Facing declining ratings, the NFL pivoted by listening to fans. By investing in player health, safer rules, and initiatives like girls' flag football to broaden its appeal, the league successfully addressed public concerns and revitalized its brand for a new generation.

Instead of viewing impartiality as passive neutrality or "both-sidesism," former BBC News CEO Deborah Turness sought to "weaponize impartiality." This frames journalistic balance as an active, forceful tool that provides a distinct value proposition in a media landscape pulled to ideological extremes.

Even expert storytellers can fail to extract a coherent narrative from thousands of raw survey responses. A content marketer's most crucial partner in an original research project is a data analyst who can dig into the numbers, identify statistically significant findings, and surface the stories hidden in the data.

Most media companies operate on creative instinct. A more effective model is to treat content and audience growth like a financial portfolio, obsessing over data to predict outcomes and drive decisions. This brings quantitative discipline to a traditionally qualitative field.

Deborah Turness, former head of NBC and BBC News, contrasts the '90s, when broadcast felt creative and print was stodgy, with today. She argues that legacy print brands have significantly advanced and innovated, while the broadcast industry has largely stood still.

Former NBC News President Deborah Turness reflects that the brand recovered from the Brian Williams scandal faster than she expected. She believes that in today's fragmented and polarized media environment, a similar crisis would inflict much greater, longer-lasting damage.

In a polarized media environment, audiences increasingly judge news as biased if it doesn't reflect their own opinions. This creates a fundamental challenge for public media outlets aiming for objectivity, as their down-the-middle approach can be cast as politically hostile by partisans who expect their views to be validated.

Former BBC CEO Deborah Turness warns that large media brands must learn from the creator economy. She urges them to stop "managing" the news and instead empower talent to build authentic, direct relationships with audiences, mirroring platforms like Substack and YouTube.

Acquired's hosts intentionally stopped sharing research to create authentic on-air reactions. This improvisational element adds emotional depth and surprise, signaling to the audience what's important and making complex topics more engaging than a scripted delivery ever could.