Earlier this year, The Ankler CEO Janice Ming said she expected annual revenue to reach $10 million in 2025. During a podcast recording with Digiday, Min amended his statement, saying: this year. “
To that end, Ming's team takes a straightforward three-pronged approach. It's all about creating great content that attracts your audience, and improving the quality. the viewers see that This is attractive to advertisers and allows them to be combined directly through events.
“I wish there was something that the AI would generate and shower us with millions of dollars, but that would be really boring,” Min said.
“Bored” or not, a media company founded in January 2022 and covering Hollywood has shown no revenue growth at all, amidst two major film industry strikes and a tumultuous period for advertising revenue. It is worth noting that
In the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Ming talks about how “Featured” and “Please Consider” ads have survived despite the strike, and how The Ankler, which was born on Substack, has transcended platforms. He talked about how it has expanded and become a full-fledged digital advertisement. media outlet.
Below are highlights from the conversation, lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
There's only room for growth
We made more ad revenue in the first six weeks of this year than we did in the company's entire first year of 2022. This is great momentum and I want to take credit for this growth. But also, when we started, there were no ads. We also got sponsorship as we started with Amazon as a launch partner in 2022 [revenue] …But we only have room to go up, and we're not facing 20-year historical numbers.
Last protected ad category
Two years later, we now have Netflix, Apple, Warner Brothers, and everyone else. There is no major company in the industry that does not advertise. Right now, we're both running ads that say, “This movie is coming out, come see it.” However, there is also something called “For Your Consideration.” [FYC] advertisement.
[FYC] This is probably one of the last protected ad classes. Because you can't let Google steal your ads, and you can't let Facebook ads do that either. Because all these studios and streamers want is to reach this very specific audience. And they want to control the message. They want to know if it's in the right environment. Therefore, there is no CPM. It's like a feeling and belief that you're reaching the right people. In this case, it's here. [awards] voters.
An unexpected sign of hope
An interesting phenomenon is occurring here, where the strike was so bad.they continued [for] Six months was almost unthinkable at first. And it coincided with the Emmy Awards season. [FYC advertising for the Emmys] We were up — we were up — I think we would have been up more… But when the strike ended… it felt like a dam burst.
This strike is a sign that Hollywood is saying, “We want to be more Hollywood. We want to be more Hollywood. We don't want sports to take over.'' I think [in advertising revenue] So far this year.
https://digiday.com/?p=539167
