The Rebooting Show

Scott Messer, digital media veteran, discusses the structural changes to publishing business, including the deprecation of third-party cookies and the role of search. The podcast also explores challenges faced by publishers, limitations of cookies on the web, bid enrichment, and navigating the ad tech tax.

Founder and CEO of The Juggernaut, Snigda Sur, discusses the need for a publication focused on South Asians, going through Ycombinator as a media company, using subscriptions as a base of a business model, building a sustainable subscription model, the importance of data analysis, similarities between sales and journalism, and prioritizing focus and the potential of TikTok and Instagram.

This week, I caught up with Larry Fitzgibbon, the CEO of Tastemade. I think of Tastemade as an original digital video brand, ahead of its time in many ways since it was founded back in 2012, before streaming was even a thing. This was an era when online video was still mostly about webisodes nobody watched and YouTube’s famed dog on a skateboard videos. Tastemade has been at the forefront of many trends, as it is now with its focus on everything from IP to subscriptions with Tastemade+ and recreating the modern version of the cable channel. 

Axios senior media reporter, Sara Fischer, discusses the value of identifying patterns in the media business, the challenges of AI to publishing businesses, and how debt will drive consolidation of streaming services in the year ahead.

Matt Cronin, founding partner of House of Kaizen, discusses fixing misaligned incentives in publishing, subscriptions as a force function for customer centricity, lessons from the success of The New York Times, struggles of streaming services, and what publishers can learn from subscription companies outside media.

Matt Reustle, CEO of Colossus, a business-focused podcasting network, discusses why podcasts excel at nuance and the challenges of subscriptions in the podcasting industry. They also explore the value of unscripted conversations and the personal connection listeners can feel towards hosts. The podcast delves into the difficulties of tracking brand advertising and measuring its performance, as well as the challenges and opportunities in podcast advertising. It discusses diversifying revenue streams, the influence of podcasts, and the growing trend of athlete media.

On this week’s episode of The Rebooting Show, I spoke to Tomiwa Aladekomo, CEO of Big Cabal, a Nigerian digital media company that’s home to a pair of properties: Tech Cabal, which I describe as similar to TechCrunch but with more memes and Zikoko, a BuzzFeed-like culture publication. Big Cabal has raised $2.3 million in venture capital as it builds an independent digital media company in Africa’s largest economy that's geared to shifting consumption patterns. Tomiwa and I discuss how Big Cabal looks to find white spaces in the market, making hard calls when to pull back on efforts like it recently did with a citizen journalism project, when brands can be pan-African vs market specific, and an on-the ground assessment of the impact of Semafor in its Africa push.

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.