Episodios

  • Tariffs, Trump, TikTok: What’s going to happen to ads in 2025?

    Tariffs, Trump, TikTok: What’s going to happen to ads in 2025?
    Apr 30 2025
    There are all kinds of ways to measure the health of an economy. The one I rely on is ad spending. One reason for that is simple: I work in ad-supported businesses, so I want to know about things are going to affect me personally. A less self-interested reason: The health of the ad business is tied directly to the way companies feel about their overall health. So if things turn south, you’ll often see it in falling ad spend. And as the industry gets increasingly digital, that means it’s that much more responsive to changes in the economy: When the pandemic hit 5 years ago, ad spend all but disappeared for a couple months — and then roared back once companies realized how much spending had shifted online. So that’s the background for my chat with Smartly CEO Laura Desmond, who I often rely on for a state-of-the-state when it comes to the ad industry. Desmond is a longtime ad biz veteran, and at her current gig she works directly with digital clients, helping them figure out where to place their money and the best way to optimize their campaigns. So she’s got excellent insight into the most sensitive spenders in the market. Desmond’s takeaway: Long-term changes like a possible TikTok ban just don’t show up on most advertisers’ radars. But potential tariff impacts, which could hit by late May, could be a big hit — if they materialize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    59 m
  • Roblox CEO David Baszucki knows what your kids are doing.

    Roblox CEO David Baszucki knows what your kids are doing.
    Apr 23 2025
    Every day some 85 million people - most of them kids - show up to play, chat and spend money on Roblox. That’s a massive audience just about any tech or media company would like to have. But David Baszucki wants more: He thinks his platform can eventually command 10% of the worldwide gaming market. I spent time talking to Baszucki about those ambitions and what has to happen to make it a reality. But I also wanted to spend time getting him to explain what exactly Roblox is, and why its low-fi, user generated games resonate with his audience. It’s an unlikely special sauce that has made the company, which spent years flying under the radar, worth some $40 billion today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    48 m
  • How to make money in Washington, with Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman

    How to make money in Washington, with Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman
    Apr 16 2025
    Some people don’t want to pay for media. But lots of people are paying Jake Sherman and his team at Punchbowl News: The 4-year-old startup is thriving by providing super-insidery news and data about what’s happening in Congress. I chatted with Sherman because I wanted to get an update on his business (he says he’s not going to sell it anytime soon, despite lots of speculation to the contrary). I also had a basic, outside the Beltway question: In a world where Congress spends a lot of time not passing bills, what exactly does Punchbowl cover? He was happy to spell it all out for me. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    44 m
  • NYT publisher AG Sulzberger on Trump, OpenAi and the economy

    NYT publisher AG Sulzberger on Trump, OpenAi and the economy
    Apr 9 2025
    The New York Times faces the same challenges every other news organization faces in 2025. But it’s also in way better shape to take those challenges on: Thanks to a business model built on 11 million subscribers, it’s not nearly so worried about things like the fluctuations of the ad business, or changes in Google’s algorithm. That comparative strength also gives NYT publisher AG Sulzberger the ability to do things his peers can’t or won’t do: Like suing OpenAI for copyright infringement, instead of taking a cash settlement. Or calling out the likelihood of a press crackdown if Donald Trump was re-elected - a call he made in September that looks very prescient today. We talk through both of those issues in this conversation, and a bunch more - like the role of the NYT opinion section, how willing the Times is to experiment, and how the paper thinks about the economic turmoil we now find ourselves in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 h y 9 m
  • Trump vs The Media, Round 2, with Sara Fischer

    Trump vs The Media, Round 2, with Sara Fischer
    Apr 2 2025
    The Trump 2.0 era is less than three months old. But it’s already creating havoc for journalists and the companies they work for. In Washington, Trump and his team are demoting traditional media - or kicking them out of the White House entirely. In corporate boardrooms, he is forcing media owners to settle lawsuits they would normally fight, and to submit to investigations from newly aggressive regulators. Again: We’re just at the beginning of this new era. What’s coming down the pike? I asked Sara Fischer, the excellent and Washington-wired media correspondent, to walk me through it Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    50 m
  • How long can sports keep TV alive?

    How long can sports keep TV alive?
    Mar 26 2025
    Call it symbiosis. Call it co-dependency. However you want to characterize it, there’s zero debate that Big TV and Big Sports are deeply intertwined. So if the TV business is shrinking, what happens to sports? That’s the main question I had for John Ourand, the longtime sports business reporter who’s now at Puck. But I had lots of related ones, like: Now that (some) college students are getting paid to play sports, how does that affect the TV product itself? What’s happening to the local sports networks that bring you baseball, basketball and hockey? And is the sports betting media boom drying up? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    48 m
  • Inside PJ Vogt’s low budget, super successful podcast

    Inside PJ Vogt’s low budget, super successful podcast
    Mar 19 2025
    Anyone who makes things thinks they could do it better if they had more. More money, time, headcount, infrastructure. Some of us find there can be upsides to doing it with less, too. That's not exactly PJ Vogt's story but I think it's directionally accurate: Vogt cohosted a huge hit podcast - Reply All - and when he decided to try again - with Search Engine - he had a lot less to work with. That shaped his thinking about the company he wanted to run and the product it puts out each week. It seems like it's working, and Vogt walks us through the details and his decisions. Also joining me: Zach Mack, who has helped other people (like me) make podcasts for years, made one that only he could make. Go listen to his "Alternate Realities" series on NPR's Embedded - but first listen to how he made it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 h y 6 m
  • Twitch CEO Dan Clancy wants to hang on to the live-streaming crown

    Twitch CEO Dan Clancy wants to hang on to the live-streaming crown
    Mar 12 2025
    Back when I first started covering the internet, the idea of broadcasting yourself for hours on end seemed like a pipe dream for weirdos. Now it's how some people make a living. Twitch more or less created live-streaming in the U.S., which is why Amazon bought it for about $1 billion back in 2014. But now there are plenty of places to watch, and create, live streams. How does Twitch fend off competitors? How does it convince its most popular streamers to keep streaming? And how will Amazon eventually make real money from the operation, which is was still in the red a few years ago? Those are all questions I asked Twitch CEO Dan Clancy, at a live taping at South by Southwest. Clancy also got to hear firsthand from Twitch's users and partners in a Q&A session at the end of our chat. Thanks to everyone who came out, and thanks to the folks at the Vox Media podcast network for putting it all together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 h y 2 m
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