[upbeat music] Welcome to the Rebooting show. I am Brian Morrissey. This episode is brought to you by Marigold, the cross-channel marketing and loyalty platform.
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I can attest to Sailthru because VC uses Sailthru. I remember getting it when I was at Digiday. So I've used the tool. Check it out. Really good at personalization.
[upbeat music] So this week I have a conversation with Janice Min, who is the CEO of The Ankler.
Janice and I had never talked before, but I, I knew her quite well from the industry, and that's because, you know, before the media industry was talking about substacks, solopreneurs, and doing more with less, Janice was operating kinda on the other end of the spectrum.
She was running glossy publications with a high quality that usually came with high costs.
At US Weekly in the 2000s or the aughts, as apparently we still have to call them, she turned a celebrity magazine into a cultural juggernaut that really flew off the newsstands.
And then in the 2010s, she improbably led the reinvention of The Hollywood Reporter, which at the time was owned by a private equity firm, and I knew it up close since it also owned Adweek, where I was working at the time.
And, and Janice did a remarkable turnaround there, and she turned what was a pretty dowdy trade publication into a player i- on, in both digital scale, it hit twenty-three million monthly uniques, but also by bringing it to a weekly print issue with, you know, better quality, better photography, and the rest of it.
And it, it really kind of, to me at the time, it, it, just looking at it from being at Adweek, where we were trying to reinvent it, you know, it was kind of the, the model, you know, internally at the company, because it was able to straddle both being used for professionals in the industry and in the Hollywood, in Hollywood business, but also taking advantage of, you know, the cultural impact and heat that comes off that kinda industry.
And that was actually something Janice and I talk about. That was something that, you know, Adweek wanted to do.
They brought in Michael Wolff at, at the time to really, to me, like, to pull off, you know, something very similar to what Janice was doing at the Ho-Hollywood Reporter. Didn't, didn't have quite the same results.
But anyway, now she's operating from a very different playbook. She's the CEO of The Ankler, as I said, and that is a substack turned into modern competitor to THR and other Hollywood trades.
She's building a lean, focused business. It has fourteen employees. That's up from three at launch. But it at, does not have the sprawling infrastructure that would define magazines of the aughts, right?
I mean, The Ankler still operates on Substack, for instance. And, and the one thing it is, though, it is profitable. It's subscription-supported. It has an ads business.
It, it is, of course, going into events hard, as, as most publications seem to be these days. It is the f- events are the fastest-growing part of its business.
Interestingly, it went through Y Combinator, but just went in a totally different direction than the typical sort of AI startup playbook that tries to blitz scale.
I mean, I think that's indicative of just the media market now, and it was interesting to me that someone like Janice is, is doing this now, and is really embracing this more with less ethos that you'll see we talk about a lot in this conversation.
You know, the old playbooks don't really work these days in media. I mean, there's people that want to run them again.
I mean, I think we've already sort of memory holed the messenger, but it, that was, you know, basically trying to run an old playbook in a, in a different time, and it just doesn't work.
So we talk about this new playbook, this more with less playbook, if you will, and how The Ankler is executing on it, and as well as their, their feud with, with Jay Penske.
It's always good to have a feud, particularly Hollywood trades, like, have a long history of these kind of feuds, so I'm glad that there's some, you know, that we're, we're having some carryover from previous eras into now and lots more.
So hope you enjoy this conversation. Always wanna hear your feedback. My email is bmorrissey@therebooting.com. [upbeat music] Janice, thank you so much for doing this.
We've never spoken before, but I've, I've been following your career avidly, so excited. Thank you. I'm-- It's shocking to me we've never met 'cause we know so many people in common. Exactly.
We just had a long, a long half hour about Michael Wolff. Yes. And we're both, we're both big fans of Michael, so, um- We-- Big fans of Michael.
Michael doesn't- I don't know if Michael listens to this podcast, so [chuckles] we'll see. Well, well, it's safe to say Michael doesn't, doesn't... I think he likes both of us, which is a huge accomplishment.
[chuckles] Yeah. There, you know. That's what I took, took away from that experience. Did like working for Michael. So I wanna, I wanna talk about, you know, The Ankler 'cause I think it's, like, a fascinating...
But I wanna talk, you know, first about sort of your theory of the caseWith, you know, The Ankler, and that goes back to your experience.
Obviously, Us Weekly, sort of legendary run there in the two thou- what is it, what do we call them, the aughts? The aughts. The aughts. Did the, th- though that hasn't really caught on.
Are people say, or do people say aughts? I don't know. I think we just forget- Yeah, okay... forget that it existed. We'll see.
We'll call it the aughts for now, but you had a legendary r- run with, with Us Weekly, and then, I mean, our paths never crossed, but for a w- a while, I was at Adweek.
I guess we worked for the same company for a little bit. Oh my God. [laughs] I was at Adweek, I think I left in twen- 2011, but you, you
re- I would say you revived The Hollywood Reporter there, and it was, like, a really interesting playbook that you, that you ran there.
And I wanna talk about that 'cause those were, you know, those were two different, like, time... And now we for- fast-forward now to The Ankler. First of all, what did you take away from, from those, like, experience?
'Cause Hollywood media is its own sort of ecosystem. Yeah. I mean, it's... God, what did I take away from Us Weekly?
That, that was an incredible era where you [laughs] could make an extraordinary amount of money selling publications on a newsstand. I mean, how old-timey does that sound, right?
And that you could actually create this appointment, appointment reading where if, and if people who were reading it at the time, you know, it was one of the biggest publications in America.
Wednesday morning it would come out in New York City, and people would sort of rapidly consume it, and then it could set this whole agenda for entertainment coverage, particularly around celebrities, for, like, the rest of news media.
It was like, i- you know, it was definitely in a charmed spot during the, during that decade.
And so I think with, with Hollywood Reporter, I- that was probably, that was probably the f- those were the first sort of signs of how media would be, you know, would be fragmented, that you could start to see how specialized media could gain scale and gain audience and become, you know, huge.
And obviously, I... Going back to Us Weekly a second, you know, I worked for Jann Wenner at the time, and he was very much... You know, he did not really want a website.
We had a sort of sad website, and it was, it was always like it's, it was just promotion for the magazine. And you don't wanna give away your stories.
I mean, I understand it, like, you're trying to protect something that makes you so much more money than a free click.
And so The Hollywood Reporter was really about dragging that into the digital age, and remember, this is the, in the 2010s now. I joined in 2010, and we are trying to play a scale game.
So they didn't have a real website.
We started a website, yet in addition to having our own column- Wait, it was like a print, it was like a print newspaper that was being delivered, and so- Oh my God, the saddest- Right?...
the saddest trade daily, like, hideous- Well, so when you were named there, it was very eye-opening, right? Because, like, look, I worked in, like, in trade media. No disrespect, it's getting...
Like, B2B is getting, like, its due these days. It's having its moment. But let's be real, like, it was a backwater, right? Da- dowdy. Like, I mean, and, and just the...
And, like, even in the sort of lowly world of Hollywood trade media, it was, like, lowest on, you know, in the pecking order, and that's saying a lot.
This is, you know, trade media's never been, like, a place of journalistic distinction.
Uh, but, uh, well, going back to how you and I worked in the same company is that private money, this is going to become [laughs] a familiar story pr- to everyone who works in media, private money decided that they really liked these brands and then that, in this case it was s- it started out with Todd Boehly from Guggenheim Partners, and there was a CEO, Richard Beckman, who probably your listeners re- remember mostly from Condé Nast, Mad Dog Beckman.
And- His office was very near my cubicle, so- Oh my God... but, but at the same time, very far away, if you know what I mean. [laughs] That's... I, yeah, I got it.
[laughs] And so, so they hired me to, along with another character, J- owner Jimmy Finkelstein, who- Yeah... w- most recently we last heard from with The Messenger.
So we, anyway, they hired me to do this remake of The Hollywood Reporter.
They had bought these titles from Nielsen, these e- sort of sleepy, ailing assets out of Nielsen, including Billboard, Adweek, Hollywood Reporter, the Cleos- Let's not forget Brandweek, Mediaweek- Right...
you know, they, they quickly got those- We will, we will, let's never forget those. Yep. And, you know, they bought them- HR Publications, I think So, yes... or maybe not.
[laughs] A- and so they, they, they bought them at the time for $70 million, all these. And then the idea was to reinvent them and ma- and make them big.
And anyway, it was appealing to me because it was, you could see, like, this, the media struggles really starting to take shape, and they were basically handed me, like, money and freedom to remake something, which I w- and I, I remember thinking at the time, like, "I'm never gonna get this again.
This is gonna be the last, last gasp of some, you know, someone in publishing offering something like that to me."
And so it ended up becoming, you know, it transformed into this sort of, you know, narcotic, glossy publication that came out every week that, like, really took the industry, you know, it hit from the first issue.
And then a website that, like, you know, I think of, you know, of grew to 23 million unique visitors a month on Comscore.
So it was about really leveraging our access in Hollywood to tell stories that would be appealing to a much wider audience, and, you know, brought in luxury advertisers, automotive, airlines, in addition to the endemic trade advertising.
And, yeah, ended up becoming a huge, huge success. And that's why I'm saying this is a totally different era, right? 'Cause, I mean, this was the era of, like, you know, in quote, scale, et cetera. Yeah.
And you could, you could make-Big audiences. And this was also a time, and I think we're seeing kind of a new version of this, what I wanna talk about, where you could straddle the, the...
Look, B2B has always been a, a better, has been a good business, you know, at the end of the day. A lot of- Yes... you know, a lot of consumer media have, have been big brands, small businesses. B2B makes money.
It's always made money. It might be, it might be a little bit of a backwater historically, but the economics are, are far better, uh, in many cases.
That was a different era at the time, and so you had a different playbook, right? And you went on to do other things- For sure... with, like, Quibi and whatnot. But, like- Oh, yeah... with The Ankler, with the...
We, we can do, we can do Quibi, but we don't have to do Quibi. But, like, with The Ankler, what is the playbook? 'Cause this is a totally, you've mentioned a few times, this is a totally decentralized media environment.
The Ankler began, you know, Richard Rushfield has a Substack, still on Substack, which I wanna talk about, and it's different. I mean, the, the Hollywood trade world, you know, is now, you know, it's...
I don't know, is it a monopoly? I don't know what it's like, you know, but basically- It's a monopoly, yeah... you know, Jay Penske owns, you know, what?
He owns Hollywood Reporter, he owns Variety, he owns Deadline, sort of- IndieWire. Or, like- IndieWire. Okay... name, name some sort of, you know, you... And you're, you're getting much more obscure after that, too.
Like, GoldDerby, like, TVLine, like, just kind of a lot of sort of in some ways invented brands that all got aggregated under the, the, you know, the big three being the trades, Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and, and Deadline.
And so, you know, so just some context around The Ankler.
When Jay Penske bought The Hollywood Reporter, and then would become the owner of all these titles, like, you've, you know, I think we've seen the Jay Penske playbook before. He doesn't make anything better, right?
He, editorially, he doesn't make anything better, and I don't know, and so then- Well, he makes money. I mean, to, to defend Jay, he makes money. He makes money, yes. So that's, so the... Yeah. No.
In his defense, he makes money. But e- you know, editorial greatness does not seem to be the first objective, right?
And so whereas I would say, like, I'm of the mindset editorial greatness is first, then the ad money follows as a result of that.
And so anyway, and but, and you could see the, the groundwork being laid for, like, a really homogenized voice with lots of separate interests, including award shows.
You know, s- he took it a big investment in South by Southwest and kind of a sort of similarity. And anyone who subscribes to the emails from the trades, it's, it's so, it's almost comical. No, it is comical.
It's not almost comical. You get three versions of the same story coming to your e- inbox from Deadline, Variety- Oh, yeah... Hollywood Reporter.
They're chasing scale, so you get, like, crazy stories about, like, you know, Donald Trump, Israel.
I mean, like, you're getting things that have nothing to do with the business of Hollywood, and they're just chasing a Google, you know, a Google search or some kind of algorithm somewhere.
So it's definitely diluted the kind of, like, the, what, what the actual trade aspect is of covering these, of covering an industry. So anyway, fast-forward to Richard Rushfield.
So his, Richard Rushfield's newsletter had gotten forwarded to me by a really prominent entertainment attorney in Hollywood saying, "Oh, my God. Have you read this? This is, like, the best thing I've ever read."
And so we, so then he, then this entertainment attorney asked if I could introduce him to Richard, who of course I've known 'cause we both work and live out here. And so Richard and I spoke.
We, we all went out to lunch, and Richard told me a lot more about the business that he had and who was subscribing, and it was pretty crazy who was on his subscription, on his subscription rolls.
It was, like, every top person in entertainment, every... You know, Oscar winners, Emmy winners, C- the, you know, p- pretty much every CEO.
And, but Richard was sort of doing his one-man show and, and it's, you know, not dissimilar to what we're seeing right now where there are a lot of one-man, one-woman shows.
And, and so I asked him, I said, like, "Do you wanna try to do something more with this?"
'Cause you could sort of see the trends of media, like, shifting, and this whole d- basically it's like a direct-to-consumer experience of- Mm-hmm...
of how you get your information, but also people who are saying things unfiltered, and, like, things that, like, more established media don't do.
'Cause typically you're writing in the voice of an outlet instead of your own voice. And so, you know, Richard was game. We raised some money. I'm, I'm doing a very short version of this story. Raised some money.
Y Combinator invited us to become part of Y Combinator, and so for people who f- who are familiar with Y Combinator or not familiar with Y Combinator, you know, they give you an initial $500,000 investment, and we really- But also this is, this is where, like, a lot of the, the massive technology [laughs] companies of our day have, have started in Y Combinator.
It's the most famous, like, tech- Yes... incubator. Not exactly where I would think, like, a newsletter business would come out of, but there have been a couple. Well, okay. So, okay. So, yes, you're right.
A- Airbnb, Instacart, I mean, I, I... There are 10,000 of these things that have started out of, out of Y Combinator, but there was one traditional... Oh, Reddit. I believe Reddit started out of Y Combinator. Okay.
But there was one traditional media player, The Athletic, that had preceded us. Okay.
And, and so I, I think part of why they recruited us was they saw the ability to replicate The Athletic, which as people know, had a pretty good outcome selling to The New York Times.
And, and so I think that w- they believed in this idea of, you know, how do you... growing a business around a passionate community, basically. And, you know, and h- here we are today. So what was the...
I just wanna, like, dwell on this for a little bit, because I've been intrigued, but I've, I've had Singta Sur, like, who went through Y Combinator with the, The Juggernaut.
That's another s- n- in media company that went through it. But, like, you know, you were, like, your background's totally different from the people who your, were your-Classmates?
I don't know what you call them [laughs] Yeah, no. Like, your cohort. [laughs] Yeah. I mean, it was really, like, for me, it was sort of a, a kind of a crash course in the new economy, I guess.
And, you know, and I think, so this was in 2022 when we were in Y Combinator, and at that time everything was, you know... So you can see what the trends of Silicon Valley are.
The, the other, the, the big hot companies, or the hot company, they were, they, it was, the companies that were disproportionately represented in my cohort were AI, or uh, sorry, blockchain, crypto, NFTs, like, you know- Got it...
that, that era, and today it's very much AI. Like, there were, you know, if you're, if you're an AI company, you know, you stand a much better chance of being accepted to Y Combinator than, say, a newsletter publisher.
[laughs] Yeah.
So, so yeah, so we were, we were sort of, like, odd man out, but what I liked about it was that it sort of, like, revealed a real discipline about how you, like, raise money, how you grow the company, and, and I think one of the fallacies of fundraising, which I think is media, media that covers media doesn't help with, is I think, you know, people in media get really starry-eyed about, like, "Oh my God, so and so raised, you know, X amount of money," and like, I'm gonna s- you know, you can think of the names of the last decade, like Vice, BuzzFeed, you know, that they, that they took on so much money that it was sort of, like, affirmation of your value.
Instead, not really realizing it mean, it meant you lost control of your company and your destiny. And that- Yeah... uh, and- Well, it's like congrats on the massive mortgage you just took out to, like- Yeah, right...
cover the house. Like, I hope you make it famous. Exactly. Exa- totally.
And so, you know, one of the best conversations we had when we were thinking about how much money to raise was with Marc Andreessen, you know, who just said like, you know, "Bootstrap your company and you will ha- you will raise money or, you know, have, have the business, run the business entirely on your terms moving forward."
And so the... It was a little scary, you know? I've, I always been, like, a pretty, you know, f- like, a fancy editor during fancy times, and it was like, oh my God, that's such a small amount of money, you know?
Like, what, how do you possibly do a business with that? And then I think, and you're discovering this too, I think, like, the amount you can accomplish with little money is, is kind of wild. Yeah.
And I think you're s- you're seeing legacy media now realizing, like, oh, we gotta do this with a l- a lot less money. And so, yeah, it's- Yeah... you know.
I, I was told, I, I, I had this anecdote told to me recently of, of someone who... Oh, I tried to, I... So basically someone who came from, like, not from the glossy magazine world, who landed in- Yeah...
one of those shrunken jobs at, at a- Yeah... um, at a, at a glossy magazine, and this person ended up saying, "What do these, what do all the people do?" Oh my gosh.
Because even with all the cutbacks, that there is still a lot of layers in a lot of these companies, and this is a different era, and that must be an adjustment for you, right?
Like, I mean- Yeah, I mean- You were doing s- I remember when I was at Adweek at the, like, at the end, like, the stuff that you were doing, like, on the cover, we were getting, like, you know, we were forwarding, like, a headshot to, like, our art department.
There was not [laughs]... Yeah. There was a different budget going on at Hollywood Reporter for the, for the photo- Oh... for the covers. Oh my God.
No, I mean, it was, it was like, it was, you know, the last gasp of great legacy media, right? It was, like, glamorous and lush and all those things, and that's what we were selling, right?
And then- We were failing the tie test. Did you ever hear the tie test, that the magazine has to be thicker than- What's the tie test? It has to be thicker than, like, the, a tie to be taken seriously. What?
During the financial crisis, we failed it every single week. [laughs] Oh my God. Oh my God, that's so funny. Wow.
No, I would say there were times, there were times the Hollywood Reporter print issue was thicker than probably, like, 10 ties, right? Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. But yeah, so you realize how, like...
Well, okay, to, it's, but to answer your question, I felt like I was probably well-equipped for this because I think, you know, anyone who has worked with me before knows I'm like, I d- like, I am pathologically hands-on, so, so I, it wasn't unusual for me to, you know, be extremely involved in things, like down to captions and, you know, photo selection, like, every last thing.
So that sort of controlling side of being an editor of that kind was, like, served me well in getting The Ankler off the ground.
So I th- to me, it's like, uh, the Ankler's, you know, uh, as Richard's, like, Substack, was successful. Yeah. It gets- Yeah... you need to get, like, a measure of success.
It found, I guess, what they would call at Y Combinator product market fit, right? Yes. I'm sure you saw that with the people who were getting it, and then you said- Yes... "Oh, there's something here," right? Like- Yes.
Yes. The, yeah. And then there's a question which direction you go, right?
'Cause, like, we see with Substack, a lot of people, and I don't know if the answer is right or wrong, this might be a little bit of a therapy session, they end up staying, staying, like, on the solo path because, like, there is less risk there, and there is sometimes, there's so much leverage if you do it right in the sort of individual part, right?
Because authenticity is, in my view, kind of, like, overvalued in the market and personal connection, but at least at this point, like, the value is the value, and that provides tremendous leverage, whether that's in sales, whether that's in getting the audience to be engaged and to take an action, et cetera.
It's just easier if you're an individual these days than if you are in a faceless brand, right? Yeah. But I was, like, writing a newsletter after I had norovirus and, like, and had an IV in my arm, like, the, the- Oof...
the afternoon before, and I was like, "You know what would be really good? To have a team." [laughs] Uh, yeah.
So I think the question ends up being for a lot of, you know, people who've reached that kind of product market fit in, like, a Substack environmentWhat you, what do you wanna be?
Like, do you wanna be, do you wanna be Ben Thompson? Do you wanna be, like, Lenny, you know? Right. Or do you wanna be the free press? Do you wanna be the ankler? I, I... For us, we wanna be the ankler. Okay [laughs].
Like, it's, um, I mean, it's [laughs] it's, you know, because Richard... So the, the idea was to replicate many Richards, right? And to create a bench of people who are hitting different parts of the industry.
And I, I think if you, if you are a fan of Richard Rushfield, you know, you know sort of the topics he likes to write about, you know his point of view, and it was more about reflecting sort of the greater breadth of what entertainment is, how, what it represents, and all these sort of, like, things we knew we could go deep on that would, people would subscribe to.
I think the other thing with Richard is that he had such a, he had such a high-level group of people reading him, and, like, yet, as y- you know, like, as people who wanna reach that audience know, that's, that's a finite group of people, particularly as entertainment, as Hollywood proper was shrinking.
And so how could we create voices that encompass, like, a larger group of people in entertainment, whether that's involving, like, y- writers, whether that's involving, you know, people who are interested in AI, people who are interested in the creator economy, people who are interested in the business of intellectual property and optioning it.
So it, we really wanted to, you know, start to s- like, I would say, scratch the itch of things people wanted more information on.
I'm gonna, like, also say that, you know, we entered a phase of entertainment which, you know, us, Hollywood, when, when I say entertainment, I really mean Hollywood when I'm talking- Yeah...
about this, of just, like, a few, you know, maybe a c- you know, a few dozen gatekeepers who are really deciding everything that's getting onto your screen, and it was, like, about individual taste, and you had to suck up to this person, and you wanted to be seen at the Polo Lounge with them, to really one where data and data and outcomes were becoming more important, particularly as conglob- you know, M&A was starting to take over Hollywood, and quarterly earnings, like, performance was becoming, like, a, you know, performance, like, mattered, and that was not necessarily the first, the first metric of why a pr- a project was getting made in the entertainment business.
So that, that kind of access to information and data and performance, like, was taking over an industry that had once just had been, been about a hand- the taste of a handful of people, and we have leaned into that.
Like, leaned into telling people about how decisions are getting made, what decisions are getting made, and why.
And, like, kind of like this, I mean, it's really the core essence of, like, trade journal or b- business journalism is like, how are you helping people fundamentally do their jobs?
And that's kind of, that's kind of, you know, the- Mm-hmm... crux of what we're, what, what we do. Do you consider The Ankler B2B or B2P? What's P? The professional. Oh, oh, ooh.
I've noticed that this is like, so, like, Puck, uh, John, John Kelly at Puck u- uses, uh, but then again, he calls a place that's in the financial district as South Tribeca, but, like, he c- he, he says- [laughs]...
what they do is, is B2P. I've heard this a lot, and I, I sort of understand it in some ways, in that B2B I think still has a connotation that is different than regular business news that is, is made for a professional.
Mm-hmm. If you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Like, there's, there's some- Yeah, yeah, yeah... kind of, you know it when you see it, I feel like. Yeah. Yeah.
Wow, I guess I've never contemplated that, but I, but I would say the people [laughs] the people who we, I mean, I, we have great visibility to who our audience is, which is the beauty of newsletters, is that, I mean, we know that the people who are consuming us and paying for us are people who work in the industry.
So yes, in that way they are professionals, and then there are lots of people who, the beauty of Hollywood and entertainment is there are also so many complimentary industries that are reliant on entertainment, and so you see, you know, we have people from, obviously, media, from advertising, fashion, you know, credit card companies, like, they're, you know, you, there are lots of people dependent on us.
So I don't know. I, I would say, I would say we are B2B plus a P, then, if we're, if we're, if we- [laughs]... need to speak in letters. [laughs] We don't have to. We don't have to. [laughs] And I would, oh, sorry.
So- I would say that occasionally we're B2C, 'cause we do, we do, we do do things get, that get a consumer audience. Like, when we interview talent, like, you know, stars of White Lotus, you know. Yeah.
We recently did a piece where we interviewed the, this, the composer who does that cool music in White Lotus, who has gotten into this huge spat, public spat with Mike White, the creator of White Lotus.
Like, that's the kind of piece that can, like, that- Yeah... will totally take off for us.
Well, these kind of industries, whether it's, it's, it's media or, or Hollywood, like, they're, they have such heat off of them, consumer. Yeah.
And I think that is what you got right at, at, at Hollywood Reporter, is you kinda don't have to stick in, in, in the B2B lane. Like, I mean, that, like- Yeah...
I think- It- You don't h- because it, it has, and in a lot of this, you know, and I, I saw, I think Michael was trying to do this with, with Adweek, at least that was the idea. Yeah.
It's like, you know, you see Politico, right?
And Politico has a really hardcore B2B model underneath it, but Politico is a consumer brand because, like, everyone, you know, they made politics like sports at the end of the day. Yes, entertainment.
I mean, which is a really weird way to think about it, but yeah, politics kind of became entertainment also.
But yeah, like, listen, we're not, we're, you know, I, well, I couldn't do this with, you know, if we had HVAC Weekly, like, you know, the, the publication for the heating, ventilation, [laughs] and air conditioning- Yes...
industry, like sh- like- Hey, Industry Dive sold for, like, 600 million, so. I know. I, uh, well, I know. [laughs] Like, that's, I know. Like, maybe we should do HVAC Weekly.
But yeah, I, listen, I think the, the, the-Entertainment in Hollywood, no matter how many times the business press, press will tell you it's distressed, it, it still, you know, it still is...
It holds a lot of interest, and I would, I guess I would say sex appeal to a, you know, a very large group of people in the world, inc- [laughs] including our, their, you know, our tech overlords and Bezos and- Yeah...
you know, who, who could... You know, never met a red carpet in Hollywood they didn't like. Right. But Hollywood is in, in... I mean, like all of media is, I, I feel like, distressed at some point. I feel...
Everyone just says like you're a down... I'm like, I don't know. Like, I mean, it's just like literally, obviously the industry is being compressed, and all parts of it are being compressed.
That's just the reality of it. I can't, like, change that. Well, I guess if you're not in a, if your industry's not in distress, you're not in a good in- [laughs] you're not in an industry.
I, I mean, I- Yeah, people don't care. Right. Uh, you know, and, and a lot of it is just being downstream of the technology overlords that you mentioned, and that's the reality. Yes.
If you own the interface layer, you know, you, you kind of control everything, and that is just the way it, it is. You can't put the genie back in the bottle, et cetera, and so you just have to go on with it.
But then, you know, Hollywood had the strike. That didn't really help things. I mean, so- Yeah... it's interesting 'cause you're, you're, you're barging into a category that is in some kind of distress, right?
[laughs] Well, I, I'm sure you have found this with what you do, like industries in distress... Okay, two things. I don't think distress is forever.
I think it ma- it gets remade, and there will be insurgents and incumbents who come on and who will change it all that we don't even know who they are at the moment, right?
And through Hollywood's worst periods of time when, like, there was just schlock and distress and d- dismay. Like, let's never forget, like Coca-Cola once owned a Hollywood studio, right?
And Matsuhisa, like P- like, what? Like, why are you buying that? And you're like, "Oh my God, it's the end of, it's the end of an industry."
And out of those sort of most fallow, worst, you know, the horrible periods where the sky was falling, came some of the greatest art, right? Mm-hmm.
So the 1970s, for example, followed the 1960s, which was just like people thought like, you know, TV was ruining film. It was like, you know, crappy shows that were imitating other shows.
And, and, you know, and then the 1990s, for independent film, you know, out of Sundance, Pulp Fiction, probably the greatest decade of so...
Many people would argue the greatest decade of filmmaking followed the '80s, which was definitely schlockville and M&A-ville. So, so y- okay. So I'm optimistic about entertainment, I wanna say that.
But the second part is that distressed, distress also is where audiences need to have information, like they need to know what is happening.
Like, they wanna have some tether on reality that is honest and credible and will really tell you what is happening inside your own industry.
'Cause I think the, you know, the throw up your hands and like, "We're doomed," like doesn't work.
And I, one of the things I always say to the staff when we're, when we're constructing what we are putting out in the world is like, you know, people don't pay to hear people complain, right?
Like, so you could, you could do stories all day long about how awful- Yeah... it is to work here, but no one pays...
Never in the history of time has someone paid someone and said, "Let me hear you complain about your life."
So we try to be as constructive and instructive on how to work in the parameters that are now in front of people. Yeah. No, look, I, I think, I look at distre- I mean, I know distressed industries, and I see them.
So like- Yeah... even with media, [laughs] there are times of tremendous change, and they're also like a lot of, there's a lot of volatility, and in volatility, there's opportunity.
And, you know, you can have opportunity. That's why I'm interested in the business model that I wanna get into, is because, you know, how you build the anchorman is gonna be different.
And you, you, you end up having the incumbents, it always happens. They end up having disadvantages when it comes to their cost bases- Yeah...
their cultures, just the way they do things, and we see it a- across all sectors of the economy. So it provides tremendous opportunities to new brands to enter, enter into the fray. Yeah.
So the anchorman started with a subscriptions, right? I mean, it was all- Yep... subscriptions. It's a Substack- Yep... is about subscriptions, right? Mm-hmm. But,
you know, one of the, one of the few good ad categories left is FYC. Yes.
Which is for your consideration, which is a little cottage industry where not only do you not compete with the technology companies, increasingly they [laughs] they are, they are not, they are the customers.
The, the, the corollary to this is in Washington, all of those regulate us, but only in a way that benefits us kind of corporate responsibility ads or...
I notice, I notice when they run, they use the Gulf of America thing. Like, that's how you know it's- Oh. [laughs] Oh, wow. Wow, but tho- those, those ads always make me laugh.
Like, Amazon changed my life for the better. I mean, like, you know, it's, it's, um, you know- But those are the two categories. I think, you know, that's why- Yeah... Puck went after them, and they're good categories.
So break down where the business is now. Get as specific as, as you're willing to. I know you're gonna do- Yeah... percentage gains, which I always, you know, but whatever.
No, uh, no, I'll, I'll be, I'll be more, I'll... Well, I'll try to be more specific. Like, okay, so, so the, this, you were right.
There, the FYC advertising is a big business in the entertainment space, and, you know, if I can go back to The Hollywood Reporter for a second, just in sh- in showing the evolution of how the industry has changed, when I was at The Hollywood Reporter, when I started, the single biggest FYC advertiser at The Hollywood Reporter was Warner Brothers.
By the time I left, it w- it had become Apple. Yeah. So you can see the hierarchy shifting.
But as the streaming wars happened, getting awards became more important 'cause you're trying to market, you're trying to m-Tell the world we have the best, the quali- quality, all of that. And also talent requires it.
Like, if you're trying to bring big names or tr- if you're trying to bring Leonardo DiCaprio over to Apple, that you need to make sure that you're running, like, a top-flight awards campaign for Leonardo, Leonardo DiCaprio to win an Oscar.
So I think you're s- you know, this sort of like...
You know, I think as with, with- in this world of, like, internet sludge and too much information, like, trying to find ways to elevate yourself out of that is probably one of the biggest achievements you can have right now, whether you're, like, the anchor or whether you're a star who's trying to, you know, not just be the, you know, the 2,000th tile on a Netflix screen.
So, so the FYC industry has continued to grow and, and we are taking more and more of it.
And I think part of it is just this, you know, we're s- we're so deliberate in telling people who our audience, who our audience is. And people know we are not chasing scale.
We are not trying to grab the last eyeball in Ohio who, you know, wants to see some scandal about Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively in the, in the 200th story from an outlet.
So we, people know we are speaking to the industry.
So this is where this whole inverse thing has happened in the last, you know, let's say eight years of like, you know, it's not about how big you can get, but in some ways it's the discipline of how small you can stay and how, how much you can continue to prove the case that you are reaching a specialized audience and that y- these people, that sponsors, advertisers know you have that access and they want access to that group of people.
And I think you're probably seeing this from your business too, that, you know, people don't want 200 people events.
They want 25 person events, and they wanna be in the room with those, with these, you know, quote unquote "right 25 people."
I think that whole era of, like, we're just gonna yell a message out into the world and, like, you know, spray and pray, hope it lands with someone, I, I think that's a harder and harder sell for people.
And it's just, it's just not, it's not... I mean, anyone who has spent a second on the internet today knows- Yeah, I know [laughs] None of this is sticking with you. [laughs] Yeah.
But so g- give me the revenue stack, right? So, I mean, you've... Like, I think what's great is starting with subscriptions is- Yeah... it's, it's a stable business. The, like- [laughs]...
you, the, the recurring part of it is very important and, and that is, that's, that's a wonderful thing. But, yeah, I mean- And then you layer on top the other stuff.
So Brian, like, it's crazy when you think about, you know, from legacy publishing, like, you get these offers still like, "12 issues for a dollar." Like, I mean, like, you could- Yeah...
charge a lot more for that, right? And you don't. And so, so, so we s- you know, when I joined Rich- Well, that's the great days. I mean, these things are, they're ad businesses, to be honest with you. I know. I...
They're, yes, they're ad businesses. So, but what if they could be both, right? So I, so anyway, you know, Richard, when, when I joined Richard, the day we, I, it was announced we, I joined Richard, we raised our price.
We raised Richard's price. He was $79 a year. We raised it to 149 a year, and, like, no one blinked. And, and then, you know, we recently did a price raise again to $169 a year.
It just, like, 'cause we are demonstrating, like, our worth to people, and we'd like them to pay us for the work.
And it was, I think we're lucky in this industry also because this is an industry where people have gone on strike to get paid for what they produce, right? Like they, they want, they value- Yeah...
the value of, you know, c- c- content, as people call it. Storytelling, right? [laughs] News reporting. So okay, so we, we've developed a nice, nice space of subscription revenue. We've grown...
Oh, I'm gonna give you a stat, and I'm gonna blow it 'cause I, I'm, I always have to rely on someone else to verify my numbers. Here's an easy one, the number of, the number of people paying you for a subscription.
Well, that, I, I'm not gonna give you the exact number- [laughs]... but it's grown. That's, that's an easy one, though. [laughs] I know. It's okay. It's grown, it's grown, you know, 5X. [laughs] So how about that?
So- Yeah, that's, that's the percentage gain part I thought we were doing. I know. I know. I know.
Well, you know, we'll, we, we will one day, like, reveal all of this, but, like, it's, it, there's, I feel like there's no benefit to us yet to do that. So- Okay, so you got subscriptions.
Will you tell me, like, what percentage of the overall revenue subscriptions are w- versus the other parts? Yes. Yes. So let's see. We're about, at this point, about 40% subscription revenue- Nice...
and 60% coming from advertising and sponsorship of events, and our fastest growing area is events. That's interesting. I mean, that's- Yeah...
like, it's unex- it's expected, I feel like, because, you know, like you said, like, getting, being able to have entree to the right rooms is, is very valuable. And- Yeah...
and that's the one where, first of all, you compete with a lot of different people, I find, at least on my side. Yes. But then you also, and media's the leverage to get people in the room, which changes things. Yes.
But also, you don't need, like, a ton of people in order to have... 'Cause that's- Well-... about relationships and about, you know, you don't need a...
I don't know, like I feel, I feel like the way you build this, these kinds of businesses is different. Well, it's interesting 'cause, you know, your, your cost of goods sold, right, is, is very different, right?
Like you're, 'cause you don't... Like, you're not getting more if you add on...
A- again, it's sort of the discipline of, you know, how little can you create and put out into your audience versus how much, and knowing that every single s- every bit of your communication is specialized, right?
Like, you need to be a must-read. Like, we have open rates still, like our open rates have gone up, you know, 'cause we, 'cause, like, we wanna pay off every single thing you get.
And so, so, but you don't have to incrementally increase your cost of staff, your cost of, you know, producing what you're putting out into the world because the buyer on the ad side, they, they, they bought in, and you, they know that they want...
They don't need a million of you. They just need 100,000 of you, right? And, and, uh, they, maybe they don't even need 100,000. Maybe they just need, you know-10,000 of that audience. Yeah.
And like, that's an ama- that's an amazing thing.
Like, and I do think, you know, I was talking about this with someone who works in ad sales at another organization the other day, that with, you know, whatever's happening to the economy is gonna happen, tariffs, maybe a recession, that advertisers are going to start seeking even more specialized audiences, knowing that the, the direct impact spend is going to be that much more important, that they're, that they will...
This person believes that they are gonna cut back on, you know, the spray and pray advertising, like, just like, "Please, God, someone see my message" advertising. Yeah.
So what, on the events side, like, what are you doing? You're doing smaller scale events that I see, but you're not doing, like, big events. Not yet. I mean, I would- Yeah...
we just, I just came back from Las Vegas, where we did a big event with NAB Show. Oh, God. Yeah, and it- That, that's... If you're in Vegas for an event, that's big. [laughs] Yeah, it was big. So, you know, NAB Show.
Oh, yeah. 60,000 registered attendees. They came to us. That's so- This is an example how, of how the very, very small and the very, very big can interact in this world. Yeah.
So NAB Show approached us about partnering with them to do a business of entertainment track on stage at, at their event.
And so what they wanted was they wanted us to bring high-level people to start building up the- Yeah...
the experience of being at NAB Show and having it go from, you know, trade show to media event in the way that CES is done.
And a woman, Karen Chupko, was brought over, who had done that for CES for 23 years, and that's how we became involved. And it was great.
They came to us 'cause they knew we have those relationships, they could tell, and it ended up being a huge success.
We, it, it ended, you know, the whole, our, our programming cul- culminated with, you know, WWE's president, Nick Khan, and its chief content officer, Paul Triple H Levesque, on stage.
And like that, you know, that's, that's what we were talking about before, where sort of these industry moments can play really big in the world. Mm-hmm.
But I mean, you sort of de-risk on that, so you've got like, you've got a lower sort of floor, but you have a lower ceiling too, right? I mean, that's- Well, we couldn't, we couldn't go stand that up.
I would never- Right. That's- You know, I would... Like, you know- Well, if you raised, like, you know, 20 million, you might be able to. Yeah, I mean- But I mean, that's a different, [laughs] different era.
[laughs] So if, for, beyond, so for our bread-and-butter stuff, the, you know, this is where we...
So people, you know, so we've had partners in, you know, Netflix, you know, HBO, you know, Nat Geo, like, uh, Universal, where we are putting together small events where people can...
Where our team gets on stage with talent, does screenings.
It prob-, you know, or we've had a, we've created a pretty meaningful documentary series with, called Documentary Spotlight, with Tom Powers as, in partnership with Tom Powers, who runs Pure Nonfiction out of New York City.
And like, this, this is where we get top talent to come on stage, talk about their documentaries. You know, we cover them editorial.
I mean, this, I'm not telling anyone who does these sort of events anything they don't know. But it's been able, we've been able to put in rooms, like, some pretty amazing names.
And they're the kind of rooms where people who are talking on stage actually know the people in the audience, and you'll, it's really nice when you see them, you know, spot a friend, and they can talk and hug and stay for the reception.
And, you know, so we're in an event environment out here where it, the feedback we've gotten from events that sort of come out of the Penske organization is that, like, it's not...
You know, you have no idea who's in the room, and that oftentimes, like, you have to bring, for, you know, a deadline event, for example, you have to bring your, you can't carry a bag in.
You have to bring a clear plastic purse in, you know, so people can see what's in your bag, and, you know, things like that.
Whereas we have done a really good job of building the community, and also knowing that, and, you know, you know this, like, like, you have to prove your case with every single event that you are only abiding by, like, the highest standards and- Yeah...
uh, yeah. It's hard because, because sometimes the incentives are against that. Like, we would always have that at my last company, where it's like, oh, yeah, no, half the audience is brands.
And like, [laughs] you know, it's like, well, your interests are to sell more tickets to, you know, technology vendors than it is to, like, get more brands in there. They're a cost center.
The other one is, you know, profit center. And, you know, a lot of, you know, events are that way.
And so you might wanna do high impact, you know, smaller, intimate events, but when you start to, when, when you go to a spreadsheet, like, it's much better to scale the events.
And, and I think the industrialization ends up working against the, the quality in a lot of ways.
And I, I, my theory is that that's why a lot of large event franchises have short shelf lives because I think they always lead people to, you know, put too much mayonnaise on the sandwiches, I think. I could see that.
[laughs] I mean, I think if, if, if you've gone to CES, and I went this year, it's like- Oh, sorry... oh my God, just... Yeah, I, I was like, what is happening?
I'd never, you know, never been, and I was like, like, I can't even find my way somewhere 'cause, like, you're just getting, you know... You have to walk through, like, a, an, you know, an Amazon Cloud tunnel or...
I mean, like, you're, you're just like- [laughs] You're like, what is... Like, you don't even know what's happening, and like, that, that is sort of the opposite of that for me.
Have you ever been to, like, an, a massive enterprise software event, like, like, at that Salesforce, like Dreamforce? No. Oh, see, you gotta... I wanted to do, I wanted to write a book where I just went to...
Well, I didn't actually wanna do it, but I, like, I thought it would be a good book for someone else to write, where they just go to enterprise software massive events like Adobe Summit and, and all of those. Wow.
They're- Wow, that's a se- that sounds like a Silicon Valley episode. [laughs] If they, if they could just... They need to come back now and do, reboot that show, man. That would be so good.
So how many pe- how many people... 'Cause this is, this is an interesting question 'cause it goes to your... So it used to be like, well, how many people do you have?
Like, the, the, the flex was the more people, the better. And I almost feel like- Yeah... these days it's like, you know, I'm talking to people, uh, and they're like, "Well, how many people do you have?"
I'm like, "Well, like, one full-time," like... And they're like, "That's great," [laughs] you know? Like, where- Oh, completely...
it used to be the total opposite, where you, you'd be like, "Wow, we've got, like, you know, 200 people." They're like, "All right." Yeah, exa- right. Uh, right. People...
And when you tell people that you have one full-time person, they're like, "Stop there. You don't need to do more." Like, and you're like, "Well, I kinda could do a little more-" Yeah... periodically, but...
So you know, we started year one, it was just three people on staff. It was me, Richard, and, you know, someone helping us with operations. And, like, that was, that was crazy.
But, like, you-Like that was, you know, you- we- that we just had like, you know, enormous growth that year.
And then we've gradually added people on and sort of we've been profitable from the first year, which has been fantastic.
And you wa- you realize, you know, when you're controlling your own purse strings, like you become like, you know, a, you know, a person who- living on their Social Security check, right? You're try- Yeah...
you're like trying to be really cheap. And, and it paid off. And then just- then as we've begun to make more and more money, we are now up to a very lavish, I think, 14 people.
So, but that's, you know, that's getting into, you know, that's getting into, you know, it's, it's small- It's a different industry. It's a different...
I like it because I like the scrappy, I like the scrappy stuff, and I think that I'm just like more naturally inclined to that. I mean, I, I- Yeah, most-...
understand what you say about like controlling, 'cause like I'll do these dinners, and at some point, like someone from like the restaurant will come by and like whisper to my ear and be like, "You know, you can stay for an extra half hour.
It'll be a, it'll just be like an extra like $1,000." And I'm like, "All right, wrap it up, everyone." Yeah. "Like, hope you had a good time." [laughs] You stand up and you turn on the light and you're like, "Okay."
[laughs] You gotta go. [laughs] But yeah, I mean, that's, you know, that's the more with less era. You just gotta do it. Yeah. And I think people, you know, I think, yeah, everyone understands that.
And I think there's, you know, when you... I mean, boy, like media in this next decade is really, like really gonna be something to behold. And yeah, and I do think that you will.
I think, but I do think that we'll probably see... I, you know, being a, being a small operator for a lot of people is hard, right?
And so you, I, I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see some people join forces and start to sell- Oh, yeah...
like, you know, sell across complimentary brands and just to have backend stuff that can be supported, you know, by- Yeah, because it's, the problem with small businesses is they're, they're incredibly inefficient, right?
Like, I mean, I remember- Yes... at like Digiday, we had this problem of like, you know, the six people in finance problem. It's like, I'm like, "What?"
This is so inefficient across like a business that's like $15, $17 million to have all of this infrastructure costs that we're carrying. Now, you can do a lot more with less now- Yeah... but it is like confining.
You're, you're lowering your ceiling, and then you need to build up inf- infrastructure. Let's say you decide you wanna do your own like big event.
Well, if you bring on like an events infrastructure, and that's the people, you gotta do a lot of events, because otherwise, I remember we had a very hardworking events team, but like every like s- few weeks, like they're, they would be like cleaning out the events closet because there weren't events.
And like- Yes... pretty soon they became like a military, where I was like, the reason the people were like, "You do a lot of events." I'm like, "It's 'cause we have a military." You gotta use the military.
Like [laughs] you gotta- Right... invade a lot of countries. You wanna have full utilization, and I think a lot of these businesses will be inefficient.
And then on top of that, I think a l- for a lot of solo people, you know, it, it is real, like, you know, the sort of like burnout like factor is, is, is real.
Well, it's, it is like being, you know, it's, it's, it's analogous to being like one of these creators on YouTube where- Yeah... like, oh my God, get out the ring light. Here we go again.
Like you gotta like, you know, [laughs] you gotta like keep juicing your audience and like, you know, it's, it's, it is... And, and people have these meltdowns.
You know, the- there have been endless stories about creators who just like burnt out and couldn't do it anymore.
And I think, I think one of the goals is how do you keep journalists from, you know, coming to the same fate? Yeah. So let, let me just ask you on the, the platform thing. Yeah.
'Cause you're, you're on like, you're on Substack. You're one- Yes... there are a few sort of... I feel like you guys are like more of like a, a- an institutional publication and like y- and
I would've assumed in the old days you would just be on a WordPress and you would do your own thing. Right. But look, Substack has a lot of growth tools. You started there. Yes. It's still probably an awkward fit.
I mean, I just like sort of reverse engineer stuff. I'm like, okay, well- Well, that, that is exactly what we've done... you gotta ma- you gotta, you gotta duct tape a lot of stuff together.
It's like if you're just gonna like run a simple event that you need to like take registrations for, you can't do that on Substack. There's, if you- No...
are gonna do, God forbid, some kind of lead gen thing, like you can't do... You, there's so much stuff you can't do.
You can copy and paste in ads, I guess, and people don't like mind that you don't have like a regular ad server, but it is limiting. But you don't have a, you don't have a tech department, do you? No.
I mean, w- we've spent, outside of the, you know, the 10% you pay Substack, right? Yeah. We haven't spent $1 on tech. Like that's amazing- Or thought about it... right? Or thought about it. Or thought about it.
Oh, no, I think about it when the few times Substack- Yeah, but like-... has gone down, then I think about it. But yeah, I mean, it's like- But anyone who has sent an email knows that stuff goes wrong all the time.
Like getting- All the time... email to show up as you want it to show up, where you want it to show up, et cetera, is a non-trivial [laughs] challenge. Yes.
I, I, I would, I would say though, like we, you know, we have, we've had an amazing relationship with Hamish McKenzie, one of the founders of Substack. Mm-hmm.
And he's, you know, he's been very responsive to us when we have asked for things, requested things. I'd like to think we've influenced some of their product changes.
But yeah, I mean, it's, it's, you know, you're kind of making, you're, you know, you're making what you do work in their system, right? And, and- Mm-hmm...
but I, I would also say we've had, we've had n- not one second to think about how, if we were to go our own way, how, how do we do that? And what, you know, what does it look like?
And it would require like this, in some ways, almost a pause in the business that we haven't felt ready to do. Okay, so right now the, the... 'Cause y- there are, look, there's trade-offs to every decision- Yes...
really, won't there? Completely. And, you know, you trade off a lot of flexibility. You are, in some ways, building a business on a platform rather than- Yes...
building a platform for a business, and that is a trade-off. Right. What is the sort of calculation where that trade-off doesn't make sense, or you just don't think of it?
It's like right now it's not hurting the business that you can tell.
It might be a little confining, but like if it like becomes too stressful, then it's like, well, we gotta like think about whether they can change enough to suit our needs.I mean, honestly, it'll probably be around advertising.
And are we, you know, and, and, uh, you know, Substack doesn't, doesn't want you to have advertising. I've told him this, I've told him this for years. I'm like, "Stop- Yes... with the anti-advertising stuff." Yeah.
[laughs] Yeah. And so, so it w- the, I think the, the tipping point will probably be around advertising. And, and then I'll, and for advertising- I told him this.
I was like, "You will never, ever in your life be able to convince me that this business," which is my business, by the way, "should not have- Yes... advertising and should just have, have subscriptions."
I was like, "You're never gonna do it." [laughs] No. No, no. And you, by the way, you, you have, you, you are your own funding, right? You don't have a dollar from anybody, right? No. So like, I'm like- Yeah, so...
no way. The, this is how this- No... th- these businesses work. Why in the world would, quote-unquote, success be that 96% of subscribers don't pay? Fine. Right. Let's say 98%, like, or 90- Yeah... or, or, or 88%.
It's still like- Yeah... come on, who runs a business that way? Anyway. Yeah. Like... Well, and I would also say the other thing where I want more flexibility is in design.
You know, I mean, remember, I'm an, I'm an old school magazine editor. Like, you know, like- That must get tough for you, right?
Oh, like a little- I think 'cause with Substack, it's, like, very, it's, like, cookie cutter. Well, I, and I definitely, like you, I'm definitely held back by the limits of Substack in that front.
And, you know, sometimes I just wanna, like, run free, and I'm not allowed to run free. Yeah. I think that's all the topics I wanted to cover, Janice. I really enjoyed this. Anything we didn't cover that we should have?
I mean, you mentioned at the beginning you wanted to talk Vanity Fair. I don't need to tell you, like- Oh, oh, the last thing. Oh, the last thing. Yes, because I, I read your quote in that.
I do, I do another podcast that, People Vs. Algorithms, where we talked about Troy Young, who used to run Hearst Magazines. Yeah.
He was talking about the Vanity Fair job, and, you know, we're, we're talking about it 'cause, I mean, you know it very well. These jobs are shrunken. Yeah. Like, I mean, they're not the same.
I know David Haskell had, uh, his quote, but then they balanced it out with your quote. [laughs] Oh, David- It was- It was David Granger. David Granger. Oh, David Granger. Sorry, it was a David Granger- Yeah, yeah...
quote. But anyway, that it was still a great... And this is a great job. And you're like, "Well..." [laughs] I mean, it was...
I, I think, I think what I said, it's like, I think w- everyone who works in media is nostalgic, right? You are a nostalg- Yeah...
like, you're, and in some ways you're getting into it 'cause you're thinking, you're thinking of what media meant to you at one point in your life and, and not necessarily facing the reality of media.
And I mean, this is like what you were saying, I think we weren't recording yet, but when you were at Adweek and people were like, "But the weekly. But the weekly"- Yeah...
and, and not wanting to necessarily post things on- online.
And, and so I would say, you know, when people think about these jobs today, like, you know, one being the editor of Vanity Fair, there is a, but the magazine, but, oh my God, black town car.
Oh my God, I'm gonna like, you know, I could st- I could be that person still. I could be a name brand editor and like... But that, like, that's just such a romanticized version of this.
I call it, like, I call that thing, that feeling, like, Colonial Williamsburg of media, where you're like- Yeah...
you k- you wanna like, get, you know, dressed up and play the role and, and pretend, you know, civil war reenactor, like the glory days- Yes... of something. And like, but like, it's gone. It's gone.
And I think the, the real question is sort of, well, I think Ben Smith, you know, he had the last quote in that story in The New York Times, was basically, but i- is it a job about cutbacks or is it a job where you can have fun?
And that's kind of up to the owner to decide, and I don't think we've seen anything out of Condé Nast in the last decade that makes you think this is a job where you're gonna have fun.
Okay, so if Roger Lynch, the CEO of Condé, called you up and was like, "Janice, I want your advice. What, what, what, what, what should I do with Vanity Fair?" Wow.
I mean, I, I guess without looking under the hood of that business, I don't, I don't know. But I guess if, you know, you, I mean, from an editorial perspective, it's like, sure, do great things.
Everyone wants to do great- I guess, well, what is the lane?... great editorial. Right? Because I think one of the things, and you're, it's like celebrity is totally different now, right? Yes.
Like, and I feel like Vanity Fair was always around celebrity, and, you know, minor royals in Liechtenstein who got, like, some- Yeah. Yeah, yeah... some sort of scrape s- Scherzingis... celebrity. I think. Yeah.
[laughs] From, from, from Monaco, yeah. Yeah. Okay. But, you know, celebrity has been completely decentralized too, right? Yeah. Like, I mean, and Hollywood- Yes... is dealing with this all the time.
The Hollywood stars, they've kinda entered the uncanny valley. They can't just, like, pop up when they have a movie to promote and go on late night.
They gotta be like Timothée Chalamet, who's, like, everywhere and- Yeah, you gotta go on with Theo Von, right? I mean- Yeah. But then also- I, I-... your competition is everywhere. It's everyone on TikTok.
It's everyone with a, with, with a selfie stick, [laughs] you know?
And- Well, so I think the thing that people say, though, about, like, about with, when they talk about with nostalgia what they miss about an old school Vanity Fair, they miss, like, the fun and the deliciousness and the sophistication, right?
So it's like that- Yeah... it's a very, it's like a, it's like a s- psychological view of what it is, as opposed to, like, an actual... W- there, would they have A-list talent? 'Cause, like, everybody has A-list talent.
Who is an A-lister? Doesn't matter. But, like, it's a little bit of, like... And this is why, you know, I like that people are talking about the role of editors, 'cause it happens very, doesn't happen very often.
But it really is about, like, a personal view of a person that is getting put on, you know, material that's out there for anyone to write about or process.
And so I think it's that kind of thing that people miss from what it once was, right? That everything, it becomes sort of like, you know, everything is just, you know, in your feed and indistinguishable.
And, like, I think that kind of voice is probably where people could stand a chance to stand out. Mm-hmm. But the last thing is, is on this with being an editor, right?
Like, these days, like, and y- you mentioned this before, like, authentic voices and the voice of the person- Yeah... is more important, and that provides a tremendous amount of leverage.
And before, it was you had a right to-The brand's voice and style, and that was often set by a person, right? Yeah.
You knew, and that was institutional, and you had to conform to that, whereas the marketplace is valuing, you know, peoples being like themselves. How do you think that changes like the role though of the editor, right?
Because you're not... That sort of top-down hierarchical approach seems like that's been obliterated. Yeah. I, I would say in, in how I do it here, it's like I will help you make your piece better.
Like, I'm not going to, you know...
I mean, this goes, you know, going way back to when I was a writer at People Magazine at my first magazine job, the byline of the person was of such little consequence that you were just a tagline at the bottom of the story, 'cause you were writing in the voice of Time, Inc., and like you better not deviate from that.
And the point was for it to be indistinguishable from your colleague's writing. And so, uh, I would say at The Anchor, I am, like, you know, I am helping you make that better.
And in some ways, and oftentimes, I'm telling people, like, "Loosen up. Say this in a way, you'd like this, you know, like loose, like put yourself in this." And, and that, that is one of the differences.
But a lot of the story choices, like I'm still very involved with.
Like, uh, it's ki- it's like helping you, and I- I've always thought this, like part of what I do is like not, not just helping you sort of conceptualize something, not helping you make, hopefully, what you have written better, but also helping you get it across the finish line.
Like, how are we making that a bigger story in the outside world as well? And so yeah, but I'm not sitting there like rewriting people into the voice of The Anchor, 'cause that's not what people want, right?
So, and that, that is to absolutely like an outgrowth as like the creator economy of the last decade.
Like, people don't want homogenized, you know, fire hose bland, you know, like, you know, they don't want it to sound like it's from Upworthy or [laughs] what? Does that exist anymore still?
[laughs] Uh, well, digital media br- I think media brands in general never die. I think Jim Spanfeller had said this, but yeah, digital media brands absolutely- How's that worked out for him? [laughs]...
never, never die because they can always be harvested for some kind of, you know, value, you know.
From the IP value in the classiest instances, I just had, a previous podcast I did was with Jimmy Hutchison who's doing Spin. And- Oh my God... there's still value. There is still value in Spin.
You know, and then the digital media brands, there's still SEO value in pretty much anything. I mean, outside of Gawker- Mm... it takes something tremendous to kill, like fully kill, like a digital media brand.
Well, this is the, this is the IP story of Hollywood. Like you, I'd rather take an, you know, the buyers would rather take any piece of IP- Yeah...
and make it into something new instead of an original idea, 'cause it's just easier to market. It's easier to get in front of an audience. Okay. On that depressing note, Janice, thank you. This was a lot of fun.
Glad we did it. Thanks, Brian. [outro music]