If you own content — whether that's a film library, archive footage, a finished documentary series, or a back catalogue of TV shows — this episode is essential viewing. Matthew Frank has spent over 30 years at the top of television rights and distribution, building RDF Rights from scratch into a $40 million business, then running Zodiak Rights as CEO with revenues exceeding $80 million across 200 broadcasters worldwide. He now runs Rocket Rights and Rights Booster, helping content owners exploit their libraries across VOD platforms, FAST channels, and YouTube.In this conversation, Matthew breaks down exactly how the content monetisation landscape has changed — and where the real money is moving. He explains why linear broadcasters are no longer the gatekeepers they once were, how FAST channels and YouTube are reshaping content distribution, and why brands are becoming the new commissioners. If you're sitting on a content library and wondering how to make it work harder, this is the roadmap. We also get into the golden era of indie TV — the story behind Wife Swap, Faking It, and The Secret Millionaire — and what those formats taught Matthew about building content with genuine international value. Whether you're a documentary filmmaker, archive manager, rights executive, or content owner trying to navigate a fragmented market, this episode gives you the frameworks, the history, and the honest industry intelligence you need. The Archive Room is the podcast about the business of archive content — licensing, rights, preservation, and the people who make it all work. Subscribe so you never miss an episode.So welcome to the Archive Room. My name is Dominic Dare and this is my co-host, Sandra Coelho Today's guest is Matthew Frank, one of the most experienced television rights executives in the UK industry. In 1994, he joined RDF Media, the indie production company behind shows like Wife Swap Faking It and The Secret Millionaire. He built RDF rights, their distribution arm, completely from scratch, growing it into a business, turning over more than 40 million dollars a year and winning the number one distributor slot in broadcast magazines, PeerPoll, not once, not twice, but three times. When RDF was acquired by Zodiak Media in 2010, Matthew stepped up as CEO of Zodiak Rights, a global operation selling 20,000 hours of content to over 200 broadcasters worldwide with revenues far in excess of $80 million. After leaving Zodiak in 2014, he went on to co-found the Rights Exchange, an online trading platform for TV rights and later launched Rocket Rights and its sister company rights booster, which specialize in exploiting content across VOD platforms and fast channels. Matthew, welcome to the archive room. Nice to be here. It's good to see you guys. listen, Matthew, you've been in this industry for over 30 years. What still gets you out of bed in the morning? Well, good question. think that what I love about distribution and particularly the kind of role I play is I speak with producers day in, day out, and no two days are ever the same. You know, I get pitched amazing projects on a daily basis. I get new things that I knew nothing about, and I learn about stuff that is kind of new to me. So it's very stimulating what we do. I mean, yes, there's some boring stuff behind the scenes when it comes to kind of contracts and all the rest of it, but the nuts and bolts of distribution. What I really love about it is the kind of the breadth of what we kind of cover, you know, from entertainment shows right down to very serious political documentaries at the other end of the scale. So it's really kind of rich mix for me. Yeah, absolutely. And so on that mix, you know, what what have you learned about what makes a content library generally valuable? Like, you know, Yeah. what versus one that looks just impressive on paper? Yeah, I think, you know, it's it's slightly stating the obvious, suppose. But, when you when we look for content to distribute, we look for stuff that has international appeal. It has resonance in other other territories. And that doesn't necessarily mean it has to have, you know, a country's people in it necessarily. But it's a subject matter that will relate and resonate with people in America, in China, in Asia, whatever. So that's our kind of starting point is if I'm a buyer overseas, why would I be interested in this content? And what would it do? Why would it be interesting to my audience in a foreign territory? So let's go back to the RDF Zodiak years. I guess the question that we're looking at is, is there really a tension between making great content and making commercially smart content? So how does the relationship between production and distribution mesh Yeah. together? It's a very interesting kind of question. And the when we were RDF, we quickly identified, you know, the potential of owning your own IP and kind of selling it. And actually, as the margins in television shrank, it became more and more important that the revenues that flowed from distribution became your kind of profit. So it became more important that we were making stuff. that was commercially viable internationally. And we used to have a development meeting with our kind of production development team at RDF, chaired by none other than Steven Lambert at the time. And he would bring his kind of four or five development people to the boardroom table, and they would sit on one side and then on the other side was me and my senior salespeople. And they would pitch us ideas that they were kind of developing. And then we had to mark them out of 10 as to whether or not we thought they were any good and would they sell anything below a seven got strangled at birth and never made they saw the light of day anything over a seven they would then take to the next stage and work up a treatment, go and pitch it and all the rest of it. Some people argued that, you know, that's kind of stifling kind of creativity. And, you know, there were probably some great shows that didn't make it to air That's probably true. Some shows didn't make it to air because they wouldn't sell. But some of the best shows we ever made that we became kind of well known for were things like Wife Swap and Faking It and Scrap Heat Challenge and Secret Millionaire. All those shows, they all went through that kind of process. And we gave them big tics saying, yeah, this is going to work. It's going to work as a finished tape sale. And you can also sell it as a format where a country would buy the format or a broadcaster in a foreign country would buy the format and they'd make their own local version and we would help them make that version. We would advise them on the production process. So, yes, there was a kind of process that everything had to go through and it served us incredibly well. There weren't many programs that we made. Other than the odd vanity project, if we wanted to work with a particular director, we might do a film that was very British, for example. It might be a history of the National Health Service, but it's a really great film for Britain, not very interesting to anyone Yeah. else. But we might do it to work with a particular piece of talent who would then go on to do other stuff for us. Yeah, I mean, looking back in that kind of Halcyon days, I were there any acquisitions or deals that you did looking back that were a, you know, superb that would never happen today or any, you know, that were completely undervalued at the time? Yeah. Well, I think that the program that made us the most revenue overall was Wife Swap. And Wife Swap was, it's an interesting story how that came about because it came out of our development team and we loved the title. thought, know, it's a catchy title. It immediately raises a smile on people's faces. The problem came was when we started trying to cast the show. So Channel 4 commissioned two episodes to start with and said, we'll do these. And then if they were, we'll commission a longer run of eight or 10, whatever. So we started trying to cast the show and we found it incredibly difficult because when we were approaching people and the concept for those who don't know with Wife swap was you take two families who are very, very different. normally equal and opposite opposed. And the wives swap houses for two weeks. The first week, one wife runs the household under her rules. And then the second week, they swap places and the second wife runs her house with her rules. they live by other people's rules for a week and then by their own rules for a week. And then at the end, they kind of get together and see what they kind of learned. The problem was when we were casting was that people thought that they had to sleep with the other person's partner. hahahahah Ha ha ha! So we had a lot of people say this sounds extremely dodgy. We don't want to go near it. Anyway, we were about to give up when there was a couple who lived very close to where I live in West London agreed to kind of do it. So we ended up making one pilot and it kind of that was the kind of lighting the blue touch because once we had a proof of concept and we show people that, you know, this was a kind of social experiment, not a kind of, you know, a sexual encounter. that's when people started to kind of understand it and all the things that went with Wife Swap. There were so many layers to Wife Swap in terms of class. Class being a big one about attitudes to race, religion, all that kind of stuff. So it unpacked many, many things under the guise of this kind of format. so that was, yeah, that was what I say Wife Swap was our greatest success. I would not necessarily made, I think the program that we made that I thought was the best was faking it. It was interesting when Steven Lambert came in, he made faking it using a lot of directors he had worked with at the BBC. And it was the kind of first time that documentary directors were making factual entertainment formats. And that's why the shows look so good and they did really, really well. And it became a bit of a kind of... calling card for us RDF that, know, they were the guys that made faking it. And it was a great series. I have to say, it's the thing I'm most proud of when I was RDF for sure. I ask, Matthew, when you make developer program, are you thinking about certain channels at that point or you thinking this is going to work on this channel or? Yeah, I mean, often, back in those days, I think things have kind of changed. And we'll kind of come on to that maybe a bit later. But in those days, we had a very open door with several of the broadcasters in the UK, BBC and Channel four being the main ones to a lesser extent, kind of Channel five and ITV. And, and again, I say Stephen was at the forefront of this, Stephen and my brother, David, were at the forefront of this in that they would go and meet with the channel for commissioning execs, they would go and meet with the schedulers. Schedules are so important in the relationship with Indies and are very, very powerful people within the broadcasters. So they would go in, talk to them about what they were kind of looking for, what slots they had coming up, what kind of shows they needed for those slots. And then they'd take that information away and then come back with some ideas that would potentially fit. So you were almost developing to order as opposed to just. thinking, that's a good idea. Why don't we try and pitch it and then find out nobody's interested in it because it doesn't fit their requirements. So it was that kind of two way conversation going on all the time. mean, Stephen was barely in the office. He was always out talking to people about what they needed. Then he'd kind of feed it into the development kind of process. And hey, presto, we start to get lots of work out of it. You know, things have changed dramatically. Let's put it that way. Yeah. So, you know, those days were, you know, You Haven't they just? Yeah. full disclosure, we used to work for Matthew when he was at Zodiak Rights. And we all remember the days on their yacht outside of Cannes, you know, Yes. when the TV industry was flying. So, but let's fast forward now to a bit more up to date. You you've started the distribution company Rocket Rights Yep. You know, How long has that been operation and how do you differentiate yourself in today's market? Yeah. So we started Rocket in 2020, which probably wasn't the best timing given that we started in like January of that year. And by March, we were all shut down because of COVID. So, you know, we started in a slightly stuttering kind of manner, but what we were trying to do with Rocket was to start a kind of forward looking distribution company that would use a lot more technology in the kind of process of distribution to help a reduce our costs, but also make it quicker and faster. And these were some of the learnings that we made through our experience of running the rights exchange, which was this online trading platform you mentioned a bit earlier. So we tried to take learnings from that and put it into a company that looked a bit different, a bit more kind of modern, I suppose. At the same time, We acquired a company that was working in the digital space and we renamed it Rights Booster. And Rights Booster is the sister company to Rocket. Rocket sells mainly to linear broadcasters, whereas Booster doesn't do any of that. It publishes content onto VOD platforms and onto fast channels and onto YouTube. And that is an area that we felt five years ago. looked like the future to us and we kind of needed to be in it. So we acquired this company, we did a deal with the with the owner at that time. And what a blessing that turned out to be because the market has shifted so dramatically in that direction over the last three or four years, and particularly the last couple of years, actually, that and at the expense of linear, the linear markets are struggling. And again, we can look at reasons why that's kind of happened. But yeah, so that that's what we tried to do was become a a next generation distributor. That's what we positioned ourselves as. And hopefully that's what we've achieved to some extent. We've still got some way to go, I think. people that don't know, can you explain what linear channels are? Yeah. So linear channels are free to air broadcast channels. So channel four, channel five, BBC, ITV, they're all linear channels. And they're free to watch some with ads, some without ads. And they sit, you know, there's a broadcast signal that comes to your house, whether it's via the internet these days or by an aerial, it used to be by aerial. So those are the kind of linear channels. And of course, you know, there weren't very many of them to begin with. We started with three BBC one. ITV and yeah, that was it. Then BBC2, then Channel 4 kind of started, then Channel 5 and then the whole proliferation of the kind of pay TV platforms. And suddenly we had hundreds of channels in the UK and all over the world, lots of pay TV channels starting. And obviously today that world has changed dramatically and it's come about really as a result of fragmentation in the market. So many viewers who used to watch kind of channel four midweek, they'd get 5 million viewers for a good show. They now get down to like between half a million and 700,000 viewers for a good show in the middle of the week. And that's because a lot of the audience has now got so much choice elsewhere. There's many more digital platforms have started. Digital platforms are really cheap to start. You can start your own fast channel relatively cheaply. YouTube channels are relatively cheap start units in the old days starting a pay TV channel cost millions Absolute million you can start a YouTube channel on a few grand It really doesn't it's it's kind of open that whole world up so the choice that's been given to the consumer is is extensive and as a result, know, they've drifted away from the linear markets and that's had an impact on the amount of ad revenue that those linear channels are because they get paid on the number of people watching their channels. And as that audience has declined, so has the ad revenue in that space. And the ad revenue is leaking over the fence into the digital world, to YouTube, to fast channels, to VOD platforms, et cetera. are YouTube channels, are they commissioning in the same way as linear channels? I would say not yet, not in a meaningful way yet. There are lots and lots of YouTube channels. Just go on YouTube and save yourself. There are hundreds of channels there. Most of them tend to be populated by content that is existing already. It's been made elsewhere and it gets packaged into a channel that's either a crime channel, a property channel, a dating channel, whatever it happens to be. but it tends to be content that existed previously. What we're now starting to see is that as YouTube has grown into a long form content kind of platform as well, that more and more people are kind of watching it, particularly older people are watching YouTube. know, if you buy connected TV now, you see YouTube is one of the first channels that come up. It used to be the preserve of of short form content, but now YouTube themselves have realized actually long form content is stickier. People watch it for longer and therefore they make more advertising off it. So they're really encouraging long form onto the platform and it's getting watched by a much more diverse age range. So it's not just young people, know, we have a crime channel where our audience is over 55, the majority of them, which is quite interesting. So I think, I think that is a change and I don't think it'll be too long before you start to see content getting commissioned for YouTube. I don't think it necessarily will be YouTube themselves commissioning because they're a publishing house. I think it will be brands. That for me is where the future is, is brands to me look like the new commissioners. They've always been the ones with the money. It's just before it used to get filtered through channel four or channel five or ITV. Now there's an opportunity for producers to go direct to brands with good ideas and say, right, we're to publish it on YouTube. And if the channel works, we're going to give you way more eyeballs and you'll never get on a linear service. so there's a whole big dynamic going on there as well, which I think is really exciting. And I think it's really exciting for young, young talent, you know, and I mean, behind the camera talent, you know, people who are learning their They're kind of spurs in production. There's some great opportunities in the YouTube space to make stuff. Absolutely. mean, we've been working with ITV on, they have Zoo 55 and we have a small channel based around archive, which is amazing for us. And we're seeing a lot of these kind of archives that will possibly be listening to this podcast, figuring out strategies to make money. And I think library content and catalogs, as we can see with the kind of takeover Yeah. with Paramount are very valuable now. I guess the question is how do you make money because there's such a diffuse amount. mean, I can agree that brands are going to come in and they'll be the ones almost gone full circle. But how do you differentiate yourself? How do you not get lost in the crowd? Yeah, I think it's a very good question. I think it's one that, you know, lot of YouTube channels are still wrestling with is how do you surface your content and get your subscriber base up and get the number of eyeballs to your channel. It's challenging and it's never been more challenging because everybody's diving into this space and every day there are new channels kind of starting. So I think what you have to do is you have to look at what works on YouTube and how it works on YouTube. I think that it's about looking at the genres that we know work and using the data. looking at, for example, True Crime, we know True Crime is one of the top rating shows in the digital space. And we know what the audience looks like for that. It tends to be female and it tends to be over 55. True, that's for kind of particularly... true crime that involves murders. That is a big area for female viewers over 55. On the other side, you've got male viewers who like heists and FBI kind of stories that they tend to skew much more heavily male. So you're able to take that data and then start to kind of create your channels and then start to target those groups. And it's about tapping into those audiences and those fan clubs, if you like, to make them aware of your channel. and then give them content that they want. And rather than just plonking content onto your channel, it's about giving the audience something they don't normally get. So there may be old series of true crime that, you know, have been around maybe 10 years, but they're on YouTube now. How do you make that more exciting as you start to do bonus content around it? So you go back and interview some of the some of the detectives who were involved in a particular case, and they're reviewing the case now, again, maybe with new technology to see if they do things differently. So there's things you can build around the content that you can serve your audience almost on a daily or weekly basis that keeps them coming back, keep them interested and keep giving them what they want. The other thing I think you can do in the kind of like attracting people is talent. So having big name talent on your show is a... It's not a guarantee for success because I think again, it needs to be a combination of the talent and the genre and a genuine interest in that. But there's some very good examples of shows that have done extremely well on YouTube that are led by kind of YouTubers, big YouTubers. I mean, there's one example which you can see, is there's a guy called Inoxtag who's a French gamer and he had a following of about nine million. people in France and he developed a game and that's how he made his name. He decided he wanted to do more with his life than sit on his ass gaming. So he decided he was going to climb Everest and he was well known in France. So he managed to get three sponsors on board. I think Nike and an outdoor clothing brand were two of them. can't remember the fourth one. Anyway, they put in the money, quite a lot, several, two or three million quid to fund. the filming of the preparation and the climb of Everest and it was full of drama and all the rest of it. They ended up making a two and a half hour film that they published eventually on YouTube. What they did first with it was they went to the cinemas, to 200 cinemas in France for one night only you could go and see this film, sold out and that those ticket sales covered all their production costs. The next day they published it on YouTube and they put it on TF1, which is like the BBC in France, the same time, following day after the theatrical release. And the last time I looked, it had done something like 50 million views, this film. it's, yeah, it's a kind of whopping great kind of success. But it shows what you can do if you're famous and you do something interesting and you've got a following, that's what happens. Yeah, I mean, I think it's really exciting. I agree with you. There's so much opportunity if you're creative to get out there and do it yourself. know, one of those aspects that we mentioned touched on that I think probably could do with a little bit delve into is fast channels. know, so what if you can give us a breakdown of what a fast channel is in your view and are they, you know, are they are they going to be successful in the UK and beyond? So fast is interesting fast. About two years ago, I was down in in Cannes at MipCom And fast was like the talk of the town is like this is the new thing. You know, it's slightly ironically fast channels, it stands for free ad supported streaming TV. And they're basically old style linear channels, but just online. So again, you don't have all the infrastructure that you have necessarily for broadcasts. So they're relatively kind of cheap to run. And they sit on all sorts of platforms like Tubi and Roku and Peacock. They all have fast channels that sit on their kind of platforms. And you basically, publish, you need about 150 hours to start a fast channel. Normally the single IP channels tend to do better than the genre based channels. So some of the most successful ones in America are like, you know, the Deal or No Deal channel is very big. Surprisingly, the Baywatch channel does rather well in America. Yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously. There's a surprise. HAHAHAHA! Amongst men, yeah? Amongst men. HAHAHAHA! Yeah. But Fast is, it's again, it's ad supported. So when you put your shows up on your Fast channel, it's in a schedule. You can't fast forward through them. So you watch what's on at a given time. And then in between the, within those programs, there are ad breaks and you decide how many minutes of ads you want per hour. And then you have to fill those ads. So some of the channels, some of the platforms do the ad fill for you. Some take half the inventory and you get half the inventory. So you have to go and find an ad sales company to do that for you. There's quite a lot of people involved in the fast world who are all taking a piece of the pie. You know, there's the platforms itself like Whirl who do the technical delivery of the channel to the platforms. So they're taking a fee for running the channel effectively. You've got to do scheduling, which you normally have to pay for. have to do ad serving, which you have to pay for. So there's quite a lot of people who have got their fingers in the pie. And I'd say the margins in Fast. are have generally been on the lower side, you know, originally expectations were very high. I think you can make money out of fast, but it's not the kind of like, it's not doesn't feel like the gold rush that everyone was anticipating kind of two years ago. There are some very successful fast channels, by the way, particularly in the scripted world, there's some that I am aware of, there's a one fast channel that just runs old Westerns movies, and it does incredibly well. So there are success stories, but I'd say run of the mill, non-scripted channels, you're not gonna be buying the yacht in Cannes with those kind of channels. They'll turn over a reasonable revenue, but yeah, it's hard, it's hard. Yeah. You know, in terms of sort of just circle to documentaries, because a lot of people that Yep. follow us and our industry has been traditionally built on documentaries. Yep. You know, we were saying the demise that we just talked about of linear channels. So the people that would funding these were the channel fours of the world in the UK, at least, Yeah. and obviously in the States, a similar situation. so if you created a documentary, it used to be that the international rights were kind of the money. right? So you get a domestic broadcast to show it. What's the strategy? What does it look like now for documentaries in terms of trying to make money out of them? Yeah. Well, I'd say, you know, the documentary world it's very tough at the moment because so many of the strands that used to commission documentaries on Channel 4 and Channel 5 and what have you have gone, you you look back at Channel 4, they used to have like five or six regular strands like Equinox was a big kind of science strand they used to have. And others, I can't remember what they were all called. dispatches, yeah, but there were dispatches was another one, et cetera. yeah, yeah. So a lot of those kind of, a lot of those documentary slots have now gone, which is a real shame because there were some great films made out of that era. So the documentary world is hard at the moment. I'd say you're piecing together. This is what I spend quite a lot of my time together is piecing together little pockets of money, trying to make it into a big enough pot of money to make the film. So that might be. going to get a presale from someone like Channel 4, know, before they would pay 250 grand for a documentary. Now they might acquire it for like 40 grand. So and the film say cost 200 to make, you've still got 160 grand to make up. So how do you do that? You have to kind of work on clever ways, which is, you know, maybe going to a tourist board if you're going to visit a country and say, fine, would you put some money in if we're going to be featuring Ireland or you know, Scotland or whatever it happens to be. You're looking at film boards, are you looking at tax breaks in countries? You're looking at, you know, crowdfunding, etc. So it's about piecing together those those little pockets of funding and it's hard work and that, you know, a lot of people have just given up and gone done something else. I think the other thing for documentary makers is that we've always had this preserve of documentaries have to be an hour long or 90 minutes long. I think there is now room for a lot more shorter form content to be made that's cheaper to make. And I think that is the kind of thing I've learned recently is how incredibly talented some of the young filmmakers I've come across recently. They're incredibly talented, but they're making stuff on a shoestring. They're self-shooting, self-editing, really good operators using high quality equipment. So this isn't kind of crappy VHS stuff. This is 4K. shot really well, edited at home in their bedroom, then yes, you might go and grade it somewhere in your final post and make it look snazzy and do your music mix and your sound mix somewhere else. But you can get so far on much less money these days. And I'd say that is the kind of message I would say to people is if you want to work in the documentary, you have to kind of bring the price point way down in order to make it work these days. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that sort of also seems to be changing the world is verticals, which I keep hearing about. And, you know, a lot of these kind of soap operas and dramas that are doing well, do you, are you into that marketplace as well? And not really, I've, we are very much in the kind of non scripted world. So we have got some stuff on the on the booster side, we've taken on dramas and films and what have you that we publish onto VOD platforms. And again, they earn money just through kind of advertising revenue when people click on and watch something on a VOD platform. A VOD platform is like a library basically, as opposed to a channel, you click into a VOD library, and then you search put in you know, sport and it'll come up with 10 different films that are available on sport and then you click on one and it serves ads around that kind of content and you share in that kind of revenue. So that's kind of what the VOD world is and I think scripted is you know does well in that world it's just my background has been largely in the non-scripted world so we tend to focus on document. I mean I'm talking to several people about documentaries at the moment. really big documentaries are just really finding it hard to fund them though. There's, you know, traditionally the co-production route, if you couldn't get it fully funded in the UK, you'd go to America and hopefully find a partner there. It's just dead as a doornail that market now. Nobody is spending any money in America. So it's making it even tougher. You know, going around Scandinavia with 10 grand here, five grand there. In America, used to get the other half of the budget in one hit. Whereas now it's this kind of piecing it together and it is difficult. Well, I do, Sandra, actually, I you think that will change? think that and I go back to what I saying earlier, is I think that the key to this is brands. I've said this for quite a long time. And I think it's now starting to really happen that brands still want to reach big audiences. They're still interested in having content that resonates with their with their kind of audience, their customers in a way. And they're Yeah. and they're a lot of them are putting money into kind of content that's not just brand slapping or pushing their content, they're doing it in a much more clever way. And I think there's this learning curve going on between producers on one side who didn't know the brands and brands on the other side who didn't know. And they're slowly coming together. And I think in the next year, I think you'll see way more brand funded deals that may sit on linear channels, may, know, channel four may be taking these shows, but they're sponsored by people, they've got product placement in them. But increasingly, think that, you know, brands are looking at place like YouTube, where the audience is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. mean, YouTube is such a daddy when it comes to platforms. It is like the standout platform. More people watch YouTube than any other platform in the world now. So that is where advertisers are pointing their guns and saying, okay, if we get, if we come across the right idea, the right kind of content, we can reach a big audience with it. It has to be the right audience. Again, you need to know who you're, who your target targeting as we were kind of saying earlier, but that's what I think the future is. And if I was a producer, I would be building relationships with brands either directly or through an agency that you meet these people. I've often said in Cannes that you have Cannes Lions, which is a brand market in Cannes, and you've got MipCom which is a TV market. They need to put those together. so that those two communities can meet and start to talk stuff. It may take a little while for them to understand exactly how the other works, but that for me is where we're headed. I completely and utterly agree. I think we'll see how this pans Yep. one thing regarding documentaries the broadcasters and the Netflix and the ABCs over in the States, is it getting difficult to get your idea commissioned? So let's say you want to do a certain story Yeah. and the broadcasters going, no, we can't touch that subject, it's too risky or they trying to decide what they want to? I think that in the current climate, particularly in America, there's a culture of fear in America because a lot of the traditional cable networks are disappearing. They're slowly closing, not always announced, but there's many of them have shut down or they're running on old archive now, et cetera, et cetera. So when you're pitching ideas into those channels, they read, you know, they just take so few titles these days. In the old days, they'd take maybe 50 films a year. Now they're taking like two films a year. And so getting your idea to stick with them is really, really tough. There's a lot of competition for the slots, etc. So it's just, yeah, there's just less buyers out there for it. It's, and I think that's going to get worse. I think America, you know, that's where You know, there are opportunities again for YouTube in America. It's where most of the YouTube audience sits. Opportunities to reach those people through brand funded content. And that's why I go back to brands rather than commissioners are where I think, you know, see the, see the brands as your new commissioners. That's why my new mantra actually. And other thing I need to ask you, what's your thoughts on the sale of the merger between Banijay and... mean, it's a good question. I haven't had a chance to really kind of digest it. But, you know, I thought Banijay couldn't get any bigger. And now they merging with all three. And so it's going to become, you know, this kind of enormous company. I'd just be interested to know and I don't know the artist what the end game is what happens after this you know, do they do they go for a public listing of the company and become a stock market listed company? Are they looking for an even bigger sale to somebody like paramount in the future? But yeah, no, it's a it's an interesting it's an interesting deal. And I guess it's probably driven by the shareholders at the end of the day, you've got some you know, big shareholders in those companies and some of them wanted to realize value, you know, they've been in all three for a long time. So maybe it's some of those big kind of, yeah, venture capital companies looking to cash out. We'll see. It strikes of an industry that's constricting and this consolidation just Yeah. Yeah. everywhere. And these legacy kind of networks, as I say, Yeah. just being sent out to dry. You know, as content representatives from our company, LOLA Clips, we're in it. We find it very exciting space. I think you're right. I think the key is going to be connecting those brands with those producers. anybody who's got a business doing that, get in touch with us because we want to learn about that particular nexus. Yeah, yeah. I can see, I can see in the not too distant future that brands will start to buy production companies. So they'll be bringing that skill set in house. So rather than people like all three buying production companies, there'll be brands saying, right, we want the capability to be able to make content using people who know how to make it. know, brands don't know how to make content particularly. They know how to make ads, short little ads, but they're not good at what I call longer form content. And that's where they need to work with producers. So I can see that, you know, in the next kind of year or two, production companies will start to get picked off by brand owned companies. And the fact is that longer form content sits for longer Yeah. and gives you that kind of, you know, brand awareness Yeah. for longer. Yeah. I have a friend who's a creative director of an outdoor sports brand company and they're investing heavily in that kind of longer form content Yeah. Yeah, yeah. surrounding their kind of extreme explorers and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, Matthew, this is a quick fire round it's God, okay. I'll do my best. quick answers, first thing that comes into your head. so most requested type of content right now. True Crime. One title that has surprised you with sales. the drama about the gay ice hockey team. I can't remember what it's called, but that has been an enormous hit, which you can't either, but I think everyone was quite surprised. A deal that sounded great but wasn't. Ooh, probably one I did a long time ago. I'm not going to share it. One thing everyone should understand about rights but doesn't. I would say the importance of rights ownership and making sure you don't give your rights away too easily. one title you'd like to boost again? Wife swap. streaming platforms dreams or headaches Depending on which one, headaches, not more than dreams. Okay well done! They were quite good! was very good. Well, look, listen, I think Yeah. that's probably our time coming towards an end. Matthew, thank you ever so much for your time. Pleasure. It was fun. I enjoyed it. Great. we did as well. we'll be coming back to you, I'm sure, as this thing moves along. But yeah, we very much appreciate your time. Yeah. My pleasure.