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The Business of Content with Simon Owens: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Simon Owens
The show about how publishers create, distribute, and monetize their digital content.
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- 4 days ago44 min
Will The New York Times lose its top journalism talent?
The New York Times has become one of the few legacy media companies to successfully reinvent itself for the digital era, but that doesn't mean it's immune to disruption. One of its emerging problems is that some of the journalists it helps turn into stars can eventually make far more money by leaving and building independent businesses. The latest example is the team behind Hard Fork, whose hosts reportedly attracted multimillion-dollar offers to strike out on their own. So does the Times need to rethink how it compensates its biggest personalities? And as more journalists build audiences that can travel with them, how much power does the institution still hold over the talent? To talk through those questions, I brought back Jason Krebs, a media veteran who has held senior roles at Disney, The New York Times, and Google. We discussed why legacy publishers still tend to treat journalists like salaried employees rather than talent — and whether they need to start offering revenue sharing, bigger incentives, or other compensation structures to keep their biggest stars from walking out the door. We also explored why national newspaper chains like McClatchy continue to struggle with local news, whether private equity hollowed out those businesses without investing enough in new models, and why locally focused publishers may be better positioned to survive. Then we debated the escalating cost of sports rights, why Amazon can justify spending so aggressively, and whether traditional media companies have allowed leagues like the NFL to gain too much leverage over their businesses.
- 4 days ago1h 20m
How a high-end print magazine built a modern media business
My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/ Design Anthology was founded in 2014 around a simple idea: some of the most interesting design work in Asia-Pacific wasn't getting the attention it deserved. The magazine set out to give those designers a global platform, wrapping its journalism in a premium print product designed to be kept rather than discarded. Over time, it has grown into a broader media business spanning print, digital subscriptions, events, branded partnerships, and a YouTube channel with more than half a million subscribers. Jeremy Smart joined Design Anthology in 2018 as an art director and gradually moved into editorial leadership, becoming its sole editor in chief last year. In a recent interview, we discussed why the company still sees premium print as central to its identity, how it has built an advertising business around long-term relationships rather than audience scale, and how its fast-growing YouTube presence serves as a gateway into the rest of the brand.
- 2 weeks ago50 min
How an Instagram meme page became a social-first entertainment empire
My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/ In 2015, Reid Hailey started an anonymous Instagram meme page called Shithead Steve, mostly as a way to joke around with his friends. But once he began creating original memes, the account took off, eventually reaching a million followers and generating meaningful advertising revenue. Hailey soon teamed up with Derek Lucas, who was running his own fast-growing social accounts, and the two began building a portfolio of meme and user-generated-content pages across different niches. That collection of accounts eventually evolved into Doing Things, a social-first entertainment company behind shows and brands like Recess Therapy, Bob Does Sports, and Breezy Golf. I recently spoke with Hailey, now the CEO of Doing Things, about how the company uses audience data to test and refine new shows, how it structures deals to keep creators invested in long-term success, and how it decides which properties have the potential to expand beyond content into products and other businesses.
- 2 weeks ago42 min
Why fashion influencers love the US Open
The Wall Street Journal found itself at the center of an AI controversy after publishing an op-ed that billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller later acknowledged he had written with the help of AI. What made the episode especially notable wasn't the disclosure itself, but the Journal's reaction: Its opinion editor essentially shrugged, arguing that AI is now a fact of modern life and that what matters is whether the piece accurately reflects the author's views. So is this a watershed moment for mainstream newsrooms? And as AI becomes a routine part of the writing process, does it even make sense to require disclosures every time it lends a hand? To talk through those questions, I brought back Jason Krebs, a media veteran who has held senior roles at Disney, The New York Times, and Google. We discussed whether using AI to write an op-ed is really all that different from the decades-old practice of executives relying on ghostwriters. We also explored why fashion and lifestyle influencers have flocked to tennis — and why the U.S. Open in particular has become such a major cultural event for brands and creators. Then we unpacked the Good Good Golf controversy and what it reveals about the growing risks brands take when they move beyond simple creator sponsorships and build entire products and businesses around internet personalities.
- 3 weeks ago46 min
What was the point of BuzzFeed's HuffPost acquisition?
There was a time when HuffPost and BuzzFeed looked like the future of digital media. Both mastered the mechanics of internet distribution, attracted enormous audiences, and convinced investors that scale itself could become a durable competitive advantage. So how did two of the defining brands of the digital-media era end up shrinking so dramatically? Was the underlying business model always flawed, or did a series of strategic mistakes — from costly acquisitions to overreliance on platforms like Facebook — turn these promising companies into cautionary tales? To help answer these questions, I brought on Jason Krebs, a longtime media executive who has worked at some of the industry's biggest companies, including Google, Disney, The New York Times, and Condé Nast. He's spent decades watching media business models rise and fall, which makes him an especially useful person to talk to about an industry that keeps cycling through new theories about distribution and scale. We also discussed two very different approaches to building subscription businesses. Jason weighed in on The New York Times' experiment with an AI chatbot trained on its own archives and whether the reputational risks are worth it. And we dug into MS NOW's new subscription product, debating whether personality-driven hosts like Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes can convert their audiences into paying members.
- 3 weeks ago51 min
How a Yankees podcast grew into a 60-person media company
My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/ Jomboy Media began as a Yankees podcast launched by Jimmy O'Brien and Jake Storiale with a small investment from a friend. Since then, it has evolved into a much larger sports media company, with dozens of channels, a roster of full-time creators, its own in-house sales operation, and even an original sports league called Warehouse Games. Much of that growth accelerated after Courtney Hirsch joined the company in late 2020, first to build out its advertising business and eventually to become CEO. In a recent interview, Hirsch explained why the company now builds around creators rather than individual shows, how Warehouse Games could evolve into a major entertainment franchise built on IP Jomboy owns outright, and why she believes apparel could become one of the company's biggest businesses.
- Aug 21, 202643 min
Should the book industry ban AI writing?
My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/ Over the past year, book publishers have repeatedly found themselves caught in controversies over authors' use of AI. Social media sleuths run books through AI-detection tools, accusations start flying, and in some cases publishers cancel a book's publication altogether. But how much should readers actually care if an author uses AI for research, editing, or polishing prose? And are publishers genuinely concerned about the technology, or are they simply trying to avoid the backlash that comes with it? To talk through those questions, I spoke with media veteran Jason Krebs, whose career has spanned some of the industry's biggest companies and smallest startups. He's worked across media, advertising, and content at companies including Google, Disney, The New York Times, and Condé Nast. We also spent a large portion of the conversation digging into YouTube's evolving strategy. The platform is making it harder for smaller creators to qualify for ad revenue, setting an especially high bar for Shorts monetization, and increasingly positioning itself as a competitor to traditional television and streaming services. Jason and I debated what these moves say about YouTube's advertising ambitions, why Shorts may function more as a hedge against TikTok than a standalone creator business, and what happens as YouTube and Netflix increasingly encroach on each other's turf.
- Aug 19, 202651 min
Why the Washington Post thinks micropayments can finally work
My newsletter: https://simonowens.substack.com/ For years, micropayments have been one of those ideas that repeatedly resurface in the publishing industry without ever seeming to gain much traction. The theory is simple: instead of forcing every reader into a recurring subscription, let them pay a few dollars for a single article or a short period of access. But previous experiments have often struggled with payment friction, weak economics, and fears that cheaper options would cannibalize subscriptions. The Washington Post has spent the past two years trying to solve those problems, running more than 30 tests to determine which products, prices, and audiences make flexible access work. The person leading this experimentation is Anjali Iyer, the Post's global head of subscription marketing. In a recent interview, she discussed why the Post believes technology has finally made micropayments viable, how it discovered that anonymous visitors are the ideal audience for flexible access, and why offering a cheaper short-term option can actually improve both subscription conversion and retention.
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The show about how publishers create, distribute, and monetize their digital content.
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