Media
Sports as AI Insurance
Within five weeks this spring, the reporter, the banker, and the fund all said the same thing: sports is the asset AI cannot synthesize. They are right — and the corol...
Licensed vs. ExtractedDispatch
ESPN built the largest consented voice-cloning operation in media and nobody is angry. The AI content that draws fury is the extracted kind. The line was never AI vs. ...
The Cheapest Truck Wins
Thirteen NBA teams and seven NHL teams became local-television free agents this spring, and every bid on the table is a haircut. The post-RSN war will not be won on th...
The Word 'AI' Is Doing a Lot of WorkDispatch
The World Cup that just ended was the most ambitious live production ever attempted — sixteen venues, 104 matches, roughly 9,000 hours, all of it processed in software...
The Machine Is Right and Nobody Believes It
The World Cup's offside machine took a goal off the board for a touch no replay can show, and FIFA says the call was correct. It probably was. That is the problem.
Zero-Click as a Business ModelDispatch
More than 80% of Google searches now end without a click. The grief is over. The structural question is which content categories survive zero-click — and which were al...
The Bounce-Click Argument
Google's defense of AI Overviews is that the clicks they replace were 'bounce clicks' — visits no one valued. The defense is technically true. It is also the same shap...
Apple's Friday Night Baseball, On PurposeDispatch
Two MLB games every Friday, with MLS folded into the same Apple TV subscription. Apple is the only buyer running sports rights as a Services-line CAC, not a P&L.
The Living Room VoteDispatch
The FCC has collected nearly 9,000 public comments on sports streaming fragmentation. Ninety-eight percent are frustrated. A market problem just acquired a political l...
The Median Age SpreadDispatch
NBA on Prime Video runs a median viewer age of 46.9. The same league on linear is 56. The 9-year split is not a footnote — it is the asset.
The First WNBA Billion-Dollar Team
The Golden State Valkyries are worth $1 billion two seasons into existence. That number is the cleanest case study of a league entering its second media-rights cycle f...
The Untapped Economics of Minor League Broadcasting
The FAST-era distribution stack has quietly inverted the unit economics of minor league broadcasting — most of the teams we already cut were already in the black, and ...
The Unit Economics of Boredom
Streaming P&Ls optimize for minutes produced, which is cheap. The scarce variable is minutes earned — attention that is genuinely arousal-weighted. The winning service...
The NBA's Next Decade Will Not Look Like Its Last
The eleven-year, $76 billion media rights deal was priced against a world that is already moving — generationally, geographically, and through the betting layer — out ...
The Measurement Problem in Creator Economics
CPM, followers, watch-time, RPM. The canonical creator-economy metrics are inherited from businesses that no longer exist. Modern creator revenue has three components,...
A Short Taxonomy of Bundle Collapse
Since the streaming bundle wave began in 2024, the industry has tried many bundle shapes and almost all of them have collapsed into four recurring modes of failure. Th...
The Verdict Was Always ComingDispatch
A jury just told Meta and Google what parents already knew — their platforms are unsafe for children. We built Kidoodle.TV because we believed it didn't have to be thi...
The Danger of Binaries
We love sorting the world into two buckets. Left or right. Growth or profit. Success or failure. But the most important things in life — and in business and politics —...
The Game That Was Always There: Women's Soccer, the NWSL, and Why Sunday Night Just Changed Forever
Women's soccer in America has endured two collapsed leagues, decades of underfunding, and a media ecosystem that never matched the demand. With the NWSL's record-shatt...
Leapfrogging vs. Stepwise Growth: Two Paradigms of Progress
From India's telecom revolution to Kenya's mobile money miracle, the most transformative progress often comes not from climbing the ladder rung by rung — but from skip...
What Isn’t Changing: The Enduring Power of Live Sports in an Age of Acceleration
In an era of compounding disruption from AI and shifting demographics, live sports endure as a uniquely resilient cultural and economic force.
The Many X Opportunity in Sports Streaming
Free sports streaming is delivering many times the audience of traditional media — here is what the data shows and why it matters.
An Ode to the Remote Control
The demise of the RSN model is forcing sports franchises to rethink how they reach fans — and the remote control holds the key.
Sports — The First Frontier
From watching the 1990 World Cup final on a tiny black and white TV to understanding why live sports remain the most powerful form of media.
The Architecture of Attention: Why the Only Finite Asset Is the One We Understand Least
Human attention is the only truly finite asset in media. Three cognitive models from the 1950s through the 1970s explain more about how we watch, scroll, and subscribe...
Planning for MomentsNote
Notes from a Kiip session on what connected devices do to marketing: segment by intent in the moment, not by age.
Review: Rajdeep Sardesai’s Book On The ElectionsDispatch
An election that changed India – a cliche trotted out after every general election is doing the rounds again. It is perhaps more accurate to say that a profound…
Five Reasons Why Marketers Ignore Social Media At Their Own PerilDispatch
This was written for Nov 3, 2014 Social Media isn’t just another channel. It’s a marker of human evolution. The impact of technology on us as a species is best seen…
Ten Social, Digital, Mobile CommandmentsDispatch
Number One: The CEO needs to be on Twitter. The CMO needs to be on Twitter. And they have to tweet everyday. Number Two: Stop thinking everybody has to love you.…
Measuring social media, or, how social is your mediaDispatch
Social media is not advertising. Digital marketing is easy to measure. Marketers have figured out how to measure advertising across mediums — TV, print etc. In some…
A Quick Take On Google+Dispatch
Today, Google announced a new social network called Google+. While it’s invite only at the moment, I thought I would quickly highlight two features, both of which…
Rant: When Social Media and Crowdsourcing gets hijacked by GroupthinkDispatch
I read a today that got me hopping mad. Written by Adel Zakout, it’s basically about how Apple’s new campus needed to be crowdsourced. Oh, and incidentally, Mr…
Three lessons to be learnt from Vodafone’s Social Media FailDispatch
Today, Vodafone India got a story on the front page of the Economic Times — India’s largest financial daily, for perhaps, the country’s biggest social media fail.…
A New Social Network That Likes To SpyDispatch
Yesterday, a friend told me about AllMediaPeople, A Social Network Just For Media Professionals (their emphasis, not mine). So, I moseyed over to take a look at it…
Louis Vuitton Versus The InternetDispatch
Luxury super brand Louis Vuitton recently won a court case against Danish artist Nadia Plesner. And certain, sometimes dangerous, parts of the Internet exploded.…
A new media business model for old mediaDispatch
Apple has changed the world again today. Apple® today announced a new subscription service available to all publishers of content-based apps on the App Store℠,…
Car Reviews are going to changeDispatch
Quick Note to Self: Reading a review for a car today morning I realised that my reasons for buying a car (any car) and the reviewer’s were completely different. In…
Barkhagate: there is a reason editors do not go out and reportDispatch
The newsroom is a strange place filled with large egos, competing motives, and everybody suffers from the illusion that they are RIGHT. The only reason that a…
Holographic Thingummyjig Video, Try This At HomeDispatch
See more funny videos and Technology Videos at Today’s Big Thing. … me and have been having a great time with it since tweet pointed us to it.
Barack Obama Is Tired Of Your F***ing S***!Dispatch
has that’s got to be making every Republican campaign official kick him/herself in the butt … It seems the audiobook of Dreams From My Father has the author cussing…
Vir vs Mint
After a couple of strange, and unexpected, text messages today, I went over to to find that and, more specifically, two articles on dealing with an issue that has…
Monika Halan shows what’s wrong with the Indian mediaDispatch
If you haven’t already, read Outlook Business’ editor . She makes three points: The OLM Awards are being used to fulfil the advertising goals of the Group. In fact,…
BREAKING: Metro Now to cut staffDispatch
Just heard that Metro Now, the joint venture between the Times Group and the Hindustan Times, is looking to cut costs by axing jobs. There’s a chance as many as…
NewsX — sold … really?Dispatch
Right, I’ve stayed away from talking about this all day long. Mostly because I’ve been trying to figure this whole thing out, using the little information that’s…
Will it be a Friday release in NewsX ?Dispatch
Apologies for the excruciatingly bad pun in the headline, it won over popular choices like Freaky Friday at NewsX and First Day First Show at NewsX. I’m sure there…
The NewsX Death WatchDispatch
Over the last week or so, I’ve been getting increasingly desparate phonecalls from all sorts of people. Some from people who still work at the beleagured channel.…
NewsX - This is all gonna end in tears… | Samreth SinghDispatch
What went wrong so soon? I had such high hopes for NewsX. A network started by Peter Mukerjea for chrissakes! He headed STAR TV! The news channel would be headed by…
Deal Or No DealDispatch
Today has been an incredibly interesting day. For me, as well as for INX. For one, I’ve moved into a new office after working from home for the past six months.…
The Sale of NewsXDispatch
When I joined INX News Pvt Ltd in March 2007, it was a completely different channel from the one that may have got sold, from what I’m hearing from the inside. Let…
Surviving layoff season in the mediaDispatch
“It’s a five year cycle,” say media old timers who’ve been around since the booming nineties of the last century. “Over a five year period, you see salaries go up,…
INX News Pvt Ltd deal announcement soonDispatch
RIght. I still don’t know who the buyer is. But here’s what I’ve gathered: 1. An announcement should be made in the next few days (most probably Saturday, when…
VCCircle: Temasek, India Equity Partners To Invest Rs 163 Cr In Lokmat GroupDispatch
Temasek and India Equity Partners (IEP) will jointly invest Rs 163 crore ($32 million) in regional media house Lokmat Group, VCCircle has learned. Temasek will pick…
The NewsX 27: list forwarded to possible new investors?Dispatch
NewsX I got a phonecall late Monday night about how independent auditors had forwarded a list of 27 people in key positions to people interested in buying out a…
The Mumbai Attacks, Barkha, NDTV and the media in generalDispatch
Is it just me, or does it seem like a lot of people are cackling and rubbing their hands in glee over these Facebook groups that are lobbying to remove Barkha Dutt…
@labnol helping me be an internet star, years after I made him a tv starDispatch
I was checking my blog stats today morning and noticed that a lot of traffic over the last few days has been coming from . Clicking on the link I found that Amit’s…
Monumental cockup in Delhi paperDispatch
From Presstalk: When I set off on Thursday morning for a break through Rajasthan little did I know that things would get so bad in Mumbai. Evidently, the Hindustan…
Making money off the Mumbai attack … utter rubbish!Dispatch
I just got an email, originally written by someone who likes to call him(her?)self the “unknown Indian”. It’s floating around the interwebs asking people to boycott…
Mumbai Blast newsfeedsDispatch
LIVE FEEDS - - breaking news at a frightening pace - - - - - - Up at 1:39 AM - perhaps the most comprehensive source of news - - - I’m watching…
iTunes Store open for India, and other parts of the worldDispatch
I just signed up at — traditionally walled off for Indians who didn’t have an American credit card. change of heart seems to be driven by the impending and other…
Fact and fictionDispatch
Explorer finds sub that may have inspired Verne's Nautilus
The death of broadcast tvDispatch
You read it here first: the day tv died .. ok .. so technically, a lot of people have read it already -- and it's got slashdotted .. but that doesn't take away from…
Talking heads early in the morningDispatch
Something called the Mass Communication Professionals Guild has organised a seminar on Media in Kashmir: Challenges and the Future. It’s a Saturday morning and…
Opinion Journal: The real story of FallujahDispatch
Robert D Kaplan in The Wall Street Journal writes ...The meticulous planning process undertaken by the Marines at the tactical level for assaulting Fallujah was not…
Village Voice : Who killed Nick BergDispatch
After the death of poor Nick Berg, the conspiracy theories were legion, appearing first on websites dedicated to such alternate histories, then making their way to…
spiked-politics - A brief history of bollocksDispatch
It was originally going to be subtitled 'A Brief History of Bollocks' but the publishers balked', says Francis Wheen .... .... Wheen reckons we're living through a…
The New York Times : True to Form, Phish Disbands on Its Own Maverick TermsDispatch
Phish is really breaking up. On Tuesday the group announced on its Web site, www.phish.com, that it was disbanding after a final tour this summer. The decision was…
Poynter Online - When the Killer Came BackDispatch
A serial killer terrorizes a city, hiding in people's houses, cutting their phone lines, and strangling them when they get home. In letters to the local media and…
Trojan Wars: On the Big and Little ScreenDispatch
Troy is a violent film. Homer's great poem the Iliad is cut and hacked mercilessly in it, while the evidence of the archaeological record is helpless before its…
An Online Marketing Maintenance PlanNote
Here is an article which tells you what you need to do to ensure that you actually make money out of your site. An Online Marketing Maintenance Plan This is an…