Marina Hyde promo image for Always On launch. Picture: Goalhanger
The Rest Is Entertainment co-host Marina Hyde is building her own platform for written and video content in a joint venture with production company Goalhanger.
The launch of Always On with Marina Hyde has been announced just over a week after she published her final column in The Guardian where she wrote for 25 years. Her final book collection of Guardian columns, ‘What a Time to Be Alive!’, was also just published.
Hyde will also continue to co-host audio and video show The Rest Is Entertainment with author Richard Osman, which they have put out since November 2023, covering topics including the media, books, TV, film and music.
She will now produce regular written columns on Substack, a new Youtube show, and original social content, with more formats set to follow.
Goalhanger said the new brand would allow Hyde to be more “immediate, personal and playful, with the freedom to follow whatever she finds interesting, funny, strange or important”.
Hyde said she was “hugely excited… to be able to respond to the news batsignal in whatever format feels right – written / video / podcast / social / costumed vigilantism. I’m also thrilled we’ve named it in tribute to the nervous breakdown it’s going to give me.”
Always On is the first launch from Goalhanger X, a new initiative building media products around “distinctive voices”. Goalhanger is providing the creative development, audience growth and commercial expertise support to its creators.
The Substack will be free at launch and a paid subscriber tier will follow with member-only features and other content.
Currently Hyde and other ‘The Rest Is’ hosts have lucrative revenue-sharing agreements for their shows fuelled by host-voiced adverts.
Goalhanger co-founder Jack Davenport said: “We love Marina. At Goalhanger, our shows span sport, politics, history and entertainment, but the truth is Marina could host them all. There’s no one else who can bring together so many different strands and make sense of the world quite like she can.
“Partnering with her to launch Always On is the start of something really exciting for us as a business. Goalhanger X is built around unique personalities: people with a distinctive voice, an incredibly loyal audience and the ability to create far beyond any single format.
“Always On gives Marina the freedom to build a world around everything she finds interesting, funny or important, and to connect directly with audiences through writing, video, social, podcasts and whatever comes next.
“Our role is to put the creative, audience and commercial infrastructure around that vision so it can grow, while keeping Marina firmly at the centre.”
“Must-read” Hyde won the Comment Journalism prize at Press Gazette’s British Journalism Awards in 2019 , 2020 and 2021 .
[ Marina Hyde on the art of writing a column: ‘It’s a trade. You just have to fill the space’ ]
Goalhanger announced earlier this month it is creating its own in-house advertising sales operation offering partnerships across audio, video, social media, newsletters, live events and branded content.
The company said the Goalhanger X brands, starting with Always On, would give advertisers a way to work with creators across multiple formats rather than on “individual posts, sponsorships or placements”.
Opportunities could include sponsorships of written content, creator-led branded content campaigns, social partnerships, bespoke audio and video formats, live events, membership benefits and IP partnerships around long-form content.
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