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Conversations about the media economy, and how to think clearly when things get messy.
[00:00:00]
This is Puzzle Problem Mess, conversations about the media economy and how to think clearly when things get messy. In this episode, I'm joined by Claire Enders. Claire is the founder of Enders Analysis, the UK's leading media, telecoms, and technology research firm. Since founding the company in 1997, she's become one of the most influential analysts in the European media sector advising on the economics of television, streaming, digital platforms, and the wider creative industries.
Her work is widely cited by the Financial Times, the Economist, and the BBC. Claire is a fellow of the Royal Television Society and was awarded a CBE in 2024 for services to media. [00:01:00] When I sat down with Claire in early February, 2026, we set out to talk about public service media, its current pressures, the trust question of platform distribution, innovation, and lastly, what all of that means for people building careers in media.
The conversation widened into a much richer exploration of public servers, media's place in a changing Europe, and of the strategic realities now shaping broadcasters platforms and the wider media ecology. So I've separated the conversation into six parts. Part one, public service media at a European Turning Point.
Part two, UK PSB, collective Action. Part three. Platform Economics and Distribution Realism, part four, broadcaster and Streamer Partnerships, part five, trust and [00:02:00] Legitimacy, and Part six, career Development.
This is part one, public Service Media at a European turning point. In this section, Claire starts with an expansive perspective that Europe, including the uk, the Nordics, in what she terms the whole Democratic landmass. Is entering a new security era. America's security backbone is receding. Defense spending is rising, and the public service media angle is that in countries closest to the threat, she names Germany and Poland.
The public broadcasters have actually been strengthened. Claire talks about PSMs as public utilities. Pointing back to COVID when consumption spiked because they were the only place nations could still congregate and share common moments. But Claire also warns about the prevailing political winds [00:03:00] with, for example, a set of countries drifting into explicitly anti PSM pro-Russian posture.
And underneath the PSM model sits in economic erosion of sorts, high debt, weak economies. Relentless cost pressure. And here Claire calls out a distinction between the UK PSMs and most continental PSMs in that the UK PSMs in the main have fallback income with international content distribution businesses, and without that fallback income, the European PSM model is much more exposed.
Here's Claire.
it is now at a turning point in, in European history and I, I, by European, I mean the uk, the Nordics, everywhere.
This whole European landmass, call it what you will. , This democratic landmass, all of them with [00:04:00] PSMs, all of them with different governments, , all of them, , having perhaps driven too far in one direction politically, but all of them brought down with a thump by the necessity to fund their own defense.
And in some cases already doing it such as Poland and Germany.
So we're now starting to live in a time where everybody is starting to get the picture, and it is becoming publicly acknowledged that America has withdrawn its security backbone .
So in places where there has been a visceral feeling of fear about the Ukraine war for four years, such as Germany and Poland, the PSMs have been strengthened, regardless, pretty much of what was happening on the right wing front, [00:05:00] which has been material in both those countries as everywhere else.
So. We're looking at a situation where the PSMs are looking at a world that is very, very rapidly changing and where their own position is actually evolving into that, of being more public utilities as they emerged during the COVID time.
During the COVID time, there was unprecedented consumption of public service media in every European country because it was really the only place where everyone could congregate and even have common moments such as those in Italy that became very famous and so on.
So I think that the general. Picture of very high levels of debt , of very difficult, , economies in Western Europe , has [00:06:00] obviously caused a very, very long-term pressure , on costs on the PSMs, much of which has been very, very beneficial.
Although in some cases it is proved to be too extreme, as we discovered at the BBC when it became clear that removing layers and layers of journalists can also impact on the layers and layers of thinking that should go into editing.
So those PSMs, those what I would call the lead PSM in each country, are also the most exposed and they're also the ones who are most the political football at the center of things when. There is an issue.
But, , it's been a situation where , the European continental PSMs have no fallback income zone, unlike the B-B-C-I-T-V, , channel five, who can actually sell their programs. Channel four is also in a position [00:07:00] of not really owning the IP to many things.
So, that really does mean that they are entirely reliant on locally generated income. And that's why any kind of freezes or, government measures to stop the growth of their debt and all of those issues. So that's a real issue for all of the PSMs in Europe, apart from the uk
The EBU has many, many members and those are all countries that set up public service broadcasting systems of some kind or other in the post-war period, some quite late. Paul City was only set up in 72, for instance, and so on. But these have evolved into what I would call. Fulfilling exactly the same purposes pretty much as the B, B, C and from the get go.
They were all modeled on the BBCI. I have to just say that 'cause the BBC is a hundred years old [00:08:00] and, and therefore in, in 2027 it will,, actually celebrate, , a hundred years as a world charter. And that kind of protection doesn't exist for any other PSM in the world.
And as we saw in the US, NPR was sliced , with a knife and gone in a moment and voted for its dissolution.
I think the EBU is a very interesting thing, , of itself, but it doesn't have a, a political role.
Thank, thank the Lord. It's a gathering place where people exchange ideas, but it's a place where everybody understands that what they're primarily doing is public service. Mm-hmm. They're doing public service. All the people I've ever met in public service broadcasting in Europe are public servants.
,. I mean, there isn't a country in the world where people like to pay taxes as far as I've ever.
Come across , and you can see that very much in the responses to the end of the [00:09:00] license fee in France. It was universally condemned as a tax. And, and so it just proved much safer to put that funding under the Treasury. Where I, I think it's, it's actually more vulnerable because if a prime minister comes along, now this Europe, where every right-wing party is gonna get around 30% of the vote is not a Europe, which is going to do away with PS. That's not gonna happen. Yeah. And also this is not a situation in which those, what I would call red lines around advertising or subscription are gonna come into play.
These are universal services and no one's going to change that, right? There isn't the willing look, took 14 years to get prominence legislation of the line in the uk and a lot of these governments, you look at the French government or the [00:10:00] Czech government, not the Hungarian one that's run by a strong man, but he may be voted out this year.
Who knows? If he's voted out, then you know, there'll be a restoration maybe of the freedom of the media. , 75% of the world's countries live without a free press or without. Free PSM, , they do, and I mean, there are 8 billion people in the world, but Europe is very, very blessed in having these very rich cultural environments that are language driven and where, you can't really prosper in Germany unless you know perfect German and have a PhD.
There has been around 30% voting, , for extreme right parties , in selected elections that we've seen over the last, , period. That's not true of every single country, , but it is true of, of certainly of all of those border regions. And then we've also seen this extraordinary split away of Slovakia [00:11:00] Czechia, and Hungary in particular, , into a very strong group of kind of anti PSM countries , and friends of Russia.
So which who are net recipients of eu, , funds , as so many in the EU are.
,
Part two, UK PSB Collective Action. In this section, we talked around the topic of how the UK broadcast sector is unusually good, a collective defense. Even as rivals, as Claire tells it, the UK has done something.
Other European markets have rarely managed. The UK's rival PSBs have repeatedly acted together to defend the free to wear broadcast system. PSBs still appear first on pay TV platforms and connected TVs, and there are still millions of households who [00:12:00] have never subscribed to the global streamers. Claire also talks about how Sky has made a very important contribution to the strength of the PSB sector with the run of pay content agreements from 2016 onwards, bolstering the finances and consumer engagement of the UK PSBs.
This sort of coordinated defense between the PSBs and Sky has versus been key to establishing the UK as a favored global production base.
In every country. , The PSMs appear first, on every single TV set and on every platform. We haven't seen how the prominence regime will evolve,
, 80% penetration of connected TV sets, , about eight 90% penetration of smartphones, et cetera. So there are still [00:13:00] seven and a half million households in the UK that have never subscribed to any service at all. Right. So, so those people have not subscribed. And I would say that's the smallest percentage in all of these in what I would call the mainland European countries of bulk, .
And the UK which has put on the shoulders of PSBs, , pure PSBs, in particular, channel four in the BBC. The leveling up strategy of moving the cultural pulses of the country up to Glasgow, Cardiff, Leeds, Manchester, and so forth. Basically, this has been a 25 year project, and that has been on the shoulders of the pure public service broadcasters instead of the commercial PSBs.
Now obviously elsewhere in Europe, the distinctions between [00:14:00] these two sectors have blurred a little bit. , And most unfortunately, because, , in the UK it has been possible for the PSMs to launch Freeview collectively in 2002. And to spend 15 years collectively arguing for prominence on connected TV sets.
So there's a lot of collective action, , in terms of spectrum management, in terms of innovation that is very assistive to the PSMs as a whole. In the uk every innovation is copied eventually. , For instance, the first major innovation as a whole in the PSM system, apart from Freeview, was the move onto special deals with Sky, , in particular from 2016 onwards, STV, channel four, then the B, B, C, and then finally [00:15:00] ITV.
And, , you asked such an interesting question in the lead up email, which was, . What should they have done that's different or what could they have done? And it was like, I was thinking he's going to say, shouldn't the BBC iPlayer have become the number one iPlayer?
Why does the market have six different players in the market? Well, that's a long story, but, , and obviously we had a change of government in 2010. , Mark Thompson resigned in 2012 and went to the us, there was a, a gap. And then Lord Hall took over. And there was a very long period of, let us call it existential crisis from 2016 onwards for Channel four and the BBC.
But it was always there and , it was on the table [00:16:00] in the manifesto in 2010 in that election that there would be no more license fee. It was redundant. So a lot of strategic things have happened, regardless of what I would call this existential crisis through which the BBC and Channel four to some degree have lived through until the appointment of Sir Jeremy Hunt as chancellor in 2022.
That was the end of the whole set of issues around that. I myself have always believed that the BBC Mischievously misled the other PSMs into believing that they would be allowed to join in order to stop them from sorting out their own. And finally, channel four. Figured it out and decided that actually it would do its own.
, It really was attacking the streaming piece very early on and having figured out that the portal of the iPlayer [00:17:00] was closed regardless of how many times it looked like the door was crack open.
The others obviously took their own time to launch , their own players. Uh, ITV was very, late into the game and so on and so forth, but it has developed well. . , The limit of what they can do was exemplified by the partnership signed earlier this year. To sell all of that inventory together, all the commercial PSM inventory to sell all that together is perfectly sensible.
It has been, I think, 12 years since the titles put all of their digital inventory into ozone. So, uh, these kinds of things make an enormous amount of sense, but you don't see them widely discussed elsewhere in Europe. You just don't. I mean, this very commercial market with huge numbers of players, the UK is a market worth fighting for because it has the same level of expenditure on entertainment as the US.
[00:18:00] It's got the highest level of expenditure of any European market by a country mile. And it's a very significant economy. And, it is a favorite place, , for all studios to make material because it is a quarter of the price to make movies here than it is in Hollywood.
The other feature that has happened in the UK that is really material to how the studios see PSM is, is that they've all begun making most of their movies in the UK because it's so much cheaper now. There was the writer strike, there was also the fires in la Right. Which destroyed a lot of stages.
Above all, , the rise of the location drama, the Game of Thrones type thing requires there to be real castles. You can't really do that in Hollywood. So I think Europe as a whole is [00:19:00] prospering because still because the streamers and the PSMs are shoulder to shoulder in holding up locally made material from Tata to Northern Ireland.
, And there are incredible tax breaks to do that. So I think that that move to make in Europe, which started really around 2017, Sky. Spent 15 years investing in its giant studios where it makes extraordinary material. And I believe I've heard it is its stages are booked until 2030. So, it's actually, top end, CGI,, and combined, , activities such as Sky Studios has, that makes it a scale player in production in Europe.
That's very convenient for Comcast because, , universal movies are made, in Europe to a great degree. So I [00:20:00] think that the production side of the equation has benefited a lot from the fact that the PSMs are not having to support all of the investment that is required. In a talent pool,, a future group of people who can be actors and, and technicians and so on.
I think that the UK is, is way ahead of other countries in terms of doing that. And the, , the expansion of creative hubs , has been extraordinarily successful in the uk, but that would not be possible without an export market that we really have.
That would not be possible without YouTube being a substantially decent partner for PSMs. These things have to exist.
Part three, platform Economics and Distribution Realism. [00:21:00] This section of the conversation with Claire I found particularly interesting as it threads through the most active debates in broadcasting. Now, who is friend and who is foe? Is strategic strength a matter of interdependence or of independence?
Claire's core argument, if I can paraphrase that, is that reach is where the people are so refusing to distribute to platforms just shrinks relevance rather than preserving independence. And the thrust of Claire's commentary here could be interpreted as that. Not engaging with distribution on these platforms is a form of competitive.
Civic self-harm. Claire talks about the BBC's YouTube agreement following the path forged by Channel four, and also Claire's phrase, how Google is rolling out a red carpet for PSMs as its strives to raise the quality of content on its platform. [00:22:00] Claire offers a very clear warning against advertising for the BBC, but strongly advocates for the BBC to increase its news footprint on YouTube, framing it as a civic imperative.
And again, in this segment, Claire returns to the critical role played by Sky, describing sky as a shock absorber of sorts, a sort of quasi industrial partner. That helped extend PSB reach and support bottom lines through COVID, and then the post COVID lull by doubling down on British content and doing additive platform deals.
This is a very rich section. Here's Claire.
That would not be possible without YouTube being a substantially decent partner for PSMs.
And so as a result, the BBC has finally signed an agreement. , With YouTube, which is remarkably like that of [00:23:00] Channel four. It protects their ip, for instance. It gives them a lot of freedom on the data front, et cetera, et cetera. It's a different and distinctive deal because there's nothing that YouTube wants more than to see the PSMs on YouTube because they bring very high quality material.
Right. So, you know, there's a backing away from advertising as a solution completely because it's more than obvious that, well, you just look at the results that just came out meta. Google, , and YouTube.
Well, YouTube belongs to Google, but they derive 90% of their global income from advertising. They're incredibly effective at advertising. And Amazon built a 70 billion business , in the space of 10 years in the us. So the real competition is totally digital. And, and that's not a place where the BBC [00:24:00] is, in my view, should even touch with a long barge pole.
I think that the BBC is right to be doing this deal with YouTube and, you know, there are many, many PSMs in Europe that are like going like, you know, that is Satan.
What you're doing is Satan. And they don't understand A, that the BBC will have IP protection. That Google is putting out a red carpet for the BB, C and a red carpet for channel four to protect them and wants them to have a sustainable presence. It did this with the studios before, and the studios all have their things.
They bring the ability , to raise the level of very high quality British material. They've understood that property position that does well. I think Google in particular has been a pains to appear here, and particularly through YouTube, throughout [00:25:00] Europe as a good citizen that works with. Law enforcement on things like pornography, that is conscious , of the limits of its own model, of very short form.
We've seen, , the length of episodes rise, the professionalism , of those organizations, , that they are trying to attract has risen. They also have an eye on Gemini. They would dearly like to get their hands on the archive of the bbc. And Channel four last has no archive to offer. But, there is a lot of interest from Google in working with the PSMs and we've seen that time and time again.
That's also a very attractive destination for young men. You know that there are a lot of new things happening all the time that are drawing the young away from hour long material there. I think the average length of episode that people are [00:26:00] watching the UK has now gone to , 12 minutes on YouTube.
But it shows you that they're watching a real segment of something. But that's a long way from an hour format. It's a long way.
All of these very, very material ways of extending the reach of individual programs and. If I could characterize where public service media have been, has been going since 2010, it is towards the rest of the world and all the other platforms. Facebook, , channel four was a pioneer of putting its news on Facebook because that would allow it to extend its reach.
That's part of its remit is to go where the kids are. It has also been the pioneer, , on YouTube. It is the pioneer in stating that it will be a digital first broadcaster by 2030. , It has a very substantial business in digital advertising, around [00:27:00] 30% of its income. So Channel four has gone where its remit has taken it and, and it has done so very successfully, and everybody has looked at that, seen the terms of the arrangements and said, right, I like that, or, I don't like that, or, I'm going there.
And I know that YouTube, , is seeking to roll out the strategy elsewhere. And I'm sure that the PSMs in Europe will be looking to the UK and seeing that this is really the way to go. I mean, this has just got to be the way to go and, , that is going to mean that the BBC has material that is also consumable by the rest of the world on YouTube. And which is IP protected. And that will also, , 11, the mix, because obviously, it won't surprise you to know that, around 76% of all material consumed by Americans on YouTube is American material.
Um, certainly here this has been a very significant change and a, a very, very [00:28:00] positive one because the UK is the only country in Europe where. The majority of news that is consumed on YouTube here is of American origin. , We're talking about 60%. , That includes a lot of influencers who have become very, very significant in the us, Joe Rogan and so forth, and Andrew Tate and all of that.
These influencers that have political bandwidth, have played a very significant role in the uk. It's, it's, to my mind, absolutely imperative for the BBC to put, , consumable news, which it has really thought through very carefully from its vast array of material that it puts together.
And, put that squarely in front , of the audience so that they could find it. So that's my argument about PSM. If you take it away, you're taking away from the choice on that platform. If you're not [00:29:00] putting it there, you're failing to reach the entire audience that you could. And I've made that argument from the first to the B, B, C as to channel four.
And I managed to succeed in convincing channel four on, the Facebook thing. And David Abraham, bless him, was someone who was very, very far thinking and far seeing, and he which was very, very material, is very material to channel four. And so I think that we have had a great deal of good fortune in having Sky in the UK as a kind of a tent, , really.
Assisting the bottom lines of all the PSMs through this period, because Sky was going very, very deep with British material in order to front up against the streamers who were going very, very big into the market with breaking bad and stranger things and all kinds of stuff that was, is very, very American.
And of course there was the crown, which itself [00:30:00] is kind of an American take, I guess. And so I think that sky doubling down on British content and doing all these platform deals that were very additive, , and these, these are really, have really greatly extended the reach.
Mm-hmm. Along with the platform relationship with Scott, I can't see how Channel four would've made it through COVID and the last years of stasis in the TV market. After the COVID bump.
Part four broadcaster and Streamer Partnerships. This section is a very illuminating commentary on the evolving studio tech streaming model and how it's heading towards more of a strategic accommodation with the broadcast model. Claire looks at the IP chain of a TV show or film, and how studios and streamers are realizing they need the whole chain again, faster [00:31:00] windowing, revived, licensing and partnerships designed to keep franchises alive, not held captive inside one subscription service.
Claire discusses Disney's different partnerships with Channel four and ITV as good illustrations of this shift. Claire's main theme is that a TV or film project that is truly expensive needs broadcast scale exposure at some point in its consumer audience lifecycle. It's a fascinating passage. Here it is.
There's an enormous amount of material, , on Sky, for instance, which, , has very, very high quality values and which, which could sit very nicely on ITV down the road or on Channel four.
What Disney is doing with Channel four. It's a top partner. It's going to have a lot of movies. It had a lot of movies at Christmas. It has a lot of different series.
[00:32:00] Channel four is the designated top partner of Disney in the UK because it's got that young audience and, .
Disney is prepared to go a long way to supporting Channel four in bringing it extremely high quality marquee material after it is transitioned through streaming at the rate of knots, which is unfortunately the case. This material is very front loaded and therefore. It's very hard to keep the attention of the streaming audience for any period of time.
What ITV is doing with Disney Plus is getting very nice, very fresh, very good quality titles in small number to speckle on ITVX.
that is very, that speaks very much to what I would say is the desire of all creators of very high quality material, and especially the studios to kickstart franchises again.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So [00:33:00] material is transitioning very fast through the IP chain and there seems to be no reason in the world why this material should not alleviate the cost of making all your stuff. So that fundamental pivot by the studios that we've really seen with Disney. Really all of them saying, well, we've got to absolutely reboot our sales to broadcasters.
And that is above all the number one thing to do. In a world where you've got less resource, whatever resource you spend on ip, you must make absolutely sure that IP is protected all the way through the chain. And that it is exploited to the last breadth of its possibility. And that's where we've seen really interesting innovative arrangements such as that between and Netflix, , where there is a broadcast window for material that is lying in what Netflix refers to as the dead zone.
[00:34:00] And that's the reality. Everybody has to use the material that they have created over these years and use, use it much more wisely , and also alleviate. The sameness of Netflix or the sameness of Channel four, when it had to depend on its own resources, , it lacked spice. I mean, there's no chance that the UK broadcasting scene could recover from lack of access to very high quality American series , and movies in a way that it had always relied on.
Whether it was for the Christmas specials or for this, or for that, it is always alleviated and brought marquee value to these broadcasters and they lost that. Now, that said, the PSMs in the uk, regardless of this onslaught of 350 billion of American capital spent on making stuff [00:35:00] for by the streamers , in this last decade, despite that, they still have 70%.
Of viewing in the UK and elsewhere, the PSMs have higher levels of viewing because, , people are much less habituated to, to subscription. Netflix is the only subscription service with Disney that has managed very complex partnership arrangements , to reach many people. And so they're clearly the winners, , of the streaming wars as far as anyone can tell in the global space that's done and dusted now . Of course, , Amazon can spend what it wants to spend. It has ginormous revenues in the uk, 70 billion in 2025. It's a rounding error to spend what they spend , on material, and, , they have the viewership to show for it.
And how do you do that where you can't do it on a [00:36:00] streaming service? 'cause you don't get the bulk and the reach, you can't do it at the cinema because you killed the cinema during the COVID. How can you do it? You've got to get on the broadcasters because whether it's in the UK where they collectively account for 70% of old video viewing of long form, what is a movie long form.
For the studios and for Netflix, they're long form. Is ideally suited to the broadcaster audience and the broadcaster profile, which in some countries basically is 90% reach, 95% reach, which is very, very valuable when you want to reboot your unbelievably expensive franchises.
Whether it's, you know, the new series that's gonna come out from Warner Brothers on Harry Potter, the first 10 parter, which is coming out in January. , They're going to want to sell that through their [00:37:00] subscription service, which one can only describe as nascent in Europe and somewhat more significant in the us.
, And then, , they will want to put it on, on, on broadcast for sure. They desperately, because actually we're seeing. The attrition , is lessening. The attrition from the streamers is really, that time has passed. They're, they're busy selling advertising and that layer and, and trying to hold on in a cost of living crisis that is now turning into fear of all forms of expenditure and consumption in Europe, which is typical of what you would call a war economy.
We absolutely must move away from,, believing that people could take out six subscriptions in order to get material from six different studios. That's ridiculous. So that pivot away from that me first me only [00:38:00] strategy that Disney exemplified, that Netflix exemplified. Well, that's been something that is there because , this material , has downstream value to an audience that has never had a chance to see it.
Hmm. The new head of RTL, , Kim Mobi described the German economy and the situation of RTL as being one of three years of recession. , They're more than happy to be the top home for the studios, and the studios are looking for very large scale audiences. Where are they gonna get them?
But RTL, the ITV Channel four, the be. So there's, as you know, , been an extraordinary, , and huge outbreak of co-productions. , That's the only way to make very high marquee material today, , with any hope. So, , I think people are, have been pursuing for five years of strategy. Sorry, the major producers, major, major, major producers have been produc producing less [00:39:00] material, but much more focused, , material.
And across the piece that hasn't led to any lessening, uh, of the variety. It's just caused a doubling of the availability of drama. But as I will explain to you very quickly, it will not surprise you that. , Across Europe and in the uk, the top reasons people give for paying a, a license fee or for supporting a payment for PSM, which is another way to ask the question when the treasury is taken over as they have in France, is they say the, , so what people are really interested in and, and I have to say they put drama in the UK above news.
Okay. They put BBC drama as the top draw. So the BBC is very fortunate in having a [00:40:00] commercial arm that is so significant that it can effectively make and then license to the BBC material that the BBC can no longer pay for and has not been able to pay for on its own for a decade. Mm-hmm. And so commercial BBC, commercial BBC studios does the deals.
With Netflix and with Disney to carve up the costs. But the BBC , is effectively co-producing all of its major dramas and documentaries with a huge range of partners. It has, as we know., I think it's halfway through a 10 year, , deal with discovery on, on documentaries and so on. And, , documentary, , material is extraordinarily expensive to produce and it suits discovery to have a global audience for it.
And it suits the BBC to have the UK audience for it. So the BBC commercial arm is not making a lot of money out of selling attenberg to the world anymore, [00:41:00] but at least the British public is still getting the highest quality natural history programming from all the new presenters and so on because of this JV with discovery.
So, you know, that's something that. People don't really quite understand this is, is that the license fee is paying for only a small part of the BBC in total, it's around 1.8 billion. That's the TV bit and all the other services cost real money. That is all really a reflection of the superb management and contribution that BBC studios is able to make to , the drama piece., On BBC, on services that are universally available.
part five, trust and Legitimacy. In this section, we turned to the topic of trust, [00:42:00] institutional trust rarely, and how PSBs are facing an era. Where trust in all civic institutions, including traditional media, is on the slide. Again, Claire's perspectives here are nuanced.
She covers how national moments including sports coverage help bolster trust, but also how scandals and seemingly permanent controversy are inevitable features of institutions that are so large and with such wide cultural reach. Claire also covers how funding models affect trust with an explicit warning against an advertising model for the BBC and how PSMs almost act as an intermediary between the political discourse taking place on X and the wider audience that's not frequenting the X platform.
Claire also touches on the corrosive effect of piracy on [00:43:00] PSM Trust and funding.
This section finishes with Claire's commentary. On how the UK's brand of news and its comparative trustworthiness on a global scale is creating a vibrant export market in news coverage. Here's Claire for PSMs trust and legitimacy.
I think another thing that has protected the PSMs , in continental Europe and, to some degree in the UK , is the rights protection around top tournaments, football tournaments in particular.
That I think has helped PSMs to continue to offer a range of national moments, which are very, very fundamental to the trust in the institution as a whole. Separate from that is trust in news, which as I said, if you're [00:44:00] big and you have a huge reach, you're going to attract an awful lot of attention, and you're going to be at the end of a lawsuit from President Trump eventually.
If you're significant enough and big enough, you may get it in the teeth unless you're owned by an oligarch, in which case he thinks about it. Several, for several minutes.
We have definitely seen that there are, there are two areas that diminish, , and shake institutions whatsoever. They are. And in the UK we have pre sex presenter scandals on. Broadcasters as a whole, the major broadcasters that crop up with tremendous regularity and are a universal feature of the people who go into show business or whatever it is.
So those are [00:45:00] universally cropping up. The BBC may have more than itvs lot for all I know. However, as you can see in the trust charts, all public service broadcasting is actually highly trusted. , And the BBC is more controversial and occupies a huge amount of space, , online, on tv, , on radio.
That that amount of floor space means that it's much more controversial and it bumps into this. 30% of the population here, like everywhere else in Europe that say that they're going to vote reform, right? Or 29%. It varies between 27 and 29%, 30%. So that sort of core of what I would call people who live in the dimension of MAGA or some version of [00:46:00] that, , those people have signed off the BBC and probably are the people who tick the box and say, I don't use any BBC services, even if they listen to the radio in their car.
So that, so what we've seen is a rise in people across Europe who are basically saying, I don't wanna pay, or I don't wanna do this, or I don't wanna do that. Not in Germany. But you know, obviously , in other countries which are still license fee based, there's been a rejection of, of payment, of license fee to such an extent.
I think the other point to make, which I think is fundamental, is that wherever there have been bad political problems, they have been caused by, , advertising becoming disproportionate on P PSMs. Pure PSMs lead PSMs, in my opinion, in my view, should never take an ad.
And if you look at the [00:47:00] decline in trust and in willingness to pay for Italian psm. It started with Bendu a long time ago when it became an ad supported ser, partly ad supported service, and that absolutely destroys the trust in the entity as a whole. So I, I think , it's been right that the French public service media as a whole have completely restricted the minutes, and in some cases remove them.
I think that that's where we've seen the largest erosion of trust. , And politicization has been where the commercially supported, but regulated. PSMs like Dafan, M six, who have regulated. All [00:48:00] of the commercial commercially regulated, broadcasters in Europe, um, there may be too many of them.
Channel four inspired a rash , of lookalikes, like M six. But anyway, , all of them, , really rely absolutely, completely on advertising and, have no buffer zone to sell their programs abroad.
I think that the PSM issue is viewed as a news issue by all the political parties and you, and then they just say, well, you've got all the subscription services that people can subscribe to if they want this kind of drama or that kind of drama.
So you have this, what I would call dichotomy, which has been put forward by reform, which is in which the state will pay for the news bit and the world service bit. , [00:49:00] But all the rest of it will be hid off in a, in a subscription service that will be as accessible to people as say, Netflix is Right.
A choice. So that I think is where that is a more sophisticated model than just getting rid of it, which as I said, was the goal of Robert B's party, which is probably called the Freedom Party for all I know. Um, and, and, and other, you know, the, the, the is is keen. Uh, this is, uh, the Lupin party, uh, now run by Al Bala.
And, they are keen to, to eliminate all forms of public service broadcasting entirely. So just sink the ship. Despite the fact that these are public servants and they have a pension fund deficit. But there you go. As I've often said to those people who say, oh, we can get rid of the BBC tomorrow.
I've always [00:50:00] said, do you know what the pension fund deficit is? And do you know what it peaks 2032? So good luck with that one. In other countries they do not have that, the exposure and the independence of the BBC, , they are public servants, so they can get called, they have very strong unions as all public servants in those European countries tend to have, and, and they have entitlements.
So it's easier said than done to get rid of civil servants. It's much easier to get rid of people in the commercial sector, which is why the consolidation we've seen in Europe has been led by Warner Brothers discovery and. We've really seen the emergence of a kind of global, , semi global force in the zone.
It has bought out small pay TV operators here and there and set itself up as a pay TV operator. Very highly specialized in [00:51:00] sport and, and also managed to penetrate the US market at a superficial level. But, , that kind of model is, is a hybrid model involving advertising, a bit of subscription gambling, and so on and so forth.
So I think that the PSMs are, as a whole going to find that the Ukraine war and the continuation of that and this new phase of the conflict, which is one of, , real change of emphasis, , and a sense that the eu, , certainly as an economic entity has got to be saved. And I think that is a. Something that Mark Carney, , was able to remind the world of and galvanize things.
So there's no question that every single political leader in Europe appears to be [00:52:00] using X as the chief mouthpiece to speak to the Americans and to speak to each other. But when you actually look at the consumption of X in Europe as a whole, it's less than 1% of media time.
So it's not communicating to anybody but the journalists who are all on X and you repeat what's on X. So there is this extraordinary soup of stuff coming out from this place and that place, and actually it's part of every PSMs job is to gather all of this stuff and to make sense of it for people who are getting those services for free and universally.
And also the Trump behavior is deeply unpopular across Europe. So that's another feature which is really interesting, is that there's a decoupling in the UK of the reform voter who likes Farage, and then [00:53:00] 80% of the country completely disapprove of Trump, right? Completely disapprove of his strategy of lack of support of Ukraine.
So we have a country, our country, , which somehow manages to dissociate Farage from Trump on one hand really quickly when Farage himself says, I don't support that position at all on Greenland. How could you, after all, what Farage wants, has always wanted is for the UK to be sort of a bubble that is enclosed, not a bubble that is, is going to be tossed like a bubble in the air.
And certainly the sovereignty of Denmark matters to anyone who's very sovereignty focused. So that's been very, very interesting. , And I think that the right-wing parties as a whole, we've seen something emerge in real life, which I think is a [00:54:00] very interesting and really amusing anecdote for your listeners.
Because it shows where Europe is going in terms of the splits in votes. We have all these communities forming politically that never existed really before, but they've become very, very different so in in Czechia, , Robert Bakshi, the head of the ultra right-wing party, only got a fraction of the votes, 31% and had to form a coalition with the motorists.
Now, the motorists are a group of people who drive cars and HGV in vans, and the only thing they have on their manifesto is better rights for anyone who drives. These people have no interest in the license fee or anything to do with check radio. That's just not part of the deal. , And alas or perhaps, , completely normally the [00:55:00] president of.
Czechia has no interest in dismantling of Czech radio or check TV at all. And his number one issue is the closeness of the Ukraine and Russia to their borders and the issues of defense once the US removes, its from the border with the Ukraine so, or removes its personnel. So, , the president and the parliament are not at all in favor as it turns out of any change in any arrangements.
And what they're really primarily trying to do is focus on the threat from the Ukraine. And the issue of NATO for them is very, very material because they themselves, as everybody knows, are not only net recipients , of EU funds, but also net recipients of NATO support. So. Everyone is trying to grapple with defense [00:56:00] security as, as this kind of Europe thing.
And, there's some countries in Europe where piracy is the number one form of consumption. Italy springs to mind. . And France, France , has more viewing of, of pirated sports, , as does Italy, than it does of legitimate sports. . So there, there are traditions of piracy, , across Southern Europe, which I won't go into, but they may help to explain why, , for instance, pay TV never really took off in those countries, or when it was never viable, , and remains unviable.
The other point to make is, is that these are countries with very shallow traditions of public service broadcasting. , And they were imposed often by what you might call socialist governments. Mm-hmm. And so on. So they, there is a history to the emer, except in Germany there is a history to the [00:57:00] emergence of PSMs, , in some countries, which puts them more in the firing line on the trust issue and where they are deeply distrusted, deeply distrusted, , deeply significant in terms of consumption and deeply distrusted by their listeners on some topics.
That does not stop the fact that in all countries that we're talking about on the continent, but not in the Nordics and not here, but there is simply a huge amount of consumption of traditional material on broadcast huge. So people may bitch like hell about it. But they're certainly glued to it. And you know, and that's also true if Italian made material on YouTube, that's hugely consumed by Italians, they don't consume American material much.
And the same in, in Spain again, , you have very strong language [00:58:00] barrier. So we haven't seen, , that focus.
I have to assure you that it has greatly assisted the top titles and the BB, C, , to be, for the American focus to switch to the UK as a source of intelligent commentary and analysis on what's going on in geopolitics.
, My understanding is, is that both the B, B, C and the FT now have bigger markets in the USA than they do in the UK , for all of their news sources. And have high levels of trust. So the BB, C. It does not have a trust problem in America at all, and it doesn't have a trust problem anywhere else.
So it is, as we know, the most trusted news source in the world. Even though here it plays a different role and it's much deeper. There's an awful lot more of it. , There's a lot of radio, there's [00:59:00] a lot of, space. And also it's, it's a forum for debate and impartiality requires it to feature all these different opinions.
Mm-hmm. Right. , So it, I think it is, it is still managing to do the almost impossible thing of walking that tightrope. Of trying to present facts in an impartial way. And the world is recognizing this in terms of its consumption of the BBC, and particularly with the end of NPR and their website.
When that comes, I think we'll see more of that. Certainly. We've really seen a wave of interest from America, which is what I would say is that it doesn't matter what the numbers really look like. They're not that significant, but it's who it is. So if every chief executive in America now subscribes to the FT and so on, well it gives you an idea of the impact that the FT is having in terms of [01:00:00] how it's setting opinions and so on and so forth.
And that is a tone that is very similar to the BBC's tone. And also the FT is one of the few newspapers in the world not owned by an oligarch. It's owned by an employee owned organization called McKay. So I think that people do recognize that if there isn't an oligarch string attached to a medium, then that medium should have more trust in it.
, I have to say the rise of reform in the last four years has cost the BB, C in trust terms, and I don't find that surprising because it's identical in every European country. It's not a failure of the BB, C, it's simply Y people who are consuming X and YouTube and in fact are. Really devoted followers of every single word that Farra says, or the equivalent [01:01:00] in particular.
, There's no question that, for instance, C News, which is a right wing version of Fox News, , is a vanity project. , It doesn't break even. Excuse me. It makes a little bit of money. It's hard to put ads on news as Al Jazeera found. But the fact of the matter is, is that C News has a very disproportionate effect, a little bit like GB news, because it galvanizes a certain percentage of the audience to watch an awful lot of it.
And those people real really like it the way it is, but it's completely insignificant numbers. I mean, so insignificant as to be a rounding error. And so we haven't seen. Even very well-funded efforts like GB News and C News take off. , They hold up, but they haven't taken off. Is that because people just like to disagree with their public service broadcasters that they [01:02:00] know and love?
Who knows, they like to shout at the TV or at the radio. Who knows? But that's what they're really doing in terms of consumption. The consumption profile remains absolutely overwhelmingly PSM throughout the European, , continent.
Part six, career development. This final section, which is a staple for all guests on this podcast is where I've asked Claire for her advice to those early or mid-career in media how to think about the road ahead. Go ahead and listen. It's a succinct blend of caution and optimism. With traits like originality, taste, skill, and entrepreneurialism, remaining hallmarks of a successful media career.
I don't know if I run a medium or an institution, because it's going to be 30 years old next year, and only 4% of companies founded in the UK [01:03:00] make their 30th birthday. We produce very high quality research and it's picked up by the FT and Bloomberg and Reuters and the Wall Street Journal, and by the finest minds in the world.
We have our niche. We only speak to experts who know how to read very long form, who are very interested in data, who are interested in having. A fundamental knowledge of the system's driving consumption and a fundamental ability to grasp the larger picture and the smaller picture. And the average age of our readership is around 45.
I have absolutely no fear. They're all people who are in a position of decision making. 50 million people in the world subscribe to all the publications that there are to subscribe to, and I'm sure they're all the same people. , There's a huge overlap between the Ft, the [01:04:00] Economist and The Guardian and the New York Times.
, I would say that there are a lot of ways, , to become part of the media ecology, and certainly I would say that in this country, the National Film and Television School. Has been a driving force in equipping young people, not with a university degree, but much more pertinently with the skills that are in really great demand script writing, editing, all this stuff.
So, I'm sure that they can all figure out how to use ai, but I can tell you for nothing that originality, , and care is, is not quickly going to be replaced. What is being very rapidly replaced by AI in Europe is the use of certain types of locations and certain types of things, [01:05:00] which can be replicated by.
Very high quality ai. So there's, there's going to be a change in the need for extras and ships and sails and things like that because all of that can be done in a different way. So I, I think that the production ecology will remain a very good place for certain kinds of people who wanna do that kind of skill-based, , development, and that it will be a very safe place to, have a career because you're doing what you love.
And I have no doubt that where we have got to in terms of overall production in the PSMs on the continent in the US is pretty much where we're going to be, with the exception of two. Where the growth there will be in more professionally made content, , the Steve Bartletts and so on of this world.
Those are organizations really worth looking at and joining. There are a lot of, , [01:06:00] creative enterprises on YouTube that have incredible, , ambition backing, , vision. , And , I would say that there are opportunities for people who know how to reach out on LinkedIn. , There are opportunities for people who know how to think, , because above all, the thing that nobody can cope with is repetition and absence of originality is, is just impossible.
Of course, lack of originality is the key flaw of all AI engines. They are repetitive post hoc pattern spotters and, they're rather dull. , So I would honestly say to everybody, , who is looking at this extraordinary world, there are so many different entry points. , The FT runs this [01:07:00] game for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
, The NFTS, , national Film Intelligence School has set up a program with YouTube and the BBC to train people in Glasgow and Leeds, in Manchester. , In making short form there, there are a lot of schemes to join there. There are a lot of good titles. There are a lot of good broadcasters. .
There's still opportunities in PSM. , They are taking people who are prepared to accept that they will never have a pension. Well, welcome to the real world of commercial life. , They're getting rid of as many of the elderly that they have on the books that they can, and that's true of PSM as a whole.
, So there, there are always going to be great opportunities for people who can think. And I would say that actually anyone with a great education already, , and who is well versed, , , and looking at 30, , I would avoid, , like the plague thinking that you have a future in an advertising agency.
That would be the [01:08:00] one area that I would just say is just no go, because. We've gotta a wait for all of that wave to pass over them for there to be anything left to join. , I think they're the most exposed of all with their business model. But as I said, , in, if anyone had said to anyone else, particularly Bill Gates, who said that nobody would be reading newspapers by the year 2000, that the UK titles as a whole make more money than they have ever made in their lives.
These are really significant enterprises and the radio companies, Bower and Global, are making more money than than they've ever made in their lives, and their revenue will grow by 4% this year. Okay. For old media, that's not too bad. , And so I think we have an adaptive mindset in the UK and Australia and other [01:09:00] places, and an entrepreneurial spirit.
And I think you have to lean into that. I think you have to lean into being yourself, , and always follow your heart, Claire. And thank you very much for your expansive expertise on this topic and your time this morning. Thank you, Dan.
That was Claire Enders. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. I'm Dan Fahy. The original music in this podcast was by Lee Rosevere and So Cow. And if you think a colleague or friend would enjoy this episode, please pass it on.