TellyCast: The content industry podcast

Recorded on the ground at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, this Cannes special closes the current series of TellyCast before the summer break. Host Justin Crosby meets three guests working at the point where advertising, entertainment and technology now converge. Jason Day, Head of EMEA at Luma AI, explains how the company is unifying multiple video and image models into a si...

What does it take to build one of the UK’s most successful branded entertainment franchises? This week on TellyCast, Justin Crosby is joined by Mark Rivers, co-founder of Cold Glass Productions, the company behind the award-winning Dish from Waitrose podcast and video series. Mark shares the remarkable story behind the show’s growth from a bold business plan into a billion-view entertainment brand...

What does it really take to build a production company for the creator economy? This week on TellyCast, Justin Crosby is joined by production strategist Bryony Hopkins , founder of BRYONY Ink , whose career spans the BBC, LADbible Group, Strong Watch Studios and FlightStory. Bryony has spent years designing production systems for creator businesses, broadcasters and digital-first studios, helping...

This week on TellyCast, Justin Crosby is joined by Peter White, Executive Editor at  Deadline⁠, for a wide-ranging conversation covering the biggest issues facing the global content business. Peter shares his perspective from Los Angeles on the changing fortunes of Hollywood, the impact of YouTube on traditional television, the future of late-night programming following Stephen Colbert’s departure...

What happens when two experienced television producers decide to leave the traditional TV industry and build a digital-first business from scratch? In this episode of TellyCast, Justin Crosby sits down with Pete Campion, Co-Founder of IndyStudios, to explore how he and former BBC producer Matt Ramsden have made the leap from broadcast television into the creator economy. Pete spent more than two d...

This week on TellyCast, Justin Crosby is joined by Naomi Channell, Head of Podcasts at Curve Media and creator of some of the UK’s fastest-growing true crime podcasts. Naomi shares her journey from a 20-year career in television production to building a portfolio of hit podcast brands that now attract more than a million monthly listeners across audio and video platforms. The conversation explores...

This week on TellyCast, Justin Crosby is joined by Andrew Eastel, Managing Director of Middlechild Productions, for a fascinating conversation about how traditional TV production companies can adapt to the digital-first production economy. Andrew explains how Middlechild launched the hugely successful Gardening With Alan Titchmarsh YouTube channel, why factual producers may be better placed for so...

Spotify is no longer just an audio platform. Video podcasts are now at the centre of its growth strategy — and according to Spotify’s Rowan Collinson, they are rapidly becoming one of the most important opportunities in the digital-first production economy.   In this episode of TellyCast, Justin Crosby speaks to Rowan Collinson, Audience Lead at Spotify, about why video podcasts are exploding, how...

Recorded live at How to Make Money in Digital on April 20th 2026, this episode of TellyCast features Tim Taylor MBE, the creator of Time Team , in a candid conversation about bringing one of the UK’s most beloved factual formats into the digital-first era. Tim shares the inside story of how Time Team moved from traditional broadcaster funding to a fan-supported model on Patreon, and what that shif...

This week on TellyCast, Justin Crosby speaks to Timothy Oh from COL Group, one of the biggest players in the booming micro drama business. As the company behind platforms including ReelShort, Timothy explains why short-form, vertical storytelling has exploded in China and the US, why it is now starting to spread across Europe, and what it could mean for broadcasters, producers and content business...

This week on TellyCast, Justin Crosby sits down with Matt Campion, co-founder of Spirit Studios, for a deep dive into how one of the UK’s most established digital-first production companies is building for the future. Matt explains how Spirit evolved from an early digital production business into a multi-strand content company spanning originals, podcasts, branded content, YouTube channel manageme...

The TV industry is changing fast, and traditional production models are no longer enough. In this episode of TellyCast, recorded live at How to Make Money in Digital, Anjdy Fry digs into what the digital-first production economy really looks like in 2026. From YouTube and social video to new studio models, monetisation strategies and creator-led IP, this conversation explores how TV producers, exe...

Justin Crosby speaks to Chinese micro-drama expert Wenwen Han , founder and CEO of the Short Drama Alliance , about how China built the world’s most advanced short-form drama economy. The conversation explores platform ecosystems on Douyin and WeChat, in-app payments versus ad-funded viewing, the rise of AI-generated “motion comics,” and what Western producers keep getting wrong about vertical dra...

In this anonymous edition of TellyCast , Justin Crosby is joined by two experienced digital-first producers who speak candidly about the realities of building sustainable businesses in social video, YouTube and podcasting in 2026. They discuss why digital producers are suddenly in demand, how broadcaster strategies are changing, and why success on YouTube is far from guaranteed for traditional TV...

Micro drama is one of the fastest-growing scripted formats in global digital video, and UK producers are only just beginning to understand its scale, speed and commercial potential. In this episode of TellyCast , Justin Crosby is joined by micro drama producer Samantha Sun from ReelForce to unpack how vertical, app-based scripted series really work. Samantha shares her journey from early Chinese-b...

This week Justin is joined by Steve Ackerman, one of the UK’s leading audio execs and former EVP and Head of Global Podcasts at Sony Music. Steve talks through three decades of shaping audio, from starting in hospital radio to building Somethin’ Else into a major content studio before its acquisition by Sony.  He explains why audio and video now need to work together, why podcasting is still early...

In this special end-of-year episode of TellyCast, Justin Crosby looks back at 2025 and unpacks the structural shifts that have quietly but fundamentally reshaped the digital-first production economy. Drawing on reporting from The Drop, conversations on the podcast, and insights from TellyCast events throughout the year, the episode breaks down six defining trends: the rise of creator collectives a...

In this episode of TellyCast, Justin Crosby is joined by Joe Churchill, former Digital Commissioning Editor for Branded Content at Channel 4 and now co-founder of Fan Club, a digital-first agency built around brands, creators and premium social video. Joe breaks down what it really means for brands to behave like broadcasters, why owning audiences now matters more than owning formats, and how bran...

Sam Barcroft returns to TellyCast with a major update: he’s now Group CEO of SWNS Media Group, the UK’s largest independent newswire. In this wide-ranging conversation, Sam explains why news, social video and the creator economy are colliding faster than anyone expected — and what that means for producers, brands and the entire media landscape. Sam breaks down the future of news in a video-first w...

Factual isn’t standing still - and this panel proves it. Recorded live at the TellyCast Digital Content Forum, this conversation digs into how the factual genre is being rebuilt for a digital-first world. Lucy Smith hosts a sharp, unsentimental discussion with Gerrit Kemming (Quintus Studios), Marvyn Benoit (Baker’s Dozen Studios) and Jamie McDonald (After Party Studios) about who really owns valu...

Vertical video drama has exploded in the past year – but is it a passing craze or the next big shift in storytelling?  Recorded live at the TellyCast Digital Content Forum, this session brings together Spirit Studios’ Matt Campion, TheSoul Group’s Victor Potrel and writer-director-producer Katharina Gellein Viken to unpack the boom in micro drama. Moderated by Deadline’s Stewart Clarke, the panel...

This week’s TellyCast comes from Lisbon and the 2025 Web Summit, featuring three standout conversations from the frontline of social video. Engineering superstar and YouTube icon Colin Furze joins the show fresh from his packed session to discuss two decades of building one of the world’s biggest creator channels, the near-mythical underground tunnel project, his relationship with TV, and how he k...

Strong Watch Studios co-founder Thom Gulseven joins the show to talk about building one of the UK’s most exciting digital-first production companies. He reveals how lessons learned at LADbible shaped the launch of Strong Watch with Ben Powell-Jones, how their channel People Are Deep became an award-winning social video hit, and why Channel 4 trusted them to run its new comedy channel A Comedy Thin...

In the final TellyCast MIPCOM special from Cannes, we hear from the people shaping the digital-first future of TV. Fan Club’s Joe Churchill talks about brands becoming broadcasters and his upcoming session at the TellyCast Digital Content Forum. Luci Sanan from Cowshed Ventures reveals her new YouTube adventure joint venture with Propagate Content. EndemolShine Nederland’s Sil Geurtsen explains ho...

In part two of our TellyCast MIPCOM special, Justin Crosby dives deep into the creator economy — the fastest-evolving part of the global content industry. Guests include Gerrit Kemming of Quintus Studios, Paul Telner from Viral Nation, Matt Gielen — digital media entrepreneur and former CEO of Electric Monster, Tobias Hoss from Lunar X, ITV Studios’ Cecile Olsen, Spirit Studios’ Matt Campion and A...