The media business is now explicitly becoming something that it has long implicitly been: a loss leader, according to Cory Corrine, founder of the AI and media podcast The Intersect.
“Media has value in that other kinds of businesses want to be associated with it, but it is no longer a growth vehicle,” Corrine said. “In media, the I in ROI stands for influence.”
Indeed, more than many, the transformation of Outside Interactive reflects the high cost of survival in the current media landscape. Many of the editorial titles that once made up its businesses have been shuttered or dramatically reduced. According to The Colorado Sun, every employee at Outside Magazine who was there before the acquisition has been shed.
The transformation has been painful, but the alternative for many of these independent media brands was irrelevance or, more likely, closure, according to Morrissey.
“The marketplace has not provided a viable path for these assets to be sustainable as standalone operations,” Morrissey said. “That is the reality. This is not a time for nostalgia.”
Talking Heds
Day One Mark: I joined Day One FM, the in-house podcast at the Day One Agency, to chat all things Super Bowl. We also touched on prediction markets, declining trust in media, and, most importantly, the best book I read last year. This was really fun—have a listen here.
The Price of a Super Bowl Stream (Scoop): This year marks just the second time that brands have been able to run streaming-only Super Bowl ads, which reach just a fraction of the broader combined audience (13 million compared to 130 million or so) but cost less and are far more measurable. This year, a standard Super Bowl ad costs between $8 million and $10 million before the price-match requirement, a mandate from NBC that requires any brand running an ad during the Big Game to match that spend on other NBC inventory— effectively doubling the price to participate.
The streaming-only ads, however, cost only between $2.5 million and $5 million, including the price-match, according to two sources familiar. Whereas in most television trends, brands (and programmers) move from linear toward streaming, this one runs the opposite way: Brands are dipping their toe in the water with streaming, then upgrading to streaming and linear if they like what they see.
Bloomberg Blockbuster (Scoop): Bloomberg Media surpassed 707,000 paying subscribers last year and saw its overall revenue rise 6%, according to an internal memo from CEO Karen Saltser that I obtained. Subscriptions revenue increased 10%, while total advertising and sponsorship revenue—including live events—grew 5%. Of course, in regard to its finances, the memo included no real numbers, so exactly how much revenue Bloomberg is generating remains a mystery, as does its profitability—although sources have told me historically that the outfit is not self-sustaining. Nonetheless, without knowing what its expense profile looks like—Bloomberg famously pays its journalists quite generously—its finances at least appear to be trending in the right direction.
The Food52 Bake-Off: On Thursday, in a courtroom somewhere in the state of Delaware, the fate of Food52 will be determined. The auction process initiated by the bankrupt food publisher includes the eponymous title, as well as its sister brands Dansk and Schoolhouse. America’s Test Kitchen agreed to serve as the stalking horse bidder, offering a purchase price of $6.5 million for the trio, which were valued at over $300 million in 2021. Of course, Food52 and its bankers would prefer a competitive sales process drives that number up, but the three brands have been so badly mismanaged in recent years that such a prospect seems unlikely.
