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

It wasn't that long ago that Bon Appetit was considered to be one of the most innovative brands in the legacy magazine space, but it never really recovered from the controversy that led to many of its most prominent creators resigning. [Business Insider]

LinkedIn is the go-to "thought leadership" platform for hustle bros, and hustle bros love the idea of AI automation, hence why the platform is now flooded with low-quality AI-generated comments. I've certainly noticed quite a few popping up on my posts, and I try my best to block those accounts when I can. [Very Explainable]

Made-for-advertising sites siphon away $10 billion a year from legitimate publishers. Imagine if $10 billion were re-injected into the media industry next year. That would have a profound impact. And publishers are enabling all of this by allowing programmatic ad tech onto their websites. [WSJ]

"There isn’t a unifying event for sports, the way you see it in pop culture with Comic-Con, or for influencers with VidCon, or tech with CES or music with South By [SXSW], none of those platforms exist [for sports]." [Hollywood Reporter]

Are you going to CEX?

I’m super excited that I’ll be speaking at the Content Entrepreneur Expo in May. I went to it a few years ago when it was held in Arizona, and I was impressed by how well organized it was. In particular, I liked that there were so many networking sessions incorporated into the programming. As an introvert, it made it much easier for me to break out of my shell and meet people.

Anyway, this year it’s hosted in Cleveland from May 5 - 7. I’ll be giving a talk that goes deep on selling paid subscriptions. I’d love to meet up with any of you who are going, so definitely reach out if you want to organize drinks/lunch/dinner etc…

And if you haven’t bought your ticket yet, you can use the discount code OWENS100 and get $100 off.

More quick hits

Can we get news consumers to visit website homepages again? Sherwood is specifically designed around that goal. [Tedium]

WOW: "Today, podcasters on Substack are collectively earning more than $100 million in annual revenue, a number that has more than doubled in the past year." The platform also recently rolled out paid integration with Spotify, which I'm super excited about. [Substack]

This is a good profile of a successful newsletter that covers the Asian tech market. [Inbox Collective]

Axios is retooling its strategy to include "more live events, a membership program centered on its star journalists and an expansion of its high-end subscription newsletters." [NYT]

ICYMI: How The Author Stack grew to over 31,000 subscribers

Do you live in the Washington, DC area?

I occasionally organize gatherings with other media industry folks. These are pretty informal — usually just drinks and snacks on my apartment roof — but they’ve been a ton of fun. Reach out if you want to be included in future invites.

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