17 September 2026

Growing influence: Lessons from Immediate’s talent and creator strategy

During the dark days of the Covid lockdown, Ridhi Radia, Director of Belonging and Creator Networks at Immediate, got herself a Peloton exercise bike, which she planned to return after a three-month trial. Years later she is still peddling. Crucial to Radia hanging onto her bike was an instructor called Hannah.

“It wasn’t the bike, it wasn’t the brand, it was all Hannah,” explained Radia, talking at this year’s PPA Festival in London. “I rearranged my schedule around her classes, followed her on Instagram, bought what she recommended, listened to her playlist, ate what she ate, and that’s when it clicked. The brand built the platform, but the person was the reason I stayed.”

Apart from keeping her fitness levels up, Radia learned valuable lessons from her Peloton experience that have informed the way she does her job overseeing creator strategies at Immediate. While Peloton has about two million Instagram followers, its instructors combined have 14 million. That’s where the real power lies.

“People aren’t subscribing to a fitness company; they’re choosing a person they trust. Audiences choose people not platforms,” Radia said.

“Once you see that, you start to notice it everywhere. Not just in fitness, but across food, entertainment, fashion, history, gardening, all of our brands. And that’s the shift we kept seeing.”

Creator boot camp

Radia pointed out that while Immediate spent years chasing traffic, optimising for search and measuring success in page views, their audiences wanted something different.

“They wanted somewhere to belong, they wanted people they could trust. They want to feel like someone is talking to them, not at them,” Radia added. “Audiences were looking for community. They don’t just want to consume, they want to feel seen by the people they follow.

“When someone shows up consistently in the same voice around the same things you care about, you start to trust them. And that trust becomes a community.”

Driven by the mantra that “content is the invitation, community is the destination” Immediate built a talent ecosystem in 2025. Part of the publisher’s North Star goal of reaching three million paid subscribers by 2030, the Faces and Voices strategy combines internal creators – the trusted writers and editors Immediate already have on their books – with external creators that bring in new audiences, new energy and cultural relevance.

“Where those two things meet, that’s where the value sits, and where we move to something people keep coming back to,” said Radia. “It’s not an influencer programme or a social bolt-on. These are our people – editors, food writers, journalists, TV critics, gardening experts – who already had genuine authority inside our brands.

“We just gave them the support, the structure, and honestly, the permission to grow as creators in their own right. We built creative boot camps, mentoring and training programmes, because showing up as a creator is a skill. And if you don’t invest in that skill, you don’t get the outcome.”

Alongside current staff members, Immediate has built a programme for external creators who bring what internal talent can’t – their own audience, their own cultural energy, their own way of seeing the world.

Immediate has commissioned 40 external talent and identified 52 internal faces and voices across its brands. The publisher is working with new creators across platforms to really maximise relationships, while exploring revenue share models across podcasts.

Immediate is also working hard to make sure its internal talents have a chance to experiment and build a relatable face for their brand. And the strategy is working.

“Talent-led content performs about twice as well on engagement and nearly three times better on interaction,” said Radia. “And importantly, it’s bringing in new audiences and different profiles we wouldn’t reach otherwise.”

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The three golden rules

Before Immediate launched its creator strategy, there were three issues that had to be addressed. Firstly, how do you build a creator’s personal brand without losing the editorial brand?

“We made it explicit early when we created our creator guidelines: The brand sets the value, the creator owns the voice,” Radia explained. “If you’re clear on that, it works. If you’re not, it breaks very quickly.”

Secondly, there had to be clarity on compensation. “We built an internal talent compensation framework,” added Radia. “There are clear day rates for branded partnerships that we initiate and an introductory fee structure for businesses that creators bring to us themselves. If they generated that value, they should share in it.

“For external opportunities that have nothing to do with us, the creator keeps what they earn, subject to a no-conflict of interest check. We’re not trying to take a cut of everything they do, we’re trying to be a place where being employed here makes commercial sense to them.”

The last question that had to be addressed was – what happens when creators get too big? “I used to think that was a risk, now it’s the goal,” said Radia. “If someone grows beyond your brand, you build something genuinely valuable.

“The question isn’t about how you stop that, it’s how you become the place that growth starts, where staying here still makes sense.”

On the external side, Immediate looks at its partnerships with creators it as a spectrum. “At one end – transactional, commission, brief, a fee, a deliverable,” added Radia. “Then you have talent-led formats, where they host and help shape the show.”

You also have residencies – a new six-month external creator programme Immediate is launching with one of its brands.

“We give creators access to our editorial infrastructure, our commercial relationships, our audiences, our systems and training,” explained Radia. “They bring their voice, their community and their energy.”

At the far end of the spectrum is creative partnerships and revenue share. “The closer you get to a partnership, the more value you create,” said Radia. “The creator has real ownership in what you build together, and that changes how they show up completely.

“The commercial alignment creates the creative commitment. For us, the ambition is to be the destination for talent, the place serious creators choose because building here is better than building alone. Because what we offer together is more valuable than what either of us can do separately.”

Radia stressed that no single model does everything. It’s the combination that scales relationships.

“So, when you bring it all together, internal creators are the spine, the authority and trust. Residency talent builds the next generation. External partnerships brings reach and new audiences. Talent-led formats drives engagement and community. And co-created IP creator partnership is where you unlock real commercial value.”

Dispatches from the frontline

For Barney Desmazery, Skills and Shows Editor at Good Food, the Faces and Voices strategy has been transformative. One of the brand’s internal creators, he has written and tested thousands of recipes and worked with practically every British celebrity chef. It’s a wealth of experience that made Desmazery the perfect candidate to step into the limelight more.

“The transition from chef to food writer to content creator has not been a seamless journey, it’s been an evolution,” he said speaking at the PPA Festival.

“I’ve had to upskill in terms of making videos. And all of a sudden, you’re given this freedom by the brand. For the first time in my journalistic career, I feel that I’m at my most authentic and it’s very liberating. It feels genuinely like you’re being invested in and that people trust in you as well as the brand.”

Desmazery’s profile as a content creator has risen to the point where he released a book, One Dish, Four Ways, in May this year.

“I think in a world that’s becoming more AI generated, it’s very important, especially for lifestyle brands like gardening and food where advice is trusted, that it comes from experience and it comes from expertise.”

Social Media Manager and Content Creator Jamie Windust’s path to influencer success took a different route. By the time Windust started to work with Immediate, the content creator had already built up a legion of followers on social media with insightful commentary on LGBTQ rights, film and TV.

Last year, Windust joined Radio Times as its first external social media creator to bring personality and a face to the brand.

“I had been working eight years as an external creator and noticed that being in the industry on my own was something that was unsustainable,” they said, talking at the PPA Festival. “I had always seen working within a media publisher as something that couldn’t go together because of that conflict of interest of personal growth and brand growth.

“But actually, Radio Times was the perfect storm of a brand that wanted to connect and engage to a new, younger audience and someone who has a genuine love for the brand and entertainment. So, putting the skill set together was really easy and really fulfilling.”