AI will be a big topic at the Media Product Forum, our cobranded event with WordPress VIP.
One wrinkle that has come up: many workers are actively resistant to using AI tools. There is a growing divide between the potential executives see and the understandable trepidation many feel about a text marketed as their replacement. This is a tricky change management exercise that will test organizations, which will need to decide how coercive they will be. My long slog through Capitalism has taught me that capital has always coerced labor, and this will be no different.
At the Media Product Forum with WordPress VIP, in New York City on May 20 we'll be covering the decisions and builds that are making a difference this year: AI that's actually shipping, revenue beyond subscriptions, and building direct audience relationships. Speakers include Ariscielle Novicio, CTO of the New York Post; Adam McClean, chief product officer at People Inc.; Kat Downs Mulder, svp and gm of Yahoo News and Home, and Veebha Mehta, CTO of Crain. We have a few open spots for this daylong event of top product and tech executives in media.
Speaking of AI, on May 19 at 1pmET I’ll be doing a TRB Expert Session with Beehiiv CEO Tyler Denk on what AI is actually revealing about audience behavior, where it creates blind spots, and how media companies can use it to build deeper relationships without losing the editorial instincts that make them worth reading in the first place.
This format is a live interactive discussion. If you cannot join us live, you will be sent a replay link and summary of the big takeaways.
Today:
Notes from London
PvA’s new product launch: RingRing
EX․CO is currently surveying the CTV industry about programmatic operations—covering revenue performance, yield strategy, tech stack, and investment priorities. The aggregated findings will be published in a free industry guide so you’ll get a clear benchmark for where your operation stands vs. your peers. It’s anonymous and takes about 5 minutes.
Notes from London
I made a stop in London for a wedding — and, thanks to BI’s Lara O’Reilly, scouted The Marquis Cornwallis for the next TRB Media Mixer London Edition. I’ve always been impressed how Cornwallis parlayed losing the Revolutionary War into a job running India. Inspiration for the managerial class. Some observations:
1. Ran into Breaker’s Lachlan Cartwright in Soho. He was marching down the street with a stack of tabloids under his arm. The ferals are always found on the streets.
2. The UK is so much more progressive than the US. We are culturally and societally decoupling. The US political situation is seen with bemused sadness, like a friend who has a drinking problem but hasn’t yet recognized it.
3. A decade on from Brexit, London is still a great international city. Heavier mix of Middle Easterners, Russians, Chinese students and visitors, and still a magnet for Europeans of all stripes.
4. Quality of life is far higher across many vectors even in a stagnant economy. By the numbers, the US has far outperformed the UK, only you don’t feel that, at least as a visitor in nice areas of London when your phone isn’t stolen. Food is better, more parks, the Elizabeth line was late and over budget but impossible to imagine in NYC, drinking outside pubs on warm evenings, more life on the streets, no laptops out in cafes.
5. They are fully in an enrichment economy that wrings value out of legacy and heritage assets and institutions. UK is still a real economy but parts of London are luxury shopping malls with monuments for global UHNW.
TRB Conversations: Decentralized TV advertising
The decentralization of digital media has arrived for TV. The TV advertising system is being remade in the image of the data-focused, automated ad systems that came to dominate the internet. TV was always the holdout, thanks to scarcity.
That’s changed. Now, TV advertising has fragmented as part of a larger video advertising ecosystem, stretching from connected TV to streaming to retail media to out of home placements.
Last week, we held a series of discussions on this emerging ecosystem as part of TRB Conversations, powered by EX.CO. Some highlights:
FAST has a Mary Meeker problem. The rise of internet advertising was marked by the repeated use of a slide from analyst Mary Meeker showing a gap between time spent online and budgets spent. Free ad-supported streaming has a similar dynamic. Fuse Media chief brand officer Patrick Courtney points out that too many brands think YouTube is enough, although it only accounts for 13% of TV viewing.
The interface is leverage. The commanding heights of digital media are interfaces. If you control an interface people use regularly, you have power. That’s playing out again with streaming. About 125 million viewers turn on Roku every day to watch TV, presenting them with a golden opportunity to turn that attention – and intent to watch – into a brand advertising opportunities as part of what Lauren calls a “hits and habits” strategy.
Audio is often lost in the mix. Katie English, Spotify’s global head of ad product Katie English, noted audio occupies moments in people's lives that no other medium can reach. The commute, the morning routine, the dog walk — these are hours of undivided attention that video can't compete for because they require the screen to be put away. The headlong rush into video runs counter to the growing awareness of the downsides of constant screen time.
The Center Square is a nonprofit newsroom publishing original reporting across state and national markets. Before beehiiv, newsletters were managed externally, meaning slower turnaround, no direct access to subscriber data, and limited visibility into performance.
After migrating in-house on beehiiv, average open rates climbed from 52% to 72%, click-through rates increased 42.4%, and RSS automation saved more than 15 hours a week. A small internal team now manages 12 state and national newsletters without outside help, and the beehiiv Ad Network added a revenue stream that previously didn't exist.
Introducing RingRing. Troy’s vibe coding has produced a product: RingRing, a texting app to bring the PvA audience into the mix. We have more in the works to make the show more participatory. Sign up.
Sam Altman won’t last. It’s never a good sign when the CEO is fighting with the CFO. Alex thinks the current trajectory will lead to Sam Altman being shoved aside at OpenAI… again. These AI companies do not lack drama.
Clipping is the new SEO. Much is being made of the clipping economy, the derivative video highlights that draw far more algorithmic attention than the original media artifact. The clipping economy is powered by paid clippers who flood platforms with these clips. It’s a classic growth hack. No surprise that Instagram is cracking down on aggregator accounts that traffic clips.
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