Simon Owens

How Mark Wahlberg Became The King Of Streaming As theatrical releases decline, the 54-year-old actor has become the most bankable star on Netflix, Amazon and Apple—earning $20 million or more a movie—in a major paradigm shift of Hollywood economic...

You may have noticed that Mark Wahlberg's been starring in lots of absolutely terrible straight-to-streaming movies lately. While this used to be a sign of an actor's waning star power, these movies have actually been incredibly lucrative for him, earning him up to $20 million per role. While stars

Congrats on an epic run

The Philly half marathon is a lot of fun

How a former USA Today columnist launched his own travel channel on YouTube Jefferson Graham recently licensed his show PhotowalksTV to the Scripps News channel.

After a 30-year career writing tech columns for USA Today, Jefferson Graham was ready to try something new: becoming a travel YouTuber.

simonowens.substack.com/p/how-a-form...

Wall Street Journal and Washington Post tech chiefs on personalisation for publishers Personalisation for publishers. Tech chiefs from the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal on why personalisation is the future.

It's kind of amazing that all the major social media platforms have had homepage personalization going back at least 15 years, yet I can hardly think of any examples of news publishers personalizing their homepages. To be fair, the vast majority of publishers don't produce a high enough volume of co

Inside The Atlantic’s AI bot blocking strategy The Atlantic's CEO explains how it evaluates AI crawlers to block those that bring no traffic or subscribers, and to provide deal leverage.

The Atlantic now actively tracks the bots that regularly scrape its website and then determines whether the platform associated with a particular bot is sending the magazine any meaningful traffic. For those bots that send no traffic, the Atlantic simply blocks them using Cloudfare's newly-released

I watched half the first episode and kept thinking "that woman looks a lot like Kim Kardashian." It somehow never occurred to me once that it was actually Kim Kardashian.

Rupert Murdoch’s Last Hurrah: Conquering Hollywood With the 'California Post' California is a veritable news feast—politicians with national ambitions, climate disasters, the twin industries of Hollywood and tech. And News Corp sees a media weakness to exploit.

Is there really an audience for a right-wing newspaper tabloid in California? Well, one thing to remember is that more people voted for Trump in California than just about any other state other than Texas and Florida. When you also consider the LA Times's recent stumbles, it's not hard to understand

YouTube video by New York Times Opinion I’m Building an Algorithm That Doesn’t Rot Your Brain

Patreon CEO Jack Conte partnered with the New York Times on both an op-ed and video explaining Patreon's pivot to embracing a content discovery algorithm. It's kind of funny how much of what he says aligns completely with what Substack's founders have been saying for a few years now (in fact, severa

Defector Annual Report, September 2024 – August 2025 | Defector Published on November 19, 2025 Purpose of this report Defector celebrated our fifth birthday in September 2025. It is a great honor, and something of a burden, to be publishing a fifth Annual Report. ...

Defector generated $4.65 million in revenue for its fifth year, which is only slightly above what it generated in its fourth year. It seems pretty clear from this report that the explosive growth it experienced in its early years is now over, and so the worker-owned publication is focused on making

Betsy Reed on covering Trump and the ‘normalization of extremism.’ The editor in chief of Guardian US says staying above the fray doesn’t cut it.

The Guardian now has 400,000 paid members in the U.S., and its American operation is on track to generate $50 million this year. As a U.K.-based outlet, it also enjoys a distinct advantage: its leaders feel less pressure to normalize Republican behavior than many U.S. news organizations do. As a res

Forget Joe Rogan. The Next Big Podcast Bro Is in the Senate. Ted Cruz may see a new path to the White House in today’s changing political-media ecosystem.

The podcast Ted Cruz started in 2019 generates over 2 million downloads a month. Given the role of podcasts in the 2024 election, his show may give him a key advantage heading into the Republican primaries for 2028.

www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Speaking of which, I should probably have you on the podcast again soon. Shoot me an email? Simonowens@gmail.com

Why this business news outlet ditched advertising to focus entirely on paid subscriptions Todd Scott believes the National Business Review's sole mission should be servicing its readers.

For nearly 50 years, the National Business Review generated healthy advertising revenue from a wide range of B2B and luxury brands. Then one day a few years ago its owner decided to do away with advertising entirely.

simonowens.substack.com/p/why-this-b...

A new generation of media startups is built to survive 'Google Zero' New media startups like The Bulwark and Ankler Media are building their businesses with a focus on loyal subscribers over Google or Facebook traffic.

I've long been a believer that a huge portion of Google traffic drove no long term value for publishers and mostly just distracted them from delivering true value to their core audiences. Google Discover traffic in particular provides little more than a sugar high. There are lots of media outlets --

The Economist's Ferrari approach Luke Bradley-Jones on modernization without dilution

I would argue the reason the Economist is a great media business has nothing to do with it publishing great journalism; instead, it’s a great media business because it has built and maintained a powerful brand. Its subscribers like seeing themselves as the kind of people who read the Economist. The

Forbes launches dynamic AI paywall as it ramps up post-search commercial diversification plans Forbes has launched an AI-powered dynamic paywall as it looks to make subscriptions a bigger slice of its revenue pie.

If Forbes really wants to increase its subscription revenue, it doesn't need a dynamic paywall, it just needs a website that doesn't make your eyes bleed from trying to navigate through 500 moving ads just so you can read the tiny slit of text that is the actual editorial content you came to consume

I'm sure this is a good sign that two huge investment firms -- first Softbank and now Peter Thiel -- unloaded all of their Nvidia stock in the last month.

Am I the only one driven crazy by Axios’s use of bullet points in places where bullet points definitely don’t belong?

There's no better way to quell suspicions that you engaged in sex trafficking women than calling a female reporter "piggy."

The Man Yelling ‘Iceberg!’ on the Hollywood Titanic

Hollywood reporter Matthew Belloni is a one-man scoop powerhouse who's often able to beat the Hollywood trades to stories despite only publishing his newsletter twice a week. I wouldn't be surprised if he's the biggest subscription driver at Puck.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/b...

I attended a class for TV and movie pros looking to work in the creator economy. Here were my 5 key takeaways. I shared my top takeaways of an industry 'master class' to help Hollywood vets pivot to the creator economy as traditional film and TV decline.

As the world's biggest creators move more and more onto Hollywood's turf, it's going to become increasingly common for behind-the-scenes production staff to move back and forth between traditional film sets and creator-led companies. Someone who starts out today as a freelance editor for a YouTuber

How a Seattle Alt-Weekly Newspaper Became a Progressive Kingmaker

The Stranger may be best known nationally for its Savage Love column, but in Seattle it has become a genuine election powerbroker, often delivering decisive votes to the candidates it endorses. Its track record shows just how much influence a local newspaper can still wield when it earns and keeps i

PREDATOR: BADLANDS is pretty good. Dan Trachtenberg is doing for the Predator franchise what Tony Gilroy did for Star Wars.

Trump just directed his Justice Department to look into Epstein's ties to Democrats.

Why a former New York Times editor launched her own women-focused magazine Francesca Donner grew frustrated by the lack of female voices at the mainstream media outlets she worked for.

Francesca Donner grew frustrated by the lack of female voices at the mainstream media outlets she worked for.

simonowens.substack.com/p/why-a-form...

I think I’m going to need to find a business partner at some point soon. It’s so hard to go the independent media route alone.

Not at all. Just venting my frustration that this platform doesn't do very basic stuff to make it more inviting to creators.

If the AI bubble is indeed bursting, it'll be the first time I can remember that many people got the timing largely correct.

It's almost comical how little engagement there is on Bluesky compared to other platforms like LinkedIn, Threads, and even Substack Notes. This place just doesn't have the juice.