Articles
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,…
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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…
Diversification
August 16th was the last day for Pacific Standard’s operations after its lone benefactor, Sage Publications, decided to pull funding. This came…
Please Mr. Ad Man, Don’t Put My Ads Near News
When brands were doing most of their ad deals with insertion orders, they had a lot of control over where their ads…
Maybe Facebook Can Be a Friend?
Axios reported that Facebook is funding two new BuzzFeed shows, which we’ll get to. But buried in the report, a little tidbit…
Tumblr Sells for Under $3 Million
The Wall Street Journal broke the story today that “Verizon to Sell Tumblr to WordPress.com Owner.” And Axios’ Dan Primack reported that…
Welcome to A Media Operator
This has been an idea I’ve had on my mind for some time now. I think so much about the media business…