Jezebel Relaunches Under New Ownership, Eyeing Direct Advertising

Feminist publisher Jezebel, which reports on reproductive politics and celebrity culture with a biting humor, relaunched Monday after being acquired by independent publisher Paste Magazine last month. Jezebel struggled to turn a profit under its former owner, G/O Media, in part because of brand safety concerns that throttled the open-exchange demand for its programmatic inventory. To counter those challenges, the title will take a slightly different commercial tack as part of the Paste portfolio, placing more emphasis on video sponsorship, live events and film and entertainment advertisers, according to Paste cofounder and editor in chief Josh Jackson. “We are having conversations with agencies and brands and figuring out what it is that they would like to see and what kind of partnerships we can create,” Jackson said. Brand Safety Controls Are Demonetizing Publishers’ Israel-Hamas Coverage To lead the relaunch, the publisher hired former interim editor in chief Lauren Tousignant as its new editor in chief, as well as former staffers Kylie Cheung and Audra Heinrichs, according to Jackson. It plans to fill at least two more roles—politics and entertainment editors—in the coming weeks. “Jezebel will continue to be a platform that aims to highlight the experiences of women and marginalized communities, and I’ll be dedicated to bringing in as many new, familiar and disruptive voices as possible,” Tousignant said. The revival of Jezebel and its stablemate, Splinter, highlight the discrepancy between reader enthusiasm for titles and their commercial futures, underscoring how significantly the media landscape has shifted in the past decade. Breaking even on programmatic revenue Paste generates nearly all of its revenue from digital advertising, bringing in roughly 25% of its business through private marketplace deals and brand sponsorships, and the remainder from open-exchange programmatic. Jezebel, which reaches a larger audience than Paste, aims to achieve a similar split, although with a slightly higher percentage of direct advertising. Ideally, according to Jackson, it would break even on programmatic revenue alone. To increase its direct revenue, Jezebel will reintroduce live events, following in the footsteps of Paste, which hosts showcases like its activation at South by Southwest. Jezebel will also produce more video. Paste has more than 500,000 YouTube subscribers—and 300,000 daily newsletter subscribers—and sponsorship across both forms the bulk of its direct advertising business. The publisher has created bespoke campaigns with advertisers including Coca-Cola and Volkswagen. Jezebel aims to partner with Paste and emulate its strategy, according to Jackson. Exclusive: Google Lets Advertisers Opt Out of Search Partner Network on All Campaigns Following Adalytics Report But to achieve enough open-exchange programmatic revenue to sustain Jezebel, the title will have to navigate a host of brand safety issues. Advertisers, using keyword blocklists that prevent their ads from running alongside content containing flagged terms, often avoid the kind of charged reporting Jezebel has built its brand on. Paste, which reports on music and entertainment, has little experience with brand suitability measures, and Jackson has recently spent time with agencies and advertisers familiarizing himself with the technology. His initial experience has been jarring. Jezebel already received one request for proposals that had a keyword blocklist of 3,500 terms, including the word “song,” according to Jackson. “I realize that part of my new job is going to be speaking out about how brands’ insistence on what they call brand safety—but is really blandness—is going to hurt news sites across the board, particularly the ones covering important issues,” Jackson said. Splinter and the 2024 election As part of the November transaction, Paste also acquired acerbic news and politics publisher Splinter. The media company plans to relaunch Splinter in hopes of capitalizing on the 2024 election season and its attendant political advertising. However, it will face similar—if not more challenging—brand safety hurdles in monetizing its coverage. Paste has also begun the multi-month process of migrating both sites to the Paste content management system, which should unlock advertising, data and workflow efficiencies. With both sites, the key to commercial viability lies in partnering with brand partners that want to support—rather than simply tolerate—their reporting, according to Jackson. “We know that there are brands out there that will want to reach these audiences,” he added. “We have two decades of experience doing that.”

Launches

Jezebel Relaunches Under New Ownership, Eyeing Direct Advertising

The publisher hired an editor in chief and is working to migrate its website

Mark Stenberg

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Mark Stenberg