Simon Owens
@simonowens.bsky.social
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Media industry journalist who runs a newsletter and podcast. You can reach me at
[email protected]
reposted by
Simon Owens
fro vo
3 days ago
ME: who called em fish boobs instead of shark hooteries WIFE: no one. no one ever says any of those things
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Itâs pretty damn funny that the White House has taken over the official DOJ Twitter account just to do real time crisis comms over the Epstein files that are only being released because the current leadership at the DOJ and FBI spent years amplifying every conspiracy related to Epstein.
5 days ago
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reposted by
Simon Owens
Oliver Willis
5 days ago
still amazing to me that one of the few places you can find left leaning compelling video content is tiktok and a *democratic* administration effectively tried to shut it down. so dumb. so, so dumb.
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reposted by
Simon Owens
Taniel
7 days ago
After what we're seeing at CBS, if today is not the perfect day for everyone to find some independent journalism & nonprofit newsrooms to support... what day could be better?
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reposted by
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Kara Swisher
8 days ago
Putting a power parched non journalist â who has zero experience in investigative reporting â in charge of real reporters usually ends like this: â60 Minutesâ Pulled a Segment. A Correspondent Calls It âPolitical.â
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/b...
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â60 Minutesâ Pulled a Segment. A Correspondent Calls It âPolitical.â
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/business/60-minutes-trump-bari-weiss.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
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One thing Iâll just truly never understand is why Tesla shareholders treat it like virtually no other company in existence.
add a skeleton here at some point
10 days ago
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Blueskyâs leadership wonât fix this and the platformâs other myriad problems because itâs too obsessed with recreating Twitter circa 2014 and not building a modern day social network.
add a skeleton here at some point
10 days ago
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As someone who uses white noise YouTube channels a lot for when I'm trying to drown out outside distractions and concentrate on work, I was fascinated with Hank Green's breakdown of how much revenue these videos generate. Because a white noise channel can't have lots of midroll ad breaks -- that wo
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The Economics of a YouTube White Noise Video
YouTube video by vlogbrothers
https://youtu.be/GjUIAufigz4?si=dp9-B6v4pSRuXyXf
11 days ago
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I've never understood why Netflix hasn't been willing to just toss filmmakers a bone and give them a 30-day theatrical release. It would not only create an additional revenue stream, but there's data to suggest the buzz around a theatrical release actually drives streaming viewership. Even more imp
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Does Anyone Believe Ted Sarandos on Theaters?
As the streamerâs winning bid to secure WBD faces regulatory scrutiny and a hostile offer from Paramount, Ted Sarandos insists that Netflix is committed to a standard theatrical window for Warner Bros...
https://puck.news/does-anyone-believe-netflix-will-keep-warner-bros-movies-in-theaters/
11 days ago
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This is probably the right move. I've stumbled upon these fake trailers and it's pretty clear that they're deliberately trying to mislead people into thinking their real trailers.
deadline.com/2025/12/yout...
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YouTube Shuts Down Channels Using AI To Create Fake Movie Trailers Watched By Millions
YouTube has terminated two prominent channels, Screen Culture and KH Studio, using artificial intelligence to create fake movie trailers.
https://deadline.com/2025/12/youtube-terminates-screen-culture-kh-studio-fake-ai-trailer-1236652506/
11 days ago
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If youâre a runner in DC, every six months or so you think, âWhy donât I run on the National Mall more?â And then you hit your first wall of tourists and youâre like, âOh right, thatâs why.â
11 days ago
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It doesnât surprise me that audio podcast ads tend to generate more engagement than YouTube podcast ads. When someone listens to the audio version of a podcast, itâs usually because they intentionally sought it out and subscribed. YouTube viewing, by contrast, is far more algorithmically driven, whi
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Podcasters Love YouTube. Thatâs Making Podcast Advertising Less Predictable.
Ads that appear in video podcasts are alluring for visually-minded marketers but may perform worse on the whole than audio-only, according to a new study.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/podcasters-love-youtube-thats-making-podcast-advertising-less-predictable-cb8ffd5c
11 days ago
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This is the perfect example of platform enshittification. It's not enough that you content viewing is constantly being interrupted by advertising -- now you have to be bombarded with ads the moment you open the app. There really is very little innovation in legacy media in terms of making better pr
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NBCUniversal Unveils âArrival Adsâ for Peacock and Other Ad-Tech Innovations to Capitalize on Investments in Live Sports and Events
NBCUniversal will incorporate 'Arrival Ads' for those who sign on to Peacock, among a host of other new ad-tech elements unveiled by the company.
https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/nbcuniversal-arrival-ads-peacock-1236610766/
11 days ago
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Bari Weiss's I'm-a-heterodox-liberal-who-just-happens-to-only-make-content-that-appeals-to-conservatives schtick is one of the most remarkable and successful media marketing strategies of the 21st century thus far.
11 days ago
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This is a pretty fascinating look at all the marketing strategies musicians use to boost their streaming numbers, especially on Spotify. Even if you have a large social media following, simply announcing a new album wonât drive many streams, especially since those kinds of posts often get buried by
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My streaming strategy worked and I didn't like it
YouTube video by ANDREW HUANG
https://youtu.be/UzzzaoOonh8?si=uUEzjowIvxudwAQE
12 days ago
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I canât think of a greater symbol for the decline of traditional Hollywood than its preeminent awards show moving to YouTube.
www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general...
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Oscars Bolts From ABC to YouTube Starting in 2029
The world's highest-profile and most watched awards show, which has aired on ABC since 1976, will be moving to a streaming-only platform starting as part of a deal that also includes red carpet covera...
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/oscars-bolt-from-abc-to-youtube-starting-in-2029-1236453188/
12 days ago
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These Netflix podcast deals seem pretty sweet for the podcasters. They get to maintain complete control over their audio feeds and even continue doing the sponsored ad reads in the video version. The full episodes are taken off YouTube, sure, but they still get to distribute clips there, and the f
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Netflix Signs Deal With Dave Portnoyâs Barstool Sports for Exclusive Video Rights to Three Podcasts
Netflix clinched a multiyear pact with Dave Portnoy's Barstool Sports giving the streaming giant exclusive rights to video versions of a trio of its popular podcasts.
https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/netflix-dave-portnoy-barstool-sports-exclusive-video-podcasts-1236610822/
12 days ago
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Wow, can you believe the FUCKING GALL of this? For the past 20 years, brands and creators have put untold billions of hours of free labor into creating free content for Meta under the guise that at least they get some marketing and distribution out of the effort, only for that company to turn around
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Facebook is testing a link-posting limit for professional accounts and pages | TechCrunch
Meta said that the test impacts professional accounts and pages on Facebook.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/17/facebook-is-testing-a-link-posting-limit-for-professional-accounts-and-pages/
12 days ago
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Kyiv Independent COO Zakhar Protsiuk explained how the outlet launched a Guardian-style membership offering without a paywall.
simonowens.substack.com/p/how-the-ky...
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How the Kyiv Independent used global sympathy to generate membership revenue
Chief Operating Officer Zakhar Protsiuk explained how the outlet launched a Guardian-style membership offering without a paywall.
https://simonowens.substack.com/p/how-the-kyiv-independent-used-global
12 days ago
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I will go to my grave believing Elon Musk committed genocide and is one of the worst human beings in the history of our species. He'll ultimately be responsible for more deaths than pretty much anyone other than the great monsters like Hitler and Mao.
add a skeleton here at some point
12 days ago
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Traditional publishers and brands are quickly realizing that Substack isn't just a newsletter platform; it's a centralized distribution network, similar to other sites like Instagram, Reddit, and Twitter. But unlike those others, it also allows users to collect email addresses that can then be porte
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Exclusive: WSJ launches new opinion offshoot "Free Expression"
The new section is meant to expand WSJ's opinion coverage to a broader audience.
https://www.axios.com/2025/12/15/wsj-opinion-substack-free-expression
13 days ago
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I mostly agree with this thesis that a major reason that so much of legacy media has struggled financially over the past 20 years is that its leaders ascribed too much value to content while undervaluing user experience. I can't tell you how many times I've been flabbergasted by just how difficult i
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Inside The Washington Post's product strategy
A conversation with WaPo CTO Vineet Khosla
https://www.therebooting.com/p/inside-the-washington-post-s-product-strategy
13 days ago
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Iâm not surprised that Instagram is launching a TV streaming appâit canât ignore the fact that YouTube dominates TV screensâbut itâs hard to see why many Instagram users would want to watch its content on a television. Instagram video is optimized for vertical, smartphone-first viewing, and itâs bui
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Instagram Debuts Dedicated Television App for Amazon Fire TV
Meta Platforms Inc.âs Instagram unveiled its first dedicated TV app, which lets users watch the short-form video feature Reels on a larger screen.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-16/instagram-debuts-dedicated-television-app-for-amazon-fire-tv
13 days ago
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It's interesting that Netflix's video podcast push doesn't involve going after individual podcast stars -- in other words, it's not trying to discover the next Joe Rogan or Alex Cooper -- but it's instead signing deals with large audio podcast networks to basically just license their already-existi
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Netflix Adds Podcasts in Deal With iHeartMedia
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/business/media/netflix-iheartmedia-video-podcasts.html
13 days ago
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I will share 50% of the revenue with anyone who sells ads on my newsletter/podcast. Right now, I sell very little advertising simply because I donât have the time to do cold outreach to potential sponsors.
13 days ago
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reposted by
Simon Owens
David Corn
13 days ago
This is horrible. Trump and his crew shut down USAID, which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and they had no idea what they were doing or what would be the consequences. Completely immoral. (From the VF story on Susan Wiles.)
www.vanityfair.com/news/story/t...
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The problem with David Ellison's strategy of going to shareholders to overturn the Netflix deal is that at least some percentage of shareholders are going to want to see him fail simply because of his close relationship to Donald Trump. Even if it's a small minority of shareholders who feel this way
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Who Wants Warner Bros. More?
Battle lines have been drawn over David Zaslavâs Warner Bros. Discovery, and both Netflix and Paramount think they have the winning formula. But is the game already rigged?
https://puck.news/who-wants-warner-bros-more-netflix-or-david-ellison/
13 days ago
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god, bluesky is such a fucking joke
13 days ago
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When a company is looking to save money with AI, the first role they often consider eliminating is the copywriter. While copywriters still produce superior work product, many companies simply make the bet that AI is "good enough." Freelancers have watched their work dry up, and what clients have stu
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"I was forced to use AI until the day I was laid off." Copywriters reveal how AI has decimated their industry
Copywriters were one of the first to have their jobs targeted by AI firms. These are their stories, three years into the AI era.
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/i-was-forced-to-use-ai-until-the
13 days ago
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It's kind of ironic that HBO was one of the longest holdouts in terms of keeping its shows off of Netflix, and now Netflix will end up just owning the entire studio. While very few people are ever excited about media consolidation, Netflix's enormous distribution powers will no-doubt super charge WB
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Why Netflix Needs Warner Bros.
Prior to its $83 billion deal to acquire the WB studio and HBO Max, Netflix had never spent more than $700 million on an acquisition. But the streamer saw an opportunity to own a significant chunk of ...
https://puck.news/why-netflix-needs-warner-bros/
14 days ago
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Netflix has thus far resisted theatrical distribution for most of its movies, but now that it has its own dedicated event spaces I could see it using them not only for movie premiers, but also to debut new seasons of its hit TV series. You could easily imagine a scenario of it sending an email infor
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Can Netflix Help Save the American Mall?
The entertainment companyâs new âNetflix Houseâ experience is bringing the brandâs shows into former department stores. Will streaming TV fans follow?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-12-12/netflix-house-wants-to-immerse-you-in-stranger-things-kpop-demon-hunters
14 days ago
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Every few months I stumble across a random YouTuber who has incredible filmmaking skills and not a huge following. I love when that happens.
youtu.be/-Bx9jMmcRHU?...
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i trained to failure everyday for 6 months...
YouTube video by Nick Pedersen
https://youtu.be/-Bx9jMmcRHU?si=mlORxJ7o7MV1MlDJ
17 days ago
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6AM City co-founder Ryan Heafy insists he's not trying to replace human journalists.
simonowens.substack.com/p/how-a-loca...
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How a local newsletter company is leveraging AI to cover hundreds of counties across the US
6AM City co-founder Ryan Heafy insists he's not trying to replace human journalists.
https://simonowens.substack.com/p/how-a-local-newsletter-company-is
17 days ago
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Fuck no. I've always been appalled by this practice.
add a skeleton here at some point
18 days ago
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Substack is best known for its subscription model, but many fashion influencers are now moving their Instagram followers to Substack so they can monetize more effectively through affiliate links. Part of this shift is about diversifying their audiences, but itâs also driven by frustration with Insta
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Substackâs Influencer Allure
As content creators grow frustrated with Instagramâs friction-prone link-in-bio affiliate link experience, some are turning to newsletter platforms as a new source of revenue.
https://puck.news/why-fashion-influencers-are-migrating-from-instagram-to-substack-shopmy/
18 days ago
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Yikes! When I read earlier today that the Washington Post was rolling out AI-generated podcasts, I assumed it was just producing audio versions of its articles, but it turns out that it was just letting the AI go hog wild in summarizing Post content, which of course meant the AI was inserting unchec
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Exclusive: Washington Postâs AI-generated podcasts rife with errors, fictional quotes
Errors in the Postâs new AI-generated podcasts have frustrated the paperâs journalists.
https://www.semafor.com/article/12/11/2025/washington-posts-ai-generated-podcasts-rife-with-errors-fictional-quotes
18 days ago
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I'm always amazed by how lazy the people behind AI slop businesses are. Like they couldn't take the extra two minutes before hitting publish on each article to read it over and at least make sure it doesn't make obvious references to the chatbot queries?
pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/r...
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London news website publishes misleading 'AI-generated fiction'
A new apparently AI-generated local news website has appeared in North London, raising fears of the public being misled.
https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/regional-newspapers/ai-local-news-london/
18 days ago
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I feel like I haven't read much coverage on how YouTubers leverage the platform's internal membership tool that allows a creator to lock selected videos behind a paywall. This piece about a financial advice podcaster reveals he has between 60,000 and 70,000 members paying $10 a m
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The Jerry Springer of YouTube Turns Personal Finance Into an Entertaining Blood Sport
Caleb Hammer, the host of Financial Audit, a top podcast on YouTube, is one of the online upstarts filling the void left by the decline of combative daytime TV
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-12-11/-financial-audit-podcaster-caleb-hammer-mines-drama-gold-from-financial-ruin
18 days ago
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This deal with Open AI is not all that different from Disney turning its IP into video games: it gives fans a way to control the characters and create their own stories within a familiar franchise. The difference with Sora is that it lets people generate far more scenarios than a video game ever cou
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Disney Invests $1 Billion in the AI Slopification of Its Brand
With OpenAI investment, Disney will officially begin putting AI slop into its flagship streaming product.
https://www.404media.co/disney-invests-1-billion-in-the-ai-slopification-of-its-brand/
18 days ago
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I think it's safe to say at this point that Neal Mohan is the most powerful person in media. There's been a lot of coverage recently about YouTube's dominance on connected TV's, but I also think the success of YouTube Shorts is a significant story as well -- it ensures that YouTu
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Neal Mohan Is TIME's CEO of the Year
The YouTube CEO has led the platform into a new era of TV and video domination
https://time.com/7338621/ceo-of-the-year-2025-neal-mohan/
18 days ago
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Oh joy, TIME magazine has a floating AI chatbot that covers up the text Iâm trying read and you canât get to go away. Now this is true innovation!
18 days ago
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For any publisher looking to experiment in AI, using it to generate audio versions of articles is the low-hanging fruit that will probably give you the highest ROI. Not only does AI do a fairly good job of mimicking human speech, but audiences do seem to get genuine value out of audio formats. It al
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The Washington Post debuts AI-personalized podcasts to hook younger listeners
The Washington Post used AI to build a pick-your-own-format news podcast, letting listeners choose the topics, hosts and duration.
https://digiday.com/media/the-washington-post-debuts-ai-personalized-podcasts-to-hook-younger-listeners/
18 days ago
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Bluesky continues to suck ass because it enforces strict charact limits, which then forces its users to break up longer posts into unreadable tweet threads. Why the fuck are we still doing this in 2025?
18 days ago
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Too many publishers focus on increasing their audience size instead of developing strategies for keeping their audiences on their channels just a little while longer. A user who clicks on three articles is worth so much more than someone who clicks on just one article -- not only does it drive more
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How The Arena Group is rewriting its commercial playbook for the zero-click era
The Arena Group is testing AI-powered content recommendation models to bump up revenue per session and has taken curation in-house.
https://digiday.com/media/how-the-arena-group-is-rewriting-its-commercial-playbook-for-the-zero-click-era/
18 days ago
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I think it's probably too early to judge Bari Weiss's performance as the head of CBS News, but so far her moves have mostly amounted to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Reversing the outlet's decline will require a lot more than simply swapping in new on-air anchors and tweaking the progr
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A Weiss Christmas
While The Free Press is flush with holiday spirit, Bariâs job reinventing CBS News is proving more vexing, amid anchor dreams dashed and the age-old challenge of enacting institutional change.
https://puck.news/what-a-free-press-vibe-might-look-like-at-cbs-news/
18 days ago
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I've long wondered why the book industry hasn't experimented much with advertising revenue models. Now, some self-published authors are serializing their audiobooks on YouTube, generating money through both YouTube's ad revenue share and by locking new chapters behind a membership paywall. These cha
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[The Bottom Line] YouTube: another way to monetize audiobooks
https://mailchi.mp/janefriedman/youtube-audio
19 days ago
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If you want to know what will be possible on YouTube a half decade from now, look at the TV-like drama series that are starting to pop up. They're still fairly low-brow and geared toward kids, but it's possible to imagine how this type of content will eventually evolve into prestige TV.
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âAlanâs Universeâ Shows What It Might Look Like to Win at YouTube
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/arts/television/youtube-alans-universe.html
19 days ago
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I continue to be extremely skeptical that thereâs any consumer appetite for website-specific chatbots. Why would I ask a question to a chatbot run by, say, USA Today when I could just go to my general chatbot of choice â whether thatâs ChatGPT, Gemini, or some other? Why limit yourself to one news o
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Locally Sourced Chum: The AI widgets taking over news sites and extracting our data.
The AI widgets taking over news sites and extracting our data.
https://www.cjr.org/analysis/locally-sourced-chum-ai-widgets-extracting-data-news-sites.php
20 days ago
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This is a fun story about a college student who grew frustrated by the lack of engagement his school newspaper was getting and, in response, launched a curated newsletter that quickly took off, ultimately growing to more than 10,000 subscribers after he began breaking news about staff layoffs at the
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đ´ 11,000 subscribers for one student's journalism
How Tomoki Chien built USC's most-read news product TKTK
https://www.creatorspotlight.com/p/tomo-chien
20 days ago
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It seems pretty clear at this point that David Ellison is just playing with his daddy's monopoly money and has lost all grasp of the underlying business fundamentals of media. Netflix has such a huge distribution platform that it's easy to imagine how it could enhance the value of WBD's huge library
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How High Will the Ellisons Go?
If Warners rejects David Ellisonâs latest bid, Iâm told that heâll almost certainly offer more. Will Netflix exceed that offer?
https://puck.news/world-war-wbd-netflix-vs-paramount-in-77b-battle/
20 days ago
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