Welcome to the next edition of On The Record, thoughtful analysis on culture, entertainment, tech, fashion, music, sport, and brands. Here’s a round-up of key conversations and campaigns that caught my attention this week.
This week reveals how infrastructure is becoming the central battleground across culture, media and sport. From YouTube’s $60bn multi-revenue dominance and Apple’s push to formalise video podcast monetisation, to TikTok’s integration of full-track streaming and AI’s encroachment into live booking, the race is shifting from visibility to ownership of the underlying systems that convert attention into income. At the same time, fashion is leveraging global sporting stages as premium brand real estate, public funding bodies and governments are being pressed to modernise cultural support structures, and community-led capital models face scrutiny under private equity logic. Across sectors, the pattern is consistent: power is consolidating around those who control distribution, monetisation and operational frameworks, while artists, athletes, retailers and institutions are being forced to rethink where real leverage now sits.
🎿 Kirsty Muir Falls Just Short After 93.00 Big Air Score
📌 A standout 93.00 on her second run briefly put Kirsty Muir into medal contention in the Winter Olympics freestyle skiing Big Air final, but a crash on an ambitious final jump left her fourth overall in Livigno. Muir’s combined score of 174.75 placed her just under four points off the podium, repeating her fourth-place finish in the slopestyle earlier in the Games. The result highlights the narrow margins and escalating technical difficulty defining modern freestyle skiing finals.
93.00 scored on her second run
Total score of 174.75
Less than four points separating her from bronze
💡 At Olympic level, the line between breakthrough and heartbreak is often a single landing.
📱 American Eagle Launches Creator Rewards Programme
📌 American Eagle is expanding its creator strategy with the launch of the AE Creator Community, a nationwide ambassador programme designed to incentivise ongoing content production rather than one-off collaborations. Open to US-based creators aged 18+ with at least 1,000 followers, the scheme rewards participants with points for completing weekly and monthly challenges such as styling videos and Instagram posts, redeemable for products, gift cards and commission. The move reflects a broader retail shift toward structured, performance-driven creator ecosystems as brands compete for Gen Z and Gen Alpha attention across increasingly fragmented platforms.
Open to creators with 1,000+ followers on at least one platform
Creators earn $1 per 1,000 points accrued through challenges
US creator ad spend projected to hit $37bn in 2025, up 26% year on year
💡 Creator marketing is maturing into infrastructure, not campaign, with retailers building always-on communities that reward consistency as much as reach.
🧊 Fashion’s Biggest Brands Take Over Milano Cortina 2026
📌 Luxury and sportswear heavyweights are using Milano Cortina 2026 as a live global runway, with team outfitting, capsules and on-the-ground retail plays converging around the Games. Brands including EA7 Emporio Armani (Team Italy), Ralph Lauren, Nike and Skims (Team USA), adidas (Team GB), Moncler (Team Brazil), Lululemon (Team Canada) and 66 North (Team Iceland) are turning national identity into brand theatre, while performance-led drops like Oakley’s Aura and heritage-led capsules like Lacoste’s 1956 throwback push Olympic momentum into product and culture. The signal is clear, winter sport is no longer a niche category, it is a premium-stage marketing moment where function, fashion and fandom collapse into one.
Milano Cortina 2026 runs 6–22 February 2026
Three American brands designed Team USA uniforms, Nike, Ralph Lauren and Skims
66 North is outfitting Team Iceland, positioning a local specialist brand on a global stage
💡 The Winter Olympics are becoming fashion’s most efficient cold-weather billboard, where national kits, capsules and resort retail turn sport into high-margin brand storytelling.
📚 Penguin Random House Launches £150k Indie Bookshop Grant
📌 Penguin Random House UK has unveiled a £150,000 grant scheme to support independent bookshops as part of the UK’s National Year of Reading. The Penguin Children’s Bookshop Grant 2026 will offer funding between £1,500 and £5,000 per shop to back free community initiatives designed to rebuild reading for pleasure among young people, which is currently at a 20-year low. The programme positions indie retailers as critical cultural infrastructure, funding projects that increase access to books, strengthen school and family engagement, and remove barriers to participation.
£150,000 total funding pot
Grants of £1,500 to £5,000 available per bookshop
Applications open 10 February and close 31 March 2026
Successful applicants notified by 30 April 2026, projects delivered by 31 December 2026
💡 In a market fixated on scale, this is a reminder that literacy growth often starts hyper-local, with trusted spaces and community-led activation.
📺 YouTube Surpasses Netflix with $60bn Revenue
📌 YouTube generated more than $60 billion in total revenue in 2025, marking the first time parent company Alphabet Inc. has disclosed the platform’s combined advertising and subscription income. The milestone places YouTube ahead of Netflix, which reported $45.18 billion in full-year revenue, making YouTube the second-largest entertainment business globally behind The Walt Disney Company. Growth was driven by its hybrid model spanning advertising, YouTube Premium, YouTube TV, podcasts, live sport including NFL Sunday Ticket, and the continued expansion of Shorts, reinforcing the commercial advantage of multi-revenue ecosystems over single-stream subscription plays.
$60bn+ total YouTube revenue in 2025
Netflix reported $45.18bn in full-year 2025 revenue
YouTube Shorts now averages 200bn daily views
💡 The era of single-revenue media models is closing, scale now belongs to platforms that monetise attention from every possible angle.
🎤 Harry Styles to Curate Meltdown 2026
📌 Harry Styles has been announced as the 2026 curator of the Meltdown Festival at Southbank Centre, coinciding with the venue’s 75th anniversary year. Running from 11 to 21 June, the artist-curated festival will overlap with Styles’ Wembley Stadium residency, with the singer also set to headline a special performance during the eleven-day programme. Known for inviting curators to shape the line-up around their own influences, Meltdown places Styles within a lineage that includes David Bowie, Yoko Ono and, most recently, Little Simz, reinforcing the festival’s status as a cultural self-portrait at scale.
Festival runs 11 to 21 June 2026
Marks Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary year
Styles’ Wembley residency runs 12 June to 4 July
💡 Artist-curated festivals are becoming strategic cultural stages, where global pop figures can reposition influence through taste, collaboration and institutional alignment.
🎵 TikTok Tests In-App Apple Music Streaming
📌 TikTok and Apple Music are beta-testing a feature that would allow users to stream full songs directly inside TikTok via Apple’s MusicKit integration. The “Play Full Song” tool requires an active Apple Music subscription and keeps playback within the TikTok interface, with Apple handling royalties and licensing. The companies are also trialling a “Listening Party” function enabling shared, real-time music sessions, deepening TikTok’s role as both discovery engine and streaming gateway as competition intensifies in the subscription market.
Over 3 billion tracks saved via TikTok’s Add to Music App feature since launch
84% of songs reaching Billboard’s Global 200 went viral on TikTok first
Apple Music US subscriber share fell from 30% in 2020 to 25% last year, Spotify rose from 31% to 37%
💡 Discovery is no longer enough, platforms are racing to own the stream, the data and the subscription layer in one seamless flow.
🎭 Sacha Lord Calls for Arts Council Reform
📌 Night Time Industries Association chair Sacha Lord has urged ministers to overhaul Arts Council England following Baroness Margaret Hodge’s independent review into the funding body. Writing in response to the findings, Lord argues that the current application and compliance system is overly complex, disproportionately burdensome for smaller organisations, and ill-suited to the fragile realities of London’s grassroots night time economy. While acknowledging the importance of accountability for public funds, he contends that reform is essential to ensure funding processes are proportionate, transparent and supportive of the venues and cultural operators sustaining the capital after dark.
London’s night time economy valued at £139bn
“Almost universal criticism” of funding processes cited in the Hodge review
First Ramadan-style funding pause disputes highlighted from 2023 grant case
💡 When public funding systems become too complex to access, cultural infrastructure risks being weakened at the very point it needs reinforcement.
🌙 Premier League and EFL Reinstate Ramadan Break Protocols
📌 The Premier League and English Football League have reintroduced match protocols allowing Muslim players to briefly pause games to break their fast during Ramadan. Since 2021, referees have been permitted to stop play at natural breaks, such as goal-kicks or throw-ins, so observing players can take on liquids or energy gels at sunset. The measure, agreed in advance by both teams and officials, recognises the physical demands placed on elite athletes who abstain from food and drink during daylight hours, embedding religious observance into the operational fabric of English football.
Sunset during Ramadan expected between 5pm and 7pm
Only Saturday 5:30pm and Sunday 4:30pm fixtures likely to require pauses
First Ramadan break introduced in 2021 during Leicester City vs Crystal Palace
💡 Institutional flexibility is becoming part of modern sport’s infrastructure, signalling that elite performance and religious inclusion are no longer seen as competing priorities.
🎶 Sydney Rolls Out Free Gig Entry for Young People
📌 Live Music Venues Alliance has partnered with the NSW Government to launch MyGigPass, a new initiative offering free and discounted live music tickets to 18 to 25-year-olds across Sydney. The programme provides weekly offers including free entry, $25 tickets and two-for-one deals at venues such as Crowbar Sydney, Oxford Art Factory and Enmore Theatre, as the city attempts to rebuild its live music ecosystem following years of restrictive lockout laws. The move sits alongside a new All-Ages Live Music Venue Program, which offers grants to venues hosting youth-accessible shows, and additional funding to support soundproofing and reduce punitive noise fines.
MyGigPass open to 18–25-year-olds, registration required once
Venues can access up to $100,000 for hosting at least three all-ages events
Weekly offers include free entry, $25 tickets and two-for-one deals
💡 Rebuilding nightlife now means subsidising access, signalling that live music is being reframed as cultural infrastructure, not just entertainment.
🎙️ Warner Music Backs North East with Three-Year Talent Partnership
📌 Warner Music UK has announced a three-year partnership with Newcastle-based music agency Generator aimed at strengthening long-term career pathways across the North East. The collaboration will support artists, producers and emerging executives, while connecting colleges and universities to clearer industry routes. The move coincides with Warner establishing a new studio on Newcastle’s Quayside and follows the city hosting major industry moments including the MOBO Awards and the Mercury Prize, reinforcing the region’s growing cultural visibility.
Three-year regional partnership announced
New Warner studio being developed on Newcastle Quayside
Follows Newcastle hosting the MOBO Awards and Mercury Prize
💡 Major labels are decentralising influence, signalling that regional ecosystems are becoming strategic growth markets, not just talent pipelines to London.
🤖 Can AI Book a Tour? Inside Music Mogul AI
📌 Music Mogul AI, created by veteran booking agent Brad Stewart of Stewart Entertainment, is attempting to automate one of live music’s most relationship-driven jobs: booking concert tours. The platform uses AI “agents” across booking, marketing and management to identify venues, draft outreach emails, negotiate offers (with human approval), generate contracts and build promotional assets. Positioned as a tool for independent artists earning below the typical $200,000 live revenue threshold needed for traditional agency representation, the software aims to fill the gap between DIY touring and full-service booking support — while raising questions about whether automation can coexist with the trust, taste and timing that define career-building in live music.
Targets artists below the ~$200,000 annual live revenue threshold
Three AI modules: booking, marketing and management
Priced at $300 per month per module (approx. $8,000 per year for full suite)
💡 As touring costs rise and artists operate more like startups, AI may standardise infrastructure — but the debate now is how much of live music’s relationship economy can be systemised without losing its edge.
🎟️ Ticketmaster ‘System Error’ Leaves 65 Fans Locked Out of RAYE’s Paris Show
📌 A reported Ticketmaster system validation error left 65 ticket holders unable to enter RAYE’s show at Accor Arena on February 15. The issue meant tickets were not “fully validated” at purchase, according to the singer, despite fans holding confirmed entries. RAYE called the situation “completely unacceptable,” offering affected fans complimentary tickets to future shows and signed vinyl, while Ticketmaster issued refunds and gift cards. The incident lands amid ongoing scrutiny of Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s market practices.
65 valid ticket holders denied entry due to a system error
Ticketmaster acknowledged a technical validation issue
Refunds + gift cards issued; RAYE offered future show tickets
💡 When ticketing infrastructure fails, artists absorb the reputational impact — reinforcing how fragile live music’s trust economy becomes when tech glitches sit between fans and the room.
📺 Apple Brings HLS Video to Podcasts
📌 Apple is introducing an upgraded video podcast experience to Apple Podcasts, powered by its HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) technology. Launching in beta via iOS 26.4, iPadOS 26.4 and visionOS 26.4, the update allows users to seamlessly switch between watching and listening, download video episodes for offline viewing, and experience automatic quality optimisation across network conditions. For creators, the shift enables dynamic video ad insertion — including host-read spots — while maintaining control over distribution through partners including Acast, ART19, SiriusXM and Triton’s Omny Studio. Apple will charge participating ad networks an impression-based fee for dynamic ads later this year.
HLS-powered video with seamless watch/listen switching
Dynamic video ad insertion enabled for creators
Beta live now; full rollout across devices this spring
💡 As Netflix and Spotify escalate the video podcast race, Apple’s move formalises the convergence of audio and streaming — turning podcasts into a native video ad marketplace without abandoning the open RSS ecosystem.
🍺 From “Equity for Punks” to Private Equity Priority? BrewDog’s Sale Plan Sparks Backlash
📌 BrewDog built its brand on the marketing power of community ownership. Through seven high-profile “Equity for Punks” crowdfunding rounds, the brewer positioned small investors as co-conspirators in a craft beer revolution — offering discounts, AGM access (“annual general mayhem”) and the promise of shared upside. Now, as BrewDog explores a potential sale, many of those same retail backers fear they could be left with nothing while its 21% private equity investor TSG Consumer Partners stands to benefit from preferential payout terms.
The company has appointed AlixPartners to evaluate options, including a full sale or breakup of assets such as its 72 bars, four breweries and core brands. Because of TSG’s structured investment terms agreed in 2017, analysts estimate the firm could claim up to £800m before ordinary shareholders see returns — meaning if the valuation falls short, “equity punks” may walk away empty-handed.
~220,000 small investors could receive nothing in a sale
£75m raised via seven crowdfunding rounds
Estimated £800m preferential claim for TSG
💡 BrewDog’s early growth was powered as much by marketing narrative as capital. If community shareholders are wiped out while private equity secures priority returns, it reframes “Equity for Punks” as a branding masterstroke — and a governance warning.
🎬 Warner Bros. Discovery Opens Door to Paramount — But Still Backs Netflix Deal
📌 Warner Bros. Discovery has agreed to enter a seven-day negotiation window with Paramount Skydance to clarify whether a higher “best and final” offer is coming — even as its board unanimously continues to recommend its signed $83 billion merger agreement with Netflix. The company has scheduled a March 20, 2026 shareholder vote on the Netflix deal, signaling that while it will engage with Paramount, its official position remains unchanged.
Paramount recently raised its hostile bid to $30 per share and indicated privately it could move to $31+ per share, alongside covering Netflix’s $2.8 billion termination fee and offering quarterly cash payments if closing is delayed beyond 2026. However, WBD says key structural and financing uncertainties remain unresolved — particularly around debt load, regulatory risk and deal certainty — prompting the limited negotiation window.
March 20, 2026 shareholder vote set for Netflix merger
Paramount signaled potential $31+ per share offer
$2.8 billion Netflix termination fee in play
💡 This is less about headline price and more about certainty. In a leveraged media landscape, boards are weighing financing risk, regulatory friction and execution timing as heavily as per-share value — turning M&A into a referendum on stability versus upside.
🎙️ The Behind-the-Scenes Jockeying for $10M Super Bowl Ads
The Town with Matthew Belloni (host: Matt Belloni) featuring Adweek’s Bill Bradley
📌 Matt and Bill go inside the actual marketplace dynamics behind Super Bowl advertising: how many slots exist, what different parts of the game cost (and why), why celebrity cameo fees are dropping, what’s really driving the recurring “Jesus ads,” and how the overtime “ad auction” works if the game runs long.
Worth Your Time Because:
This is a rare, nuts-and-bolts listen on how cultural attention gets priced in real time: it connects the $10M headline number to the incentives underneath (scarcity of inventory, risk management, celebrity ROI compression, and cause-led media buys). For brand strategists, it’s immediately useful because it explains where leverage lives—which placements are truly premium, how buying strategies shift under uncertainty (like overtime), and what the changing economics say about how fame and “meaning” are functioning in mass-market advertising right now.
👀 Things to Be Aware Of This Week
(Monday 23 February – Sunday 1 March 2026)
🎱 2026 Welsh Open – Llandudno (23 February – 1 March 2026): A pivotal ranking event on the World Snooker Tour calendar, with Crucible storylines beginning to crystallise as the season moves into its decisive spring stretch.
🎥 Slamdance Film Festival – Santa Barbara (19–25 February 2026): The closing stretch of the indie launchpad that reliably seeds SXSW and awards-season breakouts — priority buzz includes Brailed It, The Tallest Dwarf, Three Colors: Pan-African, Snowland and the sickle-cell doc You Look Fine as early word-of-mouth drivers.
👗 London Fashion Week AW26 – London (19–23 February 2026): Autumn/Winter collections land under refreshed British Fashion Council leadership, with hot tickets including Central Saint Martins’ MA show, Ronan Mckenzie’s Selasi debut, Joseph’s return under Mario Arena and Karoline Vitto’s comeback — plus continued momentum from Chopova Lowena, Tolu Coker and Jawara Alleyne shaping London’s next guard.
🏆 79th British Academy Film Awards – London (22 February 2026): A tight transatlantic race sees Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet (11 nominations) tipped for Best Film on home turf, while Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (14) and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (13) push hard — with Jessie Buckley, Timothée Chalamet and Stellan Skarsgård among the acting frontrunners shaping the final Oscars narrative.