as an economics reporter, what do you

29:56

think the economic impact of the era's tour is?

30:01

Oh, it's massive. But I think the... Is

30:03

that a technical term? Economically technical term, massive.

30:06

I like it. I

30:09

wouldn't say that. I think that's just my

30:11

own personal view, but you do have data

30:13

supporting that, right? So in a way, I

30:16

feel like the key word here is re-acceleration.

30:18

It's not that people wouldn't be staying at

30:20

hotels or it wouldn't be traveling if you

30:22

weren't for Taylor Swift. But

30:24

I feel like in a way, what she

30:26

did was that she accelerated that recovery, right?

30:29

So in places like Chicago, I feel like

30:31

eventually we're going to recover in terms of

30:33

hotel stays and all of that and tourism.

30:36

But she did accelerate that. And

30:39

Bloomberg Economics itself estimated that the

30:41

impact, not only from Taylor Swift

30:43

herself, but what they called the

30:46

Taylor Swift Driven Summer, which included

30:48

Beyonce, Bourbon Heimer, and all of

30:50

that services demand, was

30:52

responsible for an $8.5 billion

30:55

boost to the US economy. Not bad at

30:57

all, then. Thank you so much, Agnes, for

30:59

so long. And Laura Snates from

31:01

The Guardian too. Thank you both so much

31:03

for coming on The Media Show. Fantastic. But

31:05

we are now going to spend the

31:07

rest of the program talking about TV,

31:09

specifically about Channel 4 and its role

31:11

and impact on our lives and on

31:13

the independent commercial sector because Alex Mahon,

31:15

Chief Executive of Channel 4 is here.

31:17

Hello, Alex. Hello, Deanna. Good

31:20

to be here. Great that you're here. We

31:22

also have Joel Wilson, Co-Founder of Eleven Films,

31:24

best known for Netflix's hit, Sex Education. And

31:26

he's currently working on the second series of

31:28

Ten Pound Palms for BBC One. And we're

31:30

going to talk to Joel later on. But

31:32

Alex, I'd love to start with you because

31:35

clearly it's great that you're here. And I

31:37

also think you're quite unusual for a media

31:39

executive. Maybe I'm generalising here, but is it

31:41

quite unusual, the fact that you've got a

31:43

PhD in physics? And does it help you

31:45

in your day-to-day life as

31:47

a TV person? Well, I suppose it's unique,

31:49

but I could be the star of a

31:51

trend. It would be good if you...

31:53

I mean, we've talked so many times about how actually there aren't

31:56

enough scientists in the media. I don't

31:58

know if it helps. The

32:00

day that I mean, I can definitely our dog. Mess

32:03

gotten quite logical and I

32:05

can answer those questions. About

32:07

why water goes round the plug hole one

32:09

way. I'm the. Otherwise, I don't think

32:12

it's useful day to day. And did.

32:14

You always know you wanted to work in the media.

32:16

Know. I really want to be an astronaut. That was

32:18

my dream for I have physical would have been good

32:21

for that. Yeah that's why did physics for. Seven.

32:23

Years and I've obviously failed at that so

32:25

far by some was as you try to

32:27

been as there's always have a very loyal

32:30

are All I did as a kid was

32:32

was tell A so it may be inevitable

32:34

have ended up in it and you have

32:36

been. See I have signed the production company

32:38

set up by List of Murdoch. He ran

32:41

the special effects company behind films including Avatar

32:43

Adequacy thou One Channel Four for the best

32:45

part of for seven years at what what's

32:47

your daylight, what media you consume. All

32:50

well on I always consume for

32:53

thing when. I got month the Clips

32:55

casino. He. Pulled the do the same

32:57

you look at the media clip first thing because. Then

32:59

you know. If. The day is going to

33:01

be a disaster in the same. Blame on the me

33:04

to accept them. So that's like. You get

33:06

email to about who in the morning. And.

33:08

Up say of everything in the newspapers

33:11

that day that to relevant to the

33:13

television or relevant the media since the

33:15

first thing you do is can those.

33:18

To set/animals and them check what what it

33:20

says that home for and hopefully the disaster

33:22

is somewhere else Like the B B C

33:24

or I T V or the Spotlight somewhere

33:26

else. And then I read

33:28

i'm not necessarily in this order Ah,

33:30

The Times The Guardian S T Daily

33:32

Mail ah I'm an hour probably tech

33:34

a bit of social made us all

33:36

to see the of. Go a kind of

33:38

range of what's going on. and

33:41

other times where you look at two in the

33:43

morning and you always late to the morning sun

33:45

are like sleeping okay against ssp the guy has

33:47

a now i'd combat life form and look at

33:49

not be a mistake disaster yet absolute disaster will

33:51

let you talk about the uk tv industry is

33:54

facing a lot of challenging is she's am i

33:56

said you go phd in physics and you feel

33:58

i spend most of your time to

34:00

defy gravity, sorry for the pun, but

34:03

it's a tricky time, right? I think it's a really

34:06

complicated time. If you think about what's going on in

34:08

the UK, so the average

34:10

person in the UK watches five hours

34:12

and 13 minutes of video a day.

34:15

Like, it's really hard to believe that that's

34:17

the average, but it is. Linear

34:20

live television is still the biggest thing. That's about 43%.

34:22

It's 134 minutes a day. But that's still a

34:26

lot of the day that people are also watching, you

34:28

know, the subscription services like Netflix or

34:30

they're watching video on YouTube

34:32

or they're watching Instagram. So

34:35

that's a massive change we've had over,

34:37

say, the past 10 years, you know,

34:40

since not that long ago, the rise

34:42

of Netflix, the rise of the other

34:44

subscription services, the rise of YouTube. Yet,

34:48

you still have this massive amount of

34:50

television watching and the change in the

34:52

industry is all about how

34:54

do you switch the business from,

34:57

you still have to make things that people want to watch, but

34:59

how do you switch the business to make them

35:01

available to consumers when they want to watch in

35:03

the way they want to watch, ideally

35:06

for free as far as they're concerned. And that's

35:09

a huge switch that we've had to go through

35:11

in media, which is why we're all looking

35:13

at digital first. I mean, the last time

35:15

you came on the media show, which was

35:17

two years ago, Channel 4 had just had

35:19

its best financial results in its 40 year

35:21

history. And now, of course, it's looking very

35:23

different. You're laying off 200 staff,

35:25

you've cut back on commissions, you're selling

35:27

your London headquarters. What's gone

35:29

wrong? Well, that's not because things

35:32

have gone wrong. That's because we're changing. You

35:34

know, in that kind of environment, you've got to adapt

35:36

to it. So the biggest thing for us is what's

35:38

gone right. So if you look at

35:40

our numbers now, about 30% of

35:43

our revenues are from digital advertising. Digital

35:45

is really growing. About

35:48

18, 20% of our

35:50

viewing is from digital streaming. That's way ahead

35:52

of market. In fact, if we look at

35:54

this year so far today, our streaming viewing

35:56

is up 40%. So the big switch for

35:58

us is... is how do you

36:01

come out of linear and live television, as

36:03

it were, and how do you switch your

36:05

business into streaming, and how do you do

36:07

that as quickly as possible, because that's what the consumer wants. And

36:09

that means you have to make a lot of changes. But

36:11

if things are going right, you wouldn't be laying off

36:13

staff, or you wouldn't be pausing or canceling shows, would

36:16

you? Well, last year there was a big advertising change,

36:18

right? So last year, across the whole

36:20

market, the advertising market was down.

36:23

That's mainly due to cyclical factors,

36:25

and particularly true in the UK, obviously,

36:27

where we suffered recessionary times,

36:29

which you've well documented. But if you look

36:31

at the digital market, that was actually up

36:33

last year. So obviously, when you get those

36:36

kind of cycles in advertising, you have to

36:38

make changes. But that's quite normal. It looked

36:40

in the advertising like Channel 4 seemed to

36:42

be suffering particularly. Other linear channels were able

36:44

to withstand the advertising downturn.

36:47

No, it was about the same across the market. So

36:49

everyone fell somewhere between 8 and 10% in

36:52

terms of advertising. And that was unprecedented.

36:55

We haven't seen that since about 2008, 2009, and

36:59

widely unpredicted. So the

37:01

UK, as a market, everywhere suffered worse.

37:03

And you'll see across the board,

37:05

whether it's Amazon or ITV

37:07

or BBC or us, people are making job

37:09

cuts to adjust to the market changes. And

37:12

people listening to this will be very aware, if they

37:14

remember it, that the government under Boris Johnson wanted to

37:16

privatise Channel 4. So that was moving it from

37:19

what it is now, which is being state-owned

37:21

but commercially funded to a privatised model. You

37:23

fought that off. How do

37:25

you look back at that time? Do you look back at it and think

37:27

that was a big waste of everybody's time? No,

37:30

I would never say that. You

37:32

might like to say that. Owned by the public, not

37:34

the state. Because that's

37:36

an important difference, isn't it? Public, I think. But

37:38

funded by advertising, as you say. Look, I think it's completely

37:41

within the right of any government and any parliament

37:43

to look at that periodically. I

37:45

would genuinely say it's good when you

37:47

look at that because you get a bit of debate and you change

37:49

things. I would probably say don't look

37:51

at it quite so often. Maybe

37:53

reduce the periodicity of when you look at it

37:55

because it's a bit disruptive. But

37:58

lots of things come out of that. So Theresa

38:00

says, coming out of those discussions, we made

38:02

a big switch in Channel 4 to switch

38:04

to representing much more in the nations and

38:06

regions. I mean, we've got kind of

38:08

500 roles outside of London now. Big

38:11

office in Leeds, in Manchester, in Glasgow and Bristol.

38:14

That switch probably wouldn't have happened

38:16

if it wasn't for those kind of debates.

38:18

Although there are people saying, you know, your

38:20

Leeds office is just tokenistic. I'm told there's

38:22

no senior leaders there full time. Nonsense. Have

38:24

you been there? It's absolutely packed. Huge

38:26

digital growth office. Big

38:29

Channel 4 news operation there. You know, we're the

38:31

only news broadcaster who's doing their national news co-located.

38:33

So we're out of Leeds multiple nights. Well, lots

38:35

of them are just travelling up from London when

38:37

they do it. But we're the only national broadcaster

38:39

that's doing it there. It's not local news. It's

38:42

national news. And there's a big newsroom team there.

38:44

So those kind of switches, though, they're not easy

38:46

for a company to go through. You know,

38:49

you mentioned like the London headquarters. I don't need

38:51

a bigger building now because we're switching

38:53

where we're represented to make sure there's more people

38:55

outside of London to make sure that we're representing

38:57

the whole country. And when it

38:59

comes to charges levels against you and it's Channel

39:01

4, people look at Channel 4 at the moment

39:03

and they say your problem is a lack of

39:05

hits. You know, you're not giving people a reason

39:07

to come to your channel. Where's your Mr. Patesley,

39:10

the post office? Where's your traitors? What do you

39:12

say to that? Well, I say the TV business

39:14

is always a search for hits, right? That's

39:16

normal. But if you look at Channel 4 last year, we

39:19

had big news shows like The Piano. If you

39:21

look at our top 10 shows, about 30 or 40 percent

39:23

of them are new. That's about the same

39:26

for the BBC. The question for us

39:28

is always how do you balance

39:31

existing things that consumers want for longer?

39:34

That's the biggest change we've seen from consumers in

39:36

this world of oversupplied content. They go back to

39:38

the old things and they want them for longer.

39:41

Hence the world of gladiators. You know, hence

39:43

the world of shows like

39:45

The Apprentice, MasterChef Bakeoff staying on air

39:48

for longer and longer. But they also want

39:50

fresh new things. So for us, it's always about how

39:52

do we get that balance right? About 60 percent

39:54

of what we do in any year is new.

39:57

If you look at this year, we've had the

39:59

biggest factual launch. in over a decade with

40:01

things like The Push, The Jury,

40:03

To Catch a Copper, which is

40:05

like the real AC-12. So

40:08

I would say look at the actual facts

40:10

of that. We've had big new comedies too in

40:12

Big Boys and some of the biggest launches we've

40:14

had in years. But isn't it, Julie, your

40:16

big shows, your really big shows here, Bake

40:18

Off was bought from the BBC, Gogglebox was commissioned

40:21

by your predecessors. You don't have a really

40:23

big show that's come under your watch. Married

40:25

it for South Australia. There'll be a hundred million

40:27

streams on that this year. Married it for

40:29

South Australia and Married it for South UK. MAFS

40:32

is a huge, huge brand that

40:34

people absolutely adore. But there's also like,

40:36

there's new dramas as well like The Light in

40:38

the Hall or The Couple Next Door. You know

40:40

those things are on all time. But far, it

40:43

is normal in our business to go, have

40:45

they got enough? What are the new heads? You know,

40:47

I think the challenge for us, to be honest, is

40:50

how do you do that in a world of

40:52

retreads as well? How do you keep innovating

40:54

in a world where equally you can

40:57

put gladiators on air? That's a show that

40:59

was come up with in like 1992, right?

41:02

And it does really well. So how

41:04

do you get the balance right of

41:07

doing new stuff which is what we're here for and

41:10

keeping those big shows alive for longer? That's not

41:12

easy. Quite rightly, Channel 4 has

41:14

always said it has a vital role to

41:16

play in supporting the independent sector. You

41:19

know, there's production companies that make so many of the programmes

41:21

that we watch. Some are already going

41:23

out of business and you predicted that more

41:25

will too. Why are you saying that?

41:28

Yeah, it's not a fun prediction to make, is it?

41:30

And imagine that people don't like hearing that. But,

41:34

and I was in production for a long time. So I

41:37

am quite close to and

41:39

supportive of the sector. The sector had a really

41:41

hard time last year because two things

41:43

happened. One was this advertising downturn

41:45

that we've talked about. But also

41:47

there was the strike in America. And

41:50

what happened as a result of the strike in America is

41:52

lots of the studio business that's filmed in

41:54

the UK in those big studio lots

41:56

outside of London stopped. So

41:59

we had a double whammy. here. There

42:01

wasn't as much business from all the broadcasters. Our

42:04

side of the town, even BBC's

42:06

had to suffer cuts. And

42:09

there wasn't the American business. So I

42:11

fear that that's going to create a sort of

42:14

step change in the amount that's spent on content

42:16

because there'll be a bit of recorrection. It's really

42:19

hard for freelancers because

42:21

the industry inflated lots and lots of people

42:23

who were doing freelance work and that was really good

42:25

for a while and now it looks like it's

42:27

not going to be so good again.

42:29

And also probably with these shifts in

42:32

how viewers watch things, there are

42:34

going to be high-end things that stream

42:36

and repeat really well and

42:38

there's going to be lots of cost-effective

42:40

things that go on linear channels and

42:42

the middle is going to

42:45

disappear. So I think there'll be a correction. I

42:47

mean those companies, the independent protection companies,

42:49

which supported you during privatisation, they were

42:51

behind you arguing that privatising Channel 4

42:53

would harm their sector and now many

42:55

of them seem to feel let down

42:57

by your decision to change Channel 4's

42:59

business model so in future you'll make

43:01

some of your own shows and keep hold of the

43:03

right. Well that's

43:05

not our decision. That was the government's

43:07

decision and we've got no plans for when

43:10

we'll do that or how large it will be.

43:12

I think producers are understandably having a

43:14

harder time because we had to reduce spending last

43:16

year because of this advertising crunch and now the

43:18

key thing for us is to ramp spending up

43:20

as soon as we can this year and next

43:23

year to make sure that we support them and

43:25

it is in many ways our job to support

43:27

them. And please do stay with us,

43:29

all very illuminating. I'm going to bring

43:31

in Joel Wilson, co-founder of Eleven Films,

43:33

the production company behind Sex Education amongst

43:35

other hits and it's worth saying Joel

43:37

that in 2014 you were supported with

43:39

money from Channel 4's indie growth fund.

43:41

Hello and welcome to the media show.

43:43

Hello. Hi. I am a

43:46

huge advocate of Channel 4 and

43:48

Alex personally and I couldn't

43:51

be more grateful for Channel 4. Channel

43:54

4 commissioned mine and Jamie's very first

43:58

sort of documentary thing we've done. made in 2002, Channel

44:01

4 commissioned our very

44:03

first drama we made about

44:06

15 years ago. So they've championed

44:08

you and I do definitely want to ask you

44:10

later about your programmes, the programmes that you make,

44:12

but I just want to ask you right now,

44:14

your plaudits for Alex

44:17

Mahon set aside, in terms

44:19

of your assessment of how

44:21

do you assess what's happening

44:23

at Channel 4 right now?

44:25

I don't really, it's difficult for

44:27

me, it's not really my department, I can

44:29

see that everyone's having a tough time at

44:32

the moment, but you know you

44:34

asked about making hits, it

44:37

reminds me of when I used to direct things

44:41

for advertising and people would say let's make a

44:43

viral, you can't make a viral, you make a

44:45

film and it may or may not become a

44:47

viral, and you make a show and it may

44:50

or may not become a hit and all you

44:52

can really do is make the stuff which you

44:54

feel in your heart is exciting and brings

44:57

you some kind of joy as a

44:59

filmmaker and so I don't really know

45:01

much about the ins and outs of

45:03

Channel 4, what we're doing is we're

45:06

making a drama for Channel 4 at

45:08

the moment, but beyond that I'm not

45:10

really focused on the sort of that

45:12

bigger picture. Yeah that's what I

45:15

was going to ask you I suppose, is you

45:17

know what we hear from the outside and we're

45:19

just talking to Alex about it was that you

45:21

know pausing or cancelling, commissioning because of the advertising

45:23

downturn that happened last year, are you sounds like

45:25

you are, are you still pitching to Channel 4,

45:28

are you still getting shows picked up by Channel

45:30

4? We're making a show for the, and

45:32

all of these trends, all of these kind of all

45:34

of the kind of briefs that you receive, the

45:37

truth is any reason a commissioner

45:39

gives you that they don't

45:42

want to do something is really euphemism

45:44

for whatever reason, it didn't sort of

45:46

grab me, grab hold of my soul

45:48

and force me to make it and

45:51

so it's really about personal taste, always

45:53

really, it's whether an idea grabs someone

45:55

or not, so all

45:58

you can really do is come

46:00

up with ideas you believe in, develop

46:02

them to an extent where you feel they'll

46:04

be ready to pitch and then pitch them

46:06

with passion and then ideally make

46:08

them well. Great and we'll come back to you

46:10

in a minute and hear more about that but Jake Counter

46:13

from Deadline I wanted to bring you in, you've been listening

46:15

to all that. What's your assessment of how Channel 4 is

46:17

right now? Well I mean

46:19

look clearly Channel 4 is grappling with

46:21

all those structural issues that Alex talked

46:23

about in in detail there. I think

46:26

it's really interesting the relationship that Channel

46:28

4 has with the independent production sector.

46:30

It's quite a unique relationship. Channel

46:33

4 commissions all of its original content from producers,

46:37

independent producers and

46:39

that means they have a unique bond with

46:41

them, they are the lifeblood of Channel 4

46:43

and it means when Channel 4 is feeling

46:45

pain, so do producers

46:48

and they feel it very acutely and

46:52

there was concern last year that Channel

46:54

4 was passing more pain onto

46:57

producers than was necessary. They were

46:59

asking producers to finance shows, they

47:02

were cancelling things at short notice

47:05

and they did those things before

47:07

looking internally at job cuts,

47:10

at selling the HQ and

47:13

other measures that Alex has spoken about

47:15

and I was speaking to a

47:17

very seasoned senior respected producer

47:21

this week and they put it to me like

47:23

this Channel 4 has lost the dressing room. There

47:26

is a real

47:29

feeling among some producers and I'm sorry to

47:31

say this in front of you Alex, that

47:34

people are agitating for regime change. There's

47:36

a feeling that producers would like

47:38

to see fresh blood, fresh impetus at Channel

47:40

4 and although Alex

47:43

and Ian Katz who is head

47:45

of content and formerly of this parish

47:47

at Newsnight, they're very well liked by

47:51

the industry, there is a feeling that

47:54

perhaps fresh eyes could be of benefit

47:56

to the broadcaster. Alex, how do you respond

47:58

to all of that? I think

48:00

it's totally inevitable that when you've got tricky

48:03

times you're going to get criticism and

48:05

it's our job to listen to producers, you know,

48:07

and we can always do more of that

48:09

and probably should. But what I

48:11

would say is you've got quite a lot of complexity going

48:13

on here, right? You've got two

48:16

years of privatisation, fun and

48:19

games. Do you

48:21

feel in hindsight that you took up so much bandwidth

48:23

for you that perhaps you took your eye off the

48:25

ball on other things? I don't

48:27

feel that but I would say it's always an organisational

48:29

strategic distraction, you know,

48:32

in the house field. Do you think there's been

48:34

a hangover from that and we've seen that in?

48:37

I just think you've got to accept that it's

48:39

a management distraction. I don't think you can say

48:41

what's a counterfactual because there are also positive things

48:43

that come out of that, you

48:45

know, and

48:47

in other ways the organisation puts its shoulder

48:50

to the wheel and comes up with more creative success

48:52

and as you've both said we had our best

48:54

financial and creative years and last year we won

48:56

126 awards, that's more awards than we've ever won.

48:58

We just picked up six Oscars, that's more than

49:00

there's been in a decade. So you can't say

49:03

that's all bad, you just can't. But I think

49:05

you've got that, you've got this immense

49:07

structural change of the switch to linear to

49:09

digital and then you've got the advertising recession

49:11

last year that no one has thought. That's

49:13

a lot, that's a lot for producers to

49:15

cope with as well. So that's a big

49:17

storm, isn't it? If you look at the

49:19

switch from linear to digital, you know,

49:21

that's going through a valley of death. You've got to

49:23

get through that, you've got to get through that to

49:25

the other side. To do that you've got to have

49:27

your strategy right. That's why I'm like what's

49:29

the evidence? The evidence is, lots

49:32

of creative awards, the evidence is we

49:34

spend more than 60% of

49:36

revenues on content higher than any other

49:39

commercial broadcaster. You put shows

49:41

out that are actually about us challenging

49:43

like the Ruffle brand documentary last year, no one

49:45

else would have done that, four years of investigation.

49:47

It turns out to be a number one streaming

49:49

show for young people but I wouldn't say that's

49:52

easy and although we've had pain,

49:54

producers have had pain as well so

49:56

I totally understand why people find that

49:59

worrying. I would like to

50:01

talk now about a slightly wider question around

50:03

what gets commissioned. I've spoken to so many

50:05

production companies in recent months, who say it's

50:07

quintessentially British shows that are falling by the

50:10

wayside because shows these days often get made,

50:12

I'm not talking just for Channel 4, but

50:14

more widely as co-productions with money from abroad.

50:17

I wonder what your insights are into that because that

50:19

seems to be a conversation that's been had a lot.

50:21

Yeah, I think that's like a risk

50:24

in the industry that you get the modern reinvention of

50:26

what we used to call in the 90s

50:28

the Europudding, which was a

50:30

film that was made because you could get some money

50:32

from France and some money from Germany and some money

50:34

from Italy and you couldn't really understand anything it was

50:37

said in it and it wasn't successful anywhere. So

50:39

now lots of the global players

50:42

have to have shows that work everywhere.

50:45

So that can lead to, not in all

50:47

these shows, but it can lead to a

50:49

kind of blandification, massification of what's

50:51

commissioned, the opposite actually of Joel's sex

50:53

education, which was sharp and

50:55

clear and did an audience,

50:58

a smaller audience in every country worldwide because

51:01

it appealed to young people with particular issues

51:03

that you're going through at that age. Channel

51:06

4 doesn't do that, like horror shows like recently,

51:08

the rise and fall of Boris Johnson, no one

51:10

else was going to make that. The

51:12

piece we made about Russell Brand, no one else was going to make that. Defiance,

51:16

last week a three-parter about the

51:19

rise against the far right of Indians in the

51:21

UK in the 70s and 80s, no one else was

51:23

going to make that. The bullseye is when you make them

51:25

and they're popular. The bullseye is

51:27

they say something about Britain and they're popular. That's why

51:29

to catch a copper is something we're really

51:32

proud of because that's peculiarly British. And

51:34

Joel, if I just bring you back in there,

51:36

I have to say I love sex education. I

51:38

particularly love the fact that my daughter, the first

51:40

time she brought her teenage boyfriend round we all

51:42

sat down and watched sex education. That was one

51:44

of my favourite experiences of my life, I think.

51:46

It's a fantastic, I can't mention the scenes we

51:48

were watching, but it's a fantastic program. But I

51:50

suppose one thing that is

51:52

said about it and I'm interested in your

51:54

perspective is we know it's

51:56

filmed in Britain, but you wouldn't be watching

51:58

it know it's quintu- essentially British, you know,

52:01

the school could be an American high school.

52:03

In a sense, it's kind of Nowheresville, which

52:05

works for audiences around the world. Is that

52:07

is that unfair? It's

52:12

an accurate statement. But I'm

52:14

just not really sure quintessentially

52:17

British means. And the notion

52:19

that any particular thing of

52:22

this kind shouldn't have a style to

52:24

it or a tone to it is obviously

52:28

problematic from a creative point

52:30

of view, because unless you have a take on something,

52:32

unless you have a style, it's,

52:35

it's going to be pretty boring. And yeah,

52:38

I agree sex education was strongly

52:41

influenced by the films of American

52:45

films. And

52:48

was that part because it had financing for you

52:50

know, it's made by Netflix? No, no, no, no, no,

52:52

no, no, no, this is a huge, this is a very common

52:55

misappenture people say, Oh, you made

52:57

a show where Netflix put into

53:00

the algorithm, sex, Gillian

53:02

Anderson, Ace of Butterfield, and

53:05

high school, and then they told you what

53:07

to write. This was a show which was

53:09

made by a very, very small people, people

53:11

was actually developed at Channel four. And

53:14

they could have gone to Channel

53:16

four, shown down before my turn. Okay, just

53:18

to make that, Alex did not turn down

53:21

sex education. It probably wouldn't have been the

53:23

same show Channel four. But it would have

53:25

looked more more like an English like a British school,

53:27

maybe. If we've ever showed

53:29

you the pitch book that we

53:31

took to Channel four, which

53:33

was written by four people, no

53:35

one else really involved, you would

53:38

it very clear that this show

53:40

we wanted to make was one which was John

53:42

Hughes, but woke and set in the UK. And

53:44

that's exactly what it is. And as a

53:46

total winner, what I'm what Netflix

53:48

actually does is not they don't design the stuff

53:51

with their algorithm, they just very I don't want

53:53

to go into the detail of it. But it's

53:55

fascinating. They very cleverly find every single person in

53:57

the world who will who might want to

53:59

watch your show and has Netflix and puts it in front

54:01

of them. That's what the algorithm does.

54:04

It doesn't design shows, it finds the

54:06

audience for your shows. And in fact, more than anyone

54:08

else we really work with at the

54:10

time anyway, they were very emphatic that

54:12

they didn't want to share any research with us about the way

54:14

we should make it. They said, you make the show the way

54:16

you want to make it and we will find an audience. And

54:20

Joel, we talked about the culture wars

54:22

over trans rights earlier. Sex education dealt

54:24

sensitively with that subject. Did you have

54:26

any trepidations entering into it? Well,

54:29

I am a straight, cis white man, so

54:31

I have nothing to say on this subject.

54:34

Okay, apart from you made a program which involved

54:36

it. So I just wonder whether you were worried about

54:38

it. That's what I have to say on the subject.

54:41

Yeah. Fair enough. Has

54:43

or maybe it's not fair enough, not sure.

54:45

Anyway, has Netflix, Alex Mayhorn, do you think

54:47

you served Channel 4 as the home of

54:49

edgy, risky drama? Oh,

54:53

I think if you'd asked that question

54:55

a few years ago, about the time

54:57

that sex education went on

54:59

and we had a show

55:01

called The End of the F-ing World, which was

55:03

brilliant for us. And then went on to

55:05

Netflix, did even more business. And like

55:08

I said, yes. But now, I

55:10

think I'd say no. Because the thing what's happened

55:12

there is they've gone from edgy, cool,

55:15

risky to mass.

55:17

It's an understandable part of their

55:19

business model. And they're a

55:21

brilliant business, right? They've gone mass and

55:23

bigger and bigger and global launches. And

55:26

they don't see there the edgy cool stuff. Maybe,

55:28

maybe I'm too old. I don't know. But I

55:30

don't see that there. I actually see a lot

55:32

of that on YouTube. You know, the differences are

55:35

evolving all the time. That's both the scary thing

55:37

and the cool thing about this business is it

55:39

changes. And Joel, just in

55:41

the last 30 seconds or so, just tell us,

55:43

I think you're making Lord of the Flies. And

55:46

is there much cash around at the moment to make it? Just tell

55:48

us about that project. Well, that's a

55:50

project which has got Jack Thorne writing it,

55:53

Mark Munden directing it, Hans Zimmer

55:55

writing the music, Nina Gold

55:57

casting it. And that's a pretty enticing

55:59

package. and the BBC green-lit

56:01

it immediately. But the truth is

56:04

a broadcaster green-lighting something isn't

56:06

actually the sort of champagne-popping, party-poppers-popping

56:09

celebration moment. You then have a

56:11

huge job ahead of you to

56:13

find almost certainly a co-producer

56:16

abroad, another broadcaster, and

56:19

find money from a

56:22

distributor. Whereas usually it was go

56:25

to the broadcaster, get a green light,

56:27

go to your favourite distributor, off you

56:30

go. It's very much not that anymore. Happily

56:33

we've got Lord of the Flies set up,

56:35

we've got our cast, we're ready to go, and we've

56:37

got the budget together. But it wasn't

56:39

the sort of bite your hand off situation expected

56:43

five years ago. Very, very good luck with it.

56:45

I could keep talking all afternoon, but we can't because

56:47

the hour is now up. Thank you so much Joel

56:49

Wilson, also Alex Mayhan from Channel 4. Jake

56:52

Cantor who's been here the whole time from

56:54

Deadline. Earlier you heard from Rebecca Coombs at

56:56

the BMJ. Hannah Barnes from the New Statesman

56:58

and Laura Snapes from Algister. Farah Eva from

57:00

Bloomberg. Goodbye.