The Media Leader Podcast

It is a challenging environment for publishers. That is no secret. Numerous publishers have had to lay off and restructure staff in recent months and, as traffic and revenue have been impacted in part by changes made by search and social media companies, as well as consumers continuing to move away from print, things have at times seemed quite dire. But when industries face challenge, it is always...

Yannick Bolloré, chairman and CEO of Havas and chairperson at Havas' parent group Vivendi, speaks to Omar Oakes about the company's financial earnings, in which it turned around a €1bn loss the previous year, and why Vivendi is considering creating four distinct "cousin companies", centred on Havas, Canal+, publishing and distribution. The interview also reveals: Bolloré's view on how Vivendi comp...

Host Ella Sagar welcomes editor-in-chief Omar Oakes and reporter Jack Benjamin to examine the past week in media, including TalkTV's decision to come off linear TV, Reach's "better-than-expected" earnings and Global appointing Simon Pitts as its next CEO after Stephen Miron.  The trio also discuss Isba's plans for spinning off Origin into a separate company, ITV selling its 50% stake in BritB...

Consultancy in some form may become part of a media practitioner's career at some point, but how does it work in reality? Rachel Forde and Marco Bertozzi, co-founders of consultants' collective The Zoo. London, join Ella Sagar to talk about founding a company, misconceptions about consultancy and the senior brain drain in media. For Forde, the days when consulting was seen as "something to do in-b...

Host Jack Benjamin welcomes columnist Nick Manning and reporter Ella Sagar to examine Warner Bros Discovery's latest earnings, Reddit's forthcoming IPO and why agency-client relationships at holding companies have become less transparent over time. On digital publishers making cuts and lay-offs, Manning said: "One thing that is a shame for all of us is that content costs money and good content cos...

Ed Couchman, head of sales for the UK and Northern Europe at Spotify, joins Ella Sagar to talk about the company's long-term advertising ambition, its podcast and audiobook strategy, Apple's app practices and how kindness should not be seen as a weakness. He underscores the commitment to CEO Daniel Ek's goal of generating 20% of revenue from advertising and describes a "longer-term aspiration" for...

Host Jack Benjamin welcomes editor-in-chief Omar Oakes and reporter Ella Sagar to examine Thinkbox's new members, headlines from the consumer ABCs and what is happening with GB News and Ofcom. The group also discusses why every media channel should have a Clearcast, BuzzFeed exploring a licensing deal with The Independent and Apple's potential fine from the European Commission.  Highlights: 3...

Milka Privodanova, head of Europe, Middle East and Africa at Pinterest, joins Omar Oakes to talk about the next step in the picture-sharing platform's journey as it reaches nearly 500m users and progresses ecommerce deals with Amazon and Google. Privodanova, who was known as Milka Kramer before announcing her name change in The Media Leader two years ago, is clear about how Pinterest can succeed a...

As TikTok continues to develop what it says is a full-funnel advertising solution, such as through increased commerce capabilities, how it measures its advertising and drives effectiveness becomes increasingly important to marketers. TikTok’s head of client measurement for Europe, Israel and global gaming, Steve Lockwood, joins Jack Benjamin to discuss the company's approach to measurement an...

Former prime minister Gordon Brown, culture secretary Lucy Frazer, shadow culture minister Chris Bryant and Ofcom chair Lord Grade had lots to tell the UK media and advertising industry at the LEAD 2024 conference on 8 February. But what do senior industry professionals really think of what they heard from the politicians and what will likely happen next? Omar Oakes and Jack Benjamin discuss confe...

Columnist Nicola Kemp joins host Jack Benjamin, editor-in-chief Omar Oakes and reporter Ella Sagar to unpack earnings results from swathes of Big Tech companies, including Meta, Amazon, Google, Spotify and Snap. The group discusses the big winners of earnings season and whether media has become too concentrated in fewer, more dominant players. As US senators ponder regulation of social media, Kemp...

At The Year Ahead 2024, Charlene Williams, Pearl & Dean's group senior operations and business analyst, and member of our Future 100 Club, pleaded with industry leaders to renew their focus and care towards diversity, equity and inclusion. Was the message received? Williams discusses this on the podcast this week alongside host Jack Benjamin and special guest Sam Tidmarsh, Adwanted Events' hea...

At last month's The Year Ahead 2024 event in London, media's current and future leaders convened to discuss what is likely to happen in 2024 and what they would like to happen over the course of the year. Editor-in-chief Omar Oakes and reporter Ella Sagar were on the scene to interview a number of delegates. One key question they asked was: if you could wave a magic wand, what would you do to impr...

The medium is the message. A well-known phrase in this industry, but how do you quantify how much that is true? Richard Kirk, joint chief strategy officer at EssenceMediacom, sat down with Ella Sagar to unpack what this means in practice through new research into "signal strength," which Kirk explained "is very likely to be an enduring thing that does not change much." Kirk also debunked some...

Columnist Nick Manning returns to the podcast alongside host Ella Sagar, editor-in-chief Omar Oakes and reporter Jack Benjamin to discuss the latest results from Netflix and why Omnicom's recent acquisition of Flywheel reflects the increasing importance of digital commerce and retail media. The group also looks at a number of recent industry reports, including last month's US Association of Nation...

Like other social media companies, Reddit has made big changes over the past few years as it seeks to become a more attractive digital platform for advertisers. These include a redesign in 2018, changes to its API last summer and a broader focus on sharing video content. A subset of Reddit users has at times decried such changes , even as they make Reddit a more commercially viable platform. Much...

Cass Naylor, strategic advisor at Purpose Union and co-director of advocacy at Outvertising, returns to the podcast alongside host Omar Oakes and reporters Ella Sagar and Jack Benjamin to unpack 2024 predictions in media and advertising and what was said by industry leaders at The Media Leader 's annual Year Ahead event. They discuss their anxieties around AI-generated content spreading misinforma...

Cookies are deprecating on Google Chrome – finally – although they aren’t going away all at once. Just 1% of Chrome users have seen the cookieless future so far , with more to come over the next year. In response, many media agencies, media owners, publishers, adtech companies and, well, just about everyone wise in the digital media industry have been hard at work creating new advertising solution...

Columnist Nicola Kemp returns to the podcast alongside host Ella Sagar and reporter Jack Benjamin to review the past week's news in media and advertising. In her latest column , Kemp wrote about how the hustle culture is having negative effects on us all – especially caretakers. She implored media professionals to embrace the art of saying “no” this year. The trio discuss the column, as well as ho...

2024 is guaranteed to be a year of change for media and advertising, with higher interest rates, more AI and general elections in the UK and the US. What will it mean specifically for media agencies and agency networks, and what is the mood of the investment community in a world where debt is more expensive and cash becomes even more important? Editor-in-chief Omar Oakes interviews Richard Pinder,...

Omar Oakes, Ella Sagar, and Jack Benjamin are back on the podcast following the holiday break to catch you up on all the news in media and advertising. They review the potential for a Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount merger , The New York Times ' lawsuit of OpenAI and Microsoft over alleged copyright infringement , and X's declining valuation. The trio also shares their predictions for what the...

2024 is set to be another big year for large media agencies with many major global and UK accounts set to be reviewed by advertisers. But only one in 10 (11%) major multinational brands believe the current agency model fits their future needs. Even worse than that, one in four big brand marketers believe the current agency model is “unfit for future purpose”. Those are the tough findings from the...

Are social platforms good media to receive accurate news and information? Ramin Beheshti, founder and CEO of The News Movement, thinks so. Reporter Jack Benjamin discussed with Beheshti The News Movement's content and business strategy, how it looks to make money through diverse revenue streams, and whether short-form video is inherently a good medium for news presentation. More and more people, e...

How hard is it for a traditional broadcaster to build a streaming service? “It’s a really easy thing to say, it’s quite a hard thing to deliver," ITV CEO Dame Carolyn McCall told editor-in-chief Omar Oakes at The Future of TV Advertising Global in London earlier this month. McCall reflected on the launch of ITVX, ITV's ad-supported streaming service, one year after its launch, and discussed w...

What a year 2023 has been. The media industry has seen the expansion of generative AI, rising interest rates impacting businesses and in some cases media investment, a tough and transitioning market for TV, the 50th anniversary of commercial radio coinciding with a burgeoning podcast market, years of "efficiency" at major tech companies, a succession plan for Rupert Murdoch, and of course, Elon Mu...