The Incredible Decline of Traditional Media: Our YouTube Channel is Worth 14 NY Times Journalists???

In this episode, we dive into the surprising statistics that reveal the shocking comparative decline of traditional media outlets like The New York Times and Fox News. We analyze how new media platforms such as YouTube and podcasts are gaining ground in terms of viewership and cultural impact. From measuring the influence of legacy newspapers to discussing content creation dynamics on YouTube, this conversation covers a wide range of fascinating topics. Additionally, we touch upon the influence of culture on media consumption, the evolution of news, and how modern trends affect societal perceptions. Don't miss this compelling dialogue that sheds light on the future of media consumption.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] HEllo, Simone. I am so excited to be talking to you today. We're going to have some stats here that I think are going to shock you and our listeners because they shocked me. And I'll just jump into, I think one of the most surprising to me. So the average American when they click through to a newspaper

is on that link for 1.

5 minutes actually a little less than that. So I'm inflating the numbers a bit. Okay. If you look at the New York Times,

the New York Times gets around 385. 7 million clicks per month. That comes down to around 9, 642, 000 K hours on the New York Times. Okay? Now, consider that they have 1, 700 journalists working there, and there are two of us.

That means That the content we produce is consumed by

Seven times

As much time. As the content produced [00:01:00] by an average New York Times journalist. That means that the entire New York Times is only 121x more watched than our podcast just on YouTube. Right. And we are not a big channel.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: So, there's just no way that This can be financially justified going forward.

I mean, how can advertisers continue? Well, now the New York times is a subscriber based. So maybe this is more of the sub stack thing is New York times invented the sub stack model before the sub stack. Well, I mean, I guess they went back to the original magazine. So the original, before they were newspapers, there were magazines and magazines were the original sub stack.

They were specialized information. That people paid for because it was useful to them in their careers and in their social lives. And then things sort of went on to newspapers and they went mass. And now we've gone back to niche with sub stack. And I think the New York Times is becoming that too. So [00:02:00] somehow the New York Times is able to pay for it.

I think a lot of its legacy reputation. But for these other publications, like general newspapers, non

Malcolm Collins: broadcast. All sorts of other publications go over their actual, like how much they're consumed. And then compare that with popular YouTube channels. Okay. Popular YouTube channels.

Just in case, you're wondering the math here. Typically an individual who has a subject subscriber is making like 500% more. Well, I think more than that, maybe like. A thousand percent more from that viewer than they would be. If that viewer was on YouTube or something like that. Uh, I mean, just consider you, you're watching this episode. And you are paying me to watch this episode may be. , a fraction of a cent. But if you were on subject and you were paying like, I don't know. $5 a month to me or something like that. You'd be paying significantly more. I'd also point out here. How much of the ad spend within traditional media is sentiment driven [00:03:00] by the advertisers as evidence of this.

We see how many advertisers were able to pull off of. X slash Twitter. The moment it was bought by Elan. If they were advertising with the goal of reaching a consumer, this would not have been something they would've done it. Would've been like, obviously he didn't change the math of advertising on X. , he, all it changed was the sentiment of the advertising class.

So in a big way, traditional media is something that is just being subsidized by the, I guess what I call it, the Karens who run marketing departments. So the core thesis that I'm going to be getting across here is when you look to legacy media and you are thinking about the impact it has on our culture, you shouldn't think about it as a thing that is separate from the other online influencers of our day.

You should just think of it as a specific category. What's the word I'm looking for [00:04:00] here? Crowdsourced like community. So I, I, I'll, I'll word it this way, right. People can be like, well, the New York Times is quite different from something like a, a YouTube personality, because, you know, the New York Times has thousands of reporters, right?

And YouTube Oh no.

Simone Collins: But it has a sizable staff. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: None of the thousand seven hundred.

Simone Collins: Okay, almost two thousand, but that's not thousands, that's hundreds.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, anyway, point being The New York Times is a sizable staff, therefore, you know, in YouTubers they're just like you and me, but that's also not true.

If you look at large YouTubers, like, God, I've absolutely loved, Watching the Illuma Hottie fall.

Speaker: When something as horrible as this happens, people always come out and admit fault and tell the horrifying truth of their continued negligence and malpractice, right? Yeah, you're right, that never happens. What am I thinking? Instead, they usually do their best to hide everything and blame anyone but themselves, and wouldn't you know it, that's exactly what happened here today.

Malcolm Collins: That has been very, very fun, but you know, she was just the [00:05:00] talking head, but she had like five writers. She wrote almost nothing herself from my understanding or nothing herself. Yeah. And this is true for a lot of the big YouTubers you watch, you know, game theory, for example, for ages, MatPat hasn't been doing anything other than presenting.

They

Simone Collins: treat it, they treat it like a professional business as they should. And yeah, most. Well, okay, not most, but it's many, many, many of the YouTube channels that I regularly watch. And that's because they are constantly turning out content are absolutely teams. And I respect that. And that's good. And they work well.

Malcolm Collins: The point I'm making here is they are teams and traditional media is a team. Okay. Yeah. Yes. And sometimes the teams are bigger. Sometimes the teams are smaller, but then people will be like, well, yeah, but people trust traditional media more. And I'm like, that's also just. untrue at this point.

At the statistics and see

These easiest only 32% of Americans have quote unquote, eight fair amount of trust in the media. And in the 1970s, [00:06:00] this was 70%. These days, the amount of Americans, you have a fair amount of trust in the medium. Is lower than the amount who totally distrust it.

then to, you know, I was about this and she was sa really interesting that t to frame itself as like,

Um, And it has completely abandoned that pretext and you were going over, you know, where NPR had had on they, at least it had on the Republican to give his defense. Well,

Simone Collins: specifically the, there's a podcast associated with NPR called the indicator from planet money. That's part of their planet money economics podcast series, which I love listening to the indicator recently ran two episodes, one on Kamala Harris's economic policy.

One on Trump's economic policy per journalistic tradition. They, they tried, I think, to play both sides in, in that they are prese