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Quick hits

Alex Cooper is a big get for SiriusXM, though there's a good chance it overpaid given that it was bidding against several other companies. [Axios] There's an argument to be made though that SiriusXM needs Cooper more than Spotify since the latter already hosts virtually every podcast in existence. SiriusXM also excels at leveraging star talent; after all, it built pretty much its entire radio business on top of Howard Stern.

"The rise and fall of the NatGeo brand provides an illuminating case study in how media empires are destroyed. That’s because ... National Geographic was once a huge empire—much larger than its current parent company Disney." [Honest Broker]

The next generation of top cinematographers and film editors are honing their craft on YouTube. It's amazing what can be accomplished now with relatively cheap equipment and editing software. The question remains as to whether these budding filmmakers will relinquish their creative freedom to work with Hollywood studios or simply stick with their own media channels. [Digital Spaghetti]

There will probably be future case studies written about Kamala's social media influencer strategy, though that strategy will be difficult to replicate since it requires motivation to post on the candidate's behalf. [Bloomberg] FROM THE ARTICLE: "It’s a reflection of the campaign’s belief that social media creators are at least as important as traditional media organizations for getting its message to voters. What’s more, some of them — not bound by journalistic doctrine against the appearance of bias — will even make speeches at the DNC in Chicago to rally support for Harris."

Back when interest rates were low and Hollywood studios were flush with cash, they'd sign huge up-front development deals with star producers — sometimes in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Many of these deals bore little fruit, and so now they're being reined in. [Puck] FROM THE ARTICLE: "The once-common $5 million-a-year overall deal for a mid-tier writer-producer has become $1 million, if you can get one at all."

How Philip Taylor built FinCon, the leading conference for personal finance creators

Today, the personal finance content niche is absolutely ginormous. You can’t open up YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram without encountering an influencer who gives advice on how to make and save money.

Philip Taylor anticipated this content explosion all the way back in 2011. That’s when he launched FinCon, a conference specifically designed for personal finance content creators. That first year he attracted around 250 attendees, but over the next decade it grew into the largest conference in this niche, with over 3,000 tickets sold.

In a recent interview, Philip walked through how he got into the personal finance space, his strategy for growing the conference, and his ambitions for launching similar conferences in other niche categories:

It was one of the most challenging things and rewarding things I'd ever done.So I was completely worn out and exhausted from the experience. I didn't make a lot of money. I want to say I made $20,000, $30,000 off of it, which for a first-year event, I guess, is not bad.

At the time, that was good additional money to have. But I knew it would be a long road to build it to a point to where it was its own standalone business. Luckily, my blog was doing very well at the time. That year after FinCon was the best year I ever had with the blog.

I completely attribute it to having been the guy who ran the conference. At the time, I was sort of a B-level blogger within the community. Everyone sort of knew me. but I hadn't been around as long as most. And I certainly wasn't as prolific or as effective as some of the others. But FinCon catapulted me into a place where my blog was more respected and more known. It put me in a pivotal position, I guess, within the community. So I was blessed to have that.

More quick hits

There's been lots of attention paid to major sports leagues courting creators, but it's also becoming increasingly common for the largest creators to produce their own sports programming where they own 100% of the broadcasting rights. [Publish Press]

"Poll after poll ranked [Jorge Ramos] among the most influential Latinos in the United States; during his thirty-eight years as an anchor at Univision, the network’s standing came to rival that of the Catholic Church." [New Yorker]

A newsletter that specializes in sharing positive news employs a team of curators in the Philippines to sift through hundreds of news outlets in search of stories and then deliver a list of URLs to the California-based writing team by the time they wake up in the morning. [Creator Spotlight]

Ezra Klein was one of the first prominent columnists to call for Biden to drop out of the race, and Biden’s eventual decision to do so has transformed Klein into "perhaps the most influential Democratic media figure." [Semafor] What's especially remarkable about this is that Klein came up through the blogosphere, first writing for a blog called Pandagon all the way back in the early 2000s. He later went on to run an incredibly popular wonk blog at the Washington Post and then co-founded Vox. I was surprised he decamped to the Times instead of launching his own independent venture, but it seems clear his association with the newspaper has elevated his influence significantly.

Advertisers are abandoning local radio in droves. My guess is the increasing prevalence of music and podcast streaming in the car has something to do with it. The downside to this trend is there aren't many local news podcasts in existence, meaning that drivers are missing out on a key resource for news delivery. [CNN]

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. )

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