Is the clipping economy overvalued?
PLUS: Amazon Prime is going all in on romance fiction.
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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Random thought bubble
I wish I had a co-founder. Does anyone want to join my newsletter and podcast as a co-founder?
(I’m actually sort of serious. Email me if you like what I do and you’re entrepreneurial and you sort of want to do something similar. I have some ideas.)
Quick hits
A guy who runs one of the largest podcast networks thinks podcasters are taking a huge risk by pausing their YouTube channels so they can distribute exclusively on Netflix. “There’s no reason to believe if you have 10 million YouTube channel subscribers and you come off, when you go back on, that channel will still be active,” he said. He also thinks chopping up a longform podcast into shortform vertical video clips devalues the IP. [Business Insider]
Playboy has joined a growing number of legacy publishers relaunching their print magazines—not as a mass-market media play, but as a way to differentiate their brands in an ocean of online content. That strategy is especially important for Playboy, whose business relies heavily on licensing its iconic rabbit-head logo. [Press Gazette]
Beehiiv now lets its creators funnel their subscribers into an online forum that can be paywall gated. Based on the demo video I watched, it looks like a mix between Substack’s chat feature and Slack. [Creator Spotlight]
ICYMI: How The Discourse scaled its business model to 34 local news sites
The media startup developed a membership model that involves asking the audience what news should be covered.
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
This is a fun story about how a single editor at the Daily Mail trained an army of rightwing journalists who have since gone on to run many of the most influential newspapers on Fleet Street. “[Paul Dacre] was in many ways the inventor of modern culture-war journalism, and of the workplace practices that make its ceaseless production of outrage possible.” [The Guardian]
Amazon Prime has aggressively moved into romance fiction, not only adapting popular novels into TV shows and movies, but also launching a romance fan convention that’s attended by actors from its series. To find adaptable IP, its studio executives pay close attention to what’s trending on BookTok, which heavily concentrates on the genre. [WSJ] (I used a gift link so you can access the article for free.)
When Comcast announced it was spinning off its cable assets into the company now known as Versant, I think the widespread assumption was that it would quickly be sold off to a private equity firm that would just gradually squeeze out its remaining profits. But to Versant’s credit, it’s been incredibly aggressive at trying to diversify and grow its business, not only by acquiring other companies but also with its plans to expand its FAST offerings via Fandango. [Hollywood Reporter]
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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.
You can purchase the ebook over here.
This corporate consultant grew to 260,000 TikTok and YouTube subscribers in only 8 months
For most of her career, Ashanti Bentil-Dhue didn’t have a social media presence. But after spending a decade running a consulting business, she moved from the UK to New York and decided to start sharing her ideas publicly for the first time. Armed with little more than an iPhone, she began posting unscripted TikTok videos about the experiences of single women. Within months, she had built an audience of hundreds of thousands of followers and expanded into a media business that now includes a Substack publication, YouTube channel, and consulting.
In a recent interview, Bentil-Dhue explained how she built a large audience despite having no prior social media experience, why she believes consistency matters more than high-end production, and how she’s turning her growing platform into a sustainable business.
You can watch the interview on YouTube.
If you want to listen to an audio version, subscribe to the Business of Content wherever you get your podcasts: [Apple] [Spotify]