Before we begin, let’s establish our ground rules:
- PJ Media is owned by a very big media company — the Salem Media Group — that competes in the same conservative media space as The Daily Wire. It’s perfectly fair for you to take that into consideration, because I’m NOT an unbiased observer. (Even though I’m a self-professed fan of all conservative media and a Daily Wire subscriber.)
- The Daily Wire is privately owned, which means I’m not privy to much of its decision-making processes. It’s entirely possible that my ignorance is clouding my analysis — and if I better-understood the innerworkings of The Daily Wire, its business model would make more sense.
- The Daily Wire brings in $200 million in annual revenue and is valued at over $1 billion. So, despite whatever I say, the company is obviously doing something right. Without question, The Daily Wire is one of the greatest success stories in the entire history of conservative media. It’s a legit industry trailblazer.
But on the other hand, I do work in conservative media, so I’m more than just a tourist: I’m paid to create content that conservative audiences want to consume. As are all my Salem Media colleagues at PJ Media, Townhall, RedState, Twitchy, Hot Air, and Bearing Arms.
And you might’ve noticed, we very rarely write articles about dragons and King Arthur.
Wanna know why? It’s because you don’t want to read that. That’s NOT why you consume conservative media.
You’re here because you support, enjoy, and/or are entertained by conservative sociopolitical content.
But apparently, The Daily Wire thinks otherwise. The company has just released an ambitious, seven-part TV series — with each episode costing millions of dollars — called The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin.
Here’s the trailer:
The production looks amazing. The filming took place across multiple continents, and overseeing all the different sets, actors, and moving parts undoubtedly required oodles of money, management, guidance, and attention.
And probably, for the cost of The Pendragon Cycle, The Daily Wire could’ve:
- Hired Nick Shirley — the 23-year-old conservative YouTuber who broke the Somali fraud story — to be an in-house Daily Wire podcaster.
- Filmed and produced MULTIPLE Matt Walsh documentaries. (Walsh’s hit documentary What Is a Woman? was made on a budget of less than $1 million.)
- Produced and launched a TV adaptation of Rush Limbaugh’s “Rush Revere” book series for kids. (Be perfect for animation.)
- Completed the TV adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, since The Daily Wire only owns the rights for a “few more years.”
- Launched a Daily Wire book publishing subdivision to publicize more conservative content, stories, and talent. (Ben Shapiro’s new book, Lions and Scavengers: The True Story of America (and Her Critics), was released by a Simon & Schuster-owned company.)
- Produced a weekly bio-series of influential conservative thought-leaders: Thomas Sowell, Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Antonin Scalia, Charlie Kirk, etc.
And still had millions of dollars left over!
The Daily Wire’s public face and cofounder, Ben Shapiro, has said one of his company’s goals is to serve as a counterbalance to Disney. That requires a hefty investment in mainstream, apolitical entertainment.
It’s a lofty goal, and I hope it’s successful. A conservative media company that churns out top-tier TV shows, kids’ content, and Hollywood-esque feature films each week would be a wonderful thing. I wouldn’t turn it down.
But that’s not why conservatives subscribe to The Daily Wire!
Maybe one day, it will be. Perhaps a decade from now, The Pendragon series will anchor a (lucrative) Daily Wire film division that landed millions of new Daily Wire subscribers: They came for the Game of Thrones-inspired dragon story; they stayed for Shapiro’s commentary.
I’m not discounting the possibility. The Daily Wire has done remarkably well; it deserves the benefit of the doubt. But I’ve also gotta be honest: From the outside-looking-in, it certainly doesn’t seem like the wisest ROI.
In fact, it’s one of the wackiest, weirdest business models I’ve ever seen.
The biggest mistake entertainment companies make is creating content that pleases ownership — instead of focusing on the desires, demands, and interests of the audience. My suspicion is that someone in The Daily Wire’s ownership was a Pendragon super-fan and pushed very hard for the series.
I’ll bet everyone reading this a Diet Coke: Matt Walsh’s documentaries will draw more eyeballs, gain more mainstream exposure — and do more to land new Daily Wire subscribers — than a story about dragons and magic.
And it’ll do so at a fraction of the cost.
Do you remember 2022’s Terror on the Prairie, starring Gina Carano? (It had a reported budget of $2 million.) Or 2023’s Lady Ballers, starring ex-Daily Wire personality and cofounder Jeremy Boreing? (It had a reported budget of $7 million — with a whopping $1.6 million spent advertising on Facebook and Instagram.)
Nothing against either film. They weren’t bad, and my kids and I enjoyed Lady Ballers. It was a fun, lighthearted popcorn flick.
But we liked Matt Walsh’s documentaries a whole lot more! (And unlike Lady Ballers or Prairie, we watched ‘em more than once.)
In the last half-decade, The Daily Wire has produced about six non-documentary films. Meanwhile, in 2020 alone, Netflix produced over 1,000 original shows, film titles, and movies. And if The Daily Wire wants to be a counterbalance to Disney, it needs to dramatically up its game: In the same half-decade, Disney produced over 20 films for every one Daily Wire film.
The reality is, The Daily Wire doesn’t have the bandwidth or budget to be the next Walt Disney Company.
But the good news is, it doesn’t have to be. What it is — a groundbreaking, ultra-influential conservative media company that excels at podcasts, commentary, and social media-friendly content — is remarkable enough. Doubling down on what works is a helluva lot smarter than chasing the House of Mouse.
Because sometimes, the smartest business strategy of all is simply giving your audience what they want.
That’s the memo: More Walsh. Less Dragons.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First: It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battlelines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
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