Mike Mallazzo, writer of the reliably excellent Zero Clicks newsletter from Martech Record and a veteran of digital publishing and marketing, joined me on The Rebooting Show to discuss the state of affiliate and what to expect in the category in 2025. The hopeful view: The efforts to stamp out affiliate arbitrage  will ultimately reward those who put in the work to create high-quality content that’s actually useful, as opposed to churning out affiliate content to arbitrage their brand’s high ranking in the search results pages. As Mike points out, "Without huge arbitrage opportunities, affiliate is a bad business model... We had a 10-year golden era of arbitrage that made affiliate a great business model.” 

In this live podcast, I spoke to Imtiaz Patel, chief consumer officer; Kristin Roberts, chief content officer; Jason Taylor, chief sales officer; and Renn Turiano, chief product officer. We discussed rethinking the article page, the imperative to provide a better user experience, why Google is so frustrating, using AI to drive subscriptions, and how AI answer engines are like Uber.

Sofia Delgado, Director of Audience at Metro, shares her insights on reinventing a media organization that faced a sharp traffic decline. After reevaluating its strategy, Metro saw a 50% traffic increase by producing 25% fewer articles. Sofia discusses the importance of prioritizing quality content over quantity and adapting to the changing digital landscape influenced by algorithms. She also emphasizes the necessity of internal team alignment and effective communication to navigate this transformation, showcasing a successful approach to audience engagement.

Mark Penn, CEO of Stagwell Group and a seasoned political strategist, shares insights on the evolving news landscape. He discusses how shifting audience trust impacts media consumption, emphasizing the importance of impartiality for news organizations. Penn warns against the dangers of catering to ideological audiences, which could weaken media's cultural influence. He also examines the complex relationship between advertisers and news, arguing that brand safety concerns are often overstated. Finally, he suggests that media can thrive by adopting strategies from political campaigns.

AI-powered search engines have clawed a foothold in the critical search market that controls distribution on the open web. Media management consuling firm Activate estimates 15 million people are using these answer engines rather than Google, which is adding AI summarization to its results. By 2028, Activate expects that to rise to 36 million. The open question is whether publishers can stem this tide. Michael Wolf, the CEO of Activate, sees a fundamental shift in the search market, as generative AI can currently handle about 40% of searches as an open web discovery tool. He expects the rest of searches will follow suit over the next five years as the fundamental nature of the open web changes. This will lead to search becoming the front end to what Wolf calls "gated web discovery" and eventually "discovery-led transactions."

Blockworks CEO Jason Yanowitz discusses how Blockworks has evolved the company from an events business to podcast network to news provider to becoming a data and information play with media, events and franchises feeding the core data and research business. This kind of shift is hard to pull off. Among the issues we discuss:Using podcasts for broad reach and affinityNews as a credibility driverPulling back on B2C events to focus on B2BUsing media to drive “negative CAC” for information servicesImplementing a “house of brands” strategy

Defector Media, the sports and culture publication launched four years ago by former Deadspin writers, is an example of the mixed picture for the future of the media business. On the plus side, it is a profitable, employee-owned publication with 42,500 paying subscribers supporting a $4.6 million business. At the same time, the company saw revenue growth drop to 2.2% from 18% last year and 16% in 2022.Defector's Jasper Wang joined me to discuss Defector’s plans to expand its ad revenue, the inevitable challenges of fast decisionmaking in an employee-owned business, the “lean stack” approach of outsourcing as many publishing and corporate functions as possible, and the growth of its Normal Gossip podcast and diversification of Defector’s audience.

Reid DeRamus, an expert in streaming video businesses with experience at Hulu and HBO Max, dives into the challenges and strategies of building independent media ventures. He highlights the shift from large media institutions to individual creators, emphasizing the importance of consistency and authenticity. The conversation touches on monetization techniques, discussing the balance between sponsorship and subscription models. Reid also explores audience engagement, adaptability, and the need for strategic revenue generation amidst the evolving digital landscape.

In this Spotlight episode, Josh Brandau, CEO of The Rebooting partner Nota, discusses how AI can be a critical tool for newsrooms in a more-with-less era. osh is a publishing veteran having been CRO and CMO at the Los Angeles Times. That informed his decision to create Nota since like other publishers he saw legacy media struggling to adopt technologies that underpin sustainable businesses. We discuss the inefficiencies inherent in a lot of newsrooms that end up taking scarce resources away from the actual news reporting, and how tasks like versioning, content optimization, SEO and tagging can be sped along with an AI assist. We also take a big picture view of where journalism goes in an AI world, licensing as a growing revenue source and how AI could create other new revenue streams as publishers inevitably move beyond efficiency and begin to create new products that improve the customer experience.

Fitt Insider, a media brand for the fitness and wellness industry, is a good example of the type of media brand that hits on many of the current trends in the industry:Niche. The fitness and broader wellness industry is a growing area that will only expand.B2B.  The most robust media models are B2B or targeting influential audiences with similar approaches.Direct. Fitt relies on podcasts for engagement and its 100,000 email subscriber list for audience data and a direct connection. Organic. Too many newsletters are growth hacked. Fitt Insider has traded slower growth for a quality list that has open rates near 75%.Expertise. Fitt Insider’s founders, Anthony and Joe Venare, are fitness industry experts, having owned gyms and invested in the space.Media flywheel. The best media models tend to make most of their money in media-adjacent areas. For Fitt, this is through its recruiting and consulting arms.Anthony Vennare joined me on The Rebooting Show to break down the Fitt Insider model, and how he views media more expansively. That’s led him to forgo the typical ads and marketing heavy approaches to monetization.