Photo credit: Evan Dudley, OMA Media Show
The State of the Outdoor Industry Media Report is our annual record of how outdoor media is evolving, described by the very outdoor media doing the work. 2026 marks our third consecutive year putting together the report. What started as a survey to gather feedback on our communications with media has morphed into something bigger and more applicable to the industry at large.
2026 represents our largest respondent pool yet, with data spanning topics from career outlook and sentiment to AI adoption, media revenue models, freelancing economics, story preferences, and more. The data presents a compelling case that the outdoor media landscape is reorganizing, with implications for the entire industry ecosystem, from outlets and media personnel to brand and PR professionals.
Specifically, the survey data surfaced four key trends:
1. The media landscape is decentralizing.
Authority now lives across a wide spectrum of channels, not just a handful of marquee titles.
2. Freelancers are going direct.
More than half of freelance respondents are focused on building their influence and authority, with newsletter platforms like Substack leading the way.
3. Media revenue strategy is banking on brand partnerships.
Outlets are moving from monetizing search traffic to monetizing brand partnerships.
4. Timelines and scope are narrowing.
Editorial calendars are becoming increasingly nimble and fast-paced.
We hope the 2026 State of the Outdoor Industry Media Report is informative and useful. To those who participated, thank you. We sincerely appreciate your time, effort, and honesty. We want to close with something Rachel Cavanaugh shared in her survey response (since we couldn’t agree more):
