How David Remnick remade the New Yorker

Channels with Peter Kafka

Channels with Peter Kafka

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hace un año 46:10

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When David Remnick got to the New Yorker in 1998, it was very much a capital M Magazine — it existed on ink and paper, and that was about it. Now it’s still a Magazine, but it’s also everything else you need to be to survive as a media company in 2024 — a robust online publisher, a podcast machine, a video operation, conference host and more. Along the way, it also pivoted from an ad-based business model to one that thrives on consumer subscriptions. And it remains one of my favorite publications, hands down. So I was delighted Remnick took time to talk to me about what has changed at the New Yorker under his tenure, and what hasn’t. Also discussed here: Whether the New Yorker still has special status among owner Conde Nast’s roster of titles; the acquisition Remnick should have made but didn’t; and why he invited, and then uninvited, Steve Bannon to speak at the 2018 New Yorker Festival.

By the way: Welcome to the first episode of Channels! Feel free to send guest suggestions and (just about) anything else my way: pkafka on most of the socials.

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

523 episodios

How David Remnick remade the New Yorker

990 subscribers

published hace un año

MP3•Episodio en casa

By the way: Welcome to the first episode of Channels! Feel free to send guest suggestions and (just about) anything else my way: pkafka on most of the socials.

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

523 episodios

ทุกตอน

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Tariffs, Trump, TikTok: What’s going to happen to ads in 2025? 58:50

hace 10 hours58:50

58:50

There are all kinds of ways to measure the health of an economy. The one I rely on is ad spending. One reason for that is simple: I work in ad-supported businesses, so I want to know about things are going to affect me personally. A less self-interested reason: The health of the ad business is tied directly to the way companies feel about their overall health. So if things turn south, you’ll often see it in falling ad spend. And as the industry gets increasingly digital, that means it’s that much more responsive to changes in the economy: When the pandemic hit 5 years ago, ad spend all but disappeared for a couple months — and then roared back once companies realized how much spending had shifted online. So that’s the background for my chat with Smartly CEO Laura Desmond, who I often rely on for a state-of-the-state when it comes to the ad industry. Desmond is a longtime ad biz veteran, and at her current gig she works directly with digital clients, helping them figure out where to place their money and the best way to optimize their campaigns. So she’s got excellent insight into the most sensitive spenders in the market. Desmond’s takeaway: Long-term changes like a possible TikTok ban just don’t show up on most advertisers’ radars. But potential tariff impacts, which could hit by late May, could be a big hit — if they materialize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Roblox CEO David Baszucki knows what your kids are doing. 48:08

hace 7 días48:08

48:08

Every day some 85 million people - most of them kids - show up to play, chat and spend money on Roblox. That’s a massive audience just about any tech or media company would like to have. But David Baszucki wants more: He thinks his platform can eventually command 10% of the worldwide gaming market. I spent time talking to Baszucki about those ambitions and what has to happen to make it a reality. But I also wanted to spend time getting him to explain what exactly Roblox is, and why its low-fi, user generated games resonate with his audience. It’s an unlikely special sauce that has made the company, which spent years flying under the radar, worth some $40 billion today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
How to make money in Washington, with Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman 44:19

hace 14 días44:19

44:19

Some people don’t want to pay for media. But lots of people are paying Jake Sherman and his team at Punchbowl News: The 4-year-old startup is thriving by providing super-insidery news and data about what’s happening in Congress. I chatted with Sherman because I wanted to get an update on his business (he says he’s not going to sell it anytime soon, despite lots of speculation to the contrary). I also had a basic, outside the Beltway question: In a world where Congress spends a lot of time not passing bills, what exactly does Punchbowl cover? He was happy to spell it all out for me. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
NYT publisher AG Sulzberger on Trump, OpenAi and the economy 1:09:07

hace 21 días1:09:07

1:09:07

The New York Times faces the same challenges every other news organization faces in 2025. But it’s also in way better shape to take those challenges on: Thanks to a business model built on 11 million subscribers, it’s not nearly so worried about things like the fluctuations of the ad business, or changes in Google’s algorithm. That comparative strength also gives NYT publisher AG Sulzberger the ability to do things his peers can’t or won’t do: Like suing OpenAI for copyright infringement, instead of taking a cash settlement. Or calling out the likelihood of a press crackdown if Donald Trump was re-elected - a call he made in September that looks very prescient today. We talk through both of those issues in this conversation, and a bunch more - like the role of the NYT opinion section, how willing the Times is to experiment, and how the paper thinks about the economic turmoil we now find ourselves in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Trump vs The Media, Round 2, with Sara Fischer 50:29

hace 28 días50:29

50:29

The Trump 2.0 era is less than three months old. But it’s already creating havoc for journalists and the companies they work for. In Washington, Trump and his team are demoting traditional media - or kicking them out of the White House entirely. In corporate boardrooms, he is forcing media owners to settle lawsuits they would normally fight, and to submit to investigations from newly aggressive regulators. Again: We’re just at the beginning of this new era. What’s coming down the pike? I asked Sara Fischer, the excellent and Washington-wired media correspondent, to walk me through it Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
How long can sports keep TV alive? 47:58

hace 5 weeks47:58

47:58

Call it symbiosis. Call it co-dependency. However you want to characterize it, there’s zero debate that Big TV and Big Sports are deeply intertwined. So if the TV business is shrinking, what happens to sports? That’s the main question I had for John Ourand, the longtime sports business reporter who’s now at Puck. But I had lots of related ones, like: Now that (some) college students are getting paid to play sports, how does that affect the TV product itself? What’s happening to the local sports networks that bring you baseball, basketball and hockey? And is the sports betting media boom drying up? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Inside PJ Vogt’s low budget, super successful podcast 1:05:40

hace 6 weeks1:05:40

1:05:40

Anyone who makes things thinks they could do it better if they had more. More money, time, headcount, infrastructure. Some of us find there can be upsides to doing it with less, too. That's not exactly PJ Vogt's story but I think it's directionally accurate: Vogt cohosted a huge hit podcast - Reply All - and when he decided to try again - with Search Engine - he had a lot less to work with. That shaped his thinking about the company he wanted to run and the product it puts out each week. It seems like it's working, and Vogt walks us through the details and his decisions. Also joining me: Zach Mack, who has helped other people (like me) make podcasts for years, made one that only he could make. Go listen to his "Alternate Realities" series on NPR's Embedded - but first listen to how he made it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy wants to hang on to the live-streaming crown 1:01:49

hace 7 weeks1:01:49

1:01:49

Back when I first started covering the internet, the idea of broadcasting yourself for hours on end seemed like a pipe dream for weirdos. Now it's how some people make a living. Twitch more or less created live-streaming in the U.S., which is why Amazon bought it for about $1 billion back in 2014. But now there are plenty of places to watch, and create, live streams. How does Twitch fend off competitors? How does it convince its most popular streamers to keep streaming? And how will Amazon eventually make real money from the operation, which is was still in the red a few years ago? Those are all questions I asked Twitch CEO Dan Clancy, at a live taping at South by Southwest. Clancy also got to hear firsthand from Twitch's users and partners in a Q&A session at the end of our chat. Thanks to everyone who came out, and thanks to the folks at the Vox Media podcast network for putting it all together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Matt Belloni: what the Oscars tell us about Hollywood 43:48

hace 8 weeks43:48

43:48

We had to stop recording this one for a minute, because Matt Belloni got a text. More on that below. Big picture: Matt is a longtime Hollywood reporter - and lawyer before that - who now has the industry's ear via his writing at Puck and his The Town podcast. I asked him to talk about what lies ahead for the Oscars, the out-of-step TV production that still has big audiences and prestige; and the current state of Hollywood, the business. Also discussed here: Awards party catering, and the most popular movie executive who isn't Bob Iger. For the record: When we started recording this podcast, the audience for Sunday's Oscar awards had declined yet again. By the end of it, new numbers meant it was the most popular show in the last five years. Obviously we would have preferred to know that in advance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Free speech is under attack 53:21

hace 9 weeks53:21

53:21

The most useful class I ever took in college was a media law class, where I learned two things: 1) Journalists in the U.S. (along every other American citizen) have enormous freedom to say and write what they want, without fear of a defamation suit and 2) this freedom exists largely because of New York Times v Sullivan, a seminal Supreme Court case. Now NYT v Sullivan is under concerted attack, from a group that includes wealthy and powerful people and companies; lawyers who see an opportunity; and, of course, Donald Trump. David Enrich, an editor who oversees business investigations at the Times, gets to do his work in large part because of the court precedent set decades ago. His upcoming book Murder the Truth takes us on a tour of incidents that show what losing NYT v Sullivan could mean for journalism in the U.S. — and how powerful people are already chipping away at press freedom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Matthew Ball: Why the games business is broken 38:03

hace 10 weeks38:03

38:03

Everyone knows that video games are giant, fast-growing business that's going to swamp traditional media. Except that's not true: The games business is now in a prolonged and confusing funk. Investor and analyst Matthew Ball has been diving deep into the industry, so I asked him to take a stab at explaining what's going on. Bonus question: When does the face computer's moment finally arrive? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
BuzzFeed wants to build a… social network? 34:52

hace 11 weeks34:52

34:52

A decade ago BuzzFeed was the bleeding edge of digital media, and Serious People thought it was going to be a threat to the likes of the New York Times. Many rounds of layoffs and asset sales later, BuzzFeed is a much more modest operation. But say this for Jonah Peretti: He continues to pitch Very Big Ideas for his company. Now the BuzzFeed CEO thinks he can create an internet that doesn’t run on content that makes you feel lousy, and that he can also create his own social network. I am… skeptical, but I wanted to hear him out, and now you can make up your own mind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
Why Michael Lewis is worried about the sports betting boom 1:01:34

hace 12 weeks1:01:34

1:01:34

It’s hard to remember now. But just a few years ago, sports betting was illegal in almost all of United States. And sports leagues and the media companies that worked with them wanted nothing to do with anything that even referenced gambling. Things are very, very different now! And it happened so quickly that very few people have stopped to ask what any of this means for America, and what it will mean down the road. Those questions — and the reasons why so few of us are posing them — turn out to be a great topic for Michael Lewis. You can hear him grappling with them in the excellent new season of his “Against the Rules” podcast series. And I was delighted to discuss all of it with him on my show. It also gave me an opportunity to discuss “The Fifth Risk” - his 2018 book about Donald Trump’s first attempt to take over federal government, which is extra-timely right now. And I couldn’t let him go without a brief chat about crypto and Sam Bankman-Fried. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
How Silicon Valley really feels about Trump, TikTok and DeepSeek 51:15

hace 13 weeks51:15

51:15

I haven’t checked in with Jessica Lessin in some time — and I have to say I picked a pretty good time to catch up with her. Because Silicon Valley is undergoing something meaningful right now, and she’s in a great position to tell us more about it: Lessin is a veteran technology reporter who founded The Information in 2013, and it has been a go-to for anyone who wants serious reporting about tech in the Bay Area and around the world, ever since. Discussed in this episode: What’s really animating tech’s embrace of Donald Trump? What’s going to happen to TikTok? And what does the arrival of DeepSeek mean for the AI boom? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Channels with Peter Kafka

1
How TikTok (still) works 40:03

hace 14 weeks40:03