The rise and fall of the narrative podcast
PLUS: How I got my start in journalism
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…
Niche print magazines are the new vinyl records
Indie print magazines catering to outdoor enthusiasts are having a moment:
Like vinyl records and micro beers, they’re aimed at a small audience with appreciation for the craft. Most are at-home operations where the editors are owners, managing a web of freelancers and overseeing every bit of the production cycle.
Most of these magazines are aiming for a coffee table aesthetic — which means they use high quality printing methods, publish relatively infrequently, and don’t post any of their longform content online.
The rise and fall of the narrative podcast
A decade ago, narrative shows seemed poised to dominate the podcast landscape due to their high production value and original storytelling. But today, chat podcasts remain a much larger cultural force:
As falling ad revenue caused the podcast industry to rapidly contract, networks found themselves in need of more cost-efficient products. Chat-casts fit the mold perfectly. They can publish more episodes more regularly, which means more opportunities to make money; they can incrementally grow followings through sheer force of ubiquity and habit formation; and they can propel their way in front of even more audiences with big guest bookings that can result in viral moments. If the host is someone with a built-in following, you’re halfway to a solid business right there.
I can say my own listening habits have shifted to where I've unsubscribed to the vast majority of narrative shows I used to listen to.
Human news curators still provide value
Wired profiles a journalist who's built a huge personal brand by curating news on Twitter:
[Phil] Lewis is behind one of the most popular—and most reliable—news accounts on X. … Lewis has a sixth sense for news, and has made himself into an indispensable voice on an app that, these days, is drowning in noise (having 409,000 followers doesn’t hurt either). He did so by sticking to a particular formula: platforming overlooked and underrepresented stories with more context, humanness, and understanding.
How Android Intelligence built a thriving paid membership
When JR Raphael launched his Android Intelligence newsletter in 2018, it was mainly a roundup of news meant to complement his Computerworld column of the same name. But as the newsletter amassed an audience, it began to take on a life of its own, so much so that JR eventually built a thriving paid membership that now provides the bulk of his income.
In a recent interview, JR walked through every aspect of his membership strategy, including:
Why he lets in new members only a few times a year
How he built a thriving community forum where members interact with each other
How he reduces churn
Why he decided to launch two new newsletters focused on Windows and internet tools
You can find the interview over here.
How the Longform Podcast documented a media era
The Longform Podcast is sadly coming to an end. It provided a great way to learn about the career trajectories of the world's most talented nonfiction writers, and it also serves as a sort of historical record of the media industry’s last 20 years — both the good and the bad:
More so than any individual interview or moment, Longform’s greatest gift will be its archive. Its 12-year run chronicles the media landscape in a more defined way, perhaps, than any other outlet. Since my interest in online writing developed, I’ve read everything I could find on the rise and fall of various websites, but nothing situates me in the moment quite like a Longform episode. When I get consumed by a writer’s old work … and the shuttered publications they wrote for, more often than not there is a Longform episode to supplement the written history. If you want to learn about writers’ processes, it’s the place to go. If you want to hear rejection stories and tales of someone taking a chance on writers, it’s the place to go. A single Longform episode can invoke fierce inspiration or great sorrow, sometimes both within an hour.
Digital comics are becoming an IP goldmine
The investment firm Blackstone just purchased a Japanese manga publisher for $1.7 billion. Digital manga comics alone now generate $3 billion a year:
Infocom’s main source of revenue is from Mecha Comics, a website and app where users can pay as little as a few cents to read a chapter of serialized comics. Some of the most popular titles include workplace comedies or fantasy melodramas with intimate romantic storylines …
… Global interest in Japan-created content has surged as streaming companies rush for rights to stories that have already resonated well to produce live action or animated shows. Some of Japan’s best-known anime, such as Dragon Ball or Naruto, started as serialized manga before gaining global popularity. Recent Netflix hits like One Piece and YuYu Hakusho were also originally manga works.
How I got my start in journalism
Your First Byline interviewed me about how I broke into journalism. You’ll probably be surprised by how little interest I had in the field at the beginning:
So I was lucky enough to graduate college in 2006. This was before the Great Recession, back when newspapers were still hiring entry-level reporters. For the first few months after graduation I worked at the Walmart near my university, and it was only after my apartment lease ran out that I was forced to move back in with my parents, who lived in Richmond at the time. I then proceeded to print up dozens of copies of my resume and a generic cover letter and mailed it out to every newspaper within a 100-mile radius.
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. )
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In my opinion there are two really key and valuable insights in this issue: the first is related to niche magazines. It is a very growing phenomenon in Europe too and specifically I see many examples of it in our country. People want unique and particular perspectives, very close to their thoughts or ideas on certain aspects, they want original foramts that go beyond the news and, what I have noticed, they really want to feel the exclusivity of being part of a small community, of an intellectual or other 'club'. In my opinion, this is the real insight and very important also for large companies to be able to properly exploit this trend with dedicated products. The second great insight in my opinion is related to podcasts, but not only to the topic of narratives, but also to the fact that in my opinion there is an increasingly changing habits related to them. They have now become a widely spread product and therefore here too. we are seeing strong diversification and podcasting as a key part of many content ecosystems. Perhaps, these trends are also close to the other interesting thing you covered, relating to human news curators, who despite always being data in decline, resist and indeed are increasingly liked when they manage to curate what they write according to particular or unexplored aspects.