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Vox Media Podcast Network

Media and tech aren’t just intersecting — they’re fully intertwined. And to understand how those worlds work, and what they mean for you, veteran journalist Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers - and gets them to spell it out in plain, BS-free English.
Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Recode Media with Peter Kafka

AI companies have spent years telling us that we’ll be able to use them to go shopping for us, or book us airplane tickets, or get us awesome restaurant reservations. None of that ever materialized.But in the last few weeks, services like Instinct and Meta’s Muse have made that promise feel much less theoretical. Are they actually ready? What’s holding them back? And, crucially: Do we even want them doing this stuff for us?

My pal Jason Del Rey, a longtime journalist who now writes The Aisle newsletter, spends all his time learning and thinking about this stuff. We talk about what “agentic shopping” really means, why it’s been harder to build than Silicon Valley expected, and what happens if it finally works: Who wins, who gets cut out, what happens to advertising — and why Amazon may have more to lose than almost anyone.

And since you’re here: Channels listeners can start a 30-day free trial of The Aisle here. Or if Jason already sold you, subscribe today.
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AI Wants to Shop for You. What Could Go Wrong?

Nicholas Thompson runs one of the few media companies that can say things are going pretty well: The Atlantic is profitable, growing, and boasts 1.6 million subscribers.But that's today. What comes next is the bulk of our conversation: Thompson — a big AI guy — tells me what The Atlantic's deal with OpenAI has and hasn't delivered, why he thinks publishers may need to make money from a web increasingly run by bots and agents, and what he thinks his actual human readers want.Also on the docket: What it means to work for a media company owned by billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs; why he’s making his own sponsored videos and podcasts while running a 168-year-old magazine; and what The Atlantic learned from its first attempt at "let's work with Creators strategy" a few years ago.
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The Atlantic’s CEO on AI, Billionaire Owners, and Moonlighting as a Creator

Not long ago, most Americans had never heard of data centers. Now most Americans are actively opposed to them.It’s a head-snapping change — one that is befuddling tech bosses, and forcing some politicians to quickly change their tune.It’s the second part that I wanted to talk to David Weigel about. Weigel has been covering politics for years — he’s at Semafor now — and has a well-earned reputation for on-the-ground reporting, around the US. So I wanted his point of view on why the anti-data center movement — and the anti-tech movement in general — has sprung up, and how it is scrambling elections around the country.Plus: Elon Musk’s return to midterm politics, the growing revolt against Flock cameras, and what it takes for a political reporter to figure out whether an online argument is real in the first place.
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Data Centers, Elon Musk, and the New Politics of Tech, with David Weigel

Microdramas are the new phone-first soap operas: stories chopped into dozens of one-minute episodes: Low-budget productions filled with romance, werewolves, secret babies, and cliffhangers—and, eventually, a request that you pay to keep watching. Surprisingly, lots of people do.So how big is this business? And is it sustainable?I talk with Ali Albazaz, the CEO of Inkitt, which runs the CandyJar microdrama app, about turning web fiction into video, why he thinks CandyJar can be the HBO of microdramas, and why he is now making AI-generated action and superhero shows for men. Then I talk with Hernan Lopez of Owl & Co., whose new report estimates microdramas are already a $4 billion business outside China. We also talk about the obvious looming question: What happens when TikTok decides it wants to own this business itself?
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The Weird, Big Business of Microdramas

Sports teams keep selling for more money because, in theory, their media rights keep becoming more valuable. But the companies that actually pay for sports TV are starting to push back.

John Ourand of Puck joins me to break down Bob Iger and Josh Kushner’s $12.5 billion deal for the Los Angeles Lakers— and whether the number makes sense if local and national TV money is no longer guaranteed to keep rising.

Then: the NFL wanted its TV partners to reopen their current rights deals early and pay more now. Fox’s Lachlan Murdoch said no, and John explains why NBC, ESPN, Amazon, and everyone else seems happy to let Fox take the heat. Also discussed: Apple’s very different bets on MLS and Formula 1, why ESPN let F1 go, and whether the WNBA is wisely spreading its games across many networks—or making fans hunt for them.
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The $12.5 Billion Lakers, the NFL’s TV Fight, and Sports Media’s Big Split

Joanna Stern spent more than a decade explaining technology to Wall Street Journal readers. Now she’s doing it on her own — with a new media company, New Things, and a new book, I Am Not a Robot, about spending a year outsourcing as much of her life as possible to AI.

Joanna and I talk about what AI turned out to be surprisingly good at, why robots still can’t fold your laundry, and why she thinks the new Siri is a very big deal. We also try to figure out why OpenAI and Jony Ive think we need a new screenless gadget — and whether anyone actually wants to spend less time looking at screens.

Then: What happens when a star journalist leaves a giant media company and has to build a business herself? Joanna tells me how much work goes into the ambitious YouTube videos she’s making, whether they actually pay for themselves, and whether she wants New Things to stay the Joanna Stern show or become something bigger.
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Joanna Stern on the New Siri, OpenAI’s Weird Gadget, and Life After the Wall Street Journal

Two years ago, Oliver Darcy left CNN and launched Status, a paid newsletter focused on the media business. The basic bet was that readers would pay for the scoops and insider reporting he had been producing at CNN.

That bet appears to be working. Status now has four full-time employees, more than 130,000 people on its email list, and “many thousands” of paying subscribers. Darcy has also added advertising, a podcast and YouTube show, and an upcoming live conference. He says subscriptions alone support the newsroom—and that he wants to build a media company that can eventually thrive without him.

I asked Darcy how the business has evolved, what actually converts readers into paying subscribers, and why he’s spending money to expand a simple and profitable newsletter operation.

We also talked about the story Status has covered more aggressively than any other over the past year: Bari Weiss’s takeover of CBS News, the upheaval at 60 Minutes, and what David Ellison may do with CNN if Paramount completes its Warner Bros. Discovery deal.

And Darcy explains why he thinks much of the media press is too soft—and why he thinks the Status house style isn't hyperbole, but candor.
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Oliver Darcy on Status, Bari Weiss, and Why Media Reporters Are Too Soft

When I last talked to Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw, Netflix was buying Warner Bros. Discovery. Six months later, Paramount has the deal — but, surprisingly, it’s on hold while a group of states tries to block it in court.Lucas and I talk about whether Larry and David Ellison can still muscle the acquisition through, how long the fight could drag on, and what this fall’s elections could mean for the would-be deal.Then: Netflix says it doesn’t have an engagement problem, even as it gives investors less data and searches for its next big source of growth. And Hollywood is celebrating a blockbuster summer — but moviegoing remains far below its historic peak. Are the movies actually back?Also discussed: YouTube’s emergence as Hollywood’s new farm system, and why Comcast decided to get out of the media business.
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Lucas Shaw on Warner Bros' Limbo, Netflix's Anxiety, and Hollywood’s Sort-of Comeback

You are a normal person, so if you think about “people writing their own newsletters” you probably think: “Substack”.

But just as Xerox isn’t the only way to make photocopies, Substack doesn’t own the professional newsletter industry.

So let’s meet a competitor: Beehiiv, run by 32-year-old CEO Tyler Denk. Denk helped build Morning Brew’s newsletter machine before launching Beehiiv, and he has a clear pitch for creators thinking about using one versus the other: Substack wants readers to open its app, follow writers, and spend time in a Substack-branded social network. Beehiiv wants to disappear into the background while its customers build brands of their own.

Denk helped build Morning Brew’s newsletter machine before launching Beehiiv, which now powers everyone from independent journalists (previous Channels guests Lachlan Cartwright and Oliver Darcy both use it to power their media newsletters) to companies like Time and TechCrunch.

 He joins me to explain why he thinks the newsletter business still has lots of room to grow — even though my inbox suggests otherwise — and why advertising, not just subscriptions, can support the next wave of independent media businesses.

Also discussed here: Why Denk used to think a business like his would most definitely be replaced by vibe-coded software, and why he no longer thinks that.
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Substack Wants To Become A Social Network; Beehiiv Wants To Stay Invisible

Chris Balfe is the CEO of Red Seat Ventures, the company behind some of the biggest names in podcasting, including Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Bill O’Reilly, and, more recently, Kill Tony. Since we last spoke, Red Seat has been acquired by Fox, making it one of the company’s biggest bets on the creator economy.

So I asked him what that actually means—for Fox, for creators, and for the podcast business itself.

We talk about why Netflix is offering huge checks to podcasters, and why Chris thinks many creators should think twice before taking the money. We discuss YouTube’s rise, why he thinks “podcast” is becoming an outdated term, and why video—not audio—is now driving much of the industry’s growth.

We also get into one of his biggest concerns: the clipping economy. Chris argues that podcast creators and media companies have spent years giving their best content to TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms for little or no compensation—and that the economics of short-form video increasingly benefit the platforms, not the people making the shows.

And, of course, we talk about Fox: what has (and hasn’t) changed since it bought Red Seat, why Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly stayed after the acquisition, and how Fox sees creators fitting into its future.
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Inside Podcasting’s Fight Over Netflix, YouTube, and Creator Control

When David Remnick got to the New Yorker in 1998, it was very much a capital M Magazine — it existed on ink and paper, and that was about it. Now it’s still a Magazine, but it’s also everything else you need to be to survive as a media company in 2024 — a robust online publisher, a podcast machine, a video operation, conference host and more. Along the way, it also pivoted from an ad-based business model to one that thrives on consumer subscriptions. And it remains one of my favorite publications, hands down. So I was delighted Remnick took time to talk to me about what has changed at the New Yorker under his tenure, and what hasn’t. Also discussed here: Whether the New Yorker still has special status among owner Conde Nast’s roster of titles; the acquisition Remnick should have made but didn’t; and why he invited, and then uninvited, Steve Bannon to speak at the 2018 New Yorker Festival.
By the way: Welcome to the first episode of Channels! Feel free to send guest suggestions and (just about) anything else my way: pkafka on most of the socials.
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How David Remnick remade the New Yorker

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