Episode 168

The blurring of institutional and independent media

On this crossover episode, Semafor’s Ben Smith and Vox Media’s and Business Insider’s Peter Kafka join me to discuss the quickly vanishing divide between institutional media brands and independent upstarts. This is the second part of three part conversation. To listen to part one, visit Semafor’s Mixed Signals. Part 3 is available on Vox’s Channels.

Transcript
Brian:

This is a special crossover episode of The Rebooting Show.

Brian:

I am Brian Morrissey.

Brian:

I not only host the podcast, but I happen to listen to many podcasts and two of my favorites are Semafor's, Mix Signals with Ben Smith, Max Tani, and Vox Media's Channels with Peter Kafka.

Brian:

Couple weeks ago, Ben had a great idea.

Brian:

Why don't we do a three part podcast together and publish them on each other's feeds?

Brian:

this is what you have to do to get, podcast discovery in 2025.

Brian:

Anyway, we're gonna see how it works.

Brian:

So if you're here for the first time, welcome.

Brian:

each week I have a conversation, with interesting people who are creating, media businesses and making them sustainable and actually make money.

Brian:

We tend to get into the business mechanics quite a bit since that's my background.

Brian:

And I always love talking to smart people about the direction of the media business.

Brian:

And Ben and Peter are two of the smartest I've admired their work, throughout their respective careers.

Brian:

I highly recommend if you haven't already to check out Mixed Signals and Channels, add them to your rotation.

Brian:

you could just search for them or I'll leave links to them in the show notes.

Brian:

In this part of the discussion, there was three parts.

Brian:

As I said, I speak with Ben and Peter about whether we're seeing the pendulum in the media business swinging back to a more

Brian:

professionalized, content, from what we saw as the shift to the more authentic and rough and ready, quote unquote amateur content.

Brian:

I don't think amateur is the word.

Brian:

We, we get into that here.

Brian:

I have tracked this kind of dynamic several times in my career in different areas.

Brian:

I'm reminded of how.

Brian:

Digital agencies sprung up, and the question was, are they gonna take the agency business from the traditional agencies?

Brian:

And they each had their own.

Brian:

Strengths and weaknesses really.

Brian:

the digital agencies were obviously much more adept and innovative with where media was going, but the traditional agencies had the deep client relationships.

Brian:

They had far more, depth than strategy and creativity.

Brian:

And of course they were going basically to the same place.

Brian:

And I think something like that is happening now.

Brian:

I think the camps are, are different.

Brian:

In this case it's institutional media.

Brian:

And it is, what I think of as independent media or alternative media.

Brian:

And, you know, for institutional media, they want the authenticity of YouTubers, or dare I say, newsletter writers and podcasters.

Brian:

And on the other side, independent media wants to have the professionalized, look and feel and standards of institutional media,

Brian:

not just better production values, and the novelty of a copy editor, but also around the business functions that make up the majority.

Brian:

Of the value in institutional media companies.

Brian:

I mean, the simple reality is that making content is only part of what media companies do.

Brian:

So I think we're at the cusp of seeing these two come together and blur, which we discuss in this episode.

Brian:

I don't think we'll be treating, I. The manosphere is different from, from any other media, very soon because these worlds are already overlapping and they'll just become one.

Brian:

So I hope you enjoy this discussion.

Brian:

check out parts one and three on mixed signals and channels.

Brian:

Again, I'll leave, a link to those in the show notes.

Brian:

Now here's my conversation with Ben and Peter.

Brian:

My optimistic take for this segment is I wanna talk about and just do like a little bit of temperature check of this idea of

Brian:

alternative media versus institutional media, because I think we're at this point where it's like peak alternative media.

Brian:

I mean, alternative media has been running circles around institutional media, all the energy.

Brian:

Feels like it's on the alternative side and, and there's the drumbeat of bad news on the professional media side, continues and I think that probably has more time to go with that, that trend.

Brian:

But I think we're gonna start to see professional media start to look a lot.

Brian:

a, a lot like alternative media and vice versa.

Brian:

And I think that, you know, this inevitably happens.

Brian:

I've seen it all the time in markets where like, I used to cover ad agencies and there would be digital agencies or at the time,

Brian:

like internet agencies and there would be, you know, the regular advertising agencies and they each had their own strengths.

Brian:

And the reality is both of them were going to the same place.

Brian:

And I think in some ways alternative media.

Brian:

And, and by that I mean like the Joe Rogans and Lex Friedmans and the All In podcast and the YouTube shows, Adam Friedland, you just had him on, right, Ben?

Brian:

I think that they're, they're gonna end up looking more like professional media and I think professional media or, or institutional media, if you will, is going to start to adopt some of the things that make.

Brian:

alternative media so successful, you know, and I think a lot of that comes down to the authenticity and, and being like more just approachable And

Brian:

also, and most importantly, probably is doing away with old conventions of institutional media that are pretty much in the uncanny valley right now.

Brian:

I, I, I feel that way anytime I look.

Brian:

You mean

Ben:

like what?

Brian:

Well, like if you, if you watch like a cable news program, it, it looks like parody like these days to me.

Brian:

Like it just looks like parody and that's why it doesn't connect with people like the, the, the four people behind a desk on CNN.

Brian:

Like they have to just rip all of that out.

Ben:

Yeah, it is true.

Ben:

The only really successful version of that that remains is weekend update on Saturday is literally parody.

Ben:

It

Brian:

is, it is a parody,

Ben:

right?

Ben:

Yeah.

Brian:

But also like, like you had Adam Friedland on, right?

Brian:

Yes.

Brian:

And you sort of described, first of all, how would you describe him?

Ben:

That.

Ben:

I mean, I would describe him as my co-host, max Toni's favorite insane comedian who I just met and was confused by.

Ben:

But he's, he's a, yeah, he's a C comedian who is putting on a hour long TV-like interview show that he has modeled on Dick Katt down to like, the fact that he's, looks like he's dressed in the 19 early 1960s

Peter:

Lot of polyester.

Brian:

And you like, it's kind of like a new kind of talk show.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

And, But it's completely different.

Brian:

And I think what you're gonna end up seeing is, you know, that will end up becoming the norm.

Brian:

And like we see right now, like all of these alternative media, they're professionalizing in their appearance and

Brian:

they are becoming, particularly as podcasting moves into becoming like TV shows, they'll start to have higher production values.

Brian:

It doesn't cost a ton of money these days.

Brian:

And.

Brian:

I think the battle will be.

Brian:

Can they add that kind of professional sheen?

Brian:

Because I think the things you can get away with in, in, like audio podcasts are a little bit different when you're watching this on, a big screen tv.

Peter:

So Brian, you're, you're, you're focused on literally how this stuff looks, right?

Peter:

How it looks and comes across as opposed to how the company that employs these people is structured.

Peter:

Who owns it?

Brian:

No, I'm talking about the market basically about what people gravitate to.

Brian:

Because like the money follows after that.

Brian:

And I think we've seen before the audiences we're following.

Brian:

And, and the money wasn't following.

Brian:

That's usually the case.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

But I think right now you're gonna have this correction where a lot of money is going into alternative media.

Brian:

We're gonna, two, two of us, just Ben and I will be sashaying around, Cannes, in a couple of weeks.

Brian:

And

Ben:

when we're there, do we tell advertisers that we are alternative media?

Ben:

Or we so professional media.

Ben:

Think so.

Ben:

I think we say we're alternative media.

Ben:

Right?

Ben:

That's where the, that's where the money is now.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

B2B influencer.

Brian:

Thank you.

Brian:

That's what I'm going for.

Ben:

You're going as an influencer.

Ben:

Great,

Peter:

great.

Peter:

Brian, I think it's worth underscoring that what you're talking about are, are some of like the oldest and most basic forms of communication, right?

Peter:

Of whether it's a Substack blog that's someone typing something out or.

Peter:

What you've been talking about now with, with podcasts that are becoming video shows, there's just talk shows, right?

Peter:

Yeah.

Peter:

It's an entertaining host and an entertaining guest, and that's the core of it.

Peter:

You can dress it up or dress it down however you like, but if you don't have those two things, it won't work.

Peter:

And you can spend as much or as little as you want.

Peter:

But if you don't have those two things, it won't work.

Peter:

And where I think you're really right about, you know, the ridiculousness of like.

Peter:

The, the really expensive, cable news setups.

Peter:

You know, ESPN built a huge new broadcast center like a decade ago, right?

Peter:

As the bottom was hurting to fall out.

Peter:

you know, again, the, the overproduced CNN stuff you're talking about, I think that will go away, but I think there'll still be a, a, a role for it.

Peter:

The worst place is that uncanny valley in the middle, and I think a good example of that is Amazon's election night coverage last fall, if you watch that.

Peter:

Yeah.

Peter:

Where they tried to look like CNN.

Peter:

And had, you know, Brian Williams and other people who were, you would expect to see on, on professional tv, but it all had a sort of doing it on the cheap, doing it in a back lot somewhere.

Peter:

And I can't imagine that was successful for anyone involved.

Peter:

And I think you either have to like go.

Peter:

Big production or minimalist and, and stay clear of that middle.

Ben:

Yeah, and I think when you talk about kind of professional versus amateur, I mean there's just sort of a literalism to that.

Ben:

Like professional, like professionals are people who get paid for what they do, and it's a very, very competitive environment and people who can make, who can make a living at it.

Ben:

We'll keep doing it, do it more, invest more.

Ben:

And I think the thing that I've been noticing again and again, I would say bracket, like we're talking in this space of three idiots talking to each other on a screen.

Ben:

There's also a world of reality TV and formats and cooking shows that is much more expensive and complex.

Ben:

But, but for these essentially formats, but still much cheaper

Peter:

than any other form of tv, by the way.

Ben:

Yeah, that's true.

Ben:

But for our world, in a way this, this world of news, I mean I've been sort of obsessed with Pi Morgan 'cause he's like, he's just,

Ben:

you know, he's a brilliant, I think he's the best broadcaster alive and he's the most opportunistic person in media and you come by.

Ben:

And so he has just like jumped into YouTube with both feet.

Ben:

And I look at him as like in like Lord of the Rings, when there's just like an ogre rummaging around like eating hobbits and biting their heads off and flinging their bodies around.

Ben:

Like he's obviously just decided I'm gonna have on everybody who has a lot of YouTube followers, whether they are.

Ben:

Like a very important astronomer or an insane racist or anybody else, and some of them are sophisticated people who can hang with him.

Ben:

And some of them have never been in an environment like that where you have, I mean, he really is one of the great professional interviewers

Ben:

and just eating them alive and just tearing through people who have not been in higher wattage, more confrontational situations.

Ben:

And you're like, oh, there is a difference between professional amateurs, like, like peers is a professional there's incredible clip of Rogan and Dave Smith, who's often on Rogan.

Ben:

Talking to each other about Pi Morgan and just being like, oh my God, have you seen what he's doing?

Ben:

It's crazy.

Ben:

But I do think you're sort of seeing a collision of the professional and the amateur.

Brian:

I don't like, I don't like professional versus amateur though.

Brian:

Like, 'cause that's like it, it's a little pejorative against, I mean, 'cause first of all, like the quote unquote, amateurs are making like plenty of money.

Ben:

Oh, Rogan.

Ben:

I mean, Rogan is a professional.

Ben:

Yeah.

Ben:

I mean, I don't think professional amateur is necessarily legacy and.

Ben:

New.

Ben:

But I do think as these things collide, there's a qual, there's qual, whatever quality means in this context.

Ben:

You know, can you sort of, do you look like an idiot when you go on with peer, with, with peers is like a challenge actually.

Ben:

Yeah.

Ben:

And

Brian:

as these worlds like bump up against each other, there's, there's gonna be all kinds of like awkwardness, which is like exactly what you're talking about.

Brian:

Like you had on um, Chris Black from, from How long Gone.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

And he's sort of got into this with, 'cause it's a very strange show.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

And it's two dudes.

Brian:

Talking about cool dude things and there's a lot of like jokes and, and inside and, and, and otherwise, and he had a Jake Tapper and, you know, one of those jokes went completely awry.

Brian:

And then Jake brought it out like, as like evidence of like the Democrats not understanding, you know, how, how the world has works.

Brian:

And it, to me it was just a classic example, like if you go back and.

Brian:

Listen to, 'cause Chris mentioned on your podcast an interview he did with, Scott Galloway.

Brian:

And so I went back and listened to it.

Brian:

And even though Scott Galloway is kind of in the alternative media, he's like, not really to me.

Brian:

'cause he's like, he's completely prepared and rehearsed and he's got his things that he just, like, he goes down and he, he plays his greatest hits like all the time.

Brian:

And nothing wrong with that.

Brian:

It's just a little bit old school and, It leads to so much awkwardness, when these two worlds collide.

Ben:

It is the funniest thing in media right now, and particularly it's that, it's that politicians and CEOs watch the 2024 election.

Ben:

Were like, and have told their comms teams, you gotta book me on podcasts.

Ben:

Yeah, no.

Ben:

And so like the next thing you know, they're on with Adam Friedland being like, being like, told jokes about Gaza.

Ben:

You know, like, like, like just yes, creating the strangest situations.

Ben:

It is the best thing in media.

Peter:

They're gonna figure that part out fairly quickly, I think.

Peter:

What are

Ben:

they gonna do?

Peter:

Well, they're gonna start actually looking at, at, at who they're, being booked on and saying, I don't want to be on that show just like they would for, for anything else.

Peter:

I mean, I, I, I do think the.

Peter:

The amateur versus pro isn't as helpful as, as, alternative, like, like Brian said, right?

Peter:

But still there are common threads, right?

Peter:

It is not a coincidence that many of the very successful podcast hosts right now are comedians.

Peter:

right where you have to be able to speak and think quickly and be entertaining and, and be able to respond to what someone just said.

Peter:

Now, there are plenty of people who didn't come up that route who are also breaking through, but again, they tend to be.

Peter:

Quick witted int telegenic.

Peter:

Like it's not just that anyone can do this, you have to have a certain skillset.

Peter:

And, and again, I think it helps in Joe Rogan's case and other folks' case that they spent years talking into a mic in front of a crowd, getting people to elicit reactions.

Peter:

and I think that will continue.

Peter:

You're not gonna have folks who don't have those.

Ben:

Yeah.

Ben:

And would you say that Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, Pierce Morgan would, are they profe?

Ben:

Are they.

Ben:

Alternative or mainstream professional or amateur, like, I'm not even sure.

Ben:

I know

Brian:

they're alternative now.

Brian:

I mean, I, to me it's like,

Ben:

because these are the most successful television broadcasters of the last 20 years.

Peter:

They're just, they're just, they're just doing TV on the cheap.

Brian:

Well, Tucker Carlson's an interesting one.

Brian:

His show is completely different now.

Brian:

What he's doing is, is a hundred percent, is very different than what he did on Fox.

Brian:

and you can argue whether it's better or worse.

Brian:

but it's different.

Brian:

And I think, like you were saying about Pi Morgan, I think what's an interesting on the talent front is there is a group of, of, of people in media who are so talented that they can do it in any of these like formats.

Brian:

Like Tina Brown is amazing at Substack, she's amazing at magazine.

Brian:

She's amazing at Substack, right?

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

And like that I think is.

Brian:

Very rare.

Brian:

There's not a lot of people who can do that.

Brian:

And like I think like Pi Morgan is someone who, he's like a rare talent.

Brian:

And I think this is an interesting time because I think you're seeing who is like truly talented in that they're able to go into completely different, media formats and, and still deliver.

Ben:

So where is this in three, five years?

Ben:

Is there still an, you know, do we still talk about YouTubers and podcasters or is it all merged?

Ben:

No, it's just

Ben:

media.

Brian:

It's just media to me.

Brian:

I mean, that's the same, like I go back to the agencies, it's just, there's just ad agencies now.

Brian:

I mean, they're like shrinking, but like there's.

Brian:

There's no more of this like artificial divide.

Brian:

And so eventually the, the, the divide just sort of goes away.

Brian:

And that, and that to me is like one of the optimistic views of media because media has, first of all, it's never been more plentiful, but secondly, like it's never been more open to anyone and there is.

Brian:

It's never been more valuable.

Brian:

Like the president of the United States is a creation of media.

Brian:

He has a cabinet that are, are half like content creators as much as they are officials, right?

Brian:

And so obviously media still has value.

Brian:

So I think a lot of times when we're talking about the business of it, we're talking about a small sliver of what the overall media ecosystem is.

Brian:

I call it like the information space, because you're gonna have.

Brian:

Everyone is gonna be creating media, and I think the problem for institutional media is that they have a monetization issue.

Brian:

They just can't make money, and they have systems that, that are not, attuned.

Brian:

To, you know, the modern way of making money off of media, which oftentimes is indirect, right?

Brian:

The All In podcast is way more influential than any institutional media publication or brand focused on like technology.

Brian:

I know they've gone like broader, they've even gone beyond their like category and they're, they're mostly like politics it seems like these days.

Brian:

But like that to me is telling, right?

Brian:

And that's just because they have a different model about how they realize value.

Brian:

Out of the media.

Peter:

But they're also, they're also just reaching people with the place where they are, right?

Peter:

I mean, the Sunday shows or the Sunday shows, because that was the only place you could hear from whoever you wanted to hear from in Washington that weekend.

Peter:

And the fact that they repeated themselves on three different shows didn't matter.

Peter:

And now that's all blown up, right?

Peter:

The distribution stranglehold doesn't exist.

Peter:

So those folks can go anywhere.

Peter:

They want to hear that.

Peter:

And a and a consumer can go anywhere they want to hear that.

Peter:

And so All in is competing with the Sunday shows.

Peter:

But if they weren't good at it, then their monetization model or lack thereof, wouldn't matter.

Peter:

Right.

Peter:

It's, it's that they now there is close to a level playing field and the most interesting hosts and shows will find audiences wherever they wanna find and people will find them.

Peter:

whereas before everything was really tightly controlled and I think even though it's redundant and sort of.

Peter:

Could have said this years ago, but I think it's worth underlining just how radically changed this.

Peter:

This landscape is where you had, when we've gone from a world where you had four or five networks to an unlimited number all the way down, it poses challenges for everyone, and the model matters a lot.

Peter:

But first and foremost, you have to have stuff people want.

Peter:

Otherwise, it doesn't matter.

Ben:

Yeah.

Ben:

In that old world of a handful of networks was partly about like printing and broadcasting, like technical limitations.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

This new one in which I think we all feel overwhelmed and uncertain of who to trust.

Ben:

I think there's also a lot of opportunity, like even as in this flattened landscape, consumers are gonna need some help.

Ben:

You know?

Ben:

And you're starting to see, you know, Megan Kelly is forming a network.

Ben:

You're starting to see.

Ben:

Proto media companies coming together, I think out of the primordial stew, I guess,

Brian:

like have you been following TBPN?

Brian:

Yes.

Brian:

The Technology Brothers like Podcast Network.

Brian:

I think they try to like, call it, say it's not Technology Brothers, but I think, I'm pretty sure it is.

Brian:

I thought it was like

Ben:

a good tech bro joke.

Brian:

Yeah, I, I thought of it then now they're trying to like, sort of inch away from it.

Brian:

You know, I look at them as like, as, as a good sign of where things are going, right?

Brian:

In that it's two guys.

Brian:

They have experience being entrepreneurs, right?

Brian:

So they're of the industry.

Brian:

And that gives them a cachet that a, a journalist does not have, particularly in an industry that over the last several years has seemingly declared war on, on us, on the, the media industry.

Brian:

I mean, I appreciated my ex-boss Jason K's, turn on, on your podcast too.

Brian:

Ben, that was a little awkward, but that's okay.

Brian:

having known Jason, I wasn't totally surprised and, But I look at that and first of all, when you look at TBPN, it's, it looks

Brian:

professional, like it looks, and I know this is part of the packaging, but I do think the packaging matters and the packaging is.

Brian:

Kind of swinging back in the professional direction.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

And, and that, I think that matters because the packaging was always the advantage that institutional media had over alternative media.

Brian:

And that was when it was alternative media used to be dismissed as UGC or amateur or whatever, and now like that packaging advantage is, is gone.

Brian:

But I think that we're seeing.

Brian:

People try to like keep that authenticity part while adding a lot of the professional sheen that ends up creating a lot of leverage.

Brian:

And when you look at A-T-B-P-N clip that gets bounced around X 'cause most of the viewership is not on, you know, their live show, they produce a ton of clips off that.

Brian:

And that's where a lot of the engagement takes place.

Brian:

it looks like a normal TV channel, at least on my, I'm like, yeah, this looks like TV to me.

Ben:

It's all, it's all becoming TV again.

Peter:

Yeah.

Peter:

I I I do think that the sheen of that is gonna be so easily available, kind of is easily available already.

Peter:

Yeah.

Peter:

Is only gonna get cheaper and so it, it won't be a differentiation at any point.

Peter:

and so the real question is how do you cut through the noise?

Peter:

And being, having a show that looks professional may or may not be a selling point, but it certainly won't be adequate.

Ben:

It becomes table stakes though.

Ben:

Yep.

Ben:

As

Ben:

you know, we're, we're, I'm sure you guys have been, we're sort of like constantly being like, ah, crap, the backdrop isn't good enough.

Ben:

We gotta improve it.

Ben:

So that's how I'm feeling right now.

Brian:

All right.

Brian:

On that note, let's wrap up this segment and then, we're gonna get onto the next one, over on channels with Peter Kafka.

Brian:

Thank you for listening to this, first ever and maybe, maybe the start of a few, crossover episodes with podcasts that I dig.

Brian:

Thanks to Ben and Peter for doing it.

Brian:

and maybe we'll do it again sometime soon.

Brian:

Any feedback, send me a note.

Brian:

my email is bmorrissey@therebooting.com.

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