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.
👀 Sky x ITV talks could reshape UK TV 📺
ITV has confirmed “preliminary” talks to sell its Media & Entertainment division (ITV channels + ITVX) to Sky for around £1.6bn, excluding ITV Studios. If approved, Comcast-owned Sky would become the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster, intensifying scrutiny from the CMA and Ofcom over advertising concentration and media plurality. The move reflects pressure on legacy broadcasters as ad spend softens and streaming competition accelerates, with ITV signalling near-term cost cuts while leaning into Studios-led growth. For strategists, this is a scale-and-survival play that could rewire UK trading dynamics, streaming distribution, and the balance between free-to-air reach and pay/AVOD ecosystems.
£1.6bn indicative valuation for ITV’s M&E sale talks, with ITV Studios not included.
ITV warns Q4 2025 ad revenue -9% and targets £35m temporary savings.
A combined Sky + ITV could control ~70% of UK TV ad sales, likely triggering remedies.
💡 If regulators widen the “market” to include digital, this could pass - and reset how UK brands plan TV, streaming and retail media under fewer, bigger sellers. 📊
👟 Reebok Opens New European HQ in London
📌 Reebok has officially opened its new European headquarters in London, marking a symbolic homecoming for the brand and a strategic investment in regional growth. The move reinforces Reebok’s renewed focus on performance sport, cultural leadership, and retail expansion under Authentic Brands Group and GB Brands. The new HQ will act as both a creative hub and commercial command centre, working closely with Reebok’s Boston Design Hub to strengthen European operations and cultural relevance.
Marc Le Roux joins as CEO of Reebok Europe, succeeding interim head Steve Robaire, to drive expansion and deepen market connections across the continent.
Authentic Brands Group’s portfolio generates over $32 billion in annual retail sales across 150 countries.
Reebok operates in 80 countries with around 400 freestanding stores worldwide.
The London HQ signals Reebok’s most significant European investment since its sale to Authentic in 2022.
💡 Reebok’s London HQ isn’t just a geographic shift - it’s a statement of intent to re-anchor sportstyle heritage in European culture while scaling global credibility. 🌍
🎸 Oasis Live ’25: The £600m Comeback
The Oasis reunion tour is shaping up to be one of the most profitable in music history. Across 41 shows, ticket and merchandise revenue is estimated at £400–£600 million (~$1.2 billion AUD), according to Birmingham City University. Thirty years after Knebworth, the Gallagher brothers are once again selling out arenas and rewriting British rock mythology — this time as a global luxury brand as much as a cultural one.
Projected earnings for Liam and Noel: £50–£100 million each after expenses
Estimated total tour revenue: up to £600 million
Potential extra income: sponsorships and streaming rights
💡 Nostalgia isn’t just sentiment - it’s strategy. The Oasis comeback shows that legacy acts are now billion-pound global entertainment assets. 🎤
“Tax the Rich” Billboard – Everyone Hates Elon Campaign
Manchester, November 2025
📍A new billboard in Manchester featuring Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has been installed by activist collective @everyonehateselon_, calling for higher taxes on billionaires ahead of the UK government’s Autumn Budget. The group, known for its anti-billionaire activism and pop-culture-driven political commentary, uses provocative satire to challenge wealth inequality and the idolisation of corporate power figures like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the UK’s own billionaire class.
The Manchester installation is part of a national “Tax the Rich” campaign that places high-profile billionaires under public scrutiny through bold, meme-inspired visuals designed to go viral on social media. The group’s street-level messaging often merges humour and protest, turning public advertising spaces into commentary on economic fairness.
📊 Context & Stats:
💰 The UK’s 171 billionaires collectively hold more than £800 billion, up 15% since 2020. (Sunday Times Rich List, 2025)
📉 Real wages in the UK have risen less than 1% annually since 2019. (ONS, 2025)
🧾 72% of Britons say the wealthy should pay more tax to support public services. (YouGov, 2025)
🏙️ Manchester’s wealth gap is growing faster than any other UK city, with an 11% rise in inequality in 2024. (Centre for Cities, 2025)
🌍 The top 1% now own nearly a quarter of the UK’s total wealth. (OECD, 2025)
🔥 @everyonehateselon_ has gained over 500,000 followers across platforms since 2023, with posts reaching more than 30 million impressions monthly during major campaign pushes. (Social Blade, 2025)
💡 By fusing activism, virality, and visual storytelling, Everyone Hates Elon is redefining how political protest moves through culture - less about placards, more about pixels and public space.
👀 Apple TV Debuts a New Sonic Identity
📌 Apple TV has unveiled a new sonic identity, created by Grammy-winning producer Finneas, marking a major step in its rebrand towards a warmer, more cinematic tone. The “mnemonic” – a five-second sequence of warbling electronic sounds followed by soft piano notes – replaces Apple TV’s heavier, Netflix-style thud. The sound exists in three versions, designed for streaming, stings, and theatrical releases.
Apple’s Head of Music, David Taylor, described the project as an effort to capture “creativity and storytelling” in a “beautiful and emotional way.” The sonic refresh arrives alongside a playful new animated Apple TV bumper, signalling a creative evolution for the brand – one that blends design, emotion, and sensory experience.
🎧 As streaming platforms chase not just eyeballs but ears, Apple’s new sonic logo positions it as a premium player in the growing field of audio branding.
💡 Sound moves faster than sight – Apple’s new sonic identity reminds brands that design now needs to be heard as much as seen. 🎵
🏢 UK Unemployment Hits 5% as Director-Level Openings Collapse
Britain’s job market is tightening fast. Unemployment has reached 5% - the highest in four years - with the squeeze showing most sharply at the top. Once-rare Director-level roles are now flooded with qualified candidates, creating a leadership logjam across marketing, comms and digital functions.
Six years ago, a Director of Marketing or Communications role might have drawn a few hundred applications, with 20–30 genuinely qualified contenders. Today, those same roles receive thousands - with 600–1,200 strong applicants. The odds have collapsed from 1 in 25 to just 1 in 900, making it 36× harder to land a senior role - a 97.2% drop in probability. Recruiters describe “a waiting room, not a hiring market.”
The data is stark: senior marketing and communications vacancies are at their lowest since 2009, with ads down 34% year-on-year and 50% below 2019. Many organisations have merged marketing, comms and digital into single leadership roles, cutting posts by a third. Redundancies among senior professionals are up 19% this year. The causes: budget consolidation, automation trimming middle layers, high borrowing costs delaying hires, and a talent backlog from 2023–24 layoffs flooding the market.
At the other end of the ladder, the graduate crunch is just as severe: 1.2 million graduates are chasing 17,000 graduate-level roles, with vacancies down 30% and adverts down 40%. Applicants per post have doubled, forcing many into unpaid or entry-level-plus positions. Graduate odds have dropped from 1 in 25 to 1 in 70 - a 64% fall in opportunity.
From boardroom to graduate desk, the pattern is the same: too many candidates, too few roles, slower hiring, and less mobility. A generation trained for the future is stuck before it starts.
📊 Key Stats:
UK unemployment at 5%, highest in four years.
Director & VP-level marketing/comms/digital roles lowest since 2009.
Creative and marketing job ads down 34% YoY, 45% below 2022, 50% below 2019.
Senior marketing redundancies up 19% this year.
1.2 million graduates chasing 17,000 roles – 2.8× harder odds.
💡Britain’s career ladder is buckling from both ends – with leadership locked up and entry routes drying out. ⚖️
👀 UK Music’s £8 Billion Milestone Masks a Slowdown in Growth 🎵
📌 UK Music’s annual report, This Is Music 2025, values the sector’s economic contribution at a record £8 billion GVA for 2024 - a 5% rise on 2023. Exports hit £4.8 billion and employment reached 220,000 full-time equivalent roles. Yet growth has halved from post-pandemic double digits, reflecting a softer touring cycle and fewer blockbuster releases. Major tours by Take That, Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, Liam Gallagher and Girls Aloud buoyed revenues, but weaker domestic output and rising costs are now testing sustainability across the ecosystem.
Grassroots music remains under strain, with many venues closing and new artists struggling to break through. Brexit-related barriers are also biting harder: 32% of creators say they were affected by EU touring issues in 2024 (up from 28%), and 95% of those reported lower earnings. Meanwhile, more than 90% of artists surveyed demand protections against unlicensed AI use. UK Music chief Tom Kiehl warns the “status quo is tilted against music’s interests”, urging swift government action on AI, export barriers and grassroots support.
£8bn music industry GVA in 2024 (+5% YoY)
£4.8bn export revenue (+5%)
220,000 full-time jobs (+2%)
32% of creators hit by Brexit barriers; 95% of those lost earnings
90% of creators want AI regulation
💡 Culture is booming, but bandwidth is tightening – UK music’s next challenge is sustaining growth while protecting the ecosystem that fuels it. 🎶
👀 Google’s Project Suncatcher: AI Compute Heads to Orbit 🛰️
📌 Google has unveiled ‘Project Suncatcher’, an experimental plan to launch its AI Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) into space in partnership with Planet Labs. The initiative aims to test the feasibility of orbital AI compute clusters, with the first two satellites due to launch in early 2027. A research paper released by Google outlines a vision for 81-satellite arrays spanning up to 1km - effectively a data centre in orbit.
The company’s Trillium-generation TPUs survived radiation testing at a particle accelerator, but challenges remain: cooling, data transmission, and radiation-hardened memory. The paper details plans for dense optical links between satellites flying in close formation at around 650km altitude, achieving up to 10Tbps connectivity using commercial DWDM tech. Google argues that if launch costs drop to $200/kg - possible by the 2030s via SpaceX’s Starship - the economics could rival terrestrial data centre power costs.
As competitors like Starcloud, Amazon, and SpaceX tout similar orbital compute plans, the “space data centre race” is accelerating fast - blending AI, aerospace, and energy infrastructure into one frontier of the digital economy.
Google estimates a potential 81-satellite “compute swarm” within a 1km array radius.
Launch cost parity with terrestrial power projected at ~$200/kg by 2035.
Current inter-satellite bandwidth: 1–100Gbps; target: 10Tbps per link.
💡 Space is the new server room - with Google betting that orbital AI clusters could unlock near-limitless compute powered directly by the sun. ☀️
👀 Disney vs YouTube TV: The $60M Carriage Clash 💸
The Disney–YouTube TV blackout is now entering its third week, with both sides taking financial hits as negotiations stall. Since October 30, 10 million YouTube TV subscribers have lost access to ABC, ESPN and other Disney channels, wiping out key sports broadcasts including two NFL Monday Night Football games and two college football weekends. Disney’s estimated losses are around $60 million across 14 days - roughly $4.3 million per day - according to Morgan Stanley. Ratings for Monday Night Football have fallen 21% since the dispute began.
Disney is accused by YouTube of dragging its feet in talks to funnel viewers towards its own ESPN app and Fubo, which it recently took 70% control of, now holding 6 million pay-TV subscribers. The blackout arrives as YouTube TV positions itself to become the No.1 U.S. pay-TV provider, though recent price hikes and subscriber churn threaten that trajectory. With YouTube’s $3 trillion parent Alphabet largely insulated from short-term losses, the standoff is a test of how much each side is willing to sacrifice for leverage in the streaming–broadcast power balance.
📊 Key figures:
$60 million estimated Disney loss over 14 days (Morgan Stanley)
21% ratings drop for Monday Night Football during blackout
YouTube TV subscriber base: 10 million; Fubo: 6 million
YouTube TV offered $20 credits (opt-in) to affected subscribers
💡 The fight underscores a shifting power dynamic — as platforms like YouTube TV gain scale, legacy networks like Disney must balance reach with control over distribution and data. ⚖️
👀 🎙️ Spotify boasts 281M subscribers in a 12% YoY jump as the audio platform doubles down on its sports partnerships
Spotify’s Q3 2025 earnings show continued strength, with Premium subscribers up 12% year-on-year to 281 million and Monthly Active Users hitting 713 million. Revenue rose 12% to €4.3 billion, while operating income reached €582 million as margins improved to 31.6%.
Beyond the numbers, Spotify is increasingly positioning itself as the go-to hub for sports culture and commentary - expanding partnerships with global leagues, athletes, and sports podcasts. The move aligns with its strategy to blend entertainment and fandom, building engagement and ad value across its growing audio ecosystem.
713M Monthly Active Users (+11% YoY)
€4.3B total revenue (+12% YoY)
31.6% gross margin (+56 bps YoY)
💡 Spotify’s playbook now mirrors streaming TV - leveraging sport to anchor loyalty, boost time spent, and create premium ad inventory. ⚽️
⚽ Football Manager x Angel City FC Unite to Advance Women’s Football
📌 Football Manager has announced a landmark partnership with National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) team Angel City FC, combining the game’s data expertise with one of the most progressive clubs in women’s sport. The collaboration will see Football Manager’s analytics and simulation tools integrated into ACFC’s scouting, recruitment, and coaching systems – offering the club next-level insights into player performance and development. Fans can also expect exclusive behind-the-scenes content featuring players and technical staff, designed to highlight how technology is shaping the future of the women’s game.
This partnership arrives as women’s football continues to scale new commercial and cultural heights:
NWSL attendance is up 26% year-on-year.
Total club valuations now exceed $800 million collectively (Sportico, 2025).
Angel City FC averages over 19,000 fans per match – the highest in the league.
The club has surpassed 1 billion social media impressions since launch.
Together, Football Manager and Angel City FC are signalling a new standard for how sport and gaming can work hand-in-hand to elevate women’s football globally.
💡 Sports gaming is no longer just entertainment – it’s becoming a performance lab, where data, storytelling, and athlete empowerment intersect. ⚽
📱 Instagram introduces Competitive Insights for creators
Instagram has rolled out a new Competitive Insights tool within its Professional Dashboard, allowing creator and brand accounts to benchmark their performance against up to ten other profiles. Users can compare follower growth, posting frequency, and content types such as Reels, feed posts, and ads - even viewing engagement metrics from competitors with hidden like counts. The feature offers a clearer view of how similar accounts are growing and performing, giving creators a built-in alternative to third-party analytics tools. However, its scope remains basic, lacking grouped or cumulative data visualisation.
Allows comparison across up to 10 accounts
Tracks follower growth, posting frequency, and engagement
Engagement data visible even when like counts are hidden
💡 Platform-native analytics are levelling the playing field – creators can now monitor competitors without leaving Instagram. 📊
🧩 AI Search Reshapes How Publishers Think About Traffic
📌 AI-driven search is fundamentally redrawing the web’s economics. Publishers that once relied on referral traffic from Google are seeing declines of over 30% since the rollout of AI Overviews. In response, companies like Reddit and Gannett are taking diverging paths: Reddit is licensing data to OpenAI and building its own AI-powered tools like “Reddit Answers,” while Gannett has blocked over 75 million AI crawlers, demanding fairer visibility and compensation for content use. As Apple and Cloudflare join the debate - testing AI-first search options and crawler paywalls - the traditional click-based model of discovery is being replaced by a new value chain of attention.
Search referrals for some publishers have dropped 30%+ since Google’s AI Overviews launch.
Gannett has blocked 75 million AI bots, including OpenAI’s.
Reddit has licensed data to OpenAI and is building its own AI Q&A tools.
💡 The shift from “blue links” to AI summaries is forcing publishers to redefine visibility and monetisation models in an era where discovery no longer guarantees traffic. 🤖
🎅 Coca-Cola doubles down on generative AI for its holiday ads despite backlash
📌 Coca-Cola’s latest “Holidays Are Coming” campaign marks its second year using generative AI, debuting an updated version of the iconic 1995 ad. Despite online criticism, the brand’s global VP of creative strategy Islam ElDessouky said it “scored off the charts” with consumers across key brand metrics including association and conversion.
The refreshed campaign, part of “Refresh Your Holidays,” was developed by WPP Open X (led by VML, with support from EssenceMediacom, Ogilvy and Burson) and uses AI to balance heritage with innovation - combining Coca-Cola’s enduring festive icons like Santa and the red trucks with new digital activations such as personalised snow globes. Advances in generative tools like GPT-5 have made the brand’s experimentation more ambitious, while global localisation and data-driven validation ensure creative consistency across markets.
The initiative demonstrates Coca-Cola’s “three Cs” model - culture, community and commerce – spanning digital, retail and experiential touchpoints. From the return of the Christmas truck tour to creator collaborations, the brand continues to treat AI as a creative accelerator rather than a replacement for human storytelling.
Coca-Cola’s 2024 “Holidays Are Coming” ad ranked among the top 5 most effective festive campaigns in consumer testing history for the brand. (Coca-Cola internal metrics)
The brand’s “Refresh Your Holidays” campaign is running across more than 80 markets globally. (WPP Open X)
Coca-Cola’s AI-generated ad scored record levels for brand association and conversion to transaction among test audiences. (Marketing Dive, 2025)
Generative AI advertising spend is projected to reach $1.3 billion globally by 2026, up 45% year-on-year. (WARC, 2025)
Coca-Cola’s Christmas truck tour will reach over 60 cities worldwide this holiday season. (Coca-Cola, 2025)
💡Coca-Cola’s AI holiday strategy proves that heritage brands can modernise iconic assets without losing emotional resonance – when technology enhances timeless storytelling. 🎄
🎥 Netflix Starts Bigger Push Into Video Podcasts
📌 Netflix is ramping up efforts to enter the booming video podcast space, reportedly sending out dozens of requests to top Hollywood agencies WME, UTA and CAA to sign creators ahead of a Q1 2026 launch. The move follows its first major podcasting deal with Spotify last month and ongoing talks with iHeartMedia to license popular shows like Las Culturistas, Jay Shetty Podcast and Stuff You Should Know. Industry sources suggest Netflix aims to rival YouTube’s dominance in the format by hosting a strong library of established video podcasts at launch.
iHeartMedia shares surged nearly 30% following news of the potential Netflix deal.
Netflix now counts Spotify and The Ringer titles among its early podcast partners.
The streamer plans to roll out its video podcast hub in early 2026.
💡 Insight: Netflix is betting that video podcasts are the next frontier in streaming - blurring the line between creators, talk formats, and entertainment. 🎧
🏎️ Mercedes set to become F1’s most valuable team
📌 Mercedes Formula 1 CEO Toto Wolff is reportedly finalising the sale of a 5% stake in his 33% shareholding to CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz, valuing the team at a record $6 billion (£4.6 billion / €5.2 billion). The deal cements Mercedes as the sport’s top-valued franchise, overtaking McLaren’s £3.5 billion valuation from September. Under Wolff’s leadership since 2013, Mercedes has delivered eight constructors’ and seven drivers’ titles, while turning into a global commercial powerhouse.
The valuation marks a sevenfold increase since 2022, when INEOS paid £208 million for a third of the team. Mercedes F1’s 2024 revenues climbed to £636 million, with pre-tax profits rising 42% to £163 million. The record valuation underscores F1’s evolution into a lucrative global media and investment property, fuelled by Liberty Media’s ownership and Netflix’s Drive to Survive.
£636 million in 2024 revenue, +16% year-on-year
$6 billion team valuation – highest ever for F1
7 drivers’ & 8 constructors’ titles under Wolff
💡 Formula 1 has become a premium global asset class, with team equity now traded like sports media IP – where speed meets scale. ⚡
🧠 Meta’s AI Chief Yann LeCun to Exit and Launch Startup
Meta’s long-time Chief AI Scientist, Yann LeCun, is reportedly preparing to leave the company to found his own startup, according to the Financial Times. A Turing Award winner and one of deep learning’s original pioneers, LeCun built Meta’s FAIR lab in 2013 and helped shape modern neural networks. His departure follows a major restructuring of Meta’s AI division, including the formation of Meta Superintelligence Labs under Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang and the loss of 600 roles last month. LeCun’s upcoming venture is said to focus on “world models” - AI systems designed to understand and simulate environments rather than rely solely on massive language models.
The move underscores growing philosophical and structural divides inside Meta over the direction of AI research. It also reflects a wider shift across Big Tech, where leading researchers are increasingly breaking away to pursue alternative approaches to intelligence design beyond scaling LLMs.
Meta has invested over $14.3 billion in AI infrastructure partnerships in 2025, including with Scale AI.
600 job cuts were announced in Meta’s AI unit last month as part of its reorganisation.
Yann LeCun co-founded FAIR in 2013 and shared the 2018 Turing Award for deep learning breakthroughs.
💡 One of AI’s founding figures stepping out of Big Tech signals a new phase of experimentation – from bigger models to smarter architectures. ⚙️
🎙️ The News Agents – “Will the BBC face down Trump in court?”
📌 Why this episode is worth your time (for brand/culture/marketing leaders):
It covers the timely controversy around BBC’s documentary editing of Donald Trump’s Jan 6th speech and the legal threat ($1 bn) he has directed at the BBC.
Though it’s framed as a media/legal story, the episode implicitly touches on institutional trust, reputation management, editorial control, and what happens when a major content-provider brand (the BBC) is challenged.
It connects to the broader theme of how power players use media, pressure and narrative framing.
🎭 LONDON
🎷 EFG London Jazz Festival – various venues – 14–23 Nov A city-wide celebration of global jazz, spotlighting new UK and international talent.
🎤 Bastille – The O2 – 18 Nov Anniversary show marking 15 years of the chart-topping band.
🎹 Jasmine Myra with Strings + Ancient Infinity Orchestra – Barbican Centre – 18 Nov Atmospheric double bill blending modern jazz and cinematic sound.
🎭 The Old Vic: A Christmas Carol – The Old Vic – 18 Nov onward London’s classic seasonal theatre moment returns, beloved by audiences and brands alike.
🖼️ Small is Beautiful: 43rd Edition – Flowers Gallery – 21 Nov onward A showcase of miniature works from established and emerging artists.
🎨 Wes Anderson: The Archives – The Design Museum – 21 Nov onward A deep dive into Anderson’s visual world, exploring cinema, design, and colour storytelling.
💡 The Big Question: What Does Quantum Mean for Humanity – Science Gallery London – 19 Nov Cross-disciplinary talk bridging science, art, and technology.
❄️ Christmas at Kew – Kew Gardens – 14 Nov–4 Jan Immersive light trails and festive installations driving family and influencer engagement.
🌿 Hogwarts in the Snow – Warner Bros. Studio Tour – 15 Nov–18 Jan An experiential holiday favourite blending nostalgia and pop-culture immersion.
📐 elemental LONDON – ExCeL London – 19–20 Nov Design, construction, and sustainability expo, connecting creative and built-environment sectors.
⚽ Chelsea vs Burnley – Premier League – 22 Nov
⚽ West Ham vs Bournemouth – Premier League – 22 Nov
🗽 NEW YORK CITY
🎥 DOC NYC Festival – Various Venues – 12–20 Nov America’s largest documentary festival showcasing global non-fiction storytelling.
🛍️ Bryant Park Winter Village – Midtown Manhattan – through Nov A retail-meets-experience hub blending culture, craft and seasonal consumer energy.
🎻 Juilliard at Zankel Hall – 18 Nov Showcasing the next generation of classical performers in a prestigious setting.
🎼 Nicolas Altstaedt (cello) & Thomas Dunford (lute) – Weill Recital Hall – 18 Nov A refined evening of Baroque and contemporary repertoire from acclaimed soloists.
🎹 Hayato Sumino (piano) – Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage – 18 Nov Viral sensation and classical crossover star bringing modern energy to the grand hall.
🎶 L’Arpeggiata – Zankel Hall – 20 Nov Charismatic early-music ensemble blending classical precision with improvisatory flair.
🎻 Orchestra of St. Luke’s – Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage – 22 Nov New York’s resident orchestra performs a dynamic late-autumn programme.
🎺 Carnegie Hall Citywide: Jazz Showcase – Weill Recital Hall – 24 Nov Free community concert highlighting rising jazz talents shaping the next generation.
BBC director general and News CEO resign over Trump documentary edit 🛰️
The BBC entered its most turbulent week in a decade as Director General Tim Davie and Head of News Deborah Turness resigned following controversy over a Panorama edit of a Donald Trump speech. The programme spliced two lines from Trump’s 6 January 2021 address – delivered over 50 minutes apart – making it appear he directly urged supporters to “fight like hell” at the Capitol. The edit triggered fierce backlash, a threatened billion-dollar lawsuit from Trump, and unprecedented same-day resignations from the BBC’s top leadership. The corporation admitted an “error of judgment,” but the deeper crisis was fuelled by a leaked internal memo accusing the BBC of systemic bias – a document that is now itself under scrutiny.
Two top BBC executives quit within hours of each other – an historic first for the broadcaster.
The Panorama edit combined two separate moments in Trump’s speech, 50 minutes apart.
Trump responded with a billion-dollar defamation threat and renewed claims of “fake news.”
UK and U.S. political figures seized on the scandal as proof of bias – from both directions.
💡 When editorial missteps collide with polarised politics, the outcome isn’t just reputational damage – it’s an existential test of institutional trust. 🧭
The Memo Behind the Meltdown
The 39-page document that intensified the crisis wasn’t written by an independent BBC whistleblower – but by Michael Prescott, a political lobbyist and former adviser with extensive ties to pro-Trump tech and media interests.
Prescott is Managing Director at Hanover Communications, a lobbying firm whose clients include Oracle, Apple, Meta, and Paramount – four U.S. corporations whose senior executives or owners have donated to Trump or publicly backed his campaigns. Oracle founder Larry Ellison, a key Trump ally, has been building a conservative-leaning media and data empire – including Paramount Skydance, which now controls CBS News and several major streaming platforms. Ellison has also positioned himself as a likely buyer of TikTok’s U.S. operations, reflecting his growing influence over information infrastructure.
According to Byline Times’ investigation, Prescott was appointed to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee under the influence of BBC Board member Sir Robbie Gibb – a former Downing Street communications chief and early co-founder of GB News, the channel partly funded by hedge funder Paul Marshall, a Trump-aligned figure expanding GB News into the U.S. via Truth+, Trump’s media platform. Prescott and Gibb are long-time associates.
The leaked memo accused BBC News of “progressive institutional bias” – naming coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and trans issues as evidence – but its sources, analysis, and framing drew heavily from right-wing U.S. think tanks and partisan outlets. Its release via The Telegraph was quickly amplified by Trump, who used it to justify his defamation threat against the BBC.
For BBC insiders, the memo wasn’t just an internal critique – it was seen as part of a coordinated attempt to discredit and destabilise the corporation ahead of Charter renewal and ongoing debates about the licence fee. Some described it as “a culture war coup”: an effort to erode confidence in public broadcasting and clear space for privately owned, ideologically aligned alternatives.
Hanover Communications has received over $500,000 in payments from U.S. tech and media clients connected to Trump interests.
Prescott helped select the Ofcom chair during Boris Johnson’s government, alongside Sir Robbie Gibb – linking him to UK media-regulatory politics.
Byline Times reports that three of the four BBC panellists who appointed Prescott had Conservative Party affiliations.
GB News, launched with Gibb’s help, officially expanded to the U.S. in August 2025 via Truth+, Trump’s media partner platform.
💬 In the short term, the BBC faces a governance rebuild; in the long term, this episode may shape the Charter negotiation and wider debate about whether public broadcasters can remain politically independent in an era of weaponised media outrage.
Context: The Transatlantic Pattern
Trump’s conflict with the BBC mirrors his ongoing legal and rhetorical campaign against U.S. media institutions. Since 2020, broadcasters have faced a wave of lawsuits, settlements, and targeted regulation:
🎙️ Stephen Colbert’s Late Show – axed in July 2025 after Colbert criticised CBS’s $16 million settlement with Trump.
🎙️ Jimmy Kimmel Live! – suspended by ABC following jokes about a conservative activist after reported FCC pressure.
🎭 South Park – briefly taken off air for mocking Trump’s cabinet.
💸 Major settlements: Fox News ($787.5m), Newsmax ($67m + $40m), OANN (confidential), Abby Grossberg ($12m), Paramount Global ($16m), ABC News ($15m + $1m).
The result is a climate where self-censorship and strategic risk-aversion replace open debate – a modern form of “coordination” by lawsuit, leverage, and fear of licence review.
Pattern to watch: Allegations of bias are now functioning less as critiques of content and more as political instruments. Whether aimed at the BBC or U.S. broadcasters, these attacks are shaping how institutions define “impartiality”, who gets to police it, and which narratives survive the filter. For brand and culture professionals, it’s a case study in how political influence rewires trust ecosystems – one memo, one headline, one resignation at a time.
📺 As Murdoch is to MAGA, Marshall is to Reform UK
Sir Paul Marshall isn’t a media mogul by accident - he’s a financier building a British echo chamber for a new populist right.
The billionaire hedge-fund boss behind Marshall Wace co-owns GB News, owns The Spectator and UnHerd through Old Queen Street Media, and has made repeated bids for The Telegraph. Each outlet targets the same emotional terrain: anti-establishment anger, anti-woke sentiment, and “freedom of speech” rhetoric – all central to Reform UK’s political messaging.
His role isn’t journalistic, it’s strategic. The playbook is unmistakable: just as Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News ecosystem mainstreamed MAGA populism in the US, Marshall’s media network is normalising Reform-style politics in the UK – fusing grievance with glamour, outrage with ownership.
🧩 The Marshall Media Matrix
GB News – A self-described “free speech” network that platformed Reform UK figures while hiring ex-Conservative MPs as presenters. Loss-making but ideologically valuable.
The Spectator – Now under Marshall’s Old Queen Street Media, with a new editorial direction that amplifies “anti-elite” and “anti-net zero” sentiment.
UnHerd & Apollo – Cultural and philosophical flanks that extend the populist narrative beyond politics into lifestyle, identity, and art.
The Telegraph (bid) – His attempted purchase would have completed a vertically integrated, right-wing media bloc spanning TV, print, and digital influence.
Together, they operate less as separate outlets and more as a synchronised ecosystem – using moral outrage, patriotism, and “free speech” tropes as political delivery systems.
⚖️ Political Ties and Ideological Drift
Marshall’s donations include £500,000 to the Conservatives (2019) and nearly £900,000 to Policy Exchange, a think tank linked to rightward ideological policy development.
His channels have repeatedly echoed Reform UK’s talking points on immigration, net zero, and “BBC bias”.
Editorial leadership at GB News and The Spectator includes figures from Sky News Australia, Murdoch’s own culture-war incubator, and Richard Tice's partner.
Murdoch gave Trump a media megaphone. Marshall is doing the same for Reform - with British accents and hedge-fund money.
🧠 Why It Matters
Parliament’s own Commons Library warns that opaque, concentrated media ownership can act as a vector for disinformation and foreign influence. Yet one billionaire now controls or bankrolls platforms shaping the country’s populist narrative while facing minimal scrutiny.
This isn’t rebellion against bias - it’s a leveraged buy-out of Britain’s public square.
If GB News, The Spectator, and Reform UK sound like they’re reading from the same hymn sheet, it’s because they are - and Sir Paul Marshall wrote the notes.
🔍 What We Need to See
Who are the ultimate funders behind GB News, The Spectator, and other Marshall-linked outlets?
Will Ofcom and the CMA demand full transparency over media concentration and capital flows?
When will GB News publish its investor register?
🔥 UK unemployment has reached 5%, the highest in four years, with director-level marketing and comms roles down 34% year-on-year. (ONS, 2025)
📺 A combined Sky + ITV network would control roughly 70% of UK TV ad sales, reshaping the country’s broadcast advertising landscape. (Ofcom, 2025)
💰 The UK’s 171 billionaires now hold more than £800 billion in combined wealth, up 15% since 2020. (Sunday Times Rich List, 2025)
🎵 Oasis Live ’25 is forecast to generate £400–£600 million in ticket and merch revenue, placing it among the top 10 highest-grossing tours ever. (Birmingham City University, 2025)
👟 Authentic Brands Group, Reebok’s parent company, drives $32 billion in annual retail sales across 150 countries. (Authentic Brands, 2025)
🧠 72% of Britons believe the wealthiest should pay more tax to fund public services. (YouGov, 2025)
📰 GB News viewership has grown 46% year-on-year, with over half of viewers aged 45+, mirroring the Fox News demographic shift. (BARB, 2025)
🎧 Audio branding spend has risen 27% globally in the past year, as streaming and tech brands invest in “sonic identities.” (WARC, 2025)