Jamie Laing Is Joining Dragons’ Den
The BBC confirmed this week that Jamie Laing will join Dragons’ Den as a guest Dragon for its 2027 series, alongside Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden and Steven Bartlett.
On the surface, it reads as a fun piece of casting news. Look a little closer and it is actually a really meaningful moment for the creator economy.
Jamie Laing is not just a Made in Chelsea alumni. He brings a varied commercial portfolio including his role as co-founder of podcast production firm Jampot Productions and confectionery brand Candy Kittens, which expanded significantly following the 2025 acquisition of Graze, as well as executive production credits on the Disney+ Original series Raising Chelsea. He hosts chart-topping podcasts, presents on BBC Radio 1 alongside Sophie Habboo, and was named in Forbes 30 Under 30. tvblighty
The BBC’s head of entertainment said Jamie entering the Den as a guest Dragon is an exciting prospect and that he will bring a fresh perspective thanks to his experience of building a modern British business success story. businesscloud
Jamie built his business through personality, content, audience and brand, exactly the toolkit that defines the creator economy. And now he has a seat at the most famous investment table on British television.
The Steven Bartlett effect is real. When Bartlett joined Dragons’ Den in 2022 as its youngest-ever Dragon, he signalled that the BBC was willing to embrace a different kind of business credibility. Jamie Laing joining as a guest Dragon is the next step in that same direction.
Dhar Mann Is Building Creator City
The biggest story of the week came out of Advertising Week New York, where Dhar Mann, who has 170 million followers on YouTube, took to the stage as the event’s first-ever Chief Creator Officer and unveiled Creator City.
Creator City is a four-acre Los Angeles production campus designed to bring together creators, brands and creative production under one roof, with a grand opening planned for Super Bowl weekend in February 2027. The campus will feature nine sound stages, 175 sets, and the capacity to run 15 concurrent productions at the same time. roastbrief
Mann also pledged to broker $100 million worth of creator and brand sponsorship deals by the end of Advertising Week, inviting leading creators, CMOs and top brands to collaborate and drive new business opportunities out of the event. tubefilter
What makes this significant is not just the scale of the ambition. It is what it represents. Eight years ago, Dhar Mann was shooting videos on an iPhone in his apartment. Now he is building physical infrastructure for the creator economy at a Hollywood level. That trajectory tells you everything about where the industry is heading and how seriously the people inside it are taking the long game.
Mann spoke about his vision for bringing creators and Hollywood studios together in a new way, moving away from the traditional pilot model where studios spend millions testing ideas, towards a creator-led approach where IP is built and proven before it goes anywhere near a studio deal. That is a fundamental shift in how entertainment gets made, and a creator is leading it. Variety
What This Week Tells Us
Two very different stories, two very different markets, but the same underlying message. Creators are not just making content anymore. They are building studios, brokering hundred-million-dollar deals, launching brands and sitting on investment panels. The institutions that used to look down on the creator economy as a niche corner of the internet are now actively competing to be part of it.
For creators who are thinking seriously about the long game, this week is a good reminder that the ceiling is genuinely unlimited when you approach what you do like a business from the start.
At Viewture, we work with creators who are building exactly that. Get in touch at info@viewture.com
