📅Context Collapse: The Weekender 01/26/24

Apple App Store Door Opens, Media Job Doors Close: CC #277

In This Issue: Don’t Sell Your Product, Make It Easier To Buy / Havas Agencies Could Be Stripped Of B Corp Certification Due To Shell Account Win / G/O Media Hangs ‘For Sale’ Sign Across Its Portfolio / Massive LA Times Layoffs / Biden’s Media Problem / Comedy Central Officially Out Of Ideas / Apple Plans New Fees and Restrictions for Downloads Outside App Store / Netflix’s Genius WWE Move / 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer / Some Publishers Are Starting To See Revenue Lift From Alternative IDs / Lessons I’m Learning / As Folks Reel From Journalism Layoffs / CEOs Seeing Their Stock Price.

Photo by Eric Krull on Unsplash

Welcome to Context Collapse, the world’s best comms newsletter. I’m Neal Ungerleider. I run Ungerleider Works and used to work as a reporter for Fast Company, write op-eds for the LA Times, and work as a senior copywriter for R/GA. This newsletter helps readers navigate the weird new world of media and gleefully ignores all the conventional wisdom about journalism, public relations, marketing, and advertising.

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Each weekend I publish a collection of links and stray ideas I think my readers should know about. They aren’t necessarily the best-known pieces of industry news but they’re the things you should be thinking about. Especially if you want to make more money or have more impact on the culture.

Before we get started, I just wrote the first installment of my guide to what happens after the journalism industry flames out. Given the subject matter, it’s strangely optimistic—check it out.

Now on to the links.

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Don’t Sell Your Product, Make It Easier To Buy: “As marketers, we’re responsible for growing the business. So your sales team or your CEO pushes back on your organic content strategy: “Yes, you can post your cute little posts. But we’ve got to track ROI! We’ve got to move product! We’ve got to make money!”

What I want to say: “Bruh, I work in marketing. It’s my job to make you look good. it’s your job to sell the product.”

But that’s not very professional.

Here’s what I’d advise you to say instead.”

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Havas Agencies Could Be Stripped Of B Corp Certification Due To Shell Account Win: “Four Havas agencies are at risk of losing their B Corp status after the holding company won Shell’s media account last year, B Corp’s certifying body B Lab Global has confirmed to ADWEEK.

The result could have major implications.”

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G/O Media Hangs ‘For Sale’ Sign Across Its Portfolio: “Digital media company G/O Media is shopping around its portfolio of editorial assets in hopes of securing buyers for individual titles, part of a broader effort to divest the properties ahead of another challenging year for the media industry, according to four people familiar with the efforts.

The media company—which includes publishers Deadspin, Quartz, Kotaku, The Root, The Onion and Gizmodo—initially sought a suitor that would acquire its entire stable of brands, according to two sources.

But no such buyer materialized.”

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Massive LA Times Layoffs: “The Los Angeles Times said it planned to lay off at least 115 employees — more than 20% of the newsroom — starting Tuesday, one of the largest staff cuts in the newspaper’s 143-year history.”

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Biden’s Media Problem: “Young media progressives were intensely-but-sporadically interested in health care policy when it was linked to Bernie Sanders and a sweeping vision of Medicare for All. Which is just to say they have a kind of hazy ideological interest in the subject more than a practical interest in the year-in, year-out grind of incremental policy change. It served for a time as a signifier of intra-party factional positioning, but the issue was displaced by police defunding and then later by Palestine. But again, it’s precisely because something like prescription drug policy isn’t a factional signifier that it would be good for Biden if it was covered more.

Democrats healthcare ideas are not just popular, they’re also ideas that Joe Manchin and Bernie Sanders agree on.”

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Comedy Central Officially Out Of Ideas: “Jon Stewart is returning to “The Daily Show.” The comedian who transformed Comedy Central’s satirical news show into a serious force in politics will now serve as a part-time host through this year’s presidential election cycle and full-time producer through 2025.

Starting Feb. 12, Stewart will host “The Daily Show” each Monday night while also steering the series as an executive producer.”

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Apple Plans New Fees and Restrictions for Downloads Outside App Store: “The new policies, which will apply only in Europe, set up a major test of the legislation and how it will be enforced as Apple faces challenges from courts, regulators and software-makers globally about its tight control of third-party software.

Meta Platforms, Spotify and other companies are preparing new download options for customers in anticipation of the new rules. Meta is considering a system that would allow people to download apps directly from Facebook ads. Spotify plans to offer users the ability to download some of its iPhone apps directly from its website, according to the company. Microsoft has weighed a launch of its own third-party app store for games in the past.”

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Netflix’s Genius WWE Move: “Netflix is spending more than $5 billion on a deal that’ll bring WWE‘s long-running live show Raw to its platform for an entire decade.

Raw has been airing on network TV since its debut in 1993, but starting in January 2025, it’ll be Netflix’s marquee live sports program, with new episodes airing weekly in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Latin America. Netflix will air about 150 hours of exclusive Raw content per year.”