The phrase can be interpreted to mean that - without original and desirable content, or consideration for the rights and commercial interests of content creators - any media venture is likely to fail through lack of appealing content, regardless of other design factors.
Content can mean any creative work, such as text, graphics, images or video.
"Content is King" is a current meme when organizing or building a website^[4] (although Andrew Odlyzko in "Content is Not King" argues otherwise). Text content is particularly important for search engine placement. Without original text content, most search engines will be unable to match search terms to the content of a site.