Crypto Currency exchange Coinbase recently released an ad called “Everything is fine”, that mocked the economic state of the UK in the style of a musical number from the classic British movie Oliver.
The Advertising standards authority denied banning it. But Clearcast issued this statement,
We considered that it presented cryptocurrency as a potential solution to economic challenges, without sufficient evidence for this claim or any warnings about the potential volatility and risks.
The irony is that whilst it couldn’t be aired on “traditional TV” (whoever watches that any more) it’s available to be ‘broadcast’ on Channel 4’s YouTube channel.
YouTube, you know the second largest visited site in the world.
Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong said,
Needing to update the system and improve society is not a political statement on either party in the UK (some have tried to turn it into this). And it’s not specific to the UK (we ran ads with similar themes in the US). It’s a statement about how the traditional financial system is not working for many people and how crypto represents a way to improve that.
Whether you believe crypto is the future of currency or not (just look at the trajectory of AI for your answer) it’s a brilliant dig at Broken Britain.
We already know the justice system is a joke in this country - it’s hilarious unless you’re someone like Jeremy Bamber, at the pointy end of forty years of wrongful conviction, and the future of the economy is going to be hell for the next 15 years according to Mo Gawdat.
But this ad got me thinking about whats going on in TV land.
This week is the Edinburgh TV conference. Yesterday, head honcho at C4, Ian Katz, was on a panel talking about IP (Intellectual Property), Public Service Broadcasters (PSB’s) and the state of the streamers.
Katz said,
…the global streamers play by completely different rules to the PSBs, and they have been able to take advantage of an incredibly rich creative ecosystem that has been built up through years and years of PSBs investing in talent, investing in small companies, spreading investment around the country, and they don’t have any obligation to do any of those things. They also take on the IP even, so there’s no value left.
There is a situation where there’s a group of companies with no public service obligation, leaving no IP, and frankly, not subject to any accountability. 1
Bloody Yanks, Coming over here and stealing our IP.
If you don’t know the entire UK TV industry (along with seemingly every other industry as we watch AI start to decimate the jobs market) in this country is in a state of existential crisis, mass unemployment throughout the industry, declining ad revenues, production companies shutting up shop, commissions almost impossible to get. Also the likes of Netflix aren’t paying for programs like they used to back in the days of COVID. Why? Because they know it’s a race to the bottom for the home-grown British competition.
They’ve just come in and hollowed out the entire industry.2
The problem is it’s more than just story telling, TV and film. It’s now big US Corporates seemingly having a hold over everything from AI LLM model revenue streams to now even our entire justice system.
What’s the quote about ‘America sneezes and Britain catches a cold’ ? Now it seems we’ve got to license the remedy from them too.
Broken Bamber
Following the publication of the story in The New Yorker last year an interview was bought to light that was conducted with an ex-Essex officer who claimed he received a 999 call.
If true this would be revelatory, and potentially refer Bamber’s case to appeal, and quash the entire conviction.
The Upsetter, in his Substack, picked up on this,
The New Yorker says it spoke to Nick Milbank, an Essex police constable at the time of the murder who was still working as a civilian when the magazine approached him.
The magazine article suggested Milbank recalled a phone call coming from inside the farmhouse and hearing movement consistent with someone inside the property at a time when Bamber was outside surrounded by coppers.
However, after the article was published, The New Yorker refused to disclose a tape recording of the conversation with Milbank to Bamber’s lawyer and more importantly to the CCRC, who were mid-deliberation.
The New Yorker is part of Conde Nast, itself owned by the privately-held Advance media empire of the American billionaire Newhouse family, which includes Vanity Fair and Vogue among its prestige publications.
Since its first edition in 1925, The New Yorker has become a multi-platform operation using journalism to drive podcast, film and tv expansion.
The magazine says it intends to broadcast extracts of the tape-recorded interview with the Essex cop in a pay-to-listen podcast about the Bamber case.
The podcast will be released after the CCRC has made its decision, which Bamber has been told will be next month.
The New Yorker refused this newsletter’s request for a copy of the policy it is relying on in the face of criticism of putting profit before principle in pursuit of case studies for podcast and television.
In December 2024 The CCRC wrote to Mark Newby.
The New Yorker magazine has declined to share with us, as a matter of company policy, any of the source material that it relied upon in its article. That does not prevent our considering and investigating the claims made, but it does of course make it more difficult to verify the accuracy of the article’s claims if the persons concerned now dispute them.
So when the British Government (the CCRC) ask to hear the recording concerning the potential miscarriage of justice of another British citizen they are told,
Sorry it’s ours.
They’d already refused Mark Newby, Bambers lawyer, who had made a request,
Having put so much effort into exposing this fresh evidence we would have thought it must be in the interests of The New Yorker if at all possible for an appeal to be advanced based on your work. This can only happen however if we can actually get into the detail and access the recordings of your interviews.
The CCRC (UK Government funded) just then retreat, tail between their legs. Bamber meanwhile continues to rot in prison whilst the New Yorker ready their podcast.
I find it hard to understand how a British journalist, making a phone call on British soil to a British citizen on a British phone network can record a conversation and yet the recording of that call then belongs to a US private company who can decide on the fate of a man’s life, a man who has been claiming his innocence for 40 years.
I bet if the CCRC had pushed a bit harder they could have heard it. But they don’t do anything that takes any effort.
The Upsetter again,
Why, one wonders, is The New Yorker venturing into rough justice journalism if there are no circumstances in which anything exculpatory it unearths could be disclosed and properly tested by a court.
There is a difference between what a journalist might finding compelling evidence and what m’learned friends think is legally fresh. Ultimately, it is the courts that have the power to free people, not reporters. 3
What did Katz say again?
There is a situation where there’s a group of companies with no public service obligation, leaving no IP, and frankly, not subject to any accountability.
In another example of the loss of IP, next Tuesday Channel4 is airing Whitehouse Farm: Murder, Bloodline and Betrayal from Irish company Peninsula TV.
Channel 4 are broadcasting another British story with IP owned by another foreign entity. They didn’t actually take the risk and commission it, they have just bought the rights to show it.
So despite the fact that I (along with BBC Studios - both of us British entities) pitched the Bamber story to them multiple times (more details in next weeks post) and were continually ghosted, it’s disappointing to say the least. Especially when you’ve seen Peninsula’s pitch deck.
I hope it’s not just another re-hashed ‘Bamber the Butcher’ approach that we’ve had for the past forty years but involves some real Chris Mullin style quality of investigative journalism, you know the type we just don’t see on British telly anymore, exactly the type of program that doesn’t sell ad space.
I’m not holding my breath.
Judging by what Katz said though, we should be expecting more brave telly from the heroes at Channel 4, even if no-one in Britain ends up owning the actual rights or story,
In the case of some difficult stories, [other broadcasters] are being very risk averse, … it’s important that as a risk-taking channel, we are taking risks on British IP. 4
Fuck it, I’m off to Dubai.
https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/channel-4/ian-katz-streamers-are-not-subject-to-same-rules-as-psbs/5208061.article?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Daily%20News&utm_content=Daily%20Daily%20News+CID_303797b2ca4ecc8133ce5880da38d060&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=Ian%20Katz%20Streamers%20are%20not%20subject%20to%20same%20rules%20as%20PSBs
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/18/the-guardian-view-on-british-tv-a-drama-out-of-a-crisis
https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/channel-4/ian-katz-streamers-are-not-subject-to-same-rules-as-psbs/5208061.article?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Daily%20News&utm_content=Daily%20Daily%20News+CID_303797b2ca4ecc8133ce5880da38d060&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=Ian%20Katz%20Streamers%20are%20not%20subject%20to%20same%20rules%20as%20PSBs
It's incredible what these companies will do for the sake of selling their shows. If this evidence is indeed legit, it should be disclosed.