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US international media and entertainment company

Ozy Media (styled as OZY) was an American media and entertainment company founded in 2012 by journalist Carlos Watson.[1][2] Headquartered in Mountain View, California, the company launched publicly in September 2013 together with Samir Rao.[3][4] The company publishes digital news and culture content and produces television shows, podcasts, newsletters, awards programs, and live events. Its stated mission is to spotlight “the new and the next.”[5][6][7]

Between 2012 and 2023, OZY produced more than a dozen television series, ten podcasts, multiple newsletters, and national festivals.[8] The Late Show with Stephen Colbert credited the platform with providing early coverage of figures such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Trevor Noah, Dua Lipa, Amanda Gorman, and Issa Rae.[9]

In September 2021, a New York Times article raised questions about the company’s business practices,[10] leading to significant media scrutiny. OZY’s board announced it would cease operations in October 2021, but Watson reversed the decision days later.[11] Federal investigations followed, and in February 2023, three executives were charged with fraud; OZY ceased operations on March 1, 2023.[12]

OZY Media was founded in 2012 by former CNN and MSNBC anchor Carlos Watson and publicly launched in 2013, together with Samir Rao.[13][14] The company was headquartered in Mountain View, California, with an additional office in New York City.[15] Watson founded OZY with the stated goal of offering an alternative to mainstream media, targeting what he called the ‘Change Generation’ with coverage of under-covered stories, global trends, and emerging leaders.[16] The company promoted itself as spotlighting rising figures before they gained wider recognition.[17] Early team members included Suzee Han, Sean Braswell, Nancy King, and Samir Rao.[18] The company launched publicly in September 2013 as a daily digital magazine and newsletter.[19]

OZY was launched as a digital magazine and daily newsletter in September 2013. The company raised a $5.3 million seed round of funding in December 2013 backed by Laurene Powell Jobs, founder of Emerson Collective.[20] Additional early investors included Axel Springer,[21] GSV Capital,[22] and Ron Conway.[23] Powell Jobs became a board member.[24]

In October 2014, OZY announced that German media giant Axel Springer had invested $20 million in the company.[25] In January 2017, Ozy announced a $10 million Series B round of fundraising, led by GSV Capital.[26] In November 2019 OZY announced a Series C round of $35 million, led by businessman Marc Lasry.[27] Ozy also received funding from the Ford Foundation.[28]

Throughout this period, OZY expanded into a multi-platform media organization, producing newsletters, longform digital features, video series, television programs, podcasts, national festivals, and awards programs.[29] Peak internal valuations cited in investor materials and media reporting exceeded $2 billion.[30]

In January 2021, Watson stated that the company had reached profitability for the first time, reporting $50 million in revenue for 2020, though some media outlets disputed these claims.[31][32] The company also disclosed that it had received acquisition offers from unnamed media companies.[31]

Following the fraud revelations in September 2021, several advertising partners ended their relationships with the company. WPP’s GroupM, which handles media buying for clients including Ford Motor, Unilever, and IBM, terminated its agreement with OZY Media.[33]

From OZY’s launch in September 2013 until the summer of 2014, Watson (or sometimes authors of recent articles in OZY) appeared in a weekly installment of NPR‘s All Things Considered called “The New and the Next,” in which he would lay forth on “People, places and trends on the horizon” appearing in OZY articles.[34]

In 2014, the company announced a content syndication partnership with National Geographic.[35] In 2015, OZY had a newsletter partnership with The New York Times and Wired. Ozy claimed that these partnerships helped the company secure a number of new newsletter subscribers.[36] However, former employees later alleged that the company misrepresented the scope and success of these partnerships.[37][38]

In 2018, Ozy announced a multiyear partnership with iHeartMedia to co-produce podcasts and feature Ozy content on iHeartMedia’s morning shows across 150 U.S. markets. [39]

In 2019, Ozy produced a television show that aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network and won an Emmy for Outstanding News Discussion and Analysis.[40] That same year, the company produced a show for PBS that won an Imagen award for Best Informational Program.[41]

By 2020, Ozy’s early identification of talent was highlighted when Amanda Gorman, a 2017 OZY Genius Award recipient, delivered a poem at the U.S. presidential inauguration in January 2021.[42]

In 2021, the company co-created a podcast with the BBC.[43] It had 33 episodes, the last of which aired in April 2021.[44] Ozy also partnered with Lifetime, The History Channel, and with the History Channel’s channel’s parent company A&E Networks.[45]

In March 2021, OZY announced a multi-year partnership with Dentsu focused on millennial and Gen Z consumers,[46]
a well as securing advertising partnership with WPP.[47]

Products and Programming

[edit]

Alternate Ozy logo related to some of their endeavors, a “ZY” enclosed in an “O”

Newsletter and Digital

[edit]

OZY launched multiple daily and weekly newsletters, including the Presidential Daily Brief (a morning global news briefing), Daily Dose (culture, ideas, and trends), and The Sunday Magazine (longform weekend features).[48] These newsletters reached millions of subscribers at their peak.[49]

OZY’s digital magazine focused on profiles of rising stars and emerging trends.[50][51] The company instructed reporters to cover topics not already featured by mainstream media outlets, resulting in coverage of niche subjects.[50][51]

In 2017, OZY reporters visited all 50 U.S. states for a project called “States of the Nation.” The year after that, OZY produced a series called “Around the World” in which they committed to report on three stories in every country. CNN reported that both series were largely delivered as promised.[52][53]

OZY produced over a dozen television and streaming series. In 2016, its first television series, The Contenders: 16 for ’16, aired on PBS.[59] The company later produced three additional series for PBS: The Third Rail with OZY, Breaking Big, and Take on America. Breaking Big won the 2019 Imagen Award for Best Informational Program.[54][55][56][57][58][59]

The four-part show Black Women OWN the Conversation aired in August and September 2019 on the Oprah Winfrey Network. The episode “Motherhood” won the Outstanding News Discussion and Analysis award at the 41st News & Documentary Emmy Awards in 2020.[60][61] The show featured conversations with an audience of 100 black women.[62]

In January 2020, OZY announced a partnership with A&E Networks to co-produce additional television shows.[63] By September 2020, the number of titles announced under the partnership had grown to five, including Voices Magnified and Race and Resolution,[64] a dating show, and a re-editing of the company’s first TV show, The Contenders, updated for the 2020 election.[45]

In July 2020, OZY announced The Carlos Watson Show, a daily talk show hosted by Watson featuring long-form interviews conducted via video call. The show premiered on YouTube in August 2020 and aired over 200 episodes across three seasons, later expanding to Amazon Prime Video in August 2021.[65][66] Guests included Bill Gates, Hillary Clinton, Anthony Fauci, and Matthew McConaughey. An accompanying podcast was distributed through the iHeart Radio Podcast Network.[67]

OZY produced several podcasts, beginning with history podcast The Thread in 2017,[68] an episode of which was featured as one of the 25 best podcasts of 2017 by The Guardian.[69] The company also produced a science and technology podcast The Future of X,[70] and OZY Confidential, an interview podcast.[71] as well as Flashback, a history podcast exploring unintended consequences of past events,[72] and When Katty Met Carlos, a BBC World Service co-production on American politics and society hosted by BBC journalist Katty Kay.[73]

Hillary Clinton
Actress Rose McGowan speaking at Ozy Fest 2018.

In 2016, OZY launched OZY Fest, a live festival blending music, ideas, comedy, politics, and food. Until 2018, it was held in Rumsey Playfield at Central Park in New York City.[74] CNBC described it as “New York’s answer to SXSW.”[75] The festival featured appearances from Malcolm Gladwell, will.i.am, Issa Rae, Katie Couric, Vice President Joe Biden, Samantha Bee, Hillary Clinton (interviewed by Laurene Powell Jobs), Hasan Minhaj, Mark Cuban, and Salman Rushdie.[76][77][78][79][80]

The name of OZY Fest sparked a trademark lawsuit from Ozzy Osbourne’s Ozzfest in 2017, which was dismissed.[81]

However, from the CNBC article I found, it appears the Ozzfest lawsuit was settled in 2018, not dismissed. Sharon Osbourne said they paid around $300,000 in legal fees and Watson agreed to restrictions on what artists could appear at OZY Fest. Do you want me to search for more details on the actual court outcome?Claude is AI and can make mistakes. Please double-check responses.

In 2021, OZY Fest aired a two-day virtual event to raise funds for the United Negro College Fund, featuring guests including Condoleezza Rice and Malcolm Gladwell.[82][83]

Founded with PBS, the OZY Genius Awards provided funding and mentorship to college students pursuing breakthrough ideas since 2015, awarding recipients $10,000 to pursue a “genius idea.”[84][85] Among the 2017 winners was poet Amanda Gorman, who read The Hill We Climb at the inauguration of Joe Biden in 2021.[86]

At its September 2013 launch, Digiday described OZY as “a bet on serious journalism for millennials,” noting its backing from Silicon Valley investors including Laurene Powell Jobs and Ron Conway, and its focus on longer-form content compared to other digital startups.[87] From its launch until summer 2014, OZY founder Carlos Watson appeared in a weekly segment on NPR‘s All Things Considered called “The New and the Next,” discussing emerging trends and figures.[88] In 2015, Fortune described OZY as “the new media magnet for the news hungry,” noting its focus on in-depth journalism aimed at millennial readers.[89]

OZY’s editorial approach focused on profiling emerging figures, including politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whom the publication featured a month before her upset primary victory in June 2018.[90]

2021 Controversies and Closure

[edit]

On September 26, 2021, the New York Times reported that Samir Rao, COO and a co-founder of the company, had impersonated a YouTube executive on a conference call with Goldman Sachs in an attempt to secure a $40 million investment.[24] Goldman Sachs contacted Google, YouTube’s parent company, confirmed that no YouTube executives participated in the call, and did not proceed with the investment. Google referred the matter to federal law enforcement.[24] The Times report also discussed inflated traffic numbers, which BuzzFeed had reported on in 2017.[91][24]
Following the report, Ozy’s board asked Rao to take a leave of absence and engaged Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to review the company’s business practices.[92] A number of prominent people and organizations quickly distanced themselves from OZY: journalist Katty Kay resigned after three months; SV Angel announced it would surrender its shares; A&E canceled a documentary it had produced with Ozy; and chairman Marc Lasry resigned after three weeks.[93][94][95]
Watson had also made false claims about investors. In a 2019 CNBC interview, he stated that Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne had become investors after settling a trademark lawsuit over the OZY Fest name. Sharon Osbourne denied this, stating she had declined shares Watson offered during the settlement.[96]
On October 1, 2021, Watson resigned from the NPR board immediately before a governance committee was to meet to determine his future.[97] The same day, the board announced the company’s closure and a majority of the staff were laid off.[98]

On October 4, 2021, Watson announced on NBC‘s Today that OZY would reopen, calling it “our Lazarus moment.”[99] The next day, LifeLine Legacy Holdings filed a lawsuit claiming OZY “engaged in fraudulent, deceptive and illegal conduct”; the suit was dismissed in June 2022.[100][101]
Early investor Ron Conway criticized the relaunch and surrendered his shares. He hired Wilson Sonsini to represent ex-employees; a severance settlement was reached in late November 2021.[102][103] In November 2021, it was reported that the Justice Department and the SEC had opened investigations into the company.[104]

Charges and second closure

[edit]

On February 23, 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that multiple Ozy executives had been charged with fraud. Samir Rao pleaded guilty to fraud charges in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Suzee Han, Ozy’s former chief of staff, pleaded guilty to fraud conspiracy charges, telling a magistrate judge that she falsified financial information at the direction of two executives. Carlos Watson was arrested and pleaded not guilty.[105] On March 1, 2023, Ozy suspended operations.[106]

Conviction and Clemency

[edit]

On July 16, 2024, a federal jury in Brooklyn, New York convicted Ozy Media and Carlos Watson of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Rao and Han had pleaded guilty and testified for the prosecution.[107][108] In December 2024, Watson was sentenced to 116 months in prison and ordered to pay nearly $96 million in restitution and forfeiture.[109]
On March 28, 2025, hours before Watson was due to surrender to federal prison, President Donald Trump commuted his sentence. Trump also commuted Ozy Media’s sentence of one year of probation.[110] In September 2025, the SEC dismissed its civil fraud case against both Watson and Ozy Media.[111][112]

Commentary and criticism

[edit]

The case attracted commentary from various sources. David Robinson, a professor at Duke University, published an analysis critical of aspects of the proceedings.[113] Brian O’Connor of the Bay State Banner wrote legal analysis examining alleged inequities surrounding the trial.[114] Filmmaker Candice Conley released The Troubling Case of Carlos Watson (2024–2025), a documentary that raises questions about the proceedings, including allegations of undisclosed financial ties between Judge Komitee and some of the victims.[115]
The reporting that initiated the scandal also drew scrutiny. Slate and FAIR raised questions about potential conflicts of interest involving New York Times reporter Ben Smith, who broke the original story, noting his financial ties to competitors in the digital media space.[116][117]

OZY was headquartered in Mountain View, California, with an additional office in New York City.[118] At its peak, the company employed roughly 75 people to create articles, videos, podcasts, and newsletters.[119]
Axios described OZY as one of the few U.S. digital media companies that was founded and run by a person of color.[120] CEO Watson said, “More than half of our company is people of color, more than half of our leadership team is female.”[31] The Ford Foundation, seeking to support a minority-led company, provided grants to OZY.[121]
Early investors included Laurene Powell Jobs‘ Emerson Collective, venture capitalist Ron Conway, Google chief legal officer David Drummond, Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig, and attorney Larry Sonsini of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.[122] Powell Jobs served on the board until 2017.[123] German media giant Axel Springer invested $20 million in 2014, and Marc Lasry led a $35 million Series C round in 2019.[31]

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