How Media Actually Makes Money | Blake Saunders

In today’s Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Blake Saunders, founder and managing director at Core Advisors (an investment bank focused on media) and founder of The Joint, to go deep on how media companies actually make money — and how that's changing fast.

If you're anywhere near advertising, media, or content monetization, this one's a masterclass.

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LINKS:

Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsN

Guest: linkedin.com/in/blakesaunders

Company: https://coreadvs.com/

CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/

Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com

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TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Cold Open and Intro

1:17 Welcome Back: Meet Blake Saunders

3:11 What Does "Media" Even Mean Today?

3:24 AI and LLMs

6:13 How Media Companies Make Money

7:32 Subscriptions vs. Ads vs. Events

8:54 Why Events Are the Riskiest Ad Dollar

9:48 B2B vs. B2C

14:25 Why Advertising Gets Such a Bad Rap

17:58 The Hulu Paradox

20:50 Built to Hold vs. Built to Sell

27:10 Content Decay and the Monetization Mismatch

29:08 Are IP Libraries Becoming Valuable

34:39 How Big-Name Podcast Deals Get Structured

37:50 Bundling, Unbundling, and Subscription Fatigue

39:08 The Bending Spoons Trade

40:20 Inside a Private Equity Value Creation Plan

41:56 The Content-to-Commerce Playbook

44:50 How Narrative-Driven Is Media M&A?

46:49 7 Moments a Deal Feels Dead

49:00 Farewell