What It Took with Tom Smith

Roku’s UK Managing Director Richard Halton joins Tom Smith to look back on a career spanning the BBC, YouView and television’s move to streaming.

Richard shares why he left consulting for work he believed in, what it felt like to find himself among the BBC’s senior leaders in his twenties, and how he learned to bring people with competing priorities together. He reflects on the colleagues who backed him, the pressures of leadership and the experiences that shaped his priorities.

Chapters:

00:00 Episode preview and introduction

02:01 Northern roots and work ethic

04:20 Leaving consulting for the BBC

08:32 BBC vs ITV: moving the news

13:23 Helping shape BBC Three and BBC Four

19:29 Learning to lead inside the BBC

22:07 Overcoming imposter syndrome

24:33 Balancing fatherhood, family and work

27:47 Keeping the BBC relevant to younger audiences

32:13 Inside the BBC’s first YouTube deal

40:15 The human cost of strategy

43:00 Why Project Kangaroo never launched

50:36 Family, loss and the support that mattered

55:42 From Project Canvas to YouView

1:03:31 Standing his ground with seven CEOs

1:08:07 Bringing the team together to launch YouView

1:16:05 Working with Lord Sugar

1:21:47 Project Origin: solving advertising measurement

1:28:17 Building Roku’s UK business

1:35:39 What it took: the closing summary

What It Took is brought to you by FX Digital, the Connected TV App Experts.

Your host, Tom Smith, co-founded FX Digital with CEO Matt Duhig and serves as its Chief Product Officer.

Listen and follow on Apple Podcasts or Spotify for more conversations about the people and decisions behind the industry.

Content note: This episode includes a discussion of suicide and bereavement.