This election cycle relied more heavily on podcasts than a cross-country driver with no passengers—and it’s part of a broader transition that has long-standing media empires struggling to stay relevant, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

You can see it in…the interviews President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris participated in on the campaign trail.

Trump appeared on ~20 podcasts this year, chatting with Logan Paul, Theo Von, Joe Rogan, the boys of Barstool Sports’s Bussin’ With the Boys, and others to connect with younger men. His Rogan episode got a reported 70+ million combined views and listens.
Harris also went the podcast route. She sat down with former NFL player Shannon Sharpe, Brené Brown, and others. Her episode on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy drew 8+ million people.
A lot has changed in not a long time
In 2016, cable news had so much sway that Trump critics partly blamed CNN for his win based on the airtime it gave his rallies. Traditional outlets are still influential—50+ million TV viewers tuned into the June presidential debate—but they’ve lost a lot of juice.

Out with the old: On election night, a collective 21 million cable viewers tuned in to Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, which is a 32% drop from 2020, per WSJ.

In with the new:

In the past month alone, just about half of all people in the US have listened to a podcast, climbing to 60% among the sub-35 crowd, according to Edison Research.
On social media, “news influencers” frequently outperform legacy media outlets—the NYU student/Democratic Party supporter Henry Sisson got 6.7 million views on a TikTok video he posted about Trump’s win. NBC News and CBS News got about half as many eyeballs on similar videos.
It’s unclear how big media can compete…especially since online traffic to news articles is falling: Washington Post social media referrals are down 52% in two years, per Similarweb.—ML

Ackman plans to leave Amsterdam after antisemitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans. Israelis visiting the Dutch capital for a Europa League soccer game Thursday night were assaulted by crowds of young people in violence that was condemned as antisemitic by authorities in the Netherlands, Israel, and throughout Europe. In response to what he called the city’s failure “to protect its tourists and minority populations,” billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said he would seek to terminate the Amsterdam listings of music giant Universal Music Group (whose board he sits on) and his investment fund Pershing Square Holdings from the Euronext exchange.—NF

The golden age of wandering around the mall with your crush is finally returning. A refreshed Barnes & Noble will open 12 new locations this month, which puts the chain on track to hit its goal of 60 planned openings this year.

The bookseller, which was on the verge of bankruptcy just six years ago, is copying the indie bookstore model and ditching its one-size-fits-all attitude to claw its way back to the top.

B&N fall from grace. Amazon crushed Barnes & Noble, which scrambled to try and win back customers by expanding its offerings and sinking $1 billion into a Kindle knockoff. In 2019, a hedge fund bought the chain (often the kiss of death for an ailing retailer), but instead of stripping it for parts, it handed over the reins to British bookstore turnaround legend James Daunt.

In addition to snapping up cheap retail space, Daunt immediately worked to undo everything.
Daunt ended publisher deals that accepted payments for featuring books and let individual locations build displays and organize stores to best fit their communities.
Recent openings: Last week, the chain took over the historic 1919 Noel State Bank building in Chicago, and on Wednesday, it returned to the three-story Georgetown location it closed 13 years ago in Washington, DC.—MM

Elwood Edwards, one of the most famous men you’d never recognize on the street, died this week at the age of 74. Edwards voiced the iconic America Online “You’ve got mail” catchphrase—along with “Welcome,” “File’s done,” and “Goodbye”—for $200 in 1989. He got the job through his wife, who worked in customer service for the internet company, and recorded the greeting in his living room (pre-podcast mic era).

Edwards said in an interview that at first, AOL tried to keep his identity a secret, but it eventually identified him. He spent much of his career in radio and TV and was briefly a weatherman. Edwards was invited to relive his catchphrase glory and say the line on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2015.—MM