Your archive is not a library, it is a business.
If you have a catalog sitting on a shelf, this episode is for you.
“To be the signal and not the noise is incredibly difficult."
Martin Trickey, Managing Director, Zoo 55
This week I got to do something rare. I listened to my own podcast as a regular subscriber. The latest episode of The Media Odyssey Podcast was recorded at MIP London last week and turns out watching someone else deal with Evan Shapiro is a completely different experience. Highly recommend it!
Martin Trickey runs Zoo 55, ITV Studios’ digital distribution arm, just over a year into the job. Zoo 55 operates across three main pillars: social video on YouTube/Facebook and co, FAST channels and a games business that ranges from IP licensing to building inside Roblox and Fortnite. They run the digital operation for ITV network properties and partner with outside studios who have catalog but no digital arm to work it.
Martin drops an archive data point early in the conversation that will change how you look at your back catalog. The Coronation Street numbers that follow make the case even harder to ignore. If you have content sitting on a shelf, this is the part of the episode you need to hear.
Evan also brings his diagnosis of UK broadcast to the table and asks Martin to respond to it on mic, no dodging.
And because Zoo 55 is not just an archive play, the same studio that built a Mentos cannon in Fortnite also put Gordon Ramsay in Roblox. Love Island was the number eight most downloaded game in the US last year. The range of what this operation is actually doing is wider than you think.
LISTEN and/or WATCH in full 👉🏻 APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | YOUTUBE | DEEZER with more platforms here.
Join us live on March 12th (at 6pm CET / 12pm EST / 9am PST) on LinkedIn and Substack for our live earnings season breakdown. On the menu: we’re off to Europe this time with ITV, Canal+, Versant but will also review Ellison’s investment deck to stress test the upsides of this deal as he pitched to the WBD board.
That’s it for today but before you go:
This is correct and who's got the biggest unused archive in the world?
The BBC, the single largest publicly owned archive anywhere, funded for decades by the public, and currently sitting in a structure that makes it almost impossible to monetise at scale without political controversy.
The BBC should be unlocking this and along with the BFI archive using it to massivly expand the current BritBox (and iPlayer in UK) library.
There is no reason why using the BBC archive, its brand cant expand Britbox globally easily from four million subscribers to ten million, then 20 - probably hitting a natural ceiling of 30 million.
Doing that would bring in over 2billion in profits each year - the license fee argument goes.
The can distribute it via a app, bundle it with broadband subscription, use Amazon, Apple and probably Netfix distrinution models.
I've no idea why they havent done this
On my sub i explain exactly how it can be done, how it can be funded and what this would mean not just to the BBC but the entire UK creative industry