The Digiday Podcast

Since short-form video app TikTok, formerly known as Music.ly, burst onto the scene in 2018, it has captivated young audiences with its endless challenges, memes and lip syncs. The app even helped launch rapper Lil Nas X, and propel his hit "Old Town Road" to a record-holding 17 weeks on top of the Billboard charts. To outsiders, the app has a reputation for "cringey" content and comedic music videos produced by and for teenagers. But for Taylor Lorenz, a tech and internet reporter for The Atlantic, TikTok's unusual approach to social media is game-changing. On this week's episode of The Digiday Podcast, Brian Morrissey welcomes Lorenz back into the studio for a deep dive on the app that everyone is talking about, but not many understand. Here they discuss what TikTok is, what sets it apart from other platforms, and why it still has some growing up to do.

National Public Radio is no stranger to the world of audio, which is why embracing the rise of podcasts was a natural move for the company. NPR is a nonprofit media organization that creates content to distribute to its network of affiliate stations throughout the country. For a long time, that content was meant for traditional broadcast radio, but in recent years the company has begun testing out podcast-only content to expand its offering, and supplement its broadcast coverage. For Gina Garrubbo, the CEO of National Public Media, NPR's sponsorship arm, the increasing demand for podcasts has created a richly competitive landscape and an exciting era for the company. On this week's episode of The Digiday Podcast, Brian Morrissey sits down with Garrubbo for a podcast about podcasts. The two discuss whether or not we've reached the golden age of audio, trends in monetization and sponsorship, and why smart speakers are falling short of expectations.

In 2018, After a long career in media, former Politico USA president Poppy MacDonald decided to make the jump to a non-partisan, not-for-profit, data reporting publication: USAFacts. USAFacts was founded in 2017 by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, with the mission to "help inform active citizenship and fact-based debate, and advocate for transparency of and ease-of-access to public data," according to its website. For MacDonald, the organization was an opportunity to bring accurate, unbiased data back into the political conversation. In this week's episode of The Digiday Podcast, Brian Morrissey welcomes MacDonald back into the studio to discuss her new role as president of USAFacts, how staying away from projections translates to staying away from partisanship, and why the positive feedback she's received from lawmakers gives her hope for the future.

In 2015, CNN launched Great Big Story -- a video-first media company that produces inspirational micro-documentaries. For its first four years, that meant building an audience on platforms. Now, as Coupe looks towards the future, she wants to see GBS continue to grow, not just in views, but also in audience impact. On this week's episode of The Digiday Podcast, Brian Morrissey sits down with Coupe to discuss the importance of strategy in diversifying platforms, knowing when to say no and why she wants to make GBS's website their premier online destination.

When Will Welch took the helm as editor-in-chief of GQ in January, he announced that a new era of GQ had officially begun. And this new GQ is not for everyone. In the latest iteration of the men's fashion and lifestyle magazine, Welch intends to home in on the strengths of the GQ brand through a more focused content and an evolving social media strategy. In this week's episode of The Digiday Podcast, editor-in-chief Brian Morrissey sits down with Welch to discuss the new GQ, the evolving role of a magazine editor and the cultural shift taking place in men's fashion.

What was once a digital-first news brand has now become its own full fledged news network. Newsy, which got its start as a syndicator of short-form video, now is a news channel that claims to reach nearly 40 million viewers. The decision to move away from its roots, according to Newsy CEO Blake Sabatinelli, was a result of a shifting digital space. Just last year, the E.W. Scripps-owned brand took over Retirement Living Television's cable carriage agreement, to launch its own, fully-programmed network. Newsy is now on all major connected TV platforms such as Roku, Chromecast and Apple TV, with plans to push their streaming business even further. On this episode of the Digiday Podcast, editor-in-chief Brian Morrissey sits down with Sabatinelli to discuss the transition from digital to TV, what it means to be "anti-partisan" and why he believes that consolidation is inevitable in the growing world of streaming platforms.

There are many video streaming services hoping to be the next big player in the future of TV. Peter Kafka, a reporter at Recode Media and host of the Recode Media podcast by Vox, thinks Netflix has remained ahead of the curve and will retain the top spot for as long as streaming services keep positioning themselves as the answer to Netflix.

Subscriptions and advertising businesses may stand in conflict with each other, but The New York Times has been bullish on this strategy. While remaining a shining example of a successful subscription business, last year, it also had its first growth year overall in advertising since 2005. Sebastian Tomich, head of advertising at The Times discusses the advertisers’ aversion to news, how audio has become a meaningful business for the Times and more.

In the last year, Twitter and Facebook have been scrutinized for the lack of brand-safe environments for advertisers. At Cannes this year, Twitter is spending much of its time addressing those issues. Sarah Parsonette, vp of global client solutions at Twitter, discusses how the platform can contribute to brands’ bottom line, why it is open to regulation and more.

On this episode from Cannes, we talk to Andréa Mallard, the newly minted CMO at Pinterest. The platform has about 300 million active monthly users on its platform and Mallard’s pitch to advertisers and publishers includes a brand-safe environment and access to new audiences.

Despite the ever-changing methods of delivering content, Hearst, first and foremost, remains a magazine company. In the latest episode of the Cannes edition of the Digiday Podcast, Troy Young, president of Hearst Magazines, talks about culture changes at Hearst, his ambition to integrate data in every part of the organization and more.  

Once known for its brash ways, Vice under new CEO Nancy Dubuc is presenting a different, more streamlined appearance for the market. Part of that is presenting a simplified structure and recent moves to bring in new leadership across the company. CRO Dominique Delport kicked off the week’s episodes of the Digiday Podcast by detailing how the company has gotten its house in order.

Millie Tran is the deputy off-platform editor at the New York Times, where she manages how The Times handles coverage and distribution of its content on social media channels and everything else that is not their owned and operated platform. In this episode, Tran talks about platform behaviors, how she approaches organizational differences, how women are over-mentored but under-sponsored and more.

The Financial Times has long charged readers for access to its content. While other publishers are pivoting to paid today, the FT is much farther along in this journey. It recently reached 1 million subscribers. CEO John Ridding cautions that the road is much tougher in execution than it looks in understanding. In this episode, Ridding talks about the biggest growth areas for the FT going forward, why the publisher's relationship with Facebook has been consistently difficult and more.

Last year, Viacom acquired Awesomeness, a youth-focused media company that is behind the Netflix success To All The Boys I’ve Ever Loved. Rebecca Glashow, co-head at Awesomeness, shares how things have changed internally for the company.

PinkNews is a U.K.-based digital publication that covers news and entertainment for the LGBT community around the world. Founded in 2005, the bootstrapped media company employs 24 people and has established a sizable audience in the U.S., India and other countries. To keep this business alive and growing, founder Benjamin Cohen has tried every trick in the trade -- and every revenue stream. On this episode of the Digiday Podcast, Cohen discussed how he manages to avoid over-reliance on any one platform or revenue stream for growth.

Many publishers are trying to diversify their revenue streams instead of relying solely on advertising for revenue growth. But for Forbes, the digital ad business is still seeing double-digit growth. In the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Forbes CRO Mark Howard discusses revenue diversification, why a paywall isn’t right for the publisher and more.

Bonus: This March, the bootstrapped media company Mobile Nations, a digital publisher with a focus on consumer electronics, was acquired by Future in a deal worth $120 million. On this episode, Mobile Nations co-founder and COO Kevin Michaluk, discussed why venture capital funding never made sense for the company that last reported $8 million EBITDA over $16 million in revenue.

Barstool Sports CEO Erika Nardini believes Barstool can be a $100 million revenue company "within the next year and a half." That will have to come from growing channels of revenue and not depending on any one of them, especially advertising. Nardini discussed how Barstool is building out these revenue streams, why personalities matter, how podcast revenue is lucrative for Barstool and more.

The Mueller Report confirmed a lot of reporting already done around the Trump administration and Russian meddling in the 2016 election. One of the many newsrooms whose reporting was vindicated in the process is The Daily Beast, a mid-sized publisher that seized the opportunity to compete with big news organizations like The New York Times and The Washington Post. Noah Shachtman, editor-in-chief at The Daily Beast, discussed how the Beast approaches scoops, the progress on its membership model and more.