The Media Leader Podcast

This episode was produced in partnership with Channel 4. At Cannes this year, The Media Leader sat down with several members of Channel 4's commercial leadership team to discuss how the TV company is looking to drive new commercial growth now that Universal Ads is live in the UK and Channel 4 is integrated with a new slew of demand-side platforms. On an previous episode of the podcast, host Jack B...

Meta is growing at a remarkable rate. Already one of the world’s biggest global advertising businesses, the tech giant’s revenue grew 33% year-on-year to $56.3bn in Q1 alone. But while its dominance over the ad industry has crystallised, so has scrutiny into its business practices – and advertisers’ role in funding online harms through its platforms. Separate court cases in the US this year found...

This episode was produced in partnership with Channel 4 . For the second year in a row, the UK's commercial TV companies made a splash at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. After unveiling Universal Ads — the broadcasters' marketplace for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) — last year, Sky, ITV, Channel 4 and Comcast officially launched the product on Tuesday. And on Monday, Channel...

Last week, WPP Media released its mid-year global advertising forecast report. As Kate Scott-Dawkins, WPP Media’s global president of business intelligence and author of the report said, the growth picture for advertising is "quite buoyant", even in the midst of severe geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty. As the global advertising community descends upon sunny Cannes this week, including us...

Last week on the show, The Media Leader spoke with Thinkbox’s Elliott Millard about how brands can reconsider their cultural impact, and this week, we wanted to continue that conversation with an agency that bills itself as sitting right at the centre of culture. Hamid Habib is the managing director of Arena Media within Havas Village. Habib and Arena Media pride themselves on working on inventive...

Ask marketers what they hope to accomplish and, as part of the effort to drive sales outcomes, these days, many will say they want their brand to contribute to and sit within culture But that begs the question: how do you define culture? There is a sense that culture is youth-driven and based on social currency – are you up to date on the latest trend? On what people are talking about right now? A...

This week, from the 3rd to the 5th of June, the World Out of Home Organisation (WOO) is hosting its Annual Congress here in London. The event is expected to draw more than 700 attendees from over 37 countries, and The Media Leader is an official media partner of the conference, occurring during our inaugural OOH Week in Focus. Ahead of the conference, host Jack Benjamin sat down with the World Out...

Last month, the United Nations in partnership with the Conscious Advertising Network (CAN) launched an issue brief warning the integrity of the global information ecosystem is at a "crisis point". As Charlotte Scaddan, senior advisor on information integrity at the UN, explained: "Without swift action and guardrails, AI risks accelerating the breakdown of information ecosystem integrity." But adve...

In a new mini-series, former Media Leader editor-in-chief Omar Oakes is joined by former Dentsu International CEO, now AI strategist Hamish Nicklin to argue over the nuances of AI development and its use in the creative industries. In the series' final episode, the duo debate for and against the prompt: "Goodbye Salesforce and Adobe because AI will end enterprise software." Taking the “for” side o...

With the advent and adoption of AI search, consumers’ online research and discovery behaviours are shifting. How can brands win authority in this new space? Last month at our annual Future of Brands conference, industry leaders convened in London to unpack the challenges facing brand marketers in a rapidly changing media ecosystem. One such nascent problem for marketers and their agencies: how bra...

In a new mini-series, former  Media Leader  editor-in-chief Omar Oakes is joined by former Dentsu International CEO, now AI strategist Hamish Nicklin to argue over the nuances of AI development and its use in the creative industries. In episode four, the duo debate for and against the prompt: “AI sycophancy will run wild, and it will be bad for business." Taking the “for” side of the arg...

Is there a more important relationship in our industry than that between the CMO and the CFO? Given the macroeconomic environment – war, inflation, AI threatening to upend entire industries – how are the the interests of financial leaders changing as they relate to marketing? Nimmi Shah is a consultant finance director for the media, marketing and PR industries and has worked with major agency gro...

In a new mini-series, former  Media Leader  editor-in-chief Omar Oakes is joined by former Dentsu International CEO, now AI strategist Hamish Nicklin to argue over the nuances of AI development and its use in the creative industries. In episode four, the duo debate for and against the prompt: “AI is turning the internet into a sea of slop, and journalists are helping it happen." In a cha...

This week, The Media Leader is embarking on its first ever Retail Media Week in Focus. The fledgling channel has been having a moment. Investment in retail media has grown substantially – in 2025, adspend in the channel grew 17.5% year on year, according to the latest AA/Warc figures. Brands are seeking to join up the ends of the funnel by targeting consumers based on their shopping habits and mea...

In a new mini-series, former  Media Leader  editor-in-chief Omar Oakes is joined by former Dentsu International CEO, now AI strategist Hamish Nicklin to argue over the nuances of AI development and its use in the creative industries. In episode three, the duo debate for and against the prompt: “AI means you don't need human creativity in ads anymore. You come to a media owner or platform...

In March, Meta and Google were found by a Los Angeles jury to have deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive in a way that was demonstrably harmful to a 20-year-old woman known as Kaley. TikTok and Snap were also previously defendants in the case before agreeing to a settlement ahead of trial. Meta and Google intend to appeal the decision. The news occurred as political leaders around...

In a new mini-series, former  Media Leader  editor-in-chief Omar Oakes is joined by former Dentsu International CEO, now AI strategist Hamish Nicklin to argue over the nuances of AI development and its use in the creative industries. In episode two, the duo debate for and against the prompt: “No human will touch a media plan within five years.” Taking the “for” side of the argument is Ni...

One question that we’ve returned to time and again on this podcast and in our coverage, as media practitioners return to time and again themselves, is how to appeal to young people. Young people who are often hard to reach. They overindex on low-attention social media platforms and, while they generally express a greater openness to and trust of advertising, also worry over how their media diets a...

In a new mini-series, former  Media Leader  editor-in-chief Omar Oakes is joined by former Dentsu International CEO, now AI strategist Hamish Nicklin to argue over the nuances of AI development and its use in the creative industries. In the first episode, the duo debate for and against the prompt: "AI will replace most white collar jobs, and faster than anyone thinks." Taking the "for" s...

Most AI podcasts tell you one of two things: either AI is going to save the world, unlock human potential, cure diseases, fix the broken bits of capitalism — or that it's going to end the world, homogenise culture, hand power to a handful of companies that have too much of it. In a new mini-series, former Media Leader editor-in-chief Omar Oakes is joined by former Dentsu International CEO, now AI...

This episode was produced in partnership with The Guardian. The World Cup is poised to be the biggest media event of the year in 2026, and media owners have been betting that it will help lift their pocketbooks and grow audiences. Live sport has become one of the last, best ways for advertisers to reach mass, live audiences centred around a major cultural event, be it on TV, online, on social or i...

Last year, UM unveiled a new global omnichannel media planning proposition: Full Colour Media. The approach, underpinned by a custom body of research developed in partnership with the University of Oxford’s Said Business School, seeks to move against the grain of generic, algorithm-driven media planning and towards a recentring of brand-driven advertising. Since the debut of the proposition, UM ha...

Earlier this month, Allwyn’s global media director Ross Sergeant announced he would be joining GB News as its chief revenue officer. The appointment comes amid what Sergeant has referred to as an “inflection point” for the company. GB News has cumulatively lost £131.5m since its inception in 2021, with funding provided by owners Sir Paul Marshall and Dubai-based investment firm Legatum. But losses...

The BBC is at a critical moment as it looks to negotiate with the government over the renewal of its charter. This month, it published its response to the government’s consultation in which it highlighted the quote “need for radical reforms to its independence”. Preserving the status quo, the Corporation argued, will quote “not be enough to deliver a BBC that remains recognisable to audi...

Digital assets are have for several years been the main growth drivers for most media owners. This is as true of TV – ITV just announced it saw 10% growth in digital revenues compared to flat overall revenue growth – as it is in publishing, as seen in the latest consumer ABC figures , as it is OOH, as it is in, of course, social media and search. So it was little surprise that, according to IAB UK...