Portsmouth firm Blackmetric live-streams quirky content to business conferences across the world from Southsea living room

LIVE-STREAMING from a production set built in a living room has brought global attention to a Portsmouth micro business.
Adrian Reed from Blackmetric Adrian Reed from Blackmetric
Adrian Reed from Blackmetric

Blackmetric Business Solutions, a niche consultancy focussing on business analysis training and consulting, started looking for ways to adapt their business during lockdown.

Having seen how the global pandemic had impacted business, and looking for ways they could adapt their own products, Blackmetric struck upon the idea of a live-streaming production service.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Adrian Reed, who founded Blackmetric in 2012, said: ‘We very quickly realised that we needed to fundamentally change what we do, and we needed to become better at video production.

Matt Smart from Blackmetric Matt Smart from Blackmetric
Matt Smart from Blackmetric

‘While we were originally looking at video from the perspective of delivering training, we soon realised that many traditional business conferences were really struggling and we thought we could develop a service that could help.’

Adrian said that as business conferences moved online, they struggled to retain the sense of being an event as delegates at virtual conferences don’t have to attend live and can choose to watch the recordings, reducing the opportunity to network.

One evening, he and his husband Matt Smart, 40, came up with the idea to build a fully functioning live TV production studio in their living room in Jessie Road, Southsea.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

They hoped to live stream quirky broadcast-quality content in real time to conferences during the slots traditionally reserved for coffee breaks.

Adrian, 38, said: ‘We imagined a format similar to Richard and Judy, mixed with backstage at Glastonbury and a bit of QVC thrown in for good measure.'

They planned to include a mixture of live interviews, phone-ins and a whole variety of different types of content to keep attendees tuned in.

Adrian and Matt spent two weeks constructing the studio before their first event, which sold out.

Read More
Budding lawyer chooses to follow her dreams and open her own beauty salon
Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Adrian said: ‘The response was phenomenal. Within days of discussing the idea we’d got confirmation that a major US-based conference wanted to work with us. We couldn’t believe it – a huge global conference was talking to us, a micro business run in Pompey.'

Since then another conference has signed on the dotted line, and the duo are also planning to live-stream to a major conference in South Africa next month.

Adrian said: ‘It is quite exciting, we saw the opportunity to try this and took it. It has been a frantic few weeks but it has paid off.’

For more go to blackmetric.com

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

Thank you for reading this story. The dramatic events of 2020 are having a major impact on our advertisers and thus our revenues.

The News is more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription to support our journalism. You can subscribe here for unlimited access to Portsmouth news and information online.

Every subscription helps us continue providing trusted, local journalism and campaign on your behalf for our city.

Related topics:

Comment Guidelines

National World encourages reader discussion on our stories. User feedback, insights and back-and-forth exchanges add a rich layer of context to reporting. Please review our Community Guidelines before commenting.