TellyCast: The content industry podcast

How Micro Drama Is Rewriting TV: COL Group’s Timothy Oh on the Future of Vertical Storytelling

TellyCast: The content industry podcast

Show Notes

This week on TellyCast, Justin Crosby speaks to Timothy Oh from COL Group, one of the biggest players in the booming micro drama business. As the company behind platforms including ReelShort, Timothy explains why short-form, vertical storytelling has exploded in China and the US, why it is now starting to spread across Europe, and what it could mean for broadcasters, producers and content businesses in the UK. The conversation explores why micro drama has already overtaken the Chinese box off...

More from TellyCast: The content industry podcast

Oct 22, 2026

In the second part of our MIPCOM 2026 special, Justin Crosby talks to two studio leaders who come to the creator economy from opposite directions. Tanya Cohen spent her career representing film stars and directors at WME and Range Media Partners. In April she left that business to become co-CEO of Made By Us Studios, the LA studio she runs with creator-economy pioneer Leanne Perice. She explains why she made the move, how Dentsu came to back the studio’s slate, and why she thinks advertisers ...

Oct 15, 2026

In the first of two TellyCast specials recorded in Cannes at MIPCOM 2026, Justin Crosby talks to the producers, studio founders and agency leaders working out where scripted, social video and brand-funded content meet. Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue of Hartswood Films open the show with Number 10, their new Channel 4 comedy drama set behind the most famous door in Britain. They explain why Downing Street works as a workplace drama, why authentically British shows travel best internationally, an...

Oct 8, 2026

Lucy Smith left TV development two and a half years ago to launch Fawkes Digital. The company has just rebranded as Studio Fawkes. It has landed its first linear commission, with street-dating format Date Me Right Now heading to MTV. And Lucy says revenues have tripled in the last six months. In this episode she explains why Studio Fawkes treats brands as broadcasters rather than "a money pot", and why she believes the old-school TV model is "totally dead and wildly unsustainable". She descri...

Oct 1, 2026

Rob Rawlings spent 25 years in premium factual TV before co-founding Full Slate Media, a production studio and boutique agency working with creators, brands and digital publishers across YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. His recent LinkedIn post asked whether UK indies have lost their nerve, and he joins Justin Crosby to make the case. They discuss why the old commission-and-sell model is shrinking year on year, why so much post-Edinburgh talk about YouTube has not turned into investment, and ho...

Sep 25, 2026

Our interview with former Top Gear boss Andy Wilman has passed 200,000 views on YouTube and around 400,000 elsewhere. Justin Crosby asks YouTube strategist Seb Losardo, who has helped grow John Nellis's channel from 600,000 to 16 million subscribers, to explain why, and how to repeat it. Seb explains how to find outlier guests, why an AI-generated thumbnail beat our usual design in an A/B test, and why he tells creators not to be led by their most vocal fans. He sets out his 40/30/30 rule for...

See all episodes →