Millennial news and lifestyle site Elite Daily’s CEO and editorial director David Arabov and COO Jonathon Francis are leaving the publication on March 31.
Arabov will be succeeded by David Moss, Elite Daily’s vp of content, while Francis will be replaced by Nicole Goksel, the company’s vp of product, technology and insights. Miguel Burger-Calderon will continue as Elite Daily’s president in charge of strategy and ad sales. The news was first reported by Business Insider.
Elite Daily was acquired The Daily Mail for $40 to $50 million last year. Its parent company DMG Media CEO Kevin Beatty said in a statement that the new management will continue Arabov’s and Francis’ legacy to “ensure that the site continues as the voice of Generation Y.”
In February of this year, 83 percent of Elite Daily’s 24.5 million unique visitors were millennials, according to comScore. Elite Daily’s traffic decreased by 42.8 percent between November 2014 and November 2015, but the publication’s ad revenue for Q4 2015 increased by 211 percent year over year.
The site’s social shares mainly come from Facebook, according to BuzzSumo. There, Elite Daily started beefing up its video capabilities last year, expanding its video team from seven to 35. In 2015, Elite Daily’s Facebook video content raked in 153 million views with 18.9 million in December alone.
Elite Daily was founded by Arabov, Francis, and their friend Gerard Adams in 2012. They raised around $2.1 million in funding before it got acquired by The Daily Mail.
More in Media
Meta AI rolls out several enhancements across apps and websites with its newest Llama 3
Meta AI, which first debuted in September, also got a number of updates including ways to search for real-time information through integrations with Google and Bing.
Walmart rolls out a self-serve, supplier-driven insights connector
The retail giant paired its insights unit Luminate with Walmart Connect to help suppliers optimize for customer consumption, just in time for the holidays, explained the company’s CRO Seth Dallaire.
Research Briefing: BuzzFeed pivots business to AI media and tech as publishers increase use of AI
In this week’s Digiday+ Research Briefing, we examine BuzzFeed’s plans to pivot the business to an AI-driven tech and media company, how marketers’ use of X and ad spending has dropped dramatically, and how agency executives are fed up with Meta’s ad platform bugs and overcharges, as seen in recent data from Digiday+ Research.