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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Quick hits

"The Bulwark, which now boasts nearly 30 staffers, is 'very close to breaking even' ... The outlet generates about $3.6 million alone on newsletter subscriptions, she said, and also draws on a separate dual revenue stream made up of advertisements and live events." [CNN]

INTERESTING: Piracy platforms are seeing a huge boost in usage as all the major streaming companies raise their prices. [Bloomberg]

I've always thought City Cast was innovative in its approach of pairing local newsletters with local podcasts. It's good to see that it's continuing to expand. [Nieman Lab]

People love to hate on Buzzfeed, but I sometimes wonder where it would be today if it said no to at least half of the VC cash that had been shoveled its way. [WSJ]

Lots of digital media companies have tried to wade into Hollywood production, and most have come away with mediocre results. [Hollywood Reporter]

If you had predicted a decade ago that Amazon would become the world's third largest advertising company in just a few short years, most people would have dismissed you as a crank. [Business Insider]

How Lucas Grindley helped Next City grow to 1,000 paying members

Lucas Grindley knows something about building sustainable revenue streams for media companies. When he was hired to Here Media, a network of LGBT news outlets, it was losing money, but over a period of six years he nurtured it back to profitability. 

Now he’s the executive director of Next City, a 20-year-old nonprofit magazine dedicated to urban policy and equitable cities. When he first joined, the publication was almost entirely reliant on large grants, but he’s since diversified its revenue by building up its ad sales and small-donor memberships. Recently, it crossed the threshold of 1,000 paying members.

In a recent interview, Lucas walked me through his successful tenure at Here Media and explained how he’s brought a similar playbook to Next City.

Watch our interview in the video embedded below:

If video embeds don’t work in your inbox, go here.

If you want to listen to an audio version of this interview, subscribe to The Business of Content wherever you get your podcasts: [Apple] [Spotify] [Amazon Music]

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. )

More quick hits

This is a great explainer of why NFL team ownership is so lucrative. SPOILER: It has a lot to do with how the NFL structured its media deals. [Search Party]

This is a great deep dive into the struggling financials of Recurrent Ventures, which raised a lot of cash to acquire media companies in advertiser-friendly verticals. [Adweek]

Creators are increasingly gaining leverage over the tech platforms, hence why platforms like Tiktok, Twitch, and Snapchat have been rolling out more favorable revenue share policies over the past year. [The Verge]

Brands will skip programmatic advertising and sponsor content creators directly if those creators can prove they can drive ROI. This is why publishers should be building more compelling ad products instead of relying on crappy banner ads. [Digiday]

I never considered this before: when all the high quality publishers block AI training bots, that means low-quality websites have disproportionate influence within LLMs. That seems bad! [Wired]

Want to pick my brain on your content strategy?

Are you contemplating a new content strategy and want someone to give you feedback? I’ve had more and more of my readers reach out and request consulting calls so they can pick my brain on a variety of issues including platform optimization, content strategy, and monetization.

You can now book a call with me directly through Substack. Use the link below to grab a time on my calendar:

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