Axios Media Trends Live: Media executives share the industry's state of play amid changes

NEW YORK – Industry leaders at Axios' inaugural Media Trends Live event on Thursday addressed the forces shaping the future of newsgathering, entertainment and publishing.

Why it matters: The industry is undergoing existential shifts involving how it reaches and retains audiences in the age of AI and amid stark political divisions.

The event was sponsored by People Inc., Pushly and Letterhead.

Here are the key takeaways from the afternoon:

PBS CEO Paula Kerger said she is optimistic about government funding for PBS since it was included in a recent congressional proposal. The House and Senate had voted in July to slash $1.1 billion in funding for public broadcasting.

The Trump administration's FCC is "weaponizing its licensing authority" with pressure and threats against broadcasters, said Anna Gomez, the only Democratic commissioner at the FCC.

Tracee Ellis Ross partnered with Roku on her viral travel show because of the streaming platform's "industry-changing" interface to help promote her beauty brand. "Roku has the technology that no one else has that allows you to actually purchase from your remote," Ross said.

Anna Wintour isn't leaving Vogue anytime soon, but Condé Nast has spent years preparing plans for when she does, Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch said. Wintour will serve as global chief content officer for the fashion magazine as she steps down from day-to-day managing.

The New York Times' executive editor, Joseph Kahn, is confident the paper can win President Trump's $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the media organization. "Well, he's wrong on the facts. He's wrong on the law and we'll fight it, and we'll win," Khan said.

Feed Me is expanding beyond Substack to launch its first podcast, the newsletter's author Emily Sundberg announced.

Shari Redstone, chair and CEO of the Redstone Family Foundation, said news organizations need to be more fact-based, and "people's opinions are getting confused with the facts."

Content from the sponsored View From the Top conversations:

People Inc. CEO Neil Vogel explained the importance of branding as the company emerges from its own rebrand.

• "The only thing we have here that matters is brands," Vogel said, emphasizing how People Inc. has 40 brands in its entirety. "If you deliver on a promise of what a brand means to people, you have something really special. Brands can survive any change in media if you, as the manager of that brand, are ruthlessly unsentimental."

Brendan Ripp, CEO of Pushly, explained how the notification platform is engaging consumers in the AI era.

• "Everything wants to go direct-to-consumer. What's fundamentally changed is AI," Ripp said. "The secret sauce to Pushly is using AI and machine learning to now understand what it is that person, in particular, will want to read and have that notification show up on their device."