Young Turks CEO Cenk Uygur promotes his political news strategy

Uighur Cenk It’s not going to give news consumers what they want.

With the election season approaching its final stretch, the controversial political commentator and CEO/founder of The young turks is so committed to being brutally honest with his views that he openly admits he’s willing to lose viewers rather than do what he sees his traditional rivals doing: toeing partisan lines on both sides of the aisle.

“Because what they want to hear is not necessarily the truth,” Uygur said in the show’s latest episode. Variety podcast “Strictly business.” “So you’ve created a news industry that’s packed with people, whether it’s the mainstream media or social media, everyone is giving the audience what they want.”

Listen to the podcast here:

But the 22-year-old digital news brand, also known as TYT, refuses to pander to its progressive-minded audience.

“No one really understands the truth, and we’re trying to give them the truth, and that alienates people, and it’s a dangerous strategy we have to make the news,” said Uygur, who briefly challenged Joe Biden for the election. 2024. presidential nomination before abandoning his candidacy. “We’re doing something quite different now than almost anyone else online, and it’s so new school it’s almost old school, and it’s costing us audiences.”

That said, TYT has built a sizable audience over its 22 years of existence, dating back to the first wave of original programming that appeared on YouTube. The Alphabet-owned site remains its primary home, but TYT has amassed approximately 27 million subscribers on platforms ranging from TikTok to FAST channels.

Elsewhere in the podcast, Uygur lays out the future of news media and TYT’s role in it, emphasizing the importance of dynamic ad insertion on YouTube. It also analyzes the importance of calling out left-wing and right-wing media for their inaccuracies and biases and of not being influenced by politicians or advertisers.

As for how he sees the upcoming election, Uygur shares his predictions about Kamala Harris’ campaign and the challenges she faced, including her decision to be friendlier to American businesses.

“Strictly business” is VarietyThe weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. A new episode is released every Wednesday and can be downloaded on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and SoundCloud.