Latest news with #AlisonLomax
Metro
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Big Coronation Street and Emmerdale news confirmed as ITV issue statement
ITV has revealed a huge change to the way you can watch your favourite soaps in the wake of episode cuts at Coronation Street and Emmerdale. From next year, the broadcaster will air just 5 editions of each serial drama a week – following on from a much-anticipated crossover episode that will herald in a new era with an ambitious stunt. Dubbed the soap 'power hour', Emmerdale will air at 8pm, with Corrie following at 8.30pm, from Monday to Friday. Episodes will continue to drop early on ITVX, but as of today, you'll also be able to tune in on YouTube. On social media, a statement said: 'Soap fans, rejoice!' 'Starting tomorrow, full episodes will be available on YouTube from 7am — the same day they air on TV.' The decision comes following a new partnership between the network and the OG video streaming service which was announced in December. The latest episodes of their biggest shows will now drop for free on the website. This includes items from across their catalogue, including I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!, Bullseye and This Morning. In April, the Celebrity Big Brother live feed was hosted on the platform. ITV's managing director of media and entertainment Kevin Lygo said at the time: 'This partnership is part of our continuing strategic approach to maximise reach and viewing opportunities for audiences, wherever they choose to watch, alongside the successful and thriving ITVX, and our market leading commercial TV channels.' More Trending YouTube's managing director Alison Lomax added: 'Through full episodes, clips, compilations and brand-new fan content, audiences will be able to forge even deeper connections with the shows they love.' Corrie and Emmerdale are following in Hollyoaks' footsteps, as the Channel 4 soap began uploading full episodes last year as part of their new digital-first strategy. View More » Archive episodes of Neighbours are also being added from the very beginning, following the news that the show will be rested once again after 40 years on air. If you've got a soap or TV story, video or pictures get in touch by emailing us soaps@ – we'd love to hear from you. Join the community by leaving a comment below and stay updated on all things soaps on our homepage. MORE: ITV Coronation Street issues 'be vigilant' warning to soap fans using social media MORE: Legendary ITV star 'can't shake off' role in show watched by 25 million viewers a night MORE: Chris Tarrant reveals heartbreaking reason he left TV career after 52 years
Irish Examiner
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
20 years of YouTube: 'We couldn't have predicted how the platform would evolve'
What toppled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, launched the careers of Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran, and gave the world Gangnam Style and K-pop, sneezing pandas, and Mr Beast? Yes, YouTube. Happy 20th birthday to the video-streaming platform with three billion users in 100 countries, the world's second biggest search engine, and a billion hours of content a day. Crikey. Has it really been 20 years? Beloved of everyone from primary school kids to their grannies and everyone in between (in our house it's a verb), the existence of YouTube came about thanks to two very different events in 2004 — the Asian tsunami and Janet Jackson's nipple at the Super Bowl. Back then — for very different reasons – it was hard to find footage of these two events online. This gave three tech bros working at PayPal an idea for a video-sharing platform. Originally launched on Valentine's Day 2005 as a potential dating site — the three co-founders, Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, and Chad Hurley were self-declared geeks in need of dates — its initial slogan was 'tune in, hook up'. But the stampede of people uploading dating video profiles failed to materialise, so the three guys opened the platform to everyone — the first video, uploaded in April 2005, was a grainy 19-second clip of Karim at San Diego zoo in front of the elephants, titled 'Me At The Zoo'. Not long after, in October 2006, Google bought YouTube for $1.65bn — a year after Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp had bought the now long-dead platform MySpace for $580m. 'We're the stage, you're the performers,' Hurley told the public. And behold, a new internet species was spawned — the YouTuber. Nobodies in their bedrooms became somebodies earning serious cash — remember Zoella? PewDiePie? Today's top three biggest YouTubers are Mr Beast (390m subscribers), T-Series (293m subscribers), and Cocomelon (193m subscribers). You might not know who these people are if you're Gen X and use YouTube for music, film, or how-to tutorials rather than following the YouTube-famous. Yet so many YouTube cultural moments are cross-generational — a YouTube 20th video in the form of a RickRoll has had a billion plus views to date (YouTube has its own constantly evolving language — the Rick in a RickRoll is Rick Astley). In Ireland, some YouTube classics include The man who fell on the ice, Singing priest, Irish man fights with sat nav, and The Spark. Silly, fun, heart-warming, shared and shared and shared. Alison Lomax, MD of YouTube in UK & Ireland: 'We've seen a lot of growth in the Irish YouTube community and economy and want to bring it together. If you're a YouTube creator and work on your own it can be quite lonely — having that peer group [of fellow creators] means people can learn from each other". Photograph Moya Nolan. A LIGHTBULB MOMENT Alison Lomax is CEO of YouTube for Ireland and the UK. After 11 years at Google — she's been working in tech and creativity since the days of dial-up — she moved to her current role at YouTube two years ago. Based in London, she regularly pops over to Dublin — on the day I speak with her, she's here for an event celebrating Irish YouTubers. 'What's fascinating about my job is that no two days are the same,' she says. 'It's incredibly broad and varied, there's always a lot to think about — everything that's happening in the UK and Ireland is happening in my inbox. 'We've seen a lot of growth in the Irish YouTube community and economy and want to bring it together. If you're a YouTube creator and work on your own it can be quite lonely — having that peer group [of fellow creators] means people can learn from each other. "When the first video was uploaded in 2005, there was no such thing as a creator, let alone a creator economy. People have gone from vlogging in their bedrooms to building studios and having meaningful careers off the back of their YouTube business. 'Another big difference we've seen is, as well as all the genres involved, is the breadth of partners involved — now we work with news publishers, sports partners, broadcasters like RTÉ, businesses keen to partner with YouTube to reach younger audiences and also reach a more global platform.' This involvement of traditional media outlets began in 2005 when US broadcaster NBC had a lightbulb moment. Early YouTube uploaded an NBC-owned Saturday Night Live clip, Lazy Sunday, and NBC sued — before realising that an SNL clip going viral on YouTube was actually a good thing. A very good thing. 'That change in decision making was quite a pivotal moment in YouTube's history. What we see now with big partners globally is their understanding of the role YouTube plays, how it can complement what they're trying to achieve. We are a redistribution platform,' says Lomax. Creators — the people uploading self-created content — and YouTube split the revenue from the uploaded content 55%/45%. 'Over the past three years, we have paid out $70bn to creators, partners, and musical artists. YouTube is a unique revenue-sharing model that no other platforms have at this scale. It's what has allowed creators to build their businesses on YouTube. It's revenue that they get week in week out.' Being famous on YouTube can open all kinds of doors. The Sidemen, a group of eight friends who post comedy, vlogging, and gaming content, are popular with teenagers — they're worth around $50m. 'The Sidemen launched 10 years ago, and are now probably the UK's biggest creators,' says Lomax. 'They have a vodka brand, chicken shops. They had a charity football match at Wembley recently and it sold out faster than any other football match, they raised £6m. They're celebrities. 'Anyone with a phone and an idea or a passion can build a business, which means the representation is from all over, from rural as well as urban areas, all over the world,' she says. 'Global distribution means that for a local creator, the majority of their content is watched outside of their country, so they can reach a global audience. 'Allie Sherlock is a great example, from the days of busking in Grafton St, she now has a huge YouTube channel [6.28m followers] and is well known in the US. I think YouTube is super-interesting when it comes to music, you have big artists who have launched their careers on YouTube, and genres like K-Pop. It's really positive.' Well, mostly. But like every other corner of the internet, there's toxicity, particularly in the so-called manosphere. Alison Lomax, MD of YouTube in UK & Ireland: 'Our view is that generative AI is going to power human creativity, not replace it. But with AI, there are obviously areas where the platform has needed to evolve, and areas where we've needed to look at our policies to see how they've needed to change." Photograph Moya Nolan. THE DARK SIDE OF THE TUBE Recent research from Dublin City University showed how the recommender algorithms on YouTube and TikTok fed 10 sock-puppet male-identifying accounts on blank smartphones 'masculinist, anti-feminist, and other extremist content irrespective of whether they sought out general or male supremacist-related content, and that they all received this content within the first 23 minutes of the experiment'. Yikes. So what does YouTube do about harmful content — misogyny, white supremacy, far right extremism? Why is the algorithm allowed to push toxic content with the potential to reinforce and influence harmful behaviours? To spread misinformation, to amplify the deranged toxicity of fringe groups and individuals? To proliferate far right content? Is it because, as outlined in Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn Williams' book Careless People, spreading hate and far right extremism is extremely profitable? 'It's a societal challenge,' says Lomax. 'We have guidelines and policies about hate speech, and policies which prohibit content that has hatred towards any individuals or groups based on certain attributes, and we enforce this really rigorously. We have a 20,000-strong trust and safety team, and we work around the clock to make sure that any content which violates our policies is removed from the platform.' Andrew Tate, the online face of toxic masculinity, was permanently banned from YouTube in 2022 (unlike on Elon Musk's X, where he currently has 10.7m followers). 'We terminated his channels for multiple violations. He cannot own or upload onto any YouTube channel, or reupload any content,' says Lomax. 'He has no channels.' She explains how the platform deals with removing harmful content, which is done retroactively, that is, it has to be up there in order to be taken down. 'We have AI, which everyone thinks is new, but has been part of our platform for a long time. That's the first step.' Content flagged by AI is reviewed by the trust and safety team which is made up of 20,000 humans. 'We publish quarterly reports where we share the percentage of content which violates our views — the last one was 0.1%. It will never be zero, but we want it to be as close to zero as possible. We have removed over 236,000 videos which violated our hate speech policies.' YouTube Kids, launched in 2015, is aimed at tweens too young to have access to the platform (you have to be 13 or older), with parental controls around content, watch time, and search history. 'We also work with independent child development specialists and we have an independent youth and family advisory committee made up of independent experts who consult with us on our safety and age appropriateness from a content and platform perspective,' she says. 'We are always looking at ways we can protect children at all different stages. It's critical for us. Online safety is the most important thing for the platform.' SHORT SHORTS YouTube is famous for mutating to survive. When, for example, TikTok came along, YouTube responded in 2020 with YouTube Shorts, offering YouTube users a TikTok-like experience. And while AI has played a long-term role in scraping harmful content from its millions of uploads, how is generative AI impacting the platform? 'Our view is that generative AI is going to power human creativity, not replace it. But with AI, there are obviously areas where the platform has needed to evolve, and areas where we've needed to look at our policies to see how they've needed to change. "Last year, we launched creative disclosure labelling, which means there's a label required if someone has altered the content. It's now required that this is disclosed, and in some cases a watermark is shown on the content itself. So this means creators are transparent about which content is AI and which isn't.' Another innovation is content ID — if you own content, and someone else uploads it in a user-generated content way, you can claim it and monetise it. 'It's protected under your copyright. Which is a good source of monetisation for creators and partners. It's a way of expanding systems we've built over the years to protect creators, because ultimately our business is only successful if it works for creators. It's an ecosystem based on trust. We want users to know what is real and what has been created by AI. And deepfakes are subject to our community guidelines the same as any other content.' As tech and our human responses to it continue to develop at warp speed, it's impossible to predict what YouTube, and the digital ecosystem in which it exists, will look like in the future. Or does Lomax have a crystal ball? She laughs. 'Looking back over the past 20 years, we couldn't have predicted all of the different changes and how much the platform has evolved. 'We're constantly responding to user behaviour changes and also to changes within the media landscape as well. We've made so many big pivots over the years that it's really difficult to predict the next 20 years.' She'd like to see more acknowledgement for the role of YouTube creator as a legitimate career path. 'How do we and businesses and the government support this creator economy and recognise its growth potential within the creative industries? It's a real incubation for talent. We want YouTube to be the most rewarding platform, creatively and financially.' Cork busker Allie Sherlock has been one of Ireland's great YouTube success stories. Pic: Marc O'Sullivan IRELAND'S MOST-FOLLOWED YOUTUBERS 1. jacksepticeye - 30.9M The Athlone-based gaming YouTuber started his channel in February 2012, achieving a milestone one million subscribers just two years later in August 2014. More than a decade on, he is Ireland's most-followed creator. He's also got his own coffee brand, Top of the Mornin' coffee. 2. Nogla - 7.41M After 12 years on YouTube, the Limerick YouTuber has cemented his place as our second most-followed content creator. 3. Allie Sherlock - 6.29M The 20-year-old Cork native regularly draws crowds busking on Dublin's Grafton Street, but her astounding success on YouTube has given her a global reach. She went viral smashing covers, but now she's releasing her own original music. 4. Inventor 101 - 5.89M This DIY channel says its based in Ireland, but its creator has kept their identity a secret. They upload "inventions and science experiments" every week. 5. Kauczuk - 5.24M The Meath-based 27-year-old has gained a following sharing videos of himself creating stunning pieces of art.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Disney+ Europe Exec on Why Free-to-Air Partners Are 'Incredibly Important for Our Business'
'Audiences: What do they want and from where?' That was the question, and the title, of a panel session at the Media & Telecoms 2025 & Beyond Conference in London on Tuesday, organized by Deloitte and Enders Analysis. Tasked with providing answers were top executives from the Walt Disney Co., YouTube, and U.K. TV giant ITV. The panelists were Alison Lomax, managing director, YouTube U.K. & Ireland, Kevin Lygo, managing director, media & entertainment at ITV, and Karl Holmes, senior vp, direct to consumer & general manager, Disney+ at the Walt Disney Co. Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Lost in Starlight' Director Han Ji-won on Blending Romance and Sci-Fi for Netflix's Breakthrough Korean Animated Feature BBC Boss Says "We Need to Protect Our National IP" and Need "Muscular Partnerships With Big U.S. Tech" Karlovy Vary Fest Sets Lineup, Competition Film From Iran to Be Unveiled Later for "Safety of its Makers" 'Across the markets we operate in Europe, the big free-to-air channels still aggregate the largest audiences, have the largest shows, and have the largest production budgets,' Holmes shared when asked if a U.S. giant like Disney has a role to play in nurturing linear channels in foreign markets. 'That's really important. We're also part of that. We operate linear channels in 28 markets across Europe, and they are an important and sustainable part of our business. How do we work with free-to-air? Because free-to-air [broadcasters] aggregate the largest audiences and have the largest production budgets, it's really important we do work with free-to-air. So we license content to free-to-air. We license content from free-to-airs. We have co-production agreements in place with most of the large free-to-air broadcasters across Europe.' He added: 'In Spain and in the Nordics, the paid VOD platforms actually sell Disney+. We're delighted that some of our best-performing original content comes from free-to-airs. We want to do more of this.' And paid streamers also offer Disney+ and its content. Concluded Holmes: 'The free-to-air partners are incredibly important for our business. We're part of the media ecosystem.' He also touted such hit Disney+ content as Shōgun and Rivals. Tuesday's conference also featured top executives from the likes of U.K. public broadcaster BBC, streaming giant Netflix, and Comcast-owned Sky and Sky Studios. Best of The Hollywood Reporter How the Warner Brothers Got Their Film Business Started Meet the World Builders: Hollywood's Top Physical Production Executives of 2023 Men in Blazers, Hollywood's Favorite Soccer Podcast, Aims for a Global Empire
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Legacy Media? UK Pubcasters Balk At Outdated Term & Say 'We've Got To Be Phoenixes Rising From The Ashes'
The phrase 'legacy media' has been tossed around a fair bit at the Creative Cities Convention (CCC) this week but senior execs at the broadcasters are less than happy about it. 'Legacy media' was raised as a synonym for the public broadcasters during yesterday's session with YouTube boss Alison Lomax in order to differentiate between the older networks and the Google-owned social platform, as chatter about the future of broadcasting dominates here in Bradford. More from Deadline No Pope Yet: Vatican Conclave Blows Black Smoke On 1st Day Of Vote For New Pontiff 'Saturday Night Live UK' Commissioner Says British Version Is A "Risky Proposition": "We Don't Have That History Of Live Comedy In The UK" Paramount UK & All3Media Bosses Debate Trump Tariff Plan Spooking The Industry: "Let's Keep Calm & See What Happens" But disgruntled mutterings about the term could immediately be heard in the crowd and at the All3Media-sponsored afterparty, as the likes of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 set out to prove they are looking to the future and are in no way, in fact, 'legacy' brands. Veteran ITV factual boss Jo Clinton-Davis laid down a marker this morning for these 'legacy' channels to think more deeply about where they premiere their content, whether it be terrestrial, BVoD or YouTube. 'We may be legacy media but f**k me we've got to be phoenixes rising from the ashes,' she said. 'We have to be resurgent and find these new places for the audience to see what's there.' Lomax was a good get for the Creative Cities. She shared the stage with Channel 4 digital execs who work across the network's YouTube strategy, and the group spoke about how barriers are breaking down between traditional TV and social platforms as older age demographics become au fait with YouTube. One of the architects of that Channel 4 strategy, CEO Alex Mahon, is on the way out, and her replacement will likely need to think just as hard about YouTube as she has. Speaking alongside a group of factual commissioners at rival networks this morning, Clinton-Davis said producers need to think first and foremost of pitching the best ideas, with less thought required around where a show lands. 'You don't have to take on board the whole business landscape,' she said, as she addressed budding producers directly. 'If you have a great idea that makes you stand out and has drama, spoiler alerts and repeatability then we can run with that. Don't get your knickers in a twist. Come with a clear proposition.' BBC daytime exec Helen Munson concurred, telling producers not to 'overthink strategy' but rather leave it to the commissioners. But Jo Street, who runs daytime, features and lifestyle commissioning for Channel 4, said that commissioners have a 'duty of care to convey strategy and help the sector understand' where shows should play. 'We have a job in lifestyle because I don't want anyone to hear that 8 p.m. [terrestrial slots] don't matter anymore because they do,' she added. 'People still watch a lot of telly on that thing in the corner of their living room at the time it is on. We have a job to convey that strategy, what it means and how it is changing.' She used the example of Married at First Sight, which has been a huge streaming hit for Channel 4 but also pulls in strong overnights. As broadcasters think more and more about how to retain young audiences, debates around the strength of linear, YouTube and where a show lands rumble on. Someone who will be thinking hard about these debates will be BBC Director General Tim Davie, who addresses the CCC later today. He may also be keen to put some distance between the notion of 'legacy media' and his own 100-year-old organization. Best of Deadline Book-To-Movie Adaptations Coming Out In 2025 TV Show Book Adaptations Arriving In 2025 So Far Everything We Know About 'Emily In Paris' Season 5 So Far
