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Last month, we announced the launch of FREEAgent, a new podcast from creative entrepreneur Kenny Annan-Jonathan.
Guests so far have included Naomi Osaka’s longtime agent and business partner, Stuart Duguid, and writer Daniel-Yaw Miller. The pod also serves as the first project from Annan-Jonathan’s independent production house Trnsmission.
“We’re interested in all the above: documentaries. Everything,” Annan-Jonathan says of the ambitions of the company, which he launched to sit alongside marketing and talent management agency The Mailroom.
Annan-Jonathan tells us the company will focus on creating long-form content that bridges the gap between the business of both sports and culture. Annan-Jonathan knows the connection between the two well. Alongside his own agency work, he serves as the Creative Director of the English Premier League side Crystal Palace, the first such role established at a professional English club.
Below, Annan-Jonathan digs into his overall ambitions for Trnsmission and his plans to dip into full-scaled, feature-length productions.
DEADLINE: Kenny, how did you get started in the biz? What’s your background?
KENNY ANNAN—JONATHAN: My background is in fashion. I used to run a streetwear brand in the mid-2000s. I had great success with it, but it was a long time ago. I’ve done so many other things since then. We were stocked in Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, and Harrods. Former Crystal Palace player Wilfred Zaha was a customer of mine. When he decided to start his brand, he asked me to help. When I started going around pitching the brand, I realized there was no one around helping him build his profile. I had success with Wilf, which led to more clients and building an agency. I didn’t want to start an agency because I was happy with just Wilf. But then I realized it was a service many of the athletes needed. You had to look to the U.S. for anything similar.
DEADLINE: So you launch an agency and now you’re starting Trnsmission, which you describe as a media house. What work will you be doing?
ANNAN—JONATHAN: What was happening is that the athletes I was representing, when it came to telling their stories, we would always have to work with linear platforms that didn’t necessarily care about the deeper foundations of their stories. They just wanted headlines. I realized that these brands we were working with had budget and visibility, but the creative elements weren’t ever there. I’m a storyteller at heart. My background is in the creative. So I started to tell the brands to give us the budget and let us create the visual storytelling for you. And that’s what we would do. Then it just began to expand. So, from Trnsmission, on the production side, from April it will land as a full media channel. So, a website that hosts original content, IP, from video storytelling to conversation series shows.
We will have new shows like 40%, a financial literacy show. There was a stat in The Times that said 40% of footballers go broke four years after retirement. And that’s not only just about what they do with their money. It’s about how they invest in themselves and expand. So Trnsmission will be a cultural hub where it doesn’t just celebrate the athletes. It also celebrates the creators in and around the space and the people behind the scenes.
DEADLINE: How will you monitize those shows and Trnsmission?
ANNAN—JONATHAN: There will be shows that we will keep in-house and own the IP. We will also license some of those shows to other networks and platforms. We will also have brand partnerships and offline activations.
DEADLINE: For me, sports and culture go hand-in-hand. I see Adidas, and I can think of NWA. Or Nike and Jordan. But I guess, like you say, there still is some wider separation between the two. Has it been difficult to convince people that there is worth in crossing over the two?
ANNAN—JONATHAN: No, because from a grassroots perspective, it’s been bubbling for some time. The hard part is getting the corporations and suits to see the value. If it doesn’t necessarily make sense financially, they’re not interested. But outside of the financials, it’s also about community building. Fashion is one of the biggest communities in the world, and travels into many different subcultures. So when we see things blow up, they don’t. So it’s all about the translation of why something is cool. We get it because we live. For them, everything is very numbers-based.
DEADLINE: Creatives working in the UK often speak about how difficult it is to work here. What do you think about the current state of things?
ANNAN—JONATHAN: I truly believe the UK has one of the best creative landscapes in the world. At times, I do feel we can be very segregated because we have a very conservative mindset in how we collaborate and execute. But there are people within their spaces who are working and collaborating extremely well. The problem is that, outside of a very small group of people, no one else is getting the budgets to create. Outside of working in linear marketing agencies like Saatchi and Saatchi, it’s very tough. Hence, the reason why most of the work we do is outside of our country. Using the example of Gabriel Moses. Gabriel Moses is not new. He has been doing great work for many years, but most of his biggest work is not in the UK for this reason.
DEADLINE: What is the long term goal for Trnsmission? Will you make feature length works?
ANNAN—JONATHAN: We’re interested in all the above: documentaries. Everything. I want Trnsmission to be the go-to hub for exploration when it comes to business, sports, and culture. We don’t have a platform that houses both UK and global voices in one space, like the US is just very US-centric, and in the UK it is a very small part of our scene. Everything’s also gone short form. But I believe 2025 is the year to bring long-form back. How do we get people to invest in actual art from a creative perspective? How do we get informative shows where people can sit down and take in information? There’s power in the niches. I think back to one of my favorite documentaries, Sub Eleven Seconds on about Sha’Carri Richardson. It was created by my good friend Bafic. He’s not in the world of sports, but that doc put him in that world. I was also produced by Virgil Abloh. It should’ve been up for bigger awards, but it didn’t really make noise, which to me is absurd. But it’s all about where that content lives. Now, it can be Trnsmission.
