Mark Stenberg

If you follow, work in, or care about the media industry, make sure to sign up for my free weekly newsletter, On Background. Every Wednesday, subscribers receive a pleasantly readable email stuffed with scoops, original reporting, and emerging trends. preferences.adweek.com/on-background-…

“We have a lot of conversations where we are literally discussing how we can dispose of scale-based thinking,” said cofounder Justin Smith. “You have to ... invent a new playbook, which says that not all clicks are equal.” For @Adweek: adweek.com/media/semafor-…

It aims to accomplish this by focusing on guests and subject matter relevant to executives, as well as incorporating video more deeply into its events business, which generates >50% of overall revenue. It also shifts how the video is sold—no pre-roll or mid-roll. (3/4)

New: Publishers are rushing to bulk up their video offerings, including Semafor. The news outlet has hired Fortune Media's Adam Banicki as its new head of video, and has five new shows currently in development. But its strategy is markedly different from most. (1/4)

Wembanyama decided on the 25% maximum instead of the 30% supermax escalators to $303M, after he and the Spurs went through multiple frameworks. A major decision for the All-NBA star and Defensive Player of the Year entering his fourth season. San Antonio worked in close partnership with Wembanyama and his representatives, offering the full super max and different variations of extensions. But Wembanyama ultimately chose a contract sacrifice rooted in giving him and the organization increased ability to build a sustained title contender around him.

Phia — the buzzy shopping app co-founded by Bill Gates' daughter, Phoebe — is claiming credit for online sales it didn’t actually drive, a Bloomberg investigation found. Read our exclusive story: bloom.bg/4wErGxe 📷️: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

Thanks for the quote, @MarkStenberg3 and @Adweek!

Publishers who once depended on @Google Search for most of their traffic are now considering the unthinkable: blocking Google’s crawler to stop their content from being scraped for both search indexing and AI training without compensation. In this edition of "On Background," ADWEEK's @MarkStenberg3 explains how @Cloudflare plans to default-block “multi-purpose crawlers” on ad-supported pages, pressuring Google to separate discovery from AI training. Read more 👉 adweek.it/4frIJfW

that Atlantic article is way too long, can someone share a 90-second video that hits all the key points

— Finally, I wrote about the nascent trend of websites preparing to opt out of Google Search. Publishers are weighing the drastic move in part because their traffic has declined, but also to force Google to the negotiating table For @Adweek: adweek.com/media/publishe…

— In Quote/Unquote, I spoke with Future plc. chief revenue officer Mike Peralta about how the media company, which owns editorial 130 brands, is reacting to and deploying AI — I rounded up my favorite reads of the week, from The Atlantic, The Cut, Bloomberg, and The NYT ...

In last night's On Background, my weekly media newsletter, I covered: — (SCOOP) YoY traffic declines at Newsweek of ~75%, from 100 million to 23 million, have led to layoffs in its sales, product, rankings, and video teams, as well as the departures of two key executives. ...

I completely understand why publishers would opt out of Google search in 2026, but doing so represents a fundamental reorganization of the web as it's been established. Or, it would be like devolving to the web before Google, when there was great stuff out there nobody could find

News: The union staff at Harper's Magazine are on strike today, after two years negotiating an increase in salary minimums, which are currently $45,000. The union gathered signatures from more than 400 supporters, including Hasan Piker and Sheila Heti. harpersmagazineunion.com

These websites want to strike licensing deals with Google, not abandon it. In doing so, they lose visibility and Google Search degrades in quality, a lose-lose. But the moment marks a key turning point in the lifecycle of the open web. For @Adweek: adweek.com/media/publishe…

A new policy from Cloudflare will soon begin blocking the Google Bot by default in many instances, and beehiiv has taken similar action. USA Today is weighing a full opt-out in the next several months as well. These moves are meant to bring Google to the bargaining table. (4/5)

New: For the last two decades, websites did whatever they could to rank as highly in Google Search as possible. Now, a growing number of media companies are considering the once unthinkable opposite: opting out of Google Search entirely. (1/5)