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Let’s jump into it…

Quick hits

I would argue that the YouTuber Gawx is more talented at video editing than 99% of professional filmmakers in Hollywood. His attention to detail is exquisite. [Digital Spaghetti]

How the Cold War gave birth to the Hollywood Western. [Momentary Experts]

It's been two years since WBEZ acquired the Chicago Sun Times. While the latter has succeeded in creating new revenue streams via its newsletters and events, its membership program has underperformed expectations. [Nieman Lab]

"Several [cable TV networks] have lost more than half their audiences in a decade. They've essentially become ghost networks, filling their schedules with reruns and barely trying to push toward anything new." [AP]

This is a great investigation into a popular podcaster and YouTuber who embellished his credentials to build his following. [Guardian]

Huge podcast deals haven't gone away. They're now just going to the shows that have already built huge, loyal audiences. [Bloomberg]

This is a good interview with Semafor's media reporter, who's become a go-to source for breaking news of industry layoffs. [Slate]

A decade ago, Time Inc bought a successful car-enthusiast YouTube channel but didn't know what to do with it, so it died a slow death. Now it's under new ownership and attempting to resurrect itself. [The Drive]

How I would handle CNN's transition to digital

Back in January 2022 I wrote a piece titled “Why I’m betting against CNN+.” As I argued at the time, CNN serves as a sort of “ambient television” that people watch during commercial breaks or when they’re waiting for a show on another network to start, and as such it doesn’t have much value outside of some larger bundle. I was highly doubtful that a substantial group of CNN “superfans” would follow it to some standalone streaming app.

I wasn’t the only one who thought this; in a relatively short period of time after I wrote that piece, the company now known as Warner Bros Discovery fired CNN head Jeff Zucker, hired Chris Licht as his replacement, and then shuttered CNN+ a mere month after its launch. To be fair to Zucker, we can’t declare CNN+ a failure since it never had the opportunity to truly get off the ground.

Either way, I think most people can agree that the next year was pretty disastrous for the network. Not only did Licht alienate the staff with his mix of arrogance and aloofness, but he also doubled down on CNN’s linear TV offerings at the expense of its digital transition. In the Atlantic profile that ultimately led to his ouster, he was depicted as having a constant obsession with Nielsen TV ratings and devoting nearly all of his energy to shuffling around the hosts and segments of various CNN shows. Nowhere in the 15,000 word article does he even acknowledge that the internet exists. That’s crazy!

Now, we’re firmly in the Mark Thompson era of CNN, and there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about where it’s headed. Not only did Thompson play a vital role in the growth of the New York Times’s massive subscription business, but he’s also issued a series of memos that actually acknowledge the decline of the linear cable bundle and that CNN’s future is dependent upon the company fully embracing the internet for both distribution and monetization.

But as for how this strategy will actually play out? We’re still mostly in the dark. Puck’s Dylan Byers reported on the growing agitation among the CNN rank-and-file over Thompson’s vague statements about what this digital transition will entail:

The network veterans are also growing increasingly dubious about Thompson’s ability to guide them out of this morass, and anxious about the speed at which he seems to be abandoning the core linear product before standing up these to-be-determined digital revenue streams. In fact, the philosophizing inside CNN seems to coalesce around a sort of riddle, and one that profoundly reflects their own vulnerability and loss of confidence. Yes, yes, linear is in retreat, but CNN’s decision to accelerate its demise by not investing there could backfire and capsize the whole enterprise. Thinly veiled beneath employees’ outward pride in their historic enterprise is that it’s potentially a few strategic misfires away from becoming Yahoo.

Mark Thompson has a delicate balancing act ahead of him; he can't jeopardize the lucrative cable TV product that provides CNN with all its profits, but he also has to set up the company for its post-TV future. Whatever the solution is, it’ll likely involve a major restructuring of the organization that will cause some amount of pain, and so I don’t blame him for being intentionally vague until he’s actually ready to pull the trigger on the changes.

Luckily, as a media analyst with virtually no influence over his decisions, I don’t have to be as delicate with my prescriptions for how to fix CNN and prepare it for its digital future. Here are some major initiatives I would push through if I were in Thompson’s shoes:...