Disruptivating Media
“There’s never been a more exciting time to be in media!” If by exciting you mean a terrifying roller coaster ride.
Hi,
Here’s to a prosperous and meaningful 2025. Happy New Year.
Let’s look back to look ahead. 2024 was a year of disruption for media businesses, including Verts. I’m gonna nerd out a little this time, presenting a framework -- our Digital Content Value Chain -- to help take a look. Forgive me for nerding out*, but this method has withstood the test of time, generations of technological change, and multiple publishing businesses.
Take a gander, send feedback, LMK. And, if you like these missives, please recommend it to others, even drop a dime and pay to subscribe. That helps me and others who work with me, and for that I and we are grateful. You’ll get multiple benefits and access, too, beyond the extra newsletter info. And if you’d like to know ore about the Content Value Chain and how to manage or understand the business of media, reply to this newsletter or say so here.
As I said, here’s to a great 2025: “Less hamster wheel. More human feel.” First, a touch of Verts news, media news, and AI news for media.
— Dorian Benkoil
VERTS NEWS
Skift Using AI to Help Travel-Tech Vendors (Skift)
They’ll scan earnings calls and SEC filings to pick out relevant company priorities, potential RFPs, even trends.
Sean Griffey on to New Things (LinkedIn)
The standout Vert who with his cofounders sold Industry Dive to Informa for a reported $530 million is on to new things. Watch this space.
NEWS
Make $500M or More? Get Semafor’s Newsletter (NYTimes)
They’re launching the free newsletter and events for execs running $500M+ revenue operations. The Times hat-tips similar efforts from Axios, WSJ, Fortune. We’ll call it a new kind of “controlled circ.” They’re calling well-to-do C-suiters a “micromarket” vertical. (Speaking of rich people’s controlled circ, we remember the old Avenue magazine for wealthy NYers.)
Substack’s Enterprise Version (Substack)
No word on pricing or terms -- I asked; no answer. They promise better: analytics, marketing features, and support for audio and video. We know of at least one pub, The Dispatch, which left Substack and another that eschewed it so as to not “limit” revenue -- ie, ads.
Black-Owned Media Brands Launching Data Initiative (LocalMedia Assn)
The new platform is to aggregate data from 10 publishers on Black American perspectives and experiences geared to researchers, advertisers, philanthropies. Plan is to expand to 30 publishers by 2027. Both Knight and MacArthur foundations are funding it to start.
Quora as a Referral Channel? (Channels Podcast)
Couldn’t help but notice the founder of 1440 media mentioning Quora along with Pinterest and others as a place to acquire audience for their newsletters. (BTW, 1440, like others noted above, went from a shared ESP to self-hosting once their newsletter biz got big enough.) One Vert, head titled, said they used Quora 10 years ago, but now?
Family PE Group Buys RE Pub (Flashes & Flames)
AI for Media
New Instagram Tools (The Drum)
Editing images, suggestions, etc.
Skift …. AI … Opportunities (See above.)
AI Tool to Create Videos from a Product Link (TechCrunch)
On Verts’ Minds: Chief of Staff? Sue AI firms?
From recent discussions in the group. Verts have been asking whether we should… (see below)
* Pardon me for being a bit of an egghead with the below. But I am a professor, if teaching credentialed classes to graduate students at major universities counts. (When someone addresses me as “professor,” I sometimes look over my shoulder to see who they’re talking to.) Anyway, here goes.
Disruptions Abound for Media Businesses
To explain the serious disruptions to the media business in 2024, I’m going to introduce a framework my firm uses to both analyze media operations and help them function better. It’s a version of the Digital Content Value Chain (DCVC) built to help run a media organization. The simplified text-only version, delineating the steps in the chain, is:
1. Creation → 2. Management → 3. Distribution → 4. Awareness & Engagement → 5. Monetization!
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Register here to learn more about managing your (or any) media business.
First, define your mission. Then use the DCVC out whether you’re getting there, adjusting along the way toward financial sustainability. The below, more visual, representation of the chain adds detail such as for measurement and law:
In plain English, here are the main steps to running a media business, via the DCVC:
Creation: To have media people can consume, you have to create it. In this case, “create” can mean making the media (writing, recording, etc.), or acquiring or aggregating it. It’s always a combo of people and technology.
Management: Once you have all that content, you have to organize it in a system, some variety of taxonomies and presentation on servers and services. You need controls so you (your team) can ingest, access, edit, and prepare it all for people to consume, and to distribute, measure, monetize, etc.
Distribution: Now that you’ve got all this great stuff, you have to make it available for people to access. Again, that’ll be some server or service, maybe a third party such as YouTube or other social media.
Awareness & Engagement: Your media are available to consume. But does anyone know? How can you make people aware of what’s available? And can you keep them engaged? Note that sometimes -- as with YouTube -- your awareness and engagement mechanism can also be how you distribute and even manage content.
Monetization: Finally, we get to the part where you earn the money that supports the operation. How will you make your operation financially sustainable? Through ads? Subscription? E-Commerce? Events? And on and on. (“Activation” is on the diagram in parens because occasionally media is [are?] created to influence people — say, garner votes — regardless of money earned.)
Measurement runs along the chain. It is how you figure out if you’re being successful in your efforts, and what do adjust to do better.
Ethics, Legal, and Regulatory issues run along the entire chain because those can affect everything you do. Think about how media orgs have to adjust all parts of their practices to account for government regulation around privacy or for ethical concerns.
So, how does this all apply to the disruptions of 2024? Let’s go through each step.