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:

Sign up here

Let’s jump into it…

Quick hits

The New York Times's games vertical is a subscription juggernaut, so it makes total sense that it would start hosting in-person competitions for its most devoted gamers. I wouldn't be surprised if this evolves into an international series where a succession of regional competitions lead up to a global championship. [Digiday]

Many of the largest YouTube stars now pull down audience numbers comparable to the most popular TV shows, yet they still struggle to command the same advertising rates. This is probably why many frustrated YouTubers are launching their own products to sell to their audiences. [WSJ]

Disney's parks division has become its main profit engine in recent years, partly because of its hiked prices. But there's only so much growth that can be squeezed out of a physical location, especially since consumers are starting to question whether the trip is worth the price tag. [WSJ]

Romantasy book sales are booming and Hollywood loves pre-existing IP with a proven sales record, so why aren't there more movie adaptations of the genre? [Bloomberg] FROM THE ARTICLE: "A male-dominated industry that’s blind to the tastes and interests of women and other marginalized groups is afraid to take risks and invest capital."

It's becoming increasingly common for book stores to switch from selling coffee and pastries during the day to wine and cocktails at night. [Eater]

With its lucrative cable revenue cratering, ESPN plans to lean more into sports opinion and gambling content. "Executives emphasized Wednesday that they're willing to elevate opinion analysts who are apathetic to traditional editorial standards to serve the modern fan." [Axios] Seems like recognition that the company is increasingly in competition with YouTubers and podcasters who pump out highly-opinionated analysis geared toward sports fans.

The gaming streamer Ninja talks about how he reached 260,000 paying subscribers on Twitch and how his thinking on brand deals has evolved. [Mighty]

How Local News Now built its loyal audience

Probably the chief worry right now in the media industry is how publishers will survive as large platforms like Google and Facebook continue to send less and less traffic, but Scott Brodbeck doesn’t lose much sleep wondering where his audience will come from. In 2010, he launched Arlington Now, and he’s grown the company into a network of news websites operating in the DC metro area. Not only is the network’s homepage traffic well above the industry average, but Scott is confident that his approach of producing differentiated content will protect him from platform disruption.

In a recent interview, Scott walked through every aspect of his audience engagement process, including how he automates his social media distribution, why he never shut down his website comments section, how he gets 40% of his audience to come to the homepage, and why he doesn’t bother with organizing live, in-person events:

So, you know, in my view, I do think that the traffic has declined. I haven't looked at the latest numbers, but my sense is it has declined. But we also see a bit of an effect where it's become more of a hits business. It used to be we'd publish an article and we'd see an immediate traffic spike once we put it out on social. And we very rarely see that now. It's only certain stories that do that.And then the effect over time is it becomes a hits business where there are days where we'll have one article that'll do 10 times the readership of any other article and stuff that used to reliably do a few thousand views in a day are like doing a thousand, but that that one over there is doing like 10,000 or more. We don’t want to go overboard optimizing for readership, but we do want people to come to our site and consume our content. That's kind of the point of the whole thing we're doing here is we want people reading us, so I'd say it hasn't resulted in us adjusting our editorial strategy. It's just a recognition that whereas we might publish three things and they'd all do pretty well, we're going to publish three things, and one's going to do really well and the rest are going to do okay. That's kind of our expectation at this point.

More quick hits

This is a great profile of Ruben Bolling, a cartoon satirist who's been producing his comic strip since the early 90s. [New Yorker]

Another video creator has left Vox Media to launch an independent channel. She says she was pulled into a meeting with higher-ups at The Verge and told that they could demand she take down content from her personal YouTube channel if they felt like it competed with The Verge. [Becca Farsace]

Publishers allowed themselves to become reliant on programmatic ad tech platforms, only for those same platforms to roll out "brand safety" tools that allow brands to divert their money away from those same publishers when they report on anything even remotely controversial. [Business Insider]

Yet another legacy media outlet relaunches its print publication. It's not because these companies think print will drive a lot of direct revenue; this is an attempt to increase brand recognition in an increasingly saturated content ecosystem. [Billboard]

Huh. It turns out consumers don't trust your product recommendations when they're written by AI. Who would have thought?? [The Verge]

Many of the digital media startups that reached consistent profitability resisted the temptation of raising massive VC investments. This allowed them to stay lean and adapt to the changing digital landscape. [Axios]

"Last year, Fortune generated around $130 million in revenue and notched its third straight year of profitability ... Before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization, it had a profit margin of roughly 8%—or $10 million—in 2023." It has 40,000 paying digital subscribers, so it seems like most of that revenue is coming from advertising and events. [Adweek]

Why I turn down most consultation requests

At least once a week, I get contacted by an organization that wants to hire me to work with them on a contract basis to improve some aspect of their content operations. I used to make a living with this type of consulting, but now I turn away almost 100% of these inquiries and refer them to someone else. 

Why? Because even though these types of engagements often pay well, they’re also pretty time consuming, which means they would subtract from the amount of time I spend on my newsletter and podcast.

But here’s the thing: the only way I can financially justify turning down this work is if I generate enough revenue through paid subscriptions. After all, I have an obligation to pay the mortgage and put food on my family’s table.

Which is to say that if you want to ensure that my newsletter and podcast remain an ongoing concern, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Seriously, it’s only $100 for a full year, and if you’re using insights from my content to improve your own business, then that $100 pays for itself. And if you use the link below, you get 20% off for the first year:

Get 20% off for 1 year