Danny Cohen on Investing in Attention, Talent and Storytelling

Danny Cohen tells Harry Stebbings that he left the BBC after about eight years running its television division because he wanted a new challenge. Thinking about a working life that could extend another 25 or 30 years, he stepped away before deciding on his next job. Len Blavatnik, whom he already knew, offered him a broader role at Access Entertainment.

His central lesson from the BBC is that talent and teams matter. Senior leaders should acknowledge what they cannot do well, delegate, and reserve their own time for decisions only they can make. Having managed people also helps him appreciate the complexity founders face rather than judging their choices from the outside.

Cohen sees audience fragmentation and the move to digital, individually curated viewing as the major challenge for broadcasters. He does not think linear television is finished, especially for older viewers, but regards younger audiences as a guide to what others may eventually do.

He cites his understanding that YouTube viewing on connected televisions in the US had surpassed Netflix in hours watched. Regardless of distribution, he says, compelling content and the right talent come first: there is little value in distributing something nobody wants to watch.

Stebbings worries that great work can disappear in a crowded market. Cohen agrees: projects he regarded as high quality have vanished on streaming services with little marketing. In his experience recommendation engines can be less effective than their reputations suggest, and even finding which service carries a show can be difficult.

The host predicts AI could greatly increase content supply. Cohen agrees it may worsen discovery, while acknowledging uncertainty about AI's effects. His answer is to focus on hits and talent and to take creative risks; copying an existing success can yield only a weaker imitation. He associates this willingness to look elsewhere with Blavatnik's investing style.

Short clips can draw far more attention than the long conversation from which they came. Cohen suggests using short-form material to lead people to a full work. He values long-form storytelling creatively and commercially: in his view, substantial YouTube videos and films have clearer revenue paths than most short clips.

Cohen says leading YouTube creators can earn substantial sums, while many smaller creators also make money there; he sees fewer established paths on some other platforms. Stebbings questions whether most creator-economy infrastructure businesses have a large enough market. Cohen points to Spotter, an Access investment, as a counterexample, while suggesting its team could explain its business better.

Legacy news organisations, Cohen argues, are trying to reach younger audiences without losing their existing audience. He interprets a BBC story about Taylor Swift at a football game as one such effort. Stebbings questions whether a written article on the BBC website reaches people who spend their time on short-form platforms; Cohen calls the problem a catch-22.

Stebbings asks whether trusted media brands could become more valuable as AI-generated content proliferates. Cohen hopes so, but says social media had already challenged shared understandings of reality. He is uncertain whether young people who get news on TikTok will later return to the BBC, and says established organisations will need talent, leadership and new distribution models.

Cohen resists predicting the value of legacy media five years out. He points to ITV's expansion in production and distribution as an example of a strategy that goes beyond linear broadcasting, while arguing that rapid technological change makes confident long-range predictions suspect.

At Access Entertainment, Cohen frames investing around attention rather than a single format. The portfolio spans film, television, gaming, the creator economy, theatre and immersive experiences. Access is a major investor in Lightroom, which presented a David Hockney show and announced one with Tom Hanks. The approach, he says, is possible because of Blavatnik's backing and flexibility.

Stebbings, who is involved with gaming company Tripledot, suggests it could become a $10 billion company within five years if it executes well, a prediction rather than an established valuation. Cohen agrees different assets have different upside. Blavatnik's private capital allows Access to pursue smaller profits and artistic interests alongside large businesses.

A theatre has seats and rental economics that limit its upside, but Cohen notes that ownership also gives Access an underlying real-estate asset. He discusses the Theatre Royal Haymarket and a planned production of The Picture of Dorian Gray starring Sarah Snook. Hockney's immersive work, meanwhile, has intellectual-property value shared through royalties and licensing and can travel internationally.

Talent's share of value is negotiated against the economics of each medium, Cohen says: a film and an immersive show have different budgets. He believes a theatre can make money but rarely at the scale of a fast-growing technology business; enduring theatrical intellectual property can be much more valuable.

Access operates with a relatively small team and tends to invest in other companies rather than build a large infrastructure of its own. Cohen says that forces prioritisation. A central lesson from Blavatnik is to do fewer, bigger things and keep the threshold for an investment high.

Asked what artists and founders have in common, Cohen points to drive, attention to quality and detail, the ability to distinguish what matters, and flexibility as circumstances change. With Tripledot's founders Leo and Akin, he says his early impression was supported by their track records and the company's early profitability. Both Access and Stebbings have interests in the company.

Cohen likes experienced entrepreneurs because they have encountered changing conditions before. He asks about people's teenage interests, education and earlier careers, looking for evidence of focus and execution without treating any single background as a definitive signal. Stebbings adds that some founders he admires pursue unusual hobbies with exceptional intensity.

There is also a difference between founders and performers: artists expose their work to public judgment, while founders take risks with other people's money. Cohen says supporting an artist requires understanding that vulnerability. His own strength, he believes, is reading and encouraging people rather than being the quickest person with a spreadsheet.

Both speakers look for behavioural warning signs as well as a convincing plan. Cohen mentions a founder speaking indiscreetly or disparagingly about other investors; Stebbings agrees that casually naming people can be revealing. Cohen says the way someone behaves in an initial conversation may suggest how they will run a business.

Cohen's approach to difficult feedback starts with a generally supportive relationship. Direct criticism has more impact, he believes, when it is unusual and clearly offered to help. On removing someone from a role, he says leaders often wait too long once they know a situation is not working; he does not offer a fixed deadline.

An investment or appointment gives a leader an initial vote of confidence, but Cohen expects evidence and results to support that trust over time. Broken trust can make it difficult to work with the same person again, although he says it has not made him cynical about everyone else.

Cohen says enjoying work matters more to him as he gets older, while acknowledging that having a job one loves is a privilege many people do not have. He values his current role's variety, the opportunity to learn from Blavatnik and the availability of capital, tempered by a high investment bar.

Investment decisions vary with size. Cohen may discuss a small investment directly with Blavatnik; larger ideas can be challenged by colleagues across Access Industries' different sectors. Their expertise is not always specific to entertainment, but general investment questions benefit from pressure-testing together.

Moving from media management to investment was deliberately unsettling. Cohen had to learn finance and was struck by what he saw as the market's occasional irrationality. He tries to understand changing valuation trends, including the shift in emphasis from revenue toward profit, while returning to fundamentals: people, ideas and execution.

He appreciates Access's agility after the bureaucracy of a much larger organisation; he says he managed roughly 3,000 people at the BBC. His continuing concern is whether he has the right people to answer questions outside his own strengths, as well as whether individual investments and their underlying theses are right.

Cohen recalls passing on an additional investment that, he says, would have returned eight times the money in about 15 months. The captions do not clearly identify the opportunity or the whole preceding explanation. His lesson was that, when conviction is justified, it can be appropriate to take more than one risk in an area.

Success calls for the opposite discipline: do not let a strong result inflate your ego. Cohen recommends a long-term perspective, listening and returning attention to execution. Even after a large fundraising round, Stebbings observes, a company may still be losing money.

On marriage, Cohen describes his wife, author Noreena Hertz, as smarter than he is and credits mutual support and shared interests. He says romance depends not only on birthdays or grand gestures but on how partners treat one another every day.

Hertz wrote The Lonely Century after observing loneliness before the pandemic, Cohen says, and revised it as the pandemic began. He believes loneliness affects young as well as old people and attributes a major role to digital culture and phones. These are his interpretations in the interview, not evidence of a specific causal effect.

Stebbings challenges the tension between a media business rewarded for attention and concern about isolation. Cohen says Access also backs shared physical experiences such as theatre and Lightroom, while recognising the issue. He notes that his area does not directly invest in Facebook; he and Hertz have personal and professional interests in the topics discussed.

Cohen describes Hertz's 'loneliness economy' as spanning very different activities, from wellness apps and in-person companionship to online videos watched during meals. He expects the range to grow but does not know whether a few platforms will dominate. He also mentions a Welsh initiative using chatty park benches to help people meet.

Cohen argues that long-form storytelling can still generate substantial revenue, citing Barbie's theatrical success. That is a commercial view from an investor in entertainment, not a guarantee that any given film will work. Hits and stars are difficult to create, he says, but high-quality stories can still find an audience.

He recalls the excitement around Barbie and Oppenheimer as cinemas recovered from the pandemic, tempered by the writers' and actors' strikes then affecting production. At the time of this conversation he says a writers' agreement was awaiting ratification and actors remained on strike; he hoped a settlement would follow.

Cohen expects any shortage in future film supply to depend on how long the actors' strike lasts. He says independent studio A24, an Access investment, had been able to continue making many projects, while larger studios and platforms were affected. His possible 12-to-18-month pinch point was a contemporaneous forecast, not a confirmed outcome.

Cohen says a West End production can cost about a quarter of its Broadway counterpart, attributing part of the difference to union and other costs while acknowledging that Broadway specialists could explain more. He worries rising budgets might deter wealthy backers of high-risk shows. Higher Broadway ticket prices may offset some cost, but Access was becoming more cautious about its investments there.

For Hamilton, revenue can come from a successful theatre run and the music as well as other rights. Cohen says Access invested in the original New York production and in productions elsewhere, and that original investors receive the right to invest in subsequent productions. He also notes Blavatnik's connection to Warner Music, which released the soundtrack.

Cohen would choose Charles Dickens as a dinner guest and names Great Expectations as his favourite book. His English literature training, he says, taught him to think about character, structure, plot, dialogue and emotional effect—all relevant to the storytelling he works with today.

Stebbings observes that founders and investors are not always good storytellers. Cohen says pitches often assume the listener already understands the market. A better story builds from simple components, with a beginning, middle and end, a clear shape and carefully placed points; he believes these skills can be studied and improved.

Cohen praises IKEA's clear identity and consistent delivery, while Stebbings points to Nike and Chanel. Cohen describes a brand as both a mark of something a customer likes and a feeling. He also cites Lego and Mattel's Barbie as examples of brands that found a way to feel contemporary again through a clear strategy.

Asked about 'woke' culture, Cohen criticises what he sees as easy dismissal at both ends of a polarised debate. He wants more specificity and an effort to understand opposing views. On editing older literature, he favours preserving authors' words and using footnotes for context; he also acknowledges the difficult question of separating a work from an artist's prejudices.

Looking ahead, Cohen hopes distribution becomes easier to navigate and predicts consolidation among streaming platforms. He also expects continued demand for live experiences, citing Taylor Swift concerts and more than a quarter of a million tickets sold for the Hockney show. His personal hope is that people spend less time on phones and more time with one another.