Democracy Dies in Darkness

Mehdi Hasan saw a market for a new kind of media company. So far, so good.

The former MSNBC host’s Substack-based Zeteo has 31,000 paid subscribers and $3 million in annual revenue in just four months

3 min
Mehdi Hasan in New York last year. (Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
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When Mehdi Hasan launched a new publication called Zeteo in April, a few months after his weekly MSNBC show was canceled, the longtime liberal political commentator had no experience as a media executive.

But he perceived a “gap in the market” for an online-first outlet that would be more clear-eyed, honest and forceful in writing about what he sees as Donald Trump’s threat to democracy and a moral catastrophe in Gaza.

So far, so good. Four months in, Zeteo has pulled in 31,000 paid subscribers through the Substack platform, including more than 1,000 at the $500-and-up “founder” level, accounting for about $3 million in annualized revenue.

Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie called Zeteo’s launch “one of the most successful and fastest growing in Substack history.”

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That subscriber count makes Zeteo the fifth most-popular politics publication on Substack, trailing long-established offerings from popular pundits Bari Weiss (the Free Press) and Nate Silver (Silver Bulletin) and outlets like the Bulwark.

“We’re having exciting existential discussions about what do we want to do because we have way more than we thought we would have: We have more content, more subscribers, more attention,” Hasan said in an interview.

Hasan said he met many Zeteo subscribers while attending the Democratic National Convention last month and was also able to win some new customers. “I managed to get a bunch of them to subscribe on their phone,” he added.

In addition to a weekly video show hosted by Hasan, who left MSNBC in January rather than staying on as a commentator, Zeteo offers columns from well-known contributors, newsletters, and podcasts. The publication recently released its first documentary, Israel’s Reel Extremism, that incorporates the perspectives and social media activities of IDF soldiers to tell the story of Israel and Gaza.

Zeteo, which has a full-time staff of nine employees along with a team of 14 well-known contributors, has also brought in about 206,000 unpaid subscribers, Hasan said. On YouTube, more than 370,000 users have subscribed to Zeteo’s page.

“Mehdi has built a new media company that was instantly successful, without institutional support, outside of the usual avenues, and all based on the strength and loyalty of an audience that has grown to trust Mehdi over the years,” McKenzie said.

Hasan said that Zeteo’s subscriber base and audience includes a mix of progressive types as well as the more traditional Democrats who watched his show on MSNBC — “White liberals who are really excited about [Kamala Harris] and don’t want to hear criticism of Democrats” — and were upset that it was taken off the air.

With such a broad audience, “it’s a challenge to provide content that everyone engages with and appreciates,” he said.

Going forward, Hasan said that Zeteo may prioritize live events as a growth area. “We have the audience, we have the resources, and we have the ambitions to really pick what we want to do going forward.”