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

I've noticed an interesting trend at Vox Media's podcasting arm that seems to deviate from its non-podcast media operations; it partners with creators who have already-existing brands, presumably allowing them to retain their show IP while helping with the production and monetization. It's basically operating more like a talent agency than a traditional media company. [Business Insider]

One of the world's most influential food critics posts TikTok videos where he reviews restaurant food from his car. He specifically seeks out inexpensive, minority-owned restaurants, and a rave review from him can result in lines that stretch around a city block. [NYT]

Most of the big tech streamers — Netflix, Amazon, Apple — have shown little interest in live news, but Amazon's election night show with Brian Williams could represent a new approach where, instead of erecting an ongoing news operation, a streamer could just put out a single broadcast to coincide with a major news event. This would allow it to capitalize on mass interest while keeping overhead low. [Puck]

INTERESTING STRATEGY: A local news outlet in Boise refuses to feature non-local advertisers in its newsletter in order to create a better user experience: "We do not accept any programmatic or non-local advertising here. While we are probably leaving easy dollars on the table, we have calculated that this costs us in brand reputation and reputation with advertisers." [Lion]

It's the 10-year anniversary of Serial. It's almost difficult to articulate how much this one show changed the podcast landscape. Not only did it bring millions of podcast listeners into the fold, but it also spurred investors and advertisers to begin taking the format seriously. [Fast Company]

Facebook is consolidating all of its creator payout programs into a single dashboard and tool. Of course, it's still completely capricious and vague about how it doles out these payouts, which makes it difficult for creators to build true businesses on its platform. [Facebook]

How Mignon Fogarty launched a massively successful series of online courses

Mignon Fogarty isn’t just one of the world’s most popular podcasters, she’s also an incredibly innovative media entrepreneur. She launched her Grammar Girl podcast 18 years ago, and the success of that propelled her book onto the New York Times bestseller list. She also founded Quick & Dirty Tips, a media network she now runs in partnership with Macmillan Publishers.

To round out her media business even more, she’s launched around seven courses, all geared toward being a better communicator and writer. Thousands of people have taken them, and they’ve opened her up to an entirely new customer base for her content.

In a recent interview, Mignon explained how she entered the courses market, what goes into putting together a course, and why she decided to partner with powerful distributors like LinkedIn Learning rather than create the courses by herself:

LinkedIn  just approached me, too, because I have a relatively big LinkedIn group and following and someone was familiar with my work. So they initially approached me about first doing that really general writing course. And they are great. They are just the most professional people I have ever worked with. I just have nothing but amazing things to say about the LinkedIn Learning team there. You know, they understand how to do online education. They're positive. They're just great.

So the first one I did, I flew down to their studios in Carpinteria, California. They have movie studio sets, it's amazing. Like with the full lights and setup and you do makeup and hair, and before that you work for a couple of months at least with your scripts with a really great professional editing team.

More quick hits

A 63-year-old photographer has pretty much received carte blanche access to many of the world's biggest celebrities. It took him decades to build up that level of trust. [NYT]

"[Matt] Yglesias says he now has nearly 18,000 subscribers, which means he is likely grossing at least $1.4 million a year." [Business Insider] One thing to keep in mind though is that Yglesias was consistently publishing work at some of the world's largest media outlets — The Atlantic, Slate, Vox, Think Progress — for the better part of 15 years before striking off on his own.

Indiegraf has played an important role in helping bootstrapped local news outlets get off the ground and running. It's great to see it's in expansion mode. [Indiegraf]

This interview is a great case study for how to capitalize on viral moments: Bobbie Althoff was able to leverage early success on TikTok to land some A-list guest interviews on her podcast; those episodes then went viral, and now she's generating revenue in the high six figures while developing shows for Hollywood studios. [Wired]

This will be an interesting experiment to watch: a New Jersey company has bought up a bunch of hyper local news sites in the region and will try to drive synergies between them. [Axios]

One of the great things about the network effects of Substack is that it encourages niche communities to set up shop and cross-pollinate each other's content. That makes it a true growth engine for any creator who would otherwise struggle to build an audience. [Financial Times]

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