Pundit
Brian Morrissey
5 receipts • Tracked since Apr 2026
Founder of The Rebooting; former Digiday president & editor-in-chief.
Affiliations
No firm affiliations on record.
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5 receipts
2023
2 predictions- Feb 22, 2023Called it.““Publishers were complaining about Google and Facebook having a duopoly. Well, be careful what you wish for, because now it’s an oligopoly.””
The characterization of the digital ad market as an oligopoly is validated by Press Gazette's own framing and industry data showing the rise of additional dominant platforms and retailers beyond Google and Facebook by the mid-2020s.
- Feb 22, 2023Called it.““The reality of the publishing industry is that you really cannot have an original content model that is mostly or solely reliant on display advertising revenue.””
The claim that publishers cannot sustainably rely solely on display ad revenue is strongly supported by the documented collapse in print ad revenue and stagnating or insufficient digital ad income for publishers. Most surviving news and magazine publishers have moved toward mixed models.
2022
2 predictions- Jul 21, 2022Called it.““[It’s] hard to believe that a reasonable ad product will cause a massive deterioration of the ad business… Ads+subs is bound to become the default model.””
The prediction that 'Ads+subs is bound to become the default model' is directionally accurate for much of the publisher market. Most successful digital publishers by the mid-2020s combine subscription income with advertising, and examples like The Wall Street Journal, Puck, and Punchbowl align with this structure.
- Jul 21, 2022Called it.““Rebundling is bound to occur with the slow move towards simpler subscription offerings.””
The prediction that rebundling would occur is confirmed by examples like Stratechery's move to bundle products into 'Stratechery Plus' in September 2022, and wider industry trends of subscription-driven media brands consolidating offerings by 2023-2025.
2021
1 prediction- Apr 12, 2021Called it.“The platform-dependence era for publishers is ending. The future is direct relationships — newsletters, subscriptions, events — not chasing Facebook traffic.”
Morrissey called the publisher pivot away from platforms. Facebook traffic to news collapsed 50%+ by 2024; NYT, Atlantic, Bloomberg all leaned hard into subscriptions and events; Substack/Beehiiv newsletter economy boomed.