The Rebooting Show

The pendulum always swings. Media regularly oscillates between periods of bundling and periods of unbundling. Bundles tend to rub people the wrong way because they feel they pay for stuff they don’t want. The downside is unbundling can be a complete ha...

Everyone loves a comeback, but few companies get them in the consumer internet business. (Most companies have peaked and then set course on inevitable decline, with new owners either milking the asset on the way down or floundering unsuccessfully to re...

Katie Vanneck-Smith, formerly president of Dow Jones, co-founded Tortoise Media, a UK-based publisher dedicated to “slow news.” The problem she and her co-founders diagnosed: “The problem isn’t just fake news or junk news, because there’s a lot that’s ...

Outsider is a media and commerce brand focused on a particular view of “the American lifestyle” that, to me, takes its cues from the South, emphasizing college football, hunting, fishing, wraparound sunglasses and the like. Recently, Deirdre Lester mov...

The crypto winter has pitched the giddy excitement over the endless possibilities of Web3. The drumbeat of negativity hasn’t shaken Time president Keith Grossman’s confidence in Web3 providing a new path to sustainable business models. Time, now under ...

Morning Brew is a breakout success in digital media, turning an email newsletter of business news delivered with a witty tone, into a robust digital media business that now has over 4 million email subscribers, with another 1 million to its growing sta...

Since its founding eight years ago, Permutive has bet on privacy being a key consideration in the future of ad tech. Permutive CEO Joe Root delves into what privacy-conscious advertising looks like – and if it’s possible. Highlights: The GDPR was a har...

Forbes is a unique brand that has global cultural cachet that’s managed the transition from being a magazine business to a mostly digital business, with an emphasis on building its direct revenue as well as its brand extensions. Now, it's looking to pl...

Why The Dispatch outgrew Substack Many would assume the most popular political publications on Substack are culture war agitators like Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald. In fact, the top two slots are much milder publications: Letters from an American an...

Quick request: Please take this 10-question audience survey that will help me better understand the makeup of The Rebooting’s readership in order to grow it as a sustainable business. I’ve already gotten many useful insights from the first wave of resp...

I decided to mix up the days for this newsletter and the format. You’ll now get The Rebooting twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday. The Tuesday email will continue with a new format that is a mix of topics, along with highlights from the podcast. I think...

The future of work is one of the most fertile topic areas out there. The pandemic caused a reset, when combined with the labor shortage coming out of Covid, and it’s not going back to normal. The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson cited statistics that show bas...

Check out the full episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Let me know what you think: bmorrissey@gmail.com. The war in Ukraine is now six weeks old, likely to drag on even longer. It’s important to consider how vital an independent and free media is to ...

Welcome to new subscribers. One way to support The Rebooting is by sharing it with colleagues and friends you think would find it valuable. I still view The Rebooting Show, as well as the overall project, as a work in progress, so please let me know gu...

On this week’s episode of The Rebooting Show, I spoke to Skift CEO Rafat Ali. What I like about Skift is it goes narrow and deep on the business of travel while situating it within the broader context of the global economy and societal trends. Covid wa...

Something about the podcast highlights format wasn’t working for me, so I’m switching up the Monday version to feature highlights from the podcast as well as some thoughts on other matters in sustainable publishing. After all, formats matter. Let me kn...

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify If you use Apple, please leave a rating and review. Every cycle of unbundling is followed by another period of rebundling. Media is no different – just look at the streaming market. In publishing, the shift of po...

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify If you use Apple, please leave a rating and review. Journalists in their 40s are under no illusions to the need for sustainable business models in news publishing. Being suddenly laid off is a rite of passage. “T...

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Like just about everyone, I’m both horrified by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and in awe of the resistance of the Ukrainian people. Ukraine is an inspiration to the rest of the world. In places like the United ...

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Over just five years, crypto has exploded from a curiosity to a cultural touchstone, with millions of boosters, Super Bowl commercials and billions of investment in the belief that a new financial system, built f...

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Apple users: Please l eave a rating and review. When it comes to business models, software models beat publishing ones. Recurring revenue scales more quickly and at far better margins. For a decade, Famous Birthd...

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Rebooting Show. This week’s episode is a sponsored Spotlight episode, where I feature a conversation with a sponsor of The Rebooting in order to get a better understanding of their approach to solving a challenge o...

This week I’m continuing a run of discussions with people operating the publications that sit at the nexus of power and politics. Punchbowl has had a successful launch as one of the new crop of publishers. Check out the episode, and if you’re not alrea...

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify The roaring 20s of publishing has begun with several new brands launching, each with their own twist on dealing with the challenges of audience growth and sustainable business models. What’s notable is most publi...

Thanks to everyone who has sent notes and left reviews for the podcast on Apple Podcasts. Thanks to Jrdoog, who called the podcast “essential for anyone working in the media industry.” Note for future guests: Jrdoog wants me to keep badgering you for n...