Church, Meet State… State, Meet Church

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Church, Meet State… State, Meet Church (April 27, 2026)

BY ROB BEELER

I can remember back in the day when editorial and business teams operated as if they worked for separate companies. I can remember a meeting where I had to explain that we needed to move from 468x60s to 728x90s. (Before you even start, the world wasn’t black and white, and we did drive cars — it wasn’t that long ago.) 

Anyway, I was told “no” by the head of editorial. “Too big,” they said. It was months before we started to redesign the site. I actually kept track of campaigns we couldn’t run because we couldn’t accept the larger ad size. 

Publishers can’t afford such a divide anymore, and yet some sort of divide must remain. In a world of slop, trust is paramount. It is this trust that the editorial must create and the business must sell. 

When I set out to program AI Publisher Response, I knew it would be an event that spanned across every department at a publisher. Look at the agenda, and you’ll see amazing sessions focused on editorial topics, revenue, and their combination. 

The separation of church and state can’t be one of conflict. The two need each other, and it’s time we started acting like it. Publishers, hit reply, and we’ll help you make the case to bring those other departments to the only event focused specifically on publishing’s needed response to AI. We’ll make it worth their while. 

The Above The Fold Quarterly Report came out a couple of weeks ago and the feedback has been great. For the cost of a standard research paper, you get this 44-page report covering 16 distinct publisher topics and including suggested action steps for pubs, partners, and the industry. (Here’s a free sample of the report.)

But because you’re getting the subscription and not just the report, you’ll get weekly updates on what publishers are talking about as well as our exclusive Below the Fold content. 

We’ll cut you a deal to become a subscriber of The Stack to get you started, but only for a limited time:

  • Publishers: Use code 3MONTH29PUB to drop your price to $29/month (usually $49/month) for three months.
  • Everyone else: Use code 3MONTH149NONPUB to drop your price to $149/month (usually $249/month) for three months.

Those promo codes are case sensitive. 

If you’re an In View client, check your inbox. You received a note from me when it was released. 

Navigator NYC is happening next week on May 5, and teams from Hearst, New York Post, Dow Jones, The Weather Company, PGA TOUR, Business Insider, Fandom, Golf.com, Bloomberg Media, Cox Automotive, Farm Journal, Automattic, Mirror Digital, Vox Media, NASCAR, Apartment Therapy, Medialab.ai, The Daily Beast, The New York Times, WebMD, Everyday Health Group, Weatherbug, Tribune, PMC, People, Inc., A+E Global Media, POLITICO, Time Out Group, and many others will be there. 

So, if you want in, this is your last chance to raise your hand for Navigator NYC, because you don’t want to miss out on this agenda:

  • Justin Evans (CEO, TheDataStory Group) will be delivering a powerful keynote on the hidden power of latent data and how to identify your organization’s unique “data kingdom.”
  • Dr. Deborah Gilboa will lead a conversation designed to help you make the most out of our day together. If you saw her back in October at Base.Camp Savannah, you know how powerful a catalyst Dr. G is; and if you haven’t… well, you’ll see this coming May.
  • Mark Howard and Monica Wood (TIME) will lead the unbrand-safe conversation we need to have about brand safety, so we can all benefit from amazing advertising-supported content.
  • Katie Drummond (WIRED) will show us her playbook for not catering to the algorithms, and how that bet paid off big for her team.
  • Ben Hovaness (OMD Worldwide) and Scott Both (Hearst Magazines) will have a joint discussion on the realities of where we are with programmatic right now, and how it actually gets fixed so we have the market we deserve.
  • Neal Thurman (Director, Coalition for Better Ads) will lead a session that looks forward: What do the next Better Ads Standards need to address, who needs to be at the table to write them, and how do you build enforcement mechanisms that keep pace with an industry that moves faster than any standards body can?
  • James Strang (JS Consulting) will help us see how we don’t need to be engineers or engage in six-week implementation tracks to start seeing value from AI in your ad ops workflows right now. He’ll show us the tools we should be looking at, and how to feel confident using them, even if you don’t have a technical background.
  • Rob Beeler will announce the first-ever winners of The Navigator Award! The Navigator Award is for publisher-nominated brands and agencies that support journalism through thoughtful decisions around brand safety and sustainability. Nominations are open! 

Now is the time to look at the full Navigator NYC agenda and raise your hand to join us.

LAST CALL: AI Publisher Response is also next week, the day after Navigator NYC, and we need you to bring your other colleagues in content, legal, leadership, product, innovation, and marketing. Because if publishers want to respond well to AI, everyone needs to be on the same page.

That’s why the AI Publisher Response agenda touches so many different angles of the AI conversation:

  • Christine DiGangi, who runs AI operations for one of the largest digital publishers in the world (People, Inc.) will walk through how to build an AI-enabled editorial operation without crossing the line.
  • Jacob Ward will join Rob Beeler for a fireside conversation on how AI systems are shaping what gets surfaced, what gets read, and what counts as authoritative, and why publishers may be the last institution positioned to defend plural human thought.
  • Ovetta Samspon will argue that the only ground left worth standing on is truth: not as a mission statement, but as a genuine business model.
  • Dr. Cecilia Dones will discuss whether AI is creating new alignment between brands and publishers, including what brands are actually doing with AI and what publishers need to understand about how buying decisions are changing.
  • Jodie Ginsberg will talk about the human cost of telling the truth, grounding the industry’s future in the lived reality of the journalists who report under risk.
  • Grant Whitmore will cover the full range of what AI makes findable: from content produced years ago to audiences you never thought to reach to models you couldn’t have built without it.
  • Daniel Rosenzweig will help us unpack AI governance failures, because those losses are both operational and financial.
  • Lindsay Van Kirk will share People Inc.’s real-world experience blocking bots, including what worked, what broke, and what the data showed once blocking went live.

Teams from The Guardian, POLITICO, Ziff Davis, NASCAR, Tripadvisor, TextNow, The Weather Company, Weatherbug, Mirror Digital, Better Collective, TeamSnap, Stack Overflow, Advance, People Inc., Business Insider, Dow Jones, Hearst, Time Inc, WebMD, Graham Media, New York Post, Thomson Reuters, Cox Automotive, and The New York Times are committed… now, we need you there to help shape these conversations.

👉 If you’re ready to learn more, check out AI Publisher Response, and then raise your hand to join us now. 

Here’s the latest:

  • Pub.Call: Need revenue now? Make Q2 your new Q4
    Publishers don’t have the luxury of waiting for a market rebound, a cleaner AI story, or a perfect internal roadmap. The theme of our recent Pub.Call was much more urgent than that. If revenue is under pressure now, then the work is to find ideas that can be launched in days or weeks, not months, and to make each visit to your site work harder than it does today.
  • ICYMI: What the bots are telling you, with Gavin King, founder of Known Agents (AI Publisher Response Live replay)
    If you’re a publisher trying to figure out what AI is already doing to your business, this conversation gets into one of the more immediate parts of that reality: bots are hitting your site at meaningful scale, and most teams still don’t have a clear picture of which ones matter, which ones are useful, and which ones are just taking. In this episode, Rob Beeler and Gavin King (founder of Known Agents) talk about why that visibility gap matters more than ever now that AI crawlers, scrapers, and assistants are becoming part of the operating environment.
  • 44-Page Above the Fold Q1 2026 Report(Subscribers only)
    Teams are dealing with immediate revenue pressure, unstable traffic patterns, shifting buyer behavior, AI-fueled disruption, and growing demands on already strained operations. That tension is shaping decisions everywhere; in yield strategy, in staffing, in workflows, in audience development, and in the ongoing question of where publishers can still build durable leverage.By Rob Beeler of Beeler.Tech.

Want to get caught up on everything we’ve published? Start here.

Here’s what you need to know this week… 

Yes, Navigator NYC and AI Publisher Response are right around the corner, but Navigator London is returning on June 9, 2026, and the questions driving the agenda are critical:

  • What does AI actually change for publisher operations, revenue teams, and buyer expectations right now?
  • How are publishers protecting and growing revenue as site traffic keeps falling?
  • What does innovation inside publishing look like when budgets are tight and the pressure is immediate?
  • How should publishers think about video, CTV, and other growth areas without chasing every shiny object?
  • As audience behavior and referral patterns change, what has to change in the publisher playbook?
  • What needs to change for programmatic to feel more transparent, efficient, and worth the effort on the publisher side?

June may seem far away, but it will be here before you know it. Raise your hand, and start a conversation with us today.

A full list of our 2026 events we’re involved in, all in one nice little package:

We had two strong dinners in NYC this week. One centered on monetization beyond display. The other focused on agentic advertising and 2026 strategy. The response from attendees has been consistently enthusiastic, which makes me wish I were local. Rob, unsurprisingly, was in his element as moderator. Behind the camera as a photographer, however, was another story. Nobody’s good at everything.

Chicago AdTech Happy Hour – this week!

📅 April 30, 5:00 – 7:00 pm CT

📍 Raised, the rooftop bar at 1 W Wacker D

The next Chicago AdTech happy hour will be April30, 5:00-7:00pm at Raised, the rooftop bar at 1 W Wacker Dr. It is sponsored by Clipcentric and Assertive Yield! If you want to join, please register here!

Cannes 2026 Calendar

Each year The Digital Voice creates a robust Cannes calendar. For those attending, worth a review. Get the Cannes calendar here!

Join the Community!

Thousands of professionals, of all ages, worldwide turn to Beeler.Tech as their meeting place for all things publisher revenue operations. Join the Beeler.Tech Community here! Your teams and colleagues are welcome, too. 

Join the Women’s Space

Our Women’s Space continues to grow, and we’re developing a Code of Conduct for all Beeler.Tech events: something every attendee will agree to, and something we hope the wider industry adopts. The goal is simple: raise the bar on respect and professionalism for everyone. We have a Slack channel and a WhatsApp group. The WhatsApp chat is more active, but you’re welcome in either (or both) if you want to be part of the conversation.

Please reach out to Melissa if you would like to join one or both.

Looking for your next opportunity? Know someone else that is?

Check out our job board. Also – sign up for our Jobs Newsletter (delivered every Thursday). Subscribe here.

Team.Beeler Out

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