Ben Smith moderated a discussion between Howard Kosky and Lynsey Barry about the effectiveness of virtual versus in-office PR teams, with an emphasis on how both agency culture and leadership styles are impacted by physical location. 

Howard founded and ran Markettiers for 30 years and built the group to a £38m + turnover. Like most businesses it was office based until Covid and then developed a hybrid in office, virtual set up.

Lynsey Barry is CEO and founder at Five not 10, a B2B PR firm with 9 employees founded in 2021.

Barry, a proponent of remote-first, asserted that culture is behavior-driven and requires deliberate virtual leadership, while Kosky emphasized the value of an office as a central base for culture development, in-person talent coaching, and cultivating young talent's social skills, though both agreed that leadership is crucial irrespective of the physical setting. 

The speakers also explored the challenges of scaling agencies, the complexity of hybrid models, the importance of employee well-being, and how the office should be viewed as an investment rather than merely a cost. 

Ben Smith, Mark Borkowski, and Angie Moxham discussed several key topics including the difficulty of the Downing Street director of communications role and the need for a fresh perspective, Jim Ratcliffe's controversial "colonialisation" comment, and the emergence of fake AI experts.

Angie Moxham and Mark Borkowski analysed the Washington Post redundancies, attributing reduced war coverage to "war fatigue" and economic factors driving editorial decisions, and concluded that PR professionals have an opportunity to engage the public with entertaining and mood-lifting campaigns amidst negative news fatigue.

Elizabeth Giles and Ben Smith of PRmoment introduce its latest PR Masterclass: The intersection of PR and GEO, and large language model (LLM) optimisation, scheduled for February 25th in London with virtual attendance available.

Welcome to the News Review on the PRmoment podcast. In this weekly show I’m joined by the dream team which is Angie Moxham and Mark Borkowski.

In the PR News Review we look at the biggest news stories of the week from a PR perspective and this week there’s really only 1 story in town, Peter Mandelson and whether he’s going to bring down Sir Keir Starmer's government.

Before we start, check out our latest PR Masterclass: The Intersection of PR & GEO, all the info you’ll need is accessible from the homepage of PRmoment.

Summary of this week’s PR News Review:

Ben Smith introduced the PR News Review, focusing on the negative implications of Peter Mandelson's association with Epstein on Keir Starmer's government, with Angie Moxham expressing dismay and Mark Borkowski labeling Mandelson as "toxic,” with Angie Moxham viewing the situation as a "slow motion car crash" for Keir Starmer, and both agreeing that public disillusionment stems from broken promises and political bickering.

Welcome to the PRmoment Podcast.

This is our quarterly bonus podcast where we chat about Rajar’s latest results. For those of you who aren’t aware of Rajar - it was established in 1992 and operates the single audience measurement system for the radio industry in the United Kingdom

Raja publishes the listenership figures each quarter, which is good for insight for PR, curious about how the public engages with radio and how the market is performing.

On the show today, we have James Dickman, newsroom producer at Markettiers, who will discuss the latest Rajar results for Q4 2025. 

Here's a summary of this quarter's Rajar results highlights:

Radio stayed a mass-reach medium in Q4 2025, with 50.0m adults tuning in weekly (86% of the UK 15+ population) and 1.015bn hours listened per week.

Digital listening now dominates delivery. 44m adults used a digital route each week (75% of adults), and digital accounted for 75% of all listening hours. Online listening made up 30% of total hours, reflecting continued growth in app/streaming and connected devices.

Within digital, DAB remained the biggest platform. RAJAR reported 757m weekly digital hours in total, split mainly across DAB (427m), smart speakers (188m), and website/apps (115m), with DTV (28m) also contributing.

Listening continues to be anchored in everyday settings. Weekly listening is strongest at home (60%) and in vehicles (58%), and by share of hours it’s 62% in-home, 26% in-vehicle, and 12% at work/elsewhere—useful context for daypart and placement planning.

Commercial radio led the market overall, with 55.2% share of listening versus 42.8% for BBC Radio in the quarter’s top-line results.

Smart speakers are now a mainstream listening route: 64% of smart-speaker users use them for radio, and 21% listen to radio on a smart speaker every day. RAJAR also noted broader audio habits, with 38% listening to podcasts monthly and 19% using catch-up radio monthly.

Welcome to our review of PR Pitches and mergers & acquisitions in the UK PR scene with Andrew Bloch. Here, we discuss the biggest pitch wins and mergers & acquisitions that the PR sector has seen in the last month

Andrew is the lead consultant - PR, Social, Content and Influencer at the new business consultancy firm AAR and a partner at PCB Partners, where he advises on buying and selling marketing services agencies.

Andrew also runs the advisory firm Andrew Bloch & Associates.

Before we start, 2 plugs:

Our next PR Masterclass: The Intersection of PR and GEO - Wednesday 25th February is proving massively popular. So if you do want to come - get your ticket quick is my advice. As ever with our PR Masterclass series, it's a hybrid event so both face to face and vital tickets are available. Take a look at the full programme and some of the finest past delegate testimonials you are ever likely to see on PRmasterclasses.com

Andrew summarises the PR pitch market in January:

“For agencies 2025 was tougher than expected for many.  Lots of uncertainty.  Economic pressures. Squeeze on margins. Less retainers. Slow decision making.  Clients will continue to be pragmatic.  Agencies will have to learn to operate with less predictability. They will need resilience and will need to hustle.  Most importantly they will need to innovate. Standing still not an option.  Lots of opportunities to embrace AI, innovate and expand in terms of service areas, drive organic growth.  The growth is there for those able to get ahead of it.”

Andrew on the PR M&A market:

“On the M&A side we will continue to see continued consolidation from the holding cos as they adapt, cut costs and make themselves fit for purpose.  The M&A market remains very strong with lots of strategic deal making to allow firms to adapt and shift to client demands and tech disruption. Deals are taking slightly longer but they’re happening.  The market is strong.  Supported by PE money, hungry US acquirers and a booming independent sector looking to scale in terms of capabilities and geographies. Especially around AI, data, influencer.  Corporate, healthcare and consumer remain in strong demand.”

January’s PR Wins

Wingstop appoint Smarts

McDonalds appoints Freuds and Flint Global - Freuds for corporate.  Flint Global for govt relations.

Hello Fresh Group appoints Ready10 and Golin 

Government Media and Creative Services roster - Agencies including 23Red, AMV BBDO, Accenture, Freud Communications, Lucky Generals,  Havas UK, M&C Saatchi and VCCP.

UK Finance - Lansons 

Animal Friends Pet Insurance appoint Havas Red

MyFitnessPal appoint Kindred

Coca-Cola appoint Brandnation

HSS ProService appoint Brandnation

Andrex appoint W

Spurs appoint Shook

Madri Exceptional appoint Tin Man

Kelloggs Crunchy Nut appoint Tin Man

Great British Energy - Nuclear (GBE-N) appoint Grayling

New Balance appoint Exposure

Marriott International appoint W

M&A

Pretty Green acquires PinPoint Media

Jack Morton merges with Impact XM

FGS Global acquires Memetica

Paritee acquire Truth Consulting

Radio News Hub complete Management Buyout from AFO Group - led by Directors Stephanie Otty and Jamie Fletcher.  Followed on from Markettiers MBO at the end of last year.

Strata acquire Wonderland

Ruder Finn acquire Missouri Creative

Welcome to the News Review on the PRmoment podcast. This week I'm joined by Angie Moxham, founder of Fourth Angel.

In the PR News Review we look at the biggest news stories of the week from a PR perspective and this week we’re talking about Fake experts and SEO masquerading as PR firms, Brand Beckham takes a "don't explain, but you can complain approach" and The relaunch of Davos.

• Concerns Over Fake PR Experts and SEO Firms Ben Smith introduced the first main topic of the news review, which was coverage by The Press Gazette concerning "fake PR experts" which Ben Smith and Angie Moxham agreed seemed to be predominantly problematic SEO firms. Ben Smith noted that Google updates have increased the influence of "journalistic earned media coverage," creating an incentive for SEO and digital PR firms to masquerade as public relations firms. 
• Ben Smith and Angie Moxham discussed how the rise of media databases played a role in these "spray and prey press release distribution" techniques 
• Angie Moxham asserted the continuing importance of strategic, face-to-face consultancy and good old-fashioned practices, such as "picking up the phone to a good journalist." 
• Brand Beckham Ben Smith then introduced the second story concerning Brand Beckham, which they described as taking a "don't explain but you can complain approach".
• Analysis of Davos and Political Reputational Risks Ben Smith introduced the final topic, the "relaunch of Davos," noting that attendance, previously often regarded as a reputational risk, seemed to have changed in the past 12 months, with Donald Trump's presence contributing to its renewed power status. 
• Angie Moxham agreed that wherever Donald Trump goes, people follow, which has "rebooted" the event. 
• They also discussed how Keir Starmer's decision not to attend Davos, due to a trip to China, backfired, suggesting that their diary management might not have been optimal in the "grand scheme of the chess playing of politics".

Ben Smith introduced Sam Corry, CEO of Taylor Herring, discussing the agency's history, evolution from media focus to consumer PR with an "entertain or die" mantra, and its recent internal shifts following the departure of founders Kath and James Herring after 24 years. Corry emphasized that Taylor Herring’s current strategy focuses on integrated, long-term brand building, and announced the launch of "Cited," a proprietary GEO tool developed with Publicis Group's Performix to leverage extensive consumer data and provide measurable ROI for clients. Corry also highlighted the rapid growth of St. Mark Studios, Taylor Herring's standalone brand experience agency, and stressed the industry's need for data tools to demonstrate measurable results.

Ben Smith welcomed Angie Moxham and Mark Borkowski to the weekly PR news review on the PRmoment Podcast.

On this week's show our panel discuss Farage and Jenrick, Grok's explicit AI images and alleged Wikipedia edits by Portland.

Mark Borkowski criticised the Reform party's recruitment of Robert Jenrick as a "massive PR own goal," which Angie Moxham agreed was simply to get headlines.

"Why oh why are they (Reform) taking on these lame ducks, these Tory party failures that were kicked out by the electorate."

"The public will remember Robert Jenrick dissing every aspect of Reform, and particularly Nigel Farage. Now they are buddies. They are in the same swill pit"

Regarding X's delayed restriction on explicit AI images, Mark Borkowski suggested the initial delay was due to arrogance that generated bad PR, while Angie Moxham notes the controversy secured more headlines for Grok and its image tool.

What does this story say about the society we now live in: where criticism of an AI tool generating explicit images of women, got derailed to become a (false) debate about free speech?

Finally, Mark and Angie discuss Portland's alleged "black hat" Wikipedia editing in an investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

This week we’re chatting to Nicky Regazzoni, co-founder & co-CEO of The PR Network and  Lesley Singleton, founder & CEO, Playtime PR about how to lead a virtual agency business.

The virtual or in the office debate has become the ultimate PR conversation starter, up there with AVEs and timesheets. Everyone’s got an opinion and the truth is there are some virtual agencies, some hybrid (3 or 4 days in the office seems like the norm atm) and some always in the office.

Employers, employees and clients just need to find what works for them and the world will continue to turn.

Both The PR Network and Playtime PR have run very successfully for many years with virtual teams.

On this show we talk today about what good virtual agency leadership looks like.

Nicky Regazzoni and Lesley Singleton identify that virtual leadership requires an emphasis on clear vision, intentional culture, trust, a "virtual open door policy," and clear, regular communication to compensate for the absence of physical presence and informal interactions.

Lesley and Nicky discuss talent acquisition through flexible working models, client/employee relationships, and the management of large-scale virtual operations, noting that while no single right answer exists for running a virtual business, it necessitates highly organised systems and a continuous execution of strategies.