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[music] Hey, it's Brian.

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The following is a conversation I had with Matt Cronin, founding partner of House of Kaizen, to discuss the outlines of The Washington Post's turnaround strategy, how it's laid out by Will Lewis a little over a week ago.

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We recorded this on Friday, and wouldn't you know it, news dropped today that Sally Buzbee, Post's editor, is leaving that position immediately. There's two ways I could look at this.

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I guess I could look at that as this is a great peg for this episode, and the other one is, but wait, we didn't discuss this news, do we? We're just gonna go with it.

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Former Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Matt Murray is going to take Sally Buzbee's place through the election, after which former Lewis colleague and current Telegraph deputy editor Robert Winnett will take the helm there.

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Matt will move over to oversee a third newsroom devoted to what The Post calls surface and social media journalism and run separately from the core news operation.

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Some quick thoughts on that, and you can check out my full thinking in today's edition of the Rebooting newsletter. First, I think it's an acknowledgment that The Post needs to change its product.

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It's just something Matt and I discuss a little bit in this episode, but without these important details.

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Recently, Puck's Dylan Byers, we enjoy poking people in the eye, let's be real, got some pushback when he described The Post as lagging on the editorial front, and Post staffers point to its three Pulitzers, and, and I agree.

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But this is a business, and as Matt and I discuss, The Post has a serious engagement issue on its hands.

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Its audience is about half what it was just a few years ago, and worse, the people who are coming are rarely staying around. Very few are staying for more than one story.

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And you can pull different optimization layers, and we go into some of those that we see The Post enacting. But at the end of the day, these are gonna be incremental.

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And just those few data points I've referenced say that you need to fix the core product. And in a news organization, the core product is the reporting, okay? And this is not a knock on anyone at The Post.

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But any new leader like Lewis is going to want to bring their people in place. I think I mentioned it in this episode, it's a little bit like when you call a plumber in.

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The first thing the plumber does is that they ask, "Who did this? We're gonna have to start all over."

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Um, at least that's been my experience with plumbers, and I don't think it's all that different when you get into any business. So this is part of lots of turnover I think we're seeing in newsrooms.

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And you see it at BI, at CNN, Wall Street Journal, now The Post. These are all different, but I think they share one common thread. These are places in transition that need to position themselves for a new era.

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There is a vastly changed environment, and it is likely going to change even more, and that is gonna require painful choices and, in many of these cases, new leadership.

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That leads me to my second point, which is actually about Matt's role. I've gotten to know Matt a little bit over the last year or so, and I found him to be a real pros pro.

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And I think the challenge of this role, and yes, it's vague because you're betting on the person to figure out the future, and there's no blueprint for the future. I think this, this role is vital.

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These companies need to completely rethink how their product is made, packaged, and distributed.

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Separating it from the newsroom tells me that Lewis sees resistance to the kinds of big changes he feels are needed, and that's normal. And undoubtedly, Jeff Bezos is pushing for more change and faster.

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He just doesn't strike me as an incremental change kind of person. And finally, the choice of Winnett will raise some eyebrows, I'm sure.

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He spent his entire career in UK journalism, not in the United States as far as I, I know or that I can tell in my Googling. And I was sitting in one of the front rows this fall at the Semaphore Media Summit.

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I, I urge everyone to get the... go to the front rows because for some reason people skip them, so you'll always find a good spot.

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And Ben Smith had asked The Wall Street Journal's editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, about Brits taking over American media, and, and Emma played it down.

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But now [chuckles] with her, Mark Thompson, and Winnett, three makes a trend.

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Again, I don't, I don't really know him or his reputation, but I will point to what Emma told me on this podcast when I asked her about her view of American journalism, and she noticed...

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she noted as, as Lewis actually did in an interview with Ben, that American journalism is a bit self-serious. And I think that can sometimes hold it back. I think we're seeing the pressures within these organizations.

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Emma's is seeing that at the Journal right now. There was a brigade of employees that were doing some kind of post-it protest at her office o- on Friday because of some more cuts that are coming there.

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And I think that this is a time where when a lot of these organizations are gonna bring in people with mandates for change, and change is hard to enact.

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And unfortunately, some people undeservedly suffer a lot of disruption, and that's just part of change.

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And I think that by bringing in Winnett, it's a acknowledgment that people are looking for answers outside of, of, of the norm.

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He's just known for an exposé of members of Parliament's abuse of expense accounts, and, and it's a story found, from what I've read, by paying actually for documents.

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And the British press in, in my experience, is far more aggressive in some ways and, and certainly more freewheeling. I think that's thanks to a vibrant tabloid culture that w- we really don't have in the United States.

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I mean, tabloids have always been a particular part of the news ecosystem and, and sort of looked down upon, I believe, from these kind of prestige publications.

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But I think you can argue that for news publishers to cut through this information space that I always talk about, they're gonna need different approaches. And they're gonna need fresh thinking.

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They're gonna reorient these products if they're gonna reach new audiences. This is something Lewis said, and that means to, to slip in all kinds of cliches, there can't be sacred cows or all the rest of that.

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So I'm really interested in seeing how these organizations reorient. So with that out of the way, here is the podcast with Matt.

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[music]Welcome to the Rebooting show.

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I am Brian Morrissey. This week, I'm trying something a little bit different.

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I wanna dig into the recently released plan to turn around the Washington Post by Will Lewis, a News Corp veteran who joined the Post at the start of the year.

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Like many in these kinds of roles, he then embarked on something of a listening tour, and this is par for the course. It's a great way to, uh, buy time, by the way.

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It matches what was done by Mark Thompson at CNN, and in many ways, what Emma Tucker has done at The Wall Street Journal. I think there's, there's some comparisons to what's going on at the Post right now, too.

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And let's be real, the Post is in need of reorientation. This is something that Will has made very, very clear. Ever since Jeff Bezos bought it, the mandate now is to return to profitability.

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Lost seventy-seven million dollars last year. Don't think that's really good. It's less than the hundred million dollars it had lost, but it has seen its audience drop by half since twenty-twenty.

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The sugar high of the Trump years and all that, those boasts of democracy dies in darkness have given way to w-what in my view is something of an identity crisis, and that, that needs to be resolved.

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I mean, what does the Post wanna be at a time when being all things to all people is nearly impossible?

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I mean, will it give up on those national pretensions of a decade ago when it was bragging about its comscore uniques passing The New York Times? That seems like a different generation.

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The Times has simply broken away from the pack. Lewis' recent turnaround plan has many familiar elements of all of these plans.

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There's talk of more sophisticated use of data and analytics, being audience-centric, and zeroing in on areas where the Post can provide unique value.

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Like most publishers, the Post is looking to expand its subscriptions base, and, and here, I think Lewis has some really interesting ideas that we'll spend some time on.

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And to break this down and evaluate this plan and what it means for the broader industry, I am joined by Matt Cronin, founding partner of House of Kaizen, a consultancy that works with publishers and other companies with recurring revenue businesses.

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Matt is something of a podcast regular and also a great partner of Rebooting. Matt, thank you for joining me and being game to try this format for the first time. Yeah, sure thing. Thanks, Brian.

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Being the first of anything is, is difficult. I remember reading the Atul Gawande book, Complications, about being the first... You know, someone has to be the first patient that, like, a doctor intubates.

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Can be a little uncomfortable. I hope it's better. I hope this experience is way better. [laughs] Yeah. I'm always willing to try something new, for sure, and we'll see how it goes after this. Okay.

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Let's, let's, let's get into this because, as I said, Will Lewis joined in the beginning of the year, and, you know, look, he's been very upfront that things need to change.

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And this is a little bit par for the course, right? Anytime... I always think that ev- anytime you come into a big job, you just, you sh- sort of channel the plumber, right?

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Anytime a plumber comes in, they're like, "Oh, who did this? We gotta tear this all out. We gotta..." [laughs] You know. Yeah, exactly. So that's, that's normal. But I think it's...

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What he laid out was, look, it, it ends up being pretty broad, but it's interesting because I think it speaks a little bit to what is overall going on in the industry.

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I mean, I see there's a lot of places that there's, there's a lot of external challenges, and places need to retool. Is this something you're seeing? Yeah, absolutely.

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I'm super excited about what they're doing at the Post, and I, and I think what happened over the last couple months is really interesting because one of the first things that Lewis said, I feel like it kind of threw everybody a bit of a curveball, where he, he kinda indicated that he didn't see subscriptions as much of the future, and in fact, has now come out with a plan that's pretty subscription-specific.

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Um, [chuckles] and so- Well, there's, like, a big asterisk there, right? There is, and, and it'll be great to get into that. Yeah. But I, I...

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It's just a really interesting sort of higher level perspective on where the industry is and what people view as the right way forward.

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Because I think a lot of people responded well to his statements about the idea that this wasn't about subscriptions sustaining the industry going forward, and it was about other things perhaps.

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So we're kind of seeing the, the fact that everybody is trying to figure this out right now.

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And what excites me about this current move is that we have, as you're doing with this episode, somebody who's willing to take a risk and be a bit of a leader and try something new and different so that others ultimately can, can adapt and hopefully follow and take their own risks and adapt to their own regions and audiences in such a way that they can better serve them.

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Yeah. And l- And I, I've never met him, but he's apparently a charming Brit, and there's a lot of these charming Brits out there who get these jobs. I mean, Emma Tucker, another charming Brit, she was on this podcast.

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Mark Thompson has not yet been on this podcast, but he's another, he seems charming enough, and he's definitely British. So that'll give you a little bit of time, but people are gonna see results.

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I mean, we already saw at The Wall Street Journal yesterday, they're, they're having more cutbacks, and Emma was on here talking about the difficult choices, uh, that, that need to be made.

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Uh, something I'm thinking about writing about next week is because hard choices are hard, and you've got unionized workforces who are protesting, and, and they were... I don't know if you saw this.

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They were putting, like, Post-it notes on, on her office. Uh, her- Mm-hmm. Her EA had to go out and sort of be like a human shield. I mean, which I admired, going in the front line.

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[laughs] But then some tall guy sort of went top shelf on her, [chuckles] went over top the assistant. [laughs] Still put the, uh... But, you know, you do what you can.

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But not to make light, uh, because these, these changes always involve people.

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These are people businesses, and when you need to reorient the cost base, yeah, it's not just gonna be, like, through cutting a few SaaS software subscriptions.

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Un-unfortunately, there's a human cost to, to these things, even though Lewis says that the job cuts are not part of his plan. So let's get into what he's been talking about, right?

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So he, he talks about this broad formulation of Newsroom 3.0, which is around s- the regular things of social, AI, and personalization.

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And one of the things that I was interested in, and I don't know if you sort of detected this, is I didn't really see, like, a North Star exactly.You know what I mean?

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Like, I think of you know, the, the, the FT just came out with a very neat North Star, and a lot of these businesses publishing businesses are difficult because they're, they're trying to do so many different things, and a lot of that's just the market that there isn't a clear North Star.

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Is, is, is the whole idea of that kind of North Star not realistic for a lot of these types of publications? I don't think so.

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I think a North Star is fantastic, and I really admire what the FT has done in sharing their North Stars, even as they've evolved over the years. I think it's a, it's a really important strategy.

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People may have doubts as to whether or not they can achieve those North Star goals, and certainly they'll take some criticism for it, but having a North Star, in our view, is critical to ensuring that as decisions get made further and further down the organization and throughout the breadth of the organization, that those decisions ideally point towards that North Star, and that everybody's moving in the same direction.

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And we often find that that isn't the case, as you point out.

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Very often, these large organizations have multiple competing interests, and we've talked about this before, the competing in- interests in the industry, but also competing interests within the organization, and it's really hard to get everybody moving forward on a sustainable path without that North Star.

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So I think it's a, it's a very fair and, I think, insightful criticism that this new Washington Post, quote-unquote, "Build It" plan is lacking a North Star. It makes me wonder why.

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Like, why not go to the extent of actually defining more specifically how they're gonna measure the success of what Build It means? Yeah.

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Well, I, I saw something, you know, Carl Wells, who was brought in, Carl was at The Information and before that, The Wall Street Journal, and he had said, "For too long we were a one-size-fits-all organization," right?

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And that... I think that kind of speaks to it in some ways, the challenge, right? Because a lot of times the...

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wh- when the, when the overarching strategy gets, gets translated into tactics, it's like we're all one thing or we're all another thing.

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And, and I think what Carl is getting at is something we're seeing across the industry, which is thinking about audience segments and building specific products for those segments. There is no audience really.

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I mean, they... treating the, treating, quote-unquote, "the audience," I mean, which is better than users, let's be real. But like- Yeah...

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treating the audience as a monolith, something that we've discussed, is kinda outdated. Yeah, absolutely.

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We've talked about this so many times, and, and it's one of the reasons why I'm so excited to see what they've shared of their plans, because it does, to me, feel like they are moving in that direction of what we've referred to as intentional audiences.

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They're recognizing that it isn't a monolith. It's not one homogenous group, quote-unquote, "audience," but in fact, there are lots of reasons why people would wanna consume this content.

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They have various jobs to be done. And one of the first steps that any media organization can begin to take is to just simply break down that one large group into smaller, smaller groups.

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But even if it's just two or three, having more options for the ways in which people can engage with this content and pay for this content and create value for it is, is going to do wonders, I think, for not only their acquisition components, but also their, their ongoing engagement and, and retention.

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Yeah. Well, they have- This is a, it's a great step... engagement issue. That's pretty clear. They do. I think 20%, only 20% consume more than one page- Mm-hmm... per visit.

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And look, the reality is, when you get into the analytics of just about any publisher, that is, it's like 1.3 for most. Like, they- Mm-hmm... it's...

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The, the numbers that, as I said, they used to send me press releases about how their ComScore uniques were, were more than The New York Times, and meanwhile, The New York Times, well, they had made the move to subscriptions, [chuckles] and so that was not the game they were in- Right...

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but whatever. And that when, when you're relying on a lot of traffic from, from Facebook at the time, political content was, was going nuts in the Trump presidency. Those are often one-and-done people.

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And I'm just seeing, like, on a, on a product basis how...

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I'm, I'm always interested then to go and see how this reflects in the product and the different levers that they're trying to pull in order to get people deeper, 'cause I usually...

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I subscribe to The Post, but I usually arrive there from... I g- I've been very open about my, my Twitter addiction. I'm trying, [chuckles] trying. I really am trying. Someday I'll quit cold turkey.

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But, like, you know, I'll arrive from Twitter, from, like, a newsletter, and they're, they're, they're trying to chase me around to, to, to get into more, to more content.

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But solving that engagement issue is something that I hear come up a lot with news publishers. Mm-hmm. And some of that is a macro environment, I think.

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I have no data, but my vibes tell me it's a macro challenge 'cause I hear it from a lot of people that the...

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I don't wanna say it was a false signals of, like, engagement during the, the go-go years, but people are wearied, and particularly with news content, they are tuning out a little bit.

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And I think that's a sensible, I think that's a sensible decision, you know?

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It was like, it was going back in a time machine yesterday with the Trump verdict coming down, and I gotta say, I, I [chuckles] wanted to go back. I was like, "I don't like this." [chuckles] Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree.

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Well, I, I think it's a, it's an interesting thought process here when you look at what The Washington Post is proposing to move things forward, because I think at first blush, it appears to be what many might consider to be an acquisition strategy, right?

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Let's roll out lots of different ways in which people can engage.

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Some of them are innovative, some of them are enhancements on what exists currently, and it makes you wonder if their problem over the m- recent years has been retaining their existing audience and engaging them, to your point, to a better degree, why would they roll out a, a new acquisition strategy?

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And we know from working with lots of different publishers in this space that engagement is kind of the... it's the holy grail, right?

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If you do engagement well, you will retain your audiences, but you will also attract new audience.

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It has a halo effect on either end of the, of the subscriber journey.I think what's actually happening here is they are...

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If you look at the details of how these new subscriptions and the product enhancements are rolling out, I think they are actually centering around this idea of trying to improve engagement. That's my read on it. Yeah.

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And, and, and by trying to improve on engagement with these enhanced types of content and product features, they then have to segment them out in different ways and different tiers as they've done.

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But what I'm curious to know is did they, through this listening tour and what other forms of customer research did they actually embark upon to determine what would drive greater engagement?

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To your point, this environment, this news media environment, eh, the product hasn't changed, and we've talked about this before as well. The product just hasn't changed for so long, and it needs to- Mm...

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because I think it's less a matter of the content driving the sort of the lack of engagement and the apathy and all the ways that which i- in which younger audiences have been described or rather justified as not consuming it, and I think what we're missing is actually the format.

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Younger audiences, and I'd be curious to how people are defining that age group, 'cause I actually think I fit into this [chuckles] this behavior, and I'm certainly not a young person, but people are used to opening up their access to content and seeing one thing at a time, and they can spend hours and hours looking at one thing at a time, and they are deeply, deeply engaged.

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But in the news content product space, you open up the, the portal, so to speak, and you're inundated with a million things. Even if you come to just one article page- Right...

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you're inundated with many, many different things. Yeah. And this has been the case for so long. So I think- It's like spaghetti against the wall sometimes it feels like. It really is. That's, that's it.

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That's absolutely it. So- And I think the message it gives to your, your audience is, "Oh, we have no idea what we're... Like, we don't know what we... We're just gonna throw everything at you- Yep...

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and we don't have any confidence in, in, in, A, we clearly don't know you because- Yeah, exactly... we're just throwing everything at you."

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And obviously, news publishers do not have a, a TikTok algorithm there, and TikTok has a lot of co- they've got a lot of problems, but they've got a lot of confidence [chuckles] in that, "Hey, we're gonna put stuff in front of you that you're gonna, that, that, that you're gonna be into."

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Mm-hmm. It might be a silly dance video, it might be whatever, but they're really good at that. That's why I, I stay away from it, 'cause I know that they're good. [laughs] Yeah. No, it's a, it's a great example.

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I think that's exactly the kind of experience.

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So, you know, absent the, the consideration for the content, which is important as well, but just thinking about the interface, this is a really interesting consideration for lots of news publishers to, to bring to the fore, and recognize that TikTok, Instagram, others are setting expectations for consumers.

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Even Netflix, right? So Netflix's number one objective when it comes to growth is engagement. It's all about engagement.

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So doing things like having autoplay trailers as you're exploring what you might wanna watch is one of their most successful tactics.

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And it's, it's just interesting to me to see how all these other environments in which content is presented are innovating and adapting and testing- Yeah...

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and optimizing these experiences, whereas the news product simply hasn't been taking those same sorts of more innovative leaps to meet the expectations of the users. These are the same people.

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The people who watch Netflix are the same people who read The Washington Post, but their experiences are totally different, and maybe there's a way we can learn from one another.

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So I, I say this all because I, I think that what's hidden in this strategy that we have a little bit of insight about is hopefully a lot more product evolution that's driven by customer insight and a lot more intentionally oriented towards the kinds of things that they now expect in a modern media world.

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Yeah. This could be really exciting. Yeah. And I also think, like, when I think of product, I also think of the content within the product, not just the presentation, right? And, and- Sure... I think that...

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Look, I've read The Washington Post for, I don't know, 25-plus years. I, I moved to Washington for a couple of years, my first job, and I got The Washington Post subscription.

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This is when Clinton was being impeached, print newspaper, of course. And at the time, it was always... It had an identity crisis then. It wasn't sure whether it was a local paper or if it was a national paper.

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It was almost like it stumbled into being a quasi-national paper because of, of Watergate, really, and because- Mm-hmm... the fact that the government was, was there. And I think if...

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I, I wanna talk about the, the, the future, but I was a history major, so I like to go back. I, I think about that challenge because they let...

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You know, at the time in Washington, The Hill and Roll Call were the two sort of quote-unquote "trade publications" for the legislative sausage-making in, in Washington, DC. And this is at a time- Mm...

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when, I don't know, a house in Bethesda was, like, $250,000, right? [laughs] The, the US government has grown massive.

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Politico and Axios sprung up under their nose, and then Punchbowl subsequently to that, and they covered... It's a company town. Yeah, there was, like, a few other companies, but let's be real. It's...

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The government has grown massive during that time, and The Post let... Literally some of these people were in the building. They were in the building, and they let them- Yeah... them go.

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So I look at it as that was a bit of malpractice. You look at what The Boston Globe has done with STAT. It was a, it was a big bet, right?

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I mean, they lost a lot of money for, for three years on, on STAT, but they were able to say, "Look, what are our strengths?

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We're, we're really strong in, in the Boston area, and biotech health is, like, a major industry here." Yeah. "So we have, we have the ability to, to play in that."

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And this was something that The Post just simply didn't do. I know it was, like, a couple year... I mean, it was, like, a year ago they shut their, like, e-gaming vertical. And it's like, why, why are you do...

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[chuckles] I'm not into gaming, but I'm like, what is... why does The Washington Post need to do a e-gaming vertical? Like, why, why- Right...

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when y- you're sitting on, uh, uh, in the middle of [chuckles] Washington, DC. They're, they're trying to claw that back in these plans. I think that's, that was a critical mistake.

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And even, like, honestly, not to, like, criticize too much, but they had the Halido story and passed on it.I mean- Yeah... move out practice, but that's like a smaller thing.

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But I do think that they need to have an identity about here's what we're about, right? And, and the thing is they have so many strengths. I mean- Mm... like so many.

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Fine, Watergate is in the rear view mirror quite a bit at this point, but they're sitting in the middle of Washington when our economy is increasingly being affected, driven, whatever you wanna call it, by government decisions.

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I mean, we're passing massive... There's tea- there's teas behind these- Right... bills. [laughs] Yeah, exactly.

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So everyone has a stake in Washington, and we see that with the growth of these publications that focus on, on Washington, DC as, as a business, basically. It is a business. Mm-hmm.

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The government is a giant business at the end of the day.

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So I think that was a big miss from them, and I'm interested to see if it's too late, because Will Lewis was, was asked about buying Punchbowl by Ben Smith, uh, which I love. I love the spe- Mm...

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specificity of the question, 'cause it's li- it leaves it hanging out there whether Ben had heard something or not- Right... just without saying it, so we'll never know. I don't know if Ben will tell me.

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[laughs] But what Will Lewis said was, "Newsletters might be like yesterday's news, and we're, we're focused on, on something else." But I think what- Mm...

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what we're seeing i- in this plan, and particularly what they're doing with subscriptions, is that they definitely want with this... They're calling it a pro tier.

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Like, everyone wants the Politico, everyone [chuckles] wants the Politico model. Hard to pull off though, right? Yeah.

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Yeah, definitely it's hard to pull off, especially when you're coming from the position of a regional newspaper. I think the, the...

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What's interesting about The Post that's different from most regional newspapers is they are more frequently going to have something that's of national or international interest, right?

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So it's easy for that sort of shiny object and broader audience to become distraction.

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You see the potential in growing into a really truly nationally relevant source of information, but it's just that it's not gonna be viable for them. I would agree with you.

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They, they can't compete with The New York Times at this point in that way, and they did take their eyes off the prize when it comes to what makes them truly unique, and the fact that they're a company town, as you say.

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So, uh, yeah, I would agree.

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I think it, it's gonna be a, a matter of trying to reorient towards the center and the core, and these new subscription offerings seem to me as though they'll help to do that, while also giving them options for the people who are, you know, not necessarily in that area, but interested in that company topic, and they can engage at that pro level, the B2B level, in such a way that those more nationally oriented stories are, are available to them without having to get the local aspect of it as well.

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It's, it's just a great demonstration of recognizing that, again, people come with different jobs to be done, and we're gonna build products that help to solve those various jobs to be done, instead of assuming that the person who's subscribing from Scranton, Ohio, is there because they want everything that The Washington Post has to offer.

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It's not o- one group. Yeah. So the, the plan right now i- is, is... O- one of the things, I, I'll just step back for a minute there. Will Lewis was a bit critical of subscriptions in, in earlier comments.

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He said that they've... basically, they've peaked. He came down on the side of peak subscription and said they're kind of set up for a precipitous decline. Were you surprised by that? [laughs] I mean, I, it's...

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I mean, it's, it's, it's a view of some. I don't hear it, like, voiced a lot for obvious reasons. Yes. [laughs] So I, I mean, I don't believe in the idea of peak subscription as a whole. Generally, we see very broadly...

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So a lot of what we do is outside of the media space as well. Yeah. And, and subscriptions generally are still a very strong model. Consumers have a strong preference for them.

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But also they provide a really great complement to businesses that may not operate on a recurring revenue model as their primary model.

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So it's a good way to expand into other areas and serve different kinds of customers.

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In the media space specifically, I think that this perspective of peak su- subscription has come around because, again, everybody had unrealistic expectations that the COVID growth trends were going to remain.

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And, and as we move past the pandemic and growth was no longer as easy as it had been, it became much more of a challenge, and in fact, there was a bit of retraction happening.

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People started to say, "Oh, no, this is, this is potentially over." And in truth, uh, it's just coming back to the mean, but the growth is still there.

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And for The Washington Post specifically, I think this is just a very acute experience for them because they tried and they made a significant effort on the national level.

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Their audience expanded quite dramatically because of all of the national news at that time, you know, what the world was going through, and their investments in a great product.

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They absolutely produced a fantastic product that I think attracted audiences from outside of their domain, because it was just a good experience for sure, better than, than, better than most out there. Yeah.

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So- That's, that's for sure. They don't go crazy with the autoplays. Right. Tasteful. Right.

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[laughs] And, and so their, their retraction I think is a, is a bit more acute because it's just people recognize that they didn't necessarily have that need for The Washington Post, even though it was an attractive offering at some point in time.

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So they've churned out a lot of people. But they're regressing to the mean. At the same time, the potential for growing subscriptions still remains, in my opinion.

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And, and I think, again, I think people misinterpreted what Lewis was saying about peak subscription, because it's clear now that he doesn't believe that subscriptions are not important or that they're going away.

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It's clear that what he understands is that a singular monolithic subscription isn't going to work, but multiple variations on subscriptions that are more audience oriented, audience centric, have a lot of potential for growth.

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Yeah. Um- How, how do you see it?

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So let, let's talk about that, because it seems to me sometimes peopleAnd I actually did this put the, the cart before the horse, and you wanna talk about subscriptions, you really need to talk about audience segments before you talk about subscriptions.

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Yeah. 'Cause yeah, when subscriptions started, it was very blunt. It was like binary, yes or no, paywall Mm-hmm.

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And then meters came around and, and then dynamic, and then freemium, and but really a lot of these to me were still treating the, the, the audience as a monolith. And there's, there's... I don't know.

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The way I think about it is, is there is a fine line, right? You can't slice the onion super thin. You can't have 50 options. I mean, people just... people are busy. They're not, like, thinking about you all the time.

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Make it easy for them [chuckles] to give you money. There, there's a reason that, like, any consulting project is, you know, [chuckles] there's three. It's just- [laughs]... that's the way it works.

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It's like the Holy Trinity. I don't know. I don't make it up. No, you're absolutely right. Too many choices paralyze the consumer and make it more difficult for them to purchase the product. But is that proven out?

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That's my vibes-based a- [laughs] analysis. You have- No, it's-... actual facts. Yeah. It's 100% true. Okay. For sure. Yeah. And, and at the same time, only one option does the same thing, right?

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It filters out people to a greater extent than is necessary. So the trick is, for any one of these organizations, is to acknowledge that it's not gonna be the same rule for everybody, right?

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Understanding who your audiences are and their various segments, and importantly, understanding them in terms of their value, their CLV or their potential CLV is going to be the thing that really helps to determine how many different segments are we truly trying to serve here with different products.

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Yeah. Because you could absolutely create hundreds of different products potentially, but the complexities of doing that and the, the operations of fulfilling upon that exceed the value when you break it down too much.

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There's a sweet spot in there. And, and I'm curious, this is gonna be where, where this strategy for The Washington Post proves out.

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We've seen very little about the details of what they're intending to do, but it sounds to me like they have their two existing digital subscriptions, which is the, the all access and then the premium digital, and then these new ones I think are being, being positioned as additional subscriptions- Yeah...

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for the B2C audience, right? So they're, they have on top of that the plus- Right... then there's the pro and the membership.

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So now we're getting to a level of complexity- So right now, just, just, just to stay there for a second. They have- Yeah... they have two, basically, subscription options.

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Let's leave aside print, 'cause then you can, then you can bundle- Right... in print, and print is always... I notice that they drop it totally to the bottom, which is, is telling- Yeah... at this point.

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But, you know, the, the, the premium and all access, to me, they're, like, they're vague, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, you get, like, extra... The, the extras for the... I always joke about the football phone.

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It, it felt like that, like, where the extra, it was like an e-books, e-books from- Yeah, e-books... from Washington Post on, like- Gift articles... I don't know if you- Yeah... if you, if they tested that.

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I mean, e-books? Is e-books a big thing to get people into a higher tier? It's strange. Right. Yeah. Look, if, if people are into it, I will absolutely do an e-book to sell an extra [laughs] subscription [laughs] tier.

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But now they're, they're, they're looking... It- these are... Th- these feel more...

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I guess the other thing I would say about their existing subscription strategy is very heavily dependent on, on the discounting approach, right? You, you can... I, I...

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They're, they're not showing to me now, which is interesting, 'cause I, I logged in to actually read an article.

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But when I was there earlier, there was, there were, they were rolling out, they were still on the Memorial Day sale mode, and, uh, they, they build a lot of subscribers off the dollar offers.

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You, you didn't have to scroll very far on Instagram to, to get a dollar offer in my experience. And then of course they, they entered...

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not of course, but they entered a, a churn spiral, and churn spirals are, are no, are, are not fun, right? Yeah. What, what is...

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Just to dwell on that a little bit, gi- give me the breakdown of how publishers should think about the dollar offer. And I, I'm talking, like, broadly as, like, using that symbolic, is you get people- Mm-hmm...

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in the funnel, you get their data, you get their credit card on file, and I get it. It's se- it's... In any meeting with the whiteboard, it's a great experience.

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Then, uh, weirdly I got a text last night from, from my wife saying, "Washington Post just charged me $120."

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She couldn't even remember when sh- when she had maybe taken one of those dollar offers in order to read an article. What is, I... what is the role of those really l- low rate intro offers that then balloon?

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I mean, uh, to me they, they feel a little bit too much like when I was in college, the, the banks who would come in and offer you, like, a water bottle to take a credit card out, you know? [laughs] Yeah.

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It's never a good deal. [laughs] Yeah. But [laughs] Totally agree. Yeah, this is...

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This strategy of these low intro offers with the hope that at some point they can increase the, the lifetime value of those subscribers and retain them, in my mind is, is indicative of, as we talked about before, the conflicting incentives, but also a lack of goal alignment within an organization and with- within the audience base.

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So when we, when we talk about goal alignment, we really wanna talk about sort of product market fit. How much is your, your business goal aligned with what your, your audience, in this case, wants to buy?

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And when we talk about these low promotional price offers, these are based upon organizational decisions that are really rooted in the idea of building a large set of eyeballs that can be monetized on advertising versus building a product that people want to pay for and that they value continuously ongoing.

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And there's a, there's a lack of alignment. We're seeing this in this sort of transition in the industry right now.

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There's a lack of alignment on which of those priorities, or how to balance those priorities, so that they can manifest in good customer experiences.

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The idea of the $1 offer will always bring in a higher number of new subscribers, but it will also increase the churn rate and make it more difficult to keep those people around.

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And for a very long time across the industry, people have been generally satisfied with this idea that having slightly less than a 1% weekly churn rate, which rolls up to, at the end of the year, almost half of those subscribers churning out- Yeah...

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th- that- Well, they're not really subscribersWell, that's, that's exactly it, because they don't really value the product. They value the promotion.

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But we, we experimented with a couple of these like at Digiday, and- Mm-hmm... I remember like talking to like my boss. Like, he was like, "Why are these people churning?" I'm like, "Because it was like a cheap offer."

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These are not... I, I was like, "We have to segregate these out. These are leads. They're not like subscribers." Exactly. They're- Exactly. We're, we're just, we're hoping a bunch of them fall into the bucket. Mm-hmm.

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This is about how many fall into the bucket, not how many didn't. This is direct marketing- Mm-hmm...

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where, and I remember it was said to me when I covered this, it's not about how many fish fall through the net, it's just about how many end up on the deck. That's what it is. It's just a different game to some.

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And if you mix the, that data, you start to get bad signals at the end of the day. Yeah. That's exactly right.

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So fundamentally, and this is again going back to that idea of the North Star metric, this is why this is so important, because when you deploy a tactic like these promotional introductory offers, you're saying that what we value is volume more than the value of the customer and their experience and our product for them, right?

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Mm-hmm. You have a choice between volume or value when it comes to selling your product, and promotional office- offers clearly indicate that the strategic priority for the organization is still volume.

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And I think we're in a phase where we need to be focusing more on value. We need to be creating and selling the product for a real value that people want to pay for it ongoing again and again and again.

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And that, that creates a satisfaction and a stickiness and a retention for them- Mm... that will pay out over time. The, the...

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So the secret value, which isn't such a secret, but the, what makes a subscription or a recurring revenue business more valuable generally is that the customers pay out over a very, very long period of time versus sort of the e-commerce model, which is to say, "Let's have the lowest possible customer acquisition cost so that we can drive this one transaction."

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Yeah. That sort of mentality has kind of permeated this industry. Yeah. It's the DTCification- But this industry- Right? All this per- Exactly...

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all these like performance marketing goons, as I call them, spread out [laughs] Yeah... and like, I'm sorry, my performance marketing friends. Yeah, and look at DTC, right? Yeah.

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These companies, they, they looked good on paper for a while inser- until, until they started to realize that they didn't have customers. They, they were- Right...

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renting Instagram users, and they were just performance marketing machines, and they had to repeat it. There was no loyalty. There was... It wasn't like an acquisition. It was just- Mm-hmm...

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I'm gonna buy this thing this one time, and then guess what? Maybe we get them on an email list, and then people unsubscribe. I'm gonna have to go back on Instagram and pay. Instagram loves...

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It's kind of like a Zenprive- Oh, yeah. It's great for them... right? It's like- Mm-hmm... of course it isn't a one-time thing. [laughs] Drug com- drug companies are not gonna make some cure. [laughs] Yeah, exactly.

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That's exactly right. So you, you...

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So a business that has the foundation of a recurring revenue business model kind of adapting to tactics that are oriented towards one-off transactions and one-off acquisitions, it will inherently kind of gravitate towards the, the, the, the most immediate perceived ROI, the lowest quality customer for the lowest possible price.

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And instead, it's just not leveraging the real value that it has and its ability to really build a relationship that over the course of many months, and ideally many years, pays out exponentially greater than that one-off transaction, right?

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If we can just have a longer term view on the ROI of those efforts, and instead of discounting for the quick acquisition, we price the product at what it really should be priced at, create real value in the perception of the, the consumer's mind, and get them to buy into something that they're willing to, to commit to for a long time, yes, we're gonna get less of them, but if you're making five, six, seven, eight, 10 times more money off of them, that should be okay.

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And when you value, when you, when you emphasize value over volume, that's when you can really leverage the power of this kind of a relationship. Yeah. So I, I think that goals have been misaligned.

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We're currently in this transition phase.

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What we don't know, because of your point about The Washington Post, we don't know what their North Star is, and we don't know what the pricing of these new subscription products are going to be, so we don't know where they lie on that, that equation or that perce- prioritization- Right...

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of volume versus value. But I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful that when they come out with this pricing, they leave this current Memorial Day 25 cent sale behind- Yeah...

250
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and they move into something that's a more realistic expectation for the value of the product. Yeah. There's this kind of crazy eddy approach that I don't think [chuckles] is like a long term. Yeah.

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But let's, let's go through what, what, the way... Because it's clear, and I think he's, I think it resonated with me, his, his critique of, of subscriptions being an all or nothing proposition.

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And again, there's always a balance, but what he laid out was that there was gonna be a plus tier that is for... They're looking at a core audience and a non-core audience, right? So their core audience- Mm...

253
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they get a plus tier. And that's, that's typical, although I will say this, a lot of times people don't want more. Mm-hmm.

254
00:42:36.732 --> 00:42:46.742
I think that's a general problem of to fallacy, but it's also a problem of the, the human condition as, as we view progress as more. I mean, I, I find it...

255
00:42:46.982 --> 00:42:59.882
I know, I know it is better for the product if I have fewer words than more. I'll tell you this. Mm-hmm. I go up to the word count thing, and if it says 630 versus...

256
00:42:59.902 --> 00:43:11.742
and, but it says 1,250, I will feel 1,250 that I've done more work, which is- [laughs]... awful. But I know it at least. [laughs] Right. Anyway, there's a plus tier, and then the pro tier is their B2B.

257
00:43:12.082 --> 00:43:24.010
It'll be interesting to see where they, they net out on that. And look, I get it. Carl was at, at the information. He knows this. It... B2B subscriptions are-Great. They're on, they're on-- usually they're on Amex cards.

258
00:43:24.050 --> 00:43:32.170
You're, you're disproportionately on Amex cards. There's a reason that business class seats are so expensive, 'cause it's not people's money. [chuckles] Yeah.

259
00:43:32.610 --> 00:43:37.290
That's getting yanked back a little bit, but it-- I think they're a little late to be coming in.

260
00:43:37.330 --> 00:43:49.940
They have, they have some really good policy writers, but they're gonna have to really find a lane in order to not cover policy from the why is this interesting, a news perspective.

261
00:43:49.990 --> 00:43:59.390
You've gotta help people make money at the end of the day. You have to give them a, an advantage in the marketplace really for these to work, in my view. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

262
00:43:59.430 --> 00:44:06.860
There's a couple different ways to look at this, this tiering of subscription- Oh, and I should add that the, the membership is the next one, which is like the kind of- Right...

263
00:44:06.870 --> 00:44:17.050
like soft and fuzzy, although I have a membership, which whatever. You get extra, you get, you get access and, and things. It's really for, for core audiences. Yeah.

264
00:44:17.490 --> 00:44:30.890
I-- so again, I'm, I'm really curious to see exactly how all of these existing all access and the, the premium digital as they exist right now lay out next to what they're presenting as these new tiers.

265
00:44:31.390 --> 00:44:37.310
Is there gonna be any consolidation involved in that? We, we don't know, and we don't know how they're gonna relate to each other but from a pricing perspective.

266
00:44:37.370 --> 00:44:46.610
But I think one of the first ways to look at this from an audience-centric point of view is to consider that this pricing psychology that we were just talking about, right?

267
00:44:46.690 --> 00:44:59.290
So to your point, sometimes people don't want more, and by giving them an option that offers more and is more expensive, you're playing on the psychology that the lower level offer is a good deal.

268
00:44:59.880 --> 00:45:08.730
And so just simply by having more options, you have the ability to sell a higher volume of something that appears to be a better deal. And that could be really smart.

269
00:45:08.750 --> 00:45:16.940
And that doesn't even get into the details of what exactly this more consists of. But that's a, that's an important tactic to consider when you are presenting...

270
00:45:16.950 --> 00:45:25.860
And then you said it earlier, there's a reason why all consulting proposals are consist of three options, right? That largest level option is there, and it's designed to make the middle option look really good- Yeah...

271
00:45:25.930 --> 00:45:27.930
and attractive and justifiable. Yeah.

272
00:45:27.990 --> 00:45:48.440
So there's that part of it, but then there's, there's also what are the products going to consist of, and how do they create true differentiation of these premium products in a marketplace that, to your point, has been, uh, saturated, and their, their goods have been stolen by the, by the likes of Punchbowl and Politico and Axios and others, right?

273
00:45:48.490 --> 00:45:58.780
How are they gonna compete- Yeah... with this sort of premium level product in a marketplace that already has established what that means for this exact content- Yeah... that they shit out? And it's, it's harder...

274
00:45:59.170 --> 00:46:16.890
I think it's gonna be tough because, you know, when you look at their, both the, the pro product and then the membership product, I mean, the membership product, I always say, if you wanna know what people are gonna do in an organization, just look at their last place because outside of a few people, Elon Musk, like most people have one playbook.

275
00:46:16.930 --> 00:46:24.950
It's like- Yeah... Bill Belichick made a game plan unique to each team. No. N- every other coach does not do that. [laughs] They've got one thing.

276
00:46:24.990 --> 00:46:30.010
If someone like scores a lot of points, they're just gonna score a lot of points. So that's, that's what they do.

277
00:46:30.110 --> 00:46:48.740
And so I, I look at what the, the Journal, right, and the Dow Jones, it's interesting what, what, what Emma Tucker is, is, is undertaking there and, and, and my read is The Wall Street Journal in reality is a hero brand for a B2B data business.

278
00:46:48.790 --> 00:46:57.690
Mm-hmm. When you look at where the money is coming and where the investments are being placed by Dow Jones, it is in like energy pricing services.

279
00:46:57.730 --> 00:47:04.330
It is not trying to like roll, expand and, and take on The New York Times. It is not. And- Right...

280
00:47:04.350 --> 00:47:26.310
when you look at, at, at the, The Journal, obviously they've got a, a strong subscription offering, again, OPM, other people's money oftentimes, and they wanna really zero in on that and leave aside a lot of the extraneous coverage areas, by the way, and I think that's like causing a lot of consternation and un- and obviously turmoil and, and unfortunately some people are losing their jobs.

281
00:47:26.750 --> 00:47:35.720
Mm. But then also, I don't think a lot of people know like about the Journal's council's business, you know, having the CMO council, the, you know...

282
00:47:35.870 --> 00:47:46.150
I'll, I'll be in Cannes in a few weeks, and there's a Wall Street Journal house that they pop up at all these events, and that's for like B2B audiences. It's, it's a B2B business at the end of the day.

283
00:47:46.790 --> 00:48:01.830
Harder to pull off when your roots are a g- a general news brand at the end of the day. I mean, it's very tied into, I feel, in the marketplace, into its legacy covering Washington and politics really.

284
00:48:01.910 --> 00:48:06.210
I don't really think of The Post as a business publication.

285
00:48:06.250 --> 00:48:21.030
Now, maybe they, they try to horn in on, on that nexus because, you know, it is strong between business and, and Washington and, and, and the people who make policy and regulations. Yeah.

286
00:48:21.630 --> 00:48:30.960
My read on it is that it's a huge opportunity for them. Mm. As you highlighted earlier, the government is a huge business. [chuckles] It doesn't work in the typical...

287
00:48:31.350 --> 00:48:53.130
It doesn't, it's not fundamentally based on the, the typical capitalist businesses that The Wall Street Journal covers, but it feeds a whole lot of people in that area, and there is a whole lot of sort of inside baseball to be covered when it comes to the way Washington works and the effect that it has on people's lives, and to businesses, their ability to kind of get in on the game.

288
00:48:53.570 --> 00:49:04.800
So I, I actually do think that there is a huge opportunity for them to have a, a really interesting B2B offering that could be super vast and- Yeah... specific. To, to your point, B2B provides...

289
00:49:05.230 --> 00:49:09.800
We think about the jobs to be done framework, it's a literal translation in the, in the B2B environment.

290
00:49:09.830 --> 00:49:15.650
People have very specific jobs to be done, ways in which The Post or The Journal or whomever else can fulfill upon those needs.

291
00:49:16.050 --> 00:49:25.740
So the segmentation opportunity within B2B is even greaterThan it is on the B2C side of things. And, and I think the advantage of this is the playbooks are known, right? It's not- Mm-hmm.

292
00:49:26.030 --> 00:49:36.850
You're not inventing something new. It's, it's all execution at the end of the day. But- Yes... particularly in the Washington arena, you see, I mean, like Semafor has a...

293
00:49:36.910 --> 00:49:50.070
from everything I see, like, a fairly thriving Washington, DC policy influencing business line. It's, it's probably- Mm-hmm... the biggest part of the, the business. And there's a lot of people feeding at this trough.

294
00:49:50.230 --> 00:50:03.810
It's, it's... but it's fairly standard. But you put together, like, closed-door events, and you get the regulators and government officials and the people who wanna influence them, and you, you do that congregation.

295
00:50:03.870 --> 00:50:12.590
It's not the- Mm-hmm... sexiest journalism, capital J- Mm-hmm... business, but this is, this is what the business is at the end of the day.

296
00:50:12.630 --> 00:50:22.620
This is the economic utility of that kind of business, and people, top executives, will pay a lot of money if... And I think that The Washington Post, I, I might go back on what I said.

297
00:50:22.670 --> 00:50:29.830
The Wash- I think The Washington Post probably does have license to, to enter that, that arena. We'll see. It's very crowded. That's exactly it.

298
00:50:29.850 --> 00:50:39.300
The question is, when you get down to that niche level of experience for folks, will they be able to compete with the ones that are already there? Yeah. Right?

299
00:50:39.390 --> 00:50:50.370
I think, I think to your point, you could call it malpractice that they missed the opportunity and allow- allowed these new entrants to take that space, and it's a big question mark as to whether or not they could actually come and claw it back.

300
00:50:50.670 --> 00:51:01.650
Yeah. Uh, and then the, the other thing that's part of this plan is, is basically for the casuals. 80% of their audience are casuals at the end of the day.

301
00:51:01.770 --> 00:51:13.230
I would define that, if you're not, if you're [laughs] not consuming, like, one page, you've got a lot of one and dones, and you have people who, who will come in and bounce when they hit a paywall.

302
00:51:13.270 --> 00:51:22.450
And I think it's a particular problem probably with younger audiences. I think a lot of these subscription programs are, they age up.

303
00:51:22.730 --> 00:51:32.110
I mean, it's v- it's, the journal, they, they, they literally, their churn is, is sometimes it's, it's, it's the end of the line for some of their subscribers- Exactly... 'cause it's, it's a pretty older subscriber base.

304
00:51:32.590 --> 00:51:43.680
But I think what, what he's talking about are... Uh, and that's the probably and maybe the mo- most interesting part, is how do you wring value out of these casuals? It used to always be we're gonna make...

305
00:51:43.710 --> 00:51:49.540
we're gonna do it on ads, or we're gonna put some dollar offer in front of people, and then we're gonna hope that...

306
00:51:49.590 --> 00:52:02.700
we're just gonna stay quiet and cross our fingers and hope that we can whack their credit card and make them call to, to complain and, and just between 9:00 and 5:00 PM and, and [laughs] we'll just go, go from there.

307
00:52:03.360 --> 00:52:13.970
Try. But he's talking about pay-as-you-go, almost the, the, the microtransactions, I hate to say. But it is interesting. I, I, I, I'm interested. What do you think it is...

308
00:52:14.070 --> 00:52:27.000
I always feel like there's this conundrum where it totally makes sense to have an option. And just as from a consumer perspective, a lot of times we land on a... I'll take Vulture or something.

309
00:52:27.330 --> 00:52:33.840
I'll land on one of their articles, and I wanna read it and stuff, but I'm like, "I don't know, Vulture? I... Maybe."

310
00:52:33.890 --> 00:52:44.410
It's just, just 'cause it's not in my sort of world, I mean, taking out a full annual subscription just because I wanna read- Mm-hmm... an article? Mm-hmm. But this never works.

311
00:52:44.950 --> 00:52:58.630
A- and first of all, explain to me why it never works, the, like, pay-per-article microtransaction model, and is this the time that maybe it can work? Yeah. I... So good, good point about it never works.

312
00:52:58.790 --> 00:53:08.630
I actually don't... I'm not aware of a lot of evidence that the fact that it doesn't actually work. I think outside of media, we have a lot of evidence that it does in fact work really, really well. Okay.

313
00:53:08.690 --> 00:53:20.670
It never works in media. [laughs] I'd love to see specific examples. My, my hypothesis is that- Where are all the microtransactions? Why can I not- Well-... pay per article? Yeah, that's a great question.

314
00:53:20.850 --> 00:53:27.550
I, I feel like that's a, that's a matter of corporate indecision and a lack of guts to try something.

315
00:53:27.630 --> 00:53:37.929
But there is an element of technology that makes it challenging, and the costs associated with these technologies that on a very basic level kinda make each individual transaction seem not very valuable.

316
00:53:37.950 --> 00:53:49.070
But the truth is, at scale, these are potentially really valuable as a, as a another option to engage another portion of an audience that you would otherwise not engage.

317
00:53:49.130 --> 00:53:55.950
I'm super excited about this, and I'm hopeful that it really kicks off a trend in the industry to- Yeah... begin to provide these options.

318
00:53:56.350 --> 00:54:04.330
I think the biggest hindrance, quite honestly, is that the functional interaction of a microtransaction can be a challenge itself.

319
00:54:04.390 --> 00:54:16.550
And for an individual media publisher to solve that problem specifically for themselves or for everyone to solve it specifically for themselves creates a really challenging user experience as you consume- Yeah...

320
00:54:16.650 --> 00:54:23.390
content across a lot of different places. Well- So when, when, in the case of other platforms like video gaming, it's centralized, right?

321
00:54:23.610 --> 00:54:33.650
Or in the case of, like, Audible, your ability to purchase individual and tiny transactions is based upon that one universe operating in the same- Yeah... user experience. But that's the answer, right?

322
00:54:33.670 --> 00:54:34.290
This is where- That's what I always say.

323
00:54:34.330 --> 00:54:45.670
It's meet the new b- Like, I wrote th- this week, I put most of it behind a membership, the membership wall, but I wrote this week as a little preview for those of you who are not subscribers, hint about this.

324
00:54:45.710 --> 00:54:56.550
It's, it's, we can talk all about being independent and giving the finger to OpenAI and all these people, but, like, the reality is it's just, it's just not possible for, for most publications.

325
00:54:56.810 --> 00:55:03.170
And don't bring up the information or some niche little publication. It is not a reality for most publishers.

326
00:55:03.250 --> 00:55:16.390
And when you talk about something like this, the reality is it's gonna have to be centralized, and you're gonna have to rely on a, a, a technology company, Google or Apple with Apple Pay, and being able to just couple clicks.

327
00:55:16.490 --> 00:55:28.704
The idea that someone's gonna set up an account to, to pay you, like, a few dollars is, isDon't, don't even consider it [laughs] would be my advice. That's, that's exactly it. I think it's, it... You're, you're spot on.

328
00:55:28.774 --> 00:55:33.764
You have to leverage the, the realities of this relationship that you're looking to establish- Yeah...

329
00:55:33.804 --> 00:55:42.234
and the value of it, and bring in existing out-of-the-box technologies to help you solve that user experience problem. And, and it can-- I think it can succeed.

330
00:55:42.754 --> 00:55:50.034
I also think that The Post is in a really interesting position with Arc, because potentially it has the opportunity to- Oh... create a micro payments platform across lots of different publications.

331
00:55:50.054 --> 00:55:59.674
Yeah, that wasn't mentioned, that wasn't mentioned in there. I think they're gonna sell off Arc. That's my... I, I have no- Interesting... I have no int- I have no inside knowledge. But I don't think it's core.

332
00:55:59.734 --> 00:56:07.014
I don't think it is, is... It's not core to- Mm-hmm... the direction that I read here, but maybe I'm, I'm missing that piece.

333
00:56:07.434 --> 00:56:19.654
That, to me, was a function of the, the days right after Bezos bought The Post and they, they talked about it being a technology company.

334
00:56:19.744 --> 00:56:32.154
I remember they were, like, building different pieces of technology, and this was at a time when a lot of publishers were thinking that, that they could pretend to be tech companies, or try to be.

335
00:56:32.214 --> 00:56:46.514
And, and that was the whole idea behind the Voxes and coming out with their CMSs that they would license, and Chorus. And look, it's... I think that ship has mostly passed. I think Arc is a, is a, is a great product.

336
00:56:46.634 --> 00:56:52.694
I don't necessarily know that... Who knows? I mean, Jeff Bezos, he's got, he's got a fair bit of money.

337
00:56:52.714 --> 00:57:02.114
But we'll see if they, if they keep that around, or if it makes more sense as an independent entity or part of a different company. Right. Yeah, it's an interesting tactic.

338
00:57:02.174 --> 00:57:14.514
And I- again, going back to that, that interface conversation we were having earlier, I don't know a lot about Arc technically, but my understanding is that the user experience is still based in sort of the traditional news consumption experience.

339
00:57:15.114 --> 00:57:17.174
And it's a missed opportunity, right?

340
00:57:17.254 --> 00:57:32.054
While that was being built and while that was being deployed, so too was Instagram, and TikTok, and all these other different kinds of innova- interfaces that have proved to be more innovative, and more engaging, and more l- able to capture and retain audiences.

341
00:57:32.114 --> 00:57:32.694
Yeah.

342
00:57:32.794 --> 00:57:45.254
And I mean, look, and also the reality is, like, in the marketplace when you're out competing, it's hard enough, and to have a, a real or perceived hindrance of being owned by a, quote-unquote, "competitor," it's just...

343
00:57:45.314 --> 00:57:53.644
Obviously, it's gonna be used against you in the marketplace by- Yeah... And we're like, "Why do you wanna do business with your competitor?" And obviously, you can talk about all the firewalls and, but- Mm-hmm...

344
00:57:53.754 --> 00:58:07.274
I don't, I don't see the, necessarily, the upside translating in the marketplace, but it, it could, just based on, not on Arc specifically, but just on all the other people who ha- all the other publishers who came out with similar products.

345
00:58:07.434 --> 00:58:14.554
I give, I give them a lot of credit 'cause they, they poured a lot of money into Arc, and from what I hear, good product. Okay, so...

346
00:58:14.594 --> 00:58:23.334
And I think the other thing, the, the last thing is, I think it's interesting th-th-there... Look, there is a little bit of spaghetti against the wall, I feel like, in this, because...

347
00:58:23.374 --> 00:58:30.044
And, and it's always the case for these grand plans. They, they almost, they remind me of, like, State of the Union addresses- [laughs] Yeah...

348
00:58:30.044 --> 00:58:41.834
that, that are not done by Trump, because there's l- always, like, a laundry list. I'm sure the president wants to do famous State of the Union stuff, but then every single cabinet secretary [laughs] gets like- Mm-hmm...

349
00:58:41.843 --> 00:58:49.343
"No, but you gotta mention this, and you gotta mention this thing we're doing." And they're just like, "Oh my God." I mean, so they- Yeah... end up just becoming a laundry list of things.

350
00:58:49.354 --> 00:59:00.164
But one of the things that, that stood out, because I think every publisher is trying to figure this out, is they talked about, like, elevating individuals and, quote-unquote, "talent," which is a reality.

351
00:59:00.194 --> 00:59:16.114
I mean, again, I go back to Ezra Klein was in the building. They did- Mm-hmm... not... He wanted to start h- uh, Vox at The Washington Post, and they were like, "You're a journalist." Right. And again, malpractice.

352
00:59:16.394 --> 00:59:30.134
Unforced error. And I think that they're trying to allow people to, I thought this was really interesting, being able to subscribe to an individual author, for instance. I think that's a pretty interesting approach.

353
00:59:30.814 --> 00:59:46.514
Yeah. This, this is a trend, I would say, that we're seeing through the likes of Puck and what's happening at Axios, putting journalists forward for their own specific appeal to an audience, and I think it's fantastic.

354
00:59:46.554 --> 00:59:57.154
Quite honestly, in this current age, where there's so much discussion around how much work the robots are gonna do, it's really great to see investment in people, in the human interactions.

355
00:59:57.654 --> 01:00:03.734
And there's talk of this concept of journalists playing the role of a convener in their communities.

356
01:00:04.164 --> 01:00:23.934
This is a fantastic direction, I think, for, for things to go in, in terms of just providing an experience that the robots can't provide, and creating a unique proposition that truly is gonna be more and more valuable as the, the content tsunami, I think is how you refer to it, as that continues to grow- Well, that was Peter Kafka.

357
01:00:23.994 --> 01:00:26.574
That was a crap tsunami, actually. [laughs] Okay. Crap tsunami.

358
01:00:26.934 --> 01:00:45.954
[laughs] But people are uniquely valuable, and they're enduring in a certain way, and the, the idea that, you know, having a relationship to some degree with a journalist connects you to the story over time in a more emotive way, there's all...

359
01:00:45.994 --> 01:00:53.024
There's a ton of value in all of that. All of that does literally translate to the dollars that people are willing to spend on this sort of thing.

360
01:00:53.034 --> 01:00:59.574
And it gives you more of an opportunity to truly get into the community and to give people the exposure to journalists.

361
01:00:59.904 --> 01:01:16.074
And one of the things I love, I was scanning across various newspapers, homepages today, looking at how they're covering the Trump story, and The New York Times, of course, stands out because they have on the homepage, of course, lots of stories, the typical text and, and photo.

362
01:01:16.134 --> 01:01:23.804
But they also have a reporter, kind of talking head, reporting from in front of the cour- or in front of the courthouse explaining- Yeah. They're doing, like, TikTok videos with these, the- Exactly...

363
01:01:23.874 --> 01:01:34.244
reporters, which is interesting. Yep, that's exactly it. And then just a little bit down below the fold, they have another one going on where somebody's doing a review of OpenAI's ChatGPT-4o. Yeah.

364
01:01:34.254 --> 01:01:44.974
And so they're bringing these, these personalities to present their information in a more human way, and it's just so much more engaging, and it's completely different from what you see everywhere else. Yeah.

365
01:01:44.984 --> 01:01:54.974
And it's another demonstration of the fact that they're definitely at the bleeding edge of engagement and getting people to connect with their content in a new way that they clearly have been able to monetize more effectively.

366
01:01:55.054 --> 01:02:03.574
Yeah. If I was in my old job, I would definitely have already assigned a story on The, The New York Times, like, TikTok video kind of strategy. Mm-hmm. It would do great. It would be the most-read story of the week.

367
01:02:03.634 --> 01:02:13.794
So just the tech [laughs] to my friends. Top of the trending charts. Cool. Let's leave it there. Thank, thank you for doing this. I'm hoping... We should do ones on, on others. Be fun. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you, Ryan.

368
01:02:14.134 --> 01:02:24.514
Thank you, Matt. Appreciate it. [outro music]