Channels with Peter Kafka
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Channels with Peter Kafka
Media and tech aren’t just intersecting — they’re fully intertwined. And to understand how those worlds work, and what they mean for you, veteran journalist Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers - and gets them to spell it out in plain, BS-free English. Part of the Vox Media...
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Oliver Darcy on Status, Bari Weiss, and Why Media Reporters Are Too Soft
Two years ago, Oliver Darcy left CNN and launched Status, a paid newsletter focused on the media business. The basic bet was that readers would pay fo...
Lucas Shaw on Warner Bros' Limbo, Netflix's Anxiety, and Hollywood’s Sort-of Comeback [7:09 PM]
When I last talked to Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw, Netflix was buying Warner Bros. Discovery. Six months later, Paramount has the deal — but, surprisingly,...
Substack Wants To Become A Social Network; BeeHiiv Wants To Stay Invisible
You are a normal person, so if you think about “people writing their own newsletters” you probably think: “Substack”.
But just as Xerox i...
Inside Podcasting’s Fight Over Netflix, YouTube, and Creator Control
Chris Balfe is the CEO of Red Seat Ventures, the company behind some of the biggest names in podcasting, including Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Bill O...
"We’re in a Race Against Time," Joe Kahn on Running the New York Times in the Age of AI Slop
Joe Kahn runs the New York Times newsroom, which means he runs the most powerful news operation in the world. He joins me to talk about what that powe...
Encore: Inside Joe Weisenthal's brain
We originally published this interview with Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal on Feb. 11, 2026, and it's one of my favorite chats of the year. We'll be back...
The Ad Industry's Weirdest Tradition
The Rebooting's Brian Morrissey joins me from Cannes, where OpenAI is pitching advertisers, creators are becoming media brands, and thousands of peopl...
A Hollywood Manager Explains the New Rules of Show Biz
Today’s show is about money, and how to make it in entertainment.
The streaming boom made Hollywood feel like it had solved its money pro...
Brian Stelter on the 60 Minutes Mess; Nilay Patel on Apple’s AI Problem
Brian Stelter and Nilay Patel are both covering big, powerful institutions that are undergoing real change, whether they like it or not.
...
How Dhar Mann Turned After-School Specials Into A Billion-View Business
Dhar Mann’s videos look simple, because they are simple: Someone acts badly, someone learns a lesson, everyone gets a moral by the end. You don’t have...
Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour Explains Why Boring Data Is a Great Media Business
I think of Dow Jones as The Wall Street Journal, because that’s the part I know — and the part I used to work near/around/inside. But Dow Jones CEO Al...
Vox Media's Jim Bankoff Explains Why He's Selling to James Murdoch
Jim Bankoff has spent nearly 20 years building Vox Media. Now he’s selling a big chunk of it to James Murdoch, who is acquiring Vox Media's Podcast Ne...
Versant CEO Mark Lazarus is Running a Post-Cable Cable Company
Versant is the new company Comcast created when it spun off CNBC, MS NOW, USA and other cable networks it no longer wanted inside the mothership. That...
Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch on AI, the Met Gala and His Secret Succession Plan
Roger Lynch has spent the last seven years trying to turn Condé Nast from a magazine company into a profitable portfolio of global brands. Now he has...
The Internet’s Let-It-Rip Era, With The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel
The internet is in its let-it-rip era: more AI slop, more video, more clips — and very little in the way of guardrails or rules.
Charlie...
AI Can Make Software Now. That Changes Everything, with Paul Ford
Learn to code, they told us. Then the computers went and learned to code. Now anyone can do it, in theory, courtesy of Claude Code and other vibe codi...
Jason Blum Built a Hit-Making Movie Machine. Does It Still Work?
Jason Blum built one of Hollywood’s smartest businesses: make low-budget horror movies, give filmmakers room, pay talent on the back end, and let the...
Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz on Sam Altman’s Trust Problem
Sam Altman has spent years presenting himself as the face of AI: The guy warning that the technology could change everything, and the guy insisting th...
What Happens When a “Succession” Writer Takes on Silicon Valley
Jonathan Glatzer has written for shows like Succession and Better Call Saul. Now he’s got his own: The Audacity, a new AMC drama set in Silicon Valley...
Why We Need to Pay Attention to Elon Musk Again
Elon Musk has spent the last year being quieter than usual — by Elon Musk standards.That may be about to change in a very big way, as his SpaceX moves...
Why Prediction Markets Are Turning Everything Into a Bet
Prediction markets are suddenly everywhere: in sports, in politics, in the media business — and, depending on who you ask, they’re either a useful for...
How to Survive without Google: People Inc's Playbook
Lots of publishers are freaked out about “Google Zero” — the notion that one day, Google will stop sending them any traffic at all.
That’...
Matt Belloni on the Oscars, the Ellisons, and Hollywood’s Next Chapter
Oscar season is supposed to be Hollywood’s lap. It is also, increasingly, a reminder of how shaky things are in Hollywood right now. And this one come...
The World’s Cup Is Coming to Trump’s America, with Roger Bennett
The World Cup is coming to the U.S (and Canada, and Mexico) in less than 100 days.
Perhaps you’re an American who doesn’t care about socc...
Netflix Walks, Paramount Wins, and the Ellisons Take Hollywood
Netflix shocked the world last year by winning a deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. This week it shocked us by walking away.In this emergency bonus e...
Brian Stelter on the Trump Media Shakedown Era
Brian Stelter puts its clearly: "All M&A runs through the Oval Office right now.” So how much does Trump matter in the Netflix/Paramount battle for Wa...
Janice Min on Hollywood’s Crisis; Reed Duchscher on the Creator Boom
Janice Min and Reed Duchscher are both building new media companies in LA. But their perspectives are quite different: Min runs The Ankler, the trade...
How Odd Lots' Joe Weisenthal Turned Curiosity Into a Career, and a Hit Podcast
If Joe Weisenthal didn’t exist, the internet would have to invent him. Because Joe Weisenthal is built for the internet — more specifically, an intern...
Jeff Bezos Used To Be In Love with The Washington Post. What Happened?
Jeff Bezos used to be the savior of The Washington Post. He bought it for $250 million in 2013, and then invested money and energy into turning it aro...
Who is Josh D'Amaro and Why is He Disney's New CEO?
In February 2020, Disney CEO Bob Iger finally announced his successor: Bob Chapek, who ran the company’s parks business. That didn’t work out.Now Iger...
Running a Newsroom in Minneapolis + How to Make a Game of Thrones For Less
In an ideal world, I wouldn’t be bringing you an interview with the editor of the Minnesota Star Tribune about her paper’s coverage of the killing of...
Chuck Klosterman on Why Football Owns TV (and Why It Won’t Forever)
Football isn’t just the biggest show on TV — at this point, it’s basically the only reason some TV networks exist. So it’s a very worthy subject for C...
How to Build a Profitable Media Company in 3 years, with Semafor’s Justin Smith
News is a tough business. So how did Semafor, the news startup founded by Ben Smith and Justin Smith, figure out how to turn a profit in their third y...
Inside Bari Weiss’s Rise: LA, Sun Valley, and the Mogul Network
How, exactly, did Bari Weiss become the head of CBS News?
We know that David Ellison, who bought Paramount last year, hired her — and bou...
Craig Finn on Friendship, Fans and The Hold Steady’s Second Life
Craig Finn makes music — as the head of the Hold Steady, and on his solo records — about grown-up lives and bad decisions. Back in 2017, we talked ab...
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....
"Neither Side Is Used to Losing." Lucas Shaw on What’s Next for Netflix and Paramount in the Battle for Warner Bros.
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...
Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He’s a Must-Read Media Gossip.
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 Londo...
"Hollywood is Truly Freaked Out." Inside the Netflix/WBD Deal with Lucas Shaw
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.
PBS Lost a Billion Dollars. Now what? With CEO Paula Kerger
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 ha...