We love a good fight, especially when it’s between insufferable podcaster Steven Crowder and The Daily Wire dragging each other through the mud.
But this particular fight which centers around a $50M contract, is more than a highly entertaining contract dispute. It shows us the weakness of the entire disinformation economy.
You see, The Daily Wire offered Crowder $50M over four years, with one catch: Crowder’s earnings would be adjusted if his show is de-platformed or loses 50 percent of its advertising revenue.
Crowder found this offensive. His schtick is being loud and depraved, pushing racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic narratives. How is it his problem if he loses advertisers because he wonders out loud whether trans people should exist? Or whether your doctor is trying to kill you with a vaccine? And why should The Daily Wire get to control what he gets to say?
Well, the answer is that he could bring their whole business down.
The Daily Wire has built its extremely lucrative business on shocking content. They could afford to offer Crowder a $50M contract to begin with because they generate an eye-watering amount of advertising revenue every year.
If Crowder cooperates, he could help them multiply their revenues. But if he goes too far, The Daily Wire will get kicked off the ad exchanges. And that would be the end of the gravy train for all of them.
The Daily Wire understands the business they’re in. They know how quickly the rug can be pulled out from underneath them, especially as advertisers are on heightened alert for being called out on their association with hate and bigotry.
Check My Ads has turned this into a playbook, and we have spurred the advertiser exodus from Steve Bannon’s War Room, The Dan Bongino Show, The Charlie Kirk Show, and more.
Last year, Warby Parker publicly dumped Daily Wire within hours of when Check My Ads caught their logo next to one of its incendiary headlines. And when one big brand drops a toxic outlet, more usually follow.
At least they see what’s coming. Shapiro tweeted his two cents: “If your show loses money, you lose money. This is how Capitalism works.”
