Allison Murphy, COO of Axios, joined me to discuss the evolution of Axios Local five years in. Axios plans to be in 43 cities by the end of the year. It is adapting its franchise model to build around individual reporters. In this model, the journalist becomes “talent” for multi-facated businesses, with Axios providing the support structure, shared services and a small team. We touch on how using AI tools can enable this kind of small-team approach.

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Chapters:

Christian Muche built Dmexco into Europe's biggest digital marketing event, walked away, and then launched Possible in Miami Beach — after Martin Sorrell told him the world didn't need another marketing event. We talk about what it took to launch a new tentpole event during a pandemic, why he chose Miami , how the hosted buyer model brings marketers into the room, and why quality has replaced quantity as the currency of events.

The Rebooting is a media partner of Possible this year. Hope to see you in Miami Beach from April 27-29.

Chapters:

Christian Muche built Dmexco into Europe's biggest digital marketing event, walked away, and then launched Possible in Miami Beach — after Martin Sorrell told him the world didn't need another marketing event. We talk about what it took to launch a new tentpole event during a pandemic, why he chose Miami , how the hosted buyer model brings marketers into the room, and why quality has replaced quantity as the currency of events.

The Rebooting is a media partner of Possible this year. Hope to see you in Miami Beach from April 27-29.

Former Athletic and Puck exec Max Tcheyan is launching Caper, a media brand covering the power dynamics behind the restaurant world. Max explains why he thinks food media is where sports media was in 2016, how dining culture has become a status marker for the affluent, and why he's betting that the prosumer playbook that worked for Hollywood and DC coverage can work for hospitality. We also discuss the risks of building a niche publication for an audience that would rather eat than read.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is a typical big city newspaper that's been in retreat for a generation. Now under a unique nonprofit ownership structure, the Inquirer grew revenue last year and turned an operating profit. CEO Lisa Hughes, the former New Yorker chief business officer who took the role in 2020, has focused on shifting to a consumer revenue model — 70% of revenue now comes from readers through subscriptions, events, and donations. She discusses what's working: an AI tool called Scribe that monitors 30 municipal meetings to power hyperlocal suburban newsletters getting 75% open rates, a reinvented sales operation built around branded content and corporate reputation, a content strategy organized around being "useful, revealing, and responsive" rather than chasing prizes, and an aggressive regional expansion into South Jersey and beyond to grow the addressable market. Plus: the case for still printing a seven-day newspaper, why weekend content was a hidden growth lever, and what it means to "feed your Philly bias."

Robin Thurston raised $150 million to turn Outside into more than a magazine. He explains how the company married media brands with mapping apps, SaaS platforms, and a festival to reach profitability at $125 million in revenue.

Dmitry Shishkin, a veteran of the BBC and former CEO of Ringier International, has a back-to-basics suggestion: Journalism needs to adapt more of a product mindset. Too much of what newsrooms produce is basic news updates rather than acting as a utility for the audience. His User Needs framework seeks to shift journalism to be more useful to the audience. We talk about why newsrooms overproduce content nobody values, how the BBC tripled its audience by doing less, why Dmitry thinks the next editor-in-chief should come from audience development, what happens when AI can handle all the commodity news, and whether your publication would even be missed if it disappeared tomorrow.

Taboola CEO Adam Singolda has built his company on open web publishing. He sees the dynamics of the open web changing, as the battle for AI surpremacy acclerates the shift from traditional web search, putting in motion a cascading series of second-order effects that will remake the publishing landscape. We discuss why GEO is the new SEO, the need for publishers to match changed consumer expectations, the collapsed marketing funnel and why creators are the new long-tail publishers.

The industrial logic of media, premised on scarcity, has been replaced by a platform logic that is no less centralizing. Meet the new boss. Entertainment industry veteran Darren Cross breaks down what platform logic is, and how it dictates what's made, who has power and where our attention goes.

Food Fix's Helena Bottemiller Evich has achieved sustainability. She has a recurring revenue business that exceeds her salary at Politico, with a 10% free-to-paid conversion rate. This gives her the option to continue as is as a solo operation or expand into adjacent verticals. Our conversation ranges across the choices that independent media operators need to make around complicating a simple business model, the guesswork that goes into subscriptions pricing, and how to maintain enthusiasm while on a content treadmill.