The Rebooting Show

The podcast discusses the shifting role of discounts in subscriptions, the importance of ad avoidance for good user experience, and the benefits of creating subscription products for specific audience segments. The challenges of running subscription-based businesses and the need for revenue diversification are also explored. The speakers emphasize the value of subscriptions in attracting high-value readers and the integration of subscriptions within the overall business strategy. Building a sustainable future for media companies is highlighted, including the challenges of data privacy concerns and economic headwinds.

Bridget Williams, a veteran of the industry, discusses the sustainable business model for Hearst news outlets and the importance of a 'thoughtful mercenary' approach to local news. They explore revenue diversification, adapting to market changes, and the value of investigative reporting. The chapter also emphasizes the significance of subscriptions for newspaper revenue and finding the balance between journalism and commerce. Additionally, they discuss the power of natural language in event service and the challenges in the digital advertising landscape. Lastly, they highlight the need for real change in the media ecosystem.

The Guardian has used voluntary reader contributions as a bulwark of its unique model that blends philanthropy, advertising and voluntary contributions. In the U.S., The Guardian now generates 57%, or $33 million, of its revenue from voluntary contributions, either one-off or recurring. On this week’s episode of The Rebooting Show, I spoke with Steve Sachs, The Guardian’s U.S. managing director and veteran of non-profit news models, about this approach and how extensible it is for news publishers.

Jeff Selingo spent eight years at the Chronicle of Higher Education, serving as editor in chief and editorial director, before setting off on his own path. Jeff and I have traded notes on the independent path over the years, and I wanted to have him on The Rebooting Show to discuss what we’ve both learned on the independent path. We discuss the transition from editorial to sales, why treating “lifestyle business” as a pejorative is strange, and fighting the pull to rebuild what you left behind.

Blockworks, founded as a crypto events company in 2018, has rode these ups and downs. It began in the face of a crypto pullback with the thesis that crypto would become a major asset class and as it grew, institutional investors would need a credible source of information, analysis and research beyond an anonymous Twitter account with a monkey avatar shooting lasers from its eyes.As crypto recovered and headed into a bull run that accelerated during the pandemic into what I’d consider a bubble, Blockworks expanded from events into podcasts and news. With $12 million in VC raised in possibly the hardest time to raise for a crypto media company, Blockworks is building out a research arm.Jason Yanowitz, CEO of Blockworks, discusses the evolution of the company and the benefits of staying focused and being a "mile deep" vs an inch deep.

Defector is a worker-owned media company that was born out of disillusionment with the tradeoffs the digital media ecosystem often requires (or at least incentivizes). Instead of chasing traffic, Defector relies on a subscription model for a small but sturdy business.

My former colleague Mike Shields of Next in Media joins me to discuss what to make of Advertising Week, which is mostly a PR vehicle but a useful gauge of the prevailing winds of the media and advertising worlds.

On a crossover episode of The Rebooting Show and People vs Algorithms, Alex Schleifer and I discuss the end of the zero-interest rate policy era and how it will lead to cascading changes in tech and media.

Video is viewed paradoxically by publishers. They see budgets shifting to sight, sound and motion. Video ads, formerly known as TV spots, were always valued by advertisers far more than a standard display ad, no matter what efforts were made to gussy them up. Yet for many publishers, the costs associated with video creation are certainly high but the revenue while potentially big is uncertain. Tom Pachys, CEO of online video platform Ex.co, joined to discuss the challenge“The publishers that we work with say that this is their biggest line item when looking at the advertising part of their P&L. That definitely works, but the cost of opening studios, recording videos, taking the risk,  And also having that expertise – that's where the challenge is.”Thanks to Ex.co for sponsoring The Rebooting. Check out its recent guide to selecting an online video platform.

Before the Lumascape, there was another go-to conference and pitch deck slide for anyone betting on what was then called web advertising. The slide, updated annually by the financial analyst Mary Meeker, showed twin bar charts of time spent and budget spent by medium. The message was clear: the internet would win, it was just a matter of timing. The time spent gap did close, although a disproportionate amount of gains went to tech platforms rather than web publishers. The chart was always wrong, argues media analyst Brian Wieser. Time is simply one variable in assessing the value of a media impression:“It speaks to an incorrect framework. You look at the historical data, you ask why this happened, and you try to make sure the model mirrors why decisions are made. The common narrative was always that it's time. That's what drives the money. If that were true, radio would be a much bigger business.”