Episode 170
Inside Vox Media's podcast strategy
On this week’s episode of The Rebooting Show, I spoke with Vox Media president of revenue and growth Ryan Pauley about how the publisher has become a podcasting juggernaut, with Pivot, Decoder and Today Explained franchises. Ryan discusses the “Lego approach” that snaps together different business models, with some podcasts as owned and operated and others as partnerships. We also get into the rebundling and how media companies like Vox can link with creators to provide the sales and distribution infrastructure most independent media operators will not build.
Transcript
Welcome to the Rebooting Show.
Brian:I'm Brian Morrissey.
Brian:I'm making my way back from Cannes.
Brian:I don't have a grand theme that emerged from the week, other than there's a yawning divide, between the rest of the world and the strange subset of the world.
Brian:There's, that's either comforting because it's, mostly business as usual.
Brian:And by business I mean.
Brian:Lavish dinners and parties and partner meetings or a complete disconnect, with what's going on in the broader world and particularly the
Brian:vast changes, that are being brought to bear as generative AI tools make their way into everyday life and businesses continue their adoption.
Brian:I think if you take the Maximalist case base case for, for ai, I don't know, uh, way to be fully prepared, but even a middle of the road result will mean.
Brian:Severe, compression of many aspects of the media and marketing ecosystem.
Brian:there was a lot of talk of that.
Brian:but, you know, I think action is still lagging.
Brian:this is a subject of a special can edition of the People Versus Algorithm podcast I recorded last Thursday at the dot dash Meredith Villa.
Brian:we spoke poolside.
Brian:I was joined by dot Meredith, CEO.
Brian:Friend of the pod, I guess if we, if we're using that, Neil Vogel as well as, Axios, media correspondent Sarah Fisher.
Brian:they joined me, in lieu of, of Troy and Alex, both of whom did not make the trip.
Brian:and we build this and, and mostly delivered I think on a optimistic.
Brian:Case for media and, and AI age.
Brian:I'm probably less reflexively optimistic than both Neil and Sarah.
Brian:and just the overhaul of search will be, you know, probably an extinction level event for broad swats of publishers.
Brian:But, you know, this is, the writing has been on the wall for a while and I noticed that, you know, the new talking point that I tend to get from publishers is how little of their revenue now is exposed to, The eyeball economy.
Brian:And I think that's gonna be a talking point you'll see a lot of publishers talk about, and that's why they're rapidly diversifying their businesses to, you know, basically have less exposure to display advertising.
Brian:You know, Neil and I talked about it on this podcast about, you know, what comes next after display.
Brian:and that's just, you know, reality.
Brian:And I think a lot of publishers are taking these kind of pragmatic approaches and you're, you're sort of, the strategy ends up being like all of the above.
Brian:You know, you have to do a ton of things at once in order to rapidly diversify, these businesses.
Brian:One of our guests actually at the villa was Ryan Pauley, the president of Revenue and Growth at Vox Media.
Brian:And luckily enough, Ryan and I had, had recorded this conversation that you're about to hear prior to Cannes, and we focus in large part about
Brian:how Vox Is looking to really double down on its successful podcast network as a hedge against, against this decline of the eyeball economy.
Brian:This is something Sarah actually called out, as a, successful approach during, the PVA podcast at at dash meredith Villa.
Brian:and I know as someone who types a lot of words, and has throughout my career, I'm increasingly focused on diversifying, from text and, and doing more in audio and video and in person gatherings.
Brian:I think that's just smart these days.
Brian:Ryan and I discuss all that and more, and as always, send me your feedback, guest suggestions, and anything else to brian@therebooting.com.
Brian:Now, here's my conversation with Ryan.
Brian:All right, Ryan Pauley, thank you for joining me in this podcast from a studio.
Ryan:Thanks for having me here in the, uh, illustrious Vox Media Podcast Network
Brian:Yeah, exactly.
Brian:Well, I wanna start with that, right?
Brian:Because you guys have become a powerhouse in, in podcasting.
Brian:I think you're one of the biggest.
Brian:Where do you guys rank as far as like podcast networks?
Ryan:technically we're, I think we've peaked at number six or seven and like total podcast network rankings, but the, oh, the only ones ahead of
Ryan:us are the giant platforms like Spotify, iHeart, there's basically no other sort of producer of, of podcasts that are, that are bigger than us.
Brian:Yeah, so like, let's go through some of like the properties, obviously, you know, you've got, you've got Pivot.
Brian:I mean, that's a big, that's a big franchise.
Brian:and we'll get into that with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway.
Brian:but go through some of the other like big ones.
Ryan:For sure.
Ryan:So, we've got Pivot, as you mentioned, the whole Scott and Kara universe, where Kara has, on with Kara Swisher.
Ryan:Scott has Pro G and Prof G Markets, publishing regularly.
Ryan:We've got shows out of our brands like today Explained with, from Vox, the gray area decoder with Neli Patel, outta the Verge, and then
Ryan:other third party, you know, partnerships like those with, where should we begin with Esther Perel or served with Andy Roddick.
Ryan:Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird have a show, a Touch More.
Ryan:And then we just launched another show with Sue Bird called Bird's Eye View focused on, on sort of WNBA.
Ryan:And so we sort of a wide range of portfolio, but as you can tell, like one through line is just of incredibly influential people at the top of
Ryan:their game in whatever their lane is, whether it's women's sports, whether it's business or thought leadership or, or news or tech.
Brian:Yeah, and some of them are like homegrown talent, I guess I would say.
Brian:And some are, you know, you're partnering with.
Brian:I don't know.
Brian:It's, it's more like, you know, like with the Kara and, and Scott deal, you know, they're, they're not like Vox Media employees.
Brian:Like, that's like a business deal.
Brian:And I think this is a, this is a change I think for a lot of, like publishers, you know?
Brian:'cause you're in, you're in the talent business.
Brian:I remember many years ago talking to, I think it was, yeah, it was Howard Mittman when he was running Bleacher Report.
Brian:He was like, ah, I gotta, I gotta negotiate with agents now.
Brian:So that was different.
Brian:It's different.
Ryan:for sure, But if you can add, like, if you can build business and add value, then the, you know, the relationship is, is sort of a win-win on, on both sides, as we've seen with, with, you know, proudly.
Ryan:So with, with Karen Scott.
Brian:So let's talk about that to, to start up.
Brian:'cause I think this, this is some of, something of like the shift, right?
Brian:'cause we've got a, we're at a weird time with, with publishing.
Brian:I feel like there's, there's all of this.
Brian:It's decentralized.
Brian:Decentralized.
Brian:If not, it's completely decentralized and you've got people going to sub substack or you got 'em going to YouTube and it's just like every week continues.
Brian:and then, you know, what is, it was John Malone who said, I don't even know, maybe it was Winston Churchill who said, there's two ways to make money like media unbundling and rebundling.
Brian:But, and you know, I think the question ends up being how that rebundling takes place.
Brian:And I almost feel like it is a little bit, and like, you know, we we're not sort of not like recognizing it because you've got the.
Brian:You know, media companies fulfill a ton of different functions that individuals and frankly just operating on platforms that they, they don't, right?
Brian:Like, I mean, they're, it's great to, everyone loves the idea of autonomy and, and all that.
Brian:And that's, that's wonderful, right?
Brian:But like, running a business evolves a lot more than aggregating an audience and then like, flipping it over to some monetization engine.
Brian:It's just you, you just have to do more.
Brian:And then different people have different, you know, skill sets and some of them wanna do it.
Brian:And so to me, I'm like, this makes a ton of sense.
Brian:So explain to me how you guys think about this world where instead of looking at people who are, you know, going off on their own, as you know, that's just, they take a different path, but it's like, Hey, let's do business.
Ryan:Yeah, well, we, one, one another through line of the, the talent that we work with, both on the, on the podcast network and across the rest of the company is, is people that have that entrepreneurial spirit,
Ryan:that want to build in and, and sort of build their, you know, whatever it is, their, their empire in various directions and where we can help and, and we're focused on what we.
Ryan:Can do best, which in large part, in many cases is, is generate revenue via advertising, but also increasingly so in other, in
Ryan:non-advertising ways, whether it's live events or, or subscriptions in audio, and podcast form, maybe commerce, in the future.
Ryan:And so, but also in addition to, you know, certain shows we produce in-house, we distribute, we market.
Ryan:And so we can help build the audience, we can help give creative production and, and it depends on every talent and every show is a little bit different on what we, what like of those services, what we provide, down the list.
Ryan:But, but that's kind of the, the intention is to, is to build a platform and a foundation for this network of shows and really get, get
Ryan:leverage out of a network, cross promotion and, and, and, and be able to take all that to, to make it easy for marketers.
Brian:So it's like, I always think, you know, media's not that complicated.
Brian:It's like what you make, it's how you distribute it and how you make money off it at the end of the day.
Brian:Right.
Brian:there's a lot of different aspects of that.
Brian:but like, I guess where I look at it, it's like you guys have like a stack that you, you know, some people will, will need parts of it, some people will need all of it.
Brian:Um, some people will be employees, some people will be business partners.
Brian:And it really, it does all depend.
Brian:And I think sort of the magic I would think is having the flexibility built into that stack where the economics and just operationally it
Brian:makes sense to be able to, you know, treat it almost like, you know, Lego bricks and that there's gonna be different types of relationships.
Brian:'cause I feel like I. The trick is for a lot of publishers is they, there needs to be something other than you're either an employee or you're the competition.
Ryan:Yeah, a hundred percent.
Ryan:I totally agree.
Ryan:And that's where the, and it really comes down to what is the, what is the best way to operationalize it for the brand or the talent.
Ryan:and we're happy, you know, playing whatever role we can.
Ryan:We obviously want to, want to do as much and add as much value as possible.
Ryan:We think we have, a lot of value to add.
Ryan:We're adding a lot of value for a lot of our, our shows.
Ryan:and, but we, we also want to make sure that it's a, it's a relationship that is clearly has aligned incentives.
Ryan:And so if talent wins, we win.
Ryan:And if we win, talent wins.
Ryan:And, and that's, that's sort of how we approach both the relationship, the working relationship and, you know, deal structures as well.
Brian:All right, so break down the, the deal with, like Karen Scott, luckily they both believe in the building, in public, uh, precept.
Brian:So there's clearly no NDAs involved in the deal.
Brian:I love it.
Ryan:Or if they've
Brian:I love it.
Brian:I mean, Scott might, Scott might publish his, like his tax return soon, if he puts that behind the paywall.
Brian:I don't know.
Brian:I'll pay,
Ryan:it get you to subscribe
Brian:yeah, I'll see your tax returns.
Ryan:yeah.
Ryan:Well I think I, I, I, I personally won't comment on the, on the specifics of, of the, of the deal, but, but the idea of like, of, of a
Ryan:share of, of, we we're sort of sharing in the investment, we're sharing in the, in the upside and we're fully sort of monetizing the, the deal.
Ryan:And I think the, the, maybe the stressful part of that deal and negotiation but is is kind of the point of the stress is if we, like, if we add a bunch of value and make it, and the show becomes great and we, like, it's a huge show.
Ryan:It's a big audience, makes a lot of money, it, it might make the negotiation.
Ryan:Harder for ourselves when the deal is up.
Ryan:but in reality, like as they, you know, as you know, and they talked about on the, on the show frequently, they, they went and talked to a bunch
Ryan:of companies, about what a different path could look like and ultimately resigned with us because their conclusion was the best place to take.
Ryan:The next step in both of their journeys.
Ryan:And for Pivot in particular is, is with Vox Media.
Ryan:And so that's kind of, while it, while it might be stressful in the meantime, it, it's kind of the point is we, we both win and, and we're the best partner to, to take it to the next level.
Brian:So in that kind of deal, like you're doing, like, what are you, what, like what's on the vox side and what's on like their side?
Ryan:So we, we, will produce the show.
Ryan:obviously they, they have, a lot of, you know, they have full creative control, as you can tell, from, from what comes out in the podcast, twice a week.
Ryan:But, uh, we help produce the show.
Ryan:We market the show, we distribute it across various platforms, audio and video platforms.
Ryan:We, we monetize the show, via advertising and, and other forms, live events, which we will, we will produce, and, and make happen for them.
Ryan:so yeah, so like generally the production and, and marketing distribution and, and monetization is where we come in.
Brian:Do you own the ip?
Ryan:I won't get into IP ownership.
Ryan:It's sort of different for, for different deals,
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:Well, that's the important one, isn't it?
Brian:I would assume that's the, that's the sticking point of all of this because, I don't know.
Brian:Most people wanna own, own the ip.
Brian:Like, 'cause otherwise it's, it's, it's, to me that's like, ends up being the biggest question.
Brian:Like, I mean, there's, there's a lot that each side sort of have.
Brian:I mean, you guys have the ability to put on like a, a high quality, great like event.
Brian:And I think after many years, I don't think, I'm, I'm not gonna speak for Gar Swisher.
Brian:It's very dangerous, but I don't think she really wants to be in the event organization business
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:Yeah, I think
Brian:Uh, as a safe bet.
Brian:Right?
Brian:I get the sense of that, and I understand that a hundred percent.
Brian:but you know, everyone wants like some degree of autonomy and everyone wants all the ups, everyone wants upside, but they want like guarantees to it.
Brian:You have to like, there's just trade offs everywhere.
Ryan:a hundred percent.
Ryan:That's totally right.
Ryan:And there, and there's, there is trade-offs in tension in, across all of those like variables, whether it's, whether it's, IP ownership, whether it's what is the, what is the like.
Ryan:Minimum guarantee.
Ryan:What is the security blanket?
Ryan:What is the revenue share?
Ryan:And so like every deal, like has some elements of push and pull against those variables.
Ryan:And, and, and certain, certain talents.
Ryan:Certain shows care about one of those elements more than more than the other.
Ryan:And so, you know, all of those are are various dials that get tuned one way or another on a per deal basis
Brian:So what are the ways that you end up beyond this podcast?
Brian:Like make money off the podcast franchises, beyond advertising.
Brian:What is advertising?
Brian:Because I think a lot of times people think about podcasts and they think about podcast advertising, but anyone who's done a podcast knows they provide tremendous amounts of like leverage beyond quote unquote impressions.
Brian:Right?
Brian:Like, you can, it, it never, I feel like podcasting in some ways has been held back by the fact that when it gets on a spreadsheet, it kind of looks, eh.
Brian:It's like, you know, it's like fine.
Brian:Like you gotta, you get, you know, yeah, you get a bunch of impressions, but off the spreadsheet, anyone who's done a podcast knows that it has a, it has a level of connectivity that getting someone to a webpage simply doesn't.
Brian:Like, I don't, I've, I've written on a lot of webpage in my, in my career, I've produced a lot of web pages.
Brian:But, you know, the, the kind of connectivity that comes through podcasting is just orders of magnitude different.
Brian:Like the, it is not interchangeable whatsoever.
Brian:And so that provides opportunity.
Brian:It's, in some ways it's frustrating because I feel like in an ad model a lot of times, and it, and I think it, it might be different at like larger scale.
Brian:you can, you can realize a lot of that value, but I still think it leaves a lot of value on the table.
Brian:And that's why you see a lot of.
Brian:Of podcasts, you know, monetizing particularly of like YouTube shows in totally different ways.
Brian:You know, like that.
Brian:That's what I think is fascinating about, you know, when podcasting go, when they become YouTube programming, is because if
Brian:you look at the people who are massive on on YouTube, YouTube itself tends to be like actually a small part of their business.
Ryan:Very, very much so.
Ryan:It's a, it's a sort of derivative platform, which I think has kind of been the only primary way that YouTube has been successful for most companies or creators is it becomes, you know, either marketing or then ultimately a derivative platform.
Brian:What do you mean explain derivative
Ryan:like, like, Saturday, not Night Live has a huge presence on YouTube and makes a bunch of money, but they're not building for YouTube.
Ryan:It just becomes a distribution platform.
Ryan:and same thing like a lot of these podcasts, maybe they're, you know, they're produced, in nice looking studios like this one.
Ryan:but existing audio form, existing video form like thing, they're produced for various platforms or multiple platforms and YouTube just happens to be one of the ones that they get produced for.
Ryan:But, but, not necessarily the only, or even maybe the primary platform.
Brian:Mm-hmm.
Ryan:But the, but to your back to your point.
Ryan:The, I agree totally with, there's a dramatic undervaluing of podcasts and the audience and the relationship today.
Ryan:I think it's true in for advertising particularly as well as other, other ways to monetize.
Ryan:But, but if you just look at Like for, for us, the, you know, the old Mary meager charts of how much time, even just, just today, how much time, how much time,
Brian:Mary Maker chart,
Ryan:how much time do our, do audiences spend with our podcasts relative to the advertising value placed on them?
Ryan:And we, we are actually like very good at monetizing them with brand advertising that's premium priced, but there's still a dramatic delta between the amount of time and the, the sort of value marketers are placing 'em for it.
Ryan:I think that will continue to increase and, and evolve and the industries going quickly.
Ryan:But I do think there's a, there is a, a real delta between that attention, but then there are other elements of like, okay, it's a com it is a real community.
Ryan:Kara actually has talked about this in the past, who I heard it from first, like, people know her, she, people recognize her from, from TV appearances, from her books and writing and, and from her podcast
Brian:ip.
Ryan:and she immediately knows.
Ryan:How before they say anything, she knows where someone recognizes them from.
Ryan:'cause if, if they, if they recognize her from her writing, they're like a little more shy and it's a little more like, oh, a celebrity thing.
Ryan:If it's from video or tv, they're a little more voyeuristic.
Ryan:'cause it's like a weird relationship watching somebody on tv.
Ryan:And if it's from the podcast, they just come up like they've been friends.
Ryan:They should, they like give her a hug and
Ryan:And that
Brian:where, and they say what they do when they listen to you.
Brian:It's like, oh, I listen to you when I'm walking my
Ryan:Yeah, yeah.
Ryan:Like doing the laundry.
Ryan:Yeah, exactly.
Ryan:Exactly.
Ryan:And, and so that is, that's like a real community and that's why there's, okay, where do those communities go?
Ryan:That sometimes they go, you know, certain podcasts have big, subreddits.
Ryan:Some have have decent sized discord communities.
Ryan:And so how do you, how do you build a,
Brian:But how do you monetize that?
Brian:That's what I'm into.
Ryan:A big, a big part of it is, is I think will increasingly be, like membership or subscription.
Ryan:Like how do you, how do you build more of a direct revenue relationship with that, with that audience.
Ryan:another one is live events.
Ryan:Obviously a lot of people wanna come out to see, and that, whether that's ticket sales, some of that is advertising too, but, but there's a lot of, of, of ticket sales in there too.
Ryan:More, you know, commerce and, and merch related things.
Ryan:And, and, and, and maybe even more like licensing opportunities of the, of the content as we've seen with, Netflix seems like more interested in getting into it.
Ryan:They're dipping their toes a little bit today.
Ryan:Fox made its acquisition of, of Red Seed Ventures, or whatever that that
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:Red seat.
Ryan:and so like, I think that's, you know, I think there's still a lot, a lot of commercial opportunity from, from.
Ryan:What the, what podcasts are today.
Ryan:They've just, just over the last 18 months, how much the industry evolved.
Ryan:I'll give a quick story.
Ryan:Like we, we were, we were talking last year, maybe middle of last year, on hey, we should rebrand the Vox Media podcast network.
Ryan:'cause the word podcast was so like audio oriented.
Ryan:And, by the end of the year, the word podcast had actually just become like, like the definition had expanded without us needing to redefine it.
Ryan:It had become like just a show that exists on multiple platforms.
Ryan:And I think that is, so, like even just the, the sort of general vernacular and the general view of what a podcast is over the last 12 months has materially evolved and that, that's just gonna keep going.
Brian:Well, is there, I, I'm interested in that because it seems like some people make the leap from podcasts seem to YouTube and some people don't.
Brian:If you look at the, the, the charts, they're very different.
Brian:Like some people do not make that transition.
Brian:And some people are primarily YouTube, but they also have podcast distribution.
Brian:So there is some like nuance in there where for some, like I, someone like, like call her daddy does not necessarily translate to the same degree to YouTube from the stats.
Brian:I see.
Brian:And, and some people do, and I don't know what the, the, the difference is within that.
Brian:I mean, I'm personally.
Brian:I'm personally more about the audio than the video part, but
Ryan:I, I, I, I also more consume in audio than I do on, on YouTube, but I, but I, but what's weird is I have some sort of similar to what you're saying.
Ryan:There are, I do watch some on YouTube, but I, whatever way I've like, arrived at the show, that's how I consume it.
Ryan:Like, even if they exist on multiple platforms.
Ryan:But like, like there's a Sixers podcast, writes to Ricky
Ryan:Sanchez that that I only, I discovered many years ago from, from Vogel actually.
Ryan:and, and.
Brian:I think he's an investor.
Ryan:I'm sure, I'm sure he's, he's like, he's like the big donor.
Ryan:Anytime they raise money, he's definitely the big anonymous donor.
Ryan:but the, even though they have video, and sometimes I like see the video, I only consume it via audio.
Ryan:So I think there is like some, like where do you, find the show or the, or the talent.
Ryan:But I do, but there is like some, some shows like creatively make sense in multiple formats.
Ryan:Others like, may be a little harder.
Ryan:Like I'm not totally drawn to the, the like all in, you just have like talking boxes on a video form.
Ryan:Like that's less interesting to me than, but, but that's a big part of it.
Ryan:And certain shows do well that way.
Ryan:but for, you know, my personal consumption, that's not necessarily what
Brian:but how much has the vox of, has your podcast network become a YouTube network?
Ryan:I mean, it's a, it's a dramatically growing part of where the audience is.
Ryan:and, uh, I would say it's still while video, video generally both social and YouTube, we still see more like time consumed in audio.
Ryan:It's, it's becoming a very, a much bigger slice of the pie of where the, where the time, and the consumption is.
Ryan:it's a little less, sticky because of the a the, the sort of reliance on the algorithms.
Ryan:the sort of reliance of, I'm listening every week in my, in my audio.
Ryan:RSS feed is very different than, um, and the time spent, sort of listening or watching is, is different, but it just provides access to a lot more, a lot more people.
Ryan:But, but we have, I think or basically every show in the network now has a video component to it, and is distributing full episodes and clips across various platforms.
Brian:Right, but the monetization is more, is far more heavy on the audio side than video.
Ryan:in part because of that time spent, like we, when we go to brands and we talk about, and we sell, sponsorships or ads across the show, we are selling it everywhere.
Ryan:like we won't let, we don't let brands sort of cherry pick.
Ryan:I only want the audio ad read.
Ryan:like this is a show that reaches whatever, hundreds of thousands of people across various platforms, and you're gonna get it on YouTube and you're gonna get it on Instagram and you're gonna get it on audio feed.
Ryan:but as I, as I said, the more people consume more of the shows, more regularly, I in audio form today though, that is changing quickly.
Brian:Mm-hmm.
Brian:So how does the membership piece slash subscription piece play into this?
Brian:I mean, you guys have been, you have some like, you know, membership that that's going on in, in the portfolio, but historically, you know, Vox is an, it's an ads company at least I've always thought of as an ads company.
Brian:formerly putting ads on web pages.
Brian:less so now
Brian:you're putting some ads on webpages.
Brian:Right.
Ryan:sure.
Ryan:It's still,
Ryan:still, there's still still re still reach, still
Brian:honest business.
Ryan:reach tens of millions of people on the websites every month.
Ryan:So it's an important part.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:The, but, but you're, you're, I mean, we're increasingly, focused on the, the membership and subscription subscription business.
Ryan:The, the acquisition of New York Magazine in 2019 certainly changed that trajectory materially.
Ryan:I think, I think at the time of the acquisition, their digital subscription was only a year or two old.
Ryan:so it was still relatively new, even inside of New York Magazine, but it's grown materially since then.
Ryan:and, and is a, is a great business.
Ryan:And then, over the last.
Ryan:12 to 18 months.
Ryan:We've launched, memberships across both Vox and and the Verge.
Ryan:as well.
Ryan:We do have some audio, subscription, businesses like, prera, with Stay Tuned, has a, subscription, which is like bonus content.
Ryan:You get extra content, if you subscribe to that product.
Ryan:But, but the, you know, direct to consumer revenue is an important part of the, the leg of the stool, and increasingly so we continue to see growth there across all of those,
Brian:Can you quantify it at all?
Brian:You can be as, as as exact as you
Ryan:is anyone listening?
Brian:you can do it.
Brian:It's like channel your Scott Galloway and just, you know, open the kimono.
Ryan:Well, we, we can say, we can say like, new New York magazine is a, is a, paid circulation of nearly half a million, people the we grew at.
Ryan:That's, that pace is growing 20, nearly 20% year over year is what it grew in 2024 and continued pace, so far this year.
Ryan:the other two are smaller, they're newer, but growing quickly, off of small bases.
Ryan:So it's a, it's a big, it's a big business in New York Magazine, which I know you've, you,
Brian:I praise
Ryan:you, you, you, yeah.
Ryan:You do, both, both privately and, and on your podcast, which we appreciate.
Ryan:I'd more appreciate the public praise than the private praise, but they both, they both are meaningful.
Brian:no.
Brian:Well, look, I think New York is, I think you guys have been great stewards of that brand because this is a difficult time.
Brian:I mean, it's like the more, with less era, et cetera, et cetera.
Brian:And there's so many.
Brian:Particularly magazine brands that are groping for a, a literally a reason to exist.
Brian:Right.
Brian:And they're trying to, you know, make their numbers and like, I don't begrudge anyone, in a difficult business for doing what they have to do, but a lot of it, you know, falls down into harvesting the brand.
Brian:And that's, that's a, that's a good honest business too.
Brian:A little harvesting never hurt anyone.
Brian:Um, but at the same time, like I think of New York and, and its sub-brands as, as incredibly culturally relevant, and that is, like, that used to be the default, I feel like for magazine brands.
Brian:It, it hasn't, it hasn't been like a lot of brands are, you know, kind of irrelevant to, to particularly in, the ones that are focused on, on culture and man New York keeps coming out with like, you know, buzzy
Brian:must bangers.
Ryan:It's just like, drive the discourse, but you're, you're totally right.
Ryan:And the, I like what is a. What is a magazine in 2025?
Ryan:Like the, the interesting, which is just like,
Ryan:you know, premium content.
Ryan:It's a brand.
Ryan:It's also what's interesting in which, which the editor, David Haskell is like brilliant at is, is the, the ca What makes it hard in 2025 is the cadence of what are, like the, the
Ryan:social discourse is like, it's all, we're all trained on immediacy right now of like, oh, this something just happened and I need to consume.
Ryan:And, and even podcasts are like, oh, we're going, we're gonna go live and do an emergency pod about something.
Ryan:And, and how do you break through on a. Not even necessarily a slower cadence, but just outside of literally what's happening right now.
Ryan:And so that's where you get features like, the West Village Girl or, or you know what, pick your, pick your cut feature story that, that sort of breaks out and drives the social discourse.
Ryan:And that's the, that's the magic.
Ryan:And that's where the subscription product, where New York Magazine is, is not, has no plans, to be the, like, you have to
Ryan:subscribe for, you know, for your must reads, whether it's New York Times for your Daily news or the Journal for business, whatever.
Ryan:But we, we want you, we want you to subscribe because it's the thing you want read every day.
Ryan:That's the goal.
Ryan:not necessarily you have to, but you, you want to,
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:To me it's like, it's the West Village Girlies article and it's like, ah, fuck.
Brian:You got it?
Brian:You got me.
Brian:I got the credit and as long as you price it right, like, you know, you're gonna convert, like I'm sure those articles you see, like, you know, they're gonna, because
Brian:it's, if it's priced correctly, it's almost like, you know, people say that, oh, the Internet's never had micro transactions stuff.
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:But if you price like a subscription, you know, the intro, offer correctly, it's kind of a microtransaction plus in some ways.
Brian:I mean, like $20 to me these days, particularly with inflation, is a microtransaction at end of the day.
Brian:Like, I, I don't know if people are expecting, 'cause the numbers don't work about, so everyone, everyone expects like the internet content to be like, okay, we're gonna pay a dollar
Ryan:right, right.
Brian:dude, this is not gonna work.
Brian:Like those numbers are not gonna add up.
Ryan:yeah.
Ryan:But you, you said something earlier in the conversation, which we think about a lot, which is like, what is the, the, in the bundling and rebundling and where are we in the cycle?
Ryan:'cause like what you're, what what you get from New York Magazine as a subscriber is, is all of the sub-brands.
Ryan:You get Vulture, you get the cut, you get Intelligencer, and all of these features on a regular basis.
Ryan:And you compare that to.
Ryan:What you get on from individual creators on Substack and how much people are paying for Substack, for however many substack subscriptions I have.
Ryan:and where does it go from here?
Ryan:And we think about that a lot of like how to, how to bundle more with New York Magazine, whether it's talent, whether it's sort of, more types of content, different formats, whatever it might be.
Ryan:'cause there is a, I I think there will be some, rebundling that happens.
Ryan:I prob I don't think that's very far away given the,
Brian:So what does that look like?
Brian:Because I think like everyone's sort of, that's why I asked you about the ip, right?
Brian:Because like all these things make total sense, on paper or on the bar stool and, not bar stool, the brand, but the literal bar stool.
Brian:Like when you talk, you know, it would make a lot of sense.
Brian:But then like it gets down into, you know, slicing up the pizza pie and things get like, get sticker.
Brian:Because I think from a consumer standpoint.
Brian:Obviously there's so many different, like news, I think about this all the time.
Brian:Like there's so many different newsletters out there that like the idea of, look, look at cable right At this point, like we're all just begging for cable to come back.
Brian:Like I almost feel like, 'cause I'm like, I don't even know all the things I have.
Brian:I have, like I, I think I might still be paying for Hulu.
Brian:I was watching Friends and Neighbor, your friends and Neighbors on Apple Plus last night there's, there's HBO Max, or maybe it's Max or maybe it's now like go, I don't even know.
Ryan:No, my credit card just expired and I got a new one.
Ryan:It was easily the best thing for my subscription hygiene easily.
Brian:Oh shit, I gotta check that.
Brian:I got Outpost tells me I hate that outpost.
Brian:I don't like to get emails from Outpost.
Brian:Outpost tells me when someone like turned off auto
Ryan:Right, right.
Ryan:Mm-hmm.
Brian:God damn it.
Brian:but yeah, I mean I think the rebundling has to take place.
Brian:doesn't have to, but I think that it makes a ton of sense for consumers and, you know, ultimately.
Brian:When you're only converting 5% of your audience, that's success.
Brian:That's like a weird, sort of thing.
Brian:We have to grow this market.
Brian:it can't just be fighting over like increasingly small, uh, pizza, slices.
Brian:So gimme, gimme, look ahead like three years and tell me what a rebundling looks like.
Ryan:so I think there's a few, a few various like flavors of it.
Ryan:Like there, the mo maybe the most short term is like Substack clearly is in a position to do some bundling themselves.
Ryan:Now, how that works with the individual creators who wants to, like, presumably there needs to be value to the consumer, so some discounts presumably.
Ryan:and how do they work that out with individual creators is gonna be tricky.
Ryan:But, but clearly that's like a
Brian:Make it voluntary.
Brian:Make it like Apple Plus where it depends, you know, it's based on consumption patterns and your slice.
Brian:You compete with everyone else for your, you know, share.
Ryan:then I think that another element is, is you subscribe to a, maybe to a, a brand, and there's creators inside of that brand that sort of all have the same sensibility that, that, that they
Ryan:still might be independent creators or whatever, but inside of New York, like are there other podcasters, other shows, other, other newsletters that make sense under the, the New York umbrella.
Ryan:And it's a similar model maybe where it's, it's you're paying and you have like a, maybe a plus package that includes 25 of the best thought leaders
Brian:should be able to get, feed me with my New York subscription.
Brian:I.
Ryan:Uh, we,
Brian:It is a
Ryan:we love
Brian:that, like, I have subscriptions to both and that's fine.
Brian:you know, I think that, and I don't think it's necessarily, a conflict because Emily's got the hardcore people who wanna be in her comments and do all these things.
Brian:There's a way to expand that market because, and, you know, the, the prestige of New York, I think it's, it's, it's now kind of clear that, that there is a lot of, there's prestige still in quote unquote legacy brands.
Brian:And, and that's why someone like Emily still writes for, for institutional publications.
Brian:I know Chris Black was on, Ben's, Ben and, and Max's, uh, Sefo podcast, and he was talking about this.
Brian:I don't think he, I don't totally agree with everything he was saying, but, you know, he's, he is like Mr. He's trying to take a contrarian position to be like, you know, a, a gatekeeper, cheerleader,
Ryan:Uhhuh.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:Yeah, yeah.
Ryan:But you're, you're, I mean, you're, you're doing this on your, your own, like, what would make you want to be a part of a bundle?
Brian:Ooh, that's a good question.
Brian:to expand.
Brian:So not to like, I think that the key is you don't wanna have like sort of channel conflict in any sort of thing.
Brian:I don't even know if I'm using the term right, but like, you don't wanna basically incentivize people to go around paying full price in order to get, you know, to get it cheaper.
Brian:Like that's, you know, general sort of thing.
Brian:To me it like makes sense because, depending on the model, like it can, as long as you figure out a way that it is not, it is like additive.
Brian:And the other thing that I think of is there's a lot of.
Brian:Publishing functions or media functions that people who are building extremely lean models simply are not gonna rebuild because it is incredibly inefficient.
Brian:So take like events for instance, like you're caught in between, like if you're gonna build up an events infrastructure, you better be able to utilize that infrastructure a lot.
Brian:I mean, I, people used to in early, you know, when I was at Digiday, I'd be like, you guys do a lot of events?
Brian:I'm like, yeah, well, because if you have like an army, you go to war,
Brian:like like you're gonna think, oh yeah, going to war makes a lot of sense because if you got 'em at Army, like you want to use them.
Brian:so yeah, if you have like an events infrastructure, any of these infrastructures, you wanna utilize them because it's really inefficient to have that.
Brian:And when I say infrastructure, I mean beyond technology.
Brian:I mean the people, processes everything.
Brian:in order to execute on all of the functions of being a media business, particularly when, and I think a lot of people in the substack world gets that.
Brian:They start to realize that like having a, a business that makes money off of 4% of the audience makes no sense at all.
Brian:And so you better figure out a way to, one, get, make money off of way more of the audience, and two, make more money off of parts of the audience than like, whatever your $200, like your LTV might like average out into something.
Brian:But everyone's like, you've got like people in your audience who are worth, you know, thousands of dollars.
Brian:You know, you're worth way more to me than like most people.
Brian:Let's be real here if we have a monetizable moment together.
Ryan:Mm-hmm.
Brian:But yeah, to me, like that's what people want.
Brian:And I think like, you know.
Brian:I look at like, the deal that you guys did with like, you know, Karen, Scott, like, I get the, the sense like they don't wanna build a lot of the infrastructure of like a regular like company at this point.
Brian:They just don't wanna do it.
Ryan:yeah.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:No, I think that's right.
Ryan:Kara.
Ryan:Kara, I think has similar views to on sort of being sole, independent
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:I think one of them is set, like their like goal is to have like no one, like work, like reporting to them or something, which is like, you know, maybe an extreme version of it.
Brian:But like, I get it, like, you know, like if, if, if you're gonna specialize, 'cause everyone wants everything and like, you wanna be able to like focus on like making the content and everything.
Brian:But if you're gonna run a business, you gotta run a business.
Brian:You gotta run a
Ryan:Mm-hmm.
Ryan:Mm-hmm.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:But I think, so I think that, your perspective is, is good one.
Ryan:And I think that's where, that's where we think like we can add a lot of that value, whether it's the infrastructure, the bundling, the network
Ryan:effects, and the marketing and, and leveraging the brand appeal to, to audiences to drive more, you know, drive that, that conversion rate higher
Brian:Yeah, like, I mean, Peter Kafka, my arch rival,
Ryan:uhhuh.
Ryan:Sure.
Brian:like, you know, he's, he's a bi now, but you're also, he's also part of the, the Vox podcast Network Network with channels, which everyone should check
Ryan:Go subscribe to channels.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:Yeah.
Brian:I'll leave a, a link in the, show notes we're actually doing.
Brian:We're actually doing a little cross promo podcast together.
Brian:Me, Peter, and Ben Smith.
Brian:It's like the middle aged men of media.
Ryan:Oh, you cut out.
Ryan:Sarah Fisher, my favorite podcast that you
Ryan:guys would always do.
Ryan:Well, I know, I know, but my favorite podcast you guys would always do is, is you and Peter and Sarah that, where she just plays the role of, of like, Hey, it's not all terrible.
Ryan:There are some good news too.
Brian:It's good.
Brian:All right.
Brian:We'll include Sarah.
Brian:I'm happy she's actually doing, we're doing something in can together.
Brian:You gotta
Ryan:Oh, good.
Ryan:Okay,
Brian:it's, it's a PVA with Sarah is subbing in for, for Alex.
Brian:And then Neil Vogel's gonna be on to
Ryan:Oh, nice.
Ryan:Okay,
Brian:and to tell us all that, all this AI stuff, there's nothing to worry
Ryan:Yeah, it's all good.
Brian:It's all good.
Brian:What about that?
Brian:What about the AI stuff?
Ryan:so
Ryan:the
Brian:search, search, going like down the tubes and the open internet being destroyed.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:Yeah.
Brian:You have five minutes.
Ryan:yeah.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:The, so I think the look, there's clearly, a, sort of.
Ryan:Significant platform change underway.
Ryan:but I think what, where we're focused and where the resilience is in, in this sort of loyalty and community and engagement, and I think the, that comes in many forms that comes in.
Ryan:Some like content formats, like podcasts actually generate, as we talked about, like maybe the most loyal, one of the most loyal audiences you can build.
Ryan:but there's also product elements to that.
Ryan:whether it's, via apps, where we launched New York Mag app last year and as well as Eater app.
Ryan:Um, they can be like just consume content, which is primarily what New York Mag app is for.
Ryan:They can be for utility, which is what primarily what the Eater app is for, is just where should I go out to eat tonight or, or plan my trip.
Ryan:but then there's also like elements of what you, what purpose should websites serve in addition to sort of giving you the.
Ryan:The, like, the article.
Ryan:But, a couple years ago we relaunched the Verge homepage, which was designed to, to give people a place to come back multiple times a day.
Ryan:that isn't doom scrolling on one of your, whatever your favorite social feed is, just to get the news.
Ryan:And you can see on the homepage now there's a lot of like, what we call, quick posts, which, you know, maybe this was true when you were still at Digiday, but there's a lot of
Ryan:reporters and journalists spend a lot of time on platforms tweeting out stuff and, and you're sort of giving some content away for free.
Ryan:And the Verge it's, Hey, if we're not gonna write a full article, but there's something interesting coming out of io, like just
Ryan:quick post it on the homepage and now there's like a whole stream of content that you can get just by visiting the Verge homepage.
Ryan:And we see that growth and, and the stickiness of that
Brian:So has that worked?
Brian:I mean, I, there there's, I feel like the, every, every six months or so, there's the, the return of the homepage is this the return
Brian:of the homepage with a question mark, which the old rule in journalism is, if there's a question mark in the headline, the answer is no.
Ryan:Right, right, right, right.
Ryan:Yeah, yeah,
Brian:But every, every six months I'm like, Hey, I love the idea that people are gonna be, firing up their web browser in the morning and being like www dot, I don't know.
Brian:I. Yes, that, but I, I, that, that seems like a very niche behavior with, when people are, are in the same breath talking about some agentic, future of, of bots basically booking your, it's always the vacation of all the things for the bots to do.
Brian:It's always booking a vacation.
Brian:I don't know why that's the use
Brian:case, but
Ryan:Especially cause people only
Brian:of these developer conferences, they're just obsessed.
Brian:I think it's because they're, they just go on a lot of vacations.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:Maybe like, maybe they don't know that normal people basically go like
Brian:It's like not that big of a, it is like, of all the tasks, like planning a vacation is kind of like one of the more enjoyable ones I think.
Brian:Like, not like I'm like looking down my to-do list and I'm like, vacation planning isn't the top thing.
Brian:I wanna like offload to ai,
Brian:but
Ryan:right.
Ryan:right.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:But I, I do think the idea of giving what, what products look, the current AI services chat, GBT, and others are very good consumer experiences.
Ryan:So the idea of how do, what, what, what are the alternative experiences that you can, we can provide as media companies?
Ryan:I don't, so like the homepage in its sort of archaic form is not necessarily it, but the idea of if you, if you care about, what's going on
Ryan:in the world of technology today, I actually don't necessarily think a chat back and forth is like the best way to get that information.
Ryan:I also don't think X is necessarily the best way to get that
Brian:I can assure you it is not.
Ryan:the, the, the, uh, but.
Ryan:And, and we're far away from realizing this vision on the Verge.
Ryan:But, but that is the vision.
Ryan:Like can the verge be the place, and maybe it's an app, maybe it's a homepage, maybe it's, maybe it's a, maybe it's a, a plugin to one of the AI platforms.
Ryan:Like, I don't, we don't know exactly what form factor it'll ultimately take, but, but being able to deliver that type of value and experience with, to be clear, like a, what might end up being a smaller number of people, but but much deeper
Brian:Yeah, it's inevitably
Ryan:ultimately the, yeah, like that's the, that's the shift that sort of everyone's, I think, I think generally
Brian:Okay.
Brian:So you think the AI challenge, like for on the publisher side, leave aside the playing defense and trying to ring some payments out of, you know, the centralized engines.
Brian:Um, but is to give, is to use AI to give people reasons to come to the site because like, I think it's, it's not obvious to me that the open web quote unquote survives.
Brian:Like, do I think that there are going to be webpages?
Brian:Sure, of course.
Brian:Right.
Brian:but when I hear the head of search.
Brian:At Google saying the search results page is just a construct.
Brian:I'm like, oh my God.
Brian:We're talking in like metaphysical, like it is like, oh, you're really abstracting it.
Brian:And it's like, really?
Brian:If you think about it, what is it?
Brian:It's just a front end to a database and it's like, okay, I can see where this is going.
Brian:You just basically want, you know, publishers to be like shoveling out like content that you can then reconfigure and, and take most of the value because you control, the interface and people are not gonna, you know, when you break the bargain.
Brian:And to me, the bargain was always, look, we're gonna take your content.
Brian:We're gonna, you know, take snippets of it.
Brian:We're gonna use it in, in, in search results and whatnot, and we're gonna monetize it, but we're gonna send you traffic and you're gonna monetize it.
Brian:And by the way, you're gonna use our technology so we get a piece.
Ryan:Mm-hmm.
Brian:and that was fine.
Brian:It was a bargain.
Brian:But it seems like that bargain is ending.
Brian:And so I'm like wondering, you know, when people talk about the Mar-a-Lago Accords, I'm like, what does the Mar-a-Lago accords for like AI and publishing look
Ryan:Mm-hmm.
Ryan:Mm-hmm.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:I mean, you wrote about Google Zero this week, in rebooting newsletter.
Ryan:Everyone go subscribe.
Brian:Guess I like this.
Ryan:and yeah, I think that's, I think that's right.
Ryan:Like the interface is changing and the consumption is changing, and we're sort of pretty eyes wide open about what that means.
Ryan:I don't think that, I don't necessarily think it's going to, go to zero, maybe.
Ryan:Imminently, but you know, who knows?
Ryan:but we're certainly preparing for how do we get audiences to engage directly.
Ryan:And I think there's, that comes in various forms.
Ryan:One is, regardless of the interface, I do think there's an element of, if this idea of like branded search for example, of like there's some, we, we actually see a material
Ryan:percentage of people that come from search are like, maybe it's just easier to go the Verge iPhone review and like, think there's a reasonable amount of confidence that
Ryan:regardless of what the interface is, that person is gonna come to the Verge, is gonna get to the verge regardless of wherever it is.
Ryan:Maybe it's through a AI bot or maybe it's through, whatever maintained version of search.
Ryan:But the other element is like, why are you gonna come?
Ryan:And it might be for more and increasingly so more community engagement.
Ryan:Take SP Nation as an example where it's like deep fan bases and I'm, the primary reason people come there is to see what like.
Ryan:Brian thinks about the latest like Eagles trade, and I want to go deep in the comments and the, and and the fan post to see like, what do the fans think?
Ryan:And I wanna contribute and I wanna do that.
Ryan:And that's sort of, sort of what people, why people will come and that, that behavior, if we can keep delivering a, a experience that, that sort of rewards and incentivizes that, then, you know, that's sort of our, our, our path
Brian:But if the, if the sort of, if the reason, if the reason is, and I think every brand needs to think what, what is the reason that you exist?
Brian:If the reason for people to come to the website is, is to retrieve a piece of information that's gonna be challenged, man,
Ryan:Yes, definitely.
Ryan:But that's been, that's been under extreme pressure for the last couple of years even.
Ryan:just for, as Google's made like more updates, like that's true.
Ryan:Like undifferentiated content is.
Ryan:You're, you're in bad shape, for sure of just like, yeah.
Ryan:SEO optimize, like here's a piece of information that 25 other websites are also writing about.
Ryan:that's,
Ryan:that's
Brian:But that's really hard because a lot of.
Brian:Look, publishers have, have responded to incentives.
Brian:I think a lot of times, you know, there can be, look, I'm, I'm one of the, what are they?
Brian:Stat, Statler and Waldorf.
Brian:I used to joke with Peter Kafka that we, we don't know, which is Statler, which is Waldorf.
Brian:But we're both those, those old guys up in the balcony and the Muppets who are like, it's easy to be like, oh, publishers made all these dumb decisions.
Brian:And, you know, and, and the reality is everyone responds to incentives in the market and the incentives in the market were to do just that.
Brian:And oh, by the way, a lot of models are still dependent on that old business while they're trying to build the new business.
Brian:This is just a recurring theme that comes up in just about every conversation I have with anyone who isn't like all of a sudden build building off
Brian:of like a new Substack base, and they're gonna have their own like, you know, set of issues just like every other publishing company does.
Brian:but that to me seems to be the le the.
Brian:The biggest challenge for these businesses is you kind of have to keep operating the traffic business even if you are building this sort of community and audience first business.
Ryan:For sure.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:There, I mean, the, there's a, there's, the media business is always a, like, regardless of pick, throw a dart at some point in
Ryan:history on the media business and, and you get like one foot in today and another foot in whatever the next thing's gonna be.
Ryan:So that, that's not necessarily different.
Ryan:I don't think though, it's, it's, maybe the stakes are a little higher.
Ryan:This is maybe the closest thing to the, you know, the, and maybe bigger, depending on who you talk to from like the shift to.
Ryan:Like the internet in the, early two thousands.
Ryan:And so there it will be like a transformative moment in that way.
Ryan:But, but the idea of, of, you know, some of us that have been doing it a long time of, hey, you've gotta do both today and, and build for tomorrow.
Ryan:And then, and the, the hard work is like, okay, yes, how do you calibrate around?
Ryan:How much do you put in the tomorrow bucket?
Ryan:And like at what point do you do that?
Ryan:Like that is, you know, that's the constant
Brian:So what else is in your tomorrow bucket?
Ryan:But this, so this idea of, of product, product and technology as a means of, of generating audience and value is, and, and specifically based on what does, what is the brand's unique.
Ryan:Value proposition.
Ryan:I think we went through a period in media and, and even at Vox Media too, where the technology focus was on platforms to enable storytelling, to enable like content to reach audiences at scale, whether that was CMSs or or otherwise.
Ryan:And and now it's product and technology sort of, is at at least, sort of necessarily so on par with the creators themselves of what should the experience, the audience experience be that
Ryan:amplifies whatever that unique and distinct value is, like I mentioned with, with sort of eater, and, and the verge and, and even estimation from like a, a forums and community standpoint.
Ryan:And so that, that is like products and experiences that lead to deeper and loyal and more direct audience, and business models that, that sort of support it.
Brian:Okay.
Brian:and, and how would you differentiate that with the, you know, the building, the CMS building, the ad tech, you know, of, you could still have
Brian:some of that, but like, that is how, is, how is it different, you know, executing on this product and tech focus versus the platform focus?
Ryan:I think you, you, you talk a lot about this idea of like, niching down.
Ryan:and I think I, I choose to, I think maybe a lot of people, I don't know if you mean it this way or not, like interpret it as you sort of have to be small to be successful.
Ryan:I don't nec I don't think that that's true.
Brian:you don't have to be small.
Ryan:but I do think, well, how I interpret it is you have to have.
Ryan:Incredible discipline on what purpose are you serving?
Ryan:And that needs to like, flow through.
Ryan:That can be a big purpose.
Ryan:but you do have to sort of like cut out any superfluous things and like really be hyper-focused.
Ryan:And so where I think this is different is the product and technology being sort of hand in glove on what, what is the purpose
Ryan:of that individual brand, which a decade ago, the purpose of every brand was to like just publish articles that get distributed.
Ryan:And now that's very different, on a, you know, per brand or, or per talent basis.
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:And I think it's, it's funny 'cause some of that, you know, I do this other podcast with Troy Young, um, and you know, he was like, we've never actually discussed him on podcasts.
Brian:We probably should, you know, like he was, he was big with the months to moments kind of thing that was his like tagline, uh,
Brian:with like Hearst and building the media os like his name for a CMS, and which he always claimed to me was much more than a CMS.
Brian:Uh, exactly.
Brian:And I think about that.
Brian:I'm like, yes, made total sense at the time.
Brian:Right.
Brian:But at the same time, like there was always this risk then of commoditizing the uniqueness of the brands, you know, and that was always the tension I felt like, in that, in those
Brian:like models where you were looking to build this, these technology infrastructure that would end duplication and inefficiency.
Brian:Yet at the same time, there was always this risk that if you went too far, like it would just.
Brian:Take away all the differentiation of the brands themselves.
Brian:'cause it's inefficient to build things brand by brand.
Brian:It's, it's, it's very efficient to spread across any kind of technology investment, you know, just spread it, smear it as far as you can,
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:Mm-hmm.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:But I think that's where maybe this is where the, the, the AI and the technological transformation comes in is like that no longer the, the efficiency I. As a barrier is maybe no longer quite the barrier.
Ryan:It was, you know, before where, where you could get more scale out of technological and product and development and as well as even content, and distribution opportunities.
Ryan:So that is, but you're, but you're right.
Ryan:But that is the, you know, the differentiation in a, in a mo period of like exclusive websites was like, what is the home, what is the brand logo look like?
Ryan:That was the extent, effectively of like, differentiation, and now, you know, now it's, it's much more advanced than that.
Brian:So how do you gimme like tangible examples of how you end up approaching these as truly brands, right?
Brian:Like, I mean, 'cause like the way you make money, in publishing, I always say it's like, it's so much more indirect, I feel like, than it's ever been in that a a, you know, most publications are brands ultimately, right?
Brian:And they serve a different, they serve an economic function.
Brian:And I think the old economic function, it, it was a lot of it was around how do we aggregate attention from specific groups of people and then basically launder that attention to, to our
Brian:advertising partners, by putting, you know, ads in front of them or, you know, then it, it moved to like, maybe we can get them to take an action.
Brian:We can be an intermediary layer to, a commercial transaction, like through affiliate for instance.
Brian:And I feel like that is changing in some ways, in that the most powerful models are serving different economic functions downstream of the actual media asset itself.
Brian:You know what I mean?
Ryan:Mm-hmm.
Ryan:Mm-hmm.
Brian:Like, and you see that with like events, models and, and various things is, is, you know, I think about these YouTube, programs, you know, and, and something like,
Brian:you know, I'm like obsessed with like, even though I don't golf, like good, good golf, like, I like saw their investment check, man.
Brian:That that's the kind of business that, like when people say like, there's, you know, oh, media's a terrible business.
Brian:No, no, it's not like there, the media's not a, a bad business.
Brian:There's a lot of really good businesses out there.
Brian:How they make money is a little bit different, I feel like, than how people thought about it.
Brian:Meaning like, we're gonna create content and make money, around the content.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:Yeah, I mean the, the, the sort of pie chart of where did the revenue sources come from look very different in a business like that versus what a, you know, a media business a decade ago certainly looks like.
Ryan:and that's, I think that's a big, a big part of it.
Ryan:You kind of have to do a little bit of everything to, you know, whether that's content and ads, whether that's subscriptions and membership, whether that's commerce, whether
Ryan:that's merch, whether that's events, licensing and distribution, maybe it's products, if you're licensing products, things like that.
Ryan:It's gotta be a little bit of, a little bit of everything.
Ryan:But, but, So that's where, you know, some of these, some of these brands have to go, like you, you asked about some examples, but
Ryan:just take, like Eater publishes an amazing amount of content, sort of covering the restaurant industry and where you should go.
Ryan:Openings, closings, whatever the, but the, 7 million people every month come to the Maps on the Eater website.
Ryan:and the purpose is to like, you know, I'm taking a trip, or I wanna go out, or I'm going out to dinner with my, friends or whatever.
Ryan:and how do we deliver that experience in a way that actually gets you, like, right now it's, or, you know, before we launch the app,
Ryan:it was, we're giving you a list of where you should go, and then we're expecting you to go somewhere else to go make the reservation.
Ryan:Go to the restaurant's website, how do we bring, how do we close that gap so we can ultimately serve that purpose for you?
Ryan:Is book the reservation in the app to ideally get you, maybe, uh, sort of a secret menu item.
Ryan:Get you different perks and benefits by sort of being able to, to be part of like the Eater Club, uh, and, and those sorts of things.
Ryan:And so we have to con now we have to make the product like be able to deliver that with the brand needs to remain strong so that people still trust eater's, taste and recommendations.
Ryan:but that's where, that's sort of my point on like the product being, being, needing to be, sort of taken as seriously as the, as the sort of content which has built the brand over the last two decades for Eater.
Brian:Right.
Brian:Yeah, that makes total sense.
Brian:final thing is just around, I mean, you guys struck an open AI deal,
Brian:right?
Brian:how's that going?
Brian:It's almost a year now, at least from when it was announced.
Ryan:it's, it's good.
Ryan:It's fine.
Ryan:We're happy with the, the deal where our, our approach is, as you could guess, is to, like, we expect to be, for our IP to be valued and compensated for, and we are open to partnerships from the various platforms.
Ryan:In certain cases, we will defend our IP rights, in
Brian:you sued anyone?
Ryan:we're, uh,
Brian:guys.
Ryan:no,
Brian:I got, I got a real b in my bonnet with the perplexity people.
Ryan:we're part of, we're, we're part of a, uh, lawsuit.
Ryan:yeah, at some point, but yeah.
Brian:Okay.
Brian:That,
Ryan:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ryan:I, I, we can get you the specifics.
Ryan:I just don't remember the specific company.
Brian:I, I'm sure you're monitoring all the like, bot traffic to all your sites.
Ryan:We are.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:Yeah.
Brian:And it's a ton, right?
Brian:Is it, is it now majority, like bots, like
Ryan:no,
Brian:To this point we're not yet at, when do we become majority bot?
Brian:Like, it beco like it, it definitely flips to, to some degree.
Brian:I see it just on my end, like literally there's no metrics that make any sense on the email side, like.
Ryan:How do you mean which metrics?
Brian:Well, because like bots are clicking on everything, bots are opening everything.
Brian:Bots like you, you're, the bots are, have taken over.
Brian:Like they're, they're on their way to being, you know, eventually it bec bots become 99% of web
Brian:traffic.
Brian:I'm convinced like that, that's just, if you look at the, the, the data, it inevitably becomes 99% bot traffic.
Brian:And so that throws out the window pretty much all of, you know, the, the, the metrics and, and it just becomes a complete mess.
Ryan:Mm-hmm.
Ryan:Yeah.
Brian:But then it also, it's like, you know, when you monitor all the bots, it seems pretty clear.
Brian:That's what I asked you, what the Mar-a-Lago Accords would look like.
Brian:Is it's pretty, I don't know.
Brian:I don't know how it gets done.
Brian:Like I think I'm gonna talk with Annalise from pro raison
Brian:on this podcast.
Brian:But, you know, there needs to be some kind of economic mechanism in which the people that are sending their bots to your website are gonna, are gonna have to get taxed.
Brian:Like, it's just, to me, it's, I don't know how it gets done.
Brian:Someone, whoever's listening out there, please get it done
Brian:because there's just no way that this system works.
Brian:And I think, I feel like Google knows this, right?
Brian:Like, I mean, they, they, they know this, right?
Brian:I, I think I get what they're in this stage right now where they're pring this idea that No, no, no, this is just growing the market.
Brian:And it's the same Google stuff that honestly I've been hearing for like 25 years.
Brian:Well, we focus on users and on publishers and advertisers, and we focus, okay, great, great, great, great.
Brian:The bottom line is you've broken the economic bargain that underpinned all of this.
Brian:And, you know, whatever, crate and Barrel rules or Pottery Barn rules, you break it, you own it, and you've, you, you're breaking it.
Brian:I get that.
Brian:But you, you ha there needs to be something to replace this economic bargain.
Brian:And to me, the obvious place to start is tax the bots.
Ryan:No, we, we, we agree.
Ryan:And, and there, there need to be new economic models built for sure.
Ryan:or sort of, you know, in certain conversations with other media companies, but also with, the platforms themselves.
Ryan:I think it needs, there's a level of urgency that needs to happen that isn't there today.
Ryan:Like, because it's like, it's coming and you can see the, like Neli, NELI Patel talks about this a lot, where the, the sort of like models are, are progressing at a rate that sort of can, are constantly eating the products that are being
Brian:Well he's been, he's been, he's had the, the open web on like life support for like a couple years now,
Ryan:He has, he, he was the original Google, Google Zero, uh, nomenclature.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:Yeah.
Brian:so I, I think he was, you know, pretty early to, to sounding the alarm, about, about that.
Brian:And I think the hard part for a lot of publishers, least when I'm talking to 'em, is like a lot of this truly is out of their hands.
Brian:because publishing is downstream from a lot of insanity that is taking place on the sort of tech platform side that it doesn't really have anything to do.
Brian:They're, they're fighting a, a intergalactic battle for like, control of like the world's resources and like, so yeah, some publishers might get like, cast aside during that.
Ryan:yeah, yeah.
Ryan:But you, but you have to like, there's, all of that's true and as, but as operators, you just kind of need to focus on what you can control at any, which is like brands that matter to
Ryan:people and give them experiences and reasons to visit you, whether that's on a website or other places, increasingly other places.
Ryan:And that's the, you know, if you can deliver that.
Ryan:You know, there are, there are twists and turns, certainly along the way.
Ryan:Some, some more severe than others.
Ryan:But over time, I think the, you have, you have viable business opportunity, if that's true.
Ryan:If you, if you maintain focus on
Brian:Yeah.
Brian:Okay.
Brian:Any other final issues we didn't discuss that we should have?
Brian:We
Ryan:I think we hit on all the,
Brian:didn't talk about the Eagles.
Brian:Are we, are we, uh, are we repeating this here?
Brian:Are we assuming that, that the Eagles,
Ryan:I think, I think that's
Ryan:the only
Ryan:logical outcome.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:Yeah.
Ryan:What is your, what is your, over, under on what week do they, do they get booed for the first time?
Brian:oh, like two
Ryan:Two and a half.
Brian:or so?
Brian:Yeah,
Brian:like when, whenever there's like multiple three and outs, like Jalen Herz will get booed off the field.
Brian:It's great.
Ryan:Right, right.
Ryan:Yeah, exactly.
Brian:vibe.
Brian:Awesome, Ryan.
Brian:Thank you.
Brian:I'm glad we did this.
Ryan:for sure.
Ryan:Thanks for having me.
Ryan:I.
