Inside the great digital media reckoning

Once valued at over a billion dollars each, BuzzFeed and Vox Media have seen their business models collapse. Vox Media, which was valued at $1 billion in 2016, is selling New York Magazine and its podcast network to Lupa Systems for over $300 million, The New York Times reported this week. Meanwhile, BuzzFeed, whose peak valuation was $1.7 billion, sold more than half of its company for $120 million, receiving only $20 million in cash now.

Then there’s People Inc., formerly Dotdash Meredith, which businesses are less reliant on volatile digital traffic. Instead, prioritizing licensing and events businesses.

All signs point to a pivot from social, search, and scale strategies to distinctive media assets of value and diversified revenue streams. Consider a snapshot of where digital media may be headed, said Jessica Davies, senior media editor at Digiday on a recent episode of the Digiday Podcast. 

“It’s away from valuing bundled traffic machines, which is what a lot of these companies were a decade ago, and towards valuing distinctive media assets that can survive in a world where platforms and AI are weakening the importance of homepage traffic, just generally, and SEO, generally,” Davies said. 

At same time, publishers are grappling with declining traffic and the so-called zero-click future thanks to the rise of AI search. BuzzFeed instead put its efforts toward the agentic era. Two years ago, the flagship BuzzFeed publication pivoted into an AI-driven technology and media company.

“It’s unfortunately a good example of a company, a media company trying to push into the AI era by creating products that are powered by AI that nobody really wants or uses,” Sara Guaglione, senior media reporter at Digiday, said on the podcast.

In its acquisitions of legacy publications like People Magazine, Southern Living, Food and Wine, People Inc. managed to buy up businesses that are less reliant on the web. Its media brands saw non-traffic-dependent revenue, which includes licensing deals, events, and content as utility and means of business. 

If People Inc. built its house upon the solid ground, BuzzFeed and Vox built theirs upon the sand. That’s not to say People Inc. has cracked the code. The company’s ad revenue was up only 1% in Q1 2026, and ad impressions were down due to Google search changes and AI Overviews.

“They’ve been thinking about the future in a way that maybe some of these other companies that we’re talking about we’re a little bit slower to do,” Guaglione said. “Because of that, they’ve ended up in a more comfortable place as a digital media company in this tough environment.”