The Economist goes indie

No AI deals. No sacred cows. Just a Substack experiment to reach new readers without undercutting the mothership.

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This week, collaboration was the keyword. Find out why👇

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🎬 A new chapter in animation

The Mark Gustafson Stop-Motion Studios just opened at GOBELINS Paris, co-funded by Guillermo del Toro and Netflix. Named in tribute to the late Mark Gustafson, co-director of Pinocchio, the studio celebrates his legacy and commitment to the art of stop-motion.

At a time when studios are cutting animation jobs and leaning on generative AI for ideation or rendering, this move celebrates craft. Del Toro and Netflix are betting on human artistry, tactile storytelling and the enduring emotional depth of stop-motion.

→ Meet the best animation school in the world for the 5th consecutive year and read the findings from Luminate on Animation jobs in the age of AI.

📰 BBC.com becomes a full experience

BBC.com just added documentaries for U.S. subscribers (over 1,600 hours of premium storytelling). By integrating premium documentary content, the BBC is hedging against “pure text-news” decline and is better positioned to retain existing users, attract new ones, and diversify revenue streams.

Traffic is already booming, with BBC.com ranked #10 in the U.S. “News & Media Publishers” category with 512.1 million visits and a 15.8% increase month-on-month).

→ Explore BBC.com’s new doc hub.

🎤 Meet Banijay’s Creator Lab

During MIPCOM 2025, I was lucky to interview Justine Ryst (MD YouTube France & Southern Europe), Alexia Laroche-Joubert (CEO Banijay France) and creator SparkDise about their Creator lab initiative (5 creators, 5 Banijay IPs, 5 pilots, 50K€ budget per pilot), a sandbox to test how TV storytelling and creator culture can meet halfway.

Their MIPCOM talk proved creator-producer-platform partnerships are no longer theory, they’re a new model in the making.

→ Read the 6 key takeaways from fellow industry analyst, Yann Colleter.

📺 Scale scale for Titan Ads

Titan Ads, the adverting arm of Titan OS, is looking for scale to get brands and agencies’ attention:

• They are now the exclusive sales partner for Tubi ad inventory in the UK;

• They will monetise TiVo OS across Europe, creating a unified buying route to premium CTV inventory.

Titan OS says they have 9M users in the region, TiVo 4M MAUs, Tubi doesn’t break down UK monthly active users.

Collaboration > fragmentation to unlock $$.

🇫🇷 Telcos hold their line on SFR

Since 2012, France’s telecom market has been locked in a brutal price war. The arrival of Free Mobile that year (with a subscription priced, get this, at 2€ per month) triggered a wave of deep discounts as the four-player market (Orange, SFR, Bouygues, Free) battled for share.

Bouygues Telecom, Free (Iliad) and Orange aren’t backing down. After Altice France rejected their first €17 billion offer for SFR, the three operators confirmed they’re maintaining their bid and still hope to open “constructive dialogue” with Altice and its shareholders.

The French government says it’ll be “extremely vigilant” about consumer pricing and service quality if the deal proceeds. Meanwhile, unions are warning of potential thousands of job cuts should a dismantling occur.

→ Read Le Monde’s full coverage (in French but Google translate is your friend).

🤖 How Prisma Media is betting on GEO

Prisma Media just launched Content for LLM, the first offer helping brands rank inside AI answers. Think SEO but for ChatGPT, Mistral or Perplexity.

Audits, LLM-optimised content creation and post-campaign measurement, all powered by Minddex.ai. For a minimum of €10 K, your brand could start showing up where it matters more and more.

→ Grab a free GEO audit here.

🧭 The Economist in a post-search world

President Luke Bradley-Jones says no to AI licensing deals (for now). Instead, The Economist is doubling down on what AI can’t replicate: human-crafted journalism.

Its new Substack, Off the Charts, targets niche audiences without cannibalising core subs. Here’s how it works:

• On Substack, free subscribers get the main weekly newsletter; the paid tier (£7/month or £70/year) unlocks full archives, comment sections and two bonus data-journalism pieces a week.

• The full annual subscription to The Economist runs at about £167.30 for the first year (then £239+), so this is a significantly lower-bar offer aimed at a distinct reader profile.

• The strategy is explicit: “We think there’s a really large potential audience on Substack … but also … the audience we’re going after is not going to spin down from The Economist to take out a Substack subscription.”

While platforms like Netflix or Disney+ keep fighting to pull users into a single, all-you-can-watch environment, The Economist is testing a looser model, one that meets readers where they already are, with a product built for their specific interests and price sensitivity.

→ Listen to his “no sacred cows” approach to grow The Economist.

🗳️Poll time:

That’s it for today. Enjoy your weekend and see you on Tuesday for a Deep Dive edition of Streaming Made Easy Premium.