Episode Overview

In this episode of the Kids Media Club Podcast, hosts Jo, Andy, and Emily reunited in person at London's OTT Question Time event. Between sessions, they carved out twenty minutes to share their insights from the conference, diving deep into Emily's Vertical Video panel and previewing Jo's upcoming Data and Strategy discussion.

Key Insights

Vertical Video: More Than Just Micro Drama Hype

Emily's panel tackled the elephant in the room: vertical video is not synonymous with micro dramas, despite what your LinkedIn feed might suggest. What started as marketing tactics has matured into a legitimate digital commissioning strategy spanning sports content, documentaries, and diverse formats that go far beyond scripted drama.

The timing couldn't be more significant. Just weeks before the event, major industry shifts signaled vertical's mainstream moment: Disney announced their vertical pivot at CES, TikTok launched a standalone micro drama app, Netflix hinted at vertical ambitions during earnings calls, and the BBC unveiled a major YouTube partnership.

Finding Audiences at the Intersection of Niches

Perhaps the most compelling insight came from Paramount's unexpected success with Geordie Shore content. When one cast member shared her infertility journey through vertical video, it transcended the show's typical audience entirely. This demonstrated how platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels curate intersecting niches that connect content with viewers who'd never engage with the traditional format.

Vertical isn't cannibalizing traditional viewing—it's complementary. ESPN's "Verts" app proves this beautifully. Rather than pulling sports fans away from the big screen, vertical content enhances the experience with player deep-dives, stats analysis, and supplementary angles that enrich rather than replace live viewing.

The format's inherent intimacy matters too. Phone-based vertical video creates deeply personal experiences, whether exploring serious topics like infertility or offering fresh perspectives on beloved entertainment franchises.

Traditional Broadcasters Go Fishing in New Waters

Established players like Channel 4, ITV, and the BBC have reached a crucial realization: audiences aren't coming to them anymore. Rather than doubling down on walled gardens and exclusivity, they're strategically "fishing" where audiences actually are—YouTube, Meta, and other platforms. This represents a fundamental shift from trying to corral viewers through forced exclusivity to acknowledging the fluidity of modern fandom.

Data: Powerful Tool or Dangerous Master?

Looking ahead to Jo's panel, the conversation turned to a critical tension in modern media: there's no excuse not to know your audience, yet data can easily become misdirection. While data should inform commissioning and distribution decisions, it tends to measure what's easily measurable—which isn't always what truly matters.

Moonbug's Cocomelon provides the perfect case study. Their YouTube data-driven approach demonstrated analytics' power for IP and franchise building, but also raised important questions about creative vision versus algorithmic optimization.

The real skill isn't drowning in data—it's knowing how to zoom out and distill signal from noise. Ironically, experienced media professionals with 20+ years of instinct are uniquely positioned to thrive in this data-rich environment. Their gut feel, honed over decades, can cut through analytical clutter to find strategic clarity that spreadsheets alone cannot provide.

The sweet spot? Combining analytical rigor with seasoned intuition—letting data inform without letting it dictate.

Recorded live at OTT Question Time in London

Foreign.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Kids Media Club podcast.

And we are here in London at the OTT Question Time event.

And we're in person as well.

We are.

We're all crowded around a time I get up close and personal in the side room.

It's lovely to be all together, though.

It is.

It's good.

But I still don't know how to take my cues from you in person.

Well, so currently we are at the end of day one of OTT Question Time Live, which has been really interesting.

Oh, yeah.

Just came out of a CTV panel and learned a lot about connected TVs, probably more than I ever realized that I should know.

But we're going to kick off with Emily, who hosted the very first panel of the day, in fact, of the show.

So you take the stage.

Tell us a little bit about what you spoke about this morning.

Yeah, it was a lot of responsibility.

So I chaired a panel on vertical video and we had a great mix of people.

We had people from the digital commissioning side of Vertical Video, we had people from the commercial side, we had folks on Discovery, and we had folks from the user experience of vertical video apps and overall TV apps and mobile apps in general.

So it was a really great panel.

We had people from Paramount, people from BBC Studios, people from Grey Stone, Nielsen and people from FX Digital.

So lots of.

Lots of insights.

One of the interesting things that we set it up with, and this came up in our prep session, was it wasn't a panel about micro dramas that was going to be interesting because I.

Think a lot of people conflate the two or.

And there seems to be a lot of hype and a lot of noise around vertical micro dramas.

But that's not the same as vertical video.

It's not the same.

It's a subject, It's a subsection.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

So.

And there is a lot of hype around microdramas for anybody who even dips into LinkedIn occasionally.

Everybody's speaking about it.

The kind of commercial model of vertical video has been unlocked through microdrama apps.

The panel who works within that space.

When we were getting together on the preposition, we all agreed this is bigger, it's broader.

Vertical video is an extension of digital commissioning.

It's an extension of, you know, in ways is evolved from what was marketing practice, but it's way beyond that now.

Yeah.

And there's so many broader formats on vertical that aren't just scripted dramas.

Right.

Like.

Yeah.

Which we.

I mean, we've.

We've seen and we've spoken about loads of times on the podcast.

I saw a post that you made earlier this week, because I remember two or three years ago, Mean Girls Day.

Yeah, they broke up the Mean girls movie into 23.

Yeah.

Two or three minute chunks.

Mean Girls Day, which was at the time a really unique use.

Yeah.

Yes.

And then earlier this week, we had High school musical, the 20th anniversary of Wildcats.

If you want a wildcat, always a wildcat.

So that.

Joe, it's been such an interesting time to put a panel together on Vertical Video, because I feel like in the last four weeks since I've been working on this, there's been a number of announcements.

So we had Disney moving to vertical at CES.

We had TikTok announcing a microdrama app, satellite microdrama app that they were launching in a couple of markets at the Netflix earnings.

I don't want to call it an announcement, but it was more like, we don't want to be outdone by Disney.

So Netflix were like, yeah, it's on Vertical Video.

We're going to do some stuff around that.

There's the BBC YouTube announcement, the BBC YouTube deal that was announced.

So.

And then there was high school musical, 20th anniversary.

So there's been lots going on on this and, you know, it's a really interesting space.

I think clipping still has a place.

Right.

So the High School Musical approach still has a place.

Did you get a sense of where it was just an original content that was being developed for Vertical rather than clipping?

Clipping has a place, but original content is evolving.

There is evolving in a major way.

And I think one of the.

One of the points that was made on the panel is like the intersection of niches amongst Vertical video content feeds, I. E. TikTok YouTube shorts, Instagram Reels, snap.

The way those platforms curate niches and the intersection of those niches is a really interesting way to divine audiences, find audiences that you might not have expected to find.

So one of the panelists, Amy Parker Winnings from Paramount, mentioned Geordie Shore.

So one of the.

So Jodie Shore, love it or hate it, right?

Some people really love it.

I would be quite agnostic to it.

Some people find it quite repellent.

But one of the participants on Geordie Shore was going through an infertility journey.

And so they.

They commissioned short form.

I don't say short form.

They commissioned vertical content around that part of her story and her journey and a topic that she was genuinely connected to.

And that can kind of.

That means that her Persona as A Geordie Shore person is transcended because, you know, there's people on apps that are connecting with, would connect with that topic.

It's quite a serious topic.

That was another thing that we had about vertical video.

It's not all just frivolous marketing content.

Some of it is quite hard hitting, you know.

Yeah.

And just building on that, it can also be complementary.

What you described as.

Well as it being hard hitting is that it's, it's not just clips of Georgie Shaw.

It's complementary, but it extends and expand, expands out of something that came up there.

And this is one of the things that I thought was interesting because we tend to default to entertainment when we're thinking about vertical video and microdramas.

But espn, part of Disney, also launched Verts, which was in their ESPN sports app in the end of last year, which is vertical video in sports.

And there's this tended to be an assumption that actually vertical video in sport is, you know, it's cannibalizing if they're watching sports on the big screen or if it's live.

But actually, no, it can be complimentary too.

Yeah.

You can be watching, you know, something that is a deep dive into a player's stats or their styles or not in kids media.

But you know, it's prediction markets, it betting kind of thing.

Yeah.

But it's not necessarily something that takes away your attention from what is playing at the screen.

It's being constructed in a way that it's additive or incremental or complementary.

Which is what you were just talking about.

Yeah, yeah.

And it bring, it bring.

It expands the audiences.

It brings more audiences in.

I think that, I think there's.

So there's something about the intimacy of it as well.

I would say that.

Yeah.

Because it's.

People are so used to having it on their phone and that.

And it's a personal experience.

If you are into like, if you are like.

And it goes that intimacy doesn't have to be like, so covert.

Right.

Like, it can be like.

But before.

That's.

That's a classic example.

That is quite intimate.

Yes, yes.

Or it might be like, you know, so it can kind of span.

Right.

Like so one of my favorite comedy creators makes jokes about punctuation.

Okay.

And that is.

Has a job at.

Yeah, exactly.

So that's kind of niche to my sense, intimate to my sense of humor.

Might not be for everybody, but so it just means that intimacy can span serious topics.

It can span sense of humor.

It can span, you know, know, it's per Personal.

Yeah.

Social.

Yeah, yeah.

Talking to a guy just here in the coffee break earlier who works for a vertical video platform called TattleTV.

Yes.

And he was saying that they're finding a niche in those comedy creators that are in on Instagram at the moment.

You know, one creator takes on different Persona, different angles, but they're creating their own comedy skit.

It's scripted comedy.

It's scripted comedy.

It is, yeah.

And now potentially vertical apps, whether it's micro dramas or.

But these could actually be a home for curated new comedy creators.

Tykell Cordova, we've discovered doing her punctuation themed comedy.

Yeah, she sounds really dull, but she really sounds great.

So.

Yeah.

Did you get the sense the established players were kind of intentional about that kind of personal aspect of vertical in terms of their strategy for, I think.

The opportunity of creators who are.

Who.

So, yes, in some of that personal element and I think some of that, you know, carving out identities of people, you know, that, you know, somebody from Geordie Shore might also be somebody who's going through an infertility journey.

Those two things are not mutually exclusive and they're equally important, maybe in that person's identity.

I think that was something that came through.

And then also, like, I think it's the democratization which we talked about about media that you can have a small creator that carves a niche within the audience.

They don't need that much other than their imagination and a bit of a, like a bit of effort and, you know, you know, film themselves and they can actually build and it opens the opportunity for much more representation among the creators and then they build.

And then there was a question around, you know, IP originated on.

On vertical or IP originated from digital.

And that's something that we see coming through too.

It's like a creator can build, get a certain amount of plat.

Maybe they, maybe they collaborate.

Maybe they collaborate with it with an established ip and then maybe they build beyond that.

The one that was referenced in the panel was Bluey and Costin Mayer Costa Mayor.

They're.

They're like a dance.

They're a dance duo that came up on TikTok in the.

In lockdown.

Oh, yes.

And they do very on point, slightly unhinged dances to kind of quite niche little themes, new songs.

Whether it's the Bluey theme songs or whether it's like the, like the sound that your MacBook makes when it turns on or whatever.

Like they kind of.

They choreographed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, you know, there's, there's different opportunities for it to come through.

So yeah, it was interesting chatting to the guy Philippe from TattleTV.

We were also riffing on those different content types and opportunities that perhaps I haven't thought about before.

But they were talking slightly in the vein of Mean Girls in high School musicals was an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

They had basically done a cut down vertical video version of a Hitchcock movie.

And there was some constant consternation amongst commentators about whether it was, you know, it was ruining the art of a Hitchcock movie.

I don't know which movie it was, the Birds, Rear Window, whatever.

But in a way then I kind of flipped it in sense that, you know, much like we had Cliff Notes or you know, when you were doing Hamlet at school, you could get a little book that abridged it and broke it.

Yeah.

Actually I think that's there's a viable way to discover films like Hitchcock on vertical video.

Yes.

You might have to cut it down and you know, reduce it to a 20 minute movie, but you use vertical video to do that.

But anyway, but that could then be a launch pad or a jumping off point to then go.

Actually I really quite enjoyed that.

I might go and dive into that body of work and I might go and seek it out on a streamer or I might go and find creators on YouTube that are breaking down, you know, the art of Hitchcock.

Yeah.

And actually I think that is, rather than it being a negative, could be quite, quite, you know, a positive then.

And then, then, you know, it kind of takes you on the journey of thinking, okay, well I've seen at least 40 different micro drama apps in the art store of late, but there's nothing to say that they have to be all micro drama.

Actually.

Could they start niching down into.

It could be science creators, it could be the comedy creators, it could be iconic movies in 15 minutes and 15 parts.

But actually there's a lot of people that would quite like that.

Yes.

I think it's an interesting, a really interesting space.

Hadn't really thought about it until you did this panel and now I am thinking about it more.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The abundance of apps, I'm not sure but that feels like a bit of a bubble to me.

You know, when you've got dominant players like Reels, Snapchat, TikTok shorts, like, that's where the established audience are.

I'm not saying there's not space for a couple of bespoke apps that aren't specific, but the abundance of them is a bit of.

Feels like a bit of a bubble to me.

I guess the Other question is like, why is it relevant for premium streaming to move in?

And I think the reasons behind that are like this sort of lean back.

Casual consumption, casual potency of attention is something they've maybe left on the table.

That it was something that was filled by linear is being less and less filled by linear.

Especially as, you know, generations are.

The watermark of generation.

Generations is rising.

And premium streaming finds itself in a place where, okay, there you turn to premium streaming when you want to sit down and watch and it's intense.

Something somebody said.

Somebody.

There was an analogy earlier.

I can't remember who it was now off top of my head, but it was like, it's like, you know, when you go to a meal and there's like a d' oeuvre served and they're very satisfying and you pick at them.

And then there's the main.

The main course.

It's like, okay, well, obviously premium streaming and that experience is serving the main course.

Social media is the old ed.

Yeah, but everyone loves sausage rolls.

So, you know, like, that's a whole.

That could be a whole meal if you have.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, if you're, if you're passionate about, like, listen, you know, depending on what the.

Any comments are, I'm not going to.

We're going too far down this, this road.

But like that, that, that attention has been left on the table.

Sorry, I'm back to meals.

But that attention has been left on the table.

And it's.

That's, you know, at saturation of premium streaming, this is something that they need to be looking at.

And I think it's also.

Sorry, one more rant.

It's also those types of formats, right?

Like talk shows.

Talk shows are being replaced by podcasts.

Right.

It's like, that's more of like a vertical format that's more of a casual consumption.

Obviously, sometimes you consume a podcast with voracious appetite, but oftentimes you'll have it on in the background or you'll have it on in, like when you're driving or like those kind of casual attention moments rather than an intense attention moment.

So, yeah, I think it also shows an acknowledgement of the streamers.

You know, to this point, if you were a streamer or you were YouTube or you were TikTok, you kind of stayed in your lane.

And now there's an acknowledgement that attention is fluid across all of those, which, of course, you've spoken about a lot.

And the battle for that attention now is so, Is so high.

They've got to think about how they go and activate in those spaces.

Absolutely.

No longer is everybody staying in their lane.

See the Netflix earnings call when they're talking about YouTube and the battle for entertainment.

Yeah.

They're leaning into gaming.

They're not staying in their lane anymore.

TikTok.

Is their lane saturated?

That's the problem.

And this is.

Yeah, when you're.

You've got Wall street, they're.

To go.

Forever up and to the right.

You got to think about how you go broader and that's really where this has come from.

And I was struck by how some of the established players like Channel 4 and ITB, I mean, the impression you get isn't that their lane is saturated, it's just the audience isn't in their lane, so they need to go into other people's lane to kind of attract the audience back to them.

Yeah.

And CBBC, YouTube announcement.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so, you know, channel four talking about being on YouTube and meta, but trying to draw some distinction between being on meta and YouTube, was fishing for audience and bringing them back to their channel where they have the most value.

Did you to just bring it back to the vertical video was the sense that for the established players, vertical video is a form of trying to find the audience to then bring them back to their channel, do you think?

Not directly.

I think so.

We at Paramount and BBC Studios, I think, you know, both who are quite progressive at this.

You know, obviously the value funnel, the commercial funnel for what that type of fan brings needs to be answered.

But vertical being an integrated part of the format of the IP for what that can deliver, whether it's reach, whether it is monetization, which is becoming a bit more clearer on vertical platforms, whether.

It'S irrelevant relevance as well, and on relevance, can't afford not to be relevant to the audiences that are there, but.

Also servicing people into.

Into other commercial avenues, whether it's like their shops or like, you know, TikTok shop, etc, there's other levers there that justify this when you do it.

Right.

So, yeah, I think for those two, as we were discussing on the panel, you know, got it.

Whether the bigger broadcast, whether other broadcasters do, or whether it's understood at this, the highest, highest level of those types of platforms is a question.

But definitely BBC Studios empowerment are in it for the right reasons with those teams.

Yeah, it's interesting.

We've spoken about fluidity of fandom and that's.

It's been counter to how a lot of the platforms worked who were built on exclusivity and being held Gardens and trying to keep you there and not letting you go anywhere else.

And actually, I think this almost as well is an acknowledgment of that kind of broader acknowledgement in media that you can't expect people to come to you if something is only just available with you.

They won't necessarily come to you if that fandom itch can be scratched elsewhere.

We're finding that actually they couldn't corral or force that behavior to their platform.

So to your point, they've got to go and fish, go and explore a different lane.

And some will migrate across, but actually some.

Some won't.

And.

But better there than not.

Yes, yes, yes.

Yeah, a bit of a runoff.

No, that's really useful.

And yes.

So tomorrow we are.

Here we go.

Now, I've got a panel tomorrow on data, which is.

I feel like you're preserved too, but you can't have both.

Palmer, I'll help you from the.

From the.

I promise.

And what.

And what's the source?

What's the perspective on the data?

Well, the best.

There's lots of examples of.

We're not getting that for each.

Talking about data.

So we've got UK TV and BBC Studios.

The lady who runs the creator lab, Ant has overseen some of their activations on Roblox platform.

Close to my heart, but just looking at data, really, in the sense that there's no excuse not to know our audience anymore, something that we've been extolling the virtues of fiat, but there's no excuse not to know your audience and utilize data.

It can be used in commissioning decisions, it can be used to look at optimum distribution strategies.

But also there's a fine line between data being your master, perhaps, or us mastering the data.

And there is a tendency sometimes to get so focused on it that you maybe lose sight of what your creative proposition is.

For example.

Yeah, I wonder if maybe that.

You know, I'm thinking Moonbug with Cocomelon.

I mean, they really were the ones who embraced YouTube and the data that you could take from that.

But I wonder maybe, perhaps if data drove the bus too much at the expense of.

Perhaps data isn't strategy ultimately, but the other.

But, you know, I'm not leveling that as a.

As a criticism, actually, because I think they did a lot for showing how data could be leveraged in content and in an IP building and franchise building.

But it's.

So that's what we're diving into tomorrow.

Distribute.

There was an interesting concept I heard actually on TikTok last night.

Which was, yeah, data.

Data tends to measure what's easily measurable, but what's easily measurable sometimes isn't the most important thing to be looking at.

And that was one of the things that came up in Africa for misdirection.

It's very easy to be misdirected.

And that, I think, is a skill set, particularly in media, and particularly if you come from traditional media, who is to use data a little bit more?

Obviously, there's certain kind of legacy mindsets and ways things have been done, and data sometimes can feel like it more muddies the waters than makes them clearer.

So there is an art in using it pragmatically.

It's very easy to get busy misdirected.

Right.

And it feels productive, but it's not.

And it's kind of being able to zoom out and clarify that and boil it down, that's kind of the art.

And actually, in a way, people who have been in and around media a long time are quite well positioned if they embrace that data.

Because at some point, you look at that sea of data and all of the misdirections and the different lanes open to you and you go, I thought I used that 20 years of experience here to make you just recall.

And yes, it's an amalgamation of a lot of things, but it's that kind of gut feel, and that actually does come with experience.

So it's been quite an interesting panel to prep.

So we've got that tomorrow.

Great.

Cool.

Well, thank you for tuning in to this live kind of in person recorded as Live in Person episode of the Kids Media Club podcast I'm gonna hand to you because you know the sound much better than me.

Yes.

Well, I'll give it a shot and say, I've already lost the words.

Now we're all here in person.

And yeah.

So hope you enjoyed the podcast.

Please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcast and we will see you next week.