How TV talent shows make money when nobody buys singles
Talent shows stopped depending on winners' record sales years ago; format licensing, premium-rate voting, sponsorship and live tour rights…
Rachel Stone
6
Entertainment
Film, music, streaming, gaming and the culture conversation.
57 stories
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What a book advance really is, and why most authors keep their day jobs
An advance is a prepayment against royalties, paid in instalments over years, and the median figures explain why writing remains a…
Elena Marsh
4
Inside podcast advertising: why hosts read the ads themselves
Host-read sponsorships, dynamic insertion and attribution codes make podcast advertising unusually intimate and unusually measurable at the…
Elena Marsh
1
Why gig tickets sell out in seconds: bots, presales and dynamic pricing
Presales, holds and sponsor allocations strip out most tickets before general sale opens, so the queue is fighting over a rump while bots…
Rachel Stone
2
Live-service games: why your favourite title is never finished
The live-service model turned games from products into ongoing services funded by cosmetics and battle passes, with consequences for…
Liam Chen
How a TV show actually gets commissioned
Between a pitch and a broadcast series sits a funnel of development deals, scripts, pilots and financing that filters out the vast majority…
Elena Marsh
How books get to number one: inside the bestseller lists
UK bestseller charts are curated samples built on Nielsen BookScan tills data, and publishers engineer number ones through pre-order…
Rachel Stone
Panto: the strange economics of Britain's Christmas cash cow
Around six weeks of pantomime generates a third or more of many regional theatres' annual income, a cross-subsidy that drives the celebrity…
Rachel Stone
How video game age ratings work: PEGI explained
PEGI 12, 16 and 18 ratings carry criminal penalties for shops that sell to underage buyers, yet the law covers only boxed copies in a…
Rachel Stone