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Have you published your 100 pieces of content?

MrBeast gets asked a lot for advice on becoming a YouTuber. His most consistent response: "Make 100 videos, and with each new video try to add one new thing to make it better than the last one."

This just dovetails with something I've said over and over: consistency is a creator's greatest super power.

I've written about this before, but I think there's so much misleading reporting around the power laws in the Creator Economy. You've probably come across claims that only 2% of creators generate the almost all of the revenue, but that doesn't tell you much when the barrier to entry to launching a YouTube channel or newsletter is pretty much zero. A much more accurate measure would involve polling only the creators who have made at least 100 pieces of longform content. The success rate for that cohort would be much higher.

Mill Media proved that audiences would pay for local news

When the Manchester Mill launched in 2020, it operated on a simple theory: that local audiences would pay for news as long as it was original and differentiated. The Mill quickly proved that model out and was able to hire its first full-time employee within a matter of months. From there, founder Joshi Herrmann decided to replicate this model across other cities in the UK, and Mill Media now runs six publications that have collectively amassed tens of thousands of paid subscribers.

In a recent interview, Joshi discussed why he first got interested in local news, how he decided to expand to different cities, and whether he thinks his model can be copied by other local news startups.

You can find the interview over here.

Why YouTube’s TV viewership matters

I was aware YouTube's TV viewership was growing like gangbusters, but I'm genuinely surprised that it's surpassed mobile viewership. After all, we carry our phones with us everywhere, and yet we're only in front of our TVs for a relatively small portion of our days.

What does this mean for YouTube and creators? That they'll be able to capture more and more of the brand advertising that was once reserved for linear broadcasts. TV is considered a "lean back" medium, meaning that viewers are more intentional and engaged than they otherwise would be while browsing their phones. If you're a brand advertiser, that dynamic matters, and you're more likely to pay a premium to reach those viewers. That means higher CPMs, which means more revenue is being passed down to the creator.

The NFL is preparing for the sports bubble to burst

The NFL partnered with YouTube to organize a flag football game with creators, and it's a good example of how the organization is starting to view itself more as a media outlet than a traditional sports league. Sure, it's still licensing its most valuable games to outside broadcasters, but it's also ramping up in-house production of ancillary content that it can distribute directly to fans.

I'm on record as predicting that we're in a massive sports bubble that will eventually pop once the cable bundle can no longer fund the once-subsidized licensing fees. When that bubble pops, then the NFL will likely pivot to broadcasting its games on its own streaming app. This creator flag football game is basically a test run of what that would look like.

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Amazon poses a bigger threat to ESPN than Netflix

Amazon has already seen success with broadcasting Thursday Night Football, and now it’s adding the NBA to the mix:

“We’re really excited about elevating and being a new voice inside the NBA, and driving new audiences that are really valuable to our customers,” says Danielle Carney, the head of live sports and video sales for Amazon Ads. “When we think about how we start to partner with customers, we’re thinking about this from a multi-sport perspective. We’re able to connect the dots for them across the calendar now, through sponsorship and brand innovations that we’re doing.”

I think Amazon is a much bigger threat to ESPN than Netflix. At the end of the day, Netflix is just a media business. It monetizes through a combination of subscriptions and advertising, and right now the price of sports broadcasting rights are too overinflated for Netflix to generate much of a profit, hence why it hasn't put forward any serious bids with the major sports leagues.

Amazon is a media business, sure, but it operates several other businesses that all tie into its media arm. The more people who sign up for Amazon Prime, the more addicted they are to its free shipping, and the more likely they are to use Amazon for all of their shopping needs. This not only allows Amazon to monetize via product sales, but it can also charge a high premium for product search ads, which further increase its profit margin.

All together, this frees up a lot more money for Amazon to bid on expensive sports rights, and I just don't see how ESPN — with its traditional media business models — has any hope of keeping up.

Why is Buzzfeed betting its future on AI slop?

I wrote earlier on Buzzfeed’s decision to launch its own social network, but I glossed over Jonah Peretti’s bizarre decision to populate the platform with AI-generated content.

While I think it's smart for BuzzFeed to create an owned and operated social platform and try to funnel its readers into it, positioning AI as a core feature just seems silly. As he notes in his own memo, AI "takes away our human agency, devalues our labor, and creates social discord."

AI-generated slop just makes it that much harder for internet users to find the signal in the noise. It's pumped out at such a high volume and is of such low quality that it clogs our feeds. I have a hard time believing this will catch on.

Some good longform articles

Lorne Michaels is arguably the most powerful and influential person in comedy. Not only is SNL the most-watched broadcast outside of the NLF, but he's also launched the careers of countless Hollywood A-listers. There is no-one in Hollywood or the music industry who won't take his phone call. [Vulture]

Every person who meets MrBeast comes away with the same assessment: he is obsessed with his craft. He doesn't cut corners. He spares no expense. He is singularly focused on building the largest audience in the history of entertainment, and he has no patience for any Hollywood executive who would try to to compromise that goal. [Business Insider]

ICYMI: How a college student launched one of the most influential B2B sports media companies

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Behind the paywall

Here’s what I have on deck for paying subscribers:

1. Why hasn’t the New York Times launched a video version of The Daily?

2. Yahoo embraces the Creator Economy

3. How Bookshop.org found a competitive edge against Amazon

4. How VCs are investing in the Creator Economy

Let’s jump into it…

Why hasn’t the New York Times launched a video version of The Daily?...