The annual DTG Summit aimed to present the bigger picture for television. Much of the focus was on the smaller screen, micro dramas, vertical video, and YouTube. That left the future of television looking less certain than ever.
The opening keynote painted a pretty dismal picture from an investment perspective, showing little appreciation for the business of broadcasting or the power or purpose of the medium. The valuation ‘thesis’ seemed to be more about a misapprehension of library assets and how television catalogues are different to movies or music.
What was missing was any sense of a future roadmap for traditional television in the United Kingdom. The Rt Hon Ian Murray MP, the minister of state responsible for creative industries, media, and arts, appeared on video rather than in person, but had nothing to announce, on the eve of local and national elections.
Simon Michaelides, the director general of ISBA, representing advertisers, did a great job of saying what brands really want from broadcasters. That includes more transparent measurement across broadcast and online. The message was that, despite the importance of performance marketing, to which sales can be directly attributed, television remains powerful for brand building, and there is a need for both.
We heard from Andrea Donovan from YouTube about its growth from the first video, ‘A Day at the Zoo’. She situated YouTube as part pf popular culture and a complementary support for broadcasters. It was deftly done, so as not to represent YouTube as a threat to traditional media or its advertising model.
There was also a session on the creator economy, in which representatives of broadcasters including Channel 4 spoke of how they are working with these new platforms. What we did not get was any details about numbers.
Maria Rua Aguete gave a fact-packed presentation on Microdramas, like her own favourite ‘I’m the Lady Boss’, presenting a picture of how these short-form serial dramas are already big business, generating $11 billion in 2025, mostly in China, but expected to be worth $1.5 billion in the United States in 2026.
Vertical video is a thing, at least on mobile, and at least for short-form viewing. It seems its main purpose is to demonstrate that mobile video is somehow different from television.
Tony Pastor, who left ITV to cofound Goalhanger, gave a convincing account of how podcasting is attracting substantial audiences to serious subjects like politics and history, with long-form programmes that now include video. These convivial conversations involve the listener or viewer in an intimate way that television, which tends to talk at them, seems to have lost. It appears that talking in depth and at length about topics that some people actually care about could be the secret to success.
In a closing session on future innovation, Manon Dave, the head of future world design at the BBC, started out by consigning television to Room 101, apparently unaware of the premise for the BBC programme of that name that has been running for over thirty years, or indeed its Orwellian reference.
Delegates may have left with the impression that the innovation in television is not taking place on the television screen, but there is much that as a medium it might learn from that. The pace of change is accelerating, but traditional broadcasters do not seem to have a compelling plan to compete, other than some vague notion that they should follow their viewers online.