Channels with Peter Kafka
Media and tech aren’t just intersecting — they’re fully intertwined. And to understand how those worlds work, and what they mean for you, veteran journalist Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers - and gets them to spell it out in plain, BS-free English.Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
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Chuck Klosterman on Why Football Owns TV (and Why It Won’t Forever)
<p>Football isn’t just the biggest show on TV — at this point, it’s basically the only reason some TV networks exist. So it’s a very worthy subject for Chuck Klosterman, the provocative and prolific writer, to tackle in his new book, which is called… Football.</p> <p><br>The big Channels idea here is to talk about football’s dominance in American media and culture, and What That Means — and how that might end, one day. And we most definitely get into that.</p> <p><br>But when you have Chuck Klosterman in studio, you talk about as much as you...
How to Build a Profitable Media Company in 3 years, with Semafor’s Justin Smith
<p>News is a tough business. So how did Semafor, the news startup founded by Ben Smith and Justin Smith, figure out how to turn a profit in their third year of business?</p> <p>Excellent journalism certainly helps. But it’s really because the company made two key decisions: Focusing on events — and focusing on events in Washington, D.C., where companies will pay a lot of money to reach a relatively small crowd of influential people.</p> <p>There’s more to it than that, as Semafor’s CEOJustin Smith explains to me in our conversation. But it’s not a co...
Inside Bari Weiss’s Rise: LA, Sun Valley, and the Mogul Network
<p>How, exactly, did Bari Weiss become the head of CBS News?</p> <p>We know that David Ellison, who bought Paramount last year, hired her — and bought The Free Press, the publication she started a few years earlier. But how did she get on Ellison’s radar? And why are so many media moguls, like Ellison, huge fans?</p> <p>New York magazine’s Charlotte Klein knows. She recently published an excellent profile of Weiss that tracks her ascent over the last few years, and I wanted to talk to her about it. It’s a story about networking, talent...
Craig Finn on Friendship, Fans and The Hold Steady’s Second Life
<p>Craig Finn makes music — as the head of the Hold Steady, and on his solo records — about grown-up lives and bad decisions. Back in 2017, we talked about his life as a working rock musician — and how touring actually works, how the band found a second life, and why fans and friendship matter more than old ideas of rock stardom.</p><p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices</p>
Podcast Pioneer PJ Vogt’s Second Act: Less Budget, More Control
<p>PJ Vogt helped invent modern narrative podcasting with “Reply All.” Now he’s running “Search Engine” with a much smaller team and a lot more control. We talk through what he gave up this time around, what he gained, and how he actually makes the show each week.</p> <p><br>I loved this conversation when we recorded it earlier this year. And I think it’s just as relevant now, as media talent — and lots of people in other industries, too — are figuring out how to think about money, ownership and scale.</p><p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad ch...
"Neither Side Is Used to Losing." Lucas Shaw on What’s Next for Netflix and Paramount in the Battle for Warner Bros.
<p>The backstory here is that weeks ago, Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw agreed to join me for my 2025/2026 look back/look ahead episode. And then things got way more compelling, because Paramount and Netflix got into a truly unprecedented fight over the future of Warner Bros Discovery.</p> <p>So that’s what we’re talking about here, including:</p> <p>*Why this truly is a turning point for Hollywood, and streaming, and the great media/tech collision we’ve been covering for years.</p> <p>*How Trump, Middle Eastern money and antitrust regulators complicate the deal</p> <p>*Who actually...
Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He’s a Must-Read Media Gossip.
<p>I chat with lots of media reporters. Lachlan Cartwright is a different beast: An Aussie who started out working for Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids in London and New York, and then on to the National Enquirer — yes, that National Enquirer — back when it was catching and killing stories on behalf on Donald Trump. Now Cartwright runs Breaker, a must-read New York media gossip newsletter and podcast, and spends his time staking out Sulzberger family barbecues, knocking on doors at 4:45 a.m., and writing about the people who run the news.</p> <p><br>We talk about how tabloid training shaped...
"Hollywood is Truly Freaked Out." Inside the Netflix/WBD Deal with Lucas Shaw
<p>In 2013, Netflix wanted to become HBO. Now Netflix is going to buy HBO along with the Warner Bros. Studio, in a blockbuster $83 billion deal.</p> <p>Wowza. Here to talk me through this is Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw, who has been deep in the deal talks for weeks. Discussed in this one:</p> <p>*How did Netflix maneuver its way into a deal everyone thought Paramount would win?</p> <p>*Will this deal actually get past Donald Trump and U.S. regulators?</p> <p>*What does this deal — a kind of deal Netflix has never, ever made in the past...
PBS Lost a Billion Dollars. Now what? With CEO Paula Kerger
<p>The last time I interviewed PBS CEO Paula Kerger was 2019: Donald Trump was President, and Republicans were trying to defund public media — as they had been trying to do for decades.</p> <p>That didn’t happen then, but this year it did, and now Kerger is trying to fill a $1 billion funding hole.</p> <p>So far, she says, PBS and its member stations have held up ok — no one has had to shut down, yet.</p> <p>But while Kerger holds out hope she can convince Congress to start funding public TV again, it’s worth talking about wh...
What Happens To Media When The Web Goes Away, with Tony Haile
<p>We built the modern media business for the web — for people who visited websites, read articles, and saw ads. What happens when no one does that anymore?</p> <p>That’s been one of the big themes of conversations we’ve been having on Channels with this year — with people who run big and small media properties, and with people who are trying to build media businesses. And that’s why I wanted to talk to Tony Haile.</p> <p>Tony got into digital media years ago, when he was the CEO of Chartbeat - the analytics site that trained ev...
