← Mixed Signals from Semafor Media
Mixed Signals from Semafor Media
What actually mattered in 2025, with Janice Min and Emily Sundberg
00:35:06
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome to another episode of the Mixed Signals podcast from us here at Semaphore where we are talking to the most interesting people shaping our new media age. I'm Max Tawney. I'm the media editor here at Semaphore and with me, as always, is is our editor in chief, Ben Smith. Ben, you're under the weather, but you couldn't miss our year end episode, could you?
- [00:31]
B
Very excited about this.
- [00:33]
A
Yeah. This is our wrap up. This is the last episode of the year. We've had a lot of really interesting and awesome guests on the show this year. Everybody from the CEO of Instagram to the CEO of YouTube. We've had Mark Cuban on the show. We had a governor who might run for president. We've had Alison Roman, we've had some of the fashion news people that I'm really interested in that Ben did a really good job of locking in for as well. But we wanted to first off thank everybody for listening to the show. Ben, what did you think about the year that we had here on Mixed Signals?
- [01:01]
B
No, I feel like we really figured it out when we started doing this. A friend of mine said it's going to take you 40 episodes before you have any idea what you're doing. And I do think that we've over time figured out what we're doing here and like so enjoyed these conversations and the feedback we're getting.
- [01:14]
A
Absolutely. And so for our special end of the year episode, we wanted to do something a little bit different. We wanted to bring in two friends of the show to talk to us about what they thought about the year in Media in 2025 and of course, where things are going next year. Our two guests this week are Emily Sunder. She is the founder of the Feed Me newsletter, which is this excellent daily roundup of everything interesting in media, gossip in business gossip, what restaurants to eat at in New York, a little bit of beauty, culture, fashion. It's pretty much kind of like the everything newsletter for a certain type of person in New York, which is why everybody is always texting me it. And then of course, Janice Min, who is the CEO of the Ankler, which is a Hollywood focused publication, covers everything out here on the west coast when it comes to the big moves in entertainment. We wanted to ask them, of course, about what they thought about 2025 and their predictions for next year. Why don't we bring in Emily and Janice right after this.
- [02:18]
C
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- [02:45]
A
Janice, Emily, thank you guys so much for being here. Really excited to do this. Also, Janice has the honor here of being our first returning guest.
- [02:53]
D
Oh, really? I'm so honored. Oh, thank you guys.
- [02:57]
B
As I recall, you introduced us to the concept of the gourmet cheeseburger.
- [03:00]
D
Oh, that's right. Which still exists and is about to take over 2026. We can get into that later.
- [03:06]
A
Janice, we wanted to kind of start with you. We feel like this was a really important and consequential year in media. Everybody says that every year. But I think in particular we saw a lot of the big changes kind of shape the way that we're thinking about things, from fragmentation to the kind of rise importance of the kind of creator ecosystem, this kind of huge, massive consolidation in Hollywood, which you're living through. But we're curious, you know, deciding between all of those different things. What do you think was the most important media story of the.
- [03:32]
D
I would say, let's see if I had to pick a single one and this is going to be really obvious. Maybe it's a tie between one, of course is Charlie Kirk and his assassination. But then the full exposure of all the fractures in right wing media, I think that's been a really. For those of us who might not have even been that familiar with Charlie Kirk, I put myself in that camp until he died. I think to understand the full right wing osphere or whatever we call this and the different voices in it and the influence they have has been incredibly interesting. And I think the big underlying story that's driving all of this, including the rise of the right wingosphere, is the complete domination of YouTube over every other platform and its ability to distribute all these voices, all these kinds of voices. And I guess the word people in media use is platform, almost anyone. So for better or worse. But you have seen that become the powerhouse that is driving all the changes at Netflix. Warner Brothers. Why Paramount is fighting so hard for Warner Brothers. But the rise of every creator, the move of podcasts from audio into video, which is, I presume, why we're recording this on video today, it has to do with YouTube. So I would say those are the two narratives that to me define media in 2025.
- [04:54]
A
Emily, we want to turn to you. You write the newsletter that I feel like everybody I know in New York reads. What do you think was the most important media story of 2025?
- [05:03]
E
I mean, the Charlie Kirk story was fascinating. I just want to interject there for a second. I was on a yoga retreat when that story broke and it was mostly quiet and calm. And then when that happened, you started seeing everybody who was on this retreat in California start learning who he was, form opinions about it. And then like the second half the retreat just became super political and not calming at all. And it was fascinating. I feel like I came back to New York and media just felt different. And then even as recently at Dealbook a few weeks ago, like Erica was there and then that Nicki Minaj video this week. It is so crazy how quickly that'll changed. I would have to say just because of what I do. Like the Barry and Free Press story is really incredible. It's, it's sort of like the North Star of these personality driven media companies that everybody is so badly trying to figure out and reverse engineer. I think TVPN is also a really fascinating media case study, but with the Free Press, with TVPN and these sort of media case studies that we're all obsessed with or that I'm obsessed with and I'm really interested in and watch really closely. It's funny when I go home to like Long island or talk to some of my friends who don't work in our world, they don't, they're not tracking these movements as closely as we are. They don't know what TVPN is. A lot of them have no idea what the Free Press is or who Bari Weiss is. And it just shows like how small the New York City bubble is for these conversations and I think like for media at large. Also. I was talking to a friend this morning about the 60 Minutes episode that you can find online through like the Canadian streaming services. And she was like, what are you talking about? And she's a smart, employed person. And I think that's really important, at least for me to keep in mind like how small the world of like media moves is and how these people in my life have become. It's become like watching sports and picking like your favorite athletes and what teams they're being traded on. But not that many people watch the sport.
- [07:10]
B
It's like handball or something.
- [07:11]
D
Yeah, well, you know, Emily, can I add to that? It's a small story in a small world, but I think you also have to think about the Bari Wise CBS News story as it's a small news story like this. It's a important, I guess, journalism with a capital J story. But it's a small news story. I think we are all pretending CBS News is a thing, that it's a thing that millions of people are watching every day. It's not a thing. It ceased being a thing a long time ago. And Barry Weiss is an even smaller thing. Right. But I think if you have. If Barry Weiss has like 150,000 subscribers or whatever the number is today, people are watching on linear television, CBS Evening News, about in that same number. So it's like you're adding like, one plus one equals like 1.25. It's not like you're changing media. It's, oh, my God, this is like, revolutionary. It's just like, yeah, small businesses trying to make something work. And I think all the Ellison stuff like, ooh, gross nasty. This is all gross bad. But I do give them credit for, like, okay, like, nothing is reversing the course of this, you know, broadcast news apocalypse. So let's try someone who has made something succeed on a smaller level. And maybe that voice does something for us. I don't think based on, let's say, those Erica Kirk ratings for the town hall. Maybe not, but, yeah, I don't know. You know, it's better than trying nothing. I mean, whatever the motivations are, I don't necessarily agree with, but it's better than trying nothing.
- [08:43]
A
You know, it really feels like the Barry takeover of cbs, the. The acquisition of the Free Press by the Ellisons. It was obviously a signal of two things. One of them, I think, is, you're right, Janice, that traditional television news, the heyday of it is. It's long gone. It's very much in the rear view. And it was an acknowledgement that we can put in charge someone who has literally had no television programming experience. It actually doesn't matter whether somebody has television programming experience really anymore, because this audience is gone, and we have to try something to kind of stay relevant. And, of course, also it showed, you know, something that to your point, Emily, these things are small and they're insular, and not very many people are paying attention. But the people who are paying attention, right, are the most influential people, you know, in the country, which include Donald Trump, who is very much, of course, following this whole saga and is very interested in the moves that Bari Weiss is making. That's always the fun thing and fun and interesting and kind of confusing thing about covering and writing about the media is that like, the average person is not that clued into what's going on. But Donald Trump, the President of the United States, who you would assume has his hands full with plenty of other more important things. We've got maybe like a war going on almost in Venezuela. We've got plenty of other crises around the world. And yet he is fixated on the programming of 60 Minutes as much as anybody in this room. I wanted to turn to you. What do you think about this? And of course, what do you think was the most important media story of the past year?
- [10:07]
B
I was waiting for somebody to mention Donald Trump. My God, that took a while. I mean, the sort of clumsiness of what all this Ellison stuff being apparently to give themselves covered. They do seem to be trying to please Donald Trump so that he will give them more assets. I mean, that's a huge story, like kind of, you know, the huge turning point in American history and very kind of dark, although also in the way of people who try to do deals with Donald Trump kind of going awry in all sorts of hilarious ways as well, and certainly not guaranteed. Like, it doesn't seem like they got Trump to sign on the line there before, before embarking. I guess to me, though, the story that I've just been thinking about a lot at the end of the year is just the, like, real decomposition of the media ecosystem. Like all of the stuff that kind of academic types would warn us about a few years ago with, you know, talking about kind of capital T truth and the decline of the sort of reality, you know, what really is reality? Like, I just find myself experiencing, like, I've just been on, you know, X for a couple, looking at the quote unquote, Epstein files, which seem really mostly to be made up tips that mentally ill people sent the FBI and are now being amplified by kind of B list, the B list influencers who dominate the platform but are then going to be picked up by public officials, people in government. And I think AI search is also part of this. You go to ChatGPT, you get a result, you ask it, what are some books I should read about something? And like, three of the four books will be real books and one will be made up. And similarly, like, if you. I look at whatever Congressman is tweeting about Epstein right now, maybe like three of the four documents he's tweeting are real and one is fake. And I'm not really sure which one is fake. And we may never get to the bottom of it. Like, we're sort of willing to live with Like a lower resolution claim on reality at the moment. Yeah, I think people are just getting used to.
- [11:55]
E
I was on TikTok this morning and I saw this beautiful video of narwhals, like, breaking through ice. Wow, this is really gorgeous. Like, I. I was just in a museum where I saw narwh tusks and I looked at the comments and it was fake. And I was like, wait, narwhals are real though, right?
- [12:13]
D
And you feel like an idiot, Right?
- [12:15]
B
You're like, what's wrong with our narwhals even real? Did you make up narwhals too?
- [12:20]
E
And then I looked at the account and it's just all AI animal stuff of, like, animals that do exist, but doing like crazy things and it makes you feel really nuts.
- [12:32]
A
Ben, from your perch as the media columnist at the New York Times, I feel like you were like, kind of against all of the journalism truth academic types. Like, I feel like you were one of the people who was out there being like, why are we using the word misinformation? That's not like, really. That's very imprecise and I don't really like it. I feel like. Has your mind changed on some of this experiencing, you know, kind of our post truth era with all the conspiracies on X and the AI slop garbage? Has your perspective changed?
- [13:01]
D
Hold on, Ben. Weren't you. Were. Hadn't we previously, in private maybe made fun of democracy dies in darkness? I feel like you and I, I'm sure, have made fun of that.
- [13:10]
B
Yeah, we definitely have. No, it's. Yeah, no, I definitely. Gosh, I'm trying. I was thinking of blaming those pieces that you think you've read of mine on AI, but I'm pretty sure I read it in the New York Times. No, I have always. Right. Sort of disliked these formal misinformation monitors, you know, who I think often were confusing to me at least political claims for factual claims. Like the thing, you know, when Trump makes something up, his audience doesn't necessarily think he's saying something true. But maybe I should go back and revise my point of view on this because it doesn't feel like misinformation. It doesn't seem like it's mostly being purveyed by people who are advancing a political line, particularly. It's just this kind of onslaught of garbage that's really kind of keyed to the for you page more than anything else.
- [13:51]
D
This was probably to Ben's point the first year where I feel like smart people I know, and friends like were sending me links not from what we would all agree are credible news sources. But it was all sort of weird social media things and podcasts you've never heard of. I mean it just really revealed that the reliance on mainstream news as we grew up with is sort of gone.
- [14:19]
B
And the White House has really embraced this and the White House has really embraced this and really doesn't care.
- [14:25]
E
Janice, like you said with YouTube, like replacing TV, I've been in my parents house before where it's like starts autoplaying playlists and the story's like getting more and more altered. Like it kind of goes from a real documentary to like like the truth about Epstein or something basically.
- [14:44]
A
Well, we have to take a short break, but we'll be right back with more from Janice and Emily right after this.
- [14:59]
C
In this week's branded segment from Think with Google, I spoke with Google's VP of marketing, Josh Spanier, about what media trends he's focused on right now and what he feels comfortable ignoring. Josh, this show is called Mixed Signals. And the marketing landscape is always a place where there's an enormous amount of signal, enormous amount of noise. As this year draws to a close, can you separate the signal and the noise in the marketing business?
- [15:22]
F
2025 has been a fascinating year. There are definitely things that I think are noise and things which I think are true signals we should be focused on in terms of the noise. AI slop. I am not worried about AI slop at all. I think AI is going to make much better creative. I think we all need to move on from the brand versus performance and just focus on brand and performance and measurement and social 360 degree planning. And as marketers, we need to be a little more thoughtful about what we use in the sense that while AI is transforming the industry, it's not all happening immediately and in every possible way. The things I'm really focused on for now and moving forward, I'm really focused on video, I'm really focused on YouTube and then I'm also really focused on AI innovation driving, making richer experiences within the Google search space, AI overviews, AI mode, better quality of data and higher performance coming out of that. From the semaphore side, Ben, what's your noise you're avoiding and what's the signal you're focusing on?
- [16:26]
C
You know, on the media beat right now there's just endless conversation about these huge media mergers, very fun stories, bidding wars for studios, things like this, all this conglomeration. But I think when you look inside those companies, the most interesting stories is just how are they going to survive? How are they going to change fast enough to catch up with the shifting landscape and the shifting technology? And I think sometimes the corporate story is distracting both us and I think the people inside those companies from these very urgent stories about how they need to change their businesses. But anyway, I'll go write that column. Where can we find more about the marketing piece of this?
- [17:02]
F
Head on over to thinkwithgoogle.com there's a load of 2025 and 2026 reflections and predictions from a variety of sources as super fascinating@thinkwithgoogle.com thanks, Josh. Thanks be.
- [17:26]
A
Emily. I want to ask about Substack. It feels like it's been a really big year for Substack. They raised a lot of money this year. They announced that they have 5 million paying subscribers, which is huge, or 5 million people who are paying. Do you feel like the platform fundamentally changed this year, that substack changed?
- [17:41]
E
It would be hard for me to say like this is how it felt one year ago and this is how it felt today. I would say the biggest difference is that I'm seeing a lot more, you know, publications and brands experiment on there and it's less just individuals. I think more people are trying to create businesses on Substack in a way that's beyond just monetizing subscriptions. Like I see people trying to build out like events or you see more interesting ad formats and brands coming on there. And obviously Substack in that unusual way announced that they're now doing native ads. And the only way place you can find information on that is in Feed Me, which I like. I think they need to do a more formal announcement of that with some details around it. Like they asked me to remove the paywall on it because that's the only source of information on that pretty big feature that they launched. I'm sure they'll do something more formal next year. I hope they do, because that's how you get brands to get interested in even using that feature.
- [18:40]
B
Do you think things are getting, I don't know, rebundled, more complicated?
- [18:45]
E
You know, like, you guys all talk about this rebundling thing or not. You guys all, sorry, I.
- [18:49]
B
But we do. We do all the time.
- [18:50]
A
Oh no, we do.
- [18:51]
B
We talk about it constantly. I talk about it constantly, but it sounds like I'm wrong.
- [18:55]
E
Have you seen any examples of that yet? Or are we all waiting for like the first person to do it?
- [19:00]
D
I think there's like a lot of private Equity money out there thinking this is going to be a thing.
- [19:05]
E
If somebody does that, it's going to be B list talent.
- [19:08]
D
The A list.
- [19:09]
E
People know that they can do it on their own. They don't need to join 10 other people and do it in some decided way. I think that if that bundle happens, it's not going to be like the top tier killers.
- [19:20]
B
And you don't think Substack will start selling me a bundle where I can get you, among others, for a few hundred bucks a month or something.
- [19:25]
E
I think that people are self organizing and offering that between themselves. Like, like an Emily and a Janice and a somebody else say, like, we are going to offer you a subset of our content together. I think that Substack will have to like reckon somehow with the amount of money that people are spending on newsletters every year. I wrote today about one of my readers named David who spends $28,000 on newsletters every year.
- [19:51]
A
That seems like a little bit much.
- [19:52]
B
That guy's a whole interview.
- [19:54]
A
Yeah, we love him though, for sure.
- [19:55]
E
Love him. But I read it and I was like, you could end up spending a lot of money on stuff.
- [20:01]
D
It's December, every December, towards the end of the year, you end up losing a lot of people. And it's because everyone's home for the holidays. They're looking at their bills, they're like, oh crap. What? I'm spending this amount of money and like, I'm probably gonna do it with my like probably seven subscriptions to Paramount plus or something over the holidays. Right? You just are like through your credit card and like, dang, like this is crazy. Like we look at the economic numbers right now, the economy, you know, this the number one topic for everyone, affordability, you know, even if Trump doesn't believe that's an issue. But I have to imagine the market eventually drives, if not substack, some of these other platforms, like beehive into offering bundles. And whether or not that's operationalized by someone investing in all these things or if it's just as to your point, Emily, like kind of ad hoc, I think that will start to happen.
- [20:52]
B
Emily, could I push on the B. Lister thing a little? Because that's amazing. And a bunch of like private equity people just had to like return a bunch of money to their LPs when they, when they heard that. But I guess, I mean, I think part of it is that somebody's going to come to you and say, isn't it a headache to run your own health care? And also I can sell A few million dollars worth of advertising for you a year.
- [21:10]
E
I don't think that somebody's going to get like Janice Emily, tbpn, like, like all under the same roof. And it's like the new New York Times or like the new Bloomberg or something like that. It just, it, it will be somebody further down those like top lists on substack because I don't need any outside cash. So I figured out my health care and my lawyer and all that. So why would I compromise my business and how I'm setting things up?
- [21:43]
D
What if someone offers you the Barry Weiss deal not to run CBS News? I don't want that much attention.
- [21:48]
E
I don't want that many readers. My list is the perfect size. I don't need to double that and have that many more eyes on what I'm doing. If I was a better capitalist, I would. If I wanted to move out of the apartment that I'm in with and get faster WI Fi, I would. But I really like how my business is set up.
- [22:08]
D
Wait, can we just talk about these media newsletters for a second? And obviously I love yours. I love, there's so many. But also like, this is, goes back to the CBS News Bari Weiss. This is a really small audience argument. Like they're writing about Ms. Now. You know, it's a circle jerk too, absolute circle jerk. And like they write about these places like Walter Cronkite is still anchoring the news. Right. That they're driving the whole narrative of government and the world. And it's like, no, these are really tiny struggling businesses that no one under the age of 70 is watching.
- [22:47]
B
Well, but somehow politics became about media, like for real, like national American politics that elected, you know, makes life and death and war and peace decisions really became via Donald Trump, but also via our friends on Blue sky and whatever else, like obsessed with declining, collapsing mainstream media coverage. I mean, that's a true fact.
- [23:08]
A
But there is this interesting phenomenon that's going on with all of these newsletters. Guilty of this occasionally at some point, which is that we're writing about how the, these industries are declining and they're so not important and whatever. And then also covering them all the time, relentlessly, which I think is something that we try to balance with our newsletter.
- [23:24]
D
Well, I think, because I think, you know that if you're working in a burning building, you will pay to read anything about what's happening around you. Right. And so I think it's, I think it's a very reliable source of subscribers, whereas I don't know if you're writing about Candace Owens and Erica Kirk, you're not moving their audience to come read your media newsletter, most likely. Right. It's a narcissism of or the navel gazing of people in media. Right.
- [23:49]
A
But I do think in general, it is true that these. A lot of these figures are, you know, the people like Candace Owens. Like, it can't be overstated how important and huge she is. And it can't be, like, understated how, like, little coverage she kind of gets. Like, obviously she's important and people write about her, but she is, like, the most popular podcast across almost all of these platforms. She is saying crazy, batshit stuff on there.
- [24:13]
D
I love how banana she is. She's amazing. Yeah.
- [24:16]
A
I mean, she's like, the French, like, Mossad is trying to kill me. The French are trying to kill me. Like, she's doing, like, alien conspiracy theories. I mean, just all this stuff is totally nuts. She made herself a player in the Blake Lively Justin Baldoni saga. I think that there is a world in which you could cover her literally every day as like, the biggest story in the world.
- [24:34]
E
I see, like, add her into the mix.
- [24:36]
D
Right. In that Versant mix. She could sit side by side with Versant in a media cover.
- [24:42]
A
We could read a few fewer stories about Barry or David Zasl.
- [24:46]
B
I would think she has a larger audience than every CBS news property combined.
- [24:50]
A
100%.
- [24:51]
E
Do you guys think there's any part of her that's like, totally fucking with us and she's just like, this is performance art.
- [24:58]
A
100%. No. Absolutely.
- [25:00]
D
Do you remember when Ann Coulter was like, the outrage person and like that? And I'm just like, oh, you're just like, screwing with us. You are. This is all performance art. I'm gonna say, like, all immigrants should die and everyone will lose their mind.
- [25:12]
A
I do think, in general, to Emily's point, the way that people consume it has changed in people's relationship with some of stuff has changed in the sense that I think people believe it and are invested in it, but also kind of do know that some of it is fake. Like, I do think that that is the relationship that one has with, like, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, where you're like, oh, my God, it's so fun to watch it.
- [25:33]
B
It's a reality TV move. It's what Trump was with the Obama birth certificate. Like, everybody knew that was a lie, but they. But his supporters sort of loved it and enjoyed it.
- [25:42]
A
Yeah.
- [25:42]
B
It is a kind of a reality TV movie.
- [25:44]
D
Well, it's I think we're now in like the news you want versus the news that's true. Right? Like, and you can get the news you want in any. Yeah, totally.
- [25:52]
B
Yeah.
- [25:52]
E
So call it news.
- [25:52]
A
And people are also interested, I think too, in the, like, the journey, right? Like the journey to find out. Like, I was listening to Will Sommer, who writes an excellent newsletter that's really about this on Tim Miller's podcast, and he was talking about how Candace had gone dark for like 12 hours or something. And people were like, all of her fans were like, oh, where's Candace? Yes. Did Mossad get to her? And like, nobody was really like, I don't think most people really thought that she was gone for 12 hours and, you know, she was not gonna be showing back up again. But it was kind of a little bit of the, like, we're all on the. Maybe we'll find the truth. Maybe we don't know. I mean, we've listened to plenty of. I've been engrossed in plenty of, you know, New York Times podcasts about stuff like this, like, serial was this right? Like, where is this all going? It went nowhere. And, you know, I. It was still kind of interesting for me while I was along for the ride. Okay, guys, so really curious as we wrap this up. We've done a lot of backward looking stuff. We want to look ahead at 2026. I'm sure you've already thought about predictions. Maybe some other people have assigned you some media predictions. Emily, I know that you wrote that 2026 was going to be the year of the party reporter, and you a very good case in today's Feed Me. Janice, why don't we start with you? What do you think is a big media story that's gonna be shaping 2026? What's the prediction you have for where things are going next year?
- [27:02]
D
This is so obvious. But obviously this whole Netflix, Warner Brothers, Paramount love triangle that's going on right now is going to be like the biggest drama, at least in the world, where I'm sitting in Los Angeles.
- [27:15]
A
Who do you think gets it? Where does it end up?
- [27:17]
D
I think it's going to be Netflix. And I do think that people are misreading the room when they think that because Ellison's support Trump. Trump will give them a prize. I think Trump is much more. I think he's someone who lives in a world of winners and losers. He doesn't like people who lose and he doesn't like people who seem thirsty and needy. And right now, today, as the day we're recording this. The Ellisons seem a little needy. They've been rebuffed, and they're trying to rekindle the romance with the Warner Brothers board. And, you know, Netflix, I. I think Trump would love the fact that Netflix is the biggest streaming service in the world. He will love that. And he'll like Ted Sarandos hair. I mean, there are all these sort of emotional touch points that will play into where he, you know, puts his thumb on the scale. But, you know, in true reality television form, though, he will play it out to its maximum length, the maximum drama, and then, you know, bestow someone with the honor, is how I imagine.
- [28:14]
A
I think that's totally true. I think that the other factor here that's really important that people forget about is like, Netflix doesn't do news. Right. And Trump cares about the news more than many other things. So he doesn't have reasons to be pissed off at Ted Sarandos in the way that Paramount every day produces, you know, hours and hours of news content with CBS News. And that gives hours and hours of opportunities for content to piss off Trump.
- [28:37]
D
I also think Trump would prefer to have CNN remain independent, which. Because Netflix would not be acquiring the assets that include cnn. And I think he would like this, like, you know, cat with catnip batting CNN around. It gives him, like, his own daily content, his own daily, like, you know, reason to exist every single day. Yeah. So I think without that natural built in media foil that he loves, like, his life in the White House is less fun for him. His spokespeople won't have anyone to rail against if it all goes his way.
- [29:07]
A
I love that. Emily, what about you? You've already predicted 2026 is gonna be the year of the party. Reporter, you made a very compelling case. I mean, that can obviously be your prediction, but I'm curious what media predictions you have for 2026.
- [29:19]
E
Yeah, that's one of them. I think that we're going to see more media alumni doing, like, new media projects. So I've written about this new food media company from two people who used to work at Puck, as well as Dana Brown who used to be at Vanity Fair. And I think that something like that, where they raised a little bit of cash, they're going to build something. I'm not sure if it's going to be on or off of Substack. It should be on Substack, but we'll see how that goes. I think we're going to see other examples of that in other categories like sports and fashion and style. I don't know if they'll all work, but I feel like people now know the blueprint for, like, this is how we start a new media company. We don't need a massive audience. If we have, you know, 10,000 paying readers, then it's a good little thing that we can get going off the ground and find our little audience. I can see, like, you know, more local news projects like that. I. Janice and I were talking about it when I was in LA earlier this year. But I can see people starting, like, Los Angeles focused cultural newsletters or like Miami focused ones, and people who have real journalism background, background kind of raising a little bit of cash and doing those types of things.
- [30:23]
B
That's heartening. I like that prediction.
- [30:25]
A
Yeah.
- [30:25]
E
Yeah, I think that could happen for sure. I feel like we'll see more podcasts pivoting to video. I think that a lot of people will try and fail at live video because it's really hard to get right. And then the party reporting.
- [30:39]
A
I'm curious, Emily. You know, you mentioned that you thought that the new food media startup from the Puck alumni should be on Substack. Why do you think it should be on Substack? And what have you thought about some of these other competitors, primarily Beehive, kind of popping up to try to steal a little bit and say, oh, we have better design tools or we have X, Y, Z. I don't need my.
- [30:57]
E
Email to be well designed. Like, I need information and I need news. And I think that we've learned that, like, the strength of Substack is, like, the written word, whether it's breaking news or telling an interesting story or, like, coming up with interesting, like, newsletter formats. So the design thing, I thought about a lot more a year ago. I've stopped thinking about that. I also don't think that you should be starting, like, a newsletter business if you don't know how to use basic design tools. Like, just learn how to do that. Substack has, like, this awesome distribution effect where you're basically in a universe of all these other people that can discover you and share you, like we were talking about earlier, automatically subscribe to you, possibly by accident. Maybe they'll stick around. But why would you try to build something if that already exists? Like, yeah, it. Like, I just think about how much bigger Puck could be right now if they were playing around on there or even. I mean, do you. You guys post at all on Substack? No, not before.
- [31:55]
A
Hamish has tried both publicly and privately.
- [31:59]
E
And maybe next year you will play around on there. But I know when I link to your pieces, you're getting traffic and it would probably be more if you were posting your own stuff regularly on there. So if you were starting a media company from scratch today, I would say show the engineers at Substack how interested you are, have a crash course and how to use the platform well and like try that out and you would get the excitement from people that are already on there. I just think like building your own thing and then starting a subscriber list and trying to drive people over there is harder than if you have a dedicated subscriber list on Substack and being like we're heading out and going to try something off platform.
- [32:35]
B
It's funny because I feel like there were a couple of years there where people said, you know, after the sort of catastrophes of the late 2010s that maybe we shouldn't build our entire businesses on other people's platforms. But it's good to see we've moved past that lesson with substack and YouTube totally monopolizing. And I think, I mean what you're going to see is substack and YouTube. They have a lot of leverage. Like what you were describing, Emily, was the leverage they have to take a higher share of your revenue.
- [32:59]
D
Ben, what's your midterm prediction?
- [33:01]
B
Whatever Polymarket says with the like that the Democrats are going to take the no, but like, you know, Democrat, I think the obvious signs are all pointing to Democrats comfortably win the House and make a real run at the Senate. So the signs, the normal signs are like a bunch of Republicans are retired, hiring because they don't want to be in the minority.
- [33:17]
A
Janice, Emily, thank you guys so much for joining us here. This is like the week when nobody wants to do any work and so we really appreciate that you guys spent an hour with us helping us do our jobs. So we really appreciate it. And also thanks for bringing such thoughtful predictions and analysis and and rocking with us on our first kind of like round table version of this show.
- [33:35]
E
Thank you for having us.
- [33:37]
B
Thank you guys.
- [33:37]
E
Happy holidays.
- [33:49]
C
In an era where AI is rewriting the rules and consumer behavior is changing by the minute, how do you stay relevant? You turn to the experts. Think with Google brings you insights from top CMOs, practical guides on emerging tech and strategies that drive real growth. It's like having a marketing guru in your pocket. Visit thinkwithgoogle.com to become a forward thinking marketer. Your next game changing idea is just a click away.
- [34:16]
A
Well, that is it for us this week and this year here from Mixed Signals. Thank you so much for sticking with us to the end of this episode and to the end of the year. I think it was a good one for us. Our show is produced by Manny Fadal and Josh Billinson, with special thanks to Chad Lewis, Rachel Oppenheimer, Anna Pizzino, Garrett Wiley, Jules Zern, and Tori Kaur. Our engineer is Rick Kwan and our theme music is by the excellent Steve Bone. Our public editor is you, the listener. Tell us what you thought that we did well this year and who we should have on next year. And if you have any complaints or criticisms, you can always find Ben at his Twitter or in his email inbox.
- [35:00]
B
Please do follow us. We're wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to us on YouTube.
- [35:04]
A
And of course, you can always read Semaphore's media newsletter, which is out every Sunday night.