Expert Women and TV's Profit and Loss
Lis Howell and Scott Bryan join Matt Deegan on The Media Club
It was good to welcome back City University’s Professor Emeritus Lis Howell and TV writer Scott Bryan to The Media Club this week. Lis has been working on the Expert Women Project for over ten years, tracking the male/female split on the big news shows. As we talk about on the podcast, it’s getting better, but men still appear twice as often as women.
TV economics is constantly changing and broadcasters are buffeted by the state of the video advertising market and what the streamers are doing to budgets and audiences. This week we’ve seen Channel 4 lose £52m whilst Netflix UK made £46m. We discuss whether C4 can prosper in the digital world.
It’s not just the business model that’s different at the streamers, their commissioning strategy is different too. Netflix’s Kaos is the latest show to be cancelled after one season and just five weeks after it started airing. Scott tells us why.
He’s also seen Rivals, the new Disney+ show based on the Jilly Cooper book. It, bizarrely, has the business of ITV franchises as its backdrop. Yes, really! It’s almost like the producers had Media Club listeners in mind.
Remember you can watch the show on our YouTube channel or through Spotify and you can listen on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music (where it’s mainly ad-free if you’re a Prime member) or hey, on this post too.
Further reading:
Expert Women Project findings
Meanwhile: Netflix profits and cancels Kaos
The new Disney+ show based in 80s regional TVland: Rivals