The Gist: September’s dose of Niche Media Buzz

Acquired

Meliora Group, publisher of MCP, a magazine for the water purification and conditioning industry, acquired Cheese Record, the oldest trade publication for the global dairy industry (Grimes).

Noisy Creek a new media company, owned by former state legislator and publisher Bradly Walkinshaw, purchased The Stranger and The Portland Mercury, along with Everout and BoldTypeTickets software that supports ticketing sales (NewYorkTimes).

RDG Media, a group of six trade publications including one for the plastics and one for the packaging industry, has purchased two B2B magazines, Maintenance Sales News and BUSline Brands from Rankin Media (Grimes).

Outbrain agreed to acquire video and tech firm Teads for $1 billion, combining products and client lists, (Adweek) and leading publishers to hope that revenue share agreements will be higher priced.

Started

Sophia Neophitou, publisher of The Independent Magazine, has launched an international fashion magazine, 10, “most similar to ltalian Vogue,” making it the lastest international fashion magazine start-up,in addition to Wallpaper’s spin-off Spruce, and the quarterly men’s magazine, Delicaiae Vitae (Campaign).

Editor Christina Collison launched Dementia Help, a free quarterly magazine and newsletter for people caring for those with dementia, inspired when her mother was diagnosed. She has signed an major sponsor, Dimentianet.com, which makes tools for managing patients.

Restarted

PLBY Group, will restart an annual print edition of Playboy Magazine in February 2025, following a worldwide search for the 2024 Playmate of the Year, and a website, Playboy.com, promising to embrace the creator economy and e-commerce (Morning Star).

Print relaunches this year also include The Onion’s new owner, citing how digitally-gorged young people have a fascination with analogue (New York Times). Niche publisher Active NorCal, brought back a bi-annual print magazine with stunning photography, and Nylon, a music-oriented brand relaunched print telling Digiday, print would be for brand promotion not an important revenue segment. Finally, Complex Network told Digiday that new editions of 12 magazines will primarily support subscription sales (Digiday).

Milestones

The oldest local Black newspaper, Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, turned 90.

Done

Game Stop, a gaming company, closed Game Informer Magazine and laid off 13 staff members (Variety).

United Airlines closed the print edition of Sunset Magazine, (Digiday).

Connect Savannah, a 30 year-old arts, events and entertainment media shut down both print and web this week (Savannah Business Journal).

AI

Paywalls only somewhat protect content from AI Ingestion (Digiday).

Persplexity.AI said it will pay publishers and signed first six in the Program: Time, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Entrepreneur, The Texas Tribune, and Automattic, which will receive a revenue share from a new advertising product launching this September, but not from all of its revenue sources (Neiman Lab).

COSMOS, recently taken over by CSRIS, is using AI to generate articles from its archive of science content until February 25, using a grant from META Australian News, but so but received considerable blowback from writers and stakeholders (ABC.net.)

WallStreetJournal’s owner, NewsCorp , stands to make $250 million over five years from its content partnership with OpentAI (WSJ).

Update

Expectations that AI Gemini-based search summaries Google launched at the top of search results last may, would decimate Publisher’s web traffic has not yet born out, NichePublisher.biz members said.

Legal Corner

Niche publishers named in Michigan class action suits for selling or exchanging subcrbier data in Michigan iinclude Mother Earth News, Golf, The Progressive Farmer, Guideposts, Farm Journal, Charisma, Crochet!, Model Railroader, Archeology, and The Nation. Multi-millions have already been lost in similar suits agains Forbes, Newsweek, The Economist, Harvard Business Review, Mother Jones, and CNET (classaction.org).

Trends

Corridor Business Journal will expand its Annual Leaders Magazine from 250 to 500 statewide leaders.

The Press Gazette is tracking publisher traffic on TicToc and it is surging: It’s study shows Reuters topped the list with growth of more than 22,000%. Other publishers with small TicTok followings are also reporting a surge in audience growth (PressGazette).

Events

The Niche Media Leaadership summit will be held in D.C. on November 13- 15.