this is bbc news. the headlines... thousands of supporters of the former president of brazil, jair bolsonaro, have stormed the country's national congress in brasilia. police say they have now retaken control of the building and president lula da silva said everyone involved will be found and punished. britain's prince harry says he never intended to hurt his father or brother by writing a memoir, and talks about his mother's funeral. president biden has arrived in texas to visit the us border with mexico for the first time since taking office. record numbers of migrants have crossed over recently. the uk prime minister, rishi sunak, says the government will discuss a pay deal that's "affordable" with the nurses�* union to settle strikes. that's welcomed by the biggest nursing union as "a chink of optimism".

you're watching bbc news. now it's time for the media show. welcome to the media show. in a minute, we're going to talk about the christmas period and what it taught us about advertising, both about what ads are working and where companies are wanting to spend their money. we'll also talk to stephen lambert from studio lambert, which made the runaway hit for the bbc, the traitors. but before we do all of that, let's talk about channel 4 privatisation, because it looks like it could be off. global�*s podcast the news agents broke this story. it's got hold of a letter from the culture secretary, michelle donelan, sent to the prime minister, which appears to advise against privatisation, saying there are better ways to ensure channel 4's sustainability. let's bring in chris

curtis, editor in chief of broadcast magazine. hiya, chris. good to have you back on the media show. so is this the end of the matter? i think it's the end of the potential privatisation and the start of a whole series of new questions around the future of ca. it draws a line under the second attempt over the last six years to privatise the broadcaster. and it's interesting that, essentially, a change of government, a change of culture secretary, has brought a very different view in just a few months�* time. yes, and the former culture secretary, nadine dorries, who held the job under borisjohnson, has already tweeted her displeasure at what's happening. do we understand why there's been a change in tack from the conservatives? look, it depends on what you believe the thrust for all this was over a year ago. channel 4...

i think you could make a good case that channel 4 got caught up in a sort of culture wars moment, that it gave borisjohnson, nadine dorries, an opportunity to make a sort of political, cultural point about being seen to be sort of tough on liberal london elites, etc. and if you read the leaked letter that details the change of thinking, it's quite measured, it's quite sensible. and, actually, when there was a review into all of this, when the government took the views of industry, there was very little evidence that the sector or the industry believed that selling channel 4 was a sensible idea in the first place. so, there is a view that common sense has prevailed.

well, let's bring in one of the most important figures within the sector. we'rejoined by stephen lambert from studio lambert. we're going to talk to you in a minute, stephen, about the traitors, this huge hit you've had for the bbc, but i wonder what you make of this news on channel 4. i'm very pleased. as chris rightly said, this was driven by a personal venom byjohnson and dorries, whojust didn't like channel 4. principally, they didn't like channel 4 news, and johnson didn't like being replaced by a block of ice when he refused to take part in a debate about climate change. so, there was simply no support... but nadine dorries has again today refreshed the idea that this sale could have generated money that would then be reinvested back into the sector. did you not buy that idea? it's a ludicrous idea. the most effective way of investing in the sector is to have a channel that invest by buying programmes from independent producers. the idea that you sell

channel 4 for what would, in relative terms, be quite a small amount and then somehow invest it, i don't even know what she was talking about. "invest it" in the sense of...? there's only two ways of investing. you either invest by commissioning independents to make programmes, which is what channel 4 does, or you invest by owning parts of independent production companies. is that what the government was going to do? i mean, it was a crazy idea. well, you evidently weren't persuaded. it seems that the current culture secretary, the current government, isn't, though i should say we don't have any confirmation of this. a spokesperson for the department for digital, culture, media and sport has not confirmed a shift in policy. it says, "we do not comment on speculation. "the dcms secretary of state has been clear "that we are looking again at the business case "for the sale of channel 4. "we will announce more on our plans in due course." we should say, though, no—one is contesting that this letter is indeed a letter that's been sent to the prime minister. stephen and chris, stay with us. let's bring in benjamin cohen, the ceo of pinknews. benjamin, we're going to talk

about advertising in a whole range of issues relating to your business in a minute, but you used to work at channel 4. you were its tech correspondent on channel 4 news, so no doubt you've been following this one. yeah, totally. i mean, i worked for itn that made channel 4 news, - so i had the very weird task always of, whilst reportingl on channel 4, which i often did on channel 4 news, - of doing it from an outside perspective inside, - which was very strange. but my perspective on this, . i think, as stephenjust said — selling channel 4 didn't really make business sense. - and so it's interesting that even in that statement - you were saying there, _ "re—examining the business case" for what the previous previousj government was planning to do. it wasn't going to - raise that much money. and so, channel 4 is a great institution and i think it's i a really important institution, but actually, as a commercialj entity, if it was not doing - what it does now and was sold to a whoever private business, it's not really going to be - for that much money and it. wouldn't make a real tangible

difference to the economy. some of the things thati nadine dorries has been tweeting just don't| really make sense. and i'm reminded that when she went on... l it's ironic that this story was broken on global'si podcast the news agents, . because nadine dorries went on lbc when she was first trying to pitch to sell- channel 4, and she claimed that channel 5 was was successfully. privatised in the past. of course, it was always - a private company, and i think that really reflects how well she understood the media i ecosystem that she was trying to really disrupt... _ well, you're not convinced. she evidently is because she's been tweeting about it today, along with a range of other policies she feels the current government should be pursuing. her idea was to sell channel 4, to reinvest it, she said, in different parts of the country, to reinvigorate the creative industries. we're hearing some scepticism about this plan. doesn't look like it will happen. we'll see what the outcome from dcms is. but chris curtis from broadcast, if it's not this, then does itjust mean

channel 4 continues? or does this mean we're actually going into another period where there are question marks about what to do? look, i think it's really interesting. the leaked letter talks about a fresh package of measures to help channel 4 from a sustainability point of view. and you mentioned sort of devolution, levelling up — channel 4's already moved around 300 staff outside of london. this letter suggests that the broadcaster's agreed to double that, to get to 600. that will effectively mean two thirds of its staff are outside of london. that is an important cultural and business sort of change as an organisation. and the other thing, without getting too granular, is that the government appears to be opening the door to in—house production at channel 4, which will be a thorny and contentious issue but one which c4 will now need to grapple with,

the extent to which, "can it get into in—house production without alienating "its core supply base?" well, let's ask one of its core supply base, stephen lambert from studio lambert. would you be worried if channel 4 started if channel 4 started making its own shows? not if... ..those programmes were commissioned by a commissioning system that was not told they had to take those shows. i mean, the bbc and itv and many broadcasters buy shows, and sometimes they have the choice between choosing between the in—house production — say, bbc studios, in the case of the bbc — or an independent. and the people that make those decisions these days are completely free to decide between the two of them. so long as channel 4 was operating in that basis, i wouldn't have a big problem about it. it would only be if channel 4 were told, "you have to buy "these programmes," and that's always a mistake when you have

in—house production being dictated to the people that buy the shows. well, for the moment, this remains an idea that's in a letter that's been leaked. we'll have to see what policies the government settles on. chris curtis from broadcast, thank you very much indeed forjoining us to talk about that. but, stephen, you're going to stay with us because we have to talk about the traitors. it's been this extraordinary success for the bbc — millions watched, it's been very heavily watched on iplayer as well as the word of this programme got around. it's — tell me if i'm getting this wrong, but it's essentially a murder mystery game in which regular people take part, in which we watch. and there are three traitors amongst the group which we know about as the viewer, but the others taking part in this castle as the game plays out don't. did you know as soon as you read about this — or you saw a pilot — that this was going to be this kind of success? this is a format that was created in holland by a company that is a cousin of ours.

we're in a group of companies called all3media, and it was the dutch all3media company that came up with this idea. and it was a great success in holland. so when you know a show has worked in one territory, it means there's a good chance it will work elsewhere, but it's still hugely difficult to launch any new show. and it was a big gamble for bbc one to go in such a big way on the show. they ordered 12 episodes straight onto bbc one, and then they played them — it was partly affected by the world cup scheduling — they decided to play them three nights a week, over four weeks, which is very bold for bbc one. i can't recall them sort of being so prominent in the way in which they would put a show out. we didn't know how well it was going to do. it's only really once it starts airing that you know whether it's catching fire. and, although you have to take it with a big pinch of salt, twitter is a very good way of giving you a handle on how

people are reacting. if you're getting thousands of very, very positive tweets every minute, you know that your viewers are engaged, the viewers are engaging with the show, so that was very encouraging. so twitter�*s a useful way of understanding how people are responding, and it's a useful way, i assume, of increasing the profile of the programme. but when you're making a programme like this, are you also thinking about clips that will work on social media? is that part of the calculation as you develop the format? not as you develop the format. you do that later when you've made the programme, in this case, and you've got the time to find those clips that you will service to social media. and as i understand it, i know there are a number of differences between the dutch and the uk version, but maybe the biggest difference is in the netherlands, it was celebrities. in the version you're making for the us, it's celebrities. but in the uk, it wasn't. tell us about that decision and how you went about casting it, because i've been reading it took you a while.

we decided along with the bbc, or, rather, the bbc, who's in charge about the decision as to whether or not to have celebrities or to have what we in the trade call civilians... laughs: civilians. i like that! is that what you call people who aren't celebrities? yeah. the bbc, without agreement, pushed for the idea of doing it with civilians and we were in favour of that. and i think one of the things that was so good about the cast... because the bbc and us wanted the show to appeal to a young audience, and the conventional wisdom is that so many young shows — or shows that are aimed at appealing to a young audience — have to have young people in them. and one of the things i love about the traitors is that it's such a wide range of people, and some of the most liked characters were at the older end of the spectrum. we make gogglebox for channel4, and again, that's a very young, appealing show, and again, it has a very wide range of ages in the cast.

so, this idea that "if you want to get a young audience, you have to have a young cast" isn't actually true. and one other dimension of this that i'm interested to know about is intellectual property, because, as you alluded to, it was developed in one form in the netherlands. you've adapted it for the uk, you've adapted it again for the us. so how much of the ip does studio lambert own? and what happens when — and i'm sure this is happening right now — broadcasters around the world look at what's happened in the uk and start knocking on your door and saying, "we'd like to do this"? well, there's two parts to the value of a show like this. there is what's called the format, which is the idea that sets that how you make the show, and then there's the tape. because in this case, it was a dutch format, they're the people that own the format and will benefit from format sales around the world. every time an episode is made anywhere in the world, a part of the budget is paid

to the format owners. but the most valuable tape tends to be the british and american tape, and that tape will get sold all around the world. and obviously, as the makers of that tape, we will participate in the value of that. well, congratulations on such a success. i assume a second series has been ordered by the bbc or will be shortly? they're making the right noises. all right. we'll watch out for that. thanks forjoining us on the media show. we appreciate it, stephen. thanks for your time. that's stephen lambert, ceo of studio lambert. now, still with us is benjamin cohen, the ceo of pinknews. we're also joined by dino myers—lamptey, who set up his own advertising agency, the barber shop, and by sophie lewis, chief strategy officer from m&c saatchi. and we asked the three of you tojoin us on the media show because the christmas period is always crucial in us understanding media consumption, but particularly advertising consumption — what's working, what's not working, what formats people respond to, what formats are potentially now going out of date.