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Openwork: Inside the Watch Industry

Openwork: Inside the Watch Industry

Who Pays for Watch Media? – Influencers, Access, and Life After Hodinkee – Episode 96

Oct 5, 2026 · 1h 7m

Coming soon to iPhone. Already have it? “Listen in Starcast” takes you straight there.

On this episode

About this episode

Watch media looks nothing like it did ten years ago. Blake Buettner was one of Hodinkee's early writers, later managing editor at Worn & Wound, and built The Deep Track on his own. He joins Gabe Reilly and Asher Rapkin to talk about how watch journalism got decentralized. A Hodinkee Introducing article used to be enough to sell a watch. Now a launch gets spread across traditional outlets, watch influencers, YouTube creators and celebrity endorsements, and most of it runs through brand PR rather than marketing. We also get into why watch reviewers so rarely write a negative review, and the difference between critique and just being critical. Then there's access. We talk about press trips,…