Simon Owens - The Modern Media Landscape - [Making Media, EP.09]

For this week's Making Media, we sit down with longtime journalist and media observer, Simon Owens. Simon started in newspapers, he’s worked with large brands like US News and World Report, PBS, the Atlantic, New York Magazine, ESPN, and now he writes independently on Substack. All of his perspectives are rooted from actual experience. He's a true practitioner in the industry he covers, which we love. This conversation covers a range of media topics, so please enjoy and stay tuned for our debrief to conclude this show.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.  -----   This episode is brought to you by Scribe. Scribe is the presenting sponsor of this episode of Making Media and the magic behind the Colossus transcripts. One of the best decisions we made at Colossus was transcribing all of our audio into a searchable transcript library. We had been using another provider up until the summer of 2022 but we were constantly having issues with accuracy if our audio was just the slightest bit impaired. Whether it's training sessions, internal Q&As, or for media purposes, the value of transcripts is huge. And we are not alone. Scribe is the transcription service that powers all of S&P Global - like CapIQ - and the client list includes our friends at Tegus. Go to joincolossus.com/scribe to unlock 150 minutes of free transcription and test their capabilities.   -----   Making Media is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Making Media, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @ReustleMatt | @domcooke | @MakingMediaPod | @JoinColossus    Show Notes (00:02:20) - (First question) - Simons’ history in media and what he thinks is happening right now with new companies compared to previously successful ones (00:05:20) - A case study for the archetypical 2023 media company  (00:07:28) - A swing back towards advertising in media companies  (00:08:59) - Thoughts on Substack and Puck and which model will emerge as the standard (00:10:49) - What pulled him in the most to make the switch over to Substack  (00:13:52) - Whether or not he’d stay on Substack if they changed their take rate  (00:15:22) - Best practices for implementing subscription models (00:20:34) - Lessons to take away from The Athletic experiment  (00:22:58) - Whether or not there’s truth to the claim that investigative deep dive journalism is dying out (00:24:51) - The narrative that every company wants to become a media company  (00:26:59) - Ways where becoming a media company has worked well like Hubspot  (00:28:23) - The push and pull between a company and their media arm  (00:30:04) - Whether or not there will be dedicated mediums for multimedia brands  (00:32:21) - Thoughts on YouTube shorts winning the short form video wars (00:33:56) - How important events are for media companies and why they do them (00:35:24) - Overall audience size and the shift in monetizing with advertising  (00:39:09) - Different data points that can be collected from various platforms and the role they play in informing delivery writ large  (00:40:39) - Whether or not the shift back towards email lists is here to stay or cyclical  (00:43:14) - Cultivating community and where he stands on community building in media  (00:45:19) - What creators and companies can do to build up their defensibility (00:46:23) - Axios’ ten thousand dollar subscription product  (00:49:17) - The one media business that’s likely to have a stronghold on the industry in ten years from now  (00:51:35) - De-brief