Articles
Figuring Out Why to Go Paid
With every media company looking at reader revenue and trying to figure out how they can introduce a paywall, there’s never really…
Do We Really Need a Political News App?
Vanity Fair wrote a story on the launch of The Recount, the new video venture led by veteran journalists, John Heilemann and…
Your Newsroom Is Your Biggest Asset
Many replied to last Friday’s email about media entitlement. The feedback was, overall, quite positive. Everyone who replied wants to see media…
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When Will Media Entitlement Go Away
Local media is struggling. It has been for a long time now. Once dependent on print, many local media companies never figured…
Does Verizon Want Out of Media?
When Verizon announced the sale of Tumblr, it was pretty obvious that the conglomerate was rethinking its strategy around media. Hans Vestberg,…
The End of an Era and The Rise of Smart Buys
When it was first announced that Vice Media and Refinery29 were working on an acquisition, it was likely the biggest sign that…
Building a Media Company on Substack
One of the benefits of doing A Media Operator on Substack is that I don’t have to think about anything other than…
The Case for Journalists Understanding the Business
Matt Skibinski over at The Lenfest Institute asked an important question. If you had to pick one new digital subscriber or 48,000…
Taboola & Outbrain Joining Forces
Taboola & Outbrain, the largest content recommendation companies, are finally joining forces. The two firms had been circling each other for years,…
Testing Registration Walls & Facebook News Tab Updates
Digiday has a good post today about how “News publishers are embracing registration walls.” There are a few things worth discussing from…
Vox Buying New York Media Shows Pains of VC-Backed Media Valuations
A barbell has developed in media. You’ve got very large media brands on one side and on the other, you’ve got niche…
Creating an Alliance for Ads
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that BuzzFeed Inc., Group Nine Media Inc. and Insider Inc. were joining together to “create…
Bringing Back Ad Networks
When I first started building websites over a decade ago, there were a couple of ways for a small site to make…
Why Steinberg Sold Cheddar
Before we get started, I wanted to thank everyone for sharing my last issue about The Athletic’s valuation. So many new people…
Can The Athletic Justify its Valuation?
I have had The Athletic on my mind for a while now for a couple of reasons. The first is because I…
A Good Private Equity/Media Deal?
When we talk about media being purchased by private equity, it tends to be a sad story. But perhaps—and this is still…
Why Don’t B2C Media Companies Do B2B?
Or why scale doesn’t mean anything to B2B brands
Apple’s ITP 2.2 & Monetization
The discussion around user privacy is on the rise. The amount of information that companies have about you is massive and they…