The Digiday Podcast

Episode: "TikTok U.S., Disney-Kimmel + WTF is a chief AI officer?"

Featuring The Washington Post’s Sam Han

Date: September 23, 2025
Hosts: Kamiko McCoy & Tim Peterson

Overview

This episode dives into three of the week's most pressing media stories: the future of TikTok in the U.S. amid regulatory changes, Disney’s suspension—and rapid reinstatement—of the Jimmy Kimmel Show, and mounting questions over the reality of "state run" or "state-directed" media. The headline segment features an in-depth conversation with Sam Han, The Washington Post’s new Chief AI Officer, about how publishers are harnessing AI not just to survive, but to optimize revenue, streamline newsrooms, and drive long-term growth.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The State of Media: A Challenging Landscape

• DPS Takeaways (00:26–01:26): Tim reflects on the Digital Publishing Summit, describing the mood as one of camaraderie amid challenge:

  "It was not incredibly encouraging... there's a lot of conversation about, like, all the challenges media companies are facing... I think everyone's managing expectations." (Tim Peterson, 00:29)

• No silver bullet solutions, but a sense of being "in the same boat" provides some comfort for struggling publishers.

2. TikTok U.S.: The Ownership Shakeup & Algorithm Mystery

Segment Start: 04:15

• Deal Structure & Ownership:
  • TikTok U.S. is forming, with Oracle and Silver Lake as primary American stakeholders. Fox may enter as well.
  • Critically, the U.S. government will not own equity, but will supervise the algorithm.
  • Users will not need to download a new app. The algorithm, TikTok's "secret sauce," will be licensed from ByteDance and re-supervised stateside. (04:44–06:54)
• Concerns of Government Oversight:
  • Tim voices skepticism about state supervision, drawing parallels to state-run media:

    "This is, I feel like the most important detail... the US government is going to have supervision over the algorithm... I don't know that I want to be using TikTok US if this government that we have... is going to have that kind of hand..." (Tim Peterson, 06:54)

  • Editorial fear: Will TikTok become bland or politically skewed, like X (formerly Twitter) or Truth Social?

    "Does TikTok just become like the QVC network and everything plays it safe...?" (Kamiko McCoy, 08:11) "If the US government is going to... supervise the TikTok US algorithm, it's going to be able to put a finger on the scale" (Tim Peterson, 09:46)

• Memorable Moment:

  "It's going to have a finger on the scale when it comes to the content on TikTok US." (Tim Peterson, 10:18)

3. Disney’s Kimmel Dilemma & State-Directed Media

Segment Start: 10:18

• Background:
  • Disney suspends Jimmy Kimmel’s show after backlash over remarks made following the killing of Charlie Kirk and resulting pressure from the FCC and White House.
  • The suspension was reversed hours after recording, but hosts analyze the deeper implications regardless. (11:11)
• Government Pressure & Free Speech Concerns:

  "The fact that you have an FCC commissioner dictating programming, dictating content decisions, seemingly violating free speech... like we're coming after free speech." (Tim Peterson, 12:30)

• Business Motivations:
  • Disney, seeking government approval for key M&A deals (esp. ESPN/NFL), may be quick to appease regulators.
  • Comparisons to earlier mergers and concessions (Paramount/Skydance, Omnicom/IPG).
• State-Directed vs. State-Run:

  "We're not yet seeing state run media like it seems like we may be seeing with TikTok US, but we're definitely seeing state directed media because Disney’s effectively taking a directive from the government..." (Tim Peterson, 14:50)

• Advertiser Reaction:
  • Brands' stances generally track with business interests; past moments of principle (post-George Floyd) largely faded.

    "Advertisers are ultimately in the business of selling products and so it's the business of capitalism, not so much politics." (Tim Peterson, 16:45)

4. Content Licensing: Fresh Deals & AI Tension

Segment Start: 18:21

• Meta is showing signs of rekindling relationships with publishers, pitching content licensing deals (notably with Axel Springer, Fox, News Corp).
• Deal Shifts:
  • The movement is from "training deals" (lump sum for data access) toward usage-based compensation:

    "What publishers want to move to is usage based pricing... if an article is getting cited by Perplexity or by Gemini or by chatgpt... publishers want to get paid for that." (Tim Peterson, 19:43)

  • Reddit is a notable leader, seeking usage-based deals with Google and OpenAI.
• Legal Front:
  • Publishers are contesting content scraping and AI-generated summaries in court (NYT v. OpenAI, Britannica v. Perplexity, German publishers v. Google).
  • AI Overviews (Google’s search summaries) are blamed for decreasing publisher traffic.

    "The decline from Google is not complemented by OpenAI or Perplexity kind of traffic." (Unnamed publisher via Tim Peterson, 24:21)

5. Featured Interview: Sam Han, Chief AI Officer, The Washington Post

Segment Start: 26:28

Setting the Stage

• Origin of the Role:
  • The technology’s centrality spurred the need for a dedicated executive; previously, AI was siloed in engineering/product.
  • "About 10, 11 years ago, I started machine learning team there... focus was more like creating a personalization experience, recommendation models... [now] with the language model ChatGPT kind of explosion, we start seeing differences in the adoption of AI." (Sam Han, 26:47–28:25)
• AI Hub → CAIO:
  • Early experiments included AI-written sports/election stories (Heliograph), comment moderation, dynamic paywalls.
  • Recent years saw company-wide projects, requiring coordination, standards, and now, executive leadership.
  • "This year we realized that we need a role to really overall and then in a way that’s more like recognition of the need, but also announcement... saying AI is critical to our business." (Sam Han, 30:59)

Mission and Metrics

• CAIO Focus Areas:
  • Driving business growth through AI: subscriptions, engagement, advertising.
  • Empowering newsroom and other departments via operational AI.
  • Productizing for third parties via the Arc XP CMS platform.
• Direct Impact:
  • Paywall optimization with reinforcement learning:
    • Dynamically determines if and what kind of paywall to show.
    • Weighs user history, content value, ad potential.
    • "We did AB test... and we saw like 20% improvement in terms of overall customer lifetime value using that model." (Sam Han, 35:45)
    • Key benefit: ends "meetings after meetings" about paywall rules; now data-driven and flexible for special events (elections, sales).

AI in the Newsroom & Beyond

• AI as 'Team Sport':
  • Nearly every team can use AI, requiring standards and collaboration.
  • The challenge: avoiding duplicated efforts, ensuring oversight, and maintaining quality.
• Staffing & Talent Challenges:
  • Competing with Big Tech for AI talent is hard; mission and impact are key recruitment drivers.
  • "We offer... not by salary or compensation, but by mission. We make sure that we provide exciting work... you see your work implemented, go to production and showing value..." (Sam Han, 43:03)
  • Current AI team: ~16 machine learning scientists, ~6-7 data engineers, ~10 software engineers.
• AI Governance:
  • Han now sets policy for AI use across the Post: safe handling of data, selection of models/tools, and compliance with guidelines.

Notable Quotes & Insights

• On evolving the Chief AI Officer role:

  "It was kind of organic transition. But however, the mission for a chief AI officer is to use harness the power of AI to drive business growth, innovation and revenue optimization." (Sam Han, 31:59)

• On dynamic paywalls and reinforcement learning:

  "The best benefit of having that is no more meetings to decide what rule to do." (Sam Han, 35:45)
  "Now it’s all driven by machine learning."

• On talent strategy:

  "The advantage we offer is... you work on a project, you see that going to production, you work with engineers and you see the value... But it's very challenging." (Sam Han, 43:03)

Memorable Moments & Quotes (with Timestamps)

• "If the US government is going to be able to supervise the TikTok US algorithm, it's going to be able to put a finger on the scale to say... this is the content that needs to get shown to everyone." (Tim Peterson, 09:46)
• "We're not yet seeing state run media... but we're definitely seeing state directed media because Disney’s effectively taking a directive from the government, from the FCC with this decision." (Tim Peterson, 14:50)
• "What publishers want to move to is usage-based pricing... so it's the publishers being able to get paid for the value they're actually delivering and make sure that it's an equitable exchange." (Tim Peterson, 19:43)
• "We did AB test... and we saw like 20% improvement in terms of overall customer lifetime value using that model." (Sam Han, 35:45)
• "The best benefit of having that is no more meetings to decide what rule to do... Now it’s all driven by machine learning." (Sam Han, 35:45)

Key Timestamps

• State of Digital Publishing Summit Recap – 00:26–03:23
• TikTok U.S. Deal Deep Dive – 04:15–10:18
• Disney-Kimmel/State-Directed Media – 10:18–18:02
• Meta Content Licensing/Publisher AI Battles – 18:21–26:09
• Featured Interview: Sam Han, Chief AI Officer – 26:28–47:06

Conclusion

This episode provides a vivid, insider view of how media organizations are responding to existential issues: government intrusion, platform volatility, and the relentless advance of AI. The conversation with Sam Han is both technical and practical, demonstrating that for top publishers, AI is not about future promise—it's a day-to-day operational necessity, with measurable impact on both subscriptions and advertising. The episode closes on an optimistic note: AI, in the right hands, can restore some control to publishers, if only they evolve fast enough.