Every day some 85 million people - most of them kids - show up to play, chat and spend money... more

Some people don’t want to pay for media. But lots of people are paying Jake Sherman and his team at... more

The New York Times faces the same challenges every other news organization faces in 2025. But it’s also in way... more

The Trump 2.0 era is less than three months old. But it’s already creating havoc for journalists and the companies... more

Call it symbiosis. Call it co-dependency. However you want to characterize it, there’s zero debate that Big TV and Big... more

Anyone who makes things thinks they could do it better if they had more. More money, time, headcount, infrastructure. Some of... more

Back when I first started covering the internet, the idea of broadcasting yourself for hours on end seemed like a... more

We had to stop recording this one for a minute, because Matt Belloni got a text. More on that below. Big... more

The most useful class I ever took in college was a media law class, where I learned two things: 1)... more

Everyone knows that video games are giant, fast-growing business that's going to swamp traditional media. Except that's not true: The games... more

A decade ago BuzzFeed was the bleeding edge of digital media, and Serious People thought it was going to be... more

It’s hard to remember now. But just a few years ago, sports betting was illegal in almost all of United... more

I haven’t checked in with Jessica Lessin in some time — and I have to say I picked a pretty... more

TikTok banned itself for less than a day. Now it’s back in the U.S. - despite a law that says... more

Why didn’t Meta’s stock move when Mark Zuckerberg announced his pro-MAGA pivot? Why do big media companies want to dump... more

I’m a lucky man. Whenever I’m baffled by the internet, and social media, I turn to my co-worker Katie Notopoulos,... more

I don’t love a lot of year-end #content . But I do love talking to Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw every year,... more

Newsletters are not a new idea. Yet every few years the media business rediscovers them, anyway — either as a... more

You probably shouldn't know Renee DiResta's name: She's a researcher who studies online bad behavior, not a celebrity. But the... more

Lots of people start media companies using money from rich people. Jason Koebler and his colleagues did it themselves, using... more

Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Bari Weiss all used to work for big mainstream media companies. Now they’re on the... more

One take you may have heard after the election: Democrats need their own Joe Rogan. Taylor Lorenz disagrees. And Lorenz is... more

You want up-to-the minute election analysis? Sorry, not on this episode. But: If you want smart thoughts about politics and media... more

Jon Lovett and his cofounders at Crooked Media are a good story - former Obama aides who started their own... more

Emma Tucker became the Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief in 2023, and she’s been moving fast ever since. For starters, there are... more

What if you could watch shows and movies on a screen, for free, in exchange for watching some ads? In olden... more

What do Donald Trump and the video game industry have to do with each other? Nothing! Yet we’re combining them into... more

The last time I talked to Matt Yglesias, we were co-workers at Vox.com, and Joe Biden had just been elected... more

Mark Zuckerberg, along with most of the men running big tech companies, has spent many years and tons of money... more

YouTube turns 20 next year, which makes it positively ancient by internet standards. Yet the world’s biggest video site is... more

When David Remnick got to the New Yorker in 1998, it was very much a capital M Magazine — it... more

What happens when you mash up media, tech and business? You get a million things to talk about, and that’s... more

Peter Kafka, soon to be formerly of Vox, reviews the year in media with Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw. What did we... more

After a wild series of events, Sam Altman is back as CEO of OpenAI… with more power than ever before.... more

The board of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, ousted CEO Sam Altman on Friday. Since then, the board has appointed... more

SiriusXM makes money by beaming music and talk radio - especially Howard Stern - to your car using satellites and... more

It’s a double shot of media business takes, with conversations about the Walt Disney Corporation and Fox News, with references... more

This week, an episode of the latest season of Land of the Giants: The Twitter Fantasy, hosted by our own... more

When Sam Reich bought CollegeHumor from Barry Diller’s IAC for pennies in January 2020, the comedy site was long past... more

The New York Times issued a rare editors’ note Monday: a mea culpa for a headline repeating unverified claims from... more

The war in Israel and Gaza is hugely complicated - dangerous, horrifying, and moving fast. Which means it’s a huge... more

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is an interconnected series of movies and TV shows that produced four of the top-grossing movies... more

Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) is the person who told you what “cheugy” means, what a “content house” is, and basically anything... more

When Robert Kyncl (@rkyncl) worked at YouTube, he made deals with companies like Warner Music Group. Now, he’s the CEO... more

The Hollywood writers’ strike is over and there’s hope the actors guild and studios will also settle their differences soon.... more

After a historic strike that went on for almost 150 days, the studios and the Writers Guild of America have... more

One of the most powerful people of the 21st century says he’s retiring. Rupert Murdoch, 92, will hand over control... more

Once the domain of the nerdiest of sports fans, these days fantasy football analysis is on primetime TV. Matthew Berry... more

Wait a minute. For a couple of years there - 2020 through 2022 - everyone acted like bitcoin and even... more

Taylor Swift is on one of the most successful concert tours of all time, but what's her secret? Switched on... more

The US and China are in a sort of cold war, and the tech industry is caught in the middle.... more

David Zaslav sent up the white smoke, marking the selection of a new CNN CEO. Mark Thompson comes from The... more

Born at BuzzFeed in 2014, The Try Guys make online videos where they try all sorts of things: earwax extractions,... more

A movie made for peanuts and distributed by a studio far outside the Hollywood system has done better box office... more

This week, a quick update on Disney’s deal to get into sports betting. Then, we’re bringing you an episode of... more

Black Mirror isn’t just a hit TV show: It’s a window into the not-too-distant future. Creator Charlie Brooker (@charltonbrooker) has... more

Joe Biden wants to stop big companies - especially big tech companies - from buying or merging with other companies.... more

This is a very good week to make a Recode Media episode: Hollywood is reeling from two different strikes. Disney... more

We’re one week into the Threads era. How long is that going to last? What does it mean for Twitter,... more

Former head of ESPN John Skipper has produced an ambitious new project. Now he has to figure out how to... more

Comedian Nimesh Patel was grinding it out in the stand-up mines for years with middling success. And then the stage... more

Mosheh Oinounou worked his way up through the TV news ranks and ended up running CBS Evening News. Now he’s... more

For some people that’s a dystopian vision. But for Cristóbal Valenzuela, it’s a mission statement: Valenzuela is the co-founder and... more

After just over a year of questionable leadership and on the heels of an unflattering Atlantic profile, Chris Licht is... more

It’s not just Ron DeSantis: All kinds of candidates are piling into the 2024 presidential race. New York Times national... more

Succession — the HBO drama about a Murdoch-ish family of media moguls — feels authentic thanks, in part, to consultant... more

Live from New York, it’s Upfronts week, where TV networks sell billions of dollars of advertising with glitzy presentations. It’s... more

Ken Jennings won 74 straight episodes of Jeopardy back in 2004. Somehow he’s turned that winning streak into a career,... more

AI is amazing… or terrifying, depending on who you ask. This is a technology that elicits strong, almost existential reactions.... more

It’s our first four-way pod, featuring BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti, Gawker founder Nick Denton, and Semafor founder (and former editor-in-chief... more

Silicon Valley needs a new thing and AI is that new thing: investors are supposed to pour 43 billion dollars... more

AI has captured the imagination of Silicon Valley seemingly overnight. And in all this excitement, it's hard to tell what's... more

Fox News, accused of repeatedly and knowingly spreading lies about Dominion Voting Systems, opted Tuesday to fork over $787 million... more

It’s a TikTok double-header! Vox’s Peter Kafka talks to ‘Chef Reactions,’ the semi-anonymous TikTok star whose hilarious culinary critiques skyrocketed him... more

Endeavor started out as a traditional Hollywood talent agency - CEO Ari Emanuel, famously, was the model for Jeremy Piven’s... more

We’ve had questions about Apple’s new VR headset — supposedly set to debut in June — for some time. Starting... more

Jesse Thorn has been podcasting for so long it was called radio. Over time he turned his career into a... more

First: A Silicon Valley Bank check-in with Dan Primack of Axios. Why, exactly, did so many tech companies (and, um,... more

Mark Zuckerberg wants to build the metaverse. Neal Stephenson created the meta verse three decades ago. The author’s 1992 science fiction... more

De La Soul was legendary for their trail-blazing approach to hip-hop. But in recent years the trio become notable for... more

Veteran business journalist James B. Stewart specializes in getting behind the scenes to tell the stories of rich, powerful, and... more

It used to be that a human would have to write a BuzzFeed quiz about “Which Fictional Artificial Intelligence Are... more

Tech and media companies (including the one that brings you this podcast) are laying off workers left and right. Meanwhile,... more

This week, we bring you an episode of The Cut and The Verge’s latest season of Land of the Giants:... more

Investor Li Jin helped popularize the idea of the Creator Economy — the theory that many people who make stuff... more

The critically-lauded video game The Last of Us is now a critically-lauded HBO series. It's about a global pandemic that... more

For the first time in 3 decades, NFL’s Sunday Ticket - a subscription service that lets viewers watch many but... more

Before we face the reality of 2023, we discuss the state of virtual reality — specifically, the still-unannounced VR/AR headset... more

Recode’s Peter Kafka answers listener questions about Twitter, niche content streaming, print media microtransactions, regional sports networks and more. Peter’s... more