On The Nose (that we’re cutting off to spite our face)

I attended Ignite last week. It’s the TV Festival’s Climate Content Summit. Last year I found some brilliant people there, with whom I and/or my clients are beginning to collaborate. It’s now in its third year and, again, the organisers managed to attract excellent, thought-provoking and genuinely useful contributors.

The standard of some of the projects discussed was exemplary. One of the modes of discourse I’ve heard at both Ignite and in other circles discussing ‘climate content’ — or more, accurately, ‘what is actually happening now’ — is the phrase ‘on the nose’. It surfaces constantly. The context is whether — or not — we should tell the current story of our environment with ‘on the nose’ climate-related content.

I understand what they mean, I think. But this quaint betting phrase, which implies something you are sure about, feels oddly out of place. If we say something is on the nose or not in this context - surely we run the risk of reducing a vastly complex subject to another binary?  It’s the same all-or-nothing mindset that leads platforms and broadcasters to reject frankly banging ideas — and there were many brilliant ideas on display at Ignite — because don’t want the ‘climate bit’.

There’s a huge divide at the moment between making sense of the reality of an industry described by one prominent writer and exec as ‘sick’ — not in the good way — and the stated aspirations of broadcasters. Conference corridor whisperings are always useful in terms of judging the mood music. Last week, there were a lot of mutterings about cutting out commissioners, going digital first, stopping hospicing a broken system and taking more risk. Against the backdrop of an audience that is at once totally fragmented yet connected, purposefully disinformed yet with more access to knowledge than ever, we in this industry still have the power, not to mention the responsibility, to inform and educate while entertaining.

This year, Mushroom Media turned 26 — an age when the frontal lobes, specifically the prefrontal cortex, are considered to be nearing full development. So I’m feeling all grown up. I’ve listened to and communicated on behalf of hundreds of media businesses over the past quarter of a century, so I reckon I can spot an inflection point at a decent distance.  

Award-winning producers are being forced to shut up shop. Many broadcasters and platforms are in turmoil as they navigate a system that is now programmed to make decisions based the bottom-line ethos of the financial markets. The money markets aren’t known for their interest in tending creative gardens to ensure a healthy cultural harvest. Their instinct is to exploit rapaciously until there’s nothing left. So, let’s be honest: we’re running out of time. We all need to act — and act now. If you don’t want to, that’s fine. Just please move aside and let others in. 

Meanwhile, we wrestle with how to ‘do’ YouTube/how to survive AI/cope with tariffs/(insert permacrisis of your choice). But while we deliberate about what works and what doesn’t, whether it’s on the nose or egg all over the face, there are some very well-resourced people out there with their hands on the direct-to-audience levers of media power; people who are very clear about being on the nose about maintaining their own wealth and power, at any cost. But on the other side of the divide are the people who would like to see their actual worlds reflected back at them. And there are a lot of them. An Oxford University study last year found that around 80% of people globally want to see more action on climate. There are brilliant young ‘nature influencers’ who are skint and should be leading the charge across all media. When we speak of climate impacts, this is a phenomenon that touches every one of us, regardless of ethnicity, ability, diversity, gender or sexuality. Climate is the ultimate example of intersectionality. It is everyone. However — and as ever — the poorly resourced and the disadvantaged will be hit the hardest.

My own action is to continue to make connections between people and organisations that benefit each other, in my professional work as well as my local community. Sustainable leadership, one that is able to stay with complex problems and dynamic enough to seek systemic change can only be achieved together. Through the meeting of a diverse set of minds, perspectives, kindnesses and a reignited awareness of all of our humanity interconnected as a part of nature we have so much more power that we are using. I was advised a few years ago to bring like minded people together to explore and build a different, more sustainable way to collaborate and operate. Frankly, I was too scared to ask. I no longer am. That’s why, earlier this year, C21 Media and Mushroom collaborated on the launch of the Climate Consensus - an initiative designed to make us think differently about how to determine the global entertainment industry’s response to the climate emergency and come together as a community to build a consensus around the best idea. If you haven’t joined us yet, please do.

Now what seems to be missing is providing the physical spaces in which those who want a different outcome can come together to turn all the good intentions into action, build stronger interdisciplinary networks and create new structures of dissemination. Like a pound-shop Claudia Winkleman, I may come and tap you on the shoulder and ask you to help us shape and form this group of protopian progressives, or whatever we agree to call ourselves in the end. Either way, let’s not be traitors. Let’s keep faithful to ourselves, our industry and our planet.