Media busy-ness

The media industry is never in a state of stasis. Definitely not in the past two years, let alone the past two months. The pandemic has not yet abated, nor have the more recent supply-chain issues challenging media companies’ advertising and commerce businesses. And the third-party cookie is still in the process of going away (probably). Meanwhile, publishers continue to upgrade their businesses in ways that span corporate consolidation, revenue diversification and new forms of publication.

In other words, the media business is busy as ever/as always. That makes a ripe time for publishing executives to gather in Vail, Colorado, on March 28 for the second in-person Digiday Publishing Summit since the pandemic. The three-day confab will feature executives from top publishers talking about everything from mergers and acquisitions and paths to going public to first-party data and commerce to streaming and NFTs. There will also be closed-door sessions for attendees to compare notes on post-cookie preparations and revenue diversification efforts.

We will be sharing takeaways from DPS in next week’s edition of this briefing, and here’s a sample of what we expect to be some of the hottest topics. – Kayleigh Barber and Tim Peterson

The continuing conglomeration of media companies

Over the past few years, media companies have been playing a game of matchmaker, with various organizations acquiring or merging with others, be other publishers or special purpose acquisition companies. But to what end?

At DPS, executives from Dotdash Meredith, Forbes and The Arena Group will provide some answers. They will delve into how their respective outlets are remaking themselves into modern media companies through M&A, going public or a mix of the two.

Rather than revisit the conditions that brought about these corporate changes, the executives will provide progress reports on what the moves have amounted to so far and what they have learned in the process, such as how they are structuring their combined companies — including their sales teams — and what reception publishers are receiving from the public market.

These conversations won’t only touch on corporate restructuring but will also offer a lens to look at the makeup of a modern media company in 2022. More to the point, the executives will discuss the continuing diversification of their revenue mixes and outline the ways in which they are building up their various revenue streams as well as how they are managing the associated costs to protect their margins.

Life after the cookie

“Purgatory” is probably too strong a word to describe where publishers are at when it comes to the third-party cookie’s impending demise. But the term is probably not too far off the mark.

For more than two years, publishers have had Google’s decision to disable the third-party cookie hanging over their heads. And they’ve put their heads down to work …read more

Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron