Media industry

Media industry

The New York Times Company's (NYT - Free Report) digital bundle strategy has proved effective in attracting and retaining subscribers. In the third quarter of 2025, the company added about 460,000 net digital-only subscribers, bringing total subscribers to 12.33 million. This growth was driven by bundle and multiproduct additions, as well as other single-product offerings. Bundle and multiproduct subscribers reached 6.27 million at the end of the quarter, representing 51% of the total subscriber base.

Merging Hulu with Disney+ is intended to provide subscribers with a single streaming experience. Disney wants to combine all content into one easy-to-use platform. This means the same app will have Hulu's explicit content, Disney's family-friendly movies, and ESPN's live sports. This connection will help viewers find and enjoy more content without managing numerous subscriptions or apps.

It's that time of year again, a time of lists and countdowns, of soul-crushing AI brain-vomit ringed by adverts for miracle dental implants. In the spirit of the season the tech website Feedpost produced its own list on New Year's Eve of the Top 100 Kid Influencers on Instagram And YouTube in 2025, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's fine and definitely not strange or creepy [narrator's voice: it is strange and creepy]. Don't think about end times.

During the pandemic, my husband found some wood on our street and used it to build a tiny, squirrel-sized picnic table. We attached it to the side of our fence with a handful of peanuts on top. Few sights are guaranteed to lift my day more than watching a dining in Nutkin parking its rump on the tiny wooden seat, occasionally glancing towards the house as if he's waiting for you to bring the drinks.

Those who work in the space say that while micro series cost a fraction of what a traditional feature-length movie costs, typically in the $100,000 to $300,000 range, they often lose money because the high cost required to market them can far outstrip the actual production cost. 'An app may boast of a show that makes $30 million, but $27 million of it will have gone to advertising,' said Thom Woodley, a longtime verticals producer.

He argues that the algorithms have grown too sophisticated at sorting viewers into their own individual silos. If a viewer seeks out automotive content, they receive more automotive content. If they like health and beauty, their feed is largely restricted to health and beauty. The days of a single creator punching through to hundreds of millions of viewers are effectively over. Donaldson's rise required a specific historical moment, one where recommendation engines still permitted the emergence of mass figures. That window has closed.

On the other hand, US media organizations are also facing tremendous pressure from the Trump administration and from Donald Trump personally, who has used a combination of frivolous defamation suits and weaponized regulatory agencies to extract vast sums from outlets that publish coverage he does not like and threaten the licenses of broadcasters who host voices critical of his movement.

At Hell Gate, we love all of our blog children equally. But just like when your parents tell you that, it's simply not true.

The big news in podcasting from the last 18 months has been the medium's swift and unstoppable pivot to video. Where a podcast was previously defined as an audio recording available to stream online, it has since expanded to become an umbrella term taking in visual and audio content. The idea, at least in theory, is that audiences get to choose whether they watch or listen. But there are creeping signs that video is taking precedence, with audio considered to be secondary.

When the cameras start rolling at the Critical Role studio in Los Angeles, Ed Lopez and Ben Van Der Fluit are never in front of them. There are eight far more famous faces that front the operation. Critical Role's cofounders, a team of self-professed nerdy voice actors, have been streaming their show, going on tour, and starting their book business and game publishing arm.

Video Podcast Market Poised for Booming Growth is the WSJ header. As podcast listening grows, the article presumes, "brands can use the medium to boost engagement, build communities, expand ad revenue, and unlock new sponsorships." Podcast popularity is eating into TV and video streaming time. There's a dollar prediction here, too: Ad revenue for podcasts and vodcasts is charted by Deloitte (on the WSJ site) to reach five billion dollars in 2026.

Carine Abouseif, Senior Editor: As an editor, my ears always perk up when I hear a story described as "juicy." That's how we talked about contributing writer Tajja Isen's essay, " The Publishing Industry Has a Gambling Problem," as it made its way through our editorial process. Tajja interviewed writers, book editors, and literary agents about the concept of "sales track"-a term for the number of books a writer has sold. Low sales numbers can cut down a writer's career before it's even really begun, shaping how an agent pitches their second book and whether editors will buy it.

Oh f*** it, I'd better start again. Sorry, do not ever air me saying the F word.