Brian Morrissey
The Rebooting Show gets into the weeds with those building and operating media businesses, giving an open view into how the smartest people in the media business are building sustainable media businesses. https://www.therebooting.com/ (www.therebooting.com)
Adam Reek and Bradley Roe spent 16 years building Peloton magazine, sold it to Outside, and watched it get shut down. Then they started over. Fausto is a high-end print magazine about cycling as a lifestyle. Adam and Brad explain why they've opted out of the digital media rat race. We get into the newsstand economics, the Monocle and Surfer's Journal models, and why patience is the thing they learned the first time around.
Josh Kaplan is co-founder and CEO of Smooth Media, a talent management company for knowledge creators: people like Joanna Stern, Matt Wolf, Cat GPT and the Breaking and Entering guys. Smooth started out selling newsletter and consulting services to creators. It found its footing by doing the opposite: bringing in sponsor revenue and taking a 20% commission. Josh and I talk about why most of their creators are video-first, why they moved away from taking equity, what it means that a top creator now owns a piece of Smooth, and who carries the risk when creators start throwing events. Chapters: 01:32 Smooth Media Origin Story 09:12 Video First Knowledge Creators 14:33 Monetization And Talent Model 27:40 Creator Equity Partner 36:49 Events and Creator Ops 48:31 Talent Management
The Lever founder David Sirota joins me to discuss why corporate media still sets the terms of the political conversation, even as its business model weakens. We get into the opening for independent investigative outlets, why reader funding brings its own pressures, and the challenge of serving an audience that sometimes wants its beliefs affirmed more than its assumptions challenged. We also discuss what Zohran Mamdani understands about media and why the left needs to do more than copy the right’s playbook. Chapters: 01:33 Media Standpoint Critique 09:40 Right vs Left Media Ecosystems 14:15 Building Progressive Media 21:50 Lever Reporting Playbook 34:54 Incentives Audience Capture 39:59 Culture Wars 51:06 2028 Outlook
The Atlantic CEO Nick Thompson is preparing for a media business where the web plays a far smaller role. That could mean more print issues, stronger relationships between readers and individual writers, and new ways to get paid when AI agents become the audience. Recorded at TRB Audience Summit, this conversation starts with what the industry could look like in 2031 and explores how The Atlantic is positioning itself for that future, why Nick expects a new generation of media startups, and whether AI companies will build an economic system that sustains the journalism they depend on. Chapters: 03:21 Atlantic in 2031 Scenarios 08:07 Print as Lifeboat 09:32 Video Strategy 12:43 AI Inside the Business 17:22 Open Web 20:02 Future Media
The Guardian CEO Anna Bateson is a realist. She sees the need to prepare for when publishers are connecting information to AI pipes. “Our website may become something that is more of a service to agentic audiences rather than where you have the majority of human traffic,” she said. Recorded live at TRB Audience Summit on Sept 17, 2026. Chapters: 03:22 Traffic Drops and Direct Audiences 05:30 Beyond Text Going Multimodal 07:32 Building The Guardian US 14:03 US Growth and 2031 Vision 18:53 AI Adoption Without Losing Trust 27:29 What Stays the Same
Publishers are adding AI tools, but the news product remains largely unchanged. Martin Schiori, former deputy publisher and AI lead at Sweden’s Aftonbladet and now co-founder of newsletter startup Hint Media, joins Brian Morrissey to discuss where that leaves news businesses. We explore the choice between becoming AI-powered information services and building around human relationships, why journalists’ identities as writers complicate adoption, and the risk of trying to do a little of everything without giving audiences a compelling reason to come back. Chapters: 01:33 AI Inside the Newsroom 07:43 Future News Products and Trust 24:58 Liquid Content 29:32 Participatory News Interfaces 40:53 Hint Community Model
Playboy is rebuilding itself as a lifestyle brand for a new era. President David Miller joins me to discuss why content is now the brand’s marketing engine, the return of the magazine, and Playboy’s expansion into licensing, events, membership and hospitality. Chapters: 01:33 From Nat Geo to Playboy 02:49 Rebuilding Playboy as Brand 07:51 Audience and Cultural Moment 16:51 Magazine Return and Business Model 35:46 Membership Events and Future
Complex president Moksha Fitzgibbons joins Brian Morrissey to discuss the company’s evolution from an advertising-dependent publisher into a business spanning media, commerce and live events. They examine why content and commerce usually fails, how Complex rebuilt its audience around video, and what it takes for a media brand to turn cultural relevance into product sales and 100,000 event tickets. The conversation explores a larger shift in publishing: Media’s value increasingly lies in what it can make happen beyond the pageview. Chapters: 01:31 Complex Reboot 06:47 Staying Relevant in Youth Culture 12:11 Live Shopping Craze 20:27 Commerce Drops and Festivals 35:45 Life After Traffic
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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