The Rebooting Show

EX.CO's Paul Jelinek on TV Advertising's 'Major Transformation'

Paul Jelinek, chief business officer at EX.CO, joined me in Cannes for TRB Conversations, powered by EX.CO, to lay out why CTV programmatic advertising is still in its early days — and why that's about to change fast. In this TRB partner episode, Jelinek explains why he thinks agentic advertising hasn't fundamentally transformed the industry yet, how EX.CO's "yield engine" technology — originally built for online publishers — is now being ported to CTV and digital out-of-home, and why he believes CTV programmatic today looks like online video did eight years ago. Also covered: Why AI and agentic tools are currently more useful as tactical marketing and discovery tools than as full transaction engines The differences between managing yield in online video versus CTV, and what's transferable Why hiring more salespeople isn't a scalable growth strategy for CTV publishers EX.CO's evolution from an online publishing platform (formerly Playbuzz) to a cross-channel yield technology company. Chapters: 01:17 Agentic Ads Reality Check 04:59 Exco Origins 07:24 What Changes in CTV 11:28 CTV Programmatic Timeline 12:00 Cannes Memory Lane

• Transcript

The return of movie theaters

Never bet against the need of young people to get out of the home and socialize. Movie theaters are seeing a revival, driven by young audiences. Geoff Schiller, CEO of movie theater ad network Screenvision, joined me to discuss why this is a long term trend. A veteran of digital media, Geoff has a blunt assessment of "legacy" digital media: It's mostly zombies. Instead, the bigger media opportunities lie in the renewed appeal of shared experiences. We discuss cinema’s advantages as a high-attention advertising medium, and why AI could make physical media more valuable. This episode is sponsored by beehiiv, which powers the email of the biggest brands like Time, TechCrunch and more. See how beehiiv powers leading brands Check out TRB Audience Summit on Sept 17.. We have over 100 participants confirmed for the event on Sept 17 in NYC. They’re senior leaders from Bloomberg Media, The New York Times, BBC, Condé Nast, The Wall Street Journal, Hearst, The New York Post, Vox Media and the Associated Press. The day is built around the issues media operators are dealing with right now: life after Google Zero, consumer revenue, AI products and audience strategy. Join us Highlights: 01:33 Media Shakeout Era 05:40 Why Cinema Wins 10:33 Gen Z Theater Revival 15:55 Screenvision Model 27:08 Ads Attention Future 35:03 Future Of IRL Media

• Transcript

Inside Spotify's bet on agentic advertising

Per Sendall, co-head of ads at Spotify, joins Brian Morrissey in Cannes for TRB Conversations, powered by EX.CO, to break down how AI agents are already changing the way Spotify builds and sells advertising. Sendall explains why "the vast majority" of Spotify's code is now being written by software agents, how the company built and open-sourced a CLI plug-in that lets brands buy audio ads using natural language, and why he thinks agentic negotiation is still years away — because AI models are "hard coded to be nice," making them easy for human negotiators to exploit. Also covered: Spotify's rebuilt ad tech stack: its own ad server, ads manager, and programmatic exchange (SAX) Why audio advertising has 30-year staying power, and what that means for attribution windows Spotify's new generative AI creative tool, available in 12 languages with 100 voices The "sponsor playlist" product and how Spotify is rethinking ad load in exchange for brand takeovers 00:00 EX.CO Spot 00:38 Intro 01:10 Welcome 01:28 Rebuilding the Ads Stack 03:58 Programmatic Audio Push 07:23 Free vs Premium Ad Experience 10:44 Agentic Ads Reality Check 14:28 Ways Off From Agent Negotiation 15:21 Cannes Memory Lane

• Transcript

How Famous Birthdays managed ‘Google Zero’

Famous Birthdays is a classic open web publishing success story. Evan Britton bootstrapped the publisher to fill a simple need: People were seeking out information about the new crop of influencer and creator celebrities. Traffic peaked at 25 million three years ago. Evan wanted to sale it to 100 million and be a top ComScore site. Now, traffic is down to 20 million. Now, it’s focused more on “intentional” traffic and building community around that while building out a B2B information business. “A lot of those users are coming to our site because they know Famous Birthdays,” Evan told me. “They didn’t just randomly stumble onto it.” Chapters: 00:00 Beehiiv Spot 01:29 Welcome 01:56 Famous Birthdays Story 05:27 Staying Flexible in Media 07:43 Google Zero Reality Check 11:29 Retention Over Scale 14:09 Monetization Without Direct Ads 22:52 Open Web and AI Future 24:56 Creator Data Strategy 29:45 Open Web Future 35:48 Shorts Versus Longform 38:51 Search First UX 42:27 Copyright And AI Deals

• Transcript

The portal's comeback

Rob Wilk, CRO of Yahoo, joined me in Cannes for TRB Conversations, powered by EX.CO, to make the case that 30-year-old Yahoo is in the middle of a genuine business turnaround, not a nostalgia play. Rob breaks down Yahoo's first-party data advantage across search, email, and content (with 75% of users logged in), why he calls competitors' data "a fish stew" of third-party signals, and how that data now powers Yahoo Scout — the company's first new search product in 17 years, built using a rented LLM alongside Bing's grounding API and Yahoo's own first-party data. Chapters: 00:00 EX.CO Spot 00:34 Intro 01:11 Welcome 02:55 First Party Data Edge 06:12 Portal to AI Era 08:46 Yahoo Scout Search Return 11:44 Creators and Brand Deals 14:27 Cannes Memory Lane

• Transcript

WSJ's Josh Stinchcomb on why events are key

Events have moved from a side business to a core commercial product at The Wall Street Journal. CRO Josh Stinchcomb says the long lead times and scarcity let publishers lock in sponsor commitments earlier, which matters when advertising budgets are volatile. The event is increasingly the beginning of a larger marketing program rather than an add-on at the end. It creates the executives, conversations, video and podcast material that can then become a broader branded-content campaign. The value is less about filling a big room than convening the right 100 or 200 people, facilitating introductions and making the event accountable to actual business outcomes. Chapters: 00:00 EX.CO Spot 00:36 Intro 01:24 Welcome 01:45 Inside Journal House 03:17 Convening as Strategy 04:25 Events as Main Dish 08:46 Stitching Dow Jones Assets 10:38 Cannes Memory Lane

• Transcript

NBCU product chief: Big Tech is 'cherry-picking'

Ryan McConville, chief product officer at NBCUniversal, joins me in Cannes for TRB Conversations, powered by EX.CO, to make the case that premium video has been underappreciated as the origin point of culture. That ends up leaving it shortchanged by the platforms that built their businesses on top of it as advertising was subsumed by performance marketing. “If you only feed the bottom of the funnel, you eventually run out of new customers. Brand and performance are intimately linked. If you take your foot off the gas on brand, it’s just going to raise the cost in your other channels. It’s all performance—it’s simply different parts of performance.” Chapters: 00:09 EX.CO Spot 00:36 Intro 01:40 Welcome 02:28 Rebooting TV for Streaming 05:11 Comcast Tech Stack Advantage 06:26 Attribution and Culture Credit 08:08 Proving TV Performance Lift 11:25 Democratizing CTV Buying 14:04 Agentic AI Hype Check 19:08 Buyer Agents and Whats Next

• Transcript

Subsidizing investigative journalism

Funding investigative journalism is a unique challenge. On The Rebooting Show, I spoke to Scott Stedman, an independent investigative journalist who is using a coffee subscription service as a business model to fund his open-source investigations at The Newsground. He’s attempting to recreate the news subsidy that was lost with the unbundling of media. Scott and I discuss his career, why he doesn’t believe in the business model of journalism companies and why accountability journalism will find innovative models. Chapters: 00:00 Beehiiv Spot 01:29 Welcome 02:07 Why Investigative Journalism 04:28 Making It Sustainable 06:43 Freedom Over Newsrooms 13:05 Creators And Video Shift 19:03 Newsground Coffee Model 27:48 Behind The Scenes Journalism 32:45 Crowdfunding And Growth 35:31 Inspirations And Future

• Transcript

Agentic advertising isn't ready for primetime

Agentic advertising was the buzzword of the year at Cannes this year. It stands to reason this hype is ahead of reality. Jon Roberts, chief innovation officer at People Inc, gives a reality check of where the hurdles to agentic advertising, which holds the promise -- yet again -- of establishing direct paths between advertisers and publishers. “Is this just AI jazz hands, or is there something actually there under the hood?’ Discovery and planning agents, packaging agents — those are pretty low risk, and they’re definitely possible. They make the planning process faster, while humans still set up the deals and line items. The highest-risk piece is negotiation. These models are hard-coded to be nice, and the worst thing you want to do is put a nice AI negotiator against a human on the other side. They’ll give that stuff to you for free. Humans should negotiate, but AI systems can do the heavy lifting, and we’ll crawl, walk and run into it.” Chapters: 00:09 EX.CO Spot 00:37 Intro 01:37 Welcome 01:57 Agentic Advertising Hype 05:56 Publishers and Ad Tech Tax 07:40 Agents and the Content Bargain 11:13 New Monetization Models 13:38 Best Cannes Memories

• Transcript

Workweek's Adam Ryan is betting on practitioner media

One of the more promising areas of media is expert practitioners who are both good at their jobs and at explaining their fields. Workweek is a B2B media company built with this ethos at its core. Adam Ryan, CEO of Workweek, joined me to discuss the advantages of practitioner media and why Workweek is focused on proving to its advertisers that they're reaching their potential customers. Chapters: 00:00 Beehiiv Spot 01:29 Welcome 02:03 What Is Workweek 03:24 From Newsletters to Communities 06:39 Going Wide Then Narrow 08:47 Creator Model and Retention 12:27 Practitioners Keep Their Jobs 18:41 Advertising Not Lead Gen 23:32 Community Platform 27:01 Email Identity Graph 28:53 Events As Community Engine 30:58 Free Events Sponsor Model 33:51 AI Impact On B2B Media 38:05 Digital Versus In Person Mix 40:35 Stop Chasing Subscribers 44:53 Substack Recs And Fake Growth 47:54 Data Decay And Better Signals

• Transcript

Affiliate in an AI world

The shift to performance marketing has increased thei importance of affiliate operations at publishers. AI is upending the old playbook. That’s because of AI agents. Agents will increasingly be on the loose to make buying decisions. The question is how publishers will influence those agents with their commerce content but also how they’ll get credit. The recent controversy over Phia’s cookie stuffing is testament to how affiliate is premised on getting credit for the sale. "If you have an AI agent, the cookie is injected into your browser,” said Madeline Sullivan, founder of shopping app Scout and affiliate publishing veteran who spent eight years at Forbes Vetted. “So if an agent is using a different browser — let's say you have a Mac Mini where your agents live — that agent is going to be on a completely different browser. How are we thinking about people's digital identity to provide credit to the publishers?" Chapters: 00:00 Beehiiv Spot 01:29 Welcome 02:17 Commerce Journey 05:08 SEO Era And Google Changes 09:38 Owning Audience For Commerce 13:51 AI Citations And Getting Paid 16:49 Scout App 21:48 Affiliate Scandals: Honey And Phia 28:38 AI Agents And Attribution Future 37:59 Distribution And Creator Partnerships 44:05 Trust And Content Evolution

• Transcript

Inside Hearst's GEO strategy

Mike Nuzzo, svp of Hearst Data Solutions, explains how Hearst is measuring its visibility and favorability inside answer engines, restructuring editorial content into formats LLMs can more easily use, and exploring how GEO could become part of its advertising business. We also discuss the collapse of the traditional marketing funnel, the difference between machine knowledge and human wisdom, and the possibility that publishers will eventually operate separate layers of the internet for humans and robots. Chapters: 00:00 TRB 237 - Mike Nuzzo 00:09 Ex.co Spot 00:33 Intro 02:08 Why LLM Discoverability Matters 03:50 Measuring Citation and Favorability 05:50 Making Content Robot Friendly 08:06 Knowledge vs Wisdom 14:18 Monetizing LLM Influence 15:28 Robot Internet and Human Internet 17:46 LLM Referrals Rising

• Transcript

Why USA Today Co might quit Google

USA Today Co CEO Mike Reed explains why he's willing to walk away from Google search traffic within the next 12 months, how the company is building direct-to-consumer relationships through newsletters and social to offset the loss, and why he thinks the "one crawler" problem — Google refusing to let publishers separate AI Overviews from search indexing — is forcing his hand. Chapters: 00:35 Intro 01:00 Gannet to USA Today Co. 02:18 Four Digital Revenue Streams 04:10 AI and the Broken Web Deal 08:51 Traffic Proof Points 11:50 Humans vs Agents Web 13:30 AI in the Newsroom Rules

• Transcript

What publishers get wrong about community

Daniel Scharff isn't a media guy. He's a CPG operator who stumbled into community-building almost by accident, looking for people to talk to at trade shows. That accidental start turned into Startup CPG, a Slack-based community that's become a trusted gathering spot for direct-to-consumer operators in packaged goods. We talk through what it actually takes to build a community that people show up for: why "the things that don't scale" are the whole point, why Slack works better than purpose-built community platforms despite not being designed for the job, how to think about trade shows versus owned events, and why proximity to the industry — not content production — is the real unlock for publishers trying to build the same thing. Chapters: 01:29 Intro 08:23 Why CPG Is Exploding 10:39 Forces Driving New Brands 17:17 From Meetups to National Slack 24:13 Signature Series and Events 27:39 Monetization Free Community 32:09 Educational Partner Webinars 38:43 Measuring Reach And Engagement 42:52 Hiring And Team Growth 44:09 Partnerships And Success Ops 49:20 Scale Versus Depth 51:14 Trade Shows 52:35 Why Slack Works

Why AI could speed micropayments

AI agents are consuming content at a scale the web was never built for — and they don't watch ads, subscribe, or click. In this episode of TRB Conversations, powered by EX.CO, recorded at Cannes, Brian Morrissey talks with Cosmin Ene, CEO of Supertab, about why the old ads-vs-subscriptions dichotomy breaks down in an agentic world — and why micropayments, an idea publishers have circled for two decades, may finally have found its moment. Cosmin makes the case that grounding — not AI training — is the real emerging monetization opportunity, why bulk licensing deals actually hurt publishers by capping upside and hiding usage data, and why he believes the market for AI-agent content payments will regulate itself the way any two-sided market does. He also walks through how Supertab Connect works in practice: rights declaration, pricing, metering, and settlement — and makes the case that this is publishing's "YouTube moment," circa 2007, not a fast-money play. Topics covered: Why AI agents threaten the ad- and subscription-funded web What "grounding" means and why it's more valuable than training-data settlements Why publishers' old fear of subscription cannibalization doesn't apply to agents The problem with one-off bulk licensing deals (and the information asymmetry they create) How AI-agent price discovery will actually work Why publishers shouldn't expect meaningful revenue for 12–24 months — and what to do now 00:00 Intro — is AI scraping breaking the open web? 04:00 Why ads and subscriptions don't work on AI agents 12:00 What "grounding" means and why it's the real opportunity 16:00 The math problem with suing AI companies for content 25:00 Inside Supertab Connect: rights, pricing, metering, settlement 38:00 Why publishers shouldn't expect fast revenue

Agents won’t replace human trust

At the Bloomberg Studios in Cannes, Bloomberg Media chief commercial officer Christine Cook and HSBC CMO for corporate and institutional banking Nicole German joined me to discuss the current and future shifts as media moves into an agentic era. The conclusion: Lots of change is still to come, but the one thing that won’t change much is that humans will continue to trust other humans rather than handing over important decisions to robots. Topics we discuss: Agents as the next algorithm, not a new paradigm: Christine argues agentic AI is best understood as an evolution of the same discoverability dynamics that reshaped Twitter, Meta and LinkedIn over the past decade. She contends that whoever builds and programs an agent will bake in an angle or motivation, meaning marketers should expect the same unpredictable shifts they've already lived through with platform algorithms. The barbell between digital hype and live connection: Christine makes the case that the industry's energy is badly out of balance, with far too much attention on agentic AI and not enough on why executives still fly across the world to sit at a table together. She points to the disconnect at Cannes itself, where billboards promise a fully automated future while attendees pack parties and roundtables in search of in-person contact. Why high-stakes B2B deals still require humans in the room: Nicole draws a firm line for HSBC, stating the bank has no plans to let agents make decisions without human intervention on large, multi-jurisdictional transactions. She frames AI as an input into the process, useful for surfacing insights, but not a substitute for the trust built when a team of humans is physically present with a client. The disorienting new mechanics of agent-based discoverability: Nicole describes HSBC's early efforts to optimize for GEO and AEO as "a bit of Whac-A-Mole," requiring the bank to rebuild its websites for technical findability and even write an internal playbook for making RFPs discoverable inside clients' proprietary agents. It's a sign that even sophisticated B2B marketers are still reverse-engineering rules for a fundamentally different kind of search. AI's dividend is time, not fewer people: Both guests push back on predictions of marketing job losses, arguing instead that efficiency gains free up capacity for deeper client work and creative judgment. Christine notes that marketing organizations have historically operated lean already, while Nicole frames the goal as more time spent on the craft of marketing rather than simply producing more output. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:27 Beehiiv Spot 02:49 Welcome 03:13 Agentic AI Hype Check 05:28 Bloomberg AI From Bottom Up 07:36 HSBC Clients and AI Search 10:39 Marketing to Agents Soon 13:09 AEO and Algorithm Evolution 21:30 Experiential Marketing and Trust 28:16 Curated Rooms Build Integrity 30:19 In House vs Partner Media 34:08 Brands Becoming Media 36:42 Direct to Audience Strategy 38:36 Creators in Regulated Finance 44:54 AI Inside Marketing Teams 49:13 AI Inside Bloomberg Operations

TRB Live in Cannes: Publishers' Google problem

People Inc CEO Neil Vogel explains his beef with Google and how publishing now requires running multiple playbooks customized for each brand. Axios chief media correspondent Sara Fischer says an AI marketplace can only emerge if Google participates. Chapters: 00:00 Beehiiv Spot 01:14 Intro 04:36 Welcome 05:26 Cannes Takeaways 07:34 Google Traffic Breakup 11:53 Premium Barbell Strategy 15:46 AI Deals And Regulation 18:47 Marketplace Needs Google 25:55 Agents And Trust Markets 27:44 Humans Still Choose 33:34 Journalism In New Mediums

• Transcript

Esses' Ojus Jain on building an F1 culture brand

Esses is betting a high-end print magazine will help establish brand credibility an email list alone cannot. Founder Ojus Jain is building a model that uses that credibility and editorial distribution to power brand activations around the crowded F1 race calendar. Chapters: 00:00 Beehiiv Spot 01:29 Welcome 02:43 Why Esses? 05:04 Affluent F1 Audience 06:15 F1 Goes Global 11:53 Why Print Matters 15:18 Events As Growth Engine 17:45 Distribution And Partnerships 21:54 Tentpole Activations Strategy 28:38 Events Versus Editorial 31:19 Journalism Role 34:26 Subscriptions As Membership 38:22 Who Advertises In F1 42:37 Media Brand Inspirations 44:08 KPIs Investors Watch 45:28 Funding And Profitability 47:54 Event Margins Reality 50:45 Next Year Priorities

• Transcript

KRCW's Jennifer Ferro on building a community model

KCRW is a local institution in Los Angeles, home to Morning Becomes Eclectic, the long-running music-discovery program. The public radio station is using its standing to lean into a community model that includes 100 events per year, such as a pie baking contest that drew 400 bakers and 10,000 attendees and a summer series of 18 free, all-ages events at cultural centers across Southern California. Its membership program has 55,000 paying members. "We use media to cultivate this community,” Jennifer Ferro, president of KCRW, told me on The Rebooting Show. “ We don't build a community in order to make media." Chapters: 00:00 Beehiiv Spot 01:29 Welcome 01:34 KCRW Origin Story 04:35 Why Radio Matters 09:44 Public Media Funding 13:59 Rage Giving 20:41 Events As Community 23:10 Brand Beyond Radio 24:28 Newsletters And Channels 28:07 Audience Channel Pie 30:46 Email Conversion Power 31:50 Voluntary Giving 34:46 Modern Pledge Drives 36:59 Voluntary Model Beyond NPR 40:08 Why Audio Feels Intimate 42:33 Future Of Public Media 45:36 Gen Z And Human Trust

• Transcript

News as a feature

The Reuters Institute's new digital news report lays bare the challenges facing journalism as people increasingly stop seeking out news products. Instead, news is a feature of other products. Jim Egan, one of the report's authors, joins me to discuss the implications. Chapters: 00:00 Beehiiv Spot 01:29 Welcome 02:00 The Digital News Report 02:55 News Becomes a Feature 06:59 Video Wins Offsite 08:14 Paying for News Ceiling 12:43 News Avoidance Rising 15:52 AI Chatbots for News 17:50 Rise of News Creators 20:54 Focus on News Lovers 23:00 Trust and Its Limits 29:44 Platform Strategy Reality 34:50 Other Report Signals 37:28 Global Video Markets

• Transcript