People

James Dolan, a YouTube and social video expert who has held senior roles at ITV Studios and Little Dot, announces the launch of his new initiative, Beam Digital, which focuses on two main areas: advising organizations, rights holders, and content creators on their own digital strategies, and partnering with selected IPs and brands to expand their digital worlds, with a particular emphasis on YouTube.

Beam collaborates with partners on everything from developing a clear digital strategy and establishing and managing YouTube channels, to leveraging content libraries or repackaging material and executing activities that attract and grow communities. Notably, as digital opportunities continue to expand rapidly and the industry struggles to find skilled talent to capitalise on them, Beam Digital also provides practical training sessions and workshops that allow organizations such as production companies to seamlessly transition team members into new digital workflows. This helps companies maintain full control of their intellectual property and ensures they can readily identify and maximise opportunities—becoming ‘future-ready’ while keeping core revenues in-house.

James Dolan, Founder of Beam Digital, says: “With the blinkers well and truly removed as to the opportunities on YouTube and social platforms, the content industry is experiencing a bit of a gold rush moment at the present – but we don’t want anyone to get burned. At Beam Digital, our focus is on creating and building long-term, sustainable activity with our partners and clients. We do this by starting with audience and data-led strategies to establish sound foundations and then make sure we identify and nurture direct relationships with engaged and loyal communities"

"We work hard to continuously find ways to unlock new revenues and commercial opportunities from social video and we are passionate about passing the baton on and equipping partners with the skills and knowledge to confidently navigate the social video landscape and grow their own channels. But our passion is more than about helping individual companies earning as much revenue as possible. With changing business models, new ways of engaging audiences and a dropping off in TV commissions, there is growing unemployment in the traditional side of the content business. If we can help stem job losses by re-training people in production companies and distributors, for example, and simultaneously help meet the growing demand for expert digital channel managers, it’s a win-win situation for individuals, companies and the evolving industry as a whole”, he concluded.