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The Digiday Podcast
How to grow a creator-based newsletter business, with Puck’s Sarah Personette
01:04:50
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- [00:00]
Sarah Personnet
Foreign.
- [00:11]
Kamika McCoy
Hello. Hello. Welcome to another episode of the Digiday Podcast. I'm your co host, Kamika McCoy, senior marketing reporter here at Digiday.
- [00:18]
Tim Peterson
And I'm Tim Peterson, executive editor, video and audio, Digiday Media.
- [00:23]
Kamika McCoy
Tim, how'd you spend your weekend?
- [00:26]
Tim Peterson
It was a nice weekend. My parents came down, got to spend time with them. It was nice. But I'm still waiting to find out who won the best actress Oscar because I decided to watch the Oscars on Hulu last night.
- [00:39]
Kamika McCoy
Say more about this. I did not watch the Oscars. So do you talk to me about the troubles? Were there streaming issues?
- [00:49]
Tim Peterson
Absolutely. That'll be our first juicy scoop of the week because yeah, it, it feels like Hulu basically saw Netflix having all its troubles with the Mike Tyson Jake Paul fight and said hold my beer. But we will hold that thought because I also want to talk about the guests that we have on this week's episode. So this week we had Sarah Personnet, who is the CEO of Puck, on as the guest for the show and it was a really interesting conversation. We talk about kind of the state of the newsletter business for publishers. Puck launched in 2021 and its business has been primarily oriented around newsletters, but even more specifically around the journalists. It has, it's kind of taken a more kind of that creator centric idea and applied it to the publisher model. But Puck has grown, its newsletters have grown. And so it ended up being a really interesting conversation of how do you grow as a media company with this journalist centric approach when the journalist newsletters aren't as keyed in on any particular journalist. Like each newsletter kind of has a team of journalists at this point. And so it's kind of that evolution of media company differentiated from traditional media companies and working to make sure it doesn't just end up mirroring the same. It's kind of the idea of like do we all just end up becoming our parents but in the publishing perspective. So I thought it was a really interesting conversation.
- [02:18]
Kamika McCoy
I love the way that you phrase that we all end up becoming our parents. Okay, I am super excited for that. Sounds like it's going to be a good, good chat. But as you mentioned, we've got some good, good juicy scoops that are we'll be talking about including the Oscar streaming issues. We also have a DE and I update. It's becoming a dance at this point and Google has tweaked its product review rules and regulations which is impacting some publishers. So let's get into it. Back to Hulu what happened?
- [02:52]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, so I mean, first off, Hulu had some issues in the first hour or two of the broadcast. It seems like a lot of people took to Blue sky and X probably threads to talk about this. I definitely ran into this issue where logging into Hulu ended up crapping. So I think 15 minutes into the stream one of my cats decided to step on the remote and take us out of Hulu back to the Roku home screen. So then we're like, oh, that's annoying. But okay, let's go back in. And then could not log back into Hulu, so ended up having to cast. Luckily I was already logged in on my phone, so I just casted Hulu from my phone to my tv, which felt tenuous at best, but it ended up working. I was really surprised by it, but apparently I wasn't the only one who had issues logging into Hulu. Hulu. A lot of people did. Hulu had to tweet about it, acknowledging issues. I guess it got resolved within the first two hours of what was a nearly four hour broadcast. So about the halfway mark, but then like 7:32pm Pacific Time, two awards left, two of the bicker Awards, Best Actress and then Best Picture. Emma Stone's reading out the nominees for Best Actress and message pops up on my TV screen. This broadcast has ended. This program has ended. Like no it hasn't. No it hasn't. There's still two awards left. So trying to log back in. It's, you know, go back into Hulu and it shows that it has ended. Do you want to watch clips or like it has, you know, clips from it and all of that keep like exiting, entering, exiting, entering. Eventually, like the Oscars telecast isn't even available as like one of the show tiles inside Hulu. So I decided, well, this is what social media was created for. Moments exactly like this. So I go on to, I think I went on to X actually for the first time and God knows how long and just typed in Hulu, looked at the latest tweets. Everyone just like me talking about how, like how the hell did Hulu, you know, end the broadcast at this, you know, Hulu, I'm canceling my Hulu subscription on down the list. Yeah, I sent an email to Disney PR this morning asking about this because I'm very curious. Yeah, naturally, not just how many viewers were affected, but also did they sell ads? You know, I don't know. Again, I wasn't able to watch the rest of the broadcast, so I don't know. But if there was an Ad pod before the Best Picture Oscar was awarded. That could be pretty valuable real estate because you would think one of the times in which people are going to be most likely to tune into the Oscars is to see who wins Best Picture. And there is an opportunity for Hulu to sell that inventory specifically to go to advertisers and be like, look, if you want to be the ad that shows right before Best Picture, here's how much it's going to cost you. Like, we will sell that specifically because that's going to be high priced inventory similar to like maybe the ad pod right after the broadcast ends. So I was very curious if there were advertisers about that inventory they're going to be missing out on. I was just impressions depending on how many. I haven't heard back from Disney as of this writing. So we'll see if I find anything out. But a pretty big blunder. It seems like what may have happened is that Hulu just scheduled the broadcast to end at like 7:32pm Pacific Time expecting like, okay, it's going to go about three and a half hours, maybe it'll run a little long. So we'll put like, I don't know, a two minute buffer on the broadcast and that no one was there monitoring to update when it would end. I've subscribed to the Hulu Live TV service in the past and had a horrible time with DVRing any live sports. The recordings don't start when a game starts. I've had recordings start 20 minutes after a game has actually started. And there's. I saw something on like the Hulu support page saying like, yeah, this happens. This is just kind of how it goes. Which was a major reason why I canceled my Hulu subscription. Hulu Live TV subscription now. Now we'll see if I keep my Hulu regular subscription. But then also, like, there was no way to extend recordings past whatever their scheduled recording end. You would have to record the program after. So all of this just has felt like a tremendous case for traditional pay tv.
- [07:37]
Kamika McCoy
Yes, yes, indeed. I was gonna say for as many companies or streaming companies, right, that are now kind of like throwing their hat into the live streaming space because you had to be with the Super Bowl. You've had Netflix with J. I don't know which of the Paul brothers it was one of them. And Mike Tyson.
- [07:55]
Tim Peterson
Jake Paul.
- [07:56]
Kamika McCoy
Yeah, Jake Paul. I want to say it's Logan. It's not. And they also had the Beyonce bowl and things like this. And you know, to have Hulu Kind of show up in this way and catch, catch on fire so quickly so badly. I don't know. That's, that's, that's a tough, that's a tough way to go in there.
- [08:15]
John Orand
It's a really big blunder because you just wonder like, how is this possible.
- [08:20]
Tim Peterson
Still at this point? Like, Netflix has had such high profile issues with live streaming in the past, seem to address that with the Christmas Day games, even the Tyson Paul glitches. I don't remember hearing anything about the stream just becoming unavailable. Especially when the decision is made on who won the fight. Cutting the stream back then and saying this program has ended. No, it hasn't. So, but also there have been enough chances to do this, enough experience to do this, that in the year of our Lord 2025, something like this to happen with like, I mean, the Oscars isn't the super bowl viewership was probably down this year. At least that was expectation because last year was the Barbenheimer year.
- [09:11]
Kamika McCoy
Indeed.
- [09:11]
Tim Peterson
But still it's one of the bigger live events in the for the television industry. So to have an issue like this is just really, really clear and really troubling from the perspective of trusting streaming services to be able to distribute live events to massive audiences. Like, if, if I really cared about the Oscars or really cared about something like the Super Bowl, I think I would be a lot warier going forward of, well, do I actually want to stream that or would I'd rather get the coaxial cable out? Let me call up Spectrum or Comcast or get a satellite dish installed on my home because it matters to me to be able to watch this without any issue. It was almost a decade ago, if not a decade ago, when HBO Go was having the issues with the Game of Thrones streams. Like people, it's been time, I don't know, like throw chatgpt at this. But what's interesting with all of this is that there's also the opportunity for someone else to swoop in to become the Oscars broadcast. So Lucas Shaw at Bloomberg reported just ahead of the Academy Awards yesterday that Disney has not, you know, renewed. Disney had the option to renew its deal to broadcast the Academy Awards, has opted to let that window lapse. And so now the Academy can start talking with others about like, hey, do you want to air the Academy Awards? Netflix reportedly is one of the companies that it's talked to. Netflix last week aired the Screen Actors Guild Awards. I watched the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Netflix. No issue. It was, it all worked. It worked. Seamlessly so fair argument to be made that Netflix has fixes live streaming issues, but it'll be interesting to see who, if anyone swoops in and grabs the Oscars and if what they're able to do with it. Because you mentioned to be had the super bowl to be did a pretty good job with the super bowl as we talked about, as we covered in the future of TV Briefing. So, yeah, that's just, it feels, I think if the Oscars were the super bowl, this would be a massive.
- [11:23]
Kamika McCoy
Oh, my God. Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't imagine if it were that. Yeah. Because the stakes are, don't get me wrong, stakes are high for the Oscars, but the stakes are so, so much higher for the Super Bowl. I would expect you'd actually see people in the streets revolting. So, you know, keep us posted on kind of where that falls and if Disney ever responds to your email.
- [11:45]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, absolutely.
- [11:47]
Kamika McCoy
We've got to pivot really quickly from Hulu as a streaming platform to talking about Paramount. Let's do some DE&I updates right quick. Right. Paramount is the latest company to join in the walk back rollback. You know, depending on who you ask how they see it along. Companies like Ford, Morse Coal and, and whatnot. But there's a lot of things that are happening in this space where companies, I don't want to call it bending the knee, per se. Right. But navigating this new space, there's been a precedent set by Trump's executive order that was signed back in January toward DE and I. And you're starting to see those ripple effects take. Take effect. The first set of ripple effects was companies kind of, you know, retooling or walking back their DE and I. Now you're seeing John Deere and Apple shareholders go, and there's all of these effects that are just kind of happening here, including, you know, like I said, Paramount joining the DE and I walk backs.
- [12:40]
Tim Peterson
Mm.
- [12:40]
John Orand
Yeah.
- [12:41]
Tim Peterson
And we've also seen the Federal Communications Commission under Trump go after Comcast and call out DEI as one of the reasons that it's going after Comcast, which has a broadcast license, which is what puts it under the purview of the fcc. Similarly, Paramount has a broadcast license because Paramount owns cbs. There's also Paramount's trying to sell to close its sale to Skydance, which was the big thing announced last year but has not closed yet, still needs regulatory approval and for that to go through, has to deal with the new administration. Also, Trump has filed a lawsuit against 60 Minutes for its handling of like a Kamala Harris interview, and he wants a bunch of money from them for that. Abc, you know, similarly was sued by Trump and opted before the holidays to settle to pay that lawsuit. And so there is some precedent. CBS News executives have, like, been very clear, 60 Minutes executives and journalists have been very clear that they are, have no interest in, in agreeing to any sort of deal that, you know, they did their jobs, they did journalism, but parent company has corporate interests to look after. And. Yeah. So Paramount, rolling back its dni, seems to be part of this wave of companies reading the political climate and saying, all right, I don't. Even if, as a company they may feel like DEI is important, they don't want to get caught out or caught in the crosshairs of this new administration that seems very willing to go after companies over the DEI policies. So in the Paramount case, I believe, like, they're removing diversity and equity from the consideration, and they're just oriented around I, around inclusion, which I guess is something. But it's still part of these D and I rollbacks that we've been seeing across the board for more than a year now.
- [14:51]
Kamika McCoy
Yeah, I've talked to marketing, multicultural marketing executives and those that were in DEI spaces. And a lot of the thought pattern here is like, we're just really watering down what DNI is because it seems like brands and companies are wanting to play in two spaces. Right. One, you recognize the power of multicultural dollars and people spending with you. You don't want to completely alienate those people. But at the same time, you know, for the sake of avoiding lawsuits in, you know, acquiring whatever company it is that you want to acquire, there's. Well, we've got to play by the rules of the new administration. So there's these, you know, two, which is why I called it a DE and I tango at this point.
- [15:28]
Tim Peterson
Yeah. Yeah. And it's been really across the board. And we're seeing other examples of, you know, how media companies in particular are kind of changing to the new administration or this new political climate. We saw some of this back in October, November, when you had the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post say, hey, we're not going to our editorial boards aren't going to publish endorsements in this election like we have in the past, which maybe in the benefit of hindsight, you can understand why, because if they had published those, they could have gotten sued for whatever reason or been penalized now. But then last week you had Jeff Bezos, who's the owner of the Washington Post, get involved in the Newsroom in a way that he hasn't in the past. And I believe even when he bought the Post a little over a decade ago, indicated he had no intention to. But by saying, okay, I'm going to draw some very clear lines around what our editorial board or what our opinion section can write about. And it's going to be free will and free markets, which lines up with the current political climate with the Trump administration. And it also would line up with Jeff Bezos own interests because this is a billionaire, like a multi billionaire. And so having the Post endorse free markets is going to be beneficial to a billionaire. Um, so. But that's also one where you have a lot of current and former Washington Post staffers. Very. The actual journals like this is just the editorial section, the opinion section. But you know, those who are in the proper newsroom not psyched about this.
- [17:20]
Kamika McCoy
Yeah. And then, I mean, not for nothing, this kind of comes on the heels of the Post opinion call cartoon. Excuse me, who quit back in January over a cartoon, an editorial cartoon that was criticized and ultimately killed by Bezos. So it really makes you question the, the benevolent billionaire aesthetic that media has had going on for the last couple of years. And if these people that own these companies that have, you know, a vested interest in more money in their pockets, you know, are. Will there be continued a separation of line, you know, of church and state? And I think, I think we're seeing that that line is starting to blur.
- [18:00]
Tim Peterson
Or has been blurred and especially at the Washington Post, because I think it was NPR who reported this. But I saw it reported last week that Eric Wemple, who's one of the media reporters at the Washington Post, had written a story reporting on this Bezos memo and the change to the opinion section, that story got killed. It never got published and never saw the light of day. So yeah, unfortunately this kind of thing seems to be coming becoming all too common these days.
- [18:32]
Kamika McCoy
Yeah. And that is a real hate to see it moment, I'll say that. Okay, our last juicy scoop is continued repl effects of Google. Right. So it's causing hell for product review sites. Google has updated some of its site reputation abuse policy language between last November and earlier this year year. And I think we're starting to see some of the the fallout. So long story short, right, last November Google specified that it's span policy prohibits certain content that's been created by a separate entity and from appearing in search pages which impacts publishers. And you've seen sites like CNN underscored and Forbes fettered that Kind of have those product reviews taking a hit here, which is, like I said, another ripple, ripple effect in Google's SEO issues.
- [19:25]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, no, I mean those. And I think some of those publishers, maybe not like those ones that you specifically listed out there, but publishers in this category of, you know, product review sites, commerce publishers, had, you know, seen also some struggles last year. I think it was at our Digiti Publishing summit in September in Key Biscayne, where during one of the town hall sessions, some publishers talked about how, I believe it was in August they started to see a change in referral traffic from Reddit and not for the better. And this was coming off of Google signing a deal with Reddit to promote for Reddit content to be used by Google's Gemini AI model. And as part of that, Reddit was popping up more and more in Google search results. But that didn't seem to be benefiting commerce publishers whose links may have been shared on Reddit. When people are just like, hey, what TV should I buy? Hey, if I cancel my Hulu subscription, what streaming service should I sign up for things like that? They saw a drop in traffic from Reddit, now they're seeing a drop in traffic from Google. And so it does raise a really interesting question of what is the future of these commerce publishers, which was already something of a question when it comes to the large language models. If ChatGPT can be crawling the sites that you mentioned. And so I can just ask ChatGPT, hey, what I'm in the market for a new coffee maker, what should I get? ChatGPT can't answer that for me without me having to necessarily go to any one of these product review sites.
- [21:10]
Kamika McCoy
Yeah, it does make you question kind of like what then becomes the opening for, you know, an AI powered search platform. Excuse me, like perplexity and chatgpt and whatnot. But I think it also speaks kind of like the search landscape as a whole is changing. I'm not sure how commerce publishers kind of navigate that space where you've seen, obviously, like I just mentioned, the AI powered search, chat bots kind of cropping up, but you've also got a lot of people turning to things like TikTok and Amazon for there to start their searches as opposed to going to Google. So they're kind of getting hit on all fronts here.
- [21:44]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, yeah. Search is just, I feel like search is one of the bigger topics this year and one that I'm sure we're probably going to be having more guests on to talk about, probably more roundtable discussions with Editors and reporters from DJ to talk about, because it just feels like there's so much going on in search right now.
- [22:05]
Kamika McCoy
Yeah, I think fragmentation is the name of the game here. But while those companies or the publishers that we just mentioned are taking a hit, you talk to Puck and Sarah about their traffic and how they're doing with their newsletter business. So let's circle back around to that conversation.
- [22:22]
Tim Peterson
Yeah. Yeah. Again, really interesting conversation with Sarah Personnet, who's the CEO of Puck. And we just talk about the state of the newsletter business, but then also just like how a publisher who's still a relatively upstart publisher, I think this year they'll be celebrating their fourth, you know, anniversary as a company. They launched in 2021, but has grown and has expanded. And so just, again, what felt to me is a really compelling conversation about as you grow as a media company, how do you hold on to what it was, what it was that set you apart from other media companies? And how do you navigate kind of the traditional model for a media company that almost feels inevitable, but at the same time may not be desirable?
- [23:13]
Kamika McCoy
That'll be a juicy conversation. I will not hold you back any further. Let's get right to it.
- [23:29]
John Orand
Hey, sir, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us.
- [23:32]
Sarah Personnet
Thank you, Tim. Pleasure to be here.
- [23:34]
John Orand
Happy to have you here because, yeah, I wanted to talk with you just to understand how things are going in the newsletter business. It feels like around the time puck launched in 2021, there was a big newsletter boom. Obviously, there were publishers and independent writers who were doing newsletters before that, but it feels like around that time, everyone else kind of got into the newsletter business, or in the case of, you know, Puck kind of launched with. Newsletters is very much the core of the business. It's been nearly four years, nearly five years since then. Nearly. My math is off 2021. We are in 2025. So it'll be four years in September, in fall of this year.
- [24:16]
Tim Peterson
Yeah.
- [24:16]
John Orand
And little over a year since you joined Puck as CEO. How much of the business at this point is newsletters? Because you also have podcasts. You guys are doing events.
- [24:28]
Sarah Personnet
Great, Great question. And I'll first just land from like a data perspective, you're exactly right. Between 2020 through 2024, there was just this massive boom in newsletter subscriptions. I think Reuters reported that it increased by 60%. For us as a private, email, predominantly distributed business, newsletters are still at our core. And I think if it were me, if I like trying to think through why that is, I Think it kind of signals this shift towards a real desire for direct, personalized contact with journalists. Or in many ways, you know, John, our founder, talks about journalists as being really the, like the creator, the original creator or the original influencer. And audiences no longer want and people no longer want just like this mass kind of public environment that they're communicating in. They want something that's more direct and that's more personalized. And you get that with a newsletter or with a private email, which I think is really special. And that's probably one of the reasons why the boom has continued and why it continues to be a core part of our business.
- [25:41]
John Orand
A part of your business that's booming is the number of journalists you all have on staff. What's the count at this point? Because I feel like when I was doing back envelope math since like December 2024, I want to say, like it increased by like 50%.
- [25:57]
Sarah Personnet
Yeah, it has. I'll walk you through it really quickly. So Matt Bellany was probably our first journalist that we brought on board, and he anchors the entertainment vertical, which is what I'm hearing. But with him, we just announced that Kim Masters is joining. Eric Gardner is a part of that overall franchise. So we're really taking Matt as the anchor. He's. He is the star of the entire entertainment space. And then surrounding him with other incredible talent to really make sure that we're laser focused on what customers in the entertainment space want to hear. And they want to hear that inside story. And Matt provides that. But with Kim on board and with Eric on board, it's just such a richer conversation that he's able to create. And then similarly within the fashion space, we have Lauren Sherman, who's in Green Line Sheet. We brought in Rachel Strugotts a year ago. She was covering the beauty category. But then we just recently announced an aqua hire with Sarah Shapiro. She was a substack business that was doing primarily like shopper type content, commerce type content. And so what you're seeing here is as we look at the different franchises across entertainment media, fashion, the business of art, the business of media, and even the business of politics, we're looking at who are additional authors or journalists that can reflect that positioning and that personality and that perspective that our audience has come to crave. And that's why you've seen a pretty dramatic increase in terms of the number of authors that we have overall.
- [27:34]
John Orand
Yeah. What's the current count?
- [27:36]
Sarah Personnet
Yeah, we're currently at 17.
- [27:38]
John Orand
Okay. So that's actually, that's because I think it was 14 as of March 2024, if I'm not mistaken. So that's actually fewer than I thought I thought it was.
- [27:50]
Sarah Personnet
Than you thought.
- [27:50]
John Orand
Well, just because I jotted down.
- [27:53]
Tim Peterson
Okay.
- [27:54]
John Orand
John Orand I think was December 2023. You mentioned Kim Masters, Lauren Sherman, Marion Manaker. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that.
- [28:03]
Sarah Personnet
Yeah, you are.
- [28:03]
John Orand
John Heilman, and then most recently, Leanne Caldwell. So that's pretty dramatic increase.
- [28:09]
Sarah Personnet
Yeah. Leanne also has been a phenomenal addition to all of our political coverage. That particular franchise is really interesting because obviously there's a lot that's happening in Washington right now, but the way that we think about the aggregation of our authors, everyone has a. Has sort of a different area that they go super deep into. And Leanne now representing us down the hill each and every day, getting into the inboxes of congressional leaders has been a really positive transition for the franchise as a whole. And I think that's where it also becomes interesting. You look at Substack, and Substack has also exponentially grown a lot of our acquisition strategy. And where we find sort of that next critical talent has happened on Substack, where we're watching people build audience and build, like, a deep trust and deep relationship with their audience. But then when we bring them over to Puck, we find that we are now a. We're a media platform that gives them so much more scale. And then for all of our readers, they're actually able to now have content that talks about what's happening in the art world today, or have content that's talking about what's happening in the entertainment space. So it really becomes like a very rich subscriber experience.
- [29:34]
John Orand
So Substack's sort of your farm league.
- [29:39]
Sarah Personnet
It's. Well, well said. And we definitely like. Leanne's a great example. We brought her over from the Washington Post. But I do think that we've learned a lot from the original acquisition of Marion. Marion Substack, probably April 2024, I believe. Yeah, exactly. It was a few months into me joining, and then most recently with Sarah Shapiro.
- [30:03]
John Orand
Right. And it's been interesting, too, because in the case of what I'm hearing, like you mentioned, where it's not just Matt Bellany anymore. I mean, Eric Gardner has been part of that for years at this point, if I'm not mistaken. But then adding Kim Masters, and with Leanne Caldwell, similarly, she's contributing to the Best and Brightest, which is a collection of a number of political writers that you all have at this point. And so it feels like, is it morphine?
- [30:30]
Tim Peterson
I guess.
- [30:31]
John Orand
How do you square kind of the. Originally when I signed up for Puck, it was I'm signing up for Matt Bellamy's newsletter. Now it's kind of morphing to. I would be signing up for what I'm hearing in kind of this collection, but not necessarily any. Each newsletter doesn't seem like it's going to be as closely associated with any one writer anymore.
- [30:52]
Sarah Personnet
It's a very good observation. So still at the core of who we are and what we deliver is putting journalists at the center, putting talent at the center. So what I'm hearing is very much anchored by Matt, just as. As an example. But what we are finding is that it's, it's a lot to be covering all the different aspects of what's happening in each of these categories. And so you're still hearing and you're still getting Matt directly in your inbox each and every day. But then he's working with him and he's working with Eric to really find the rest of the interesting stories that are going to give perspective to executives within the entertainment space. And then if you take that all the way over to the other side from a political perspective, Leanne is really anchoring the best and the brightest now. So what you get in your inbox each and every day is something that's, that's primarily coming from her. But then we have this incredible galaxy of, of authors, whether it's actually very exciting. Julia Yaffe just came back from parental leave. So Julia is actually sending her first send back from leave today. We have Peter Hamby, who is absolutely exceptional. We have Abby, we have John Heilman. So the collection of their reporting and the insider access and putting them really truly putting journalists at the center of our model still is. Still exists. But what we are trying to do as our subscriber base has experienced incredible growth over the last few years, we want to make sure that we're rounding out the stories and we're rounding out the coverage by, by bringing other journalists into. To really think about it in a different way. You almost have brands that are or sub brands under Puck that are franchises anchored by core talent versus and probably that first two years it was a newsletter anchored by core talent.
- [32:51]
John Orand
Yeah. And so why do that? Because I would think also someone may be coming on, like whether it's one of these acqui hires or someone like Kim Masters or Leanne Caldwell, and may think, well, actually I'd like to have my own newsletter, but that's not how things are going. Why is that?
- [33:12]
Sarah Personnet
Well, it's a great question because if you take Marian Manaker as an example, when we brought him on board, he was writing two days a week and had this incredible platform to really scale his work. Now, we also heard from his subscriber base, from his readers, that they wanted more of him and they wanted to get more deeply into what was happening in the gallery space and go on gallery hops and things like that. So with a real focus on. And this is sort of, you know, my background is just an absolute obsession over cx, over customer experience. Listening to readers and what they're looking for is incredibly important. So Marion still anchors the Wall Power, which is the. The Art of Business newsletter, Art of Business franchise. But he's brought on Julie David, who comes from Sotheby's. She's a professional in the field, and she is now writing at least one time a week, if not two times a week, in conjunction with Marian. So the reader experience has to be really good if you're also, if. If you have a desire to have paying subscribers. And we, we absolutely have that because it's a core part of our business model. And we also want to make sure that we're really listening to our readers and then at the same time, making sure that our journalists feel like their voice is heard and their perspective is heard is another. Another core part that we're consistently balancing.
- [34:44]
John Orand
Got it. And I imagine you all are tracking things like open rates based on, like, if it's a Matt Bellamy edition or if it's an Eric Gardner edition. Do you see any changes in open rates depending on whether it's kind of the anchor writer versus one of the, for lack of a better term, contributors?
- [35:03]
Sarah Personnet
So first, one thing just based on, like, newsletter economy, one thing that's interesting is that just in, in general, you wind up having better open rates with newsletters. And I think this is also one of the reasons for the pretty significant boom in newsletter subscriptions relative to, like, social media platforms where engagement rates are much smaller. On average, they're usually around 30% for newsletters, and we see about 70% in terms of our open rates overall. So really, really strong signal from all our readers that they are enjoying the content. And we do watch it across each of our franchises, and we watch it also at an individual level. And one of the things that I think has evolved with the company is that as we cover so many different power corridors or power corners, and our journalists sort of traverse across the interconnectedness of Media and entertainment and fashion and sports and art and politics that subscribers are really interested in also hearing a bit about what's happening in those other places. And so we don't like. I'm less concerned of one singular author having an open rate versus another singular author having a specific open rate. I'm more concerned at a franchise level and at a puck level that our open rates continue to say super healthy and super strong. Because that signals to me that our readers, whether they're coming in, they came through the door of Matt or they came through the door of Lauren, most likely they are going to start also opting into other franchises and learning about what's happening there, which makes it a really valuable paid subscription.
- [36:49]
John Orand
Okay, how does the compensation model change? Because when Punk launched, one of the things that got so much attention was, I think it was for every thousand subscribers that a journalist drove, they got like a $10,000 bonus. That seems trickier to do when it's kind of these multi journalist newsletter situations.
- [37:10]
Sarah Personnet
So I love that you brought that up because I do think our compensation model is really also at the heart of proving that we're putting journalists at the, at the center of our platform. And the way that we do that is first and foremost, everyone has equity in, in the company. So this is a media platform that's owned and operated by journalists. And then the second thing that we do in addition, obviously to, you know, base salaries, is that we do a bonus for new subscribers and we do a bonus for retained subscribers. So you are both bonus done. And that's at an individual level. So you are both bonus done. Who is coming in for your particular article. And then if you retain those subscribers, that also gets paid out. So that we're really thinking about the lifetime value of our customers and the way that we want our sustainable growth rates to continue to grow over the course of time.
- [38:07]
John Orand
Okay, so if like Kim Masters has the lead for a what I'm hearing article or newsletter edition, she would get the credit for any new subscribers that drove?
- [38:19]
Sarah Personnet
That's correct.
- [38:20]
John Orand
Okay, would Matt Bellany get like a smaller bonus as part of like it being his newsletter? Is he. Is it just like whoever's got the lead gets the credit?
- [38:32]
Sarah Personnet
So he is a franchise manager and there are different benefits to being a franchise manager. And he also is driving a ton of his own subs. And then we also want to make sure that the individuals that are contributing to that franchise also get bonused.
- [38:45]
John Orand
Oh, interesting, because like, when you use the term franchise manager, that makes me think like in A way, this is a different kind of analysis, but almost like Leanne, Matt Bellany, Lauren Sherman are kind of becoming desk editors. And these newsletters, like what I'm hearing, Best and Brightest, are kind of the news desk. The divisions, whether it's historically, sports, politics.
- [39:12]
Sarah Personnet
That is probably the most significant difference of what we're trying to do at Puck versus probably what has happened in legacy media. And one thing that we say a lot inside of the company is don't become the thing that we're trying to disrupt. Matt, Lauren, Marion, they are all coming up with their own stories, they're chasing their own stories, they are writing their own stories. So this, it's very important that we don't create layers upon layers upon layers that sit inside of the organization. And that's why I think the, the emphasis on scale, not just what we're producing, but how we're producing it and what the shape and structure of the organization looks like is so important to what we've built over the last few years. And then also how again, we sustainably grow. And we don't have a lot of the potential baggage that you see in some of the legacy media companies right now where there might be bloat in certain parts of the organization. And they're trying to work through that. So, yeah, that's, it's actually very special because each of these leaders are writing, they are still, they're still journalists and they're also like really thinking through the vision of how they create across the entirety of a category.
- [40:35]
John Orand
Right. And that's a hard thing to maintain because, I mean, so many media companies start out, especially like the media companies that have started in the past decade and a half or so, start out with a lean model, a differentiated model from the traditional model. But then we've seen a number of them grow and take on characteristics of traditional media companies and in some cases grow to the point where they actually had to sell off or spin off parts of their businesses, like we've seen with buzzfeed for one. And so as you all are growing, it seems like at some point it's going to get trickier to kind of manage what's made you lean or different in the past. Because it's almost like there's a trajectory that's not inevitable, but very easy, I guess, by inertia to just find yourself in.
- [41:27]
Sarah Personnet
I love that you brought that up because that has been one critical part of the five year long range plan or strategic plan that we've developed. You know, we have four, four pillars. These are not illuminating in any way. But I'll get to one apart in a second. Our four strategic pillars are audience growth, revenue growth, operational excellence, and brand protection. And under operational excellence is one of our core metrics is actually rph, our revenue per head. So the way that we think about sustainably growing the company and sort of setting those key growth metrics across audience and across revenue have to be done in a way that also enable us to stay lean. And that means that if we're producing more and we have more that we're trying to deliver for our consumer base, the thing that we can change is the way that we are working because obviously we're, we're producing more when we have more incredible journalists coming onto, coming onto the platform. But we need to be really smart about the, about those things. And so most recently we actually introduced a content delivery system that's like a totally different way of operating in tandem in order to produce and track and ultimately send each of the newsletters that our readers have grown to love. And we're able to do that in a really fast, almost like a fast twitch way that hearkens kind of back to the way technology companies work. And we're applying that in the media space so that, that some of the challenges that you just mentioned earlier don't, don't hit us.
- [43:10]
John Orand
What's so special about this content delivery system?
- [43:13]
Sarah Personnet
Well, it's proprietary, but the content delivery system is just one example of how we're able to stay lean and I think avoid sort of the challenges that you presented before, that you, you scale up into a point and then all of a sudden you realize you're not the organization that you wanted to be. Like, we're really focused on maintaining, I think both our culture, but also like the quality of the product and keeping journalists at the center by operating and working differently.
- [43:42]
John Orand
Okay, so it's a proprietary system, so obviously there's only so much you're going to be willing to divulge. But like, what could you walk me through again, like, what it is that necessitated this, why there's value? Because it reminds me of 2011, 2012 timeframe, when so many people in the media industry were making a big to do or at least us journalists at the time about Vox Media had just launched and they were supposed to have this really great CMS as all the rest of us were on WordPress, which got a lot of attention from us in the time. But it was unclear how much of a benefit that is other than it's less of a pain. To write stories. This feels more substantial in a way because, I mean, email delivery has become really challenging. It seems like all of the email service providers have locked down even more which emails they actually let through to recipients.
- [44:37]
Sarah Personnet
Yes. And I would pair it with the way that we collectively work across the organization. It's funny that you, you reference the, the content management systems because I, I felt like during that time every publisher actually over indexed on trying to become technology companies through the lens of a cms. And then all of a sudden they realized, oh wait, we're not a technology company and a technology company can probably do this better. And they did. And then the value on the balance sheet ultimately wound up or the enterprise value wound up going down. So that is, that is. This is not.
- [45:18]
John Orand
You're not about to start licensing this though.
- [45:21]
Sarah Personnet
No, no. But I do think it just, it gets back to your point on like how, how do you approach scale and sustainable growth in a way that is thoughtful and doesn't at some point in time become divergent from what you originally wanted. Wanted to be? And that's why we are consistently asking ourselves what is the thing that we can do differently? And one of the examples of the thing that we can do differently is how we actually produce and create the work and then also how we make sure that we're really tracking against the unique consumer experience or customer experience that people are having. And that is sort of felt throughout the whole of the organization.
- [46:16]
John Orand
Gotcha. You mentioned revenue per head as one of the metrics that you really prioritizing what is the current revenue per head at puc.
- [46:23]
Sarah Personnet
So I'm not going to share that because that is proprietary. But I will say this. Our path is very much around what you would say see in successful publicly traded companies. And RPH that is managed with that type of discipline is extremely important and very different from the benchmarks that you would see in the rest of the media industry today.
- [46:51]
John Orand
Are you looking to go public?
- [46:53]
Sarah Personnet
No.
- [46:53]
John Orand
Okay. Because you mentioned publicly traded companies and also I think like it was reported around the time you were hired or when they were in the search process, that the founders were looking for a CEO to come in who has experience with growing companies with kind of like growth stage companies. And so a trajectory for that is going public. BuzzFeed's experience in the public market maybe has changed that for a lot of media companies, but it sounds like Puck that's not in the cards right now.
- [47:24]
Sarah Personnet
We have such a strong strategic plan and I. And we have such a clear path forward on growth and what we're trying to do with the team, that's where our emphasis and our focus is. It's not on what, what that next piece is. It's really making sure that we are getting this right and we're getting it right for, for our people. And we're also getting it right for our incredibly loyal audience. You know, part that we haven't talked about is, and, and we're also getting it right for our advertising partners. Like our commercial partners are another huge part of our business. And I think we have a really, we sit in a really special space because we have elite journalists who are covering these incredible, incredible companies. They are also covering the incredible leaders at those companies and they are distributing the, those stories to an incredible elite audience of opinion makers. And that's why our advertisers come to us each and every day, is to be able to get their message in front of, of that loyal fan base or that lawyer, loyal subscriber base. And so that, that's really, each and every day what we're trying to get right is the balance of those three things.
- [48:48]
John Orand
What's the size of that base now? Like, how many paying subscribers do you have?
- [48:52]
Sarah Personnet
So we don't disclose our numbers, like our absolute numbers, but we experienced over 30% in terms of paid subscriber growth over the last year, which was really exciting.
- [49:03]
John Orand
Okay. And I mean as of March 2024, those you all said you had 40,000 paying subscribers at the time. So I guess we could do the math at that point. That would be what, 52,000 subscribers?
- [49:16]
Sarah Personnet
I will let you do the math.
- [49:18]
John Orand
Fair enough. Is Puck profitable?
- [49:22]
Sarah Personnet
We are on a path to profitability that should occur for this year, which is really exciting.
- [49:27]
John Orand
Got it. Obviously, we've talked a lot about what you all are doing to grow the company and how you're kind of managing that growth. Anything that we haven't hit on that's going to be key to achieving that profitability this year.
- [49:42]
Sarah Personnet
It's a great question, I think. Well, I'll say this hard always at the start of the year to say what is going to happen or not.
- [49:57]
John Orand
Happen, especially in this industry.
- [49:59]
Sarah Personnet
Yes, yes. So while I appreciate the question, I think that it's a for any leader to say, hey, this is exactly what the path will look like over 12 months. And I actually similarly say this about a long range strategic plan. If I don't think there's any company or any leader that's ever looked back at a plan and been like, yeah, we did exactly in the time frame that you know, it was plotted out to be. And I think what's particularly interesting and important in organizations to be successful is that obviously you certainly have to be agile and willing to adapt with whatever the market is, whatever is going to happen in the market. And you have to be able to make really quick decisions. And we have a leadership team that's inclusive of a lot of our generationally talented journalists that help to drive those fast decisions. So I can't tell you exactly what could happen, but there are. Without going into other broader topics in the industry today, obviously the question around tariffs is, is a real one and then how that impacts advertising spend is going to be an interesting one. So we're certainly watching that closely and I would, I think every marketer is watching that closely and every media outlet is. But also as someone who sits on a, a for profit board, you know, we're, I think every company is trying to look at how do they stay agile in an environment where there, there could be a lot of uncertainty and a lot of volatility. I was actually just talking with my, the team today about what it means to, to lead and live in a VUCA world. And VUCA stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
- [51:58]
John Orand
Okay. Or just reality at this point.
- [52:00]
Sarah Personnet
Yes, it is. It's interesting because VUCA leadership and management comes from the like. Back in 1987 at the US War College, there was a group of professors and generals that were trying to best strategize for what the post Cold War world looked like. And that's where they came up with vuca. And we've, we've all been living through that. You know, take 2020 and Covid. I mean, we've been leading and living in this and I think everyone is a wonderful example of the resilience that we bring. The other part though is that through being planful and through being empathetic and through really staying focused on the things that you can control and you can, you can, can drive an outcome on is what helps you land on the other side of any type of environment where you might not necessarily know exactly what's going to happen when. And I use that a lot in the way that I lead and manage. And I think we as a collective organization are trying to stay agile and operate that way so that we can achieve the incredible goals that we have in front of us.
- [53:14]
John Orand
Okay, vuca. I'm sure I'm going to find myself being in conversations with people about the state of whatever and just be like, well, we live in a VUCA world and I'm going to get some strange looks and be like, well, actually in 1987, the US wore, let me tell you, but it makes sense because especially in the media business, I would imagine, especially being such a subscription driven business, that so much of that is probably, you probably see some of the biggest bumps based on the volatility of the news cycle. I would imagine what I'm hearing probably led to a lot of new subscribers in 2023 during the work stoppage with the SAG, AFTRA and the writers Guild of America strikes. I would imagine this new administration best and brightest is probably bringing. Have you seen a subscriber bump since the election?
- [54:06]
Sarah Personnet
That's an interesting question because I would say we are pretty steady in terms of growth overall and what impacts. We have so many different categories that we cover. So you made the correct point that when something's happening in the entertainment industry, right, like that that might signal more leaning in, there might be an increase in subscription and you can take that kind of across each of the categories. But another kind of like a flip side of this and like I'm still laughing over the content management system piece because that really was such a thing. The other thing that was happening in, in that stage all the way up to probably like 2018, 2019, was the concept of growth hacking and like trying to get as much audience as you possibly could, but then not being mindful of where you might see where you might have a leaky bucket. And so you bring those people into the top of the funnel, but then ultimately they don't wind up renewing. So we look at our growth plans, are very focused per category at how we're getting qualified readers into the funnel so that they have a good experience and that also they wind up renewing for, you know, multiple years on end. And that's one of the reasons why I think our churn rate is extreme, extremely low. And we apologies, we don't publicly disclose our churn rate. But.
- [55:40]
John Orand
Well, I appreciate you getting ahead of.
- [55:41]
Sarah Personnet
Me asking that question, but our industry bench, like knowing what the industry benchmark is, which is around like 3.6%, we're well below that our own metric. And that's something that we watch. And so we're not looking to chase news cycles the way that you might have seen in the past when if you put Taylor Swift or Kim Kardashian in a headline, you might get a lot of subscribers off of that. We really want to make sure that the script subscribers that we're bringing in, that they're having a great experience and that it's valuable for them.
- [56:21]
John Orand
Right. Although I would imagine because Matt Bellany's written a bunch about Taylor Swift with the Heiress tour, I would imagine Lauren Sherman's written at least one piece in the past week about this Nike skims deal. So there probably is some of that as well.
- [56:37]
Sarah Personnet
That's a good one. She actually broke that story and she has been all over more traditional mass media channels reporting on it. That was huge. But that's just an example of the core of our offering, which is really providing these stories that are access to the inaccessible. So the fact that Lauren had that and she was able to share that out, it's less about chasing a news cycle or getting a hot headline. And it was more about Here is. Here is really hard hitting news around how Nike is thinking about changing the trajectory of that company through this particular collaboration. And I think that's also one of the differentiators of what Puck is building versus maybe what we've seen in the past.
- [57:29]
John Orand
Right. And then like to your point around the churn, I imagine what helps with the churn is how you all have been kind of adding different verticals because I signed up for Puck for Matt Bellamy's newsletter. Also Dylan Byers. Eventually you brought on John Ourand and it was just like, oh, crap. I've been rating John Ourand for years at Sports Business Journal. Now I have to definitely stay a Puck subscriber so I could keep reading his stuff. Last year, if I'm not mistaken, it was like sports. So John Oren and then Fashion were kind of the two newer verticals that you added to the mix and trying to think of like, okay, what are the halls of power that you can kind of build hallways to with all these different newsletters? Any verticals you haven't? If I'm not mistaken, since getting into the fashion vertical, maybe the art one. But I think that predates bringing Lauren on. If I'm not mistaken, I could be.
- [58:24]
Sarah Personnet
Lauren came on and opened up Line Sheet and the fashion vertical before Marian, but Marian was the next one following.
- [58:33]
John Orand
Got it. Any verticals that you all are planning to expand into this year?
- [58:37]
Sarah Personnet
I think we still have the opportunity to get tech and in particular the tip of the spear around AI Right. And that's one key area of focus for us right now. The benchmark on the type of talent that we have is so important and actually even a part of our model is being able to move fast when we know it is the right person. Lauren, this is a great story. John was interviewing Lauren and on the spot was like, you, we need you here. You are everything that Huck is trying to be in the way that you're. You're telling the story of what's happening across the fashion industry. And so we're still looking for that right person for that particular category. And then I think what you'll see us continue to do is really think at a franchise level, what else are our readers looking for? And if that can be achieved through the people that we currently have staffed against each of those franchises, awesome. And if it's that somebody else's unique perspective, whether they're coming through an acqui hire or whether they're coming from another company, then that will also be something that's really important. And that's where having our journalists at the center of the company helping to make those decisions and strategize with us around people is so important.
- [60:03]
John Orand
Right? Yeah. Especially as you get into. I mean, we've talked so much about newsletters, we didn't talk so much about podcast events, but those are all parts of the business. Also curious, like there are any video ambitions you all have or things in other types of media, but I guess we'll have to have you back on at some point to talk more about all the rest of the business as well as how 2025 goes. But Sarah, this is really fascinating conversation.
- [60:28]
Tim Peterson
Thanks so much for coming on the show.
- [60:30]
Sarah Personnet
Thank you so much, Tim. It was such a pleasure to be with you and to see you.
- [60:39]
John Orand
Thanks for listening to this episode of the JJ Podcast. If you enjoyed it, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening. Get more from Digiday with our daily newsletter sent out each week weekday morning. Visit digidaire.comnewsletters to sign up.