The self-isolation of early 2020 inspired Alex and me to sort out the time zones and revisit what had happened since our last edition. Recorded in mid April 2020, here’s some thoughts on what happened in media industries in 2019. We mostly set aside commentary on Covid implications as unknowable, so it holds up surprisingly well given its mid-year …

Amanda and Alex finish the year in review wrap up with a look back at a few more industries and a look forward at the issues to watch in 2019. We close with our “favorites” of 2018 and a big announcement about the show.By Amanda Lotz and Alex Intner

2018 was full of news in media industries and we discuss some of the biggest stories in this two-part wrap up. From mergers, to #MeToo, to MoviePass (and some things that don't start with M) we address not just what happened, but why it matters in 2019 and going forward.By Amanda Lotz and Alex Intner

Megan Sapnar Ankerson joins Amanda and Alex to talk about her new book Dot-Com Design: The Rise of a Usable, Social, Commercial Web. Megan's book sets the stage for many of our conversations about internet and web-based businesses by reminding us of the forces that led it to take its contemporary form.…

It's an "extra" episode in which we put the five local media interviews in conversation to see what we can take away on this complicated subject. (Sorry about the slow production of late)By Amanda Lotz

In our final interview of the Local Media series, Amanda and Alex talk with Joseph Lichterman, a senior business associate at the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. We talk about the insight he gained researching and writing stories 300 stories about news outlets on six continents for Nieman Journalism Lab. Lichterman produces the Solution Set newsl…

Amanda and Alex talk with Zoe Clark to learn about the challenges of managing a “local” mission of state-wide service and how NPR stations are filling the gaps in communities that have lost local newspapers. Zoe Clark is Michigan Radio's Program Director. Clark oversees all programming on the state's largest public radio station - including the sta…

Alex and Amanda talk with Neil Chase, Executive Editor of the Bay Area News Group. He is a veteran journalist and marketer with deep experience in print and digital news, who got his start at the San Francisco Examiner, and has been as a professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and held top spots at the business news site …

Alex and Amanda talk with Evan Smith, CEO of The Texas Tribune, a digital-only, not-for-profit news organization that operates in Texas. Evan joins us to discuss what he's learned about the opportunities and challenges for local, digital journalism, and be sure to note his definition of journalism around the 16 minute mark.…

In the second episode in our series on the Business of Local Media, we pose many of our questions about the challenges facing local media to expert Christopher Ali, author of Media Localism: The Policies of Place (University of Illinois Press, 2017).By Amanda Lotz and Alex Intner

Amanda and Alex launch a new series of episodes that focus on the business of local media. This episode discusses what local means in this context, what we hope to learn, and the particular challenges local media face.By Amanda Lotz and Alex Intner

In this episode, Alex goes to the Cinetopia Film Festival in Ann Arbor and Dearborn to learn more about the business of film festivals and the role they play in getting films distribution. First, Ariel Wan, Director of Marketing and Programming for the festival joins him in North Quad Studios to talk about the festival. Then, later in the episode, …

Aymar Jean Christian joins Amanda in North Quad Studios to talk about his book Open TV: Innovation Beyond Hollywood and the Rise of Web Television which looks at the opportunities for web series in the early phase of internet-distributed video. We have a wide-ranging chat about the business behind these shows, the storytelling they made possible, h…

We've been lucky to have some guests come through North Quad Studio in recent weeks. The first is David Craig from USC to talk about his ongoing collaborative research project on Social Media Entertainment. David drops a whole lot of knowledge in this podcast that spans discussion of many social media platforms and revenue models.…

Alex takes the reigns and interviews Amanda about her new book, We Now Disrupt This Broadcast: How Cable Transformed Television and the Internet Revolutionized It All.By Alex Intner and Amanda Lotz

Amanda and Alex dig into some recent media headlines to discuss whether and how they matter. We work our way through a variety of Netflix stories including its purchase of distribution rights for The Cloverfield Paradox and Annihilation, its original movie strategy (Bright and more), and what all this means for theatrical distribution. We also talk…

Amanda and Alex are joined by Amanda Cote to discuss the contemporary terrain of the video game industries.By Amanda Lotz and Alex Intner

Amanda and Alex talk about the what makes a media company a media company and why these classifications matter.By Amanda Lotz and Alex Intner

Amanda and Alex are delighted to host Alex Blumberg, CEO and co-founder of Gimlet Media, to talk about the business of podcasting. Alex explains how and why Gimlet came to be and offers his assessment of the current and future market for podcasts. Our thanks to Lynette Clemetson and the Knight-Wallace Fellows program for making Alex's visit possibl…

It's that time again--when we look back at the last 12 months and try to make sense of the stories with lasting importance. 2017 gave us a ride up to the end, with so much to discuss we had to supersize the episode. Media news doesn't nicely bind itself to the calendar though, so a fair bit of looking ahead to 2018 here as well. Enjoy and thank you…

Amanda and Alex revisit the interviews that were part of the public media series to place all the insights into conversation and identify key takeaways.By Amanda Lotz and Alex Intner

Alex and Amanda talk with Laura Walker, President and CEO of New York Public Radio--the largest public radio station group in the nation and a major producer of audio content--about how digital distribution is affecting local public radio. We explore WNYC's podcasting and distribution strategies and the possibilities for local media.…

Alex and Amanda host John Shields, a BBC Editor, visiting as a Knight Wallace Fellow here at the University of Michigan’s Wallace House. We talk about the challenges and opportunities digitization has brought a public media institution with scope and history of the BBC as well as his project exploring the loss of public trust in broadcast media. Jo…

In this episode, Tamar Charney, Managing Editor of National Public Radio's NPR One App talks with us about the technological opportunities available to public media. We learn a lot about how the app is expanding NPR's listeners by making listening more convenient (it's like a DVR for NPR). And we get to hear what a real radio voice sounds like. Tam…

Lynette Clemetson starts off our look at U.S. public media in the digital age with a rich discussion of how NPR took advantage of journalists forced out of print, developed podcasts, and found new ways to serve audiences with digital technology. Not to get all meta but, some great insight on how podcasts differ from radio from a content as well as …

This episode launches a multi-episode consideration of public media--media that are not media businesses, but a vital part of our media ecosystem nonetheless. In this opening episode, Amanda and Alex explore what counts as public media in the U.S., how it is funded and organized, and its different purpose and measures of success. This article by Je…

Amanda and Alex take on the annual rite of end of summer doom and gloom stories about the box office to explore whether the domestic box office is a meaningful measure of anything for different sectors of the film industry. We also talk MoviePass and what it might tell us about new strategies in exhibition.…

Amanda and Alex explore some of the many ways digital distribution is leading media industries to adjust their global strategies. In particular, we discuss the emergence of services such as Netflix (of course) that are redefining the previously national boundaries of television distribution and discuss some of the complexities for film as well.…

Amanda and Alex recap the bounty of portal news breaking in early August and the various strategies emerging. CBS All Access, Disney's announced portals (ESPN), Seeso shutting down, FX+, the future of Hulu...Amanda explains what is and isn't happening in these deals. And we only talk a very little bit about Netflix.…

Amanda and Alex catch up and think big in this supersized podcast. We pull out key themes that emerged in the Future of Digital Media Businesses talks and Alex's interviews with theater executives. Amanda hints at some new preliminary thinking and uses Alex's insights from the theater industry to reimagine a future for film.…

Alex talks with Barry Grove of the Manhattan Theatre Club to learn more about the business strategies useful to not-for-profit theaters competing alongside Broadway.By Amanda Lotz and Alex Intner

Alex talks with Mark Hoebee of the Paper Mill Playhouse to learn more about how the theater business continues to adapt to our changing media world.By Amanda Lotz and Alex Intner

Amanda and Alex return to form and catch up on shifts in revenue strategies in the television business. We talk about why "stacking rights" became part of series pick-up discussions and the consequences studios face if they make shows too easy to watch in the first window.By Amanda Lotz and Alex Intner

This is the last of four special episodes recorded at the Future of Digital Media Businesses Symposium hosted by the University of Michigan. In this episode, Dan Herbert, Associate Professor in the Department of Screen Arts and Cultures at the University of Michigan explores how digitization has affected the film industry.…

This is the third of four special episodes recorded at the Future of Digital Media Businesses Symposium hosted by the University of Michigan. In this episode, Amanda Lotz, Professor of Media Studies at the University of Michigan and Fellow at the Peabody Media Center, explores how digitization has affected the television industry.…

This is the second of four special episodes recorded at the Future of Digital Media Businesses Symposium hosted by the University of Michigan. In this episode, John B. Thompson, Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, explores how digitization has affected the book publishing industry.…

This is the first of four special episodes recorded at the Future of Digital Media Businesses Symposium hosted by the University of Michigan. In this episode, Lee Marshall, a sociologist from the University of Bristol discusses how digitization has affected the recording industry. For more about Lee.…

After spending the last few months turning Media Business Matters into a series of interviews, Amanda and Alex put the interviews in conversation and take stock of what they learned about how the film businesses are changing and remaining the same.By Amanda Lotz and Alex Intner

Film and media scholar Dan Herbert joins Amanda and Alex to try to sort out the difference between television and film as these distinctions grow blurrier.By Amanda Lotz and Alex Intner

Amanda and Alex host Ira Deutchman in the studio to talk about how the independent film business has changed, and remained the same, over his forty years in the business. Ira reveals what he thinks are the most important parts of training filmmakers, what irks him about discussions of the recent "golden age" of television, and misunderstandings of …

Amanda and Alex take a field trip to the office of Russ Collins, Executive Director and CEO of the Michigan Theater and Creative Director of the Cinetopia Film Festival. Russ explains the particular dynamics of film exhibition outside the multiplex and a sector of filmgoing that remains alive and thriving. Our wide ranging conversation explores the…

Alex interviews Amanda about her new book that begins to make sense of questions such as "Is Netflix television?" Portals--a short book--explores how television distributed over the internet isn't a "new medium," but a new way to distribute television. The book considers how both the technological affordances of internet distribution and the predom…

Amanda and Alex look back over the year to assess what we've learned and how the media businesses have changed and are changing and highlight a few stories to watch going into 2017. We close the show by looking back at our picks for the notable media produced by media businesses in 2016 and with a thank you listeners who've joined us as we complete…

Amanda and Alex look back at the election as a media business story. Contested elections with colorful characters are good for business, though data about what some media covered this cycle suggests they may not be good for an informed democracy. We also look at all we don't know about the next four years and what a Trump administration might mean …

Amanda and Alex, provoked by an article by Matthew Ball, consider the changing use of distribution windows by media industries and why windows exist at all. Also, a few thoughts on the pending AT&T/Time Warner merger in closing. Article discussed: Matthew Ball, "Letting it Go: The End of Windowing (and What Comes Next)" REDEF, Aug. 24, 2016…

Amanda and Alex dig into a series about the growing business of podcasts written by Ken Doctor in Nieman Lab. Are podcasts the next big thing, or just another part of the shifting digital media scene? Ken Doctor, "An Island No More: Inside the Business of the Podcasting Boom." Nieman Lab, Sep. 16, 2016 (and the other four stories in the series).…

Amanda and Alex look back at the summer and discuss the biggest news from film, television, journalism, music, theater, and social media. Guess which one of us has a head cold.By Amanda Lotz and Alex Intner

Alex and Amanda turn again to the business of internet-distributed television to reflect on Amanda's refusal to say OTT, what moves by CBS with Star Trek: Discovery suggest about its strategy for CBS All Access, ABC's launch of its own portal, Disney's big spend for a share of BAMTech, and a variety of Hulu news. Discussed in this episode: How OTT …

Amanda and Alex go for the gold in this look at the economics of sports on television. Whether media events such as the Olympics, March Madness, or the Super Bowl or regular league rights deals, the business of sports on television is being disrupted, and in ways different from the rest of television.…

Amanda and Alex consider what the box office weakness of summer sequels means and considers changes in film distribution, film marketing, and uses big data.By Amanda Lotz and Alex Intner