How media outlets can use games to increase their revenue
PLUS: Why The Dispatch bought SCOTUSblog
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How media outlets can use games to increase their revenue
If you work in the media industry, you’re likely aware of The New York Times’s tremendous success with its gaming vertical; in fact, millions of people subscribe for the sole reason of playing games like Wordle and Connections.
But it’s not the only publisher that’s incorporated games into its business strategy. Hundreds of outlets ranging from Morning Brew to The New Yorker utilize a platform called Amuse Labs to build everything from crosswords to sudoku. In a recent interview, co-founder John Temple explained how publishers can leverage games to increase time on site, repeat visits, advertising revenue, and paid subscription conversions.
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The power of localized niches
Politico's model of setting up reporting teams in several major European capitals seems to be working; its Europe operation now employs over 350 people:
[Politico’s senior executive editor in Europe, Kate Day,] told Press Gazette that ten years ago “we were then a tiny team in Brussels trying to figure out whether this recipe that had worked so successfully in America could be transported to Europe” …
In the UK specifically, Politico’s editorial team numbers about 45 – up from 18 at the end of 2022. Its Paris and Berlin presences are “a little bit smaller”, Day said, but “growing pretty rapidly in both places”.
I've always really liked the idea of localized niches — the idea being that local coverage of a very specific sector can drive a lot of differentiation, especially when you scale it out to multiple regions. That’s the same approach taken by publications like The Athletic, Chalkbeat, Eater, and Technically Media.
Why entrepreneurial journalists like to criticize their former employers
A few days ago, the politics journalist Ryan Lizza launched a Substack newsletter and used his first two posts to criticize his former employer Politico for how it covers the Trump administration. Puck’s Dylan Byers then reported that Lizza wasn’t 100% transparent about why he left Politico:
After the R.F.K. Jr. scandal broke last fall, Politico placed Ryan on temporary leave, relieving him of co-author duties on Playbook, the company’s flagship morning tipsheet …
Politico editor-in-chief John Harris and executive vice president Jonathan Greenberger had already begun rethinking their strategy for Playbook and eyeing new authors. And yet, rather than use the scandal as an opportunity to sever ties with Lizza immediately, as many in the newsroom expected, they instead gave him a short-term sinecure. In January, Ryan was moved to Politico magazine and told he had three months to find his next gig.
Lizza's come-to-Jesus-moment did seem a little conveniently timed, so it doesn't surprise me that his departure had little to do with journalistic principles. Still, this is a pretty common theme among journalists who leave mainstream publications to launch their own independent ventures; they typically will start with some kind of framing post for how they hope to correct the flaws that plague legacy media outlets. Look at the recent departures of folks like Paul Krugman, Jim Acosta, and Jen Rubin, and you'll find very similar framing.
That being said, Lizza is a good journalist and I enjoyed his work back when he wrote for the New Yorker. It’ll be interesting to see how he builds an independent media business.
The blood-brain barrier between TikTok stardom and mainstream stardom
There seems to be a kind of blood-brain barrier between internet stardom and mainstream stardom; even creators with millions of followers struggle to achieve the latter. But Addison Rae somehow crossed this divide, moving from the simple TikTok dances that made her famous to starring roles in films and her own album released by a major record label:
Rae is preparing to spend the next few weeks in Chicago, where she’s filming a movie called Animal Friends with Aubrey Plaza and Dan Levy that’s due out this fall. She teases that the role is a departure for her—she played a teen influencer in the 2021 Netflix rom-com He’s All That, and a bubbly best friend in Eli Roth’s 2023 slasher flick, Thanksgiving …
Last fall, Rae joined club kid royalty Charli XCX at Madison Square Garden to perform Charli’s remix of the Grammy-winning Brat track “Von Dutch”; she’s become a muse to photographer Petra Collins and has been styled by Law Roach. Now, with a debut album out on Columbia Records later this year, Rae is pirouetting her way into the global pop vanguard. “I feel like I’ve surpassed Addison Rae,” she says. “It’s just Addison now.”
Should streamers stop trying to compete with Netflix on scale?
Executives at Max finally acknowledged the platform couldn't compete with Netflix as being the "everything" streaming app, so it started narrowing it content focus — jettisoning an entire library of reality TV shows and children's programming — and launched a subscription bundle with Disney. These moves accelerated its subscription growth in 2024:
“What people want from us in a world where they’ve got Netflix and Amazon are those things that differentiate us,” [HBO CEO Casey] Bloys said.
After the Beverly Hills meeting, Max dropped its focus on children’s programming, acknowledging it couldn’t break through with young viewers already glued to Netflix and Disney+. Even sacred cows such as “Sesame Street” and the Looney Tunes content library were cut loose.
A lot of Discovery’s unscripted shows, from channels such as Food Network and HGTV, also weren’t moving the needle for Max. There is less of that on the platform now.
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Hollywood talent is crossing over into the Creator Economy
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