EXCLUSIVE: Breaking News from BBC Studios about BBC Content, Bluey & Affinity
Mapping Affinity: Inside the Beeb’s Big Bets
Happy Thursday Peaceniks! Ready for Mom!, Dad!, Bingo!, and Bluey! … LEGO‽
This clip is an exclusive SNEAK PEEK of the new series, LEGO Bluey Shorts — an historic collaboration between two of the most historic brands in cultural history:
BBC Studios and the LEGO group.
The show premieres today on The Bluey Channel, the official LEGO channel and the LEGO Little Ones channel on YouTube and Bluey.TV. But me and Marion Ranchet were able to see the show, FIRST, in Cannes during Cannes Lions. What’s more, that’s only one-third of the news we’re breaking in this episode of The Media Odyssey.
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BLUEY 💙 LEGO
We sat down above the Croisette, for an interview with Jasmine Dawson from BBC Studios, Dan McGolpin of BBC iPlayer and Channels, and Anna Rafferty from the LEGO group.
We discussed the groundbreaking nature of the amazing content collaboration between BBC Studios and LEGO, including the roll out of this new, ten-episode, animated series, featuring LEGO versions of the Bluey Family that rolls out every week, starting today, the rest of the summer.
Jasmine and Anna let us watch this sneak peek, but also described why this partnership between these two storied brands is a landmark moment in kids content and culture.
But our friends at BBC gave us two more great, exclusive stories to feast on this episode — holding them back until right now for us to break, right here, on the pod:
BBC STUDIOS LAUNCHES THE AFFINITY AD NETWORK
BBC Studios is officially launching Affinity, a global advertising network built entirely around audience passion points rather than standard vanity metrics. Jasmine walked us through the strategy and the rollout.
Affinity scales BBCS’ fandom-first strategy across five distinct content verticals: Family, Auto, Travel/Food, Entertainment, and Our World (via BBC Earth). The Family Affinity Network serves as the premier vertical launching under this initiative - featuring Bluey… and more.
To power this network, BBC Studios Digital has signed new agreements to manage channels, content, and direct advertising sales for massive external family IPs on YouTube, including Zog, My Friend Maisy, and Crookhaven. This joins their existing Family offering with anchors Bluey and Bing.
Dawson explained that this expansion is based on the results and success of their efforts in the last year under her Creator mindset strategy. We dug with Dawson into BBC Studios’ substantial year on year digital growth in both reach and engagement, specifically examining the drivers behind their longest average watch-time among all media companies on YouTube.
BBC EXPANDS ON YOUTUBE & BBC STUDIOS EXPANDS SALES OF BBC CONTENT
Our conversation with Dan McGolpin, Director of iPlayer and Channels at the BBC, pulled back the curtain on an unprecedented operational shift at the Beeb. For the first time ever, the public service arm of the BBC and its commercial counterpart, BBC Studios, are fully integrating their digital content architectures.
Dan explained that the BBC is moving completely away from generic master channels and spinning off hyper-focused passionate fandom hubs. For example, they just spun out a dedicated football channel right in time for the World Cup. This isn’t abstract theory; it’s a massive deployment. The BBC group is actively launching 50+ new highly specific YouTube channels.
This is no small matter. BBC leaning into the best practices of its commercial sibling — adopting a “Beeb as Creator” mindset — is landmark.
Describing the macro shift, Dan revealed that under this newly operational strategy, Jasmine’s commercial team at BBC Studios will take on monetization and advertising sales everywhere in the world, ex-UK. This opens up the BBC’s massive public service portfolio — including the legendary BBC Archive and core masterbrand outputs — to global commercial revenue streams for the first time.
🎧 Listen or Watch to the Full Episode Now
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And, please, for all our sakes, enjoy the long weekend.
ESHAP