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- [00:09]
A
Welcome to the Big Story, a roundtable featuring members of the Ad Exchanger editorial team. Every week we bring you an in depth discussion of key developments in digital marketing and media. Today's episode is sponsored by Verve. Verve captures over a billion daily search, AI chat and zero party signals, giving brands and publishers a real time understanding of intent. Producing great content doesn't always lead to a great outcome. And we've got two stories today that show just how hard it is to run a business when you're selling ads next to content these days. First off, how did you watch the latest NFL game or stream your favorite sports program? While many of us subscribe to streaming services or watch on Linear and are likely guilty of no more than sharing a login here and there, there are millions of people who watch pirated streams of content mirrored off of other devices. Our senior editor James Hersher, who covered an analytics report, documented how these pirated sports sports streams work and what ads these people are watching on pirated streams. And he talks about what's not a victimless crime. Then the amount of press documenting a company's rise is almost always more than the amount of press documenting a company's fall. And with a bang out with a whimper. We're going to talk about the whimper today. Two of early 2010's biggest media darlings, Vox Media and Buzzfeed, have entered new chapters. The this spring. Last week, Vox Media was acquired by James Murdoch at a $300 million valuation. Yes, he's a relation to Rupert Murdoch. And Byron Allen bought a majority stake in Buzzfeed for a mere $20 million in cash, followed by $100 million five years down the line. These companies have been struggling and looking for a buyer, but these transaction prices, a fraction of the company's one time valuations, reflect the quick shifting sands of media in the age of AI. We will dive into these deals and talk about what it means for the future of advertising on the open web. I'm Sarah Sluice, Editorial Director of Ad Exchanger and before you enter your soft pants, summer, yes, that's a thing. Make sure you sign up for programmatic I.O. new York City. We are putting together the agenda and it's going to be filled with the type of content that will bring together people who are focused on the opportunity ahead and programmatic tech and advertising. So join us and snap up your ticket and you can use the code POD10 for an extra discount. Can't forget that. So James, let's dive into the sports streaming story first. In reading this story, I'M like it's always interesting to talk about things where it's not a behavior that you have or my friends have. I remember the days of Limewire and in all of the Napster. Right. But the idea that people are pirating video content, these sports streams is a more novel idea I guess. All my friends are upstanding citizens. So tell us a little bit about what's going on here.
- [03:25]
B
Yeah, there definitely is probably more pirating within your acquaintances than you know, maybe, maybe my friends are just sort of more unabashed, degenerate. I definitely have people who like, you know, talk about the and sort of live stream stuff like that. And I do think too there is this like, there's almost like a permission theory to it where like consumers all feel so ripped off and frustrated and you know, it's almost like, like I tried, like I'm just, you know, I'd pay for this, I pay for this, I pay for that. Like I, you know, this is how I used to get like the NBA, the like whatever. And so there is just a pent up frustration which is a byproduct of
- [04:08]
A
the fact that it's so fragmented where now you have to subscribe to like 10, you know, 10 different streaming services in order to watch all of your, you know, favorite mlb, you know, leagues, games. If I'm using the baseball analogy. Group.
- [04:23]
B
Yeah, yeah. And I think too this is also like, you know, these services, like people find this on like Reddit threads and stuff like that Discord forums. But you know, sometimes it probably is just like someone, you know, I can imagine some like older person who is really not like aware of like pirating and these sort of like nuances. Like the language is a sort of like stream, you know, live sports. Oh like you're looking for the Olympics like here, you know, here. And it's kind of presented as like a way to validly stream Peacock like in almost the way it reminds me of. I've covered like retail, you know, from the point of like retailers they, they see like returns fraud and which is often on the consumer side feels like, oh, a loophole, like a hack for shopping or something like that. So it does like fall into that. And these services are sort of presented as like a subscription to like, you know, oh, this is, you got to like go to dot su which is a Soviet Union like site code. So like there's definitely some red flags. But yeah, you know that it, it doesn't surprise me exactly that you end up with like hundreds of thousands of people potentially Using these?
- [05:36]
C
Yeah, I would say, I say, like, you know, the, the organic. And by the way, this is Anthony Vargas, senior editor for adex. I don't think we shouted me out in the, in the intro, so in case you're wondering who the hell is talking, it's me. Yeah, I think, like, you know, when you kind of access these, these things, like, organically, it's very easy to kind of like, come about it in, like, a very honest way where it's like, oh, I was just looking for an option to stream this kind of thing. But I think, like, to your earlier point, James, like, the pirating is just kind of becoming, like, more popular. And I think, like, there's. There's a backlash element to it big time. Like, you know, like, we're even kind of seeing like, you know, like some like, lip service paid to the idea of like, oh, you don't have to feel too bad about, like, shoplifting from like, big, like, drugstores or whatever these days because they make so much money and whatever. But, like, yeah, so when it comes to, like, these, like, big broadcasters and like, streaming platforms, people are like, really sick of, like, the subscription fatigue. Like, they just feel like it's just like they're constantly having to, like, get a new service. And, you know, one of the big drivers of like, you know, like, all these CTV platforms want more, like, ad revenue and like, more demand. So, like, as a result, they're aggressively pursuing live sports broadcasting rights. And so that ends up in a situation where like, you know, five games out of a year for your, like, favorite MLB team are being broadcast on Apple TV plus. And so, like, you need to get an Apple TV subscription, especially because, like, they tend to go after, like, the big, like, games. Like, for instance, like, I'm a big Mets fan. One of the Mets Yankees Subway Series games was on Apple TV plus. So if you wanted to see all those big important games you needed to spend for an extra subscription service. And I'll tell you, like, I've seen firsthand, you go into like, Reddit sub. Subreddits, like, you know, for your team where people are like, complaining about, like, oh, I can't watch the game, or like, whatever, countless people in the top in the comments will be like, just hit the pirate seas, man. Just go out onto the high seas. That's all you need to do.
- [07:31]
A
Okay, so you guys are schooling me that this behavior is a lot more common than I might think is an upstanding citizen. And so I think in reading your story, James, I'm wondering about kind of who, who loses out here, because I think it sounds like in some cases people are watching the same ads that are on the linear stream or on the, you know, peacock stream. And then in other cases, there might be kind of these other pirated ads that are wrapping around something. Obviously, you know, these companies are losing out on a subscription fee as well. Right. Because we know that sports drives a lot of people to sign up for those, those subscriptions that they then forget to cancel or, you know, whatever. So am I, you know, a marketer that's getting an extra million people seeing my ad, you know, or is there something else weird going on that's like, overlaying the ads?
- [08:27]
B
One of the reasons that I, you know, I thought this was interesting, this report, is that, you know, it's not exactly like an entirely new thing, this sort of, like, notion of, you know, live streaming. The leagues and the broadcasters are aware that this happens, but, you know, what's interesting is a, like, they can't do anything about it. So what's happening is somebody's. Somebody's actual, like, valid Peacock. Like, they're. We're looking at Peacock here because they happen to have, you know, the great demands of super bowl and Olympics. But like this, this strategy works for any streaming service you could find. So you take like, a valid stream and then you just mirror this user's screen. You send it through, like, an assortment of like, VPNs and portals, and you keep your customers up to date. And sometimes in like, Reddit threads, but also like Discord and these places where you can't, you know, they're kind of off the open web. So, you know, you kind of have to be in the know the. When you sign up for these services, they say, like, here's the link. Like, check here for, you know, what links are still working. Because there is this game of like, whack a mole that's happening in the background, but really, like, they can't do anything about it. The broadcasters, the networks, which is, which is funny. And also, like, there's no. The advertisers can't do anything because it isn't really an ad fraud scheme. These networks aren't. They're not injecting, like, you know, we're used to companies that are, like, taking advantage of ctv, like ad pods, very like, lucrative video spots. But these, like, in this case, like this, whatever ads this Peacock user is seeing, tens or hundreds of thousands of other devices that are picking up that mirrored stream are seeing the exact same thing. So this is like, you don't hear advertisers complain about this problem because there is this sort of like, you know, I even like, bounce this off a couple super bowl advertisers and they're like, like, we don't hate it like that. You know, this is like the peacock stream, the like, authentic stream. It's probably playing on someone's like, smart tv. You know, maybe it doesn't like, buffer as well. Or like, maybe you have sort of a problem. You got to like, switch streams because yours is cut out. But like, pretty much it's this. It's like freebies for the advertisers. And really it's just, you know, it's the ratings. It's this kind of like ghost spot in the ratings. And you hear broadcasters, like, the NFL has like, great quotes from last year. They got in a bit of a tiff with Nielsen and they just sort of saying, like, we feel like we have. We just. We know that they're undercounting. Like they can't, you know. And Amazon had the same thing when Nielsen measured their Thursday night NFL games. In particular, Amazon would get frustrated at, with Nielsen trading and say, like, no, you know, like, we under. Like, they would sort of begrudgingly understand that like, Nielsen's ratings are the real ratings, but the next day they would put out like, Amazon's ratings to say, like, just so you know, it is more than. And I think, like, broadcasters feel like, you know, the peacocks of the world at NBC is like, we have more cultural cachet and more audience than is showing up in these ratings. So I think it gets to this, like, real frustration that the broadcasters feel but can't really prove.
- [11:54]
C
Before we, before we kind of go fully into like, the ratings kind of discussion, I want to go back to like, the advertising piece a little bit because, like, to your point, James, like, because these are like just like mirrored streams of like somebody's stream of a game. There will be like the ads that were like in there, like, to begin with, and there's nothing additional being like inserted and stuff. And I'm sure, like, you know, some advertisers who are like, especially more like brand advertisers, less like, you know, performance focused advertisers who would probably be in the CTV environment anyway, more of like these kind of brand plays. They're probably like, less worried about it because it's like, well, more eyeballs is more eyeballs, right? But I always think about, like, depending on what you're looking at, like, the, the markets can be, like, very different. And, like, the ads can be, like, not even remotely appropriate for who's actually watching the pirated stream on the end of it. Like, I'll give an example. My wife and I took a trip to Iceland around the time of the 2024 Mets playoff run, which was the last time that team was even worth a damn. And there were some great games. I did not want to miss a second of that action. So while we were on the flights to Iceland, while we were in Iceland, I could not access my usual sny, you know, streaming because I was, like, way outside of, like, you know, the New York geographical, like, region. So they're like, obviously, like, you can't watch this because you're not in the region that's supposed to be covered, so we're blacking you out, even though I'm, you know, I'm supposed to get it from my. In my paid cable subscription, all that stuff. So I'm overseas, so I'm looking. I'm like, all right, I need to watch this. On a private pirated screen stream. I find this website that is taking the MLB feed from Sky Sports in the UK and showing it to, like, you know, people throughout, like, Europe. And so I'm watching it on this stream, and as a result, I'm getting all kinds of ads that are geared towards European viewers. And none of that is. I'm not interested in any of that. And even if I was, like, they're European companies, the European services being advertised, I couldn't do anything about it anyway. So I think, like, you know, the idea of, like, extra impressions is valid, but, like, when it comes to, like, the advertiser's ability to actually target who's seeing those impressions and what value they get out of who's seeing those impressions, I feel like that's got to be severely diminished because there are people watching these streams all over the globe.
- [14:15]
A
So basically, if you have kind of a regular linear ad, the, I don't know, the gambling sports betting ad or the beer ad or the insurance ad, car ad, those might be fine. But if it's like a programmatically placed ad, then potentially that's now being seen by, you know, hundred thousands of people, and it's not really for them. And that. That's a nuance. So you know what you're talking about. You're a subscriber, and you're kind of like, out of the. Out of the zone, which, you know, I guess if I'm a programmer, I'm like, okay, well, that's not necessarily like a lost, you know, subscriber, that someone who was subscribed and kind of was like forced into circumstance to do that.
- [14:58]
C
Yeah. It also speaks to like, there's a bigger range of people who are using this stuff than you would expect too.
- [15:04]
A
And I think, you know, James, one thing that surprised me a bit about your story is that I, I was surprised that the, that NBC and, and the NFL you reach out to for comment weren't more upset about it. You know, as someone who, for example, like during the ad blocking era, everyone was like up in arms about this. They wanted to stop them. They were blocking these ad blocking companies from attending conferences. It was like this whole, whole thing where the industry was rallying around stopping it. And it seems like they were kind of almost like, I don't know, like, cost of doing business or like talk to them. It's. It's their problem. And it just really surprised me, I think especially if you kind of do some, you know, post it math on what the value of this audience would be.
- [15:51]
B
Yeah, it is. I mean, I think there's just nothing they can do. Like that's. Ad blocking was something new and you know, it was like novel at the time and sort of growing like a weed. And this is, you know, this is just a very well established thing. Like, you know, this isn't like new to the NFL that there's this search trend. There's a whole funnel and a whole like economy of people pirating their stuff in particular. So. So like, you know, they weren't like shocked and appalled exactly. It's more, you know, I think they're just kind of resigned and frustrated with the situation. There's. And yeah, there's just nothing they could do. Like you would need like the government to sort of intervene or you would need, you know, the underlying company like a Cloudflare to take a much more active role. And that's just not. Cloudflare doesn't like to do that. These kinds of web infrastructure companies don't like to shut down their accounts.
- [16:55]
C
So it takes a lot to that point though, James. It's like when you think about what the thing that the broadcasters are missing out on here and why the undercounting of the ratings is such a big deal, especially when we're talking about big marquee events like, you know, the super bowl, the Olympics, that kind of stuff. Obviously the higher the Nielsen ratings are for those things the previous year, the bigger advertising premiums those networks can charge the following year because they can say we had we have a bigger audience. So then I guess like, you know, is there any recourse for the broadcasters in the sense of like, do we ever see a world where like Nielsen is like actively counting impressions on pirated streams or like viewership on pirated streams? Or is that like just a total no go for like the currency companies?
- [17:44]
B
Do you think, well, Nielsen will count these views even if they know it's a totally pirated, illegal view. They. That was one of the things they got back to me with was that they will count their big data panel
- [17:59]
A
or for like if it's actually in a Nielsen home. Because I for Nielsen home, in their
- [18:02]
B
Nielsen ratings, it's so the. There are like a few ways they'll do it. Like they'll have, you know, items in your house that pick up audio and there's actually like an audio sound that like feed on for, especially for like live sports things that the equipment picks up and is, you know, outside like human range. And so it says, it knows like, okay, this is actually being played and it can pick that up even through a pirated stream. I don't know how many people who are like Nielsen home, like Nielsen household panel people are using these kinds of services. Maybe they are because the kind of people who take a deal on media to let Nielsen come set up stuff in their house. But yeah, you can try and extrapolate that or they can just see that this is technology wise, that this is not coming from the proper feed, this is coming from an unauthorized source. And again, they will credit that view. But yeah, they're missing out certainly on like the vast majority of us.
- [19:06]
A
Okay, so where do we go from here? Like, is this. Christoph has raised, who's the head of analytics has raised awareness about this issue in the broader industry. I'm hearing kind of like there's nothing that can be done. Which I feel like there's always something that could be done. But where do we go from there?
- [19:26]
B
There is like a. Piracy is sort of cyclical as we've brought up. Like maybe there will be some kind of, you know, like a consumer like the way like Hollywood like waged a big information campaign to be like, piracy is bad, like you're hurting. Look at like the camera people and all that. Like, you know, before every movie you'd have that. So there, maybe there will be like a kind of infer. Like we said, like a lot of people probably don't understand what's going on here. That's one method. It is a weird one. And usually like the ad. Usually if it's ad fraud, the advertisers can kind of like target and demonetize. But there's not ad fraud going on here. Like they don't. They'll serve some ads adjacent to the content sometimes or on their homepage, but those ads are for downloads, like, oh, like if you're betting on the game, like, here's like a live, you know.
- [22:31]
A
I'm Sarah Sluss, Editorial Director of Ad Exchanger, and with me today is Samantha Dasher, SVP of Publisher Strategy at Verve, where she works with publishers on audience development in what may be one of the most interesting moments that open Web has had in a decade. So welcome, Samantha.
- [22:48]
D
Thanks so much, Sarah. It's great to be here.
- [22:50]
A
Audience development is going through a real shift right now. How are you seeing discovery actually happen today?
- [22:58]
D
Discovery is no longer a one way highway and honestly I think that's a very good thing for publishers. A reader might find a story through Google, a friend texting them, a link, a newsletter, a podcast mentioned TikTok, or increasingly through ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini. What's changed is that there are now more surfaces rewarding quality content instead of fewer. If you create something useful, authoritative or genuinely interesting, there are multiple ways for that content to travel to the consumer. At Verve, we have a unique lens into this because we see roughly a billion publisher searches and LLM prompts every day. That means we can watch behavior shift in near real time. And what we're seeing is that the strong content tends to win everywhere. A well reported article might rank in search, get cited by an AI assistant, show up in a newsletter and spark discussion elsewhere. And that compounding effect is real. And for publishers, it means the opportunity today is broader than it was during the era where everyone relied too heavily on one channel. So diversified discovery is healthier, more durable, and frankly, way more exciting.
- [24:04]
A
So one of the biggest shifts that you just alluded to is that if I'm looking for information, I'm not typing it into a search engine as often anymore. I'm putting it in a prompt and it's giving me that full answer. So what does that open up? How does that change things?
- [24:22]
D
Oh, a lot. Search queries were often really shorthand, two or three words with very little context. And prompts are very different from that. People are telling AI systems exactly what they want, often in full sentences with details, preferences, constraints and intent layered in. And that gives a much richer understanding of what consumers actually, actually care about. Someone isn't just typing running shoes anymore. They're saying that they need marathon shoes under a certain budget because they over pronate and train four days a week. That's a completely different level of signal. Because we sit across both search and LLM activity at scale, we get to see that evolution happen side by side. It's one of the clearest indicators of where audience behavior is going. And for publishers, I think this creates real opportunity. The sites with actual expertise, niche authority and content that answers nuanced questions well are positioned to win. This is a much better environment than the old game of chasing keywords and volume for the sake of volume.
- [25:27]
A
So with discovery changing so much and happening in so many places and new places, how are the publishers that you think are the most forward looking and innovative thinking about where to invest?
- [25:41]
D
The smartest publishers we work with are doing two things at once. They're protecting and optimizing the channels that still matter today, while also investing in assets that compound tomorrow. Search still matters. It drives meaningful traffic and revenue. And publishers doing it well should absolutely stay focused there. But we're also seeing real momentum behind newsletters, registered users, first party data strategies, direct relationships and content built to perform across AI surfaces. Those investments travel further because they create value across multiple channels at once. And part of what we help publishers do at VERB is understand where they already appear in search and LLM environments, where white space exists and where they can grow. When you can see a billion of these moments a day, patterns become very clear. I genuinely think this is one of the most interesting moments PUBLISHER has had in years. And I've been doing this for 16 years now. There are way more ways to reach audiences, more ways to monetize quality, and more value being placed on what great publishers do best.
- [26:47]
A
So audience development is expanding and it's important to think of audience development as something that's encompassing AI as well as all of these other tactics that people have been using for a long time. So thank you Samantha, and thank you to VERB for supporting Ad Exchanger podcast.
- [27:05]
D
Thanks so much, Sarah. It was a real treat.
- [27:14]
A
So Anthony, I want to talk about Vox Media and buzzfeed and what's happened. You know, someone who's been at Ad Exchanger for a while and covered these companies when they were like these darlings and they had billion dollar valuations and Vice had its downfall a few years before, but like they were just like this crowd of sparkly publishers everyone was so interested in, and then they've just been in slow decline. And I think the, you know, James Murdoch buying Vox Media follow, you know, which happened right after the BuzzFeed Byron Allen deal, you know, what does that say? Like, I guess, what's James's plan, James Murdoch's plan? And, like, what is not this, James? And what does it kind of say about where we're at right now in terms of digital media?
- [28:06]
C
Yeah, I mean, I would say probably the jury's still out on James Murdoch's plan for these, like, properties and stuff, but just to kind of catch people up on, like, you know, what the deal is actually involved. So James Murdoch's investment company, LupuSystems, now owns the Vox Media Podcast Network, New York magazine, and the Vox brand And also, like, vox.com as, like, a website. They did not acquire the remaining Vox properties, which would include, you know, stuff like the Verge and, you know, SB Nation, a couple of other, like, a couple of other sites like that. So basically, like, this is like a divide between, like, the podcast network, the premium flagship legacy magazine brand in New York magazine, the overall publisher branding, which is Vox, and then everything else which is kind of like the digital media, like, side of the business. And the fact that James Murdoch was not apparently interested in the digital media side of the business. A lot of people are reading a lot into that. You know, I think, you know, when it comes to kind of like, I, I, I was listening to a podcast with, it was an interview with Jim Banoff on Channels with Peter Kafka, who's also like, kind of in the Vox Media Podcast network family. So he was talking to Jim about, like, you know, just like, the deal and like, what was going on there. And what he was kind of saying was there were maybe some other entities that might have been interested in, like, the digital media businesses. But, you know, Murdoch kind of came to the table really interested in the podcast network, and then he added the New York magazine piece. But there were also other buyers who were interested in the podcast network for years. And also Peter Kafka, the host of the podcast, he was, he said that he had talked to Versant CEO about, you know, their interest in the Vox Media properties. And like, he was saying also, like, yeah, we were never interested in, like, the, the other websites and stuff. And, like, if I had to, like, kind of like, explain what was going on with kind of like the trend you introduced there. Whereas, like, these were once very shiny media properties and now they're not, I think, like, you know, speaking as like, an elder millennial, I think kind of like the bloom is off the rose with, like, anything that was, like, very millennial coded when it comes to media like those ushering in. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's all about Gen Z now where, you know, millennials are just kind of seen as old ad now, I guess. And so, like, yeah, whatever was like, big for the millennial audience maybe 10 years ago. It's just old school now, you know, and it's. This doesn't have the same cachet that it did. But then you look at like, yeah, podcasting and like, legacy, like media brands like those still have some cachet for some people in the media market.
- [31:00]
A
Audio ad, it's not a banner ad. So the banner ad focus properties, you know, maybe you could argue some. Some video, and those ones are. Have not been sold yet. And I think that kind of is the same camp that BuzzFeed is in, right, where BuzzFeed was trying to do all the native ads. They had ad display ads and they're just not doing so well.
- [31:24]
C
Yeah. And I would also say, like, you know, when it comes to kind of the properties from Vox's portfolio that, like, sold, it's, you know, it's the podcast network, which obviously is audio, but every podcast network is video now too, because everybody needs to be doing video. You need to get those video ad CPMs do. So like, you know, this is also a big video play. And, you know, when we think about how like, the fortunes for like, Vox and buzzfeed have kind of like diverged here, I thought it was interesting that like, before Byron Allen bought sort of the remainder of like, you know, I guess kind of the husk of buzzfeed, buzzfeed had sold off a lot of its big, like, you know, really cultural cachet heavy video properties, like, they unloaded complex media, which brought First We Feast and, you know, hot Ones, which is like, you know, one of the biggest, like, shows on YouTube still. You know, they acquired that from First We Feast and then ended up selling that back to the people who produce Hot ones. And also like the Soros Media Fund, which has like, a big stake in like, you know, the old Vice Vice properties and stuff. So, like, when it comes to like, kind of like the, the high profile, like, valuable properties like that buzzfeed could bring to the table, a lot of those were already div.
- [32:34]
A
Okay.
- [32:35]
C
And so like, that we're seeing the same thing happen.
- [32:37]
A
Valuation. You can kind of. I mean, I'm sure someone went and did the math in terms of all the, all the acquisitions, right? They got like popsugar in there and aldi for Vox, BuzzFeed had a bunch of things. So things have been Mushed together and broken apart already quite a bit.
- [32:55]
C
Yeah.
- [32:56]
A
I want to give credit to Brian Morrissey, the rebooting, because he. He put out a piece that I've. I've been thinking about ever since, kind of saying that, you know, this is the era. The era of the Page View publisher is over. And it kind of harkens back to me. Oh, we have, you know, 300 million uniques and all these page views and all of this, you know, this narrative that is maybe now done. And for me here at Ad Exchanger, I'm going to connect to what does this mean for Programmatic? Right. Because Programmatic is all about monetizing page views.
- [33:31]
C
Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a huge, huge question. And I think, you know, we can't. Like, I really think Ryan, like, kind of nailed that trend because, like, when I think about, like, how these big publishing, like, conglomerates are kind of, like, talking about that past play, it feels like a bygone era. And, like, this is a really telling quote from that Jim Banoff interview with Peter Kafka that I listened to. Jim was saying there was a time five plus years ago where bringing everything together to get a lot of scale made sense. But media, Internet and technology has changed a lot since then. And now it makes more sense for us to get much more focused. And that's like, something I'm just hearing across the board when it comes to, like, you know, like, you know, Buzzfeed has kind of spoken to this a little bit. We're hearing it from Jim Bankoff at Vox Media. We're hearing people, like, talk more about this kind of stuff. Like, it makes sense now for publishers to be less focused on how much traffic they're bringing in and more focused on how close can we get to our, like, most premium audiences, our most highly engaged audiences? How much can we kind of, like, trade on, like, the. The cultural cachet of, like, our big premium brands? How can we kind of like, translate that into, like, live events, even, like, you know, like, direct to consumer products, different things like that. And so, like, you know, you're seeing that focus, you know, become more apparent for People, Inc. Where they're talking about, like, you know, releasing like a, you know, Southern living, like, branded, like sweet tea, as opposed to, like, you know, talking so much about, like, how are our page views growing? And, like, things like that. And, you know, it makes sense when, like, they're also talking about, like, yeah, two thirds of our Google traffic is gone compared to, like, a year ago. So it's like, when you look at like that real scale implication that's confronting a lot of like these big publishers, where in the past they were, the play was like, we have to try and cobble as much scale as possible to try and get close to competing with the scale of social media, which, you know, they never really did. Now it's like, okay, that never really was going to work anyway. We need to just focus on like our premium stuff and, you know, our most engaged audiences and what other kind of like, outside the box opportunities we have to monetize those brands.
- [35:42]
A
And I think, you know, Insider, their CEO Barbara Peng just stepped down, which, you know, they've already been acquired by Axel Springer. But I think that kind of speaks to some of the tension and challenges in this space overall, you know, I don't.
- [35:58]
C
Yeah, I mean, you know, when you think about like business insiders play, like they were big into like doing all these kind of like scaled newsletters and like, you know, going in that kind of direction, they also did like, you know, a couple of different, like, editorial pivots that didn't really pan out. So I mean, I think it's just, you know, scale across the board is like being rethought at these big publishers. And another thing that, you know, Jim Bankoff at Vox Media, who's, you know, to be clear, he's going to remain as the CEO of the new Vox Media under James Murdoch. He was saying, like the, the public, the publications, the properties that James Murdoch acquired, they're much more focused on growing the subscription side of things and the advertising side of things. So I think just overall, like, you know, there's just kind of the bloom is off the rose when it comes to like ad revenue and scale. And the implication for advertisers is going to be that they're going to have less platforms that aren't those walled gardens that can bring this kind of scale to bear. And so maybe they have to rethink what their campaign priorities are as a result of that, or maybe they just spend more on social media.
- [36:58]
A
And I think if you're, I don't know, like, you know, the trade desk is all about the open web, right? And all the, you know, Google, like, it, it built itself, you know, by helping bloggers monetize their, their, you know, their blogs. If like, you know, the readers were their, you know, their family or whatever, or, you know, the, the first, the first mommy bloggers and all those different people. So I think now if anyone is wanting to create content, they're most often Doing it either substack if it's written or you know, TikTok, Instagram and so forth. So we're, I just think about the rise of the, the creators over the open web creators.
- [37:41]
C
Yeah, and that was, that was another aspect of like kind of the new company that Jim Bango Bankoff was talking about. Like when you look at the Vox Media network of podcasts, it's like a lot of like celebrity driven, you know, big name podcasters like you know like Kara Swisher, Scott Galloway that have like multimillion dollar deals with Vox Media for licensing this content. And like, you know, he was also talking about like, you know, to a lesser extent like a lot of like the writers at like New York magazine and stuff are like similar like kind of like influencer plays where it's like, you know, it's really these like creator led sort of like platforms. So I think that's you know, going to be a lot more popular going forward. And you know, Jim also spoke to a little bit about like the platform dependency of the past where like you know, a lot of these big scaled publishing businesses really depended on Google for search and you know, meta and you know, Twitter to a lesser extent and you know, TikTok for growing their audiences and you know, attaining that scale like you know, once upon a time. But then they became like a little bit too dependent on these platforms and you know, all the kind of like algorithm changes and all the sort of like wins that you know, whenever they decided like, oh we're going to downplay like affiliate marketing or whatever the deal was like, like you're always very kind of like beholden to what the platforms were doing. Now it's like rethinking like how can we kind of like bring more of that in house? How can we kind of like you know, just trade on our own brand value rather than what the platforms can bring.
- [39:07]
A
So if we were to sum it up and maybe one or two sentences like if the page view era is over, like what are the implications for advertisers as well as for publishers?
- [39:18]
C
Yeah, I think it's, it's going to be a lot more about like those like focused audience is less about just like you know, reach at the end scale at the cost of all things. And if, if the focus shifts to those like those, those more engaged audiences then there's going to be a more of an emphasis on how those audiences perform. If you're telling me these are premium audiences, they better be driving premium performance to justify the premium price tag.
- [39:43]
A
Well it always comes back to performance, which is something programmatic knows well. So maybe there, there's a, an element of hope there. Thank you, Anthony, and thank you, James. We will see you next week. Today's episode was sponsored by Verve. Find out more@verve.com that's V E R V E dot com.
- [40:18]
B
It.