Simon Owens
312 episodes listed below
Simon Owens interviews founders about the revenue mechanics behind their media businesses.
The Business of Content is a measured interview show about the operating mechanics behind digital media. Simon Owens talks with publishers, creators, editors, and founders about revenue, audience growth, distribution shifts, and the tradeoffs behind durable content businesses.
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The Business of Content is a long-running interview podcast (277 episodes) hosted by Simon Owens, structured as one-on-one conversations with a founder, executive, or creator behind a specific media or content business. Guests describe the operational history and revenue mechanics of their companies rather than offering general industry commentary. This sample includes 6AM City co-founder Ryan Heafy on scaling local newsletters into hundreds of markets, Axios Local executive editor Holly Moore on AI-assisted city newsletters, Escape Collective founder Wade Wallace on building a subscription cycling outlet after selling Cycling Tips, and BroBible's Brandon Winnard on a staff-led buyback from a media holding company. Other episodes cover creator-economy and entertainment businesses, including a sleep-podcast founder's subscription and advertising strategy, a voice actor's indie game studio and convention-circuit income, and a producer's move from MrBeast-style YouTube production into phone-native micro-dramas. Recurring threads are subscription versus advertising revenue, AI tools in newsroom and newsletter workflows, audience-acquisition channels like Meta lead ads, and the tension between venture or holding-company ownership versus independence. The show favors detailed origin stories over roundtable discussion or news-of-the-week formats, usually centering each episode on a single company or individual. Listeners working in publishing, newsletters, podcasting, or creator-economy ventures are the most likely audience, given the level of financial and operational detail. Production is straightforward long-form interview audio, typically 40 to 65 minutes, without narrative sound design or multiple segments. Guests span newsletters, podcasting, YouTube, gaming, and legacy blog media, reflecting a broad definition of 'content' rather than a single vertical.
Made for: People building or working in newsletters, podcasting, YouTube, or other content businesses who want founder-level detail on monetization and growth decisions.
What sets it apart: Focuses narrowly on the operational and revenue mechanics of specific named media companies through founder interviews, rather than broad media-industry news or commentary.
The show about how publishers create, distribute, and monetize their digital content.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Simon Owens turns media success stories into clear examinations of revenue, ownership, distribution, and the operational choices behind audience businesses.
Simon Owens follows the money through digital media, using detailed interviews to trace how audience businesses find distribution, revenue, and enough control to survive platform shifts.
Simon Owens follows the money behind media success stories, sparing you the victory-lap version.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A sharp look at how Nothing Much Happens turned sleep audio into a business without breaking the product.
A sleep podcast becomes a useful business case study as Simon Owens talks with Catherine Nicolai about building Nothing Much Happens from a 2018 bedtime-story experiment into a very large audio property.
A grounded look at how Axios Local uses AI for newsletter workflow while keeping reporters at the center.
Axios Local comes across as a practical test of how much AI can do for local newsletters before it starts weakening the thing readers actually value.
A grounded look at how a voice actor monetizes fandom without treating every fan interaction like a transaction.
Robbie Damon's conversation with Simon Owens is strongest when it gets practical about how a creative career earns money outside the studio booth.
A grounded look at why YouTube spectacle is becoming serious entertainment work.
Scott Brown makes the creator economy feel concrete by talking through YouTube as a place where story, budget, logistics, audience expectations, and risk now collide.
A useful media business case on how Roka turned social news traction into newsletter scale and YouTube-led original reporting.
The Business of Content treats Roka News as a practical media business story: a startup that found early traction on Instagram with swipeable news explainers, added a newsletter now above 200,000 subscribers, and then pushed hard into YouTube, where its channel has climbed…
A practical look at how 6AM City is testing AI-assisted local newsletters against the economics of city-by-city advertising.
6AM City co-founder Ryan Heafy lays out a grounded local-news expansion story: the company began with editor-led city newsletters and is now using AI to test smaller markets before adding human editors once those products justify the investment.
A sharp operator story about BroBible buying itself back and rebuilding after years of corporate neglect.
BroBible's buyback works as a useful operator story about what can happen when a profitable niche publisher sits inside a bigger media company that has other priorities.
A focused founder story about rebuilding a niche media brand around paid members after selling the first one.
Wade Wallace's return to cycling media makes a useful case study in niche publishing, audience trust, and the limits of ad-backed scale. The conversation follows Cycling Tips from a 2008 side project, started after Wallace was laid off in Australia with his visa uncertain, into…
Colin and Samir break down creator-economy news, from OpenAI's TBPN deal to AI podcasts.
AI-era marketing tactics from operators testing what works next.
Mark DeGrasse interviews agency and marketing operators on the frameworks behind their case studies.
Cory Cotten-Potter interviews B2B sales and marketing founders on AI's reshaping of pipeline generation.
Kristina Halvorson interviews content strategists about how the work actually gets done.
Sarah Longwell unpacks swing-voter focus groups to explain Trump-era political shifts.
Two hundred million downloads changes the math.
Axios Local treats AI as leverage, not replacement.
Simon Owens opens with autograph etiquette, and Robbie Damon turns it into a practical map of fan access.
MrBeast becomes the benchmark.
This episode explores how Starter Story evolved from a side project interviewing founders into a $2M+ media brand through strategic pivots including YouTube growth and shifting from advertising to premium products like bootcamps.
This episode explores how a social-first newsroom tailors content production across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts to engage younger audiences with platform-specific strategies.
This episode explores Eric Hochberger's journey co-founding Mediavine, its evolution from SEO fan sites to an influential ad management platform serving independent publishers, and insights into programmatic advertising and industry challenges.
Interview with a newsletter publisher about strategies for growing and monetizing a paid subscription newsletter focused on Asian stocks.
Interview with a newsletter writer about strategies for growing subscription revenue and the impact of free trials.
Interview with Nathan Thornburg about the evolution of Roads and Kingdoms from a digital publication to a creative hub and its relaunch with a membership-driven model.
An interview with the executive director of MedShadow Foundation about their investigative health journalism on prescription drug safety.
Interview with Jim Lauderbeck about the threat of Google Zero, the creator economy, and how media companies are adapting to AI-driven search changes.
This episode interviews Kit Shilvers, co-founder of Puberty Group, discussing how he built a bootstrap social media company with 170 million followers and 240 billion annual views starting from posting memes as a teenager.
Interview with Danny Frankel about his platform Punch Up, which helps comedians monetize their fan base through email lists and network effects.
This episode features an interview with Suryansh Tibhawala, co-founder of Essentially Sports, discussing how he and his college friends bootstrapped the site from a passion project into a major sports media platform without external funding.
Roka began on social platforms.
This episode explores how Shane Greer and Shane D'April transformed the struggling magazine Campaigns and Elections into a growing B2B media empire through digital expansion and strategic acquisitions.
This episode explores how the Kyiv Independent leveraged global attention during Russia's invasion of Ukraine to build a membership revenue model through an interview with its COO.
6AM City started in Greenville in 2016, and Simon Owens treats Ryan Heafy's company like Morning Brew logic dropped into local news.
BroBible had traffic.
Wade Wallace built Cycling Tips after a layoff, first as a visa-limbo side project in Australia and later as a real cycling newsroom.
Chris Sharp discusses his transition from making straight-to-DVD horror films to launching successful YouTube channels and a yoga streaming app.
Interview with Tomiwa Ledekomo, CEO of Big Cabal Media, discussing how he scaled the company and navigated challenges in African digital publishing.
Interview with Jefferson Graham about his journey from traditional journalism to launching a YouTube travel show and securing a licensing deal with Scripps News.
Interview with Todd Scott about transitioning the National Business Review to a subscription-only model and licensing its publishing technology.
Interview with Francesca Donner about her career as an editor and launching The Persistent, an online magazine written entirely by women, discussing her experience in mainstream media and monetization strategies.
An interview with Josh Weidling about how he built and monetized his YouTube channel Digital Tour Bus over 15 years.
Interview with Alexis Grant about selling media businesses and maximizing sale price.
Interview with Matthew Schnipper about his Colorado Springs food newsletter's unique sponsorship model that allows him to focus on reporting.
Interview with Tim Hulskamp, co-founder of 1440 newsletter, discussing subscriber unit economics, growth strategies, and expansion into explainer content.
An interview with Scott Porch about how podcasters can grow audiences and monetize their content through advertising networks and paid subscriptions.
Interview with David Stein about growing his investing podcast and building a high-priced membership community.
Ben Cohen of The Daily Banter discusses his pivot from ad-supported to subscription-based revenue after Facebook traffic dropped.
Interview with Eric Newcomer about transitioning from a paid newsletter to a lucrative conference business model.
Interview with B.J.