Matt Belloni: what the Oscars tell us about Hollywood

Janice Min, part owner of the Hollywood Reporter, talks with Recode’s Peter Kafka at the Code Media Conference in Huntington Beach, Calif. She talks about how the Reporter is keeping an eye on the nexus of Hollywood, media and power and that one time when she got dinner with Steve Bannon, Michael Wolff and Roger Ailes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

20 Feb 201837min

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti talks with Recode's Peter Kafka at the 2018 Code Media conference in Huntington Beach, Calif. Peretti says Facebook should be willing to share in the revenue it makes from its News Feed, something it has already done on other parts of its platform that make a lot less money. He also addresses recent reports that BuzzFeed might spin off its news division and argues that Google and Facebook have distorted the media business by hoovering up most of the digital ad revenue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

17 Feb 201836min

Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships, and Adam Mosseri, the company's head of News Feed, talk with Recode’s Peter Kafka and Kurt Wagner at the 2018 Code Media conference. They defend the recent controversial changes to the types of stories that appear in users’ feeds, with Brown saying that Facebook is okay with having a point of view if it means “leaning into quality news.” However, Mosseri says Facebook will never make a judgment on any entity’s ideological or political point of view. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

15 Feb 201854min

MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about how he's trying to make a profitable business out of charging $10/month for nearly unlimited visits to the movie theater. Lowe says MoviePass now has more than 1.5 million paying subscribers, who see twice as many films in the theater as non-subscribers. He also talks about the company's risky public feud with the large theater chain AMC, which he says is due to AMC's unwillingness to share the profits of all the new business it is getting. Plus: What Lowe learned as an early Netflix exec from CEO Reed Hastings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

8 Feb 201840min

Wired editor in chief Nick Thompson talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about the merits of running a print magazine in 2018 and why Wired.com is adding a $20/year paywall. Thompson, previously the editor of NewYorker.com, learned there that asking readers to pay for content changes not just their experience, but also how writers and editors do their jobs because now the pressure is on to make unique content that people will love. He also discusses why much of the conventional wisdom around Facebook's News Feed changes is wrong, the difference between writing for print versus the web and how he is reconciling Wired's original mission of techno-optimism with the realities of 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

1 Feb 201843min

Bleacher Report CEO Dave Finocchio talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about founding a sports media site, selling it to Turner and leaving — and why he came back to lead the company again. Finocchio discusses the recently announced changes to Facebook's News Feed that will deemphasize news from publishers like him, but says Bleacher Report started migrating to other platforms years ago, and now sees the highest enagement with its content on Facebook-owned Instagram. He also talks about how the company is using Snapchat to understand its teen readers, how it weaned itself off of having unpaid contributors and what he thinks of sports media rivals like ESPN, SB Nation and Barstool Sports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

25 Jan 201853min

Recode’s Peter Kafka brings three past podcast guests back into the studio on this special two-in-one episode about how the media has handled President Trump. First, he interviews NYU Professor Jay Rosen, who lambastes the political press for trying to treat Trump like a normal president; Rosen says interviewing Trump is “meaningless” because his answers aren’t tethered to actual policy ideas. Later in the show, CNN’s Oliver Darcy and BuzzFeed’s Charlie Warzel return to the studio to talk about what’s new in the right-wing media sphere. They say that digital-savvy right-wingers like Mike Cernovich and Milo Yiannapolous have been sidelined, and it’s becoming clear to the pro-Trump media that Trump mostly cares about conventional outlets like Fox News and the New York Times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

18 Jan 20181h 29min

Hearst Magazines President David Carey talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about how the 130-year-old media giant is striking a balance between its print legacy and the digital future. Carey says print still accounts for two-thirds of his division's profits, and it will be a "long time" before those lines cross. And he predicts that many digital media companies that are heavily reliant on advertising have a rough year ahead, with too much cash heading out the window and no moat to protect themselves. Carey also talks about the advantages of being a private company, why he readily partners with or invests in tech platforms like Snapchat and why everyone still wants to be on the cover of a magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

11 Jan 201844min