The most powerful media platform in the history of humanity

PLUS: The zombification of failed media brands

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…

Enjoy my newsletter and/or podcast?

By becoming a paid subscriber, you’ll help put food on my table:

Quick hits

I think the world is only starting to wake up to how much YouTube dominates screen time — whether it's TVs, desktops, or mobile phones. It's even starting to creep into our non-screen listening time with YouTube Music adoption. It's quickly becoming the most powerful media platform in the history of humanity. [Business Insider]

Traditional media companies have a pretty poor track record of running gaming studios. [Business Insider]

So YouTube is obviously a huge player in the podcast space, but my gut tells me that most of its podcast consumption is happening on the video versions of podcasts, whereas very few people are using YouTube Music to just listen to podcasts. Obviously, it's trying to change those consumption habits, but I'm guessing Spotify and Apple still beat it when it comes to podcast listening. [Business Insider]

Large media brands rarely die these days; they just reemerge as zombie versions of their prior selves. [Axios]

Dotdash Meredith built its own in-house ad targeting tool, and so far it seems to be producing strong revenue for the company. [Press Gazette]

Many mainstream publications have partnered with a company that specializes in AI-generated content slop. [Futurism]

Matt Yglesias reflects on his experience of quitting his Vox job to launch his own newsletter: "I have no idea what the future of journalism is, but I do think we can now say that part of the future of journalism is the existence of a bunch of small-scale subscription publications like this one. That it is both possible to secure an audience and to do the basic work with these tools, and people in the larger ecosystem are increasingly aware of newsletters and respect them." [Slow Boring]

Gumroad is cutting checks to creators in exchange for some type of revenue share going forward. Basically the idea is to give the creator a cash infusion so they can scale up their business more quickly. [Publish Press]

ICYMI: How Political Wire built its successful subscription offering

I’m looking for more media entrepreneurs to feature on my newsletter and podcast

One of the things I really pride myself on is that I don’t just focus this newsletter on covering the handful of mainstream media companies that every other industry outlet features. Instead, I go the extra mile to find and interview media entrepreneurs who have been quietly killing it behind the scenes. In most cases, the operators I feature have completely bootstrapped their outlets.

In that vein, I’m looking for even more entrepreneurs to feature. Specifically, I’m looking for people succeeding in these areas:

• Niche news sites

• Video channels like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels

• Podcasts

• Newsletters

• Affiliate/ecommerce

Interested in speaking to me? You can find my contact info over here. (please don’t simply hit reply to this newsletter because that’ll go to a different email address. )

Want a daily dose of media industry news?

I only send this newsletter out twice a week, but I curate industry news on a daily basis. Follow me on one of these social platforms if you want your daily fix:

1. Substack Notes

2. Threads

3. My private Facebook group

4. LinkedIn

5. Bluesky