The Hex Update: Issue 015

the hex update
media
Audio listening trends; Americans’ complicated relationship with news; Netflix and Hollywood
Author

Collin K. Berke, Ph.D.

Published

February 23, 2026

Let’s catch up

Folks, welcome to Issue 015. A little behind on last week’s update, but here you go.

Three topics recently caught my attention:

  • Audio listening trends
  • A report detailing Americans’ complicated relationship with news
  • A podcast episode on Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Brothers

For a bit of fun, I share an article synthesizing and showing the impact daily rituals have on our everyday lives.

Let’s get into it.

Three things

Here’s what caught my attention this week:

Report: Americans’ Complicated Relationship With News

This report explores data about and attempts to untangle Americans’ complicated relationship with news. To do this, it provides survey and focus group results from U.S. adults. The report presented findings across several topic areas. These included: news fatigue; the role news plays in people’s civic participation; news access; views on people’s ability to verify the accuracy of information within news; seeking vs bumping into news; and whether or not Americans’ are tuning out the news. The report contains several key points and additional reporting on each point. As such, this summary includes only a few points that caught my attention. However, the whole report is worth a read.

According to the report, many Americans feel exhausted by the news. Over 50% of U.S. adults say they are warn out by the news. Much of this fatigue is attributed to the volume of news. As such, two-thirds of Americans’ are reported to have stopped getting news from a specific source. The report goes further. It states over a third of Americans say news consumption doesn’t help in daily decision making. Indeed, these results are likely related to the following finding in the report:

Only 8% of Americans say people in the U.S. have a responsibility to pay for news, and most do not pay for it themselves.

Despite these results, half of U.S. adults believe news consumption is rising.

Why does this matter?

These are all points media organizations should be considering, especially if they produce news. It’s clear that news fatigue is a real, lived experience for many people in the U.S. This likely is translating into news avoidance and negative perceptions towards paying for news. In truth, this report is worth a full read-through. I was only able to overview a few of the points I found to be interesting in the above summary. There’s also deeper-dives into each of these topics in the full report.

Podcast: Netflix is eating Hollywood–because it has to

Here’s an interesting podcast episode breaking down Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery. The episode contains some relevant discussion about current media business strategy. The topics covered include: streaming library acquisition; the economics of content production; the value of data for streaming platforms; the role of AI in media organization’s offerings; and some questions about the role of quality in an AI era.

Here are some points I flagged for a re-listen:

  • The strategy around paying big dollar amounts for IP when some of the biggest disruptors in the media space pay $0 for content. 05M07S
  • Content libraries are hard to generate with limited amounts of time and even much more so when competing with platforms who have speed due to user generated content. 10M40S
  • The economics aren’t there for streaming services to create hit shows because the model for long-term advertising dollars are not available. 10M07S
  • Large volumes of data is what creates value (i.e., improves targetted ads), but you need audience on these platforms to generate enough data. 31M02S
  • There was some discussion about the role AI plays and what audiences find valuable: well-crafted things from the past. There’s no evidence yet that all this technology will create well-crafted things in the future. 43M07S
  • Does quality matter or is it just about scale? If these are differentiators then what do media organizations focus on? Reduced quality for scale or be super-premium content requiring higher subscription prices? 45M06S

Why does this matter?

Aside from the acquisition deal being discussed, this episode contained some interesting conversation about current strategy for media organizations. The topic of content economics seemed to be an area worth additional focus, especially in terms of maximizing engagement while also balancing the realities of the media industry. This includes balancing quality, competing with platforms that spend very little for content, and legacy funding models to create hit series. Quality vs. scale is something else to consider. Both can be a differentiator, but it seems doing both results in limited effectiveness in terms of business strategy.

Just for fun

Article: The surprising power of daily rituals

I bumped into this article from 2021, and it was a synthesis of the role daily rituals play in our lives. It was interesting to learn more about their impact, even for the mundane ones we do every day. It was also powerful to hear that rituals are useful in terms of reducing uncertainty, even if they don’t necessarily have a practical purpose. Reading it made me reflect on some of my daily rituals, which I found to be a helpful exercise. Maybe you will to.

Here’s to a great start to the week.

Cheers 🎉!

Let’s connect

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Citation

BibTeX citation:
@misc{berke2026,
  author = {Berke, Collin K},
  title = {The {Hex} {Update:} {Issue} 015},
  date = {2026-02-23},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Berke, Collin K. 2026. “The Hex Update: Issue 015.” February 23, 2026.