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The Medium delivers in-depth analyses of the media marketplace’s transformation as creators, tech companies and 10 million emerging advertisers revolutionize the business models for “premium content”.
There is the argument that the future of the media business—and the changes in this (weird) market moment in media—was best captured in this recent lede from AdWeek’s Mark Stenberg: “Thanks to his background in theoretical physics, [Dotdash Meredith’s chief innovation officer] Jonathan Roberts may be one of the few people alive who can credibly claim to understand ad tech.” Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that “employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena.” Roberts oversees “research, data science and open-market revenue operations.”
Physics has long been a cornerstone of the media business—the broadcast, linear and internet businesses all live and die by the principles of electromagnetism and the special theory of relativity—but it is rarely if ever the focus of broader media coverage and investor questions about the digital futures of publishers and cable companies. The media coverage gravitates more towards the big C-Suite personalities, the major announcements, achievements of subscriber growth or, lately, profitability. Even if the technological architecture of a digital media business ultimately may make or break how and whether these businesses ultimately will or will not be able to evolve from wholesale to retail models, the topic is more often to be found in smaller blogs and newsletters than in trades.
The theoretical physics skill set of Dotdash Meredith’s chief innovation officer, above, seems unusual when compared to other media companies. For example, Disney has put Rita Ferro, its president of advertising sales, at the forefront of its Fall 2023 publicity tour for the technology underlying its new advertising video-on-demand capabilities. It is also a more esoteric skill set than the test for companies proposed by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen: “A good test for how seriously an incumbent is taking software is the percent of the top 100 executives and managers with computer science degrees.”
The distinction captures how Dotdash Meredith offers a story for investors that is as science-based as it is creative. It offers the rare story of revenue and EBITDA growth in digital media while others are struggling to do the same. It has generally promoted its in-house technology solutions—like page load time and intent-based targeted advertising—front and center to investors and advertisers. Elsewhere, those solutions tend to be buried in bullet points in investor presentations from legacy media companies, if they are discussed by management at all.
Does the success of a consumer-first, retail-first media business in the 2020s require the skillset of a theoretical physicist? It is certainly directionally helpful.
It would be overly simplistic to conclude that any of media company’s fortunes will change if they hire a theoretical physicist in the role of chief innovation officer. But, it does reflect how we no longer may evaluate media businesses through the lenses of financial and traditional distribution models, only.
Total words: 1,300
Total time reading: 5 minutes
I previously highlighted Dotdash Meredith—a subsidiary of IAC—as a paradigm in digital media business models. Four years ago it emerged out of the merger of Dotdash—the reorganized and rebranded heir to About.com—and Meredith Corporation’s National Media Group and its corporate ...