Summary
- How The Rest Is Football Became the First Podcast to Break Netflix’s Top 10: The show hit #1 on Netflix UK’s series chart on 17 days during the tournament and made the top 10 in 10 countries including Iceland, Ireland, Malta, Cyprus, UAE and Bulgaria. That’s not football-country dominance. That’s talent-country dominance.
- Why Netflix’s CEO Publicly Admitted They Can’t Build This Format: Ted Sarandos said talk shows have “given way to podcasting.” The largest streamer in the world conceded that the format itself is now something they license rather than commission. When Netflix says that out loud, the market notices.
- How 400 Million Short-Form Views Reframed the Discovery Question: Two years ago the Euros generated 66 million short-form views for Goalhanger. This time it was over 400 million in six weeks. Short form is no longer marketing for the show. It’s a parallel product entirely, feeding the long form and standing on its own.
- Why Netflix Extended the Deal for Two Premier League Seasons: The World Cup format hit event scale. The Premier League extension shifts to Monday and Friday episodes, sustained season coverage rather than tournament-driven. Netflix is buying a habit, not a moment. Bookending the weekend gives them daytime and weekend viewing they’ve never owned.
- Why Talent Is Now the Real Platform: Lineker, Shearer and Richards have moved across BBC, ITV, Goalhanger and Netflix, and their audience followed each time. Rights aren’t the moat they were. If your talent is strong enough, the platform becomes optional.
- What Netflix’s Podcast Bet Means for Every Broadcaster: Goalhanger just proved that talent-first, format-agnostic content can outperform platform originals, and the largest streamer in the world extended the deal to prove it. If the talent is the platform, what’s the competitive moat for everyone else?
Shownotes
Transcription
Ed (00:00.000)
Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the Attention Shift. If you’ve been enjoying the show, remember to hit like and subscribe wherever you’re listening and watching and hit that notification bell to never miss an episode. I’m delighted to say that this week is the fiftieth episode of the Attention Shift, but as Tony, who’s my guest, reminded me earlier, that’s tiny in comparison to some of his shows. I’m sure he’ll explain a little bit more about that in a sec.
Ed (00:28.138)
Tony’s our first returning guest in and the attention shift since we’ve been recording it. And as you know, Tony Pass is the co founder of Goalhanger. He was on the show back in last December where we talked about his deal with Netflix to take the rest’s football to them for the World Cup. six months on, the tournament’s now done, the numbers are in, and the Restis Football became the first podcast in Netflix history to break the daily top tens. if you haven’t heard the first conversation, we’ll drop that in the show notes and they are definitely worth revisiting. But Tony, welcome to the show.
Tony (00:58.641)
Thanks for having me, Ed.
Ed (01:00.640)
Cool, I’m gonna dive straight in. So, look, let’s talk about the initial success, right? There’s been so much that I’ve seen. Obviously, I’ve watched it it whenever I could. It’s been a great accompaniment I found early in the morning to all of my consumption of the World Cup. And you are the first podcast to break Netflix daily top ten in any country in the world, I believe, which is a huge achievement. What has Netflix reaction been to the podcast?
Tony (01:20.205)
Yeah.
Tony (01:26.616)
Netflix have really enjoyed having the podcast on the show. I mean, we call it a podcast, but is it really? You know, it’s become it’s become a show, which is how we like to talk about all of our shows these days.
You know, the rest of this portal started out three and a half years ago as an audio only show and then it became an audio show with video and then it became an audio show with sophisticated video. And I think the kind of you know, the holy grail of that is that your content becomes sophisticated and engaging and good enough to look at that it becomes something that Netflix, the perhaps premium streaming platform of them all, wants to have on on on their network. So yeah, we
We we went out every day for forty days. we shot the show in a studio in New York, looking out over Times Square, and yeah, Netflix seemed to be extremely happy with the result and the consequence of that is that they’ve extended the deal and the rest of the football will remain on Netflix for the next two years covering the domestic Premier League season.
Ed (02:29.622)
Which is amazing, right? And then I I guess it’s all the validation you could ever want. And i interestingly, Netflix’s own bosses have said publicly that this is not a format that they felt like felt like they could build themselves. And what I guess what does that mean for you when ultimately that they they say that and then they come to you for this and show that interest in you and what you’ve built?
Tony (02:50.587)
I think what it says is that they’ve acknowledged that it’s not easy to build a community of listeners and viewers around around content. You know, it’s not an easy job. and and in many ways for them, I guess, it was a more logical thing to do to say, right, what is out there? who’s already b delivering a really strong audience, who’s already developed a relationship with the audience. and and for us, fortunately, they chose the rest of football and what effectively
We did was we we licensed their our our show, our IP, our intellectual property, to Netflix and along with our audience, and hopefully they got our regular audience and and brought some of their own and maybe some new people who perhaps wouldn’t have discovered it were you know on other platforms. And and the overall effect is that it’s done a good job for Netflix. They were it was in if you look at the series charts, which obviously being episodically daily for 40 days, we are a series.
we made number one over 20 times during the World Cup and and we’re never out of the top ten and and and we’re mostly number two or number one throughout the tournament. So yeah, I think it’s it’s really done its job for Netflix. It certainly was a brilliant experience for us.
Ed (04:08.116)
Look, and th those are remarkable numbers, right? To hit the number one so often during that run and I think look look, we’ve seen that Netflix have dipped their toe in the water with various different live rights around sport, but this is a shift that clearly they wanted to own a narrative around the World Cup without having to go into that live sports rights fight, I guess. What is that shift about? What have what do they feel like they’d learnt by buying into your approach? Are they
Tony (04:17.661)
Yeah.
Ed (04:37.866)
that that that bet that they made that ultimately they could own some kind of narrative around the World Cup.
Tony (04:44.987)
Yeah, I mean they were pretty straightforward with us before the tournament and said that a couple of years ago during the Euros it had been a bit of a battle for the platform in the UK because you know for a month whenever people settled down to watch TV in the evenings after they’ve perhaps you know got home from work or school and had their had their dinner and a and a sitting as a family, a lot of the time they were choosing to watch the football. And and that is the classic Netflix slot in your day. That is the you know the kind of
7 30 till 10 o’clock slot when you might sit down and watch a a drama, a box set drama, or a movie or a documentary. And and I think they they probably s they probably suffered a little because of the the football being a an alternative all the way through that month in in Germany. And I think what this offered them was an opportunity to be part of that conversation, to be part of that narrative story for the whole for the whole six weeks of the World Cup. And it meant that you know, yes, in the UK the BBC and ITV will always be
Ed (05:29.130)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tony (05:44.847)
go to channels for the matches, but if you wanted to take part in the conversation, you had to have something that existed as effectively a kind of shoulder programming offer. And to borrow the rest is football for that 40-day period meant A they knew what they were getting in terms of quality products.
B they knew that they were getting top talent, Gary Lineker on your channel, Micah Richards, Alan Shearer, plus a whole host of guests on a daily basis. And C, you know that the show already has an audience and that audience is likely to migrate and enjoy it on this channel.
Ed (06:19.188)
Yeah. I I think what I found interesting about it is ’cause look, right, you you recorded it at the end of the day’s play effectively so it was ready to then go out at six AM UK time and was played out live six AM UK. Now I must admit, and I don’t know whether that’s formal or right, and obviously I do know a lot of what’s gone about ’cause I know you but even so I really wanted to watch it when it was going out live and I tried to be up in time to watch it live. How did you f like
Tony (06:26.225)
Yeah.
Ed (06:43.510)
Do you do you have any insights at the moment how many people were watching it live? And I don’t need numbers necessarily, but watching it live versus watching it at various points of the day.
Tony (06:46.589)
Yeah.
Tony (06:49.957)
Yeah, you know, the the biggest number obviously is in catch-up. Six till seven AM is never going to be the biggest audience of the day. But it did decent numbers six till seven and then and then kind of had a tail that would go all day up until the evening. What was really interesting for
Both us and and more to the point Netflix was. Netflix is not a channel that that gets the largest part of its share in daytime. And I’m being kind. You know, daytime is not its strong point. In in the evening, Netflix is dominant and really successful. But in the daytime, there’s not a massive tradition of people turning to Netflix, you know, in the morning, for example. This show was majority watched in daytime. So
It was pioneering. I spoke with the senior executives at Netflix before and during the tournament and and they and they emphasised this to us, you know, that
Have a daily returning show that is that is scheduled in daytime, that skews mail, all of those elements are pioneering. And hopefully it delivered for them on all three. we definitely know that the majority of viewing was was before the next set of fixtures start, naturally. And so you know, it served a very useful purpose for them in terms of in terms of getting people into the habit of watching the channel.
Ed (08:05.098)
Yeah. Yes.
Tony (08:15.199)
watching the streamer in daytime not evening.
Ed (08:18.974)
It’s definitely something that plays out from a live perspective as well. Like if you do live streaming on YouTube, you always get, yes, a healthy proportion of your audience who want to watch it live ’cause they want to be in there in the moment. And it might be like you say, they’re chatting with their friends as they’re watching it, they’re disagreeing that they’re agreeing with it, but then there’s all of the other people that will come in when it becomes VOD and watch it on catch up too. So you get your second hit. And it’s interesting that it feels like, even though it’s been on a different platform to a YouTube, the same thing has essentially played out. And then also like we are constantly told
that people wanna watch peop wanna watch content whenever they wanna watch it but people are creatures of habit and actually some kind of schedule I think people want that structure.
Tony (08:56.241)
Yeah, that’s true. I mean, it’s interesting, I think it kinda got three windows, which are live at six, catch up from seven onwards, and then multiple short form offerings throughout the day. In fact, we ended up having two we had to get our social content creation team to work overnight. They basically came in very late at night, watched the show being recorded usually at eleven PM New York time, which is four AM UK time. So we recorded
Ed (09:15.658)
Yeah.
Tony (09:26.128)
We would review it for an hour, put it out at six live. and the social content team were basically working from eleven at night through till seven, eight in the morning and and the idea was to basically
you know, create lots of short form clips that would be A engaging, B, marketing for the main long form content, but also just, you know, content to get out there to to audiences on on those different platforms. And that was unbelievably successful. So our short form during the 40 days of the World Cup was watched 400 million times, which, you know
You have to say, and well I can give you a comparison point because two years ago during the Euros, which admittedly were were a little shorter, there were less games, but still, you know, a a month of football, we enjoyed sixty-six million short form views. So to go from sixty-six million to to north of four hundred million in two years, just goes to show you the the expanded appetite for for the content on all platforms.
Ed (10:31.220)
Absolutely. I think look, and I think part of what played into that as is like, you know, you had Nial Horrin early on as well. You had Gordon Ransby, the way you lent into crossing over into lifestyle and culture. Look, people who were genuinely in town ’cause they were going to the football, right? So they like and and I think they open up in a different kind of way when they’re talking about football. Look, and there’s the swearing and the banter and everything that comes with it. They’re not on talking like Gordon’s not on talking about cooking generally. He’s going coming on talking about the football and they do
Tony (10:44.445)
Yeah.
Ed (10:58.346)
They show a different side of themselves when they when they lean into that. And I think those things then, the banter comes, the clips go out, and I think that’s why they then resonate and get the traction that they do.
Tony (11:07.451)
Yeah, look, I the the number one thing for me when I agreed for the show to go on Netflix was that I didn’t want to lose the tone of voice. You know, I think I’ve said to you before, Ed, that what I believe makes our shows and the rest of football in particular successful are that they don’t sound like orthodox broadcasting. you know, I I I kind of
I I mean this figuratively l rather than literally, but the kind of bisuited tie wearing formality of traditional TV is replaced by very much by, you know, a conversation that I think the public recognises as being much more like their own conversation. Yes, it’s Gary Lineker talking to Alan Shearer, Micah Richards and Joe Cole. so in other words you’ve got an awful lot of England caps, World Cup experiences, dressing room experiences to f to lean back on. But
Ed (11:34.955)
Yeah.
Tony (11:58.175)
But nevertheless, they talk about football in the same passionate, unguarded, honest, authentic way that perhaps they would have without the cameras filming them. I always said to them from the very start, Ed, that all the best conversations I’d ever heard as a football producer were in the green room, that they were always better than the conversations that you heard in the studio. And I said very clearly to them what I really want is the green room conversation. The bit where Alan Shearer admits that he’s got no love for Sunderland.
Ed (12:07.956)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tony (12:28.105)
And hopes they go down. The bit where Gary Lineker says, let me tell you about that manager I work for, he was a complete piece of shit. You know, that’s the kind of conversation you only get in that unguarded way. and I and I think Netflix understood that and they allowed us to bring that tone of voice to the shows, which made them seem very different from the orthodox broadcasting, very fine broadcasting on both ITV and BBC, but a different tone of voice.
Ed (12:35.626)
Yeah, of course.
Ed (12:56.212)
Yeah, look, and and I think like I there was a number of threads that I spotted as well. Obviously you had May Mayor Mamdani on as well, right, which no one probably would have expected you, but ultimately he’s a if you think about it, he’s kind of an obvious such as his declared love of of Arsenal to get him along and and I look, and I don’t know how hard that was to get him along to do something like that, but I guess then in his time to get him in, all he wants to talk, right, is about football and Arsenal and those kind of things. So it almost like it’s an easy one for him to do compared to what his day to day is probably like and all the an things he’s answering.
Tony (13:25.426)
Yeah, well we went to him. We went to the town hall. and he was great fun and he’s a genuine Arsenal fan, blime. I mean he was recounting games he had seen from the League Cup in the noughties and was naming players who I could only just pull back from memory from that time. So, you know, a genu a genuine football fan.
Ed (13:28.191)
Yeah.
Ed (13:46.644)
That stuff resonates with audience as well, right? ‘Cause they see it too, that this guy is not just saying this like we’ve we’ve seen a number of British politicians down the years, like I said, they support teams, and the realities is it’s a little bit like the you the joke the when th that you hear sometimes like what’s your f you know, what’s your favourite Beatles song? or that’ll you know the great you know, the greatest it’s or something like that. It’s like the reality is we’ve had lots of that kind of stuff and people people can football fans can see right through it. But when someone’s so verse, so knowledgeable,
it it really gets across to audiences. Like and I saw all the threads as well, like you the darts thing you as well, and we chatted about that, didn’t we? I said, really like that, ’cause it’s a little bit like you know, Top Gear and the the you know the the the mid priced car. Like you need all these different threads to pull on to to I guess to keep the pace. But then when you see the people you see doing it as well at the same time, that it’s not taking everything too seriously. Like I said for Netflix, coming back to that, it’s entertainment and that’s exactly what they want.
Tony (14:17.031)
Yeah.
Tony (14:22.993)
Yeah.
Tony (14:29.628)
Yeah.
Tony (14:39.911)
Sorry.
and and we wanted to have a really wide range, right? So we wanted to be able to have very serious conversations about England team selection performance, the how Thomas Tuchel had made his decisions, whether they were right, whether they were wrong. You know, you want to be able to have that really authoritative conversation. And at the same time you want to be able to have a much more relaxed conversation in which, you know, Mike Ronalm shares share funny stories from their own careers, take the piss out of Gary for talking about his, you know, golden boot yet again. You know, you
Be able to have that range of conversation. And I think one of the great things about the podcast format is that it’s very forgiving. You know, we had no hard and fast time, we didn’t have to hit an out, we could talk for 35, 40 minutes, we could talk for an hour. It it it really did depend on whether or not the games merited it.
Ed (15:26.944)
Yeah. Well there is yeah, there is no timing on a schedule, right, you ultimately, ’cause it’s it i i you can do it for as long as you want.
Tony (15:34.704)
Absolutely. And and and that allows you to lean back in conversations and let them and let them continue. You know, I mean I worked I worked for both BBC and ITV in my football producing days and you know I can still remember, you know, coming out of an ad break and and being given you’ve got four and a half minutes to to to to chat before the next ad break and you’ve got a a host and three guests and he gets a minute, he gets forty five seconds and it would be very structured. And now suddenly you sat with four guys
Ed (15:40.628)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tony (16:04.687)
And they can chap for as long as they like. And and you know, if they if they finish we move on and if they haven’t, we carry on.
Ed (16:11.232)
I th I think that is part of the challenge of of let’s call it traditional media that that i is so time bound like that. And think that’s why obviously shows like your own have had the success it’s had, but also like the a lot of the YouTube creators that we see now that they can just go live for three hours if they want to, say what they want about what they want and go down whatever rabbit hole their audience wants them to go down.
Tony (16:18.469)
Mm.
Ed (16:33.574)
because people do want those opinions and and and and are quite happy to roll with it and see where it goes. And sometimes as well, if the opinions are a little bit too extreme, the audience will pull them back as well and say, Look, that’s not that’s not for us. We don’t want you to go down that path.
Tony (16:46.097)
Yeah. you know, I we built our our podcast business and trying to deliver to the audience what they want and we ask them a lot, you know, and and they tell us, you know, when when on the rest is history, I’ve told you this before Ed, but when on the rest is history we we did a survey and got twenty thousand respondents giving us a really granular assessment, analysis of the show. The one thing that stood out more than anything else was that they didn’t want guests, they just wanted Tom Holland and Dominic Sambrook and so we stopped having guests, you know.
Ed (17:12.682)
Yeah, yeah.
Tony (17:16.512)
it turned out that they just loved that central relationship between the two hosts. They had a parasocial relationship with those hosts. They thought they were their friends. and they didn’t want it getting interrupted by some random professor from Stan you know, Stanford University. So so we listened to the audience and and we tried to deliver them what they want.
Ed (17:27.178)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense.
Ed (17:35.477)
I wanna I it’s inter I wanna come back to what you talked about earlier, which was your social media team, right, who sounded like they really did have the bad end of the stick having to work throughout the night back in the UK and look, and you and you said that, you know, over f they’re in New York. Okay, all right, okay, right yeah, right.
Tony (17:46.459)
No, no, in New York. We took them to New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well well we just felt that, you know, they needed to be there because the whole colour of the whole event is there. You know, there’s outside the windows in Times Square there’s probably three thousand Argentinians singing and dancing, you know. You said yeah, absolutely, you could hear at the set. And I just I’ve always felt that you get your best content when you go to where the thing happens.
Ed (17:59.619)
you could you could hear them. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ed (18:06.944)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, so that look, they did four hundred million like I said, four hundred million social views and I it’s interesting how look, how is thinking about how clipping’s become, you know, a real discovery tool for for long form as well and you know, you’ve got short clips on TikTok and reels and shorts, and I remember I was having conversations about this years ago, right? Like, does one thing cannibalize the other? And look, we covered that off last time, I going into n necessarily go into that, but how is that dynamic of
How clips are helping to drive for the long form, changing how you think about your content when you create it.
Tony (18:38.577)
Well, I I think this is a fascinating question, and I’d be lying if I said I had the prop the full answer to this. We don’t fully know yet whether short form, four hundred million views in six weeks, is a marketing tool or just a platform agnostic delivery of the content to audiences where they want it. Do we care where people watch and listen to the show? And ultimately
The answer sort of for us is no, we don’t. You know, if if you wanna watch six one minute clips of the rest of football on Facebook or TikTok or Instagram or Twitter, that’s absolutely fine. If you wanna watch it in long form, 35-40 minutes of it on on on Spotify video or on Netflix for the World Cup, that’s fine too. If you want to listen on a on on Apple,
Or on Spotify, no problem. We have to solve the commercialization. So our argument internally here at Goalhanger is that we put the content out there, we try to reach as many people as possible. We hope that they engage with it for as long as possible, because that means we’re doing something right. If we’re do if we’re if we’re making good content, they watch for longer. Our job at the end of that is to work out how we get paid to make that content. Because of course.
I’m a producer. Most of the team here are producers. We’re not really a money organization. You know, you have to make cash because if you don’t, the business doesn’t function. It’s important. But our primary focus is on building shows that are engaging to fans and to and and to audience. Well, you have to be, right? So so my view for a for a for a long time now has been: make the best content you can and deliver it to the largest possible audience you can. And if they enjoy it, the monetization follows.
Ed (20:12.298)
You’re not driven by the cash, you’re driven by making great content and the rest follows. Yeah.
Tony (20:28.027)
And and people who are much cleverer than that and are part of the business than me will solve it. My view is make the content, outrun the commercialization, hope the commercialization catches you up.
Ed (20:39.210)
And do you feel like you’ve
I guess I already know the answer to this question now. Like I was gonna ask you, do you feel like you’ve had to change how how the content’s made? But it feels like ultimately you’re making the content that you feel is the right content, like you say, and everything else follows.
Tony (20:55.035)
Yeah, I mean, we face a referendum every day on our content. People don’t have to come back for it, you know. the extreme version of that, Ed, is with the membership club. You pay you pay, you know, six, seven, eight pounds a month for for extra content, for early access for ad-free, for for priority in getting tickets for live shows. Now, we’ve got two hundred and fifty-six thousand people who are members of Goldhanger podcasts.
Every single month they can leave. It’s their choice. So I like that dynamic because the the pain of churn of people leaving
Is a constant reminder to us that we need to create something so engaging, so entertaining, such at such good value, that the vast majority, about 96% of people, do not churn. And you know, if we dip, if we dip, if we go over four percent, we get a bit troubled and we start looking at whether we’re delivering the best best content we can. If we’re if we’re under four percent, we think we’re doing a pretty good job.
Ed (21:58.048)
No, that makes total sense. Like I said, it i i in a lot of ways it keeps you honest, right? It makes you focus on on on on the things that matter ’cause like it it’s it’s the quickest thing you yeah. It’s audience first. It’s the quickest it’s the quickest marker you’ve got to know if you’re doing things right or doing things wrong ’cause like I said, they will vote with their feet.
Tony (22:02.877)
Totally. And and it’s audience first. It’s audience first.
Tony (22:12.081)
Correct.
We well, we we we have a number of these markers. One of them is is membership, how many people remain in the membership clubs. You know, fortunately they are continuing to grow, which is a good sign. But also things like total audience reach is important to us. And also we really like the metric of of how long people watch for. You know, we like our average view duration is a key indicator for us because it’s one of the things we can control. We can control the quality of the content. If the content’s
really good, people watch for longer. So that’s a really good way for us to say, yes, we’re doing our job properly.
Ed (22:51.710)
Interestingly, like we so obviously the memberships are key, right? And obviously by having those members you learn a lot. So would you say now that as a business that more and more as this membership number has grown, is a lot of your focus now going towards the data as well?
Tony (23:08.601)
we’ve become data obsessed. I’ve become a data bore. we’ve actually hired somebody that’s all they do. They literally just do data every day. We have the data delivered to us in all manner, you know, in in in graphs and tables, and we assess it, we look at it, and we learn from it and we and we and we use it we use it in in a lot of our decision making. What we don’t do is rely on it to the point where it makes the decisions for us. What we do do is we use it to inform our decisions. So, you know, I still
Tony (23:42.631)
producer intuition by by you know what we believe works. But let’s be honest, you know, if we I’ll give you an example. When we we we on the Restless History Membership Club, we did a four part series with Mary Beard, the great historian of ancient Rome. it was exclusive for members. It did massive numbers. You will not be shocked to hear that we have booked Mary to come back again. You know, that’s a it’s a it’s a perfectly sensible thing. Anthony Scaramucci, how did we end up with him as our
Ed (24:08.096)
Yeah, yeah, makes sense.
Tony (24:12.665)
American politics podcaster. I’ll you why. Because he came on the Rest of Politics UK and it was the highest downloaded episode of the year. So I contacted Anthony and said, let’s have lunch. I want to talk to you and and hide him on the spot. You know, the data can be extremely informative, but it shouldn’t be the only thing you use.
Ed (24:31.604)
Yeah, it’s a thing it it’s helping you to sort of like to pick out those things that ultimately you should identify and explore more. Interestingly, I was gonna ask you about sort of around the data as well, ’cause I remember last time we spoke as well, you talked about you know, you were you were mindful around when you launched on YouTube around whether the audio pod would be cannibalised and obviously now you’ve gone to Netflix, have you got any sense of of what’s happened there or is is the same thing borne out as as happened before with YouTube? Are you comfortable that that
It’s had no impact, positive, negative.
Tony (25:03.559)
Good question. And and the and it and it’s not fully answered yet. But what I would say is that part of the deal with Netflix was to take the show off YouTube for the for the duration of the World Cup. Clearly the consequence of that was
Our numbers on YouTube were much diminished on where they were two years ago in Berlin. it was only historical content and short form that was being watched. but I think overall, my estimation of this is that the YouTube audience went to Netflix. Additional people found the show because it was on Netflix, and the audio was broadly speaking left alone.
Ed (25:43.663)
And so and ’cause you what we often get told right that that it’s really, really difficult to move the audience around. So if that does bear out, it proves that I think and it comes on my next question ’cause I was gonna ask about talent, that if the mix of content is right and the value exchange is good enough, the audience will go where they need to go. And I think that shows a bit of a power dynamic shift, ’cause I think we’ve been used to the platforms having a certain of level of control. So
Are we saying here that almost like talent becomes the new platform now?
Tony (26:17.051)
I think talent are definitely fundamental in this question. I would I would like to give Netflix a bit of credit here as well though, because their marketing campaign for this show was incredible.
Ed (26:26.475)
Yes, yeah.
Tony (26:27.153)
You know, every morning they took over three thousand bus shelters in the UK. That’s a remarkable commitment. You know, they did wrap-arounds in big buildings in London. They did I mean they really, they really came to the tech, you know, came to the party with it, did a brilliant marketing job. The socials definitely did a really good marketing job as well. But I think ultimately, you know, if you wanted to see Gary Allen or Micah, this World Cup, you only had one place you could do that. Micah was also on screen for the BBC.
back in Salford. Alan was out of vision for the BBC as a co-commentator at, you know, I don’t know, 10 or 12 games around the World Cup. Gary was exclusive on Netflix for the for the for the whole tournament.
Ed (27:09.335)
thought it was clever how he popped up on R T V as well, just to sort of keep him in the conversation.
Tony (27:13.660)
Yeah, that was that was his idea. He gets the credit, full credit for that. He just said, Why don’t I pop along? I’ll tell you why, because he started off from the fact that he kept saying to me every day as he came into the New York studio, I really like ITV studio. What a great location they’ve got. It looks brilliant. And then he used and then obviously he’s he’s really good mates with Righty. He and he just said, Do you know what? Why don’t I just pop her down and say hello? And I rang IT V and said, Do you do you want Gary to come on air? And they said, Absolutely we do. and so
Ed (27:31.905)
Yeah, yeah.
Ed (27:41.687)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tony (27:43.773)
yeah, and so we popped up in prime time. It was great fun.
Ed (27:46.965)
No, it look, it was really really interesting that and it was and the look and he I know he’s got like obviously this new show coming out as well, so that tied in nicely for him as well. So it felt like it all had reason to happen. So look, moving to what’s next. Obviously you announced, obviously in the last episode, obviously, that you are going to continue with Netflix the next two years. You mentioned it earlier. So I guess like, you know, what obviously clearly they’re happy right. What is that going to look like? Because Premier League
Tony (27:53.233)
Yes.
Tony (27:59.100)
Yeah.
Ed (28:15.851)
week to week, right, is different to World Cups. I’m assuming we’re not gonna be like gonna be having daily shows. Is it gonna be a similar cadence to what you do now as a pod show or or is there gonna be something different and new?
Tony (28:29.495)
no. The it it’s got
Ed (28:30.999)
Do you have to build a studio now for this as well?
Tony (28:32.505)
No, definitely not. It it it it’s it looks different from the deal that you saw this summer. And this summer was a very high lift. We took the whole team and built out a very large team to New York City. we were there for get you know, by the time you built in a factored in two weeks of build up, you know, a lot of the team were out there for fifty plus days, fif you know, it’s it was a big old lift. And we built a studio in a a completely empty space, you know. I hired the guy that had set designed the Oscars last year. You know, I mean
Ed (28:51.735)
Yeah, yeah.
Tony (29:02.409)
We went to town on it. We had a good budget, and believe me, Ed, we spent it. So you know, all the money was on the screen. The talent were you know, we we looked after them brilliantly, everyone had a fantastic time. It was very hard work. Gary Duneker did an amazing job every single day for 40 days. so we now return to the UK. We know that the interest in the Premier League season will start to ramp up fairly soon, not least as the kind of transfer window, you know, becomes more and more interesting.
Ed (29:03.681)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ed (29:19.223)
Yeah, I did.
Tony (29:32.406)
And what we’re gonna do is we’re going to put the show out on Netflix on a Monday and Friday. And it will be very timely. So I mean the key point here is that Netflix wants a show that people come back to each week. It’s not a box set. You can’t
Ed (29:47.783)
It feels like it bookend it feels like it bookends the weekend. Yeah, yeah.
Tony (29:49.317)
Your book ends the week, correct. It’ll review the it reviews the weekend and then it will review the midweek action, Champions League, etcetera, and it’ll look forward to the weekend. And so I think the really important thing for them was, you know, much of the content on Netflix, you can go, you can watch five episodes back to back and then you can and then you can disappear off and do something else. This won’t allow for that because it’s an ongoing week by week narrative. If you want to keep up with the conversation around the Premier League, come
Back on a Monday and a Friday, and you’ll get an updated, updating narrative story.
Ed (30:23.979)
Yeah. It’s interesting, I remember years ago before you’d even done this round, we chatted about this w weren’t we about like where would a a show like this sit? And we and I think we’d homed in a little bit on a Friday, would for ’cause there wasn’t there weren’t that many things that were coming out on a Friday. And look, yeah, Monday you Monday night football and is usually a game, but similarly you didn’t have a lot of stuff around then look, and then the world’s changed over the last four or five years, right? But I think for them to lean into this now and have those days, like you said, that bookends the weekend
feel like the right kind of thing for them just leading into the weekend and coming out of the weekend to to resummarise.
Tony (30:58.481)
Yeah, and and I think again this is pioneering. This is about something that isn’t delivered by, you know, a Hollywood studio or a big T V drama studio in London perhaps. It’s it’s it’s a ready made show.
That’s got its audience, that’s got its three big talent, that’s that’s very comfortable in its own skin. And the idea for Netflix is to, is to effectively license it onto their platform and hope that they can build audience over the next couple of years. and with a with an ideal endgame, I guess, that the European football championships in in in in the UK follow follow straight on.
Ed (31:35.032)
Do it again, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. and looking, it’s interesting, like obviously they did what they with the World Cup and now they’ve committed for two years of this. So, look, right, you don’t have to go into detail. Do you do you think this opens the door to have further conversation with them about other resties titles? Are they looking at other verticals? And there’ll be some that they like and some that they don’t, I’m sure. for for for obvious reasons, I guess. Is there is you know, not as is there a conversation going on, but is it something that they’re looking at because of the success of this?
Tony (31:53.179)
Yeah.
Tony (32:02.037)
I think undoubtedly the podcast space is the one that Netflix is looking at most keenly for new content to license and to commission going forward. we’ve already seen in the US, many of your viewers will be familiar with The Ringer, which is a network of shows made in largely in Los Angeles, which which includes shows about basketball, NFL.
movies, they are all now licensed for by the ringer onto Netflix. we haven’t seen that take place in the UK yet, but conversations are ongoing with almost every provider in our space. I would very much expect to see podcasts, video podcasts on Netflix increasingly as the year goes by. The other thing I would say about this is I would expect to see more and more sport adjacent content on Netflix.
Ed (32:58.647)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tony (32:59.263)
It works for them. The boxing’s worked. The documentaries have worked. They’ve got the Women’s World Cup in Brazil next summer exclusively in North America, Netflix, which is a very big deal indeed. I would expect this to be the opening of a door that becomes increasingly ajar.
Ed (33:21.334)
What’s interesting as well is and I I wanted just to pivot towards your accelerator programme, right? So obviously they’ve in a sense come to you to do something that they don’t do themselves. And similarly look, you’re I know you’re always looking for new content verticals and you obviously you’ve created a number of them, right? You’ve now launched the accelerator programme back in June where you’ve got six creators. Why now? What’s the strategic thinking behind behind investing in other creators rather than just scaling your own shows or creating your own shows?
Tony (33:50.949)
Yeah, we just wanna be able to to to to talent scout, you know. I mean ultimately it’s we see the we see the correlation between long form traditional audio and now video content and short form as becoming increasingly close. we want to back a whole suite of
younger influencers and creators because we also want to be able to develop the next generation of people who could potentially host our shows, you know. there’s there’s a we’re we’re we’re giving a reasonable amount in this deal. It’s it it we’re not, you know, that we’re we haven’t signed them on lock for some kind of long term exclusivity. We’re hoping to offer them some
We’re hoping to offer them some help. We’re gonna give them some money. We’re gonna give them some training. We’re gonna let them speak to people who are perhaps a little further down the path than they are at the moment about the you know, wise learnings. We’re also gonna offer them commercial support, should that should that be a possibility. you know, it’s a bit like a it’s a bit like a Premier League football club having a really strong academy. You wanna be able to see, you know, is one of them gonna burst out of that academy and through sheer performance and ability and talent and
hunger and enthusiasm make a case to play on the first team. And I think there’s every chance that we’ll see that happen over the next few years.
Ed (35:15.000)
I know you’ve always all I know you’ve always looked for up and coming talent in the business anyway. There’s a number of people, right, that you have hired who’ve come almost straight out of university and you’ve brought into the business and and ultimately, you know, some are a lot are still with you, right? And some have gone on to other things and and that’s just life. But I I think this feels like the next step in the way that you’ve invested in young talent coming through. And I I think just obviously look, the the headline thing is like, you know, they get a ten thousand pound investment. But how is that being spent by those creators? Is it through the things you described earlier? Is it time and
Tony (35:43.495)
Well
Well no, no, no, I th they they get that to spend how they want. I mean, but ultimately what I really want them to do is to upscale their kit, you know, is to make sure their cameras are absolutely as good as they can be, to their microphones, their recording equipment. I want them if they’ve got if they’ve got a you know a passionate desire to do to do a mini series on the cooking of Italy, to be able to go there. You know, these are the kind of things we want them to be able to do so that the the content feels technically and editorially upscaled.
Ed (35:47.615)
Right, okay.
Ed (36:06.475)
Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tony (36:14.687)
in a way that perhaps if they’re having to make a decision out of their own earnings as to whether they do that, they might say, do you know what, I’ll put it off for a bit. But we just said, look, you know, here’s a here’s a here’s a chunk of change that, you know, do what you think will most enhance your product going forward.
Ed (36:29.547)
Yeah. Yeah, it it it definitely sounds like the way you’re describing it, that you’re not tr you’re absolutely not trying to force them into a goal hanger template of doing things, but you want them to have the space and time to to really build on what’s made them a success. You know what happens, like often businesses will buy another business or invest in another business and then everything they were famous for, they decide not to do it anymore, and then it was actually pointless doing that. In the end it sounds like you’re actually no, no. Build on the thing that we liked you for and and go bigger with it.
Tony (36:51.922)
Yeah.
Tony (36:57.154)
absolutely.
Absolutely. We are not trying to turn them into you know, Micah Richards or Gary Lineker or Dominic Sandbrook. That is not the idea. The idea is that they’ve already proven to us, because we had an extremely competitive process for selection, they’ve already proven to us that they have something special, something we believe in, something we believe can really afford them the ability to scale up, to become, you know, influential and and to show off their talents. So the
Ed (37:12.097)
Yeah, yeah.
Tony (37:28.208)
The last thing on earth you wanna do is knock it out of them. You wanna you want quite the opposite. You want them to say double double down on what’s got you so far. And frankly, we don’t want we don’t want a a small, a relatively small amount of money to be a blocker. And we and we and we wanna make sure that you get to talk to people who can usefully help and guide you should you wish to get that guidance.
Ed (37:31.628)
Silly like.
Ed (37:49.431)
No, I that look it it it is fascinating. As soon I remember as soon as it I it was announced, I messaged you straight away going, This sounds really interesting and and and different and and from to be able to get exposed. Like I’ve been lucky enough to spend a lot of time obviously in in and around your business and and seeing how everyone functions and not just yourself, right? But Dom, who we’ve recorded some other stuff with as well, and the wider team and I know how people function and I know that there’s a great deal of leeway and
I guess you empower people to to to to go do their jobs and and learn and so I ca I I get the sense that they’ll get that too.
Tony (38:18.226)
Yeah.
Tony (38:24.015)
I I I certainly hope that they that they find it rewarding that the culture that we hopefully have built at Gold Langer, which is, as you say, quite quite a young culture really. You know, we’ve got eighty eight staff now, but I would say, you know, the vast majority are in there that, you know, are twenty five to thirty five. They’re in that kind of, you know, perhaps first or second job out of out of
out of school or college. and you know, we’ve got a lot of creative, a lot of smart people here. And I and and I and I like to think that because we’ve got a lot of them quite young, we’ve been able to imbue them with an ethos and a culture that means they believe in taking risks with content to create to create communities who really appreciate their content. And that and that they understand that we are a content first business. You know, we are a business we do make money but that is a consequence of hopefully doing the primary
Yeah.
Ed (39:15.765)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, look, it’s fascinating. Look, to thank Tony, thanks you so much for your time. I think I was gonna say, for anyone who hasn’t seen the original episode we did, like I said, back in December, we will put that in the show notes as well when we finish this episode. Look, you seem to be announcing something every other day at the moment. Is there anything else we’ve missed before we before we close out?
Tony (39:34.066)
I don’t think so. I think, you know, the fact that we’ve got two more years on Netflix has been pretty much dominant. It was by the way, it was a deal that I did during the World Cup, so can you imagine? you know, it was it was it was pretty pacey. I mean, these deals normally take months and months and months, and I think I think we did the whole thing in in a week.
Ed (39:43.083)
Yeah. No I can, yeah, yeah.
Ed (39:53.513)
No, and I remember when we were texting on Monday and you sort you sort of dropped that. Well, right, we need to record this quick, get this out. So no, look, I appreciate that. I appreciate you getting your time this week. And other than that, I will see you in Amsterdam on Sunday for IAX Burnley.
Tony (40:01.383)
Pleasure.
Tony (40:05.723)
Where where where we will go and see Burnley take on the mighty Ajax of Amsterdam and almost certainly almost certainly unsuccessfully exactly.
Ed (40:10.273)
Yeah. Not massively hopeful at the moment with the yeah, new manager and half a team. But yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Look, thank you so much for your time. Like I said, anyone who hasn’t seen the previous episode, it will be in the show notes. look, right, everyone knows the goal hanger portfolio, rest is football, rest is history, rest is politics, rest entertainment, rest is science. Like the list goes on. so many successful podcasts that are definitely worth a listen. You know, great personalities, but also so informative.
So I would absolutely recommend and we can put a few of those links in there as well. any questions, any feedback, if you want to feature as a guest, you can ha email us at hello attention shift dot media or you can message me on LinkedIn. But all I’ve got to say is Tony, thank you so much for your time and see you again soon.
Tony (40:52.135)
Been a pleasure, Red. See ya soon.
- Tags: Brands & Agencies, Creators, Media Networks, Sports
