Traditional media outlets don't like competing with the Creator Economy

PLUS: Should you be distributing your content over SMS text message?

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…

Quick hits

Want to get on the phone with a high-powered executive who normally wouldn't give you the time of day? You'll vastly increase your chances if you ask to interview them for your podcast. [Bloomberg]

The Biden campaign had hired hundreds of 20-somethings to run his digital operations, but it wasn't until Kamala Harris inherited that team that its content started to gain real traction and go viral. It turns out the candidate matters just as much as the content strategy. [Bloomberg]

This YouTuber generated 4.4 million subscribers and 1.7 billion views by creating upwards of three scripted films a week for her channel. She's building out an entire film studio in Birmingham and says she wants to emulate the career of Tyler Perry. [Colin & Samir]

Large media outlets are concerned that the Snapchat redesign will make it so they have to compete in the same feed as small creators. Cry me a river. [Business Insider]

From the very beginning, one of the smartest things Axios ever did was focus on collecting email addresses across niche verticals. So even though it was, in some ways, a general purpose news site, it essentially operated a series of niche newsletters with mostly separate audiences, which meant it was collecting extremely rich first party data that would be valuable to advertisers. [Digiday]

Hollywood producers have griped for years that Netflix changed the way payouts are structured so they're no longer rewarded for huge hits, but now that Netflix is trying to re-introduce an incentive-based compensation structure, suddenly those same producers aren't so excited to give up their huge upfront payments. [Puck]

"Over the last several decades, a quiet revolution has taken place in American fiction: The novels recognized by major literary prizes have largely abandoned the present in favor of the past. Contemporary fiction has never been less contemporary." [The Nation]

How Dan Oshinsky used his popular newsletter to grow his consulting business

With each passing year, the major tech platforms send less and less traffic to publishers, which is why nearly every media outlet has doubled down on growing its newsletter subscriptions. 

To help in this effort, many have turned to Dan Oshinsky.  Dan led the newsletter operations for outlets like BuzzFeed and The New Yorker before striking off on his own to launch Inbox Collective, a newsletter consultancy. While he often attracts clients through traditional word-of-mouth, Dan has also invested heavily in producing his own content about the newsletter space, and this has greatly expanded his network and personal brand within the media industry.

In a recent interview, Dan walked through his content strategy and explained how the hundreds of articles he’s published contributed to growing his consulting business:

So the content strategy came out of a place where, at a certain point, about two-ish years ago, I realized that on a regular basis I was getting asked for links about certain topics. Hey, have you read a good thing about how to write a welcome series or a win-back series or different newsletter business models? You know, where's that article? And I was just going, oh, you know what? I haven't seen that piece yet. I've seen things that touch on part of it, but not all the advice that I would share. And so the inevitable thing is, well, if nobody else is going to write it, then I guess I need to do it. And so the website came out of a desire to make sure that I was sharing resources and links that I thought would be valuable.

More quick hits

This is a fun profile of a Seattle-based publishing empire that serves as a crucial resource for the world's mountain-climbing community. [Seattle Times]

Many of the world's largest publishers are now using Subtext, a platform that makes it easy for them to send SMS text message to subscribers who opt into the service. They view it as another way to form a direct relationship with audiences, especially in an era when the major tech platforms are siphoning off distribution. [Press Gazette]

The Free Press published an update on the state of its business. It has 800,000 free newsletter subscribers and employs "dozens of reporters, editors, and producers." A recent podcast it launched is sitting at the top of the Apple podcast charts "next to some guy named Joe Rogan," and it's selling out tickets to a live debate series. [Free Press]

Given that CNN has one of the most-visited news websites in the entire world, it's incredible that its top executives only recently began getting serious about turning that website into a true business that generates meaningful revenue. [NYT] Imagine if the New York Times had spend the last 15 years solely focused on how it could juice more revenue out of its print product. That's basically been CNN's strategy prior to Mark Thompson's hiring.

"A rising tide of slop has begun to swamp most of what we think of as the internet, overrunning the biggest platforms with cheap fakes and drivel, seeming to crowd out human creativity and intentionality with weird AI crap." [New York]

Hasan Minhaj lost his Daily Show hosting gig because of a New Yorker article that accused him of misleading audiences, and so he decided to launch his own YouTube interview show. [Esquire]

Don’t take my newsletter and podcast for granted

At least once a week, I get contacted by an organization that wants to hire me to work with them on a contract basis to improve some aspect of their content operations. I used to make a living with this type of consulting, but now I turn away almost 100% of these inquiries and refer them to someone else. 

Why? Because even though these types of engagements often pay well, they’re also pretty time consuming, which means they would subtract from the amount of time I spend on my newsletter and podcast.

But here’s the thing: the only way I can financially justify turning down this work is if I generate enough revenue through paid subscriptions. After all, I have an obligation to pay the mortgage and put food on my family’s table.

Which is to say that if you want to ensure that my newsletter and podcast remain an ongoing concern, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Seriously, it’s only $100 for a full year, and if you’re using insights from my content to improve your own business, then that $100 pays for itself. And if you use the link below, you get 20% off for the first year: