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Social publisher The News Movement is on pace to generate a seven-figure revenue after launching in the U.S. a year ago, according to cofounder and president Ramin Beheshti.
While other media companies have increasingly sought to cultivate direct relationships with their readers, The News Movement has moved in the opposite direction, building its business on short-form video platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.
In the third quarter, the publisher grew its total social follower count by 40%, and total views rose from 30 million to 51 million, according to Beheshti. Overall, the company has 275,000 followers across all platforms.
“We spent the first year of our existence trying different things,” Beheshti said. “We are going to continue to experiment, but this next phase is about being a bit more deliberate about the content types that have resonated with audiences.”
Its atypical editorial strategy has made it a test case for the viability of social publishers in the TikTok era, even as publishers who built on the dominant social platforms of the last decade—including BuzzFeed and Vice Media—have suffered setbacks.
The company, founded by media executives from the BBC and Dow Jones, has attracted attention both for the pedigree of its founders and its unorthodox editorial strategy, but both have recently undergone shakeups.
Earlier this month, cofounder Will Lewis was hired as publisher and CEO of The Washington Post. Beheshti will replace Lewis as CEO on an interim basis, Adweek can exclusively report.
And as it heads into its second year, the company plans to narrow its editorial scope to focus on hard news and three supporting verticals—sex and relationships, arts and entertainment, and lifestyle—according to chief marketing officer Lotte Jones.
The 60-person newsroom, with outposts in the U.S. and the U.K., is not yet profitable, and it raised a second round of funding from its existing investors in September, although it wouldn’t share specifics.
Aiming to break even in 2024
This year, The News Movement generated roughly half of its revenue from branded partnerships with companies like Amazon, and half from managing social media services for fellow publishers, such as The Associated Press.
The publisher is on track to increase branded partnerships revenue next year to between 70% to 80% of its total business. One year of performance data from its campaigns could also help lure new advertisers, said Josh Rosenberg, CEO of creative communications firm Day One Agency.
“My background is in the agency side, and I was keen to import some of those client-handling skills, bringing sales and marketing closer together,” Jones said. “That emphasis on relationships is proving dividends.”
The News Movement has also worked with Snap to train creators on the platform to produce journalistic content, and it is paid through a revenue share based on reach. The program has grown from 10 to 50 creators.
In January, the publisher acquired political news outlet The Recount in an all-equity deal. It plans to capitalize on the influx of political ad spend during the election year to break even by the end of 2024, said Beheshti.
Overall, the company is on pace to hit the revenue targets it set for itself in March. Next year, it plans to grow its total business by 120%, said Beheshti.
“The socially native strategy poses a definite commercial challenge, though engaging with platforms as your primary distribution channel is really interesting from an editorial perspective,” said Niamh Burns, a research analyst at Enders Analysis. “It takes seriously the challenges of present-day digital trends, including the shift to short-form video that is occurring across platforms, and the difficulties of reaching and engaging younger audiences.”
Shifting its editorial strategy
In its second year in the U.S., the publisher plans to further its emphasis on social publishing, although with several tweaks.
The evergreen nature of lifestyle content can perform better on platforms like TikTok, where publishers can’t control when people encounter their posts, said Rosenberg. Advertisers also tend to prefer content that avoids the brand safety concerns of news reporting.
The News Movement will also invest more resources in creating long-form videos, particularly for The Recount, which has 70,000 subscribers on YouTube. It currently has three new series slated for production, said Beheshti.
And to further maximize its revenue potential, The Recount plans to unveil a reader contributions program, as well as an Instagram subscription option.
“The News Movement has built up a decent audience on TikTok from scratch and is producing really good content that fits that format better than lots of established publishers,” said Burns. “The question is: Can this be more than an interesting editorial experiment?”
