2024 Predictions | Live events | Hiring
Is the era of the podcast over?
Today I go over a few predictions and things to watch out for in 2024 across politics, business, media and podcasting, but first a couple of news items from me.
We are hiring for a founders associate at Jimmy’s Jobs, ‘skills matter more than experience, but not as much as mindset’. Do you know somebody hungry who wants a launchpad for their career? Someone able to work simultaneously on 5 or 6 different projects in a day. From researching external meetings, to editing clips for social, to planning narrative arcs.
We are aiming to produce more business documentaries in 2024, so a bit of video skill is required. Although I often think for Gen Z, this was a bit like saying to a millennial in the mid noughties, ‘must have computer skills’. Read more about the job spec here.
Live events, we have two live events booked for February and March which I am super excited about. (As a subscriber you hear ere about them before anyone else)
Harry Cole, Political Editor of The Sun and James Heale, Diary Editor of the Spectator, will be talking us through their incredible book, ‘Liz Truss, Out of the Blue,’ offering their thoughts on a bumper year in politics, and what exactly is the job of a political and diary editor?
Tickets available here for Thursday Feb 8th.
In March, we have Marine Tanguy who runs one of Britain's fastest growing companies, MTART Agency which is all about art in public space and installing engaging art project. Have a look at the Insta reel we did together just before Christmas.
If you are new here, my name is Jimmy McLoughlin, a former Downing Street adviser on business turned podcaster, who writes about the most interesting things that I have seen on politics, business, media and the future of work. Please make sure you subscribe
Onto some predictions and things to watch this year, but first I want to take you inside No.10.
It is 10pm on 14 July, Rishi Sunak sits in Downing Street and sends two discreet messages, one to his Private Secretary: ‘please speak to the Palace and assess travel to Balmoral’ and one to Issac Levido and Liam Booth Smith: ‘we move’.
Sunak had just watched Harry Kane, and Jude Bellingham inspire the England team their first international title in 58 years. Dismantling Germany in Berlin was the perfect way to end such a drought. Sunak could hear ‘It’s coming home’ floating over the Downing Street Garden walls from jubilant fans in Trafalgar Square.
Sunak would allow the nation a day of celebration - no need for a Bank Holiday though, as most employers had given up the prospect of anything meaningful being achieved the next day. Then later in the week travel to see the King to ask for an election on the 12th September.
Ironic that it was two players, Bellingham and Kane who had perfected their game in the German domestic league that were the key players in an English victory. This was going to be an election full of ironies as politics had been turned on its head in the previous decade. Anybody thinking the result was certain should probably look at recent history where 2015, 16, 17 and 19 provided unexpected results, was 2024 really likely to return to predictable form?
You may think the above is unlikely, but Alistair Campbell wrote in his diaries that New Labour were worried that John Major might go to the country if England won at Euro 1996.
Most people say prediction is a mug's game and then go on to give a spate of predictions.
I actually quite enjoy it, because your mind plays tricks with what you did think, ‘in hindsight, it was obvious’ whereas the process of thinking things through and committing them to paper requires intent (unlike podcasting where you can just chat away). So here goes.
Politics
There will be lots of focus on when the election is, but it doesn’t really matter that much. It matters even less whether it's before or after the US election, but SW1 will fixate on that quite a lot, partly because it is easy chat where everyone can give a theory.
The polls have Labour winning an 82 seat majority, see Matt Chorley tweet for a breakdown.
I think that is too high.
Starmer will not win by 20 points, the polls will narrow, but probably only when the campaign gets going and the British public start tuning in again (16 / 17 and 19 elections show important campaigning is for shifting the dial)
Then the narrative changes, Rishi Sunak becomes the comeback kid etc.
I think Labour will win between 300-330 seats, maybe a majority, maybe not. Psychologically it makes a difference, but in the messy reality of governing, they will need to find support from different places.
Politics is infinitely more local in 2024 than it has ever been. A key unknown is the Tory ‘Red wallers’ - how many have really gripped the job and made the seat their own (nb. This is far different to performing well in SW1 studios) and the truth is, we won’t really know that until polling day.
But nobody will want to enter a coalition with Labour. (See Danny Alexander on George Osborne and Ed Balls podcast at the end of this email)
Will the left of the Labour party be able to hold a greater balance?
How many Corbynistas were elected in ‘17 and ‘19 elections and have remained?
Starmer will try to counter this by bringing back more ‘big beasts’ as Cameron brought back Ken Clarke and IDS. Peter Mandelson back for Round 4 perhaps!? But it won’t include David Milliband.
The last major political prediction I made in this substack was in May 2022 when I said Boris Johnson was safer than most people were saying. Wthin five weeks he resigned. Although I did say the natural runoff would be between Sunak and Truss (which I had actually forgotten until I reread it!)
As for US politics, neither Biden nor Trump will end up President / President elect by the end of the year. The world's most advanced nation will be able to come up with something else. Maybe this is hope rather than in expectation.
Sadiq Khan is not the shoo in that is assumed for the London Mayoralty, particularly if Corbyn decides to run, which in an attempt to stay relevant I think he probably will.
I have long argued business leaders should go into politics. Could someone decide to go for it? They will need to make their minds up soon.
Economics
Many of us have tried to box Covid off in our minds, but its effects on the economy are long ;lasting. We are in a post war economy, relatively high inflation, high interest rates, sluggish growth, static productivity and hundreds of thousands of long term sick / ill people. This will become a bigger issue in the UK, and productivity and housing will continue to finally get the prominence they deserve.
Jeremy Hunt will have to decide at the budget whether he cuts income tax or inheritance tax. I imagine he will plump for the former because it impacts more people and would have a stronger short term impact. However, an inheritance tax cut holds a special place in Conservative mythology, after all it was George Osborne who 17 (!) years ago was faced with an impending general election and almost certain Labour victory, turned the tide with a bold pledge in Blackpool. Could it work again?
London Stock Exchange will continue to struggle to attract listings and see more seep away, this is a big problem that SW1 does not really appreciate.
It will be a big year for bitcoin, will it be able to come out of its latest winter? Ironically it does not have to increase its price - have enough start ups in the ecosystem been able to get through the winter? It is possibly on the slope of enlightenment as Gartner Hype Curve would term it. The paradoxes of Bitcoin and crypto mean it could still have a good year whilst not dramatically increasing in price in fact that might be better for it. This is not financial advice.
High streets will continue to do well. Expect to see a big regeneration of Oxford Street. More D2C brands like Gymshark that started life online continue to open some new stores, they have just announced their second store in Westfield, Stratford. Could we see them open an international store?
Campaigning
Katy Balls had a great piece in The Times this week about this being a TikTok election - I agree it will be an important platform, as will other short form video such as YT shorts.
However, I see 2028 being potentially more of a creator election, too many creators are steering clear of politics for now and the main parties have not really worked out the ‘value exchange’ yet.
Last years big social news was the launch of Threads, but could it be another Zuckerberg launch of communities in WhatsApp that has a bigger impact. This could be more of a WhatsApp / Telegram election. Why? It is far harder to potentially police deepfakes in those private environments and they are also infinitely more trusted than public ones.
I believe a big business trend emerging in 2024 will be how businesses lean into these private messaging to build out community.
Media
Boris Johnson launches his own show on GB News - how will he do? I could see him presenting some fascinating historical travel documentaries in Greece, Italy and North Africa. Or will it end up being more shock jock stuff? Let’s see.
Gladiator 2 will be a box office hit on the scale of Barbie and Oppenheimer.
The incredible success of both Luke Littler and Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office will see ‘event TV’ steady traditional TV decline as nostalgia continues to have a strong grip on habits.
More campaigns will also look for their Mr. Bates moment, but I think one of these moments may come via YouTube rather than traditional TV.
The world’s biggest podcaster, Joe Rogan’s exclusive deal with Spotify comes to an end this year. Will it be renewed? Will he go back to all platforms? Or will he do a deal with Elon musk and X/Twitter?
Will Elon Musk have his own show by the end of the year?
The end of the podcast?
‘Are we video’ing this podcast?’
Because if we are, it is not really a podcast. But video is where it is at, because the video recommendation engines on YT, Tiktok and Insta are just so powerful. Spotify and Apple Podcasts have just not built this out onto the platforms.
You simply cannot grow an audio channel, without the video and social channel.
Another phrase we hear a lot is - ‘Oh no, not another podcast’
Bad news listener: we are about to get far more podcasts. A real life case study of where AI is making the process far more efficient and easier.
I predict we will see Rory Stewart and Al Campbell doing a daily show by this year, at least for the election campaign.
Interesting note, the economist podcast series which have become pay walled are made by 30 people, almost 10% of its newsroom headcount.
Business
Any firm that is publicly listed or has a b2c model is going to continue to build in this area, see Simon Rogerson for Octopus launching his own YT channel last year.
This will become a bigger part of a company's marketing and engagement strategy. Why rely on marketing channels that are so highly sensitive to algo change, when you can just build out your own? Expect to see a flurry of activity towards the back end of the year and into 2025.
But as the FGS Radar pointed out this week, we are far less likely to see business commenting on social issues, in particular geo political issues - relief all round that we no longer need to hear what a random German car company thinks about the Middle East crisis.
As part of this something that businesses have been doing for a while, we will see the rise of the newsletter. The likes of the Guardian and Times have been doing good newsletters for a while, but I think we may begin to see some individuals, or small groups of individuals come to the fore. I wrote about some of my favourite newsletters here at the end of last year.
Newsletters are a big deal in the States and big business. In the UK we are way behind the curve, but I expect 2024 may become a year where we begin to see more of them, particularly as more people continue to lose their jobs in media (20,000 people in the US lost their job last year in that industry, 6x on 2022)
When it comes to public affairs, an extraordinary amount of firms have been launched in the last five years as barriers to entry have dropped so low and because government taxation and intervention is at its highest ever level I expect to see one or two M&A transactions to take place in the next couple of years and the beginning of an election cycle is a natural point to do this, particularly if there is a clear result.
Hanbury have been one of the stand out firms of the last five years having scaled to almost 100 people now, but there is impressive competition from 5654, WPI, Stonehaven, Strand Partners, Charlesbye etc. particularly as PA firms look to distinguish themselves through data and other concrete metrics.
Sport
Ever the optimist, Derby County will win promotion.
Podcast recommendations
My last email was about a whole bunch of podcasts that our guests and readers recommended, but I forgot two people, I think it is because I agreed with them so much.
Joshi Hermann who writes the brilliant substack
on Manchester got it touch to say:I'm really enjoying the Political Currency podcast, Osborne and Balls. They have really interesting insights into how politics works behind the scenes. But they are also able to talk about economic policy with a level of nuance and detail that you don't tend to get on political podcasts. I have to say that listening to it - and listening to The Rest is Politics too - has made me realise that we just don't need as many lobby hacks if we can hear from these people direct.
I strongly agree with this podcast recommendation, I feel as though the two are beginning to hit their stride with it more, there is definitely more needle and you can tell Balls and Osborne were and to some degree still are in direct competition. The one on the coalition talks was particularly good and it was interesting to hear Danny Alexander on the future of the Lib Dems in any coalition.
Katy Cole, CEO of This is Spoken who looks after my speaking engagements also recommended Amol Rajan interview with Bill Gates - which I thought was a really great listen. In particular, I enjoyed Rajan so clearly trying to establish ‘mutual benefit’ early on.
How do we make money?
When you tell someone you are a podcaster / creator, the most common question I get asked is ‘how do you actually make money?’
And well seeing as I am a creator in the business, economics and jobs space, it feels right that I should try and be transparent about it!
We mainly have four streams of income: Partnerships, ad revunue, events curation / speaking and perhaps on the fastest increase, white label content.
Firstly partnerships, we work with big brands / start ups, anyone who has jobs, and we work with them to find out what audience they want to reach and the best platforms to do it.
For example, we worked with a group in the North East who wanted to do a business profile up there, and the result was this video from Coal to Code, this podcast and a substack - 19 reasons to look at the North East economy.
Over 100k people have now engaged with that piece of content and of course through this newsletter alone you reach close to half the cabinet, several of the shadow cabinet and a whole host of MPs, business leaders, entrepreneurs and important media folk.
We get around 18-20 pitches to come on the podcast a week (another reason why I think we are likely to see more, not less podcasts being launched!). Most of them will have interesting stories, but it takes us a decent amount of time to uncover those stories and stitch them together.
Secondly, there is advertising on the podcast / substack (see what we did with ashore in one of our most ever read pieces - what is the point of the CBI?)
Thirdly, there is speaking, competition is intense in the business events space, you have the likes of The Times and other big media brands doing their own. So we can help curate and, and I can also act as MC / Host or even speak about the future of our economy. Did I mention I did a stand up course!?
You can see more of our case studies here.
Fourthly, we are producing more and more content for more and more companies, we created this pretty cool video for BGF and entrepreneurs for example.
Ultimately, if you want to create some interesting and engaging content, get in touch with us and we can chat.
Thanks very much for reading, our socials are below.