Business Daily

In the 1990s, the video game industry was locked in competition between gaming giants Sega and Nintendo, battling for dominance in living rooms around the world as they raced to deliver the best games on their consoles while attacking one another in advertising. This rivalry reshaped the landscape of gaming, helping it grow into the world’s biggest entertainment industry today. We hear from Sega America CEO Tom Kalinske, who took on Nintendo by targeting a more mature audience, focusing on lower prices. Central to that plan was the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog, a character designed to challenge Mario as the face of gaming. We also travel to the heart of Madrid, to the OXO video game museum to explore the legacy of the console wars and how they helped the industry level up.
Presenter/producer: Sean Allsop
If you’d like to get in touch with the team, our email address is [email protected]

Data centres are becoming and ever bigger part of our daily lives and our landscapes – great big warehouses, packed with computers, that power pretty much every digital thing we do, from using AI chatbots or filing our tax returns. They’ve popped up around the world in recent years and – whether we like it or not - more are coming. But people don’t necessarily want to live next to these places. They’re often big, faceless facilities, built close to the towns and cities they serve, and there’s a perception that they’re pushing up electricity costs and consuming precious water. So as the AI revolution rolls on, fuelling the need for ever greater digital storage capacity, how do we learn to live with data centres?
Presenter/producer: Gideon Long
If you’d like to get in touch with the team, our email address is [email protected]
(Picture: Aerial view of a large Google Data Centre in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, UK on 30th November 2025. Credit: Richard Newstead/Getty Images)

Jennifer Riria grew up in a rural village in Kenya, juggled motherhood and university studies in her late teens, and ended up running one of the biggest microfinance institutions for women in Africa, which allows women to access loans for their businesses. The entrepreneur pioneered giving small loans to women at a time when they were not allowed to get finance. We hear about her story in life and in business.
If you'd like to get in touch with the team, our email address is [email protected]
Presenter: Leanna Byrne
Producers: Ahmed Adan and Amber Mehmood
Sound mix: Toby James
Business Daily is the home of in-depth audio journalism devoted to the world of money and work. From small startup stories to big corporate takeovers, global economic shifts to trends in technology, we look at the key figures, ideas and events shaping business.
Each episode is a 17-minute deep dive into a single topic, featuring expert analysis and the people at the heart of the story.
Recent episodes explore the weight-loss drug revolution, the growth in AI, the cost of living, why bond markets are so powerful, China's property bubble, and Gen Z's experience of the current job market.
We also feature in-depth interviews with company founders - like Jennifer Riria - and some of the world's most prominent CEOs. These include Google's Sundar Pichai, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and the CEO of Starbucks, Brian Niccol.
(Picture: Jennifer Riria.)

As US President Donald Trump travels to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, we look at the tensions and the relationship between the world's two biggest economies.
Presenter: Will Bain, Michelle Fleury and Rahul Tandon
Producer: Gideon Long
(Photo: US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, 30 October, 2025. Credit: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

How has the development and aid sector in Africa adapted in the 15 months since the Trump administration started closing USAID? Have predictions of mortalities come to pass, and how can the funding gaps be filled? We hear from the people who used to be in charge of multi-billion-dollar budgets, as well as those receiving funds on the front lines of the HIV crisis in Tanzania.
Presenter: Ed Butler
Producer: Josh Martin
(Picture: 29-year-old Rashida Musa tends to her sick child who was sent home from the hospital due to malnutrition following the aid cut by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Tudun Gambo, Bauchi State, Nigeria, May 8, 2025. Credit: REUTERS/Sodiq Adelakun)