The News
It’s open season for media companies big and small next year. Media insiders expect investment and dealmaking to whir back to life amid a friendlier regulatory environment for consolidation, continued upheaval in cable, and a reengaged audience that tuned out the news during much of Joe Biden’s presidency.
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Big media: The simultaneous erosion of the entertainment industry and the cable business and the return of a potentially more merger-friendly administration led by Donald Trump appear likely to spur several hot years of corporate dealmaking that will reshape the entertainment and cable news industry. And at the content level, the continued growth of YouTube as the default viewership platform of choice is reshaping the news, cooking, and talk-show content that a generation ago would’ve grown through cable television.
News: Some of the independent news media success stories of the past several years are seeing renewed interest from potential investors, buyers, and business partners.
Since the election, the Free Press founder Bari Weiss has been inundated with offers and interest in investment in her independent digital publication. As rumors circulated about the publication’s future, Weiss told Semafor that while the FP didn’t have any immediate plans for acquisition or investment, she felt that the increased interest in the Free Press was a vindication of the outlet’s worldview — contrarian, skeptical of progressivism — and demonstrated some of the tectonic shifts occurring in the US media business.
“The vibe shift is real. It’s been a big few weeks for those of us in the reality-based community,” she told Semafor. “I’ll let you know when we have news!”
Other news veterans who have been quiet in recent years are emerging from the woodwork. Chris Licht, the former head of CNN, has been making the rounds and having conversations with media entrepreneurs like Weiss, though he assured Semafor that he’s still in the early stages of figuring out his next moves. The British hedge fund tycoon Paul Marshall, meanwhile, is launching a US edition of UnHerd, a kind of UK cousin to Weiss’ publication that professes ideological independence but hews pretty consistently to the right on some cultural and identity issues.
Audio: The increased attention in recent months on podcasting and the “manosphere” has already prompted public relations leaders to examine their best practices, and that trend looks poised to shake up media dealmaking as well.
As Semafor and others wrote previously, Spotify’s pullback from podcasts in 2022 and 2023 cast a pall over the audio business. But the continued growth of podcast listenership and the increased attention given to the podcaster/YouTuber ecosystem during the 2024 election suggest a reversal.