Against the Odds

Why I'm joining The Contrarians, and what we're building

Today I am joining Adam Schwab and Adir Shiffman as cofounders of The Contrarians, launching the pod as a standalone media business. We’re going to expand the show, investing more in new features and formats, with the ambition to take our already significant reach and become the biggest audio/visual business media brand in Australia.

What a terrible, terrible idea.

Who would want to launch a media company in 2026?

Trust in the media is extraordinarily low. In Edelman’s 2026 Australian Trust Barometer, media remained the least trusted of the four major institutions surveyed, behind business, government and NGOs.

Perhaps as a result, traffic is also at record lows. Half of the top 50 news websites in the US have seen their traffic fall by 20% or more year on year, according to Similarweb. News and information was the worst-performing of any category in April 2026, down 6.2% in a single month. In Australia, almost every major news site is now smaller than it was a year ago.

As a result of the loss of trust and traffic, the numbers look even worse. The Unmade Index, which tracks Australia’s only publicly listed media businesses, was launched four years ago on a nominal 1,000 points. The highest level it has ever reached was the day it launched. It has declined every year since, and in March 2026 it hit a new all-time low of 353.6 points — down 64.6% since day one.

Could there be a worse time to launch a new media company?

As Adir says — success comes from making a contrarian bet, going all in, and being right.

Here are the reasons why I think we are.

What is The Contrarians?

Launched three years ago, The Contrarians started as a reason for two friends to discuss the latest business news, and everything around business that might be impacting it. Fast forward to today, the pod did almost 60,000 downloads in April, with an audience measured in the hundreds of thousands across social.

There are a few different reasons the pod has attracted such a big audience without a single employee, and only a few hours invested in it each week.

The Mega-Trend of Podcasting

It seems clear to me that the platform trend for the 2020s is podcasting plus clips.

Overall podcast consumption keeps surging. According to the most recent Infinite Dial Australia, 52% of Australians now consume audio or video podcasts every month — up from 40% three years earlier. Listenership has grown 16% in the past two years alone. Australia has the highest podcast awareness in the world (91% of the population). And Australians who do listen, listen a lot — an average of seven hours and seven episodes a week.

But this is more than just podcasting. What AirPods did for audio, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok did for short-form video. Measured in terms of total reach, most podcasts today are really just efficient recording sessions for short-form video. The potential reach of those clips can be measured in the millions.

It’s also one of the few formats that is genuinely defensible against AI. The thing eating news traffic — generative search — has no real answer for two hours of conversation between two people that audiences actually want to hear from.

Decline of the Institution

I have written about this before, and I think there is a great deal more to say about it. But the defining trend across all categories over the last decade — sport, politics, and most certainly media — has been the decline of the institution and the rise of the individual.

Many initially thought that the rise of influencers was a lightweight trend confined to a couple of platforms and low attention span teenage brains. But we now have billion-dollar brands shifting real products, launched off the back of one person’s social reach.

And in media, I’d argue almost every interesting “new” media brand over the last few years has been based on well known insider personalities. The Rest is Politics, hosted by a former politician and a former politicians adviser. New Heights, a sports pod hosted by former professional sports players. All-In, hosted by a selection of professional tech investors.

I think this is connected to the overall loss of trust in institutions and the fragmentation of media.

Where mastheads had to win the trust of everyone, or at least one side of the political aisle, media brands built around individuals can reach smaller but deeply loyal audiences. The old rule — leave your personal perspective at the door — is reversed in the podcast/clip/personality media sphere, where audiences want to know exactly what the hosts think. Declaring bias, whether that be to a political party, sports team or the businesses you’re invested in, is better than pretending it doesn’t exist at all.

A Unique Pair

Which brings us to the specifics of The Contrarians. If you agree with me on the above, what is needed to build a successful media company in 2026 is a podcast-driven multimedia brand, hosted by well-known category experts who have strong, informed opinions.

Adam and Adir’s successes speak for themselves. I don’t think anyone who’s listened to the show would question how prepared they are to share their views. And certainly one of the most common bits of feedback I’ve seen is how much the listeners enjoy their rapport and humour.

I would add another point on this, though I’m not sure it’s strictly necessary to reach big audiences. Whether it was their position on Cettire, Atlassian, or WiseTech — or the extraordinarily ill-conceived federal budget — Adam and Adir have (largely) got it right every time. That explains the 60,000. And, for me, it explains why I’ve been so keen to join.

So I don’t think there are many in Australia who fulfil this criteria. In fact, I think Adam and Adir might be the only two.

One more thing

And one final point that it feels disingenuous not to make. Many of the brands in Australia that we’ve seen follow the above trends have been on the progressive side of politics. Lamestream Media. Cheek Media. Ette Media. None of these would claim to be conservative. All would comfortably identify as left of centre.

What we have not had is a more centrist, and certainly fiscally conservative, voice in this format. Whilst I don’t agree with them on everything, like many, I agree with them on many things. I think this is a big part of the success so far, and a big part of the potential.

What next?

First — nothing fundamental will change about the direction of The Contrarians. Adam and Adir are the show, and the show stays the same, though we will be investing more in it. We want to bring more of Australia’s most interesting and informed voices, particularly on business, onto the show.

We will also invest more time in everything around the show.

We will invest more in multimedia. Audio remains the spine, but the growth is in clips. We are putting real production resource into our two key social channels - LinkedIn and YouTube - and particularly into shorter formats that let new audiences find us. The 90 mins episode and the 60-second clip aren’t competitors — they are the same content, distributed sensibly.

We will use Substack as our primary platform. After podcasting, email is the most defensible distribution channel left in media. Owned audience, no algorithmic intermediation, no AI Overview eating your traffic. Substack is where we will build the deeper relationship: a weekly newsletter with our take on the business stories that matter, full show notes, and direct access to the community of listeners the show has already attracted. If you have not already, subscribe below!

We will take the show on the road. Live podcasting is one of the most underpriced parts of the modern media business. The audience is hungry for it, the production cost is comparatively low, and the revenue per attendee is multiples of any digital format. Expect Contrarians live shows in Melbourne, Sydney and beyond in the second half of 2026.

Longer term, there are plenty of options. A broader podcast network. A sponsorship and partnership business that can scale beyond a single show. Original video formats. Conferences. There is no shortage of places we can go. But the focus is on the three above first.

A terrible, terrible idea?

Let’s see how it goes.