For years, I was a staunch bull in media and content, but consumer behaviour and technology trends make investing in media increasingly difficult.
From 2006-2012, I published reports, forecasts, thoughts & analysis on the then-nascent digital media & web video landscape, both on my blog (HipMojo) and industry publications (TechCrunch, Mediapost) which were bullish & touted the potential of storytelling shifting to shorter-form programming, mobile, and on emerging platforms (YouTube).
At the onset, institutional investors balked at content, because they deemed it to be a “hits business,” favouring tech startups. When Disney acquired Pixar, Marvel & Lucas Arts, it was clear that “geek culture would become pop culture.” Netflix’s growth saw media companies reinvent themselves as streaming platforms, creating insatiable demand for content during the Peak TV era. Concurrently, the democratization of media production & distribution meant that user generated content would explode in popularity and improve in quality, leading to a commoditization of media.
Before, media companies – print or linear TV – would use their near-monopoly positions to launch new brands: Time magazine launched Fortune & People; MTV hatched VH1. John Malone’s vision of 500 cable channels would morph into an infinite number of niche, vertical channels online: a YouTube channel, a sub Reddit community, even a Twitter account could draw audiences that would make the once-dominant TV networks blush.
Indeed, the 2010s saw an explosion in content competitors, fuelled by the zero interest rate phenomenon. But if you look at the media landscape objectively, the most successful media brands are communities that were built organically, over time, by passionate & persistent storyteller entrepreneurs: Joe Rogan Experience, the Acquired podcast, even WatchMojo was an expensive hobby for six years before turning a profit.
Investors understandably need planning, budgeting, forecasting, contingency plans but none of this matters or is pertinent to media brand building. Today, when aspiring content creators (storyteller entrepreneurs) ask me for advice, I tell them to “just start.” Then iterate, tinker your programming based on feedback until you find product/market fit.
All content “formulas” grow stale or draw so much competition that you need to adapt to evolve, die… or worse, grow irrelevant and obsolete.
The Web isn’t linear TV where a new show at 8:30pm nestled in between two hits before & after is likely to draw an audience.
When Complex incubated Hot Ones, no amount of planning could really affect its trajectory, but over time, that series is what it is.
Buzzfeed expanded into news but may as well have set itself on fire.
WatchMojo isn’t immune. We nailed a traditional format (lists) by foreseeing Peak TV/Geek Culture, featuring clips but any time we expand into new formats or categories, our audience is unmoved.
The democratization of media means someone else more passionate, patient & persistent will ultimately prevail. What that means for investors remains to be seen.