Despite funding cuts and the rise of social media, traditional public media retains significant influence. Data from an activist campaign showed a single story on NPR's website drove over 28,000 unique visitors, a volume that ranked just behind giants like Instagram, Facebook, and Google.
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The primary function of cable news has shifted. It no longer breaks news but instead produces segments specifically designed to be clipped and go viral on social media platforms. Its main impact is now on the broader internet conversation, not its direct viewership.
Influential voices with dedicated audiences have a greater impact when engaging their community directly on native platforms like Substack. These owned channels can drive nearly as much traffic as a campaign's primary website, demonstrating the power of concentrated, high-trust audiences over broad, traditional media reach.
Scott Galloway calculates that one NPR article drove 27,000 visits to his "Resist and Unsubscribe" site. Using conservative e-commerce conversion rates, he estimates this single piece of media led to a $6 million loss in market capitalization for large tech companies, demonstrating the tangible financial power of earned media in activism.
Scott Galloway's "Resist and Unsubscribe" website traffic was declining until he appeared on traditional media outlets. This drove a significant resurgence in visitors, proving legacy media is crucial for amplifying and sustaining digital-native protest movements.
A viral conservative video about the Minnesota fraud scandal registered 160 million views (impressions) on X after being promoted by Elon Musk, but only 1.7 million actual views on YouTube. This stark difference highlights how X's metrics can create a misleading perception of a story's true reach and impact, while platforms like YouTube provide a more accurate measure of genuine engagement.
The idea that AI will eliminate all Google referral traffic is exaggerated. Data shows traffic stabilizing for publishers, and media companies like IAC are increasing revenue despite some traffic dips, proving the resilience of high-intent content.
The primary consumption of news has shifted from destination sites to algorithmically curated social feeds. Platforms like Threads and X have become superior curators of content from legacy sources, personalizing discovery so effectively that users now rely on them to surface relevant articles, bypassing the publisher's own homepage.
Blockworks is focusing its distribution on podcasts and newsletters to cultivate an "owned" audience with high loyalty. This is a strategic pivot away from relying on news-driven website visits, which constitute a less predictable "rented" audience that is harder to monetize for new data products.
In a media landscape dominated by video, Blackbird Spyplane's deeply reported, text-only articles became some of their most widely shared work. This demonstrates that high-quality, in-depth written content can still find a large, engaged audience without needing a video or infographic component.
Despite declining viewership, legacy media institutions like The New York Times and Washington Post remain critical because they produce the raw content and shape the narratives that fuel the entire digital ecosystem. They provide the 'coal' that other platforms burn for engagement, giving them unrecognized leverage.