Key takeaways:
- Live isn’t just about the broadcast itself: the build-up and the post-event window matter as much, because what audiences want is the shared community experience around it.
- Reddit, Discord and live chat are now where serious analysis happens, and the Rest is Politics audience is actively shaping the editorial of the show through the comments and subreddits.
- Over a third of Goalhanger’s shows are now consumed on YouTube on TV screens, and if YouTube turned off overnight, the audience wouldn’t migrate to another platform, they’d watch something else on YouTube.
- The biggest production lesson was that you don’t need as much as you think; the team came away convinced they could have done less, not more.
- Polished election graphics aren’t what wins, leaning on the community and treating viewers as intelligent is what makes the difference.
- Independent voices have replaced TV news readers as the authority, with fans now greeting Dom and the team in the street like friends, because they’ve spent five hours a week with them in their ear.
The final episode of Full Breakdown is everything The Rest is Politics learned from running a 24-hour US election stream live from New York, told in 10 minutes by the team who built it.
Full Breakdown is our new series going behind the scenes of Dizplai projects with the people who made them.
Ed Abis sits down with Dom Johnson from Goalhanger and our own Sophie Hammer and Steve Munachen to break down what they took away from the night, what they’d do differently next time, and the advice they’d give anyone thinking about owning their own live moment.
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 three-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 three 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
