The spectre of AI, a stubbornly sluggish advertising market and the latest historic sex scandal loomed over the great and the good of the television industry at the RTS Cambridge Convention this week.

Advertising slowdown
The first half of 2023 was extremely challenging for UK broadcasters. Economic turmoil, rapid inflation and, if not quite a collapse, then certainly a dramatic reduction in the advertising market has seen broadcasters and producers’ costs escalate and revenues decline – never a happy sum.

The summer is always a quiet time for new commissions but this year’s hiatus was more severe and lasted for longer. Channel 4 bore the brunt of the criticism but it wasn’t the only company rowing back on commissioning, as chief content officer Ian Katz was keen to point out. Trades union Bectu has been sounding the alarm bell about lack of work for freelancers at exactly the point rent, mortgage payments, food costs and utilities are spiralling and the Film & TV Charity has opened up a larger hardship fund amidst a rush of applications.

ITV’s Carolyn McCall speaking at the RTS Cambridge Convention

The light at the end of the tunnel, it was hoped, was something of an advertising recovery in the second half of the year. In Germany, RTL Group and ProSiebenSat.1 have both been forecasting a happier end to 2023 after aggressively revising financial predictions downwards over the first six months of the year.

It was hardly reassuring, then, to hear ITV CEO Carolyn McCall talk in such gloomy tones about the hopes of a recovery in the short term. As recently as last month, when ITV reported its half-year results, McCall said she expected the soft linear ad market to bounce back later in the year, but this week she said in her keynote session: “Advertising revenue is a drag for us and it’s dragging our results down.

“It’s disappointing because there was not one negative forecast from economists or the government for the second half, but that really hasn’t materialised. It’s a great shame because, for a commercial PSB [public service broadcaster] like ITV, ad revenue is very important. When that market is good, everyone smiles at ITV and it’s a sunny place. The government talks about growth all the time, but what are the initiatives?

“Economically, the UK is doing worse than every single European country other than Germany. I don’t know what’s going to get us out of this stagnant and quite gloomy situation.”

Alex Mahon promised a full inquiry into Russell Brand’s time at C4

The Russell Brand exposé-wosy
The spectre of Russell Brand loomed large over the whole event this week. The comedian, actor and presenter was the subject of a 90-minute Dispatches special by Channel 4 and a Sunday Times investigation over the weekend, accusing him of rape and the sexual assault and emotional abuse of multiple women. His former employers at the BBC, Channel 4 and Banijay have all promised swift and thorough inquiries and, as one would expect, BBC director general Tim Davie and Channel 4 CEO Alex Mahon were quick to speak out abut the issue on stage this week.

Davie has announced a review of Brand’s time at the corporation, to be led by Peter Johnston, director of editorial complaints, and hasn’t ruled out an external probe. He said: “We can’t be complacent this is not an issue that can be put down as wholly historic. There have been deep problems with misogyny and abuse of power. We just have to be utterly vigilant, be unaccepting of it and create a culture in which there is trust that people who bring information forward are treated very seriously. My instinct is that there are significant problems, but I’ve also seen significant progress. We’re committed to change.”

BBC director general Tim Davie

Mahon described the allegations as “horrendous,” saying: “As CEO of Channel 4 and as a woman in this industry, I found the behaviour described disgusting and saddening. The allegations will, of course, be followed up thoroughly. These are not empty words or gestures – they are what is meant by our duty of care.”

The former CEO of Shine Group, which merged with Big Brother producer Endemol in 2014, added: “What is clear to me is that terrible behaviour towards women was historically tolerated in our industry. The behaviour is less prevalent now, but it’s still a problem and is something that we must confront.”

Brand denies the allegations and blames dark forces within the “mainstream media” for coming to get him because of his new gig peddling conspiracy theories on YouTube – which has suspended earnings from his account. The elephant in the room, though, as with Harvey Weinstein and so many others caught up in the #metoo movement, is that his behaviour was no secret for many years.

Back in 2008, Brand was suspended by the BBC over his role in the so-called Sachsgate scandal, when Brand and fellow Radio 2 DJ Jonathan Ross made a series of phone calls to actor Andrew Sachs in which Brand alleged on air that he had had sex with Sachs’ granddaughter. It is now 2023.

Artificial intelligence
Is the technology currently exorcising the industry on both sides of the Atlantic a friend or foe? Writers on strike in the US worry it’s coming to take their jobs, and the Writers Guild of America is fighting for clauses in its new deal to restrict its use. Quite how pleased they’ll have been to hear Liberty Global’s CEO and vice-chairman Mike Fries singing its praises from the stage in Cambridge one can only imagine.

Mike Fries said he was ‘excited’ by the prospect of AI

The US executive, whose UK assets include Virgin Media and stakes in ITV and All3Media, claimed AI will augment rather than replace humans in creative industries such as the screen sector. Fries revealed Liberty Global is making significant investments in AI tech, including Metaphysic, the company known for popularising a deepfake TikTok account of Tom Cruise.

“AI is not hype; this is real,” Fries said. “In a decade’s time we’ll look back and see that AI has been more transformational than the internet. ChatGPT was an iPhone moment and I’m personally very excited about this industry. Algorithms sit behind everything and rudimentary AI is in business already, but now we want to amp it up. Liberty Global is investing in a handful of companies in the AI ecosystem, as we not only want to benefit from AI, we want to own a piece of it. I think AI will have a big impact on the creative industries, which is probably frightening for people in this audience, but the tech will augment human intelligence rather than replace us.”

The future of All3Media
Fries was also reasonably candid about the future of European production and distribution group All3Media, which it still owns 50-50 with Warner Bros Discovery, putting ITV back in the frame after the broadcaster had previously rowed back from a potential buyout.

Fries admits Liberty Global’s interests in TV and content represent a smaller share of the company’s interests than in times gone by. “It’s now a smaller piece, but still important,” he said. “When I came into the business, video was 100% of our revenue, now it’s 15%.

“All3Media is an incredible business, with a billion in revenue that’s almost doubled since we’ve been investors. The industry is changing and studios are searching for scale, especially pureplay studios like All3Media. So we decided that this might be a business that has greater value in a larger platform and could be a catalyst for consolidation and really help transform other studio businesses. So [the sale] is bittersweet and let’s see what happens. All3Media is a world-class company and from the interest we’re getting, we’re not the only ones who think that. Pretty much everybody you can think of is interested, even that company that’s here, ITV.”

McCall responded: “All3Media is a great business. We’re monitoring the situation but not actively exploring it. We’ve made it really clear that we want to expand our studios business. We’ve done that very effectively through small acquisitions and organically. We also back talent such as Nicola Schindler’s Quay Productions. That’s worked really well, people coming in and setting up labels internally.”

Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Lucy Frazer

Meet this week’s culture secretary
Lucy Frazer is the UK’s 12th culture secretary in as many years. She has at least been described as a “grown-up politician” by Pact CEO John McVay, which elevates her considerably above several of her predecessors.

Frazer used her address at RTS Cambridge to reveal that her department will undertake a six-month research programme – in collaboration with regulator Ofcom – to examine changing viewing habits, as well as consider the impact new technologies such as AI will have on the screen sector.

“We really want to build a picture of what the future of TV looks like. We’re launching a new project on the future of TV distribution, which will publish later in the autumn. We know that AI is already beginning to transform the way we create and consume media and content. It’s this government’s job to strike the right balance between supporting innovation and protecting rights holders.”