Podcast Pioneer PJ Vogt’s Second Act: Less Budget, More Control

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. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. So that’s what we’re talking about here, including: *Why this truly is a turning point for Hollywood, and streaming, and the great media/tech collision we’ve been covering for years. *How Trump, Middle Eastern money and antitrust regulators complicate the deal *Who actually needs this merger more. *What happens now that WBD has formally dismissed Paramount’s bid? Again: we recorded this a few days before the news — but as you’ll hear, we had a pretty good sense of how it was going to go. And because this still is a wrap-up episode, we got some AI vs. Hollywood chat into this one, as well as some listening/watching recs. PS: I’ve got some bonus programming coming to you over the next couple of weeks. Have a great holiday, and I’ll see you in January. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. We talk about how tabloid training shaped the way he reports; what he saw and did during his Enquirer years — and how he thinks about that period now; and why he believes there’s still a business (and an appetite) for smart, funny, deeply-inside media gossip. And then I put him to work, dishing on the big under-covered stories we will be talking about in the next year. Cheers! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. 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: *How did Netflix maneuver its way into a deal everyone thought Paramount would win? *Will this deal actually get past Donald Trump and U.S. regulators? *What does this deal — a kind of deal Netflix has never, ever made in the past — tell us about Netflix today? *What happens to my favorite HBO shows? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. That didn’t happen then, but this year it did, and now Kerger is trying to fill a $1 billion funding hole. So far, she says, PBS and its member stations have held up ok — no one has had to shut down, yet. But while Kerger holds out hope she can convince Congress to start funding public TV again, it’s worth talking about why federally funded public media was created in 1967 — and whether it still makes sense to continue that setup in 2025. And if federal funding is permanently off the table, what will PBS do — and not do -- in the future? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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? 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. Tony got into digital media years ago, when he was the CEO of Chartbeat - the analytics site that trained every web publisher to watch what was happening to their properties in real time. Then he went on to build Scroll, a sort of ad-blocking subscription service that was meant to work with lots of news publishers. Twitter bought that one, then killed it. The point is that Tony has spent a lot of time talking and working with media companies of all sorts, and now… it looks like he’s getting out. So I wanted to talk him about why his new company — Filament — is not a media startup, and what he thinks is going to happen to the rest of the media business as AI washes over the landscape. This is going to sound like a bummer of a conversation — and in some parts it is! But he’s a good guide, and there are some glimmers of hope here and there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you watched something on TV that you liked in the past few decades, there’s a good chance Kevin Reilly was involved: at various times he’s held top jobs at FX, Fox, NBC, Turner and HBO Max. But that run ended in 2020, and now Reilly is running Kartel, an AI company that… well, I’m still not entirely sure what it does. (To be fair, as Reilly notes in our chat, it’s a young company that’s still figuring it out itself.) But I really wanted to talk to Reilly to get his POV on TV, which more or less peaked when he was working in the industry. Now, of course, it is in what appears to be permanent decline, while its remaining participants try to merge their way to safety. Why did TV flourish in its not-that-long ago Golden Age? And why didn’t its leaders see — or act on — the threat that streaming/digital/internet tech would have on their industry? You probably have some ideas yourself. Now you get to hear it directly from a guy who was there, at the top. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s not unusual for a big TV network and a big TV distributor to fight about money. But the Disney-YouTube fight is unusual -- at the bare minimum, because it has stretched out for so long. CNBC’s Alex Sherman lives and breathes this stuff, so I asked him to walk me through it, and make some prognostications about when it might get settled (spoiler alert: he thinks some football fans who pay for YouTube TV may be unhappy for a while longer.) Then Sherman and I move on to the other Big Media deal: the battle for the company we currently call Warner Bros. Discovery, but is likely to be owned by someone else, in some form…. eventually. Discussed here: why, really, did Larry and David Ellison put in multiple offers to buy another media company weeks after they bought Paramount? What would they do with WBD if they got it? And are any of the theoretical other buyers for all or parts of WBD real? Bonus question for you: did I use the word “degradation” correctly in this one? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In some ways, the Bulwark feels like other small publishers in 2025: it’s found growth and profit by pushing itself out on any platform it can find. But that wasn’t the plan when the company started in 2018. Back then, it was a non-profit cofounded by Republicans who couldn’t stand their party’s embrace of Donald Trump, and wanted a place to organize, debate and push back. Over the years the site turned itself into a for-profit, and found success selling Substack subscriptions — it’s currently on pace to do more than $12 million a year from those alone, says CEO Sarah Longwell. But it has really caught fire in recent years by embracing YouTube. “The thing that made the biggest difference was when we decided to turn the cameras on,” she says. I talked to Longwell this week about the Bulwark’s evolution, and the tension between running a mission-driven company and one that wants to make money. And since Longwell still does political consulting and focus group work, I also talked to her about the state of the art when it comes to political media — and why she thinks Republicans are so much better at it then Democrats. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Would you pay $7 a month to stream CNN? Because CNN CEO Mark Thompson would like you to do that. I know, I know, I’m skeptical, too. But Thompson has been here before: At his last job, as CEO of the New York Times, he helped shepherd that company’s subscription business, which had a gazillion naysayers at the start. And now the Times’ business model is the envy of everyone in journalism. Can he do it again? One big difference is that the Times launched its paywall all the way back in 2011, before everyone was asking consumers to pay for monthly subscriptions for everything. I also have a hunch that the Times brand registers more deeply for its audience than CNN does for its. But now we’ll get to find out. Meantime, all of this is happening as CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery is likely to get sold, yet again. Which means all of the work Thompson and his team are doing could get upended by a new management regime. But that’s the future. For now, it’s very much worth listening to Thompson make the case for CNN, and TV news in general. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices