Leah's Yard: Persephonica move to Sheffield is 'huge show of faith' in the city
Sheffield-born Dino Sofos has earned himself the moniker the 'Prince of Podcasts' for his immense influence on the media format that has boomed over the last few years.
He is credited with the likes of the BBC's Newscast, Americast and more, and was the man who coaxed former King Edwards pupil Emily Maitlis away from her BBC Newsnight job to launch The News Agents with Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall.
Sheffield City Council Leader Tom Hunt says Dino has given Sheffield the ultimate show of faith by moving into the new Leah's Yard development - his podcast production company, Persephonica, was previously only London-based with no official office space, but now they're in Sheffield and here to stay.
Hear from both Coun Hunt and Dino Sofos about the "no-brainer" decision to move here.
He is credited with the likes of the BBC's Newscast, Americast and more, and was the man who coaxed former King Edwards pupil Emily Maitlis away from her BBC Newsnight job to launch The News Agents with Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall.
Sheffield City Council Leader Tom Hunt says Dino has given Sheffield the ultimate show of faith by moving into the new Leah's Yard development - his podcast production company, Persephonica, was previously only London-based with no official office space, but now they're in Sheffield and here to stay.
Hear from both Coun Hunt and Dino Sofos about the "no-brainer" decision to move here.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I think I personally, in the city, should take a lot of confidence from the fact that there are businesses here
00:07who have chosen to relocate from London, in the case of Persephoneca you're talking about an internationally recognised podcast production company
00:17companies and businesses that have chosen to move into the city centre from other parts of the city
00:23and new businesses that are starting up.
00:25We are seeing a really good level of interest in the city right now from businesses and investors
00:32who are seeing the changes that are taking place in the city and wanting to be part of it
00:38so I think we should all be confident and optimistic about the signs that we're seeing from the market right now
00:45and there's more to come.
00:47It was a really easy decision actually and since I founded the company, myself and my co-founder Tom O'Hara are both from Sheffield
00:54we feel really passionately about the city, it's an incredibly creative city and there are amazing journalism courses
01:05college courses where people are studying media and radio and audio, it's a sound city really isn't it?
01:15The bands and musical artists and the genres that this city has created, so for an audio production company like us it's a really natural fit
01:26and it's also a city of storytellers as well which is what we're in the business of doing
01:31so it's a no-brainer frankly, first of all as you walk in it's just incredibly impressive
01:37what a beautiful space that we've got here and everybody that's walked in today has said wow, really jealous of your office
01:43but they have done an amazing job of curating a really interesting diverse set of retailers, of offices
01:53I mean funnily enough we're not the only kind of journalists in this building, there's the Sheffield Tribune across the way
01:58there are, in the ground floor there are all these amazing retailers, there's a bookshop
02:03so there's all these incredibly creative people coming together in this quite small space
02:09which is echoing what it used to be right, a collection of workshops, we've been learning about the history of this
02:15where we stood right here was a packing room where they would pack all the stainless steel before it was shipped around the world
02:23which is amazing and now it's housing a little podcast studio so it's just great that the council have been able to invest in this space
02:30to bring it back to life because at one point it was a risk of being condemned and that would have just been a crying shame