The Rebooting Show

By 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 busines... more

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FAQs about The Rebooting Show:

How many episodes does The Rebooting Show have?

The podcast currently has 235 episodes available.

The Rebooting Show episodes:

July 09, 2026Why 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
...more
43min
July 07, 2026Agents 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
...more
53min
June 30, 2026TRB 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
...more
39min
June 23, 2026Esses' 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
...more
56min
June 19, 2026KRCW'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
...more
50min
June 16, 2026News 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
...more
42min
June 09, 2026Dynamo's Nicholas Carlson on finding content-market fit
A year after its launch, Dynamo’s Nich Carlson joined me to discuss what he’s learned in starting a YouTube-first video programmer. Dynamo is home to “Business Explains the World,” a documentary-style show on interesting business and economics topics. We’d spoken soon after Dynamo’s launch, so I had Nich back to reflect on Year 1.

Nich was candid about the difficulties inherent to running a fledgling business. The thread I see in the new crop of media startups like Dynamo is, even if they raise small amounts like Dynamo, they focus primarily on getting content-market fit. There's leverage in having makers, not monetizers or strategists, running the business.
Instagram is critical. When Dynamo launched, Nich thought LinkedIn would be a natural complement to YouTube. Only he’s not found that. Instead, Instagram is a critical channel, particularly in reaching a female-skewed audience. Plus: Instagram’s ad ecosystem is strong.
Getting your hands dirty. Nich ran a large newsroom at Business Insider. That’s a lot of management and meetings. With Dynamo, Nich’s original conception of being more of an executive producer guiding the process became being very involved in making the product.
Creators are the comp. Dynamo is looking to build a media company that’s creator-native. He looks at what YouTubers like Jonny Harris and Cleo Abram are doing rather than established media companies.
Accept uncertainty. Running a company is a nonstop stream of decisions, small and big. On the small, Nich focuses on speed over certainty, and even on large decisions, he’s accepted he’ll rarely be more than 60% sure. Waiting for certainty usually means waiting forever.
Lean by default. Rather than 700 people like BI at its peak, Dynamo is 1/100th the size. That means everyone needs to be a doer and the focus is on improving the work rather than coordination.
Chapters:
00:00 Beehiiv Spotlight
01:29 Welcome
02:08 Lessons From the Scale Era
08:02 Where Media Energy Is Now
09:34 Are Journalistic Creators Legit
13:17 Platform Bets
14:48 Why Instagram Is Winning
17:21 Monetization and Outsourced Sales
20:50 What Works on YouTube
23:11 Short Form and Clipping Strategy
25:54 Well-made Objects
28:10 Unit Economics and Profitability Goals
33:07 Doubling Down on Series
34:15 Selling Host Read Ads
37:04 Creative Edge in Ads
38:14 Founder Lessons and Decisions
41:16 Year Two Big Bets
45:06 Back in the Kitchen
48:23 Scaling Beyond the Founder
52:29 Cinematic Universe Strategy
55:18 Staying Lean as You Grow
59:13 Creators With Momentum
...more
1h 4min
June 02, 2026The new social with Rachel Karten
TikTok broke social media's original contract — grow followers, followers see content — and replaced it with algorithmic sorting that rewards entertaining strangers over satisfying your loyal audience. Link in Bio's Rachel Karten joins The Rebooting Show to discuss what comes next for brands, social media managers, and the practitioners building media businesses around specific professional communities.

Chapters:
00:00 Beehiiv Spot
01:40 Conversation with Rachel
02:36 Starting in Social Media
04:42 Post Social Media Era
07:52 Middle Lane Disappears
08:42 Brands As Programmers
10:10 Duolingo Hook Strategy
13:40 Entertainment Vs Community
16:58 Social Role Evolves
20:01 Tech Marketing Reality Check
23:44 Clipping And Flooding
26:08 Why Link In Bio
32:23 Monetization And Community
33:59 Consulting Flywheel
36:31 Events And Scaling Up
...more
43min
May 26, 2026The Dow Jones recipe for growth
In the wreckage of the scale era, The Wall Street Journal is one of the winners. It has 4.5 million paid subscriptions and the broader Dow Jones portfolio has 6.3 million with a foothold in B2B data assets like OPIS and Risk & Compliance. The Journal has more pep under the editorial leadership of Emma Tucker.

Scott Havens, a veteran of leadership positions at Bloomberg Media, The Atlantic, Time, joined at the start of the year as the chief growth officer of Dow Jones and global head of consumer. Scott joined me on The Rebooting Show to discuss where those growth opportunities lie.

"Since I left business school and got into digital in the late 90s, it was always about building something new,” Scott tole me. “ The pathway for media growth usually is launching new things. You can always optimize your current stuff, but I've seen success from putting new things into the market, exploring new areas for audiences and for sponsors."

Chapters:
00:00 Beehiiv Spot
01:21 Intro
04:02 Conversation with Scott
04:22 Growth Remit
06:52 Breaking Down Dow Jones
10:06 Niche Expansion Strategy
12:14 Sports as Asset Class
16:19 Picking New Verticals
20:12 Creators and Talent Labs
25:32 New Creator Business Models
27:09 Video Strategy Across Platforms
32:38 International Growth Strategy
38:56 Events As Growth Engine
46:21 Next Phase Subscription Growth
...more
54min
May 19, 2026The revenge of brand
Markets in the midst of technological change tend to have two camps. One is the legacy incumbents that have strengths in their brands and the other in upstarts that are nimbler. In digital media, it turned out brand won.

At Possible, The Rebooting held TRB Conversations, a series of podcast discussions with media leaders on what they’re betting on. The connective tissue that emerged is that publishers are leaning more heavily on the value of their brands as they reorient their businesses to focus less on scale and more on depth.

This episode features conversations with Shachar Oren, CMO/CRO of EX.CO; Brendan Spain, vp of advertising for the Americas, The Financial Times; Rachael Savage, svp of ad revenue operations, Hearst Magazines; and Avi Zimack, chief growth officer, Bustle Digital Group.

Chapters:
00:00 Welcome
00:57 EX.CO
01:20 CTV Meets Digital Lessons
02:45 Closing the CTV Budget Gap
06:49 All Screens Advertising Future
09:10 Measurement and Agentic Shift
11:32 FT Brand Safety Reality
14:29 FT Video and Paywall Growth
16:39 Global Brand Advantage
22:20 Hearst Brands Need Playbooks
25:34 Scale vs Niche Monetization
28:16 Hearst AI and Data Backbone
33:06 BDG Pivot to Activations
37:50 Influencers and Brand Seals
43:57 Events Plus Data Flywheel
...more
48min

FAQs about The Rebooting Show:

How many episodes does The Rebooting Show have?

The podcast currently has 235 episodes available.

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