Key takeaways:

• Fox, CNN and Sky ran their election graphics off data feeds and APIs, and the team did it off a spreadsheet that ended up becoming a product Dizplai is still building from.
• The single moment that out-performed every planned segment of the entire 24 hours was an unscripted argument between Dominic Sandbrook and Anthony Scaramucci about whether Donald Trump was a fascist.
• Fox News called the election for Trump, and within seconds the team had called it themselves, because there was no editorial meeting standing between the data and the broadcast.
• The whole 24-hour graphics operation came down to two people in a room, and they walked out the other side thinking they could have done less.
• While every other network was picking a side, the team put Fox and CNN on screen at the same time, because being the cool head in the room only works if the room can see both options.
• The graphics on screen weren’t decoration, they were live editorial triggers feeding the hosts the next beat in real time, which is how the commercial partners got their attention without the editorial breaking.

Building the broadcast was one decision. Pulling it off was another. With 24 hours of live coverage to deliver against the BBC, CNN, Sky and Fox News, Goalhanger and Dizplai had to figure out what an independent election stream actually looked like in practice. In Episode 2 of Full Breakdown, we sit down with the people who built it to break down what went into the night itself.

Ed Abis sits down with Dom Johnson (Goalhanger), Sophie Hammer (Head of Product, Platform at Dizplai) and Steve Munachen (Group Strategy Director at Dizplai) at Spotify Studios in London. The subject: how Dizplai and Goalhanger covered US election night live, against every major news network, without a legacy network behind them.

This episode is about the execution. The how, after the why.

While the BBC, CNN and Fox News all had API-fed graphics, dedicated decision desks and full newsrooms running their election coverage, the Dizplai team had a spreadsheet and two operators. From that, they built the Decision Desk: a bespoke tool that fed every state result, every electoral college tally and every on-screen graphic in real time, all from one place.

The result was a 24-hour broadcast that didn’t pick a side, didn’t wait for an editorial meeting, and didn’t break the editorial flow when the commercial partners came in. The biggest lesson on the way out: throw the rulebook away, and start with what you want to achieve, not what your technology can already do.

Watch the full episode below

Full Breakdown FAQs

What is Full Breakdown?

Full Breakdown isn’t a polished case study or a five-minute brand film. It’s something a bit more honest than that.

We sit down with the people behind a project; the strategists, the producers, the operators, the people who were actually in the room, and walk through how it came together. What worked, what didn’t, and what the team might do differently.

Each Full Breakdown is recorded as a single long-form conversation, then cut into a four-episode mini-series. Episodes run between seven and fifteen minutes, structured around four themes: the idea, the execution, the reflection, and the advice.

Who should watch Full Breakdown?

Anyone working in sport, media, broadcasting or the creator economy who wants to understand how ambitious live projects actually get built. If you’re a publisher, a rights holder, a creator or a brand thinking about doing something independent and at scale, Full Breakdown is designed to give you an honest account of what that takes.

Why four episodes rather than one long video?

Because long-form content has a drop-off problem, and splitting a conversation into four self-contained episodes solves it. Each episode has its own hook, its own story and its own reason to come back. The clips work standalone on social. The full series builds momentum on YouTube. And unlike a single video, a four-part series gives people a reason to come back.

What was the first Full Breakdown about?

The first series covers Goalhanger’s 24-hour US Election Special, the largest independent election broadcast in UK podcast history. The Rest is Politics went head to head with the BBC, CNN and Sky News with none of their broadcast infrastructure, and came away with 46 million impressions, 2 million live viewers and 72,000 live chat messages over the course of a single stream.

Our CEO Ed Abis sits down with Dom Johnson, Head of History at Goalhanger, alongside Dizplai’s own Sophie Hammer, Head of Product and Platform, and Steve Munachen, Group Strategy Director to unpack how it actually came together: the strategic thinking, the product decisions, and why building a community programme rather than a news broadcast made all the difference.

What makes Full Breakdown different from a standard case study?

Most case studies are written documents built around a brand narrative. Most behind-the-scenes videos are five minutes long and carefully controlled. Neither format does justice to projects that take months to plan and execute. Full Breakdown gives the people who built the work the space to say the things they actually want to say about it, including what they’d do differently and what surprised them. That honesty is what makes it worth watching.

Can my organisation be featured in a future Full Breakdown?

If you’ve worked with Dizplai on a project and you’re open to an honest conversation about how it came together, we’d like to hear from you. We handle everything: prep, questions, crew, edit, graphics and distribution. You walk in, tell the story, and walk out with a four-part series, a library of social clips, and a long-form asset that captures what your team actually built.

Get in touch at hello@dizplai.com