OZY (media company)

Ozy (styled OZY) is an international media and entertainment company launched in September 2013 by former CNN and MSNBC news anchor, journalist, and businessman Carlos Watson and Goldman Sachs alumnus Samir Rao.[1][2][3][4] Ozy describes its mission as to help curious people see a broader and a bolder world.[5] Its headquarters is in Mountain View, California, and it also has an office in New York City.

OZY Media
Tagline: Live Curiously
Created by
  • Carlos Watson (co-founder and CEO)
  • Samir Rao (co-founder and COO)
Years2013–present
Films and television
Television series
  • • Black Women OWN the Conversation (OWN)
  • • Defining Moments With OZY (Hulu)
  • • Take On America (PBS)
  • • Breaking Big (Amazon)
  • • Third Rail With OZY (PBS)
  • • The Contenders (PBS, BBC)
Web series
  • • The Carlos Watson Show
  • • Unapologetic
  • • Life, Interrupted
  • • Around the World
Television special(s)
  • • The Time Is Now: Race and Resolution (A&E, History)
  • • Voices Magnified: Locked Up in America (A&E)
  • • The Campaigns That Made History (History)
Audio
Radio program(s)Podcast(s):
  • • When Katty Met Carlos
  • • The Carlos Watson Show
  • • Flashback
  • • The Thread
  • • The Future of X
  • • Ocoee: The Election Day Massacre
  • • Briefly
  • • OZY Confidential
Miscellaneous
FestivalsOZY Fest (New York City)
Newsletters
  • • The Presidential Daily Brief
  • • The Daily Dose
  • • Whiskey in Your Coffee
  • • Sunday Magazine
  • • The Weekender
Subscribers15,000,000
Awards & Recognition
  • • Emmy Awards: Outstanding News Discussion & Analysis, 2020 (winner, Black Women OWN the Conversation)
  • • Webby Awards: Best Podcast Mini-Series, 2019 (nominee, The Thread); Best Social Video Series, 2020 (nominee, Unapologetic)
Official website
ozy.com

As of 2018, Ozy claimed an audience of three million subscribers and a monthly reach of over 40 million.[6] Ozy has branched out since its inception as an online magazine to become a producer of podcasts,[7] Emmy-winning television series[8] and events.[9] Ozy received its first Emmy for a 2019 television show that aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network.[10]

Ozy has major partnerships across its business lines with legacy media industry leaders such as A&E Networks,[11] iHeart Media,[12] the BBC[13] and Live Nation.

The company hosts an annual festival of "music, comedy, food and ideas" called OZY Fest, held in New York City's Central Park; both the 2019 and 2020 events had to be cancelled, first due to a dangerous summer heat wave in 2019, and then due to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.[14][15]

Content

Ozy's digital magazine focuses on profiles of rising stars and trends.[16]

Ozy's daily newsletter produces the Presidential Daily Brief and the Daily Dose.[17] In 2014, the company began a content partnership with the National Geographic Society, which publishes National Geographic.[18] Ozy's own reporting includes its flagship series States of the Nation, with stories from every U.S. state, and Around the World, with stories from all 200 countries.[19]

Ozy produces a daily news podcast based on the Presidential Daily Brief, as well as multiple intermittent feature podcasts, covering topics including history, science and technology.[20] Its podcasts are hosted on the iHeart Media podcast network.[21]

Ozy has also produced a variety of non-fiction television shows for networks including Hulu, Amazon Prime, PBS, BBC Worldwide, A&E and History, largely focused on the bio-documentary, talk-show and town-hall formats,[22] all hosted by Watson, including Emmy-nominated Black Women OWN the Conversation, produced for the Oprah Winfrey Network. The Carlos Watson Show, which airs on YouTube, was named the "fastest-growing talk show in YouTube history" by Good Morning America.[23]

Notable editors include editor-at-large Eugene S. Robinson, lead singer of post-punk band Oxbow; senior writer Sean Braswell, host and executive producer of OZY podcasts The Thread and Flashback, and executive producer of several of OZY's TV shows; senior adviser Jana Bennett, from A+E's History Channel and the BBC; and former managing editor Fay Schlesinger, formerly the youngest and first female Head of News at The Times.[24] Ozy's current deputy editor is Tracy Moran, formerly of USA Today.[25]

History

Ozy was launched as a digital magazine and daily newsletter in September 2013, with a seed round of funding reportedly for $5.3 million in December 2013 backed by Laurene Powell Jobs, founder of Emerson Collective, widow of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs and now majority owner of The Atlantic.[26] Other early investors include Louise Rogers, Ron Conway, Larry Sonsini, David Drummond, and Dan Rosensweig.[27]

In October 2014 Ozy announced that German media giant Axel Springer had invested a $20 million stake in the company.[28] In January 2017 Ozy announced a $10 million Series B round of fundraising, led by Michael Moe's GSV Capital.[29] In November 2019 Ozy announced a Series C round of fundraising of $35 million, led by businessman Marc Lasry.[30]

In 2020 Ozy launched an e-commerce initiative called the OZY Store.[31]

In January 2021, Axios announced that Ozy had reached profitability for the first time in its history, having brought in $50 million in revenue in 2020.[32] It was also revealed that the company had received acquisition offers "from at least two major media companies," which were not named.

Television

In 2016, Ozy's first television series, The Contenders: 16 for '16, aired on PBS.[33] It has since produced three additional series for PBS: Third Rail With OZY,[34] Take On America[35] and Breaking Big,[36] the latter of which has subsequently been aired on Amazon Prime and featured interviews with prominent figures across entertainment, politics and sports including Trevor Noah, Gretchen Carlson, Lee Daniels, Michael Strahan, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Christian Siriano.[37] The season finale featuring the Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Carmen Yulín Cruz, was awarded an Imagen Award for Best Informational Program.[38]

Four-part Black Women OWN the Conversation aired in August and September 2019 on the Oprah Winfrey Network, hosted by Carlos Watson, and won an Emmy Award in the Outstanding News Discussion & Analysis category.[39] The show featured Watson in conversation with an audience of 100 black women — a similar format to previous Ozy show Take On America, which featured audiences with 100 black men, 100 white women, 100 Latino families and 100 Asian-American millennials.[40] Celebrity panelists on Black Women OWN the Conversation included Winnie Harlow, Kym Whitley, Dulcé Sloan, Nicole Byer, Monica Brown, Stacey Abrams, Angelica Ross, Brittney Cooper and Nadine Burke Harris.[41]

In January 2020 Ozy announced a partnership with A+E Networks to co-produce at least two additional television shows,[42] the first of which was a remotely filmed discussion about race relations in America hosted by Watson in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. By September 2020, the number of titles announced under the partnership had grown to five, including two scripted shows, a dating show, and a re-editing of OZY's first TV show, The Contenders, updated for the 2020 election.[43]

In March 2020 a series of bio-documentaries hosted by Watson featuring the stories of individuals who have struggled on their paths to success, premiered on Hulu, called Defining Moments With OZY.[44] Early episodes featured Pose star Dominique Jackson, Paralympian Amy Purdy, hip-hop star Sophia Chang, and first openly gay NBA player Jason Collins, before filming was halted during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Ozy produced a number of remotely-filmed TV specials that have aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network, A&E, HISTORY, Lifetime, Vice TV and FYI.[45]

In July 2020, Ozy announced a new daily talk show airing on the OZY YouTube Channel called The Carlos Watson Show.[46] The show has featured long-form interviews with Terry Crews, Andrew Yang, Sean Spicer, Tina Knowles-Lawson, Tomi Lahren, Grant Hill, Baker Mayfield, George Lopez, Malcolm Gladwell and Karamo Brown, among others.

Ozy co-founder and CEO Carlos Watson during an interview with former President Bill Clinton for Ozy in 2014.

Podcasts

In September 2017, Ozy launched its first podcast, history show The Thread[47] hosted by Ozy's Sean Braswell, which was featured as one of the 25 best podcasts of 2017 by The Guardian.[48] Braswell is also the host of Flashback, another history podcast from Ozy launched in May 2020, which peaked at number three in the Apple Podcast history charts.[49]

In 2019, Ozy launched two seasons of science and technology podcast The Future of X,[50] with rotating hosts including Carlos Watson and Fay Schlesinger, as well as OZY Confidential, a podcast hosted by Eugene S. Robinson featuring a series of personal interviews with "everyone from a world-renowned Nietzsche scholar who left behind a Ph.D. for life as a crack whore, to Boston Irish Mafia’s Kevin Weeks".[51]

In 2020, Ozy and iHeart Media announced a partnership to co-produce and promote a slate of original podcasts to be distributed through the iHeart Podcast Network.[52]

In 2020, Ozy launched When Katty Met Carlos, a co-produced podcast with the BBC World Service, hosted by Watson and the BBC's Katty Kay.[53]

OZY Fest
Actress Rose McGowan speaking at OZY Fest 2018.

In 2016 Ozy launched a live event dubbed "OZY Fest", which until 2018 was held in Rumsey Playfield at Central Park in New York City, described as a "one-of-a-kind extravaganza of music, comedy, food and ideas".[54] The name of OZY Fest sparked a lawsuit from Ozzy Osbourne's Ozzfest in 2017.[55] OZY Fest has featured performances and discussions with notable figures including Wyclef Jean, Isse Rae, Cory Booker and Will.i.am in 2016;[56] Katie Couric, Jason Derulo, Zara Larsson, Samantha Bee and RuPaul in 2017;[57] and Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Handler, Hasan Minhaj, Michelle Wolf, Young the Giant, Passion Pit, Grouplove, Common, Laverne Cox, Salman Rushdie, Rose McGowan and Awkwafina in 2018.[58] Journalist and writer Malcolm Gladwell has appeared at all three OZY Fest events.

In 2019, Ozy announced that OZY Fest 2019 would be held on Central Park's Great Lawn[59] and would feature John Legend, Miguel, Tove Lo, Trevor Noah, Mark Cuban, Malcolm Gladwell, Jameela Jamil, Spike Lee, Deepak Chopra, Beto O'Rourke, John Kasich, Stacey Abrams, Rachael Ray and Padma Lakshmi.[60] The event was to be co-hosted by former baseball player Alex Rodriguez, as well as Ozy's Carlos Watson.[61] Two days in advance of the festival, Ozy announced that Saturday tickets were sold out. However, OZY Fest 2019 was canceled due to a heat wave on the weekend that it was supposed to be held.[62]

OZY Fest 2020 was due to feature Miguel, Karamo, Andrew Yang, Dulcé Sloan, Tig Notaro, Tan France, Baker Mayfield, Chelsea Clinton, Gloria Steinem, Trae Young and more,[63] but was postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reception

In 2018, Forbes described Ozy's journalism as "a non-traditional approach to delivering news that matters to multicultural millennials."[64]

Popular leftist podcast Chapo Trap House dedicated a segment of their 230th episode to Ozy.[65] During the episode the hosts strongly criticized the company, referring to it as "the Phish of news" and "MSNBC live". In addition, the hosts criticized the company's reading of the Percy Shelley poem "Ozymandias" as incorrect.

OZY Fest 2018 was also criticized as a "neoliberal nightmare" by Rolling Stone,[66] a "sizzling hot festival for folks who love Coachella and neoliberalism"[67] by GQ, and "a progressive alternate reality" by The Washington Post.[68]

References
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  2. Shontell, Alyson (September 16, 2013). "Former MSNBC Anchor Launches Ozy, A Fresh News Site With Money From Laurene Powell Jobs". BusinessInsider.com. Retrieved March 15, 2017.
  3. Ariens, Chris (September 16, 2013). "The WebNewser Ticker: Watson & OZY, Baier & Bing, 'Stars' & Facebook". MediaBistro.com. Retrieved March 15, 2017.
  4. Spangler, Todd, "Digital News Startup Ozy Media Raises $10 Million to Expand Video Team, Hire More Journalists", Variety, January 24, 2017.
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  10. "NOMINEES ANNOUNCED FOR THE 41ST ANNUAL NEWS & DOCUMENTARY EMMY® AWARDS – The Emmys". theemmys.tv. Retrieved August 18, 2020.
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