Future of TV Briefing: Inside The Wall Street Journal’s new shows strategy

Podcasts haven’t historically been in the scope of this newsletter. But that’s because they’ve historically been audio products. Clearly that’s changed with the rising popularity of video podcasts, and it’s triggering changes in podcast operations. Like at The Wall Street Journal.

“We all need to get ourselves set up for the future that we can all increasingly see,” said Taneth Evans, head of digital at The Wall Street Journal, during an onstage session at the Digiday Publishing Summit in Key Biscayne, Florida, last week.

The news publisher recently made two significant changes to its podcast operations with another shift in the works. It hired Samantha Henig to a newly created head of multimedia role, a position overseeing the Journal’s video team as well as its audio team. But leading the latter team is not a head of audio. That had originally been the plan, but the publisher ended up re-titling the position to senior director of shows. The position, held by Leital Molad, is primarily concerned with audio, but not exclusively.

“To set up a team that was only audio felt like we were making life a little bit hard for ourselves. So we recast that role into the senior director of shows,” Evans said.

The creation of Henig’s head of multimedia role further underscores how the Journal is remodeling its approach to audio in light of video. “It’s a new role, and it’s kind of us acknowledging that we need a conductor atop all of these formats because they need to be able to intermingle and you know be nimble with each other,” said Evans.

To that end, the Journal is also adopting a show-centric strategy with its podcast operations. Evans said the idea is to have satellite teams with shows at the center. “By putting the show at the center and spiking off all of these formats, the relevant formats for those audiences, then we’ll have a more holistic team that live and breathe that brand,” Evans said.

The makeup of those teams can vary, but she outlined a general model.

“There will certainly be audio producers and all of the traditional teams that go into an audio production. There will probably be video producers. Maybe there will be people who are dedicated to the social output of that show or the newsletter output. There might be people from live events tapping in if we’re putting it on stage,” she said.

This satellite team-of-specialists approach isn’t all that foreign to the Journal. The publisher’s content strategy, which reports to Evans, uses what she described as an embed model. “They report to me, but each content strategist is embedded into a coverage area. So they are essentially part of that coverage area,” she said. That allows the content strategists to be active participants in coverage, such as by reviewing edits, while also serving as outside anchors for that coverage.

“They are the advocate for the reader. They’re truly making decisions reader-first. If your boss is dedicated to one area of coverage, then you might make different decisions than if your boss is me. I like to describe myself as the advocate for the reader in the newsroom; I have no skin in the game,” Evans said.

What we’ve heard

“Think about how much you’re spending on creative production fees… no one blinks an eye at paying a bunch of money for a studio. But they blink an eye for a creator.”

— Ultra Pouches CMO Ankur Goyal

Numbers to know

5: Number of years during which Paramount has agreed to not lay off CBS News Broadcast writers in a settlement with Writers Guild of America.

$5,000: How much creators may have to pay in penalties per post for not disclosing paid political content, per a new California law.

5: Number of journalists — each with at least 10 years of experience — that will comprise CNN’s and CBS News’s oversight board.

$29.99: Monthly subscription price for a streaming bundle available via Amazon’s Prime Video that includes Starz and AMC+.

32: Number of streaming bundles that Roku has added to its subscription resale program.

What we’ve covered

Creators are learning to pitch AEO, not just audiences:

• With more creators competing for the same brand budgets than brands have room for, some are betting that being able to spell out exactly how they influence those responses is what tips negotiations in their favor.
• For now, a creator saying “I got cited” is closer to an anecdote than a stat, a claim about one search rather than a number anyone can act on.

Read more about creators’ AEO pitches here.

How women athletes are betting on the creator playbook:

• In 2026, being a pro athlete increasingly means being a full-time creator too.
• For women athletes in particular, content isn’t a side hustle; it’s become a crucial part of how they get paid, grow their sport, and set themselves up for life after competition.

Read more about women athlete-creators here.

IAB Creator Upfront: Why half-built infrastructure is holding back CFO buy-in:

• The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) first Creatorfronts in New York City last week offered a rare, concentrated look at what’s still stopping big brands from unlocking bigger creator budgets.
• Brand CFOs want concrete answers on how results are measured, who owns what and what actually counts as a view before signing away millions to an Instagram celeb.

Read more about the IAB’s first Creatorfronts here.

Perplexity is betting big on creators:

• The AI platform has spent recent weeks advertising for an exec to run its creator marketing, but the listing is no longer accepting applications.
• Perplexity said the role was a backfill for an existing position, rather than a newly created creator-marketing function.

Read more about Perplexity’s creator marketing push here.

What we’re reading

Paramount’s deal-saving settlement:

The parent company of CBS and CNN agreed to keep Warner Bros. Discovery’s and Paramount’s film-and-TV studios as separate operations, release at least 30 movies per year for the next few years and increase U.S. production budgets, among other concessions, to settle a lawsuit with 12 state attorneys general over its acquisition of WBD, according to NPR.

Ms. Rachel’s political platform:

The children’s edutainment star has been willing to speak out on sociopolitical issues, including the genocide in Palestine, despite being advised to keep quiet, according to The Guardian.

Disney+’s ad-free asterisk:

The streamer’s updated subscriber agreement opens the door to pre-roll and post-roll ads airing on its currently ad-free premium tier, according to Polygon.

California’s AI-generated performer disclosure law:

A new California law requires advertisers to disclose any use of AI-generated performer in video and audio campaigns, according to Bloomberg Law.

Disney’s first CTO:

The House of Mouse has tapped the CEO of character-based AI chat platform Character.AI, Karandeep Anand, to be Disney’s first companywide chief technology officer, according to The New York Times.

Amazon’s Emmy haul:

Following YouTube’s Oscar takeover, Amazon is in talks with the Television Academy to stream the Emmys exclusively on Prime Video, according to The Hollywood Reporter.