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Media’s Strange Bedfellow Era

As legacy companies bleed out and the uneven creator economy spills forth, the behemoths will be increasingly keen to eschew their own talent to partner with the entrepreneurs. A flurry of recent small deals presage the landscape.

Ruthless Podcast
In the great devolution of broadcast television from a primary medium to one downstream of YouTube, everyone gets what they want in this sort of exchange: Fox gets some cheap inventory, and the Ruthless guys have themselves an extra fee. Photo: John Lamparski/Getty Images
Dylan Byers
August 13, 2025

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In mid-July, just days before Fox Sports revealed its new licensing deal with Dave Portnoy and Barstool Sports—a long-overdue response to ESPN’s partnership with Pat McAfee—Fox News announced its own licensing agreement with the podcast Ruthless, a proudly smug, own-the-libs banter show hosted by former G.O.P. operatives and strategists. Financial terms were not disclosed, but it’s all upside for the four co-hosts since, like Portnoy and McAfee, they are really just being asked to keep yapping on camera in exchange for more money and more exposure.