The South Yorkshire business has developed a global fast track service that caters for the increasingly time sensitive demands of its customers

Media services firm Zoo Digital says it is now at the right size to drive profitability and cash generation following significant turnaround efforts.

The Sheffield-based provider of localisation services for TV and movie content – including dubbing, subtitling, mastering – has issued full year results for the 12 months to the end of March, showing narrowed operating losses of $1.6m, down from $6.5m, and adjusted ebitda growth from $1.1m to $4m. Revenue fell 14.7% to $42.3m, but Zoo – which also has offices across the world – says its restructuring is now completed and it is tuned in to new opportunities from the major content-makers.

In recent years the company’s key customer base has undergone a major shake-up in the move from making of traditional TV shows to streaming services. Zoo’s business had been “storming ahead” until the market was upended, prompting an restructuring effort that has removed somewhere between £12m-£14m.

Three years into the rightsizing, Mr Green says Zoo’s customers are now emerging with new requirements including faster turnaround of localisation services. Zoo is using its global network of offices to offer a 24/7 “fast track” service for customers which can offer dubbing within 24 hours and subtitling within three hours – which is said to be a dramatic reduction in typical industry timelines.

Speaking to BusinessLive, CEO Stuart Green acknowledged the past three years had been a tough time for Zoo, but said it was now turning a corner. He explained: “We’ve rightsized our platform and reshaped the business, so we’re no optimised for profitability and generating cash. We’ve obviously embraced AI – we’re a tech company at heart so this is the stuff we love and are really good at.”

He added: “Quality and authenticity of the work we do is still of paramount importance. You can’t just cut corners and do some quick AI subtitles and think that’ll be OK in the market because that will turn customers off, they won’t watch it and it’ll be a disaster.

“If you’ve spent millions – hundreds of millions – making some content, there’s no point spoiling the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar by just doing some cheap localisation – you need to do it to a very high standard. That has not changed and our customers are still expecting the very best.

“But they’re moving into new areas which are really turning the streaming services into the new form of TV. Where you used to subscribe to something like Netflix to watch movies and TV series, now you can watch sports, daytime TV and live stuff, and time sensitive stuff.

“That’s broadening their offering to help tempt subscribers but it also introduces types of content that require very quick turnaround – so when they’re made, they need to get on the platform very quickly.”

Zoo Digital says it will see profit progression during this year. It told investors trading had been strong across the first quarter of its 2027 financial year.

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Wordle players facing a tricky puzzle on Thursday can find help here, with hints and the full solution for game number 1,867, the daily word puzzle from The New York Times.

The word puzzle, which challenges players to guess a five-letter word within six attempts, has built a devoted daily following since its rise to viral popularity in 2022. Today’s puzzle proved trickier than average for many players, according to data from the New York Times’ WordleBot, which tracks how the average solver performs each day. WordleBot recorded an average completion time of 4.1 moves for Thursday’s puzzle, whether played in the standard or hard-mode setting.

For players looking for hints before jumping straight to the answer, several clues can help narrow down the possibilities without giving away the solution entirely. The word features water as a central theme, referring to a narrow, often inclined channel or chute designed to carry water, either in natural settings such as ravines or in man-made systems including logging operations, irrigation infrastructure and, most commonly today, water park attractions.

Structurally, today’s word contains two vowels among its five letters and begins with a consonant. There are no double letters anywhere in the word, meaning each of the five letters used appears only once. The word functions grammatically as a noun. For those wanting one final hint before the reveal, the word can specifically be associated with a theme park water ride, a usage many players may recognize even if the term feels somewhat unfamiliar outside of that specific context.

Today’s Wordle answer is FLUME.

A flume refers to an artificial channel, often elevated or inclined, engineered to carry water from one place to another, historically used extensively in mining, logging and irrigation to transport water, logs or other materials using the force of flowing water. In modern usage, the word is perhaps most widely recognized in connection with “log flume” amusement park rides, in which passengers travel through a water-filled channel before a steep, splashing drop, a ride style found at theme parks around the world.

Puzzle strategy writers who cover Wordle daily noted that today’s word was not among the most commonly used in everyday vocabulary, making it a moderately challenging solve for players without specialized knowledge of the term’s meaning. One writer covering the puzzle for Tom’s Guide described starting with the word ORATE, a common opening guess chosen because it contains several of the most frequently occurring letters in five-letter English words, and noted that only the letter “E” registered as correctly placed on the first attempt, leaving 101 possible remaining answers before further guesses narrowed the field.

Wordle strategy guides commonly recommend a similar approach for players struggling with the daily puzzle: begin with an opening word that tests several common vowels and consonants simultaneously, then use the resulting feedback, letters marked in green for correct placement, yellow for correct letters in the wrong position, and gray for letters not present in the word at all, to systematically eliminate incorrect possibilities across subsequent guesses. Players are also generally advised to avoid ruling out the possibility of repeated letters too early in a puzzle, since Wordle answers do sometimes feature the same letter twice, even though today’s specific answer did not follow that pattern.

Wordle, originally created by software engineer Josh Wardle before being acquired by The New York Times in 2022, has remained one of the most popular daily word games worldwide, spawning a broader ecosystem of related puzzles now published by the Times, including Connections, Connections: Sports Edition, Strands and the Mini Crossword, all of which are typically released and refreshed at the same time each day alongside the main Wordle puzzle.

Players looking to maintain their daily Wordle streak, a feature the game uses to track consecutive days of play, can find today’s puzzle and previous archived puzzles through the official Wordle website. The New York Times also continues to publish daily hints and strategy guidance across its games section for players seeking assistance without immediately revealing the day’s answer outright, a resource that has become a regular part of many players’ daily puzzle-solving routine.

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Fans of The New York Times’ popular word-grouping puzzle can find help here for Thursday’s edition, with hints and the complete solution for Connections game number 1,145.

Connections challenges players to sort 16 seemingly unrelated words into four groups of four, with each group sharing a hidden connection. The puzzle, which debuted in beta in 2023 before becoming a permanent addition to the Times’ games lineup, ranks the four categories by difficulty, typically presented in order from most straightforward to most challenging. Thursday’s puzzle blended straightforward wordplay with trickier conceptual links, according to puzzle coverage from multiple outlets that track the daily game.

Players looking for guidance before jumping to the full answer can use the following category hints to narrow down their thinking. One group centers on words describing someone who is truthful and dependable, evoking qualities associated with honesty and moral uprightness. A second group involves activities and games that share a common physical element: multiple balls being used simultaneously, whether in casual party games, gambling-adjacent pastimes or coordination-based physical activities. A third group connects several well-known names, all of which happen to belong to major cruise line operators serving vacationers around the world. The fourth and typically most challenging group involves a common phrase structure, “on the ___,” used to convey the idea of something being precise or exact.

For those ready for the complete solution, here are the four groups and their associated words for Thursday’s puzzle.

The first category, built around words meaning virtuous or morally upright, includes FAIR, GOOD, JUST and RIGHT. Each of these words can independently describe someone or something as honest, principled or morally sound, making this grouping a relatively accessible entry point for many solvers.

The second category, focused on activities involving multiple balls, includes BEER PONG, BINGO, JUGGLING and POOL. While these activities differ significantly in setting and purpose, ranging from a casual drinking game to a numbers-based game of chance to a circus-style skill and a classic billiards game, they share the common thread of incorporating more than one ball as a central element of gameplay.

The third category groups together CARNIVAL, CELEBRITY, PRINCESS and VIKING, all well-known cruise line brands that operate large fleets of vessels offering vacation cruises to destinations around the world. This category proved to be one that rewarded solvers with familiarity with the cruise industry, since each word could plausibly fit into other categories without that specific context in mind.

The fourth and final category, generally the most difficult in each day’s puzzle, centers on the phrase structure “on the ___,” used to mean precise or exact, and includes DOT, MARK, MONEY and NOSE. Phrases such as “on the dot,” “on the mark,” “on the money” and “on the nose” are all common English idioms used to describe something that is exactly correct or perfectly timed, making this category a strong example of the kind of wordplay-driven, idiom-based grouping that tends to trip up even experienced Connections players.

Puzzle strategy guides commonly recommend that players begin by identifying the category they feel most confident about first, since locking in an easier group early can help clarify which words remain for the trickier, more conceptually layered categories. Puzzle commentators covering Thursday’s edition specifically noted that the game’s anagram-adjacent and lateral-thinking elements made some groupings less immediately obvious than others, encouraging players to look beyond a word’s most literal or surface-level meaning when categories don’t seem to click into place right away.

Connections has become one of several daily word games published by The New York Times, joining Wordle, Strands, the Mini Crossword and the newer Connections: Sports Edition, a themed spinoff that applies the same grouping format specifically to sports-related terminology and shorthand. All of the Times’ daily puzzle offerings typically reset at midnight local time, giving players a fresh challenge to tackle each day.

Players hoping to protect an ongoing daily streak, a feature Connections uses to track consecutive days of successful puzzle completion, can access Thursday’s puzzle, along with archived puzzles from previous days, directly through the New York Times Games platform. For those who prefer working through the puzzle with minimal outside help, the Times and various puzzle-focused outlets typically offer tiered levels of hints, ranging from broad category descriptions to more specific clues, before revealing the full solution for players who become completely stuck.

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TSB has told its workforce of about 5,000 staff that they will be required to work in an office three days a week from April 2027, and the TBU union is preparing to take cases to the Employment Tribunal in response.

The requirement follows Santander’s £2.65 billion takeover of TSB, which completed in April. The Spanish banking group is progressing with a merger of the two banks’ operations and policies so that the entire workforce is aligned. TSB is currently operating as a standalone entity.

The bank did not previously have a formal requirement for how much time staff must spend in an office.

Staff representatives at the TBU are preparing to take cases to the Employment Tribunal over concerns that some members will be unable to change their arrangements due to personal and medical reasons, amid a broader backlash against the changes and whether they are enforceable.

The union pointed to comments it made in its internal newsletter that a significant number of people had medical or personal reasons for their current working arrangements and that “all roads are going to lead back to employment law”. The TBU added that it was “prepared to fight cases at the Employment Tribunal”.

A source close to TSB said the bank had launched talks between staff and management aimed at putting in place exceptions for individuals with personal and health issues requiring a more flexible approach.

All parties declined to comment.

Under government guidance on flexible working, employees cannot complain to a tribunal solely because a request has been refused, but can do so where an employer has not handled a request in a reasonable manner. Complaints must be made within three months of the employer’s decision, and the maximum award is eight weeks’ pay.

The row is the latest example of a clash within a business about plans to get staff back into the office more regularly following the Covid-19 crisis. Santander itself tightened its hybrid working policy in September 2024, telling 10,000 UK office-based employees to work the equivalent of three days a week at its sites, up from two.

TSB has already announced that it will make 130 redundancies in the wake of the Santander deal as the two operations undergo an integration process.

Mahesh Aditya, chief risk officer of Banco Santander, took charge of Santander UK at the beginning of March to lead the integration, which also comes as the lender seeks to navigate the mis-selling scandal that has engulfed Britain’s motor finance industry.

TSB has become mired in controversy as a result of technical difficulties from past operational overhauls. Sabadell attempted to switch the UK lender to a new IT platform, but mishaps during the transition caused chaos for millions of customers and months-long disruptions to its services.

TSB was formerly known as Trustee Savings Bank and was first established by the Rev Henry Duncan in Dumfriesshire in 1810. The brand was maintained when the lender merged with Lloyds Bank in 1995. Sabadell, another Spanish bank, acquired the British lender at book value for £1.7 billion in 2015, before agreeing the sale to Santander.

Santander first entered the British market in 2004 with the purchase of Abbey National for £9 billion. It then expanded its footprint during the 2008 financial crisis with the acquisitions of Alliance & Leicester and the savings business of Bradford & Bingley. Dame Ana Botín, who leads the wider Banco Santander group, previously ran its UK business between 2010 and 2014.

Amy Ingham

Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College’s journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel’s nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.