Can The Media Survive? Probably Not Yours.
By: Jacob Cohen Donnelly
What do the media elites think? That’s what New York Magazine set out to answer, including quotes from nearly 60 people that work at or run some pretty historic media companies. In the dictionary under navel gazing, there will be a picture of this piece.
The question that everyone wants to know: Can the media survive?
New York Magazine didn’t ask me for my opinion, which is fine. But since you all subscribe to hear my opinions, among other things, here goes nothing. Can the media industry survive? Absolutely. Will most of the names included in that article? Probably not.
There’s a big section head in the story that says: “The media’s most promising new business idea? Make something worth paying for.” I’m sorry, what? That is an insane thing to read in 2024. We’re really surprised that we should make something worth paying for?
That, my friends, is the crux of the problem for our entire industry. We were so busy trying to game algorithms and grow so we could raise more money that we never stopped to ask ourselves if our audience—you know, the people who actually matter—actually liked what we were creating. Pageviews, not people, was the name of the game because pageviews saw ads and viewed (maybe?) ads generated money.
I think Janice Min, founder and CEO of Ankler Media, said it best in that piece:
One brand-new thing in the teens was this fantasy that you could become tech-rich off journalism. Certain places began playing a scale game, thinking they could get a toehold against Google and Facebook. Of course, to grow as fast as they thought they would need to, they decided they had to take venture money — that felt like, We want to be a tech company, and we’re going to do what tech people do.
It was no longer about delivering value to an audience; it was about delivering value to investors. And so, operators that knew how to rank competitively or go viral on social were the ones that got to the top of the industry.
Here’s the problem… the people who made it to the top are still in charge of many of these large media companies. And they are often the worst positioned to make these companies work going forward. No one who has had to deliver value to an audience would ever stop and go, “Huh, I guess I should create a product that people want to pay for.” But in our industry, those people make it to the top.
That’s a problem because if any of these brands are going to survive, they are going to need people who have the vision, resources and time to create something that an audience actually wants. But considering few people have the ability to self-reflect and ask, “Is it me? Am I the drama?” I’m not terribly confident.
And that’s why it’s the upstarts that are going to win.
If the rumors about The Washington Post buying Punchbowl News are true, it’ll be because a scrappy, small team absolute sucker punched both WaPo and Politico in their backyard. This thing has barely been alive longer than Biden’s presidency and it could sell for over $100 million.
Bari Weiss’s The Free Press reportedly raised $15 million at a valuation of about $100 million. Is that a little high? Maybe. On the other hand, she has over 100,000 paying subscribers. Eric Newcomer’s newsletter is expecting to generate $2 million this year and, perhaps, $4 million next year. Definitely not worth $100 million, but if he wanted to, I imagine that growth would allow him to raise a nice round.
9,000 Die-Hard Fans
We all thought that the internet was going to make everything bigger. It didn’t. It actually made it possible to go much, much smaller and be more profitable. That means operators need to get comfortable serving an audience that is also smaller. Every operator? No. But a lot of them.
The issue is that so many still think the way this anonymous (why so afraid to speak your mind?) media executive thinks:
“I’m surprised that people are okay with the subscription model, where they don’t have that many listeners or viewers but are making money, so they’re just good with it,” says one of them. “The Substack writers, people with Patreon podcasts. My generation was wired completely differently. We wanted to be read or listened to by as many people as possible. And now this new generation is like, I’m totally cool with having 9,000 die-hard fans.”
Well, is it better to have 9,000 loyal subscribers who pay you a living wage, or 100,000 who pay nothing? This new generation is, like, totally cool with having a sustainable business. And, just as importantly, it’s a true appreciation for how the internet functions. Media used to have heavy cost structures. You either needed to print a newspaper and magazine or you needed to have large studios to record the news. Now? You can put out an incredible, audience-first content product at a fraction of the cost.
As cost structures come down, so too does the need to be mass scale. And anyone that tries to reach mass scale is going to, inevitably, be disrupted by someone more niche. And even if you are niche, there is someone that could go even nicher. Being read by millions was only possible because you had no competition. Now? It’s the free market on steroids.
The media industry is not going to die. At least not the one that I pay attention to. But for many of the big publications that gutted their brands in the quest for massive scale, it’s going to be painful. It’s going to require an intense refocus on serving their audiences. And unfortunately, the people at the top today haven’t thought about the audience for a long time. They may be too late.
