Jeff Nathenson: Companies, creators, talent, celebrities,
everyone is very, very uncomfortable right now. And my
recommendation to these executives is you are going to
continue to be uncomfortable. None of this is meant for you to
settle into a situation where you can calmly go about your
business, understand your competitors, understand the
marketplace and execute on this.
Paul Thomas: Welcome to a brand new episode of Starts at the
Top: our podcast about digital leadership and change. I'm Paul
Thomas.
Zoe Amar: And I'm Zoe Amar. On today's episode, we're sharing
our conversation with Jeff Nathenson, who is Managing
Director, International at Whistle: the digital
entertainment media company for Gen Z. Launching the
international business of Whistle in 2014, he has worked
on strategy, programming, channel management, marketing,
and monetization, on behalf of the Premier League, the
Olympics, FIFA, World Rugby, Major League Baseball, and many
others.
Paul Thomas: It was a fascinating dive into how Gen Z
is consuming information on the internet and a fascinating
discussion about the world of sports streaming. It's not all
about TikTok, but is about short form video content, or content
generally but usually video. TikTok's the major player in
that arena. And Zoe TikTok's been in the news again this
week.
Zoe Amar: It has indeed Paul for really sad reasons. So we're
recording on Monday, the 20th of February. And one of the new
stories that is going on at the moment is the disappearance of
Nicola Bulley. A case which has been dominating news headlines
for several weeks now since she disappeared. We're not going to
talk about the case itself, because there are so many
unknowns. What we are going to talk about is the enormous
amount of social media action, and also information and
misinformation that has been floating around. So in the show
notes, we're going to post a link to an article by a BBC
reporter. And she's talked about some of the engagement that this
content is getting on social media. So for example, on TikTok
videos discussing Nicola Bulley's case, since she first
disappeared, and using her name as a hashtag have accumulated
more than 270 million views. And Instagram reels using her name
have had more than 158 million views. And posts have had around
115,000 interactions. And this is pretty scary stuff, isn't it?
Because it feels like there's a whole enormous story around the
central story, which let's not forget, is the story of a very
ordinary family, that's been through this awful, awful
situation, which is still ongoing. And it's spilling over
into some really horrible real life incidents as well. So there
was a story overnight that I saw where Nicola Bulley's partner
had one of their social media accounts hacked. And then there
are all these stories which are also discussed in this article,
which we put in the show notes from the BBC, where so called
TikTok detectives have gone down to the village and are trying to
act as amateur detectives. And it's just a really, really
awful, really sad turn of events, isn't it because it
feels like something that is this very personal, very, very
difficult, very traumatic, very tragic situation for the family,
has kind of become entertainment and just seen as content for
some people who are going to get involved in the story and acting
as detectives, which is not their job to do.
Paul Thomas: Yeah, and not just for the family, but we were
discussing earlier, it's a small, small town, small
village, everyone in the- everyone in the local
environment is is suffering because of this with people sort
of trespassing on their land. There's one story about somebody
going through gardens with torches on and you know, not
really knowing what's what's going on. They've had to hire
private security to come in and help up there as well. All the
while whilst the police are trying to do their
investigation. So it must sort of hamper- hamper progress. But
it's not- it's not just- it's not just TikTok, I mean in this
case, it's TikTok, but I think there's a sort of a fascination
for this type of true crime content. We talked about the
burgeoning podcast market, I think podcasts were sort of
getting more and more popular as these types of programmes were
appearing on podcasts. And I think it's it's it's a
fascination but I think it's it's it's tripping- this is
tripping too far into amateur detective territory, isn't it?
Everyone thinks they've got a role to play in solving it and
actually, probably the best thing to do is to let the people
that are involved in trying to solve the actual crime- the
actual crime- we don't sorry- we don't know whether it's a crime
- trying to solve the case or trying to get to the bottom of
the case, it's holding them back.
Zoe Amar: Absolutely. And I think the social media platforms
have a role to play in this kind of situation. I mean, there must
be something that can be done, because it must be incredibly
distressing for the family and for friends, to see all of this,
you know, disinformation, misinformation on social media.
And there must be something that the social media platforms can
can do to try and lessen the impact of that. But of course,
getting this kind of engagement is also part of the whole
business model of these platforms. And therein lies the
trouble.
Paul Thomas: Yeah, I think there was a bit in the post wasn't
there a bit in the story about TikTok are trying to respond to
it. I get the feeling that, you know, we don't want to we don't
want to tar too many people with the same brush, but I get the
feeling that TikTok do take their responsibility, quite
seriously, to what goes out on their platform in the way that
some of the other channels, not mentioning any names Twitter,
maybe don't. But I think there's quite a- quite a lot for them to
delve into here. I think mainly because it has sort of spurred
this this online offline behaviour. So it's what's
happening on TikTok, but that's turning into people taking the
law literally into their own hands and thinking that they can
go off and solve something. That- that sort of level of
engagement is obviously off the charts, but in this case, really
not helpful.
Zoe Amar: I think it also sets a precedent for what would happen
in these kinds of cases in the future. So I suppose one thing
that police will need to plan for in these high profile cases
like this is this kind of content being on social media
platforms, and how that's almost part of the job of policing now,
or certainly something where they need to be working in very
close partnership with the social media companies. I mean,
maybe they already are, who knows. And also thinking about
additional strategies to protect family and friends who may see
this kind of content.
Paul Thomas: Yeah, and I'm just sort of looking through the
article now. And one of the things is, there's a poster up
of Nicola Bulley, where it says "Call 999 for- if you- if you
had a sighting or you've got any- any information call 101".
Maybe that's part of it. You know, it's- it's those aren't
the, that isn't the way that this generation that Jeff has
been talking about in the episode to come is
communicating. They don't use phones for phoning people and
phone numbers. They use the messaging apps. So perhaps
you're right, perhaps it is about how the social media
companies help the police to really think about how you
police issues like this in 2023 and beyond, because those the
world has changed, the way that we communicate has changed. And
maybe that's just a reflection of where we are. It's just it's
a bit sad, isn't it that the impact is so strong on on the
family and the victims of this incident.
Zoe Amar: 100%.
Paul Thomas: And now for our interview with Jeff Nathenson.
Zoe Amar: We are very excited to have Jeff Nathenson on the
podcast today. Jeff has more than 30 years of international
experience in media, extending from production and operations
through to business development and sales. He is currently the
Managing Director for the International Division of
Whistle: the digital entertainment media company for
Gen Z. Launching the international business of
Whistle in 2014, he has worked on strategy, programming,
channel management, marketing, and monetization on behalf of
the Premier League, the Olympics, FIFA, World Rugby,
Major League Baseball, and many others. Prior to Whistle Sports,
Jeff helped launch the Partnership Programme on
YouTube, bringing BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Fremantle, Endemol, and
many others onto the platform. He ended his time at YouTube as
its head of football. In a previous life, he was an
Executive Producer at CNN, and did stints IMG and Dow Jones.
Jeff, welcome to the podcast. We're so happy to have you on
Starts at the Top.
Jeff Nathenson: Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate
the opportunity. I love a good podcast. Nothing is better than
a good podcast.
Zoe Amar: We are delighted to have you here. And can we start
by hearing a bit more about what team Whistle does?
Jeff Nathenson: Your team Whistle is a you know, is a
strange- has been a strange odyssey. It started off about 8
to 8 10 years ago as, there was a trend within the social media
space of aggregating YouTube channels, multi channel networks
- we're not even allowed to use the word multi channel networks
anymore, but we aggregated the top creators in the area of
sport on YouTube. And we we're going to create a business
around that. But like any good social, digital business, we
pivoted only about 348 times along the way, in terms of what
kind of business we wanted to be. There's a lot of learnings
along the way. And what has happened is, is we recognise the
challenges of being successful on social is really, really
difficult for traditional media companies, brands, for
publishers, and we found that we could find many ways of helping
them. One is we continue to operate a network of the top
creators in sports. And that means we work with them closely
in terms of brand brand integrations, we run our own
channels, which are geared towards entertaining content for
young audiences. And then subsequently, we have a
business- an agency business that helps traditional brands
navigate the social media market, and how it changes
regularly on an hourly basis, and how to have a successful
brand presence on there. And really understanding what works,
what doesn't work. That's our business.
Zoe Amar: That's so interesting. And you mentioned, there a
really fascinating point about how social can be really hard
for publishers and some of those more traditional organisations
as it were. Why is that?
Jeff Nathenson: For those executives that are my
demographic, which is old-
Zoe Amar: You're not old!
Jeff Nathenson: - old. The truth is, is that for a while the
industry was really, there was a high degree of stability. We
knew our business well. We knew how distribution worked through
cable, through television, through radio. And we knew how
we made money through carriage fees and through advertising.
And then all of a sudden social comes along, and it's like, it's
not just that we're going to transform the business because
we've seen transformations throughout our careers from the
creation- from the move from terrestrial to cable, and from
you know from VHS to DVD. We've seen changes, but the models
have remained consistent over a period of time to build the
business, the revenue sources remained largely the same. And
then also social media comes and drops a big bomb in the middle
of the industry, and it says "not only is everything going to
change in terms of who can enter the business, who can create
content, but how you monetize, how you reach audiences, and
it's going to be a brutal kind of Thunderdome competition to
get to the top of this. And you're gonna be competing not
against just the competitors who you thought you had, in the case
of sports, traditional sports broadcasters are gonna compete
against other sports broadcasters, but you find
yourself competing against the likes of ArsenalFanTV, and- and
the- and The Ringer and Barstool Sports", and all of a sudden you
had all these new competitors. And then to make things even
more challenging in this space, the platform's continually
change and evolve. Two years ago, no one needed a TikTok
strategy. No one even knew what TikTok was, no one knew what
Musical.ly was, let alone ByteDance in China, and all of a
sudden, it's like every organisation is like, "well,
what do I do on TikTok", and it's like, there's this and you
see platforms come and go, and content formats come and go, and
personalities come and go. And it's just very difficult for
people who said, "please just let me focus on my core business
execute on it well", and that's just not possible in the current
market and the way things are happening. Change is happening
so quickly, so what we talk about is not having a clear set
of- this is our business, is having a strategy to deal with
the continuous change and upheaval that social media has
put in, in play.
Paul Thomas: Putting businesses back in that or helping them to
understand that ecosystem, to sort of navigate it through and
think "well, normally, we would be in a position where we're
creating the content, but actually there are people
outside of our organisation that have a huge influence in the
market, whether you're an accountant, whether you're a
sports company, whatever it is, there are people out there that
will have more sway, more influence than the you, and how
you profit from that or how you bring that to- towards your
brand".
Jeff Nathenson: Yeah, and I think that the difficulty in
understanding this is a lot of people look at social media, and
they will see, oh, look, some guy in their basement has
created an enormously successful channel with no production
values and no storytelling and no access to rights. How hard
can it be? And what you have is a scenario, but the difference
is, is there are millions upon millions of young people that
view a career path as a YouTuber as a very important potential
career path for them. And so you have millions of kids creating
content putting it out there. A small number will become
successful. They will become the Mr. Beasts, the KSIs, the Dude
Perfects of this space, but the vast majority don't become that
space. The diff- and but you don't see that, we don't see all
that churn that's taking place with kids uploading videos every
day on these various platforms trying to cut through and to
become, you know, the next Robbie Lyle ArsenalFanTV, but
the difference is, as a sports publisher, as a content owner,
you have to be successful on social. You don't have the
option of not being successful, which means you have to dedicate
the time, the resources, and the ability to understand and really
sit there and say, "we have to be here", because if you're
creating a media brand, if you are creating, even if you are a
direct to consumer brand offering, like a traditional
company like Gillette, each one of these guys has to be
successful on social. They cannot not afford to be
successful, because that's where ultimately the consumers are.
And that means that they have to be successful, where these
millions of other kids who are creating content, ultimately
decide that maybe I'm not going to be a famous YouTuber, I
should consider dentistry or something like that. And so- but
we don't have that option when we work in media. And so that's
why we have to develop a strategy, a roadmap, and an
ability to iterate along the way so that they have a better
chance for success.
Zoe Amar: Do you think that makes some of these more long
established organisations uncomfortable? Because what
you've described there, and I'm sure we can all see parallels
for that in the different industries at work, it's
something about the shifting power dynamics isn't there and
how content is no longer a top down process? In many ways.
Jeff Nathenson: I think you are incredibly diplomatic about
this. Does it make them uncomfortable? I think they're
scared shitless. And rightly so, right? Because it's a much more
democratic process. Companies come up, you know, companies,
creators, talent, celebrities, all come up in ways that you
never expect from different locations. And you have to
compete against them, when you don't even understand them. And
so yes, everyone is very, very uncomfortable right now. And my
recommendation to these executives is that- that is you
are going to continue to be uncomfortable. None of this is
meant for you to settle into a situation where you can calmly
go about your business, understand your competitors,
understand the marketplace and execute on this. It is very,
very scary, especially for people who reached certain
levels within organisations by operating within a very
structured environment. And then to have to deal with the chaos
on this. The vast majority of traditional brands do
horrifically badly on these platforms are terrible. Just
take a look at some of your favourite consumer brands, and
look at how they're doing on social. And you'll look at them
say how are they doing? How can you be a Coca Cola? How can you
be a Coca Cola with a massive marketing budget, have millions
of followers on your YouTube channel, and yet at the same
time get 2000 views on a video that you uploaded two days ago?
It makes no sense. The analogy I often use- and they refuse to
talk me no matter how often I reach out to them is Rolex.
Rolex has a massive following on Instagram. And there's millions
upon millions of people who want to engage with the Rolex brand
on Instagram. And if you look at it, the video they upload where
they have millions of followers, they'll get 10,000 views on a
video, or a couple of like, you know, a couple 1000 likes on a
still image. If you have a- if you have a queue around the
corner of Knightsbridge of 12 million people who are
interested in your brand, and they walk into a store and only
10,000 of them are interested in what you put up there. And your
staff is indifferent. You see tumbleweed blowing through the
display cases of your product. If the CEO of Rolex saw this and
saw the indifference of his content on Instagram, and he
thought of it as his store in Knightsbridge, he would burn
that store to the ground and shut it and never let anyone
walk by it again. And they- because the executives don't
know about how these platforms work, are indifferent to it,
it's detrimental to the brand presentation in this audience.
People are asking 12 million people are asking Rolex daily to
say I want to see what you have to put on your Instagram Stories
for me, I want to know more about your brand, but the
product we're putting up there is terrible. And they have to
recognise this and say either this is not a place for me to
reside at all, I will continue to depend on word of mouth, and
boutiques in Knightsbridge. Or I will engage with the social
platforms in the way that they're designed in a way that
really resonates with the audiences as well. And again,
there's a clear demographic differentiation here as well,
where it's like, if you want to talk to young audiences, if you
want to talk to young people, and you're not on social,
you're- you're fooling yourself.
Paul Thomas: So there's a- there's a really good example
here and all these examples are going to come- they're all gonna
be Arsenal because I'm an Arsenal supporter and you've
already mentioned ArsenalFanTV. We might turn a few listeners
off but I know a group of people who will be listening, so that's
all good. And that's the Prime drink Prime Hydration which was
a collaboration between KSI and Logan Paul, and this is an
energy drink. It's sort of come out of nowhere that they
developed I guess I don't know the back story behind the
development of the drink, but they developed a drink. They
started talking about it on on social. Kids got to know about
it. My kids got to know about it. All kids got to know about
it.
Jeff Nathenson: They can't get ahold of it. They can't find it
anywhere.
Paul Thomas: They can't get a hold of it.
Jeff Nathenson: It's harder than a Rolex watch to find right now.
Paul Thomas: Exactly. So this is exactly I'm putting this next to
Coca Cola, for example, who they will drink Coca Cola, but they
won't search to the ends of the earth to find a bottle of it. So
KSI, I think he's an Arsenal fan, they sell at the Emirates
Stadium, I think they have a deal with Asda. You can't find
it, in an Asda. It's now on on eBay selling for 10 pounds plus
a bottle. People are scalping the market for this drink. And
they sell it the Emirates, by the way for five pounds, five
pounds a bottle. I made my boys share a bottle, I wasn't gonna
go to temple for two drinks, for God's sake. It's not it's more
expensive than beer. That's a perfect example of what we're
talking about here, isn't it that something like that from
two content creators can rise up and become such a phenomenon
that the traditional brands just will not be able to deal with
it, they can acquire it, I'm pretty sure it will be in Coca
Cola as per view that they could go out and buy that business.
But this is this is completely different playing field.
Jeff Nathenson: And I think what I think what's really missing
from this is the recognition within the traditional British
media industry, the power of someone like ksi, and sitting
there saying, Well, we think of him as an individual is a
celebrity. But he's a business. He really is a media business in
and of himself. And in credit, he's been around, it's like
people, I was shocked by this. It's like, oh, I have to pay
five quid for this, you know, for the prime drink. It's like
he's been around for eight years now. And he has built not just
an audience in the UK, but a global audience. I was sitting
next to him a long time ago at an FA Cup Final a him and
Calfreezy. And all the kids are running up to him to get
pictures. And everyone who is my age and older, is looking at me
and looking at him and wondering who is this celebrity, I don't
know who this person is. And he's not just a celebrity, he's
a business. And on top of being a business, what the fascinating
part about this whole scenario is, is the fact that if I was a
traditional media business, I would not be looking to create
consumer brands, a consumer brand, like a power drink, I
would be thinking about how do I sell my media? How do I sell my
sponsorship, but he comes to media with such an original
approach. In terms of everything he does, he sits there and says,
I'm actually going to make more money selling direct to consumer
a product that is related to who I am what I'm about, then then I
would make if I just sold sponsorship around my videos.
And he's seen this with prime. And we've seen this with other
areas with you know, other areas within the business. And it goes
back to the Kardashian business model where they look at
themselves as personalities. And we look at them as media
properties. But in reality, they are businesses with their
tentacles extending to so many different places. So we see KSI
selling Prime, we see Portnoy selling pizzas. And this is so
much more about the problem with the traditional media
businesses, we look at our business selling our content,
and selling our advertising sponsorship. And they're looking
and saying there's so much more that we can do in terms of
engaging with our audiences and making money out of this. And
they're operating at a different level than the rest of the
traditional media. And we have to catch up to where their
thinking is and to have that kind of flexibility and
creativity in our approach.
Zoe Amar: How do you educate leaders about this? Because
obviously, this needs to be a massive mindset as well as
strategic shift. And you talked about how some of them are very
scared of this change. And I know that Paul and I have always
got a bit frustrated with that. Sometimes the lack of horizon
scanning that occasionally goes on around the board table. So
what's your advice on that? How do you take leaders through
this?
Jeff Nathenson: It's it's very, very hard. I've been at it now
for in terms of you know, I started working at YouTube,
immediately after the acquisition by Google must be I
don't like 2006 2007 or something. So it's been a long,
long time talking to executives about this. And I have yet to
see the shift in this space that is necessary for what where the
eyeballs are where the people are. What I try and do is I do a
couple of things. I frame the conversation as to how they're
doing against their competitors, which is people they recognise
Sky Sports recognises that BT discovery is a competitor. But
then I show them in the same way how they're doing against key
key creators in the space, using the data metrics that are
available on these platforms and showing them the difference and
that should be eye opening. The greatest illumination to them
comes when they watched the way that their kids consume media,
when they're sitting next to their kid and watching their kid
on tick tock, but even then that doesn't frame it within the
business context, the way that they are operating. And so it
has to be the kind of thing where you use data and metrics
and numbers and charts to try and explain the different
scenarios to them as to what's really going on in the media
space. And the truth being truth be known, they do have a rough
idea what's going on. The question that you face with
media organisations is whether they can make the investment to
do the necessary pivot towards a business that looks different
for them, they should be able to sustain their existing business
models for the foreseeable future. But at the same time,
they have to build in this new approach towards distributed
media, and it's very uncomfortable for them. But
incredibly important that they do that, because someone's not
going to also turn 35 and say, Gee, what I really need is a sky
box right now, you know, they're not going to turn and say, Well,
I'm done with checking, I'm checking the news on Twitter,
it's time for me to get a subscription to The Economist,
and I can't wait for it to arrive at my post office box
every week, there's not going to change. The young people are
not, you know, the people who are on there, creating content,
absorbing content on a regular basis, are not going to be the
kind of people where there's going to be a shift as as they
reach a certain age, it's going to be this is the way that
they're going to continue to operate.
Paul Thomas: We probably see that with things like the BBC, I
was listening to something the other day on a podcast where
they were talking about the challenge to the BBC, where they
can't raise the the cost of the licence fee. They need to react
to the way that the world is going and more content on more
channels. So things like local radio get squashed. They can't
afford to pay for it anymore, that they need to shift in
different directions. But BBC is irrelevant to them.
Jeff Nathenson: I love the BBC, as we're you know, I love Melvyn
Bragg, I love the now show I love I love the news quiz. When
I arrived here in London a long time ago, airing BBC Radio four.
I've just really I really enjoyed that. But it's
completely irrelevant to the young audience and everything
they've done. Everything they've done recently has just not
worked in terms of super serving an audience is incredibly
important. It's like a subsidised service for all
people like me right now. And they have to change. They have
to change your mentality and approach and become much more of
a distributed media play. They are not strong on social despite
the fact that they have a large social team, they don't
prioritise social. And yet their core mission is to entertain,
educate, inform, and it doesn't say in the charter, that it has
to be on channels that they own exclusively in distribution,
that they control, that is a residual part of not being able
to embrace where the future is heading. They they that they
that the licence fee is in danger because they are not as
relevant as they once were. And that young people are not going
to fight tooth and nail to defend the BBC should not come
as a shock, because they haven't been serving young people for a
long time. If Blippi is getting many, many more views, and
helping parents, with their kids, entertainment and
education stuff, then don't be surprised that CBS is not as
important as it once was. Because, you know, CBS is not
relevant on the platforms where parents are putting their kids
when they need a couple of minutes of calm and quiet at
home.
Paul Thomas: So who who's closer than the traditional
broadcasters who's closest to getting this right and getting
the mix? Right?
Jeff Nathenson: I mean, I'll speak from my own own
perspective on this. And because it comes from the sports
perspective, and I think Skye is getting closer than the others,
they still have a very difficult model ahead of them in terms of
the way that they acquire content, the way the packaging
up and distributed. But both of you see a strong social presence
on their sports side. I love to now TV product for accessing
live sports in a way that I can access it on my phone and then
cast it onto my screen. Glass is an ongoing, evolving product
that could be competitive in this space. For being a large
corporation, they seem to be much more nimble in this area
than the others are. And I think that's, you know, I love the
iPlayer I think the BBC, BBC sounds is great, and all that
stuff. I think it's great. I think just the challenge that
they face is that it's just not relevant to my kids at all in
any shape or form. They don't even know it exists. And so
you're having a generation of young kids through that have no
interaction with BBC at all. And so I think that's really a
difficult place for them to be in until they completely revamp
their distribution approach and accept that they have to do
third party distribution at an at an equal level to what
they're doing on their own and operated channels. And that's
gonna be very difficult with the hierarchical approach to the to
the organisation the government approval on this These are not
people who are on Tik Tok on a regular basis. They don't know
what's going on there. But boy, it the BBC really put his heart
to it, and said, we are going to be the news and information for
the tick for tick tock users, they can do amazing things, they
can do wonderful things they could, they could provide news
stories that were relevant to young audiences and told in
original fresh ways. There's so much to be unlocked on the BBC,
but they're just, they're just too high bound and dependent
upon traditional distribution. If you were with that, and with
that, I'm going to be cancelled in the UK and north.
Paul Thomas: Exits it's true, you know, you need to,
Jeff Nathenson: it comes from a place of love and affection, and
wanting to see something like the BBC, you know, really move
ahead and say there is a common tie in terms of what is
important in a general community. And we can provide
that service through storytelling through media.
Paul Thomas: Yeah, well, mine, you know, my kids are 10 and 13.
We occasionally get them to sit on the sofa with us to watch TV,
it's usually it's that points in the week Strictly Come Dancing
is a bit of a family thing, the Great British Bake Off is a bit
of a family thing, both of which have, you know, good, strong
social presences. But my oldest is a case in point here, I
walked into the lounge last night, and it was Champions
League night. So he had the BT app on on the Xbox. And he would
rather sit and watch the goal show, which is for me, like ADHD
waiting to happen. You know, there's, there's, they're
basically showing the goals from every day and going across
Europe to different screens, and all this sort of stuff where I
just want to go, I just want to watch 90 minutes of football one
end to the other. That's kind of what I want to do. But that is
you know, just a microcosm of then what he will then go and do
and look at on his phone where he'll go and watch the goals
replayed by content creators rather than through the sort of
the native sky social channels and things like that. That model
is changing, and then you bring into the mix. I think one that's
really interesting is designed YouTube, which Zoe, you might
not have heard of that zone. I think they show things like the
women's Champions League, for example, for free on YouTube,
which is groundbreaking itself through through making their
money through advertising and things like that. And they've
just taken a step. I don't know whether they've done this
before. So forgive me for my ignorance, but they've just made
the step as well. of releasing. I think it's worldwide in the UK
very soon a Ronaldo documentary that that takes them from we put
football on TV to we are now documentary makers. In the space
of God, I've only been known of them for about 18 months, two
years,
Jeff Nathenson: I have to we have put this in context. And we
I have to have a disclaimer does own purchased our parent company
about a couple months ago. So everything designed does is
amazing. I'm gonna say that right now, along with the
disclaimer. But yeah, I think one of the interesting points
that you bring up on this is both in terms of the way that
live sport is consumed. But in the past, in the sports arena,
we have undervalued highlights, archive, right. And so we've
only valued live because we had the largest audiences watching
at one moment. So we could, for the marketeers we could reach
them. The classic Superbowl ad by you reach the largest
potential audience and that's why you pay millions of dollars
for 30 seconds on the Superbowl. And so up until now, it's like
life has been the way but with with the way that people are
watching content right now, archive, we've been able to
repackage archive on behalf of the Premier League in ways it's
Garner's big audiences, we did a little bit work with the zone
boxing, we just started to do some work with them. And we
repackaged and De La Hoya boxing match from 2006 or something and
got a half a million views a month ago, which is more than a
lot of other current content is concerned. So the hierarchy of
what is important is really of what is really important, high
life being at the top of the pyramid archive, being at the
bottom in terms of the value chain of a sports event is
undergoing this massive change. And we don't recognise this. And
in the same way that you will, when I watch live sports with my
20 year old, I will have enough on the big screen. And both of
us will be looking at the phone at the same time that things are
going on. So the question is, is what is the most important
screen during a live sporting event? Is it the one that's the
big screen on the wall that is out there? It's kind of
background images? Or is it the screen closest to your nose
where you're actually paying attention? So all of a sudden,
the live tweets around the football has enormous value, but
it's not quite recognised by the industry in the same way that we
fetishize this thing where it's like, if there are hoardings on
the side of the pitch that is more valuable than the brand
messages that might be coming through your Twitter feed while
you're watching a football match. And it's like we there's
there's, there's a lot the economics are changing. And the
the priority of what is important is changing in terms
of the user. But yet we remain riveted in the way that we
approach sport, in the same way that we approached for it as the
way that we've approached it since it first came on
television back in the 1950s. And, you know, live sport came
on television 1950s. And things have changed and we have to
shift as an industry in recognising that
Zoe Amar: trend to be noticed amongst Gen said that you're
talking about the multi screening there. Were alongside
that, are there any other ways in which you've noticed that
younger people are consuming this sort of content that you
think are worth highlighting?
Jeff Nathenson: I think the first thing that we have to
recognise is it's not about because we talked about
consumption. And instead, what it really is, is a conversation.
So what you recognise when you watch young people on social
platforms is that they are not participating in just sitting
back and absorbing information, they are participants in this.
And you see this in the likes of Tik Tok with, you know, with
with duets, and on YouTube was stitch with the new product
stitching is they want to participate, they want to
communicate, they want to have a conversation, they feel as
though ksi is their mate, and therefore, he's part of the
world in a way that traditional passive video viewing is not.
And so I think it has to, you have to start with the
recognition that anything you're creating is not a iCreate, you,
you you absorb it is I am launching a conversation, this
is very uncomfortable space for traditional media, because they
feel like they don't have to have a conversation with their
audience. They don't have to have that dialogue, they figure
I've created this amazing story, and you are going to enjoy it
and it's going to but instead, you have to accept the fact that
people will have opinions about what you produce. And what you
put out there. And we'll want to begin to have a dialogue and the
expectation of young people is that they are participating in
conversation and not being spoken at spoken down to. And
that's where you start. And this is for me is a major trend. And
anything that you do is you sit there and say, I want to I'm
sorry to have a conversation with my community. It's not that
I'm dictating the direction of anything. And you have to accept
that and then take on board their feedback. And that will
change the kind of stories that you're telling going forward the
conversations you're having. Community is a word that we
overuse, and is a cliche, however, it helps frame what
you're trying to accomplish right now. And if you don't want
to have a conversation with the people who you're intending to,
to reach, then you shouldn't be on social media. And I would
question whether you want to be immediate. So this is not a
novelist going up into a cabin to write an amazing Opus and
delivering it five, six years later. And we all absorb and say
what genius this person is, it's a totally different process.
Paul Thomas: One of the things I was thinking as I was sort of
looking through the team was a website looking at what you do
was I came across the think is that your top show that you
produce no days off, which is sort of behind it's like a
behind the scenes of, of kids who are going to go through
sports academies and wanting to be sports people, essentially.
And there's, there's quite a trend of this sort of
programming happening at the moment, there's obviously the
all or nothing series on on Amazon that sort of gives you a
glimpse behind the scenes of professional teams. So Tottenham
Man City arsenal, they do it for other other sports as well as,
as football, soccer. There's football dreams, the Academy
show, which I think is on Channel Four, if I'm right,
which gives you a glimpse behind the academy at Crystal Palace
arsenal, have done their own documentary on hail and all of
these things. So the original reason I got interested in
social media was because there was suddenly this availability
of people on these channels, you felt that as you said, these are
my friends, these are people I can have a conversation with.
That's what attracted me and at the first point of contact, and
this problem that we have with social media at the moment is
one where it's becoming toxic. Those people that have given us
that access and those that conversation with them if you'd
like a retreating somewhat, and we're looking for new ways to
connect with them. These documentaries, I think, have
started to really do that. And the evidence I'd see before my
own eyes is when a turn up at the Emirates Stadium now, there
is a relationship between the fans who have consumed that that
documentary had that insight had that conversation in their mind
with these players, and then are confronted with them in real
life and that the for me is the sort of the connection that I'm
seeing Between my kids consuming content in this way, walking
into the live environment as in a football stadium, and
immediately having that connection, you can hear the
noises gone up, you can hear the relationship between the team
and the fans is completely different. And I think it's not
all down to that. But some of it is that connection that they
feel they have through the connection with the players that
they're getting through this content.
Jeff Nathenson: It's maybe it's because our school is doing a
bit better this season as
Paul Thomas: well. Well, there is that as well.
Jeff Nathenson: I mean, there's couple, there's a couple of
really interesting points on this. And so you point towards
the documentaries is doing this kind of this kind of you feel
closer to the players you feel like they're you feel you have
much more of an affinity for him, you're not just see him on
the pitch, and the terrible post match interviews. And so you get
a really a good chance, I find it very interesting about Robbie
Lyle and ArsenalFan. TV, because I love after going to a match at
the Emirates. And again, I'm not an arsenal supporter, but
sometimes I go, but I love watching. Everyone knows where
his camera position is. And everyone knows where to find
them afterwards. Arsenal provides a little bit of
security with them. But then there will be a large group of
very young people standing around while Robbie does his
post match discussion. And one of the things is like some
people find that Robbie's a bit too divisive. But what he does
when you see these young people gather around is they feel that
they have a voice, they feel that their voice can be heard,
and can be part of the discussion around the direction
of the club. And that's something where their their
voice can then further be amplified through these
platforms. Now you're absolutely right, that there's toxicity in
this space, in terms of the fact of everyone has a voice. Some
people will use that platform in their voices for divisive
language, because that's a great way of getting awareness,
notoriety right away. But then when you ask about where's the
where is the role of the modern media company in this space?
What role do organisations like ours and even the traditional
guys who've spoken on the BBC, etc. What roles are played, we
have the ability and responsibility to tell positive
stories, stories that empower young people. And we know if we
do it well on the platforms that there will be, there will be a
dialogue around key positive aspects of that we want to
highlight and that is our job because it's easy. For notoriety
to come to the top and obnoxious to win the day, it's harder for
positivity to win, what we've done with no days off, which for
me is encouraging is to show what it takes for a young person
to be dedicated in the show, and to provide the inspiration to
young people to say, you can do this, but this is what hard work
looks like. And a lot of people will talk about social media as
being this kind of thing where you have this kind of sentiment
of envy of the people around you as you see them. We all know
that Instagram is not the real world that people show an edited
version of their lives and the best version of their lives. And
it can for some people can prey on them that says, Well, my
life's not as wonderful. I'm not in the Bahamas on holiday or
hiking, Machu Picchu or something like that. And there
is that downside to this aspirational quality of this,
but it also encourages people to get off their ass encourages
young people to say you can these are your friends and they
are doing interesting things you do, you can do this. And through
all the awareness. On social media, you can find a map a path
for you to start doing this stuff, whether it's simply I
want to be a YouTuber, or I want to be an Esports athlete to
whine to be a professional athlete to wanting to do better
on my GCSEs on Comm site. It's all there that's available and
accessible. And so at the same time, we sit there and say, wow,
there's a lot of toxicity. within social media. There's
also the Khan Academy that provides every young person who
is studying immediate access to some of the best tutors out
there in their key subject areas. And so like anything that
we create, every time we look at a new a new media platform is
created immediately we will see the negatives about it. But it
is the responsibility of those of us who are committed to
working in media and storytelling. I see you again
BBC to sit there and say we will own a significant part of the
dialogue. And we will bring positive stuff. The guys who are
doing the negative Korean, all the negative content are not
waking up every morning and say, How do I inform, entertain and
educate. They're not thinking that. But those of us who work
in media thinking that way because that's the way that
we're wired. That's why we got into business in the first
place. But we have to do a much better job on this. We must be
we have to be much more creative, much more responsive,
and the opportunities are amazing. And we have to
overwhelm the negativity with really good programming that
really that shapes the way young people are talking about
stalking. Does that makes sense?
Paul Thomas: It makes absolute sense. Yeah. Yeah. It's the same
sort of thing, isn't it? You? Were in my old in my old world
working in, in, in communications, how do you bury
bad news, you create good news. And the bad news ventually
disappears. It's the same story.
Jeff Nathenson: Again, I have yet to see really the
organisations that should be first and foremost in developing
this kind of this kind of content sit in and say we want
to own news on tick tock, we want to be the preeminent
educational channel, on YouTube that's been left to the Khan
Academy and not to the likes of the BBC, or PBS for that matter.
Zoe Amar: And looking ahead to 2023, because this interview
will probably come out and towards the end of 2022. What do
you see as those big trends that leaders need to prepare for next
year?
Jeff Nathenson: I can speak about in terms of tactical
versus big vision kind of stuff. Whenever you put a big vision
out there. You, you definitely get it wrong. Because again,
I've always been aware as to how many times I get wrong when I
think big thoughts I'm looking at right now. I think right now
there's a couple of different things that I'm I feel I'm
lacking and where 2023 is going to be very interesting for us.
Only fans, pornographic website, right app, or perhaps one of the
coolest business models out there for content creators
ensuring a really good source of revenue I, the question for only
fans, is whether they can migrate away from the adult
oriented content. And I believe they are committed towards this
towards an open platform, which allows for very good revenue
opportunities for those creators who have large audiences as
well, as their I say it publishers that have premium
content that people are willing to pay for. It's a great, it's
an 8020 rev share, you get, which is considering you don't
have to pay for hosting, streaming, app build. You know,
it's a really interesting opportunity now, whether the
brand can migrate across from the current implications of it,
versus what it could be potentially is one of the most
interesting things to watch. On on the other end, I The other
thing is I'm completely mystified by twitch and remain
to remain that way to this day, but yet remains to be an
incredibly compelling platform for live content, live
engagement, and the majority of us don't know how to operate on
it. And there's a really interesting platform and
audience out there that none of us have really been able to find
in a meaningful, meaningful way outside of the games publishers,
who seems to have a better grip on this. And so when I look at
2023, those are the things I'm looking at tactical things, I
will of course, be wrong on all of those. And we'll accept that.
I'm wrong. And so everyone should ignore everything I say,
and make sure that they instead pay attention to what is going
on with their kids, as opposed to listening to me talk about
this.
Zoe Amar: Thank you so much, Jeff, what a great note to end
on. Absolutely. I've learned so much to see how my kids are
using tech money. Paul has to say, thank you so much for
sharing your insights today. And for that really great summary in
particular of how the whole content space is being disrupted
in handling Disney to get to grips with that. So thank you so
much for coming on today. I really enjoyed it.
Jeff Nathenson: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate
it. I appreciate it.
Zoe Amar: Thank you so much to Jeff for his time. And his
wonderful insight into how to reach lens Ed.
Paul Thomas: It was quite fascinating. And as a sort of a
sports watcher. I was particularly interested in all
of the stuff around how people are consuming sports content.
And had a really good example of that of the weekend. Watching
football with my kids where we had multichannel approach. We
had a stream on the TV, we had Twitter in the background, I had
the radio on and they were getting updates from from an app
all at the same time. It made it a bit chaotic, but it was good
fun. There's only a lot of talk about tick tock any plans to
join the Tick Tock party.
Zoe Amar: I do occasionally go on there when I'm doing
benchmarking for clients. But no, I'm not planning to become a
tick tock anytime soon.
Paul Thomas: I do have access I do have an account. I haven't
posted any videos but I primarily set it up to keep an
eye on what the kids in the house are doing on the channel
of that kid because one of them doesn't have access because
they're not old enough yet. But yeah, watching watching what
they do on tick tock is is a revelation in itself. But now I
don't think you're going to see many videos of me dancing or
living out my life on Tik Tok just yet. Thanks for joining
this episode. You can find us on Twitter We're at Starts at the
Top one and you can also email us at starts at the
top@gmail.com Starts at the Top Tiktok channel TVC.
Zoe Amar: If you listen to us on Apple podcasts or anywhere,
please do rate and review that is would be brilliant. It all
helps with our visibility and reach will speak to you again in
a couple of weeks. Speak to you soon