Jay Singh’s Post

I'm hiring! I'm looking to hire a Senior Development Manager into our London Office to lead a team on an exciting cloud-native project within the Securities Finance Domain. Please apply directly through the link if you are interested!

4 months Today marks 4 months since I worked my last day. Unemployment is stressful. The job search is stressful. Applying for positions and roles you know you could fulfil hands down no problems, a good fit, then hearing ....... silence, is demoralising. I have now been through a few phases from concern, through worry, and I am now in anxiety. I would very much like to avoid the panic stage as I stare at some serious life changing decisions. Remaining optimistic that the knowledge and experience I have developed over the past years and banked will be employed again in the near future. Enjoy the weekend everyone. I wish you well.

South by Southwest - the celebration of creativity and tech hosted in Austin, Texas since 1987 - has announced it will launch a new European edition in London next year. SXSW London will take place in early June, with a programme of keynotes, music showcases, exhibitions and immersive experiences hosted in venues, galleries, clubs and other venues in Shoreditch, East London. Organisers have said the event will have a distinctive London feel, driven by the city's "internationally renowned cultural life and creativity, its status as a global meeting place, and its proximity to other major creative and tech centres in Europe". Leaders from across the creative sector have welcomed the news, including CIC member Caroline Rush, who heads the British Fashion Council and the Creative Industries Trade & Investment Board, who described it as a "fantastic opportunity to showcase the UK’s creative talents and businesses to global audiences and to collaborate with the international SXSW community". Fellow CIC member Dr Jo Twist OBE (she/her), CEO of BPI (British Phonographic Industry), said it was an "endorsement of the UK as a world-leading centre of human creativity and tech-led innovation" that would "showcase the very best in diverse British creative talent and help light up the next generation of artists and creators who are breaking through.” 

Watch Me Fall On My Apps There are 9 million apps in the world. There are 200+ video streaming apps globally. The average person uses only about 9 apps. And the average American consumer really only uses five video streaming apps (paid or free) on the regular. Assuming one is YouTube (90% of consumers), and another is Netflix (78% of Americans), that leaves just 3 slots for your app. To be competitive, app providers must traverse at least ten different devices to be uniformly available to a critical mass of consumers. Here in the US, that includes Roku, Fire, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, VIZIO, TCL, Hisense USA, Google TV, Apple iOS, Android, not mention Xbox and PCs. This means your application needs to be designed not as ONE SINGLE APP, but rather A DOZEN VARIATIONS, each with its own nuances and languages. Getting an app to market feels like a big, heavy, important lift – the thing we hang countdown clocks on the wall to track – launch day is like giving birth. But DAY ONE is just the start. That special gem you just brought into the world needs to be fed, rocked to sleep, cared for and, perhaps most importantly, it must be changed every single time it poops. EACH CHANGE is not like changing one diaper on one smelly kid – it means making the same change, in different ways, on every single device where your app plays. Senior execs at publishers with video streaming apps, who are NOT the directly responsible for the operation of those apps, keep this mishigas far beyond arm’s length, leaving the lifting and the diaper changing to the CTO and the product teams. The ONLY time most C-Suite moguls think about this process, is when their CTO visits them during budget season looking for more resources to make sure everything goes smoothly and the apps can keep up with the market, and the moguls scream “More Money‽ We need to make more cuts!” And that 👆 is why I will never run a direct-to-consumer video streaming app again (RIP Seeso). It's also why I partnered with the app innovators at Applicaster for a new, five-part video series called "How to Cure Your Pain In The Apps." The entire first episode is below. I interview some of biggest brains in video streaming apps to ask them how the app sausage gets made. Guests include Marcus Lopez from Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN); Dave Otten of JWP (JW Player); Joe Daniel from Seven.One Entertainment Group, and Jonathan Laor co-founder of Applicaster. In today’s episode: Meet the Players – all our guests discuss how the video app world actually works, from behind the scenes and under the hood. This is a topic I’ve obsessed over ever since I launched Seeso eight years ago. This series was a total blast to make. I’ll drop a new episode here each week. But you can always find them all here: https://lnkd.in/ejTdac_8 I hope you enjoy!

Growing demand for new film and TV production facilities in the UK provides an opportunity for the architectural practices engaged to design them. RIBA Journal explores what architects need to consider when designing these spaces. British Film Commission's Samantha Perahia MBE talks about the current trend for building production hubs, which include workspaces and facilities for virtual production and training, as well as studio space. Graham Mackfall discusses UMC Architects' work on the new 25-acre Sky Studios Elstree campus, which houses 12 sound stages as well as facilities such as workshops for set-building and costume-making. And PRP's Alistair Weir discusses the challenges involved in repurposing industrial units into studio spaces, as he did a decade ago with a former Sharp's distribution warehouse in Manchester. It's now The Sharp Project, home to more than 60 creative digital businesses as well as production stages and green screen studios. Its success led to the construction of a further purpose-built production facility, Space Studios Manchester, in 2014, which is now set to be expanded further.

BBC Studios Social is now open to pitches for digital-first content! For the first time ever, BBC Studios Social are inviting indies of all scales and background to pitch fresh, short form concepts that help extend existing IP, engage loyal fans, and reach new audiences on digital platforms. BBC Studios Social curate, commission, and commercialise the digital footprint of some of the best loved global television brands. In the past year, they have commissioned over 1,500 minutes of original content across a rich portfolio including stop motion Hey Duggee adventures, a range of celebrity-voiced Bluey Book Reads that has surpassed 16 million views since launch, and deep dives into US car-modding culture on Top Gear. The team are looking for food and fun family-related ideas for Bluey, playful activity-focused content for Hey Duggee, youth-skewing ideas for Top Gear and our digital first comedy channel Funny Parts, and ideas across nature, space, sustainability and the human body for BBC Earth and BBC Earth Science. BBC Studios Social are committed to finding, developing, and partnering with the best independent producers and new talent globally. With a deep love for BBC Studios’ world-class brands, the team are super excited to share them with producers and creators who can deliver new formats, new talent, and new ideas that are critical and commercial successes. Whether silly comedy sketches, or a mind-bending science documentary, we hope this will be the start of some beautiful creative partnerships. Find out more here: https://lnkd.in/e-sa-APG Or check out the BBC Studios Social opening briefing here: https://lnkd.in/eqWr4HfU

Traditional media no longer understands young people. But it’s clear that the new media age is defined by AUDIENCE POWER, and not the power of gatekeepers that used to dictate younger generations’ content habits - from controlling the creative they were going to watch, to the how and when they were going to watch it. When Evan Shapīro writes about it, you know it’s true. Young people don’t see value in paying subscriptions, not long term at least. Neither do many of them see a public service licence fee as relevant. Subs growth at the big streamers has stagnated, churn has increased and around 1 million fewer BBC Licence Fees were paid between 2018-2022 according to inews. Young people are key drivers of that change. A lot of it has to do with traditional broadcasters and studios looking inwards. The obsession with looking at past successes, and trying to recreate them over and over no longer works, not when young people are more ACTIVELY curious than ever. Traditional media is driving a car but only looking in the rearview mirror. Young audiences behave in a way that suggests the exact opposite. They look outward, they explore, they cast around across platforms in search of content to satisfy their voracious appetite for new, and which speaks to them - and which often means created by someone like them (not created by committee or C-suites in a west coast HQ or New Broadcasting House). By acknowledging this huge pull factor, we have an opportunity to truly reorient our content and IP building strategies around audiences. Learn what young people want from content, on each and every platform they frequent. Ask, when do they want it and how often? What problem does it solve for them? Who are they watching? Learn from them, and let them tell us what gets made. Because, despite the seeming saturation, 71% of Gen Z express desire to discover NEW content (according to Archrival in Vogue Business) but they’re also super sceptical, with eyes and fingers finely honed to filter out disingenuous and unappealing content. And in relation to kids media, Gen Z will become parents, so for kids media there’s value in getting ahead of the game and learning Gen Z behaviours Sure reorientation is going to hurt. Unlearning, relearning and taking down to rebuild is hard, but if media can forge a path that resonates with younger generations, there’s a chance to rebuild a sustained relevance with them. #entertainmentindustry