Members of the Create South East programme Brown Bear Audio and Kult Media started collaborating last year, utilising their skills in audio production and podcasting to come together and offer a new service. Since then, Brown Bear Audio have recently opened a new space in Brighton, and Kult Media continue to support this new venture.
We attended their studio opening and spoke to business founders Thomas Dalton (Brown Bear Audio) and Matt Cheney (Kult Media), about their experience in the industry, as well as their recent projects.
Both business founders hope that this new space will act as a hub for growth and content creation for a variety of businesses across Sussex and further afield. Being experts in their field, Brown Bear Audio and Kult Media offer a unique opportunity to level up your creative content as well as high quality equipment and services.
A Collaborative Venture; Brown Bear Audio and Kult media
Brown Bear Audio are audio production specialists who joined Create South East for our first cohort of creative businesses, working with their mentor to reframe their thinking and level up their business development. A few months after this original cohort, Create South East launched additional programme cohorts, Kult Media joined the programme for our fourth cohort to follow this same journey of unique mentorship and expert workshops.
Brown Bear Audio founder Thomas Dalton spoke on his longstanding relationship with Kult Media’s Matt Cheney, and how the two had known of each other in the industry for a couple of years. Thomas said that when the Brown Bear team started offering more podcasting services to their clients, Matt was the person he wanted to speak to, ‘Matt is an expert in the field he’s been in, and he’s been in the podcast game for a while now.’
Matt started his podcasting services back in 2016 and has since remained at the forefront of podcasting services ever since. As Brown Bear Audio continued to get additional requests for filming and podcasting services alongside their regular audio bookings, Thomas felt like Matt and Kult Media were the perfect fit for this next service development.
The Demand for Dynamic Content Services
In a constantly evolving landscape, Kult Media founder, Matt Cheney, spoke to the demand for content volumes. “Now, people know that you need a website but how does that evolve further still? Gen Z think that YouTube is the way forward, so it’s kind of an amalgamation of a lot of these movements of people needing content. Social media changes so quickly that people don’t think they can actually just drive business straight from social media.”
This movement towards content demands acted as the catalyst for the collaboration between Brown Bear Audio and Kult Media. “What’s interesting about how we came together is I was like consultant producer for Brown Bear Audio and Thomas” Matt said, their relationship continuing as both businesses became more influential to each other.
The Creative and Commercial Balance
A crucial theme that emerged in the discussion was the challenge creatives face in transitioning their skills into commercial viability. “As creatives, we’re absolute experts in our field. We want to do the creative work,” interviewer and Programme Manager, Grace Hart, observed. “But there’s this long-standing stigma that being creative means you can’t be commercial. And yet, these two things can beautifully overlap.”
“It is hard,” Matt added. “A creative brain has to flip over to that commercial side, and that’s tough. But you learn as you go, and with experience, you find a blend of both.”
The discussion highlighted how the Create South East Programme helps creative founders shift their perspective. Matt shared that “one of the things the course gave me was the ability to start thinking about my business in a more commercial way… although I wasn’t looking for outside investment, putting together a pitch for my business helped me consolidate my thoughts and understand how to market it.”
What does the future look like for these businesses?
During the course of their time on cohort one, Brown Bear Audio applied for a grant that they have recently been successful awarded. This grant has gone on to help the growth of the business during this project and the opening of the new studios. At this time, Matt from Kult Media was taking part in our fourth cohort.
It seems that so far the podcast format has not only endured but evolved, particularly with the growing integration of video. “It’s been a while now,” Matt said, “so I think it’s only evolving, and we’ve seen it move into video now. The format’s been proved. Now it’s about how businesses want to use it.” This evolution underscores the opportunity for companies to maximize the potential of the medium, demonstrated by this collaboration.
We look forward to the future of this exciting new venture, and the potential for creative growth that it brings to the region.
Find out more about the businesses below:
