On this week’s episode, Asaf Peled, founder and CEO of Minute Media (home to 90min, 12up, Mental Floss and more) takes us through the importance of community to its brands, making well-loved print brands work digitally, and the outlook for digital media more generally. He also discusses the complexities of managing both the tech and media sides of the business, and their acquisition of Peter’s favourite brand Mental Floss.
In the news roundup, the team debates whether Twitter’s political ad ban will move the needle on the abuse of political ads online, Future plc’s acquisition of TI Media, and ask when an editor is as morally culpable as a columnist. The team engages in some historical revisionism about their past predictions.
News in brief:
- Netflix is to launch its first original podcast in partnership with Spotify. The podcast will tell a story of when a group of teens decide to make a podcast during an apocalypse…
- Talking of Spotify, the company is launching a new app called Spotify Kids to provide a ‘safe space’ for kids to listen to music and podcasts.
- Stylist Group has joined the Ozone Project, a media audience network formed last year to challenge Google and Facebook. Ozone claims to reach 99% of the UK’s online population.
- Choppy waters at Deadspin as a significant number of their editorial staff have resigned after being given a ‘stick to sports’ order.
- In the Google vs EU publishers debate, French publishers have backed down on enforcing a snippet tax after Google threatened to leave search results blank. However, French media have filed a formal complaint to the French antitrust body arguing that Google had put them in an impossible position.
- The Spectator’s editor Fraser Nelson has put out a mealy-mouthed apology after publishing a(nother) racist column from noted racist Rod Liddle. There’s a great article from Jasper Jackson on the financial gains of publishing for controversy’s sake, but at what point does the editor and publisher become as complicit as the racist they promote?
- Ex-Trump advisor Steve Bannon is eyeing up buying The Telegraph. File this one under ‘never gonna happen’.
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