The thriving Creator Economy company you've never heard of
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: If you’re already signed up and want to support the work I do here, the subscription link below will give you 10% off for your first year: Let’s jump into it… The thriving Creator Economy company you've never heard ofThis is an incredible breakdown of how a group of YouTube creators banded together to launch a streaming platform that now has hundreds of thousands of paid subscribers: I had heard of Nebula before — mostly from seeing it mentioned by YouTubers — but the company hasn’t really received much industry press coverage, likely because it never raised gobs of VC money. I think what’s most fascinating about the story was how its owners figured out the right set of incentives that would get famous YouTubers to promote the service to their own fans. I think one of the main reasons that so many VC-backed media companies fail is that they’re not incentivized to find a product-market fit early on — mostly because they have so much cash to burn on money-losing ventures. The founders of Nebula were never afforded enough rope to hang themselves. YouTube is a television behemothYouTube is still mostly thought of as a platform that you consume on your desktop computer or phone, and so it’s easy to forget that it’s arguably the most successful TV destination in the medium’s history:
ICYMI: This YouTuber built a massive following with pop music guitar lessonsYoutuber David Potsiadlo capitalized on the fact that a lot of people actively seek out instructions on how to play their favorite songs. Are paid subscription podcasts about to go mainstream?Earlier this year, The Economist took its incredibly successful podcast network and locked it behind a paywall. Digital Content Next published a deep dive into how this move fits into the magazine’s larger subscription strategy:
A lot of publishers have been wary of investing in paywalled podcasts, mostly because it wasn't easy to get them on to subscribers' podcast players. But now that Apple and Spotify have launched subscription integrations, we'll probably see more and more publishers experiment with them. Why news publishers should expand their lifestyle coverageIf there’s anything we’ve learned from The New York Times’s success, it’s that hard news coverage produces diminishing returns, especially in non-election years. While outlets like WashPo were doubling down on their politics coverage, the NYT was expanding into verticals like recipes, product reviews, games, and sports. Some media outlets are starting to capitalize on this lesson. Newsday, for instance, has seen significant success from expanding its restaurant coverage:
Do you sell a product targeted toward marketers, media executives, or professional creators?What a coincidence! That’s exactly who reads my newsletter. You can find out how to advertise to them over here. The Great Podcast Correction comes for public radioWNYC set the gold standard for how a local public radio station could embrace podcasting, but now it's shifting focus back toward its traditional broadcast programming. Basically, if a show can't perform well as a syndicated radio program, WNYC doesn't want to run it:
It’s worth mentioning that WNYC shows have extremely high production values, which means their cost-per-episode is probably well above industry average. With the podcast advertising landscape experiencing a sizable market correction, I can see why the organization is struggling to justify programming that only has a single line of revenue. How Substack justifies its 10% feeOne of the most consistent criticisms lodged against Substack’s business model is that it can’t justify its 10% fee when there are other platforms out there that take a much smaller cut of subscriber revenue. According to this line of thinking, every talented writer, once their audience reaches a sufficient size, will eventually succumb to economics and migrate their email list and Stripe account to another platform that charges something closer to a fixed fee. I don’t think this criticism holds much water for multiple reasons, but this piece from a newsletter that recently hit 100,000 subscribers does a good job of capturing the biggest differentiator between Substack and all other publishing platforms:
The analogy I like to use is that Substack is a point-and-shoot-camera, whereas more customizable platforms like Convertkit are the equivalent of a DSLR. The vast majority of creators would get by just fine with the former and would likely underutilize the features of the latter. Often times, the simpler product is the better one, especially when that product is free-to-use from the get-go. I’m looking for more media entrepreneurs to feature on my newsletter and podcastOne 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:
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. ) Let’s take this relationship to the next levelI 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: You're currently a free subscriber to Simon Owens's Media Newsletter. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
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Big tech is breaking up with publishers
Friday, October 20, 2023
PLUS: How to use Instagram for news distribution
Instagram proves it still doesn’t understand the Creator Economy
Thursday, October 19, 2023
PLUS: A sneak preview of what's coming
This local news outlet carved out a lucrative niche by targeting Indianapolis women
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Leslie Bailey explained how Indy Maven grew from a weekly newsletter into an events and coworking company.
Can local podcasts become profitable?
Friday, October 6, 2023
PLUS: How Michael Lewis became a nonfiction juggernaut
Is a decline of social media traffic bad for publishers?
Tuesday, October 3, 2023
PLUS: The podcasting industry has entered its sink-or-swim era.
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