Dominic Walker, Global Business Director at BBC Studios, joins The Archive Room to explain how one of the world's largest broadcast archives is run as a business, spanning archive footage licensing through BBC Motion Gallery, live events built from BBC IP, and a music and radio division that includes BBC Production Music and the Radiophonic Workshop. Dominic walks through the three divisions he runs at BBC Studios. BBC Motion Gallery is the commercial archive and licensing arm, working in a fifteen year partnership with Getty Images to represent BBC footage globally, even as eighty percent of the archive remains undigitised. The live events business turns BBC IP into ticketed experiences, from Planet Earth concert tours with live orchestras to Bluey's World in Disney theme parks. BBC Radio and Music covers licensing of historic BBC session recordings, a joint venture Production Music Library with Universal that now includes natural language search, and a toolkit built from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop archive, letting today's electronic musicians work with the sounds and techniques that shaped decades of experimental music. We also trace Dominic's career journey into this world, starting as a booking agent working alongside Miles Copeland and The Police, through music publishing at BMG and Universal, into television at Fremantle Media and eventually BBC Worldwide. For anyone working in documentary archive research, TV archive history or archival storytelling, this conversation is a rare look inside how a major broadcaster balances commercial licensing with editorial values, and why story always comes first regardless of format. Topics covered: archive footage licensing, BBC Motion Gallery, Getty Images partnership, archive digitisation, documentary archive research, TV archive history, BBC Production Music, Radiophonic Workshop, music licensing, live events and immersive experiences, archival storytelling. welcome to the Archive Room, my name is Dominic Dare, and this is my co-host, Sardar Quelo. Hello everyone. Today's guest is Dominic Walker and he is global business director for BBC Studios. Dominic began his career in the music industry as a performer before moving into artist representation as a live agent with prestige talent, working alongside Miles Copeland and representing both recording artists and comedians. He subsequently transitioned into music publishing at A &R, holding roles at BMG, Polygram Island Universal Music and Famous Music, where he worked with a diverse range of artists and creative talent. Following a period running his own music businesses, Dominic moved into TV, joining free mantle media before progressing to BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC at the time, where he became director of radio and music. Over the years, his responsibilities have expanded significantly. Today, as global business director of BBC Studios, Dominic oversees Motion Gallery, the global live events businesses, and the Radio and Music Division, driving commercial growth and strategic development across these international portfolios. So we are honoured, Dominic, to have you on the Archive. We welcome. Thanks for having me. So listen, it's Heh. a hell of a journey to get here when you read that. What was it like working in the music industry with Copeland and the police back in those days? What was it like cutting your teeth in the music industry? Well, I started off in a band, so all I wanted to do was be in a band. We weren't very good, but we had a good time and we released one album. The hardest thing then was at the time when you had to... just send out cassettes or you turn out cassettes to venues and try and get a response. You sometimes got them sent back in a stamped address envelope. Most of the time didn't hear anything. So you had to be creative about how you would get gigs. So I set up my own agency so that I used to approach the bigger local bands and said I'd book gigs for them. And then we always got the support slot. And that's kind of how. I used to run that sometimes from a phone box and the pips would go and you'd run out of money and say, I've got someone on the other You line. But that's how we got, and so they went in the band. I was still in the band, but I saw an advert to work actually for a guy called Terry King. think Terry may, I think he may still be around anyway, but he'd been an agent in the sixties and he had an agency and record companies and a publishing company, proper old school. in Monmouth Street in the West End and I got a job there as a booking agent. That was a real, that's before I worked for Miles. So that was really tough because you were paid a percentage of a 15 % commission. There was another booker there who got all the first calls into the office. So if you were lucky enough to get a second call, because the roster wasn't that good. Hahaha you may do a booking and if you did a booking you put your you know fill in a booking sheet put it on Terry's wife who was the the admin person put it on a you know throw a spike on her desk when you come back from lunch the other guy had to put his initials on it so tried Hahaha Nick so you had to fight internally and externally but you know in retrospect great training you know learned some real fundamental lessons from Terry about just real basic things in business. But I stuck that for a year and then I blanked my way into Prestige Tannin which was really cool at the time. I did get offered another couple of agencies. In fact one of the guys who offered me job I'm working with now still he's a promoter and he does some of my live events which is so shows you how things just go full circle. Yeah, then Prestige was cool because then, you know, they had IRS Records. We were in the IRS Records building. That was Miles's label. And I used to book Squeeze and Jules Holland and artists like that that we had by that roster. Plus I did the Sugar Cubes and Primal Scream and those sort of bands. So we some really cool bands there. And I discovered a couple of things earlier, not least the sugar cubes and then got offered this job of BMG doing A &R. That's how I got into doing A &R for the music publishing. Yeah, but it's a tough industry. mean, how does that, you then you move to Fremantle. How does that kind of, how does TV change? And what did you bring from that into TV, do think? Well, many scars, not least being haha deaf and tinnitus. But Hahaha going into TV, then I realized TV producers were actually probably more flaky than A &R men, which You was a surprise. I didn't think that was possible. But also the music, you know, I was working specifically at Fremantle Media in the music department. So I was always astounded, you know, if there was a pitch for a program. and you thought, wow, this is the best one, I love this pitch, they would always choose another one. They had completely different ears. That was a real eye-opener. But still then working with music, music rights are complex. I'd say over 40 years I've been working with music rights. they're changing all the time. It's like the Wild West now. So you're still learning something all the time. So then going into TV, you really had to learn about a whole other set of rights, or you were kind of the other side of the desk as well then. So good eye-opener. And in fact, I talk to a lot of the industry groups in music now who talk about the broadcast industry and the acquisition of certain rights and why that is. Is it fair and are the rights fair? it pains to say listen come and listen to the other side of the desk learn what it's like to try and put a TV program together to get the budget to get the commission and how does how does everything make its way you think everyone's making loads of money it only works if you sell that program internationally you know all of those things need to be considered so everyone should see both sides of the desk rather than just jump to the gun saying you know you're you're ripping us off or it I don't know, I just think it gives a better understanding if you understand both sides of it. So I'm always at pain saying, listen, we can help educate you on that in any way that we can. And I think it being that informed in any negotiation or in any businesses is an asset, you know. sorry, can I just ask Dominic, what made you Yeah. change from music to TV? What was the reason that you decided? Hahaha Well, yeah, in a nutshell, basically I left Famous Music. Famous Music was hit because that was Paramount Pictures publishing company. 9/11 happened and Viacom were the ultimate only company and their business was cut. So they were redundancies. I was the UK MD. went, the German MD went, I think the French MD went as well. And that's when I set my own business up. it was tough. It went okay at first and a couple of deals. Then people pulled out last minute and you've got all your money tied up in them. So it was a struggle. So then I was at the point where I had sold my soul to the music biz. I'd haven't got a degree or any other qualification. Well, I got a couple of A-levels. But... What do I do? You know, I've got a family to support. So and how do I show my skills? I've got the skills, but how do I show they're transferable, especially in an age where everything's submitted electronically and you can't sit opposite someone. I think it's even more like that now. And so I kind of toned down my CV, cutting a long story short. And, you know, I tried to work at Sainsbury's, were like, why do want to work here? You've been MD of a music company. It's happened to do the fact that I've got three kids, Yeah. but I didn't get that. But then I went to Fremantle Media and a woman called Birgit Hench was the head of licensing there. And I got an interview with her friend that managed to get me in to get an interview. And as soon as I saw her, I kind of clicked and she gave me a break. So I'm forever grateful to her. And then that's, so that's how I got into Fremantle. But it was a real turning point. So it was kind of a blessing in a way, because then I suddenly found myself in a job where I was still working in music, but I didn't have to be at every gig every night. You know, I was kind of burnt out from that. You're out six nights a week. You've got to, you're on top of everything. You're listening to everything before bands done their first gig even, you know about them and you've heard all the demos and all that. I found that I could just suddenly enjoy music even more on my own terms. I could discover things if it two years after it come out, so what? And then fall in love with an album or whatever. And I realized people went home after work rather than going to gigs or going You you somewhere. So I started reading and got, you know. I read all the Orwell books again and stuff like that. I wow, why do people complain about going to work? This is easy. Just go home at the end of the day. Because I've kind of stretched my elastic band so much. So I'm grateful for it for that, for those reasons. And it made me appreciate a different work-life balance. And I bet you Sainsbury's are gutted they didn't take you on now. Yeah, I don't know about that. you know, that's that's important lesson. I think actually, unless you really rise up and some mates of mine really, you know, ended up running companies, but a lot didn't and a lot was spat out of the music biz and found different ways that I'm really blessed that that path presented itself to me was painful at the time, but I really am lucky to have to have got that break. and had a second of second career in media and been able to use the skills which I did you know which were hard fought for like starting off at Terry King's you had to really be a good negotiator working with what we had. So and one thing, you mentioned that you didn't actually go in and do a degree, which No. is really interesting, that you don't actually, that people that, because everyone thinks, you have to do a media degree. Well, no, I think it's great Don't tell anyone. Yeah. that you didn't You do one. I didn't do one. So I'm quite Yeah. impressed that you can get to your level and didn't really need one. Yeah, I'm very lucky. mean, I'm probably the only person at the BBC without a degree. I think when I joined BBC Worldwide, I found out that John Smith, was then the CEO, he didn't have a degree. So I was kind of felt a bit of relief. But I don't know how, you know, I was very lucky to get in. I had recommendations from people. I had a guy who knew me, I'd worked with, put in a good word for me and got me an interview. you know, I consider myself very lucky. And I found going into the BBC. absolutely fantastic and it felt like it was a bit like going to university but I also found that from the music Biz everyone was very guarded about their contacts or any information or sharing anything because it's Yeah. really cutthroat that coming here suddenly everyone was open you knew everything you could get access to all these courses or you could go people come and talk to you about their area of business and share openly and so You could learn so much and it was just a breath of fresh air for me to have that that kind of attitude and be able to be part of that was amazing and I think I'm passionate about the BBC and art for art sake as opposed to obviously, I'm in the commercial art so we try and exploit them. But in terms of exploiting that, you feel like it's quite cool raison d'etre because money we make doesn't buy us swimming pools. It goes back into the BBC and back into program making. So that's quite cool. that brings us forward actually. So one of the things to where you are today, which is Global Business Director at BBC Studios, what we wanted to do, Dom was that we have a lot of listeners and watchers from the States. So can you just in a minute give us an overview of what BBC Studios is in your role, just so we can place Yeah. it and people can understand how it sits in the media landscape? Sure. Well, BBC Studios is the commercial arm of the BBC. So we exist to commercialize BBC IP in order to generate revenue, which goes back into the BBC, back into program making and back into plugging gaps in funding. know, everybody I think is widely documented that the reduction in the license fee settlement means that there's more responsibility on the commercial arm to generate revenue. for the BBC. We've got one shareholder and that's the BBC. Yeah, and so it's part, it's quasi still funded by the license fee that the households in Britain pay. And then your business is commercially operated like any other business. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. And we have targets which we have a dividend which the BBC requires from BBC studios. I don't think my CEO has much of a say in that. I they're told we need this much and then we have to try and find that money. So we have responsibility. I run three business areas, as you said before. You know, we've got high targets to try and meet that everybody always wants growth. And we're passionate about leaving no stone unturned, but also protecting the BBC's values. don't brand slap or, you we very much have an eye on that. And the challenge for us is, you know, we've got an amazing content engine, but it's completely surrounded by a treacle because there's, you know, lot of stakeholders and bureaucracy to wait through. quite often the challenge is... not doing a deal on the outside and getting someone to actually commit to signing a contract that delivers real money. It's getting the buy-in internally. So there's a lot to navigate. That's the challenge. I'm smiling about it now, but some days, you know, it's hard work. But it's worth it in the end. Yeah, so let's talk about those kind of three aspects of what you cover. we can start with the BBC Motion Gallery. Again, very simply so we can go forwards, what's Getty work with? What do you guys work with? Where is the archive? And how is that laid out from commercial terms? Yeah, I mean, the BBC archive dates back to the 1920s from radio and then from the beginning of television. So it's a vast archive. 80 % probably still offline. The rest is digitized, but we're making progress in digitizing it. And, you know, we have a deal with Getty, which has been on for the last 15 years or so, I think. And... a great relationship with them. It's a very collaborative relationship and we believe they've got the best sales teams globally to be able to represent an archive the size of the BBC's. It's a massive archive. It's a big calling card because the BBC brand is iconic but we're not arrogant enough to think that's enough on its own. We like to be in with other archives so if you're a program maker you kind of... not a one-stop shop, but you have all the benefits of being exposed or the ability to buy all of that content rather than us set up on our own and expect people to come to us. So we very much benefit from being part of that. I think it's mutually beneficial. And so, with 80 % of the content not being digitized, we had a chat with ITV recently, which is another large broadcast and not a BBC size, but they're working with Google to kind of get everything digitized. that kind of in hand in terms of you guys looking to get stuff digitized further? the BBC Public Service is digitizing the archive, you know, step by step. And, you know, they'll sometimes come to us and ask for advice about which are the most, which are the areas that we would like them to concentrate on first, because they're more exploitable or more beneficial to have. So we work with them and give them advice on that. So, yeah, there is a huge amount of progress being made on that from, but it's... you know, it's a question of priorities and cost, but we're moving in that right direction. Yeah, yeah, I mean it doesn't mean that it's digitized and it's going to sell. I mean so look, you within BBC emotion gallery, there's a sales support team, research team, and an online team who, you the online team focus on the digitized content and presenting that in a way which is useful for editors and program makers and people that are looking for content. And we have some really skilled individuals who are identifying that content, who think about that very creatively and how to present it. And similarly with Offline. But Offline, the best thing about the Offline team here, one of the really great things which always impresses me is they're always reviewing the process and trying to make it more efficient and trying to... improved turnaround times and I think we're really good at that. We've worked with Getty very closely on that. know any of those collaborations in the music business we've got a joint venture with Universal Music for BBC Production Music Library which we've set up and it's very collaborative and that's the same with Getty. It's not us and them. You know we're working together to help support each other. You know from my background I know what it's like trying to sell things. We need to make it as easy as possible for people to sell things. There's nothing more disappointing than trying to sell something and then realising they haven't got the rights in it or there's something fundamental like that, you either run a fortune under your feet. So we do our best, Oliver that's a very basic example, but to make sure that they're supported and able to represent us in the way that we wish to be represented. where do you, what are the challenges? mean, growth is difficult at the moment because there's so much uncertainty and it's all moving towards this creator economy. You know, I know you're involved with live events and we'll kind of get into that. That's certainly what a lot of people move into. just from, just focusing on the archive side, what are the challenges for you at the moment? The are the lack of commissions across the business. think that's perhaps that's because I think we all got spoiled by the streamers suddenly coming into the business and wanting to wrap up the level of content that they had. We definitely benefited over COVID because people couldn't go and film. new content, couldn't travel, so they were coming up with ideas for archive-based content. So we benefited, but that created a spike in our business which... you know, we have to remind finance people that that was a spike that's not repeatable and adjust the growth, not on that, but on what the years before were. But even so, then I think the streamers then have gone, right, we've got the content now, our business model means we need to become profitable. So therefore the lack of commission. So that has impacted things. And in general terms, probably the amount, this is applicable to the music business as well, with everything being available. Spotify and on streaming services all offering the same content by the way no differentiation really and then TV channels with so much content that you know the funnel has become a bucket so pizza where you you know, there's an industry focusing people either on programs or focusing people on a music chart. And here, look, we're the taste makers and we're guiding you towards this talent. So there's a focus and therefore, you know, those industries being able to break artists or, or, or program makers being able to make hit programs. Now it's become a bucket, so everyone's scrabbling about, everything's ever released is there. You don't know where to start. I'm phoning up mates going, have you seen Breaking Bad? May and that was out 10 years ago, whatever, you're so behind the Yeah camera. But you just discover it yourself. How are we all discovering it? And that's a problem for any one of those industries to go, how do we get around? algorithms and all that kind of stuff but there's so much stuff out there and I think that's definitely affecting it because people can't afford to keep making those programs that don't have any return. Yeah, 100%. We were chatting with Tim Forrest, who's the ITN kind of digital guy. And he was saying that, yeah, exactly the same thing, that those budgets have gone down. So the commissions have gone rather, it's only global stuff. Yeah. But the key perhaps for archives, and this is just an interesting concept, is that you have this vast creator economy, all of which could potentially use parts of that enormous BBC archive. And it's meeting those multiple billions of creators with that breadth of content. And that's the challenge, that kind of middle middle ground, the top, the movies, the HBO productions, they're still gonna be there, they'll still make them. Yes. it's kind of that, think that for all archives, I think that's a challenge, especially when things aren't digitized, it's very difficult, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And then it's costing, you know, it's budget and all of those things come into play. Yeah, so it's challenging and frustrating, but then going to the focal awards the other day really reminded me of, you you see some of the programs there and how archive allows us to interpret evidence. in order to construct narratives about what happened, providing an explanation why. And it's history, isn't it? So history is either theoretical to uncover the truth or practical to learn lessons from the past. some of the, especially some of the programs that were winning awards, the focal awards were. really powerful messages about what's happened before. And you know, we need to learn from the past, have we actually learned from the past? That comes back to COVID, you know, everyone was very much getting in touch with being present or going back to making crafts and kind of having this bit of a spiritual exploration. and haven't learned anything. So it seems to me everyone's gone back to just how it was now and everyone, do you know what mean? So, yeah, Yep. Just got spinning out. but it really, anyway, struck me at the Folk Award how important and powerful archive is to tell a story. Yeah, yeah, I felt so I always feel completely energized after that award. So we're, you know, we sometimes you just think of the breadth of films that made you like, wow, I didn't know that was out there. Go back to your point, Yeah. you know, so many films Hmm. are missed. Yeah, it's hugely valuable for kind of reframing history and, how, know, how important it is to these films get funded. You know, Yeah. so, you know, in that sense, so that, you know, so we know that's gone where it's gone. know, television, as it has stands as, you know, has disappeared in a way. that is never going back to where was before. What are the growths? I live events is fascinating. So can you talk a little bit about where you're going with that and what you guys do? Yeah, I mean, it's the live events business I run is all the ticketed live events. anything you sell a ticket for, so it could be the Strictly Come Dancing Arena tour, or it could be an immersive experience. We've got Bluey's World, which is in Brisbane. and or it could be shows from one of our podcast brands or from the sky at night on a cruise ship. you know, or could be BBC Earth. Well, we do a lot of concerts. We do a Planet Earth 3 concert where we have footage on big screens with an orchestra playing the music. I mean, not just playing the cube, we kind of do new arrangements of the music and then tell the story in a different way, but use powerful archival imagery and they're extremely successful. They tour globally. So it's about any way to commercialise BBC IP. without brand slapping, but also with value for money. And you know, lot of the immersive experiences, immersive is the buzzword, right? So everyone's with about immersive experiences. A lot of them follow the same format and are okay. They'll sit there for four months or so, they may, it's again, it's the promoters all have a bit of skin in the game. So there'll probably be four promoters all put a bit of money in and they'll do something about Pompeii or the Titanic and it'll tour Europe. will click and they'll make some money. The others will wash their face. So we kind of have navigate through that and try and come up with something compelling. It's the difference between could and would right so anyone could say we could do something with you know planet earth like that and go yeah but would anyone do that you know and would it would it actually be compelling on a wet Wednesday during term time to go and see it and would people pay a ticket price and is it fair all of those things so That part of our strategy is working out that and what is real and what isn't. also do, know, Bluey is a preschool kids program that we have, which is a massive hit. It's on Disney Plus and it's on CBeebies. And I did a deal with Disney theme parks for that. So it's the first time Disney have had a kids brand outside one of their own in the theme parks in North America. We launched Bluey's Best Day Ever in Disneyland. in Anaheim at the beginning of May this year. It's phenomenal business. It's great live show. in the Fantasyland Theatre, the Amphitheatre. And we're doing something in Animal Kingdom. We've launched something in Animal Kingdom a couple of months ago. So we do those kind of things. It's great working with teams at Disney. We went, you we worked with the Imagineering team. The Imagineering team's fascinating. They kind of got the best job in the world. If you go to Disney Imagineering, you've got people playing with robots and just, you know, inventing all these, all these crazy things with a budget. It's so impressive. And listen, you look, you talk about immersive experiences and you go to Disneyland and you'll do, if you do the Star Wars Rise of the Resistance, you can't top that for an immersive experience. but it's obviously a huge budget. So that's what people kind of expect at that level. You there's a balance between now what people expect, because we're all spoiled with technology, you know, everything that's now possible to us at our fingertips. You kind of, just going, walking in, seeing a big screen isn't impressive anymore. It needs to be more than that. Absolutely, think it's the repurposing of content that's kind of interesting Yes. as well from my point of view. I know you did a Doctor Who thing as well, which obviously has got kind of guaranteed fan base, right? Yeah, we do that. do exhibitions as well. do, Doctor Who's got a fantastic fan base, fanatical fans who really are, yeah, always amazing. They dress up, they come, they know every single fact. They're brilliant. So we'll do, yeah, we'll do exhibitions. We're doing an exhibition at the moment currently, which is being developed in Australia about the making of Bluey and that'll tour globally. So. All of those things are part of our lives, like events business. I think given the sort of amount of global hits that we have, particularly at the moment, we really are punching above our weight. It's amazing when you know that we know the money Disney makes from its line, know, that's Disney, Disney Cruises and everything, huge, huge, huge money, isn't it? So it's an enormous Yes. Yeah. market. That's fascinating. is there, so that's the kind of the live event side of things and then the motion gallery. guess the radio and music is the third Yeah. tranche of your kind of role, So tell us a bit of an overview of what. what that is, I mean, it's the radio music. Well, our business here consists of a licensing business. It's licensing out and that's licensing out BBC Masters. And there's loads of BBC recorded sessions at Maida Vale or within Broadcasting House. live lounge sessions, John Peel sessions, all of those dating back. We license those out. have, we license them to record companies or to artists. that's Amy Winehouse Live at the BBC. And so we have recorded releases out from that. There's a digital business. The digital business is mainly on, there's a BBC Symphony Orchestra toolkit. which is a deal I did with Spitfire Audio to basically record it. You can recreate the BBC Symphony Orchestra electronically, acts like a plugin. So for a composer who's doing a temp score, they can use it to do that temp score and then go and record an orchestra if the score is approved by the director. Or it's for hobbyists as well. It's available, there's three different entry level. There's an entry level version which is free. kids can learn about the orchestral music and use it on a file size which is really easily downloadable. Then there's an intermediary version which hobbyists can use who like creating music and a professional version. So that's often used in conjunction with actually recorded orchestras. So it's all meant they use it to augment the recording. But it's made a huge amount of money for the performing groups. So that's not easy to do and they need that funding so that's been fantastic Mm-hmm. and BBC Symphony Orchestra's brand has benefited globally as a result of that. We also have done one recently with the Radiophonic Workshop which is a similar toolkit which is available by them. So that's using sounds from the Radiophonic Workshop. which I mean, that's a whole other story, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, but from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's archive, recreating the sounds that they did, they created, they're basically inspired so many of the electronic music artists of today, because they were pioneers in creating new ways of making sounds, cutting up tape, running keys down the back of pianos and strings, just recording really interesting, fascinating things, and then putting them through different devices. So yeah, that's the digital out. business. Then there's a music publishing business. we publish all the specially composed music across all genres of BBC programming and radio, idents and jingles and that kind of stuff. the main thing about music publishing, the key to music publishing basically is secondary exploitation. So with that music that we publish, which is basically underscore. The best way to secondary exploit that is by reversioning it, retitling it and putting it into a library. So I set up the BBC Production Music Library. It's a crowded marketplace, but our USP are the BBC blocks. and we reversion and re-title the music that we have so it's not just sat on a shelf and it's available to our, it's available globally but it's available to BBC producers and TV makers but also globally and has been a great success over the last 14 years. Check it out if you haven't seen it, BBC Production Music. So we're constantly developing that. That's a joint venture with Universal. We've now just added a natural language search to it. you can instead of, you know, some people are good at putting a music brief into a search. Sometimes harder than others. Now you can actually, you can put a screen, can put, you could, you could actually talk into it and say someone's walking down the street, two police cars are going by, they're being chased by a man with a dog and it'll come up with music which matches, which it feels matches that. It's absolutely unbelievable. That's awesome. Yeah, so check out BBCProductionMusic.com. Really proud of it. So that's another bit and spot on with licensing, digital, yeah, music publishing and production music. That's basically, that's the So. most, we also do records, we do all the soundtracks, but the records business used to be much bigger when there were TV advertised compilation market. I did all the Radio 1 live launch albums and then we sold about four million albums. It was huge business. but that's obviously changed. But we still release soundtracks. We work a lot with a label called Silver Screen, who are a music and TV score label, brilliant record label, old school record label. Still feels like a record label when you go in there, they've got records in there and stuff like that. So they're great to work with. So we have records business as well, though it's not as sizeable as it once was. Was this all you, Dominic? You came up with all this different departments. That sounds terrible. It's all me. No, well, it's not all me. There's a team of people. no, did, BBC Production Music was me. I did set that up. So that was my idea. And Symphony Orchestra Talk, was as well, and all those things. But yeah, there's... It's not all about me. And if you're a production company, can go to Getty and you can licence the publishing side, the music licensing through Getty. Anyone could, anyone can, no that's through Universal, so it's a joint venture with Universal. You just go to bbcproductionmusic.com and away you go. We have our own landing page. Yeah, and it's covered by the BBC blanket for BBC users as well, so it's free for any BBC production to use. So that probably takes you about half the week. What do you do for the rest of the week, Dom? That's a lot. You Yeah. mean, from a strategic point of view, it's challenging. mean, because it sounds to me like you cobble together deals based on the quality of the IP, really, right? So the IP is everything for you. I'm interested in what you said about podcasts and things like that, obviously, because we're on one today, is that a growing sector? I I, listened to a lot of BBC podcasts and I'm sure a lot of the Yeah. people do, but where do you see that business going? Is that potentially going to be some growth there? that I think, no, the same as in program making, if you're making programs, same as if you're working with recording artists in a way, you're hedge betting, aren't you? Because you don't know which one's really going to click. They're all good. You'd like to think that you're not making anything that's rubbish. So you're making all good programs, but some will get a rub of the green. You'll get certain circumstances will happen at the right time. It's on a streamer that happens to be up, you know, getting, doing a focus on getting more subscribers at that time. You know, you need a perfect storm, whatever, to have a hit. That's the same with podcasts and the podcast market is flooded, but certain podcasts are a means to an end. So if it's, if it's a talent or someone that's, that's keeping their, maintaining their public profile in order to do the rest of what they do, then, then that's good and interesting. But, but, but otherwise it's very tough and you need a rub of the green. fundamental to all of these things, immersive experiences, programs, whatever, is, to me, is the story. You it needs to have a good story. going into any, yeah, like so we'll do Steve Blackshaw, did a Deadly 60 tour live. Now he is such a fantastic talent because you're doing arenas and it's pretty much... him on stage and he has the audience, you they know all the answers, they know his stuff, he's completely engaging and he'll have dinosaurs come on the stage but they're just obviously not trying you to be realistic dinosaurs, they're just representing it but your imagination does the rest, it's because the story he's telling is compelling. So nothing is good without that. That's fundamental to everything, the story is there. And I think that's the same with any podcast. It has to have that, at its heart, Mm. what story is it telling you? Yeah, I mean, think think that show and I think authenticity and connecting with the audience is the hardest thing. mean, and so that that does mean that, you know, you've obviously got that barometer within you of through all the experience. I you can smell smell stuff, which is important, right? I mean, do you find the creative because it sounds really creative. I mean, it makes me want to come work at the BBC, frankly, because there's Hahaha like this. There's so much stuff going on, right? I mean, it's like really, Yeah. to me, it's really exciting because you're kind of getting to try different stuff and you've got this crossover across these mediums, which I think is, at least in my experience, Yeah. relatively rare. Do you get excited about where things are going or do you find that the sort of Damocles with the license fee and not knowing what's going on with the BBC, does that make life difficult at times? No, that doesn't bother me. In fact, you know, like being the commercial arm, needed even more so it's better. So it opens more doors for us internally. People are more respectful to us from when I joined. I said to one person when I joined, make me feel like a brush salesman. You don't mean it was like the commercial guy. you But now they understand what we do and they see the benefits. So it's good. So we work very well together. Now I find it exciting, listen, across the areas I have, there are synergies across all the areas. So if it's for music publishing. understanding the rate or what the composer will learn from doing a set of live concerts in arenas is important Mm-hmm. for them because that makes them a great deal of money and therefore understanding if they do arrangements that help us then it benefits them in the long term. there are synergies there, there's synergies with the archive and that content that goes into live events or all of those things. It is creative. That's the beauty of what we've got used. You can be really creative, but the difference is understanding the difference between could and would. You know, anyone could say, you could do, planet Earth, Cirque du Soleil, that would be brilliant. said, yeah, but would they do that? Why would they give us a share of their ticket price? What are we going to add to it? What's going to sell it? And, you know, so, yes, being creative, coming up with ideas, and I'm old enough now to, and I'm not. worry about coming up with an idea, everyone laughs at it goes, that's ridiculous. I'd rather do that. And if it stimulates someone to have another idea or shows them to be free and let ideas out, something will come of it. Or it might even be something that clicks. might be a good idea, but I'd rather encourage in my team to be free to go just say it. That, know, so what? It's only an idea. You come up with another one. But then once you have those ideas, quickly identify what's a cul-de-sac and what isn't. Because if we drive forever up a cul-de-sac, we're not going to make any money. So you still have to have that decision. simply. Yeah, I mean, I think from my perspective is if you're an archive producer working for the BBC, do they go through directly to the BBC or do they? Because there's an internal system at the BBC, isn't there? Yeah, there's an internal system which they can use, yeah. Yeah. So they don't have to go through Getty. don't... Okay. No. Yeah. Yeah, no, they don't. Sorry, that's a really short answer. don't know how to make that bit longer. No, I mean what So can you just explain the process say if they because you got teams internally at the BBC that will do the research and everything for you can they go through Yeah. to you guys or do they have to go through getty and search on their website or No, they don't have to go through Getty. They can go internally. They can search themselves. And they've got an internal licensing Bye. team that will help them. And is it free for internal productions? Yeah, they can use the archive for... Yeah. And then the only other question I had to ask you, because speaking to archive producers, talent, how easy is it to clear talent at the BBC? Because obviously you've got so many big names there. It depends what you're clearing them for and it depends who the talent is and what level they are. Yeah. Normally, if we're working with with a brand, there's a public service brand, they won't have the rights that we need to commercialise it. So we'll have to go back and do individual deals. And some are easier Yeah. than others. And that just depends on the agent and what level they... or what the talent wants to do, or some of them then can go and do their own thing. So, yeah, that's always a challenge, but that's just the nature of working with public service. advice would you give to somebody Dominic that wants to get into those three areas that you're in? How do they go about it? I mean, I know the BBC have a lot of educational and work experience courses, but if you want to get into doing what you're doing and doing what you did, what would your big piece of advice be? Very difficult now, I think, because I come from completely different world where you were in a phone box, boning up, trying to blag an interview to get to work for Terry King. I stopped, I was driving as a... I was driving a van for a motor spares company and I'd seen an advert melody maker, I pulled over to the side of the road and got a really unfriendly bloke at the other end of a line on a phone box and blagged my way in for an interview. That's completely different. So I don't really, that doesn't happen now. I think there are schemes, there are courses, there are college courses, you know, for music bids there are... you know, BIM, all of these kind of universities where you can get degrees tailored to specific parts of the music business, which gives you a head start in terms of approaching a company and saying you have that kind of skill set or that you have that bit of knowledge. But then I would say reach out to any apprentice schemes that you can. Very difficult because I think you really need to explore how what you're submitting electronically, because some things are just dismissed by they get so many coming in, so many applications. that you can just be dismissed by AI, right? So you have to get past that. I can't tell you how to do that because I didn't, I did it in a phone box. don't know. It terrifies me. You know, I've got young kids, not that young anymore, but you know, they're all faced with that. It's really, really difficult. You know, networking, putting yourself out there, being prepared to do something for nothing, being a runner on a show. They're always looking for runners. I'd set up a couple of people with... on later being a runner on later and stuff like that and they've got great experience. One of the guys then went on to work on the Glastonbury for the BBC and gets experience that way. So I think we have to be prepared to do that and some of the younger generation perhaps aren't as prepared as we were to do it for nothing and they Hmm. expect some recommends it's different, you know, different mentality. No. and doing those three areas is unique in the sense that because of the way I started out or the things that I've done have led to that. There aren't many with that breadth, that's something you build up over the years and just by doing what you have to do. And the other question I had for you is, mean, a lot of your material, you said is not digitized. Are you guys actively restoring and preserving that content Yes. and getting it up to 3K, 2K or 4K or? We do restore it, always obviously have to, you know, that's a constant thing to review storage. What's the most effective way, cost effective way of doing that? What's, you know, there's a balance between cloud storage or, you know, all of those kinds of things. So we just actually recently done quite a bit of work on part of the archive on that and finding the most cost effective way of doing it. That's something we always have to keep an eye on. Yeah, and is that any you keeping the tapes or you gonna just once you've digitized it other material was kept or they The originals Am I allowed to put, I don't know the obvious answer but I don't want to say the answer to that anyway because someone will probably go, what Okay. they're losing the tape, they'll be up in Hahaha art. Haha No, because That's it. That's fine. I'll let you off on that one. I can't tell the other story online but yeah. But no, to say No. that that content will be preserved and in a way that it's never lost. That's the political answer to that. Good. I remember from my days, I used to work at BBC Studios and Post Production. I'm not sure if that still exists no more, but we used to do a lot restoring for BBC Motion Gallery and working Yeah. with the Motion Gallery team. Yeah. That's why it's all so safe, Sandra. It's all... you looked after it. I know. That's important thing right, know, I it's yeah. Now it's fundamental to any archive, know, joking aside, it's Yeah. fundamental to any archive. And that's why I'm saying that I'm not answering that question about the tapes or whatever, because that's also extremely sensitive for archivists and people involved in that. And, Hmm. you know, you can't be flippant about that. This just, Mmm. you know, in all seriousness, talks about archiving its power in telling a story and its power of actually showing us what... lessons we should learn and all of those kind of things, it can't be dismissed lightly. Yeah. I have a quick question Mm. for you, which I guess is kind of the future. talking about IP, we came across a company recently, it's an AI company. And obviously this is ability to reinvigorate the estates of dead artists and use their voices to narrate or use their performances to create new stuff. Where do you stand on, you know, that ability for music, past music artists, people who've died for their catalogs to be kind of rejuvenated with AI technology, and bring out perhaps potentially live events for, I don't know, a comedian, let's say, the Goon Show or something like that you could recreate. Have you come across those kind of concepts before and are you interested in those? Could have, could have, right? Yeah. I've had so many tickets. the, but if it's a big, listen, I would be open minded. think AI there's a, you know, it'll settle down in a way and people will find great uses for AI creatively as well that it can be used. But you always need human creativity so it shouldn't be the cart before the horse. So the story and the human creativity comes first and if there's a way of making it easier to tell that story or facilitating it or if you start with a blank canvas opening up that canvas by using AI then it's good and I think that's how it will find I think it will naturally find that balance but it has to be up. about human creativity. But if you are representing the big artists music catalog, it depends on your attitude. If you knew the artist, if the artist has passed away, then you knew their attitude towards this. You may that may inform your decision. But if they were free and open to any of those things, you may well be saying, listen, why not create a hologram? Why not? use AI to generate something which can breathe new life into a fantastic catalogue of songs. So I would be extremely open minded to that. Yeah, I mean, I think there's potential there. But you're right, you know, it's the commercial angle, whether it will work or not. Yeah, but not everything will do it's everyone thinks great we'll do that with everything. No, not everything's going to work like that, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I think Dominic was trying Dominic I think Dom was trying to give you a pitch for a job in your department I've got an idea, right? No, no, I've got lots Hahaha of ideas. None of them ever do anything good. so Dominic, we're going to be doing the quick fire round, quick questions, quick answers. You say the first thing that comes into your head. Okay, today's quick fire round is brought to you by Bounce Post Production. We trust them at Lola Clips for our digital storage needs. So Dominic, favourite BBC programme? God. The news. Favorite BBC live performance. Alicia Keys lied for Radio 1 because I was there. Black or white archive or color archive? don't Bugs. Radio or television? that's a difficult question isn't it because both really but but but listen like you know radio people forget how awesome radio is, BBC radio in particular is brilliant. Look at the breadth of content and stuff you can get up. One item from the BBC archive you'd rescue first if the building was on fire. All the Radiophonic Workshop tapes, because I know Marquez, who's a lovely man, is the archivist and was in the Radiophonic Workshop, would be after me if I didn't get those first. What one word... No, this is the final Talk about ending on a low. is then, this not going to play well, is it? one. What final question? What's one word that sums up the BBC? impartial Well done. Good. Well done. You still didn't answer which if you could sit in on any recording. You haven't thought. I don't know, because I've sat in on quite a few, I mean listen, I said the best performance ever, right, at the BBC was Alicia Keys, because I was privileged to go to Maida Vale in Maida Vale 3, beautiful song, she's doing it, everyone's recording there. she played a session for Radio One. I was probably about 12 feet away from her. The band were amazing. So that was a recording session I was in on that. That still since she was down my spine. was such a privilege to be there. So I'd say that. Well, listen, we've taken, we got a one hour with you, we're almost there. So we are hugely grateful for you taking the time to sit with us and explain a little bit about the BBC. Thank you ever so much. We'll be popping this out end of this week. So we'll turn it around quick. We'll get you posted. But once again, Dominic Walker, thanks very much for joining the Archive Room. Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you both.