Magid at The NAB Show 2026

Our COO Jaime Spencer revealed that the media industry has entered a “context era” where emotional resonance—specifically passion, intention, and efficiency—has superseded scale and traditional journalistic trust as the primary drivers of growth. 

Spencer shared his findings on Sunday, April 19, at the Programming Everywhere conference at The NAB Show in Las Vegas in remarks entitled, “The Omni-Media Landscape: Mapping Reach, Affinity and the Future of Media Monetization.”

Spencer and his team undertook an insights approach akin to Magid’s always-in-field EmotionalDNA dataset, and applied it over Feb-Mar 2026 to the U.S. “Information Media” category – tracking over 150 news brands for over 40 emotional-connection attributes predictive of brand love, against 14 proprietary points of engagement, in speaking with over 2,000 consumers in the initial wave.

The research highlights a massive shift in consumer behavior, with 51% of users now bypassing traditional outlets to use AI as a direct news source, placing immense pressure on legacy page-view models. To survive this hyper-competitive landscape, Spencer argues that media brands must pivot from platform-centric strategies to “people brands” built around central “quarterback” personalities who evoke deep emotional connections, even if those perspectives are polarizing. Ultimately, the findings suggest that monetization in the omnimedia age depends on maximizing revenue per attention hour through radical operational efficiency and workflows that prioritize depth and belief confirmation over broad objective reach.

Click Here for Jaime’s full deep dive into the Omnimedia landscape

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