The Media Leader Podcast
by The Media Leader
The Media Leader is the leading source of analysis, data, opinion and trends in commercial media and advertising. Hosted by senior reporter Jack Benjamin, we speak to senior industry leaders and rising stars about the key challenges media faces as part of our mission to stand up for courage, inclusion and excellence in media. Find out more at uk.themedialeader.com and subscribe to our daily newsletter.
Episodes
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How challengers can make the most of their underdog advantage - with David Meikle and Richard Temple
Is being underestimated a competitive advantage? A new book for the marketing industry argues that underdog brands and agencies have a lot of tricks up their sleeve – if they know how to use them. Richard Temple is the CEO of independent media agency JAA Media. David Meikle is a business…
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Why Stagwell launched Stagwell Media - with Slavi Samardzija
This month, Stagwell announced it would transform its agency brand Assembly into Stagwell Media, a new global agency that will combine Assembly’s “performance heritage and ecosystem expertise” with an integrated model powered by Stagwell’s agentic operating system, The Machine. The move comes…
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Are premium creators the ‘new primetime’? With Arcade CEO Matt Elek
Arcade, the management firm behind The Sidemen, is repositioning itself as a creator-first entertainment company, with ambitions to turn Europe's biggest online personalities into media brands. Following a significant rebrand last month, an expanded roster of creators and its first upfront in...
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Why one-third of PMG’s employees are engineers – with EMEA CEO Josh Krichefski
Former IPA president and WPP Media veteran Josh Krichefski is one year into his work at independent media agency PMG. Speaking on The Media Leader Podcast soon after he joined, Krichefski set out three goals for his first year: improving brand awareness of the agency, winning more enterprise...
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How to traverse a non-linear career in media - with TheZoo.London's Rachel Forde and Marco Bertozzi
This week, The Media Leader is running a week in focus centred on talent and leadership. For years, industry leaders have warned media and marketing is facing a talent crisis. Mental health struggles and burn out was common especially during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, and rounds of...
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What we learned from 'the first digital-first' World Cup - with The Guardian, Mirror, Sun and Daily Mail
Earlier this month at our Future of Media Manchester event, The Media Leader's content director, James Longhurst, sat down with four leading sports journalists to peek behind the scenes of covering this year's biggest shared cultural moment: the 2026 World Cup. John Cross is the chief football...
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Your guide to anti-ultra-processed planning - with Craft Media's Sally Weavers and Jen Jones
This week on The Media Leader we will be taking a deep dive into the future of media planning and strategy. So, what better way to start than with unpacking a new planning paradigm. This summer, independent media agency Craft Media London launched a new planning “Cookbook”. Titled...
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Navigating the nascent world of GEO – with Havas’ Amy Banks
One of the fastest moving parts of the marketing industry is GEO, or generative engine optimisation. As AI search proliferates on Google, on ChatGPT, on Claude, brands are wanting to influence how results related to them are shown to users. For Google and ChatGPT, that could include through paid...
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How SPUR is building a new economic model for publishers - with technical lead Alex Springer
Publishers are not sitting idle as AI companies scrape their websites and cite their content in response to queries without permission. As their business models are turned upside down by sharply declining referral traffic from search, they are fighting back. That starts with understanding…
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The future of media research and JICs - with the IPA's Dan Flynn and Graeme Griffiths
Every year, The Media Leader and its parent Adwanted UK celebrate the best of UK media research at the Adwanted Media Research Awards (AMRAs). Robust media research is an important industry resource. It helps inform and steer conversation and our understanding of marketing best practice – as well...
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What is the future of freesheets? With Metro's Deborah Arthurs and Jo Mazenko
Within the publishing market, one segment that has seen turbulence over the past few years has been freesheets. As the pandemic disrupted commuting, trains and tubes added Wi-Fi, and hybrid working became the norm, the number of people reading the paper on their daily commute dropped. This had...
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The art and craft of audio advertising - AudioTrack at 10
To mark the 10th anniversary of AudioTrack, the UK's commercial audio delivery service owned and operated by Adwanted. The Media Leader Podcast joined the AudioTrack team for a deep dive into audio creative. In this bumper episode, host Charli West brings together five industry experts across…
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Is broadcasters' embrace of social video commercially sustainable? With Enders Analysis' Niamh Burns
The UK TV market is in a state of precarity and change. Sky is acquiring ITV’s Media and Entertainment business, the BBC is facing declining license fee payers, and director-general Matt Brittin has suggested reviving a Project Kangaroo-like “sovereign” streaming platform involving iPlayer and...
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How Netflix's ads business is becoming a meaningful growth driver - with EMEA ads VP Damien Bernet
Netflix is in the midst of a commercial expansion. In May, the streaming giant announced its ad tier would be coming to 15 new markets, including 9 in Europe. The streaming giant has invested in developing its own tech stack and acted aggressively to grow its programmatic business. The company is...
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Can YouTube be both TV and a 'home base' for the creator economy? With MD Kim Larson
Is YouTube TV? It’s a question that pretty much everyone in this industry has an opinion on. YouTube, surely, would benefit from receiving TV budgets from advertisers. And, after all, more people are watching YouTube on TV sets. At the same time, YouTube isn’t exactly leaning into TV measurement...
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How The Sun is developing its video strategy - with commercial revenue director Owen Griffiths
This episode was produced in partnership with News UK. News UK’s The Sun is one of many titles to embrace video in recent months. According to the publisher, its videos have driven 60m views and a 110% increase in returning viewers. Its movement into video has also helped secure new sponsors,...
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What publishers can learn from The New York Times's 'solar system' model - with global ads VP Tom Armstrong
The New York Times is something of a rarity in contemporary news publishing: a legacy giant that is seeing double-digit revenue growth and consistent readership growth. It's no surprise, then, that many commercial leaders at other publishers here in the UK have pointed to the Gray Lady as having...
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How Channel 4 is taking a 'platform mindset' to TV — with David Amodio and Jay Kassam
This episode was produced in partnership with Channel 4. At Cannes this year, The Media Leader sat down with several members of Channel 4's commercial leadership team to discuss how the TV company is looking to drive new commercial growth now that Universal Ads is live in the UK and Channel 4 is...
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‘It’s not like we knowingly have bad ads’: Meta on ad fraud, teen safety, and why AI will not replace agencies
Meta is growing at a remarkable rate. Already one of the world’s biggest global advertising businesses, the tech giant’s revenue grew 33% year-on-year to $56.3bn in Q1 alone. But while its dominance over the ad industry has crystallised, so has scrutiny into its business practices – and...
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Universal Ads is live in the UK. Now what? With Channel 4's Rak Patel
This episode was produced in partnership with Channel 4. For the second year in a row, the UK's commercial TV companies made a splash at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. After unveiling Universal Ads — the broadcasters' marketplace for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) — last…
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How AI, China and media consolidation is keeping the global ad market 'buoyant' - with WPP Media's Kate Scott-Dawkins
Last week, WPP Media released its mid-year global advertising forecast report. As Kate Scott-Dawkins, WPP Media’s global president of business intelligence and author of the report said, the growth picture for advertising is "quite buoyant", even in the midst of severe geopolitical and...
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Why brands need less channel planning and more ecosystem design — with Arena Media's Hamid Habib
Last week on the show, The Media Leader spoke with Thinkbox’s Elliott Millard about how brands can reconsider their cultural impact, and this week, we wanted to continue that conversation with an agency that bills itself as sitting right at the centre of culture. Hamid Habib is the managing...
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How marketers should reconsider culture and short-term strategies — with Thinkbox's Elliott Millard
Ask marketers what they hope to accomplish and, as part of the effort to drive sales outcomes, these days, many will say they want their brand to contribute to and sit within culture But that begs the question: how do you define culture? There is a sense that culture is youth-driven and based on...
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What the OOH industry needs to do to double its market share - with WOO's Tom Goddard
This week, from the 3rd to the 5th of June, the World Out of Home Organisation (WOO) is hosting its Annual Congress here in London. The event is expected to draw more than 700 attendees from over 37 countries, and The Media Leader is an official media partner of the conference, occurring during…
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Why the United Nations is asking advertisers to protect the open web
Last month, the United Nations in partnership with the Conscious Advertising Network (CAN) launched an issue brief warning the integrity of the global information ecosystem is at a "crisis point". As Charlotte Scaddan, senior advisor on information integrity at the UN, explained: "Without swift...
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Believe It or Not Ep. 6: Will AI end enterprise software businesses as we know them?
In a new mini-series, former Media Leader editor-in-chief Omar Oakes is joined by former Dentsu International CEO, now AI strategist Hamish Nicklin to argue over the nuances of AI development and its use in the creative industries. In the series' final episode, the duo debate for and against the...
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How brands can win authority in LLMs - with Havas, Heineken and Publicis
With the advent and adoption of AI search, consumers’ online research and discovery behaviours are shifting. How can brands win authority in this new space? Last month at our annual Future of Brands conference, industry leaders convened in London to unpack the challenges facing brand marketers in…
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Believe It or Not Ep. 5: Is AI sycophancy bad for business?
In a new mini-series, former Media Leader editor-in-chief Omar Oakes is joined by former Dentsu International CEO, now AI strategist Hamish Nicklin to argue over the nuances of AI development and its use in the creative industries. In episode four, the duo debate for and against the prompt: “AI...
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How outcomes measurement has changed the CMO-CFO relationship - with Nimmi Shah and Sameer Modha
Is there a more important relationship in our industry than that between the CMO and the CFO? Given the macroeconomic environment – war, inflation, AI threatening to upend entire industries – how are the the interests of financial leaders changing as they relate to marketing? Nimmi Shah is a...
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Believe It or Not Ep. 4: Is AI turning the internet into a sea of slop or has 'churnalism' already made it sloppy?
In a new mini-series, former Media Leader editor-in-chief Omar Oakes is joined by former Dentsu International CEO, now AI strategist Hamish Nicklin to argue over the nuances of AI development and its use in the creative industries. In episode four, the duo debate for and against the prompt: “AI…
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Can retail media be a brand channel? With Tesco's Tash Whitmey
This week, The Media Leader is embarking on its first ever Retail Media Week in Focus. The fledgling channel has been having a moment. Investment in retail media has grown substantially – in 2025, adspend in the channel grew 17.5% year on year, according to the latest AA/Warc figures. Brands are...
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Believe It or Not Ep. 3: Is there still room for human creativity in the AI era?
In a new mini-series, former Media Leader editor-in-chief Omar Oakes is joined by former Dentsu International CEO, now AI strategist Hamish Nicklin to argue over the nuances of AI development and its use in the creative industries. In episode three, the duo debate for and against the prompt: “AI...
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What next after the social media addiction trial? With ScrollAware's Jess Butcher
In March, Meta and Google were found by a Los Angeles jury to have deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive in a way that was demonstrably harmful to a 20-year-old woman known as Kaley. TikTok and Snap were also previously defendants in the case before agreeing to a settlement ahead…
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Believe It or Not Ep. 2: Will humans still touch media plans within five years?
In a new mini-series, former Media Leader editor-in-chief Omar Oakes is joined by former Dentsu International CEO, now AI strategist Hamish Nicklin to argue over the nuances of AI development and its use in the creative industries. In episode two, the duo debate for and against the prompt: “No...
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What does it mean to create 'thumb-stopping' content? With LadBible's LA Ronayne
One question that we’ve returned to time and again on this podcast and in our coverage, as media practitioners return to time and again themselves, is how to appeal to young people. Young people who are often hard to reach. They overindex on low-attention social media platforms and, while they...
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Believe It or Not Ep. 1: Will AI replace most white collar jobs?
In a new mini-series, former Media Leader editor-in-chief Omar Oakes is joined by former Dentsu International CEO, now AI strategist Hamish Nicklin to argue over the nuances of AI development and its use in the creative industries. In the first episode, the duo debate for and against the prompt:...
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Introducing Believe It or Not, a mini-series about AI in media hosted by Omar Oakes and Hamish Nicklin
Most AI podcasts tell you one of two things: either AI is going to save the world, unlock human potential, cure diseases, fix the broken bits of capitalism — or that it's going to end the world, homogenise culture, hand power to a handful of companies that have too much of it. In a new…
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Why cut-through, not scale, will be the real trick to this year's World Cup - with The Guardian's James Fleetham and Marcus Christenson
This episode was produced in partnership with The Guardian. The World Cup is poised to be the biggest media event of the year in 2026, and media owners have been betting that it will help lift their pocketbooks and grow audiences. Live sport has become one of the last, best ways for advertisers…
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What UM has learned from a year of Full Colour Media — with Susan Kingston-Brown
Last year, UM unveiled a new global omnichannel media planning proposition: Full Colour Media. The approach, underpinned by a custom body of research developed in partnership with the University of Oxford’s Said Business School, seeks to move against the grain of generic, algorithm-driven media...
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Can GB News scale its advertising business? With chief revenue officer Ross Sergeant
Earlier this month, Allwyn’s global media director Ross Sergeant announced he would be joining GB News as its chief revenue officer. The appointment comes amid what Sergeant has referred to as an “inflection point” for the company. GB News has cumulatively lost £131.5m since its inception in…
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How the BBC will fulfill its remit as global streaming giants encroach — with BBC iPlayer's Kerensa Samanidis
The BBC is at a critical moment as it looks to negotiate with the government over the renewal of its charter. This month, it published its response to the government’s consultation in which it highlighted the quote “need for radical reforms to its independence”. Preserving the status quo, the...
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What's behind double-digit digital ad market growth? With IAB UK's Elizabeth Lane
Digital assets are have for several years been the main growth drivers for most media owners. This is as true of TV – ITV just announced it saw 10% growth in digital revenues compared to flat overall revenue growth – as it is in publishing, as seen in the latest consumer ABC figures, as it is…
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Unpacking agency employment decline and progress on gender and diversity efforts — with Lianre Robinson
In February, the Institute for Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) released its latest Agency Census. The findings showed an agency market in contraction: employment at creative agencies fell 14.3% last year – and that’s before Omnicom completed its acquisition of IPG and subsequently announced it...
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Inside the anonymous group of senior leaders warning of advertising's moral failing — with Inside Track's Ned Younger
In January, an anonymous group of senior leaders at creative, media and adtech agencies released a memo warning that the industry is failing in its moral and civic duties to society. The memo argued that without an interruption to the status quo, advertising will “be a critical enabler to tech...
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Why magazine brands united to launch the single marketplace Atria — with Immediate Media's Cath Waller
Late last month, a group of six magazine publishers – Bauer, Future, Hearst UK, Hello!, Immediate and Time Out – launched Atria, a single marketplace through which advertisers can engage with the combined reach of those publishers’ brands, equivalent to about 33m consumers. The effort is powered…
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Why audio is embracing video — with News Broadcasting's Dave Wilcox and Russell Pedrick
At the end of January, The Media Leader held its first ever Audio In Focus Week. The audio landscape is evolving at a breakneck pace – with growing digital audio audiences, and audio businesses moving into video production. So, we decided to dedicate an entire week’s worth of our coverage to...
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How to harness the value of trust — with Matt Bourn and James Best
This month, advertising industry trade bodies the IPA, Isba and the Advertising Association are spending a great deal of combined energy highlighting the issue of trust. That includes at the annual LEAD conference, which takes place this Thursday, and in a report released last week by the IPA…
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Open questions for the year ahead
It's nearly the end of January, and from a macroeconomic perspective, it’s been an absolutely wild month. The US threatened to invade Greenland and institute tariffs on European countries mobilising to resist that effort. In Davos last week, Trump appeared to walk back some of those threats, but...
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Will 2026 be the year of the indie agency? With Martin Woolley and Paul Phelps
A year ago, the Alliance of Independent Agencies and the Land of Independents collaborated to launch a new initiative aimed at sharing knowledge and support for independent media agencies. Enter the Alliance of Media Independents (AMI), which has served as a single route to the indie media agency...
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How do advertisers view TV vis-à-vis platforms? With Unilever, PepsiCo, ex-Kraft Heinz
Last month at the Future of TV Advertising Global event in London, three key brand marketers spoke about how they view the strengths of TV, particularly as they compare to other audio-visual platforms. Richard Brooke is the global media trading and operations director at Unilever. Sorin Patilinet...
About this show
The Media Leader is the leading source of analysis, data, opinion and trends in commercial media and advertising.
Hosted by senior reporter Jack Benjamin, we speak to senior industry leaders and rising stars about the key challenges media faces as part of our mission to stand up for courage, inclusion and excellence in media.
Find out more at uk.themedialeader.com and subscribe to our daily newsletter.
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The Media Leader