TellyCast: The content industry podcast

Rachel Riley has spent 18 years on Countdown. Now she is fronting The Maths of Everything, a weekly YouTube series and podcast made with Little Dot Studios, the team behind some of the platform’s biggest science and history channels. In this episode of TellyCast, Rachel explains why maths has been missing from a YouTube factual market that already rewards physics and history, and why Little Dot thinks there is a large audience waiting for it. The format is built to be discovered: topics like ...

In the second part of our MIPCOM 2026 special, Justin Crosby talks to two studio leaders who come to the creator economy from opposite directions. Tanya Cohen spent her career representing film stars and directors at WME and Range Media Partners. In April she left that business to become co-CEO of Made By Us Studios, the LA studio she runs with creator-economy pioneer Leanne Perice. She explains why she made the move, how Dentsu came to back the studio’s slate, and why she thinks advertisers ...

In the first of two TellyCast specials recorded in Cannes at MIPCOM 2026, Justin Crosby talks to the producers, studio founders and agency leaders working out where scripted, social video and brand-funded content meet. Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue of Hartswood Films open the show with Number 10, their new Channel 4 comedy drama set behind the most famous door in Britain. They explain why Downing Street works as a workplace drama, why authentically British shows travel best internationally, an...

Lucy Smith left TV development two and a half years ago to launch Fawkes Digital. The company has just rebranded as Studio Fawkes. It has landed its first linear commission, with street-dating format Date Me Right Now heading to MTV. And Lucy says revenues have tripled in the last six months. In this episode she explains why Studio Fawkes treats brands as broadcasters rather than "a money pot", and why she believes the old-school TV model is "totally dead and wildly unsustainable". She descri...

Rob Rawlings spent 25 years in premium factual TV before co-founding Full Slate Media, a production studio and boutique agency working with creators, brands and digital publishers across YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. His recent LinkedIn post asked whether UK indies have lost their nerve, and he joins Justin Crosby to make the case. They discuss why the old commission-and-sell model is shrinking year on year, why so much post-Edinburgh talk about YouTube has not turned into investment, and ho...