Should Mark Cuban Buy MSNBC and Let Meidas Run It?

Written by Ben Meiselas

I’ve been seeing many viral posts on BlueSky calling for a billionaire like Mark Cuban to buy MSNBC and have MeidasTouch run it—or for a billionaire like Cuban to invest in MeidasTouch, providing us with the capital needed to acquire a major cable media network. Here’s an example of one such post:

First, I want to say that I appreciate posts like this because they show how much the MeidasTouch community engages with our news reporting. Second, I want to say that I really like Mark Cuban. As far as billionaires go, Cuban has clearly demonstrated that he cares deeply about our country and is not solely driven by increasing his wealth. I think Cuban is a great patriot and a great American.

I have mixed feelings about the idea of having a billionaire invest in us or acquiring a legacy media property and putting us in charge. I’d love your feedback on this. MeidasTouch has grown with zero outside investors. We’ve taken on no debt and are funded entirely by this Substack and pro-democracy advertisers. When approached by investors in the past, we’ve turned them down. Our only stakeholders are you, our audience.

I don’t love the idea of having our content watered down in any way, and I don’t like the thought of reporting to someone other than our community.

We’ve built this network brick by brick without outside investors, and we continue to grow. Even though Fox News earns $14.92 billion in revenue each year, MeidasTouch beat Fox in digital views on YouTube for three months in a row—August, September, and October. Meidas was the most-viewed YouTube channel in America across all categories in some months. And again, we did this without a single billionaire investor—or any investor at all.

On the other hand, MeidasTouch doesn’t have the resources to acquire MSNBC, CNN, or a major news network on its own. If we could acquire a network like MSNBC, we’d be able to get our content in front of more people. Competing with Fox News on TV—not just digitally—could be a game-changer. I’m confident our ratings would rival or even exceed Fox’s because of the strength of the Meidas Mighty community. Competing on terrestrial media could be an effective way to counter the propaganda out there.

I don’t know.

To be clear, I’m not in any active discussions to acquire MSNBC, nor am I in discussions with Mark Cuban. I’m not even sure what MSNBC’s process for selling would look like, or if acquiring a terrestrial media property makes sense when everything is shifting digital. The purpose of this post is simply to respond to the viral social media posts tagging me, share my current thinking, and, most importantly, get your honest feedback.

What do you think? I genuinely want to know.

For now, MeidasTouch has zero outside investors. We’re lean, and we compete with the major networks. My favorite book as a child—a book I now read to my little girl, Ximena—was The Little Engine That Could. That’s how I think about MeidasTouch: I think I can… I think I can… chugga chugga choo choo!

If you’re able, becoming a paid subscriber to this Substack goes a long way toward fueling this “little engine that could” we call the MeidasTouch Network.

I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.