The Rebooting Show

This week on The Rebooting Show, I spoke to The Juggernaut’s founder and CEO Snigda Sur. We discussed the need she saw for a publication focused on South Asians, going through Ycombinator as a media company, using subscriptions as a base of a business model and more. Listen on Apple, Spotify and other podcast services.

This week, I caught up with Larry Fitzgibbon, the CEO of Tastemade. I think of Tastemade as an original digital video brand, ahead of its time in many ways since it was founded back in 2012, before streaming was even a thing. This was an era when online video was still mostly about webisodes nobody watched and YouTube’s famed dog on a skateboard videos. Tastemade has been at the forefront of many trends, as it is now with its focus on everything from IP to subscriptions with Tastemade+ and recreating the modern version of the cable channel. 

The media business in 2024 To kick off the year on The Rebooting Show, I spoke to Axios senior media reporter Sara Fischer about the main themes of the year ahead. Among the topics we covered: The value of identifying patterns from the torrent of news The unrealistic expectations of the ZIRP/scale era Cyclical challenges vs structural changes The wasteland of general interest publications The existential threat of AI to many publishing businesses AI’s impact on the non-content aspects of the publishing function How debt will accelerate the inevitable consolidation of streaming services

I spoke to Matt Cronin, founding partner of House of Kaizen, a consultancy that works with publishers on their subscription and recurring revenue products. Among the topics we covered: fixing misaligned incentives in publishing  whether peak subscription exists subscriptions as a force function to be customer centric  what publishers should and shouldn’t learn from the success of The New York Times The struggles of many streaming services  what publishers can learn from subscription companies outside media 

Matt Reustle, CEO of Colossus, a business-focused podcasting network that’s home to Invest Like the Best, Business Breakdowns and Founders, sees podcasting as an antidote to many of the ills of algorithmic media. “To me, it's the highest trust media. I think everything else now lacks nuance. And I actually still care about nuance. There are shorter attention spans, which I completely understand. Where do you actually get time to hear someone talk about opinions that aren't scripted? Is it proper back and forth conversation, not just a bunch of us talking at one another on Twitter and replies aren't really constructive conversation?” We spoke about why podcasts excel at nuance, the business models underpinning the business, and why subscriptions haven’t yet become as widespread in podcasts as other digital media formats.

On this week’s episode of The Rebooting Show, I spoke to Tomiwa Aladekomo, CEO of Big Cabal, a Nigerian digital media company that’s home to a pair of properties: Tech Cabal, which I describe as similar to TechCrunch but with more memes and Zikoko, a BuzzFeed-like culture publication.  Big Cabal has raised $2.3 million in venture capital as it builds an independent digital media company in Africa’s largest economy that's geared to shifting consumption patterns. Tomiwa and I discuss how Big Cabal looks to find white spaces in the market, making hard calls when to pull back on efforts like it recently did with a citizen journalism project, when brands can be pan-African vs market specific, and an on-the ground assessment of the impact of Semafor in its Africa push.

The Rebooting recently wrapped up its second research project in collaboration with BlueConic. Patrick Crane, vp of sales at BlueConic, joined me on The Rebooting Show to discuss the state of subscriptions at publishers and the maturation of the market.  “One of the reasons I call it a forever business is to call out the fact that there is going to be ongoing work,” Patrick told me, “but also that it sets you up to play a very sustainable game.” Among the topics covered: The shifting role of steep discounts in subscription programs Why ad avoidance is really more bad UX avoidance The wisdom of making subscription products for specific slices of your audience Check out "The State of Publisher Subscriptions" report.

Bridget Williams is a veteran of the industry. I first got to know Bridget when she was at Business Insider prior to heading to Food52 before landing at Hearst Newspapers in tk, where she is chief commercial officer. On this week’s episode of The Rebooting Show, we spoke about the progress toward a sustainable business model for Hearst news outlets like The Houston Chronicle, The San Francisco Chronicle and others around the country. All told, Hearst newspaper properties have 400,000 digital subscribers. Bridget and I discuss how a "thoughtful mercenary" approach to local news means looking to non-news products to provide utility to communities to subsidize the critical impact journalism that is disappearing from many places.

The Guardian has used voluntary reader contributions as a bulwark of its unique model that blends philanthropy, advertising and voluntary contributions. In the U.S., The Guardian now generates 57%, or $33 million, of its revenue from voluntary contributions, either one-off or recurring.  On this week’s episode of The Rebooting Show, I spoke with Steve Sachs, The Guardian’s U.S. managing director and veteran of non-profit news models, about this approach and how extensible it is for news publishers.

Jeff Selingo spent eight years at the Chronicle of Higher Education, serving as editor in chief and editorial director, before setting off on his own path. Jeff and I have traded notes on the independent path over the years, and I wanted to have him on The Rebooting Show to discuss what we’ve both learned on the independent path. We discuss the transition from editorial to sales, why treating “lifestyle business” as a pejorative is strange, and fighting the pull to rebuild what you left behind.