The Media Odyssey

Hallmark makes 100 movies a year in two to three weeks each, has a 70,000-person waitlist for its annual cruise, and received 84 million views in its first year on YouTube. The 116-year-old, family-owned brand shows how fandom, formula, and a “One Hallmark” ecosystem keep audiences loyal across TV, streaming, and live events. This episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast, recorded live at MIPCOM, feat...

Three years ago RTL Deutschland had no relationship with YouTube. Today, 200 old episodes of a 1996 action series are driving 123% more first video views and 26% more subscriptions on RTL+. This YouTube and RTL partnership case study shows how legacy TV can monetize its back catalog and grow streaming subscriptions. This episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast features Evan Shapiro in conversation wi...

Premium streaming lost 89% of the subscribers that signed up for new subscriptions last year, and the audience it’s chasing is watching video in the bedroom, on the bus, and on the toilet. Evan Shapiro’s keynote makes the case that media has to redefine broadcast and follow the whole consumer. In this keynote episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast, recorded on stage at Jupiter Festival in Miami, Eva...

YouTube built the kids content economy, then broke its own monetization pipeline. Now it's time to fix kids content. This episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast features hosts Evan Shapiro and Marion Ranchet with kids media analyst Emily Horgan (The Kids Streamersphere), breaking down her latest Netflix Kids Content Performance Report. They dig into why Netflix isn't building new kids IP, YouTube's...

An Anthropic engineer warned AI could destroy humanity, but Silicon Valley's sudden AI "safety" panic looks a lot like a marketing campaign. This episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast with Evan Shapiro and Marion Ranchet breaks down how California's attorneys general settled in the Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery merger, what the deal's mandates actually require, and why the AI industry's sudden do...

Blair Imani just beat MrBeast on a brand-new ranking of creator influence and and the metric behind it could change how brands spend their money on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. This episode of The Media Odyssey Podcast, recorded outside at IBC, features hosts Evan Shapiro and Marion Ranchet with special guest Shira Lazar. They unpack the newly released Affinity 100, a ranking of the most impact...

Europe's public broadcasters are losing over 5% of their funding on average, and some budgets are being slashed by up to 70%. It's not because of economics, but ideology. This bonus episode, recorded live at SME Live 2026 in Amsterdam, features Marion Ranchet with Serge Schick (France Medias Monde), Lieven Vermaele (VRT), Christophe Chantraine (RTBF), and Bastiaan Toering (NPO), discussing the fun...

Streaming platforms are spending anywhere from 9% to 30% of revenue just to run their tech stack and a new study finally puts real numbers behind the guesswork.  Don’t miss this special episode recorded on stage at Streaming Made Easy Live with Jonas Engwall (CEO of Bedrock Streaming), Bjarne Andreas Myklebust (NRK, Norway's public broadcaster), and Rowan de Pomerai (CEO of the DPP). They unpack t...

The 2026 World Cup shattered streaming records worldwide, Paramount and Warner Bros are locked in a multi-billion-dollar antitrust standoff, and Meta just settled a landmark child-safety case for $18 billion. The Media Odyssey podcast is back and we know what you did last summer.  This episode marks the Season 3 premiere with hosts Evan Shapiro and Marion Ranchet catching up after their summer bre...

Happy Summer Break from The Media Odyssey podcast!  What if the future of entertainment fits in your pocket and a six-year-old startup from Ukraine is already building it? Welcome to the Media Odyssey Podcast, recorded live at StreamTV Europe, featuring Bogdan Nesvit, founder of HOLYWATER TECH and the microdrama platform My Drama. What started six years ago as an interactive fiction app has quietl...

Happy Summer Break from The Media Odyssey podcast!  Jimmy Kimmel is at the center of the conversation where politics, free speech, and billion-dollar mergers collide. In this episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast , hosts Evan Shapiro and Marion Ranchet unpack the dramatic suspension and reinstatement of Jimmy Kimmel —a flashpoint that highlights the collision of politics, regulation, and the crumbl...

Happy Summer Break from The Media Odyssey podcast!  244 million followers and a six-month content calendar: Jordan Schwarzenberger explains why showing up daily is the only strategy that matters. Welcome to The Media Odyssey Podcast. In this episode, Evan Shapiro and Marion Ranchet break down the Nielsen/MRC measurement crisis that rocked the US advertising industry, then sit down with Jordan Schw...

Happy Summer Break from The Media Odyssey podcast!  CES isn’t about gadgets anymore, but who controls the interface between audiences, data, and distribution. Welcome back to The Media Odyssey Podcast! From CES, Evan Shapiro and Alan Wolk, Co-Founder and Lead Analyst of TVREV, unpack what this year’s show revealed about the future of media, entertainment, and technology while expanding on their pr...

Happy Summer Break from The Media Odyssey podcast!  The media industry isn’t heading for a clean recovery but bracing for another year of pressure, recalibration, and structural change. Welcome back to The Media Odyssey Podcast with a special thanks to Spectrum Reach! In this first part of their 2026 predictions, Evan Shapiro and Marion Ranchet lay out what the coming year will likely bring for me...

Happy Summer Break from The Media Odyssey podcast!  Public service media isn’t outdated, instead, it’s fighting for relevance, trust, and survival in a fractured global information ecosystem. Welcome back to The Media Odyssey Podcast. In this episode, Evan Shapiro and Marion Ranchet sit down with Raney Aronson-Rath, Executive Producer of Frontline and Editor-in-Chief of Documentaries at GBH, for a...

Two-thirds of the world watches more video on their phone than on TV, TikTok is beating Netflix in most markets under 55, and traditional media is ignoring 60% of its own audience's attention. It’s The Media Odyssey’s season two finale! Evan and Marion zoom out on the biggest trends of the year so far they haven’t covered yet: the AI investment bubble, the creator economy's growing pains, the stat...

AI infrastructure is now two-thirds of US GDP with 90% of companies investing in it reporting almost no ROI, and the media industry is frozen in place waiting for a merger that may never close. Happy H1. This is the Season 2 finale of the Media Odyssey Podcast (split across two parts) with a deep dive into H1 2026. Evan and Marion zoom out on the biggest trends of the year so far they haven’t cove...

We’re back with another Media Odyssey LIVE ! In this episode, Evan and Marion are joined by former media executives Tony Goncalves and Ami Angelowicz to discuss how to pivot your career after corporate media. The panel shares their personal stories of navigating layoffs, “misalignment burnout”, and finding satisfying careers completely in their own control. The conversation dives into building per...

Comcast is splitting in three, Fox just bought Roku for $22 billion, and the Paramount-Warner merger still hasn't closed. Welcome to Media Shark Week. This episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast is Evan Shapiro and Marion Ranchet's deep-dive into the wave of media mergers reshaping the streaming and broadcasting landscape in real time. Recorded in early July, it covers four major deals in rapid succ...

The growing vertical video landscape has potential far beyond microdramas. Two TV veterans just built the studio to take vertical premium all the way with true crime, dating reality formats, scripted drama, and a 12-step AI process to get there. This episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast with Evan Shapiro and Marion Ranchet features Guy Hameiri and Lior Friedman, co-founders of RoseBerry, a vertica...

Two nearly century-old brands. One brand-new animated series. And a first-of-its-kind partnership that's never been done before. This special episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast was recorded on the Croisette at Cannes Lions, hosted inside BBC Studios' headquarters, and features three guests across two breaking news announcements. Jasmine Dawson, SVP of Digital at BBC Studios, returns for what's b...

Demand for high-quality kids' content has never been higher, but the supply has never been more broken. And YouTube, the most powerful kids' platform on Earth, is running it like an algorithm, not a network. This live panel episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast, recorded at the Media Universe Summit, features Evan Shapiro and Jamie Shapiro alongside Andy Donner, Head of Partnerships at Common Sense...

59% of people now watch video on their phone first. If your content strategy doesn't account for that, Evan Shapiro has a message for you: you're already losing. This keynote episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast features Evan Shapiro's live Stream TV Europe presentation. It is a fast, data-driven breakdown of where streaming media, social media, YouTube, and TikTok are headed next. Built on origin...

Valerie Bertinelli has been a content creator since she was 12 years old. She just stopped asking permission to make the shows she wants. This episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast features special guest co-host Valerie Bertinelli — television icon, actress, author, and Food Network — alongside Billy Cooper, CEO and co-founder of Visible Things, the direct-to-consumer platform infrastructure compan...

1.7 million subscribers. A Global deal. Live Bundesliga rights. And a studio in Brooklyn for the World Cup. The Overlap built it all without owning a single match. This episode of the Media Odyssey Podcast features Scott Melvin, CEO of The Overlap, the multi-award winning sports channel, for the beginning of the 2026 World Cup. What started as a side hustle for a Sky Sports pundit itching to do lo...