Media outlets outsourced all their audience engagement to the tech platforms

PLUS: There's no downside to blocking AI bots from crawling a publisher's website.

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.

If you fit into the latter camp and want to subscribe, then you can click on this handy little button:

Let’s jump into it…

Why newsrooms are taking comments seriously again

From New Public:

Reader comments are having a mini renaissance. After years of chasing social media engagement and being burned in the process, publishers have realised that commenting has a tangible value — to the broader public, yes, but also in terms of advertising and subscription revenue.

The Washington Post relaunched its subscribers-only commenting platform in late 2024, promising “meaningful and high-quality discourse” as part of an effort to create “a space where diverse perspectives can connect, engage and thrive.” After an initial outpouring of reader pushback, the commenting tools now seem to be fully integrated into the site.

The Financial Times now uses automated moderation tools to help readers have smarter discussions under articles and encourage comments from people who don’t typically engage. Meanwhile, WIRED touted a new commenting experience — where readers can connect with journalists and writers — as part of its new, improved subscription offering.

I’ve always thought it was insane that so many news outlets shut down their comments sections in the 2010s. These publishers spent years complaining that Facebook and other tech behemoths were stealing their audiences, yet they willingly pushed their most engaged readers onto those same platforms. Some even argued that they’d rather people comment on Facebook posts than on their own article pages.

Their justification was that comment sections had become “cesspools.” But in reality, a modest investment in community management could have eliminated most of the trolling and bad behavior.

What’s especially wild in hindsight is that comment sections could have been a powerful growth tool. Publishers could have required registration, collected email addresses, and built direct relationships with their most loyal readers. That would have positioned them far better once Facebook and Google began devaluing links and throttling traffic. Instead, many of these outlets were left scrambling years later to rebuild those relationships through newsletters.

Introducing the Substack TV app, now in beta

From On Substack:

Today we’re launching the Substack TV app for Apple TV and Google TV. Substack is the home for the best longform—work creators put real care into and subscribers choose to spend time with. Now these thought-provoking videos and livestreams have a natural home on the TV, where subscribers can settle in for the extended viewing that great video deserves …

At launch, subscribers can:

Watch video posts and livestreams from the creators and publications they’re subscribed to

Browse a “For You” row that highlights videos from their subscriptions, plus recommended videos

Open a dedicated page for each subscription to explore more videos from a specific publication

This seems like a waste of time for Substack. While the platform has done a relatively good job of getting its users to upload more video and even attracted some video-first creators, most of what I've seen is unpolished and wouldn't really stand out in the highly competitive OTT environment. I get that every social media platform has looked at YouTube's success on connected TVs and wants to get in on the action, but I think Substack would be much better off investing its limited resources into growing its web and mobile footprint. Once it's conquered those two environments, then it can turn its attention to the streaming wars.

I’m tracking which brands are sponsoring newsletters

What’s the easiest way to sell sponsorships in your newsletter? Most publishers would tell you to start with the brands that have already advertised in other newsletters. But here’s the problem: there are thousands upon thousands of newsletters out there and no standardized ad units. This means that the only way to have a comprehensive picture of who’s advertising in newsletters is to subscribe to them all and then open them, one by one.

Luckily for you, I’m doing all that work for you. I’ve created a database tracking hundreds of newsletters across a wide range of B2B and B2C niches. I’ve logged 1,936 newsletter sponsorships so far, and that number is quickly growing. Check it out.

Eight in ten of world’s biggest news websites now block AI training bots

From Press Gazette:

Some 79% of almost 100 top news websites in the UK and US are blocking at least one crawler used for AI training out of OpenAI’s GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Anthropic-ai, CCBot, Applebot-Extended and Google-Extended.

Meanwhile 71% are blocking AI bots from crawling their sites for retrieval or live searches. Those bots are: ChatGPT-User, Claude-Web, Perplexity-User and OAI-SearchBot.

I don't really see any downside to a publisher blocking pretty much all AI bots other than Google. The traffic they send is pretty negligible while at the same time the value they extract is much greater. It also gives publishers leverage to negotiate specific licensing deals.

ICYMI: How two college friends reunited to build a thriving politics podcast

Pantsuit Politics succeeded by not trying to cater to audiences in coastal cities.

British Podcasters Are Moving to the US to Win Fans in a Crucial Market

Many of the biggest video podcasts record their interviews in person rather than relying on remote tools like Riverside or Squadcast. That means breaking into the top tier of the podcast world often requires having a studio in a city where high-profile guests regularly pass through. In the U.S., that usually means Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York — or, somewhat unexpectedly, Austin. [Bloomberg]

(BTW, I used a gift link so you can access that article for free.)

Are you following me on social?

You can follow me on Substack Notes, Threads, my private Facebook group, LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Twitter.