Welcome! I’m Simon Owens and this is my media industry newsletter. If you’ve received it, then you either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you.
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Let’s jump into it…
Quick hits
A personal finance YouTuber supposedly has 100,000 subscribers for his $99-a-year membership program. That’s nearly a $10 million annual business, and it’s only one of his revenue streams. A budgeting app he runs is now generating $3 million a year. [Like & Subscribe]
Netflix no longer wants to churn out blockbuster films that cost hundreds of millions of dollars each. Instead, it’s greenlighting more mid-budget fare — the kinds of films that used to perform well in theaters in the pre-2010 era. [NYT] (BTW, I used a gift link so you can access that article for free.)
Bloomberg went deep on how Steam became the dominant platform for selling PC games — to the point that several game producers have accused it of anticompetitive behavior. [Bloomberg]
A SoulCycle instructor created a satirical “private equity guy” persona and scaled it to 500,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok. [NYT] (BTW, I used a gift link so you can access that article for free.)
A Business Insider correspondent watched a film that was produced for just $500,000 and relied almost entirely on AI-generated visuals. While he was impressed by certain aspects of the project, he still struggled to form an emotional connection with the characters. [Business Insider] “At various points during ‘Hell Grind,’ I was taken out of the story when a character did something that just felt … off. The way Roco held a slice of pizza in one scene looked like it was his first time encountering the food, for example. The synthetic children in the movie generally creeped me out, and the AI-generated voice work didn’t always feel consistent (one character seemed to flip between a British and American accent, for instance).”
ICYMI: This product review blog pivoted to video to protect itself from AI
Andrew Palermo built Prudent Reviews into the most authoritative media outlet focused on home appliances.
That case study actually sits behind a paywall, but if you’re not ready to subscribe, I also included it in an ebook that you can download over here.
More quick hits
Bloomberg profiled a sports media company that started out as a weekly podcast in 2010 and has since grown to over 20 shows that collectively employ 100 people. [Bloomberg] “Football is a Star Wars cantina, and what we offer is a show for everywhere that a ball is being kicked.” (BTW, I used a gift link so you can access that article for free.)
Shopify’s Substack newsletter barely mentions Shopify; instead it conducts interviews with entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses. [AdAge]
Spotify is looking to license live concert footage in an effort to boost its video offerings. [Bloomberg] (BTW, I used a gift link so you can access that article for free.)
Bloomberg profiled Markiplier, the YouTuber who self-financed his movie Iron Lung, which generated over $40 million at the box office. [Bloomberg] (BTW, I used a gift link so you can access that article for free.)
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I packaged 25 of my media entrepreneur case studies into an ebook spanning 182 pages and over 53,000 words. I’m pretty confident there isn’t another book on the market that’s packed with this many insights for how to build a successful content business.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a YouTuber, podcaster, newsletter writer, or traditional news publisher — you’re going to find strategies here that you can incorporate into your own business.
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On an unrelated note
I published a new piece of short fiction. It’s only 1,100 words, short enough to read in a single sitting.