Creative Cities Convention: Concern and caution expressed by UK TV over tariff threat

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Trump’s tariffs and diversity rollback hijacked the agenda at Creative Cities Convention where creators were also prominent

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With the plan for U.S tariffs on filmed content revealed to include TV shows, British producers, distributors and broadcasters have reacted with a mix of alarm and caution.

“Keep calm and let’s not make a kneejerk reaction,” said Sarah Rose, President of 5 and UK Regional Lead, Paramount at the Creative Cities Convention in Bradford. “I work for a U.S owned organisation so I won’t put my opinion out there but I don’t think my U.S colleagues would say Hollywood is dying.”

Trump’s social media post last weekend had claimed that he was acting because ‘The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death.’

Jane Turton, CEO, All3Media who is considered a potential future BBC Director General said, “The U.S is still a net exporter of IP so we’re not talking about a failing Hollywood. Possibly [Trump] is talking about tax breaks to encourage more production in the U.S. We just can’t answer because we don’t know the details.”

While UK film and TV producers play a guessing game it is the uncertainty in cementing productions which could already be causing damage.

“The problem is that it’s not just a tweet,” said Marcus Ryder, CEO, Film and TV Charity. “Some of his policies don’t go away. What is discouraging is that two people [referring to Rose and Turton] don’t know what it means and anxiety is sky high for a lot of people.

“Even if these tariffs only last for three years, people have to pay their mortgage this month. If they can’t, they will leave the industry. It can have a long term effect on Britain’s talent even if it’s just [temporary].”

Gwyneth Hughes, the screenwriter who wrote and executive produced Mr Bates vs The Post Office, said Trump’s White House would make for a fantastic drama.

“All we know is that tariffs hurt consumers in the U.S,” she added. “That’s been true so far and it’s going to be true here as well. Over the medium to long term it is a disaster economically.”

There was also concern that the rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion under Trump may spread here.  This month (25 May) will be the fifth anniversary of the death of George Floyd whose murder by police in Minneapolis reignited the Black Lives Matter movement and for a while prompted positive action on diversity in sport, media and the boardroom.

“That is now under threat,” said Ryder. “Even just the perception [of roll back] is having serious mental health effects on the black, brown and disabled people working in the industry. People are petrified. Anyone you talk to working in DEI are worried.

“We need more people to say they will not roll back. We need more people in positions of power to say what they said five years ago.”

It fell to the two people in positions of power sharing the stage to respond. Both Rose and Turton voiced their support. “We have long since proven that diversity is a very positive thing from a business and societal and purely human perspective,” said Turton. “We continue and we believe in it. It is business sense.”

Rose oversees Channel 5 and Paramount’s pay-TV brands in the UK and was previously chief consumer and strategy officer at Channel 4. She said Channel 4 had led on DEI but the policies she found at Paramount were even more progressive.

“We are not doing anything different. Day to day it is critical to maintain diversity and that is exactly what we’ve done. Diversity is not a cost to the business.”

Ryder wasn’t satisfied. Noting that the audience in Bradford was overwhelmingly white, he said the industry wasn’t “close to representing our [TV] audiences. “It is heartening to hear Sarah and Jane publicly committing to diversity. We need to get more people shouting from the rooftops.”

With so much of UK indie production reliant on public service broadcaster cash, the issue of the future of PSBs was high on the agenda. Should the industry regulate to protect PSBs or let the market decide?

Ryder was in no doubt: “You cannot have a democracy unless you’ve got a functional media sector where people can exchange ideas and narratives. Not just news but drama and children programmes. We have to find a way to make sure the industry thrives and we have that multitude of different voices.”

Turton agreed adding, “The PSB ecosystem is a thing we should preserve. All3Media’s biggest customer is Netflix and our second is the BBC. We want them all to be strong because they offer different rights packages and audiences. It has become a more complicated business but it allows us to innovate both in business terms and editorially.”

She backed the renewal of the licence fee which is only guaranteed until the end of 2027.

“PSBs need to be strong because it shows that [the UK industry] has a long term sustainable business model. What happens post ‘27 with the licence fee is that if we see another 11 year [funding deal] it directly impacts on jobs every day of the week because [indie producers] know there will be work coming through.”

Hughes was struck that Adolescence, a series that reached the national consciousness like Mr Bates, was made by Netflix (after being developed at Amazon Prime).

“Public service is more complicated. It’s about who attracts and keeps audiences. Even Netflix does very regional material now. Why did it take Netflix to make that show with the impact it had?”

Rose pointed out that the creatives behind Adolescence including writer Jack Thorne, production company Warp Films and Netflix’ VP of content Anne Mensah, have a background working for PSBs.

“If you let the PSB ecosystem wither you will not have Adolescence,” she said.

Prominence for PSB content on YouTube and other social media platforms is expected to be a key recommendation in Ofcom’s upcoming review on the topic.

“I do think we need intervention and regulation,” Rose said. “We can’t sit and ask for it passively. We are all moving into streaming but [PSB] is too precious to leave to Korean Connected TV manufacturers.”

Ofcom CEO Melanie Dawes said in parliament this week: “That problem [is] can audiences actually find public service content, given the number of platforms that we all engage with? The Media Act does something about that for smart and connected TVs, but it does not tackle prominence on, for example, YouTube, which is increasingly where viewing hours are spent in the home, particularly among younger audiences. It also does not deal with social media. There will be no silver bullet, but the Government are keen for us to do that work.”

The review, which is set to be published before parliament’s summer recess, will also recommend greater transparency around the algorithms used by online platforms, as well as what people are watching online.

Lomax called YouTube an open platform, “but that doesn’t mean anything goes. We have very robust community guidelines which act as a guiderail for our partners. We have been using AI since 2018 to flag content and we have 20,000 people globally to flag content. We also work with NGOs and independent advisors so that any content that violates [our policies] are removed.”

In Q4 2024 0.08 percent of content on the platform violated its policies, she said. “There is a perception that compliance is all run by machines. Machines are actually phenomenal but it’s also important to have people reviewing content.”

Creators take control on legacy media terms

Creative Cities Convention is a UK TV industry event co-founded in 2018 by Pact chief executive John McVay as a networking event for regional indies to meet commissioning executives. This year, with YouTube dominating media consumption, creators loomed large in the conversation.

Alison Lomax, who runs YouTube in the UK and Ireland, said, “We are a technology and distribution platform. We do not make content.”

Some people in legacy media might feel that YouTube is for kids but it is intergenerational, she said, citing YouTube’s reach over 90 per cent of all age groups.

YouTube’s partner programme, which launched in 2007, enables creators to monetise their content “once they get to a certain level” of followers. This is primarily through advertising (of which creators get the major share) and also via channel membership in which exclusive content is put behind paywall, or super chats and stickers which are especially popular in Asia.

YouTube has paid out $70 billion globally to creators over the last three years, Lomax said.

Broadcasters and production companies who reach a certain threshold are able to sell their own YouTube inventory. “We sell it to them for rate card. They can mark it up, bundle it with other inventory, sell it to media agencies.”

Eleanor Neale, a YouTuber with 2.8 million subscribers who makes primarily true crime podcasts, said she would she be tempted to work with broadcasters provided she had creative control. That wasn’t the case when she was approached a few years ago.

“They wanted my numbers [followers] but not me,” she said. “They had a fully fleshed out idea, sometimes even a script. I just felt like an actor. What creators need is to be involved from ideation to execution and for the connection be a lot more collaborative.”

Neale has just rebranded her business to OUTLORE to reflect that she has a team working for her (including researchers, an editor and a MD) and to expand her remit outside of true crime. She had advice for producers wanting to engage audiences with social content.

“I went through a phase of getting quite theatrical with my performance and scripting material,” she said. It was bit too polished so I decided to go back to my roots and read from notes in front of me. You can see there is a real person there. It’s almost like Facetime. That authenticity is what I am trying to bring back into it now.”

She also said that injecting “happy emotions” such as promotions to charities and “shouting out protests” was a better means of engaging audiences than “rage baiting.”

Channel 4 has around 30 YouTube channels including digital-first brand, Channel 4.0 targeting 13–24-year-olds with UK creators like Harry Pinero, Nella Rose and Specs.

“Success comes when you hire commissioners who understand this content and who collaborate with creators,” said Matt Risley, Managing Director, 4Studios. “It is not about broadcasters telling creators what works. Legacy media need to be open about thinking differently, about working with the creator and leveraging data and insight to build an audience.”

Lomax encouraged producers to distribute their archive content on YouTube, including long form drama and documentaries. “The living room TV is the most popular device for watching YouTube in America with more opportunities for producers to monetize, such as midrolls ads.”

Over 85% of watchtime for UK creators comes from outside the UK, Lomax said. “That global opportunity is massive.”

Channel 4 is already putting full length docs and episodic on the platform a factor which helped it achieve one billion minutes of UK watch time in the first quarter this year alone.

David Smyth, Commissioner, Entertainment ITV said, “We tend not to break new talent. We go with established talent that means something to our viewers already. If you pluck someone from YouTube and shove them on TV it won’t work but that doesn’t mean we should shut ourselves off for social media creators. It’s about working out the right vehicle.”

For instance, ITV sent podcaster and TikTok star GK Barry into I’m A Celebrity last winter, alongside other celebs more familiar to the TV audience. “Now we can use somebody like her in more mainstream hosting roles [because] she’s not been plucked straight from YouTube into primetime.”

UKTV Head of Factual and Fact Ent Commissioning, Helen Nightingale did something similar by pairing young comedian and Instagram star Jake Lambert with Jack Dee on an episode of Dave series World’s Most Dangerous Roads. “We were able to bring in a large number of younger demographics,” she said.

 

Andor Season 2: Behind the scenes of the grittiest Star Wars saga to date

RedShark News

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Just as the final act of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story neatly plugged the feature prequel into George Lucas’ Star Wars canon, so the second and final season of Disney+ series Andor will arc it’s way to the start of Rogue One. In another, not uncoincidental piece of symmetry, the editor on both projects is John Gilroy.

“Like everyone else I feel the original Star Wars (IV, 1977) was ground breaking and I was fascinated by how, on Rogue One, we were able to touch that first movie,” Gilroy says.

For those who don’t know, the breathless finale of Rogue One (2016) has rebel insurgents deliver plans of the Death Star to Princess Leia.

Leading that treasonous act was Cassian Andor (Diego Lunar) whose backstory the 24-part serial digs into. Like Gavin Hood’s film, Andor also leans into the mud, mood and metal of a war story.

“Rogue broke some new ground in terms of its gritty look and in its examination of character,” says Gilroy, who is also executive producer. “Andor is all about pursuing and pushing that a little more.”

Showrunner and lead writer on the project is Gilroy’s brother Tony who scripted four of the Jason Bourne movies as well as co-writing Rogue One. He set Andor five years before the events of the feature with S1 covering one year and Season 2 the next four.

Cassian, who now understands that he has a stake in the rebellion, is more prepared to make a full commitment to the cause. “He’s going from not involved to being soldier-like at the end of Season One, or signing his enlistment papers in a way,” explains Tony Gilroy. “With Season Two, it’s the move to being a leader, and even moving beyond a leader then to becoming a hero. All of the responsibilities and sacrifices and the journey of that is what the second half of the show is about.

“Knowing where you’re ending up is the most liberating thing,” he adds. “It means that you can just swing away inside the edges of that frame. We know where we’re ending up, and that frees up everything else. The show’s codename is Pilgrim with all the characters headed on their own epic one-way journeys. Every decision is becoming more urgent and dangerous as we progress.”

Concerting four years of storytelling into 12 episodes was the chief challenge in the writer’s room. They split the years into four blocks of three episodes then had to strike a balance between providing enough context for what happened during the slices of time audiences don’t see, and trusting them to fill in the gaps.

“It was an interesting creative proposition to ask, ‘What do we do with all the negative space in between?’”

They decided not to over-explain that negative space with exposition. “What happened in that year that you need to know, and how fast can I let you know that?” he says. “The first writing we did was to write the top and tail of each block to make sure the jumps in time were cohesive.”

The first three episodes of the show blend three separate storylines to reorient fans with where the characters were left at the end of S1.

“What the structure of the second season did was it accelerated the storyline a little bit,” says John Gilroy. “To me, it made the story feel more urgent. Editing is about being given footage and finding the truth. To me, it's an objective truth; it’s the filmmakers coming together against their footage. Every episode of the show, we’re looking to find that perfect place where every shot is supposed to go and how it’s supposed to sound and how it’s supposed to make you feel.”

The structure of the second season presented challenges for how the principal photography was approached. It had to include more sets, costumes, props and effects than the first— across dozens of planets. This entailed the build of 140 sets, 24 filming locations, over 700 costumes, the creation of 152 creatures plus 30 droids, and over 4,100 VFX shots supervised by ILM.

The season was filmed in four different blocks —each block being able to take its own creative swings under the leadership of directors Ariel Kleiman (Eps. 1-6), Janus Metz (Eps. 7-9) and Alonso Ruizpalacios (Eps. 10-12).

Lead cinematography, shooting the first 6 eps, was Belgium Christophe Nuyens who continued to shoot as S1 on Sony Venice though this time exchanging anamorphic glass for Panavision Ultra Vista Primes.

They predominantly shot on Pinewood stages but also rented had three stages at Longcross. Like the first season the tone of the show was to mix space fantasy with earth and grit, hence the practical set builds and minimal green screen.

Some locations, such as the rebel base on Yavin and galactic capital on Coruscant, will be familiar from Rogue One and from S1, but with fresh perspectives, achieved by shooting at Valencia’s City of Arts and Sciences. In particular, this real-world location was used to create a sense of the Ivory Tower nature of upper Coruscant, and to place the Senate in an environment where actors had space to walk and talk.

It's not a plot spoiler to know that the 12 episode will end where Rogue One begins, with Cassian making his way to the Rings of Kafrene where he is meeting with a rebel spy to gain intelligence about a new Imperial threat. 

“In Rogue One, Cassian gives a speech about why he’s there and what he has done,” says Tony Gilroy. “And why it was worth it to give his all for the cause. After watching Season Two, you will understand what he means, because this season is leading to that moment. It’s about what he’s talking about when he says he is ready to join and give everything he has for change to come.”

John Gilroy began his career working with Francis Coppola's longtime editor Barry Malkin on Peggy Sue Got Married.  His other credits include Pacific Rim, Narc, Duplicity, the Academy Award winning Michael Clayton and The Bourne Legacy (both directed by Tony Gilroy) and Nightcrawler (directed by brother Dan – who also scripted episodes of Andor).

“We are very blessed that we all get along,” John says of working with his siblings. We have a shorthand when we work together and can call each other on something—and tell each other if we feel something is bullshit.”

Talking pictures: How agentic AI could reshape the media landscape

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Agentic AI promises to increase supply chain efficiencies and improve content personalisation as consumers begin to converse with avatars and their devices.

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The industry will soon be awash with agentic AI. The evolution from GenAI has greater autonomy to actively make decisions, execute tasks and even to learn.

It’s a leap that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has heralded as ‘the age of agentive AI’.  The chip maker believes AI agents will drive a multi-trillion-dollar industry by transforming how people work.  That prediction supersedes earlier research forecasting a global $70+bn market for autonomous agents by 2030.

“There’s no doubt that 2025 will be the year for agentic adoption,” declared Jiani Zhang, Chief Software Officer at Capgemini Engineering citing 52% of organizations intending to employ AI agents in their workflow this year.

“Agentic AI is the next step from generic AI because it helps users benefit from LLMs in a more scalable and more standardised way,” says Jonas Michaelis, CEO at qibb which claims the first AI-powered conversational assistant for media workflows.

Far from being just another buzzword, “agentic AI represents a fundamental progression in technology that allows humans to be infinitely more efficient,” reckons Genies, an LA-based developer of AI-powered avatars which is valued at $1 billion.

‘AI Assistance Agents in Live Production’ are even being proposed by ITN and the BBC, in partnership with Cuez and Google in an IBC Accelerator to be unwrapped at IBC Show later this year.

Agentic AI systems are already being introduced into the media industry, taking root first among current processes and procedures relying most heavily on ingesting vast amounts data.

Supply chain workflows

 “Anything which requires data heavy entry are the areas where this next generation of AIs are likely to be really beneficial,” confirms Tom Weiss, CTO of Run3TV a developer of web TV platforms for US broadcasters. “For example, scheduling ads and how ads are bought and sold. Right now, there's an awful lot of people entering data from an awful lot of different sources. People should be creating Agentic AI products to streamline how you get ads out.”

Media Asset Management is one potential area for Agentic transformation.  According to Nvidia, video analytics AI agents can analyse large amounts of live or archived videos, request tasks via natural language and perform complex operations like video search, summarisation and visual question-answering.

“Imagine a world where we can schedule, locate, prepare, tag, package and deliver assets to select platforms and destinations—all without having to wrangle multiple teams, several emails, overlapping technologies and hours spent coordinating,” says Zeenal Thakare, SVP of Enterprise Solutions Architecture at Ateliere Creative Technologies in a blog titled ‘Reworking the Playbook: How Agentic AI Can Revolutionize the Media Supply Chain’. “That's what an Agentic experience could look like for the end-to-end media supply chain.”  

Cuez introduced AI-powered automation and cloud-based rundown to the gallery in a Future of the Control Room project which won an award at IBC 2024. Its platform makes live broadcasts more efficient with real-time scripting, no-code automation, and smart studio voice control. 

Content localisation is where Michaelis sees the biggest initial benefit of agentic AI. “It’s the ability to take one version created in CMS to automate the creation of another version formatted for different lengths and platforms and audience preferences.”

“AI Copilot also helps technology teams to build new integrations and automations and also helps identify why something has failed and where the bug is.”

Currently in beta, the AI Copilot from German media integrators qibb, is for seasoned engineers and non-technical users alike to build, optimise, document, and troubleshoot workflows. It is specifically designed for media automation and trained in-house on qibb’s own data and also integrates with more than a hundred media services like iconik, Mimir and OpenAI.

“All the integrations that we've built, all the connectors, and templates for media workflows, all of our public documentation goes into CoPilot to assist technology teams to build, maintain and operate their own systems,” explains Michaelis.

Startup Highfield AI claims its new agentic AI solution can improve professional broadcast graphics workflow efficiency by up to 75%. It does this by automating repetitive tasks such as graphics production in the news room.  

According Founder and CEO Amir Hochfeld, the system analyses the stories as written by journalists in their NRCS system such as CGI Open Media and Avid’s iNews. It then deploys a set of AI agents that automate tasks usually done by operators: selecting the most suitable graphics templates created with systems such as Vizrt and filling them with relevant content, including text, images, and video clips pulled from broadcasters' content repositories.

“While the system operates autonomously, journalists maintain complete control over the final product, safeguarding editorial integrity and quality,” Hochfeld says. “The result is a significant return on existing investments and a faster way to achieve high-quality productions.”

Transforming personalisation 

The agentic AI system would learn about a user’s habits, learning and adapting over time, with data able to fed into personalised content recommendations or advertising.

“The more AI understands who you are and connects with other services, the more it can truly act on an individual's or company’s behalf,” says Thakare. Tailored AI agents deliver context-rich guidance and form opinions aligned with individual data.”

“Unlike with GenAI, the outcomes are personalised. You can talk to the TV and have a conversation,” explains Tom Weiss, CTO, Run3TV a developer of web TV platforms for US broadcasters using the next-gen TV standard ATSC 3.0. “One of the things you can do with our technology is that when an ad is playing out you can put an overlay on top and that overlay can be some kind of agent with which the viewer can converse. It’s an AI based agent that knows a little about where you are, your key demographics and details such as the local weather. It can then provide expert recommendations about products you might be interested in.”

This is, he insists, superior to shoppable ads that link from commercials streamed on Connected TVs to brand websites.  Run3TV are developing the concept which could be launched in the second half of the year.

Instead of relying on predefined algorithms and user instructions, agentic AI demonstrates autonomy, adaptability, and the capacity for proactive decision-making. 

“For media companies, this level of precision opens new avenues for targeted advertising and subscription models,” says Thakare. “By predicting user needs and tailoring offerings, businesses should experience improved conversion rates and customer loyalty.”

A step beyond this is to converse with characters in a programme. Weiss says, “You could be having a conversation with one of the characters in the show – perhaps one those moments where characters break the fourth wall and they start talking to you. Another example would be at the end credits of the show and one of the lead characters reappears and says, ‘Can I tell you some more about what's going on backstage? Press now to enable the voice conversation. Then you have a conversation with them about the behind the scenes.”

Agentic AI are already introduced into video games worlds to augment non-player characters. Instead of following limited predefined scripts the AI-character learns from interactions with players and respond to player actions in real-time. Meaning Machines developments in ‘conscious’ AI characters is one example.

Taking this even further the technology could empower audiences to become co-creators. Thakare says, “Agentic AI systems enable viewers to customise storylines, characters, and outcomes in real-time, blurring the lines between passive consumption and active participation.”

He says this not only enhances user satisfaction but also provides media companies with invaluable insights into audience preferences and trends. 

“With agentic AI you can talk back and have a personalised interaction with the character,” adds Weiss.

That sounds like it might be a few years off and Weiss agrees but says the nuts and bolts of the tech is already here. “The back-end is basically ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Claude or another LLM model. Typically, there's no special training required for this level of viewer participation. It doesn't require a lot of heavy software running on racks of machine.”

Reinventing Content Creation 

On the creative side it’s perfectly possible to build an agentic AI for editing.

“If you think about the user interface for Avid, or any NLE tools, they are not particularly intuitive for first time users to pick up,” Weiss says. “One of the things about Agentic AI is that it can de-skill the tool so you don't need technical expertise in how to use it. You can imagine speaking prompts into a video editing Agentic AI which will use those prompts to run an automation script in the backend and deliver up a quick first assembly.”

The realtime speed at which rough cuts are possible would give the director the chance to review the edit while they’re still on set and make adjustments to their next take.

“Basically, it’s just easier to explain to an Agentic AI what to do then having to sit down and program it yourself,” says Weiss.

Human in the loop - for now

Everyone pushing agentic AI claims it to be an enhancement to human jobs.

Highfield AI, for instance, says its assistant was designed to always have a “human in the loop”, where users retain full oversight and approval prior to publishing. “This is fundamental design ethos. Someone has to review and approve the visuals and final piece before it is published,” says Hochfeld.

Nvidia’s Huang characterises gentic AI functions as a digital assistant capable of handling workflows, problem-solving, and providing real-time support.

Genies predicts AI-powered customer service reps able to handle entire conversations and AI research assistants that synthesise information and present insights.  

Indeed, human resources and software engineering departments could be first in line to benefit – or face cuts in employment.

“AI agents are the new digital workforce,” said Huang, adding “the IT department of every company is going to be the HR department of AI agents in the future.”

As companies “employ” and train AI “workers” to be part of hybrid teams of humans and AIs working together, “the role of human resources will evolve into a department for human and machine resources,” suggests Marco Argenti, the CIO of Goldman Sachs.

He thinks the first AI ‘layoffs’ could eventually emerge, in which AI models will be replaced by better AI tools or humans “if they perform poorly compared to their peers.”

AI agents are boosting developer productivity by automating repetitive coding tasks. Mckinsey project that by 2030 AI could automate up to 30% of work hours in the U.S, “freeing developers to focus on more complex challenges and drive innovation,” claim Nvidia.

The chip maker also claims Generative AI agents can save marketers an average of three hours per content piece, “allowing them to focus on strategy and innovation.”

Weiss points to Jevons paradox which says that when technological advancements make something more efficient, the product, resource or output increases, the cost drops and consumption rises too. In other words, from the industrial revolution onwards, new technologies are shown to increase employment not replace it.

“Many existing jobs are going to disappear, but if people can get more efficient there's likely to be a lot more work to do, in the same way the spinning jenny didn't put anyone out of business.”

As applied to creative roles, agentic AI is repeatedly said to help human talent “break free” from repetitive tasks so they can focus on more of what gives them satisfaction – like innovating storytelling. Genies’ wording is typical of AI developers: “Instead of replacing human creativity, AI is acting as a co-creator—enhancing the creative process and enabling people to bring ideas to life faster than ever before.”  

Ateliere declares AI systems will handle routine tasks while allowing creators to focus on high-value creative work. 

Arguably the most honest answer comes from qibb. “Agentic AI is an efficiency tool,” agrees Michaelis. “In our case, it will let you build more, more efficiently and faster. It will empower a team of two people or three people to output what a team of 10 people would have done.

“Whether this drives teams to do more or teams getting downsized is a question that probably nobody can answer. It probably depends on the use case. What we see is that it will free teams to do more to do more value creation rather than cutting cost. However, at least for the near future there will always be a human in the loop checking the output, finalising it and then pushing it out.”

 The Future of Digital Interaction

The term ‘Agentic’ already personifies an algorithm. The next step is to give it a voice… and a face. Virtual anchors, chatbots, and AI-generated influencers are already “engaging audiences in real-time, offering personalised responses and fostering a sense of connection,” notes Thakare.

Genies believe AI-driven avatars and digital agents “will power the next generation of personalised, interactive experiences.”  Digital identity has evolved from the early days of internet usernames to social media profiles. The next stage powered by agentic AI identity moves beyond static profiles to “intelligent, interactive beings that can represent users, celebrity personas, existing characters, or even fictional characters in deeply personalised ways,” Genies says. “These will serve as the new ‘usernames,’ acting as a layer across digital experiences.”

That’s where smart Avatars come into play. Could this be how we will interface with the internet in future?

“Our clothing changes, our preferences, our mindset, our beliefs and more. We want identity online to represent this,” says Genies. “From the ease of creation, to their evolution over time based on user interactions, to their compatibility with all types of diverse settings, these avatars offer a glimpse into the future of digital identity and engagement.”

 

TNT Sports losses reflect broader challenges for sports subscriptions

Streaming Media

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Losses at TNT Sports, the UK pay-TV broadcasting joint-venture between Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) and telco BT, increased to £187 million ($250m) during its first year (to July 2024) after a rebrand from BT Sport.

Tom Morrod, co-founder, Caretta Research tells Streaming Media, “TNT's losses are not unique and reflect broader challenges for all subscription sports video services. They are struggling in a fragmented market, where sports subscription and advertising revenues are split across an increasing array of channels, apps and services. This makes it difficult to offset the high cost of sports rights acquisition and sports production.”

TNT Sports - which holds a share of rights to a range of top-tier sporting properties, including across soccer (like the UEFA Champions League and English Premier League), rugby union, boxing, basketball, and sailing - brought in to $8.3m in content revenue, up from $7.1m the prior year. It also collected increased revenue from customer contracts of $1.54bn (from $1.46bn) and more advertising where revenue increased in year to $96.5m from $68.4m.

In February, TNT Sports integrated Discovery’s legacy multi-sport brand Eurosport into its linear and digital portfolio, a move which could increase subscription revenue even further.

TNT Sports doesn’t have a direct contractual relationship with viewers. Instead, it has deals with pay TV platform operators including Sky and EE and with WBD for carriage on Discovery+. Indeed, TNT Sports’ distribution revenue jumped from $1.37bn to $1.43bn. As a result of the continuing losses, RXTV thinks the broadcaster may seek more money per subscriber from operators, with rises then passed down to viewers.

Morrod added, “All sports broadcasters and streamers need to focus on improving production workflow efficiency and invest in technologies that will help grow advertising revenue and increase subscriber retention.”

A statement from the TNT Sports board said: ‘The United Kingdom sports broadcasting sector is a mature market driven by strong demand for live sports content, widely distributed across digital and traditional platforms. The rise of streaming services offers further opportunities to enhance viewer experiences. The strategy of the company is to capitalise on this strong demand for live sport to deliver growth whilst also developing further product improvements to drive customer value.’

The value of TV rights in the UK saw rapid growth between the early 2010s until 2018, spurred by the competitive tension between the leading two pay-TV platforms Sky and BT, for whom premium sports rights represented a key competitive battleground.

Most of this growth has came from the largest two competitions in the market – the English Premier League and the UEFA Champions League, which account for a combined 55% of the total value of sports TV rights in the UK.

Other competitions have also seen remarkable growth, notably Formula 1 and English international both of which have Sky as a major – if not exclusive – rights partner.

 “The general economic realities of the broadcasting sector, which see pay TV subscriptions stagnating, TV advertising revenues declining, and BBC income subject to a licence fee freeze, are putting sports budgets under pressure,” said Ampere Analysis in a report commissioned by UK media regulator Ofcom.

Similar observations can be made about the consumption of sports highlights, traditionally a major way in which audiences engage with sports content on television.

“Linear TV viewing of key highlights shows are declining, and viewing is significantly lower among younger audiences,” the report said. It noted the rise in new highlights formats distributed online and to social platforms as the primary access to sports video among younger demographics.

“They spend more time than the average sports fan engaging with other types of sports content such as engaging with athletes through social media, and more time than the average watching highlights and clips from games,” says Daniel Harraghy, Research Manager Sports, Ampere.

“The fact that younger demographics are still watching live sport more than they are with highlights suggest that live is still really valuable. The fact that they want to watch sports through streaming suggests that streaming platforms in the sports space are well positioned to be key media rights buyers and broadcasters of the future.”

Ampere’s consumer data underscores a division between younger demographics, who prefer to watch sports via streaming, and older fans who prefer sports on linear TV. However, it also suggests that fans aged 18 to 34 years are actually willing to spend more on their favorite sports content than older generations. Ampere’s data further suggests younger fans spend more time watching live sports than they do engaging with non-live sports including highlights, digital clips or podcasts.

DAZN losses widen

TNT’s financial figures comes after the billionaire owner of DAZN, Leonard Blavatnik, injected a further $827m into his loss making sports streamer in January.

According to London business paper City AM, Blavatnik has now invested more than $6.7bn (£5.3bn) in the London-based service.

DAZN is owned by Access Industries, a New York-based private holding company founded by Blavatnik in 1986. DAZN’s revenue increased from $2.19bn to $2.86bn in 2023, even as pre-tax losses widened from $1.20bn to $1.43bn

DAZN has spent $1bn on exclusive global rights to the inaugural FIFA Club World Cup this summer, and has sublicensed a portion of the matches to Channel 5, the UK’s free to air broadcaster owned by Paramount Global.

The intense competition between the two largest pay TV platforms has meant that the UK has still seen relatively minimal investment in the sports rights market from subscription OTT services (such as DAZN or Amazon Prime), although this is likely to change as the streaming model continues to gain ground.

Profitability challenge

Sports rights are expensive. In a blog post on LinkedIn, Gareth Capon, the CEO at sport streaming specialist Grabyo, stresses that sports are IP you rent, but don’t own.

“The tough part is that this only gives distributors the right to broadcast the games, not to own the IP,” he wrote. “You cannot ‘own’ a sport without buying it outright or creating a breakaway league or new format.  As media companies pivot to this new age, controlling live content, especially sports, will be a linchpin of long-term success.”

Ampere’s Harraghy agrees that streamers face a “profitability challenge” which is why we’ve seen rights holders carve out smaller packages for streamers to date. “There will be a slow burn transition as streamers gradually start to make sense of how to monetize sports rights most effectively. With many streamers in the early stages of broadcasting sport and still developing an understanding of its strategic merits, the race for sports rights is likely to be a marathon, not a sprint.”

TNT’s sports rights expenditure in 2024 was £795m ($1.06 billion) and has remained relatively stable over time, ranging between $937m and $1.2bn since 2016. “This stability mirrors the trend of the UK sports rights market which has increased by just 4% since 2021,” says Ben McMurray, Research Manager - Sports & Media at Ampere Analysis.

  

“The potential returns are growing with total annual UK subscription revenue across TV and streaming increasing by 20% between 2021 and 2024 to £11bn. However, the biggest challenge for TNT Sports lies in the increasing competition for a share of this expanding market, and ensuring that the cost of retaining key rights ahead of rivals like Sky, Amazon, and DAZN remains financially sustainable.

"With DAZN continuing to invest aggressively and absorb losses as part of its strategy to capture sports rights, TNT Sports could face significant financial strain if it intends to compete for these rights without a similar willingness to take on such losses.”

UK post: Positive signs in the fight for survival

Broadcast 

p14-18 Broadcast supplement

‘Survive to 2025’ may have summed up struggles in Facilityland last year but no-one was under the illusion that a switch would be flipped on January 1st. Nonetheless, the handful of shops canvassed by Broadcast expressed cautious optimism of a change in fortunes ahead.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the post game and each business has to work out its best mix of technology and location, staffing, investment and clientele. This is a snapshot of seven of them.

Splice

By luck or design, Splice fared well through 2024 even opening a new 38-edit suite facility near Old Street to go with its existing pair of East London buildings.

“We forecast, we did a lot of really nice work and we didn't stop [the new facility] because we know it makes a lot of sense,” says MD Richard Folley.

Early 2025 has been more challenging but he remains optimistic. “I doubt the market will return [soon] to what it was two years ago. What we're experiencing now are conversations going on for longer periods and commissioners more cautious about how they spend their money.”

One of the narratives in post is that to make things work you have to go remote. Folley disagrees, “Very simply, people don't want to. I speak to directors and production teams and they want people on premise. A producer once told me that doing television is a team sport. We still believe that the best way to make telly is to support creatives in the office.”

About 20 percent of Splice’s work is, however, remote. It has remote edits right now in Poland, USA, and Ireland. “We have an exceptional remote service for that kind of collaboration, but at the same time, people will always end up back in the room.

“People say facilities can't afford to service offline anymore. Actually, the answer is you can't afford to offline in Soho anymore. I’ve been in the industry nearly 30 years and we've been through periods where it's been super busy and super quiet but it levels out in the end. The biggest challenge in post is to manage the feast and the famine.”

Granary Media

Granary Media principal Simon Kanjee describes last year as “the bottom of the trough” but spies green shoots “on the scripted side.”

He adds, “We're all believing and trusting that 2025 will get better. It’s not a hockey stick trend, but we're seeing positive signs with some series coming back and new formats being talked about which we haven't seen for a couple of years.”

Having taken charge of Streamland Media’s operations in London and Cardiff in January, Kanjee’s priority is reducing its physical footprint.

“Down the line we will look at using automation technology for more efficiencies. In many way facilities still operate the same way they did 30 years ago with lots of people running around with Post-It notes and bits of string. We've got to evolve technically to be a really strong industry.

He adds, “The cost of real estate doesn't go down nor does the cost of people while the amount we can charge clients has been static for as long as I can remember. It's about driving revenues from outside the real estate in Soho by connecting clients remotely.”

BlueBolt

The collapse of Technicolor’s VFX division sent shockwaves through the community but its fate may be isolated.

“We are a much smaller company with a lot less risk,” says BlueBolt MD Tracy McCreary. “We don't have crazy overheads so when there are bumps on the road we’ve been able to ride them quite well.”

Those bumps came during Covid and the Hollywood strikes which have meant “turbulent swings in the market” since 2021. “2025 is looking a lot healthier. All of us want to put a marker in what normal looks like.”

BlueBolt recently completed 132 shots on Disney+ drama A Thousand Blows, worked on Apple TV+ thriller Echo Valley and wrapped on Steven Spielberg produced Netflix caper The Thursday Murder Club.

“Different types of drama are being commissioned, often with smaller budgets, and that hits VFX quite significantly,” McCreary says. “On the other hand, the tax breaks have had a really positive benefit.”

Introduced in April 1st and backdated to January, the new tax package gives a welcome boost to UK VFX. “More shows are saying they want to keep VFX effects here. We may not be returning to pre-Covid levels but we have shows booked through the rest of the year.”

Enginelab

Few facilities have more cloud know-how than Untold Studios where Sam Reid was, until recently, the Director of Technology. “2024 was shaky all around,” he says. “Lots of people lost their jobs. I had to make some redundancies in my team, which was awful and hope I never have to do that again.

“We're far from being out of the woods but there are some encouraging signs that capacity is returning.”

Reid senses “cautious optimism” which is just as well as he has left Untold to start-up Enginelab offering cloud storage and workflows for productions of any scale.

“We have a lot of experience in the bank and relationships we hope to capitalise on,” Reid says of co-founders, Matt Herman (who founded and sold Trace VFX to Technicolor in 2016) and former Untold R&D lead Daniel Goller.

“We’ll use AI for doing things more efficiently than we could do previously, such as writing code. That's where our skillset can really shine. To an extent the technology is disposable. The most important assets in the industry has always been its people.”

Sticks and Glass

Winter 2023-24 found Leeds’ full-service house Sticks and Glass contracting for the first time since launch in 2018. “We had to let our facility manager go,” reports co-founder Adam Bennett. “We stopped hiring. We spend an entire salary of a human on software a month. We spend an entire salary of a human on electricity per month. There's only so much you can pull back on.”

It wasn’t until last June that it returned to black and has since had eight “record-breaking” months.

“We're lucky that our business is as diverse as it is so when the networks aren't commissioning we have agency clients. Of course, it’s all connected. If advertising revenues are down, there's not much floating around.”

Conventional post work includes four-part Channel 4 ob-doc Peacock & Verity for which the facility serviced everything from camera hire to dub and deliverables. It also films and posts campaign work for creative agencies. Bennett and co-founder Verdy Martin Oliver (Emmy nominated DP on Disney+ Welcome to Wrexham) are camera operators and producers which adds another string to their bow.

“We essentially shoot them like a long-form doc but the output is 15-60 second vertical clips for TikTok. They’ve got the same budget as TVCs and we're doing them to the same cinematic standards. We're able to make good money on them.”

Unusually, Sticks and Glass services live sports for clients including DAZN. The facility has landed a major contract to produce the live host broadcast of a major UK football league beginning next season. “This is a big win for Yorkshire,” Bennett. “We're bringing a national sporting property from London up to Leeds.”

The facility is expanding and not just with new galleries to accommodate sports. “The future of our business is very much in physical spaces. It’s a massive part of our identity. Physical space with artists in attendance is important for training. People don't learn working remotely. They work from sitting alongside people.

“The only way we can compete with a lad in Starbucks on a MacBook Pro is by saying to the client that they don’t have a Dolby Atmos suite, a world-class ADR room, or the ability to ingest 12 live streams concurrently. They don't have the storage or the workflow, the technology or expertise to deliver for IMAX. We’re in the game of building services that you just can't have unless you're willing to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds.”

That said, every quote it receives is for a hybrid option. “Nobody's asking for dry hire anymore but they would like the ability to come in as well as work from home.”

 

The Church

Co-founder James Baxter says The Church is in a strong position as one of the only postproduction houses in Newcastle at a time when the North East is among the fastest growing areas in the industry.

North East Screen figures suggest a 86% increase in film and TV production related jobs over the past two years with the £450m Crown Works Studios in Sunderland expected to create up to 8,450 more across the region by 2033. That’s on top of the £25m the BBC is spending between 2021-26 on regional programming.

“There's been a massive surge of growth in the North East and we've been well placed to take on high-end shows,” says Baxter.

Credits include 4x60’ drama The Inheritance and 6x60’ The Feud both for Channel 5 and Paramount, produced by Newcastle-based Lonesome Pine.

Baxter also passes post for films he produces as founder at J6 Films through The Church. This includes feature doc Harder than the Rock acquired by Sky Arts.

“We’re keeping an eye on the situation since we don't want to grow too quickly if there’s any slowdown in the region,” he adds. “We're cautiously optimistic.”

The Church can draw on online editors and colourists in the region but expansion means connecting with talent down south. On Transaction, a ITVX 6x30’ comedy from Big Talk Studios filmed in Hartlepool, it is working with offline editors facilitated by West London-based Salon.

“Talent has traditionally left the region because there wasn't enough work to keep them. It remains a big challenge but it’s starting to change. We are always open to giving people opportunities to gain experience.”

Filmsat59

“I haven’t known a time in our industry when we aren't trying to survive,” says Gina Fucci who has been running Bristol’s Filmsat59 since co-founding it 1990. “None of us expected an overnight change in workload, but we are seeing a slight increase and some ‘green shoots’. Budgets are tight and costs are rising, so we’re being careful with how we spend and plan ahead.”

Fucci is sanguine about the impact of AI. “There are many things we have no control over. All we can do is work together to make the best of things. We have to remain flexible and we've found that if everyone on the team buys into that thinking then change feels possible.”

She urges industry bodies like Pact and DPP as well as producers, broadcasters, SVODs and distributors to be aligned on what the future of post should be. 

“Buying new kit for tech’s sake is not going to sustain the industry - nor is keeping old kit for too long.  We have a responsibility to understand how AI will impact every part of the chain and the true costs of powering more computers which take people out of the equation.”