ITV Studios Alum James Dolan Opens Beam Digital

James Dolan, former digital channels director at ITV Studios, has opened the new venture Beam Digital, offering full support for rights owners and content creators in crafting digital strategies.

Beam Digital’s main areas of activity are advising organizations, rights owners and content creators on their own digital strategies and working with selected IP and brands to build out their digital worlds, with a particular focus on YouTube.

Beam Digital works with partners on anything from creating a clear digital strategy and setting up and managing YouTube channels to mining libraries or repackaging content.

Beam Digital also offers practical training sessions and workshops that enable organizations, such as production companies, to migrate team members to new digital work streams.

The new company’s approach to business is built on more than a decade of Dolan’s experience as a YouTube/social-first executive. At ITV Studios, as digital channels director, Dolan oversaw the distribution and monetization of a 90,000-hour catalog and managed a portfolio of 140-plus digital and social channels.

Dolan has also worked as a consultant. Notably, recent projects include an extended period with All3Media International, where, in addition to meeting a wide-ranging strategic brief for the business, he created a detailed social media playbook and guidelines for international format licensees and broadcasters interested in getting maximum value and engagement from their adaptations of The Traitors. Dolan also worked with Acamar Films to support the early launch of Bing on YouTube.

“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,” Dolan said. “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 earn 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.”