Media Briefing: The top trends in the media industry in 2024

• 2024 in review
• The Washington Post’s top editor search continues, BuzzFeed’s debt situation improves, Refinery29 CEO exits and more.

2024 in review

As we approach the end of another busy year in the media industry, let’s take a moment to look back at some of the key trends that defined 2024.

Here are some of the major themes from Digiday’s reporting over the course of the year:

Revenue performance in 2024

Let’s first look at revenue performance.

In the latest round of earnings reports from five publicly traded publishers, four reported increases in total revenue for Q3 2024, compared with Q3 2023. Three companies — Dotdash Meredith, Gannett and The New York Times — reported digital advertising revenue growth year over year — and that’s despite the fact that some executives blamed the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election for a pullback on ad spend that resulted in a softer ad market.

Some execs were confident their companies would see more ad spend in Q4. Here’s what publishers expect this quarter, according to the company earnings reports that included Q4 guidance:

• BuzzFeed expects revenue to be in the range of $54 million to $58 million. (Last year’s Q4 revenue was $75.7 million, and Q3 2024 revenue was $64.3 million.)
• Dotdash Meredith expects mid to high single-digit digital revenue growth.
• Gannett expects total digital revenue to grow about 6% to 7% in 2024 compared to 2023 full-year revenue, but expects total revenue growth to be down in the low to mid-single digits.
• The New York Times expects digital advertising revenue to increase in the high single digits to low double digits and for total ad revenue to increase in the low single digits.

AI licensing deals and lawsuits

After a few big content licensing deals were announced last year between media companies and AI tech company OpenAI, this year was marked by an onslaught of new deals between publishers and AI companies.

But it was also the year a number of media companies came together to pursue a different approach: suing AI companies for copyright infringement. Raw Story, AlterNet and The Intercept sued OpenAI in February. Eight daily newspapers did the same in April, and a group of Canadian news publishers did so in November. News Corp sued Perplexity in October, alleging the company violated copyright and trademark laws.

In the spring, the Financial Times, Dotdash Meredith, News Corp, The Atlantic and Vox Media all signed content licensing deals with OpenAI. In the summer, those publishers were followed by Time and Condé Nast. And at the end of this year, Hearst, Future and Lee Enterprises signed agreements with OpenAI. The deals let OpenAI use publishers’ content to train the tech company’s large language models, and in exchange, publishers get attribution for content and access to technology to build AI-powered products.

AI search platform Perplexity launched a publisher program this summer and signed ad revenue share deals with 20 publishers this year, including Time, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Entrepreneur and The Texas Tribune in July, and then another 14 publishers (including Blavity, Gear Patrol, The Independent, Lee Enterprises, Los Angeles Times and MediaLab) in December.

And AI startup company ProRata.ai signed deals with the Financial Times, Axel Springer, The Atlantic and Fortune over the summer to share subscription revenue. U.K. media companies DMG Media, Sky News and the Guardian also partnered with ProRata.ai in November.

Meanwhile, Microsoft signed deals with Axel Springer, Informa, FT, Reuters, Axel Springer, Hearst and USA Today Network to share data for AI-driven projects. And Reuters signed a multi-year deal to be paid to let Meta’s AI chatbot use Reuters content.

Referral traffic challenges

Publishers reeling from declining referral traffic from search and social platforms isn’t a new challenge for their audience development and business strategies as platforms continue to prioritize keeping users on their social feeds. But it was one of the key themes of the year, and a major topic at Digiday’s Publishing Summits in 2024.

Other than Facebook, social platforms like Instagram, Reddit and Threads all drove marginal traffic to publishers’ sites this year, according to Chartbeat’s data from about 3,750 sites.

And search traffic was a fickle beast. Chartbeat’s data shows publishers saw increases in traffic from Google Discover this year — but the March 2024 update to Google’s core search algorithm and the official rollout of AI Overviews in Google’s search engine results gave publishers whiplash.

Publishers looked for new opportunities to engage audiences on smaller social media platforms like Bluesky and Threads this year, as they looked for alternatives to X. Over a dozen major publishers told Digiday that X still plays a role in their social media strategies and that the small amount of referral traffic coming from the platform was enough to entice them to stay active on the platform.

Meanwhile, some platforms have been trying to woo publishers with tools to help them boost engagement on and off their platforms, such as Reddit.

Cookiepocalypse no more

One of the biggest announcements this year was Google’s decision to abandon the phase-out of third-party cookies in its Chrome browser, after years of warning that the change was coming.

However, media execs said Google’s choice would not have a big impact on their own plans to move away from tracking audiences with third-party cookies. Eighty-percent of the 40 publisher professionals surveyed by Digiday in Q3 said that their companies are more likely to continue with plans to find alternatives to third-party cookies than continue using them, for example. Just 20% of publisher pros said they would continue to rely on third-party cookies in light of Google’s decision.

Meanwhile, publishers are increasingly testing Google’s Privacy Sandbox, while also developing other cookie-less alternatives like ID bridging and data clean rooms.

Newsroom shake-ups

Leadership changes, union strikes and layoffs all hit some major newsrooms this year.

Turmoil at The Washington Post has been at the forefront of it all. To recap: The Washington Post announced in June that Matt Murray, former editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal, would replace Sally Buzbee as the new executive editor. Then, Robert Winnett, a deputy editor of the U.K.-based Telegraph Media Group, was supposed to take over the newsroom after the U.S. presidential election, but he decided to stay put after some reports challenged his journalistic ethics. One of the reported candidates for the executive editor job was managing editor Matea Gold, who announced last week she was jumping ship and heading to The New York Times to serve as its Washington editor.

The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times chose not to endorse a candidate in this year’s presidential election — a decision that led to a large loss in subscribers. Their tech billionaire owners — Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong, respectively — have raised eyebrows and drawn criticism within those newsrooms as they have gotten involved in the political climate.

Union strikes continued at news orgs like The New York Times’ Tech Guild and The Wall Street Journal this year. But layoffs continued at The Wall Street Journal, while The Times’ Tech Guild was able to reach a deal with company management on a new contract.

Layoffs also hit a number of other media companies this year, including Refinery29, Vox Media, Condé Nast, Hearst, the Associated Press and Dotdash Meredith.

What we’ve heard

“I think the general feeling in market is a news site that solely exists around a breaking news desk is not going to be able to continue to create long term renewable [direct] advertising partnerships.”

— Blair Tapper, svp for the U.S., The Independent, on the issue of news publishers and brand safety

Numbers to know

$82.5 million: The sale price of BuzzFeed’s First We Feast, which includes the popular “Hot Ones” franchise.

11: The number of years Dao Nguyen spent at BuzzFeed, most recently as publisher, before heading to The New York Times to help grow its digital ads business.

What we’ve covered

BuzzFeed reduces its debt with First We Feast sale

• BuzzFeed has come close to breaking even on its 2021 acquisition of Complex Networks, after selling First We Feast for $82.5 million and reducing its debt to $30 million.
• Investor analysts are describing the deal as a good sign for the media M&A market.

Read more about what the sale means for BuzzFeed and the larger media market here.

Inside Perplexity’s revenue share deals with publishers

• According to information from Perplexity and conversations with five publishing execs, the way Perplexity calculates ad revenue share with publishers depends on a number of factors.
• Those include each publisher’s predetermined revenue share percentage, caps on queries in the AI search engine, and how many publisher webpages get cited in each response.

Read more about how Perplexity calculates revenue share for publishers here.

What we’re reading

The Washington Post struggles to find its next editor

Since Sally Buzbee was booted out of the top editor role at The Washington Post this year, the newsroom has struggled to find a permanent replacement. Two candidates — The New York Times’ Cliff Levy and Meta’s Anne Kornblut — both withdrew from consideration, Axios reported.

Refinery29 CEO exits

Refinery29 CEO Cory Haik — previously a Vice Media exec — has left the company, after the company laid off about 10% of its staff, according to Axios. Sundial Media Group bought Refinery29 from Vice Media in April.

McClatchy completes merger

McClatchy — the owner of 30 local newsrooms — completed its merger with magazine publisher Accelerate360, forming a new company called McClatchy Media. The magazine portfolio will be part of a new lifestyle and entertainment division of the company, the Miami Herald reported.

Journalists brace for Trump 2.0

News reporters are bracing themselves for hostility from the incoming Trump administration, the AP reported. Concerns include additional screening, questioning and legislation against the press.