BI’s next chapter

Below, a TRB Pro piece on how Business Insider emerged as a winner of the traffic era, only to end up on the wrong side of the equation when the environment changed and it failed to shift quickly or decisively enough. Plus: Wall Street Journal CRO Josh Stinchcomb joined me on The Rebooting Show to discuss how the Journal uses its brand trust to build business lines adjacent to its journalism. On PvA, we discuss the pivotal role Google has played in the rise of digital media and what its embrace of AI means for media.

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A few Cannes-related things to know:

• I’m using Subtext to do text message updates throughout the week. A handful of times a day, you’ll get short updates from me on key themes of the week, as well as the oddities and incongruencies that are a feature of Cannes. Sign up
• I’m doing a pair of live podcast recordings. On Monday, June 16, I will discuss the modernization of Cosmopolitan with Cosmo editor-in-chief Willa Bennett and Hearst global CRO Lisa Ryan. On Thursday, I’ll be joined by Troy Young, Dotdash Meredith CEO Neil Vogel and Axios media correspondent Sara Fischer for PvA Live (and a happy hour poolside at a chateau). Register here. We have limited space.

How the WSJ goes beyond ads and subs

The Wall Street Journal has many advantages at a perilous time for news publishers. It has a massive paid subscriber base (4.3 million across print and digital). It caters to an affluent audience. It has a storied brand. While AI is threatening to overwhelm swathes of the industry, the Journal has benefited from advertising from flush AI companies who need to reach influential decisionmakers.

Yet the Journal isn’t immune to the pressures facing publishing overall and news in particular.

Emma Tucker, who took over as editor-in-chief in early 2023, has been reshaping the Journal’s editorial product, making it sharper, more essential, and less stuffy. At the same time, the Journal is evolving its commercial model. The goal is to continue growing the lines of business that are directly tied to its journalism, while also realizing more value from the trust embedded in the brand.

“The Journal is the halo brand, but Dow Jones is now a diversified business information company,” Josh Stinchcomb, the Journal’s global chief revenue officer, told me on The Rebooting Show. “What we’re building is a set of services that extend from the same foundation of trust.”

Dow Jones now generates nearly 40% of its revenue from its professional information business. These services contribute the majority of Dow Jones’ profit. 

“Our B2B business has a lot in common with our consumer business,” Josh said. “Both are rooted in habit and reliance. That’s the key to durable revenue.”

The Journal’s brand is productized beyond journalism. Executive councils offer paid peer-group networks for CFOs, risk officers, and others. The Journal House, which started as a pop-up in Cannes, is now a physical venue strategy. The latest addition is the WSJ Leadership Institute, launched earlier this year and led by former Fortune CEO Alan Murray. 

“We’re not just a media company,” Josh said. “We’re building commercial infrastructure around the brand.”

Business news publishers have been among the most aggressive in diversifying beyond traditional media revenue. Their subject matter lends itself to premium environments, proprietary data, and high-value professional relationships. The Financial Times has built out FT Strategies as a consulting arm, alongside FT Professional and an expanding events business. Bloomberg’s commercial model has always centered on the Terminal, but its newer investments in convenings like Bloomberg New Economy and its agency services work reflect an effort to deepen engagement across corporate functions. 

“We survived the era where you had to have 500 million people to make a business,” Josh said. “And the world seems to be coming around a bit to what the Journal has always done well.”

Listen to the full conversation

The one-trick pony

On the latest episode of People vs Algorithms, we focus on the pivotal role Google plays in the media ecosystem, how it rose to become the arbiter of the open web, and why this is such a perilous time for publishers as Google makes the biggest shifts to its business in its history. Watch on YouTube or listen on various podcast platforms.

BI’s next chapter

It was no surprise that when announcing a culling of more than 20% of staff, Business Insider CEO Barbara Pang said BI would focus on building out its events business. That will be a test of the brand, which was mothballed for a time in favor of the broader remit of Insider and is now narrowing. 

As BI co-founder Henry Blodget told me a couple weeks ago: "We are going back to the old model of distribution, which is owned and operated, direct email, app and homepage.” That means shifting to new revenue models like events.

But it's 2025. BI never put much effort into growing Ignition as a flagship franchise  – and will now need to compete in a fiercely competitive space with strong legacy brands.

The deep cuts have left Business Insider at about half the size it was at the peak of the pandemic sugar high, as many publishers fooled themselves into thinking they would muscle through the traffic gyrations of Facebook pulling the plug on traffic. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but the rebranding of BI to the milquetoast Insider was a massive unforced error. 

Peng noted that 70% of Business Insider “has some degree of traffic sensitivity.” That speaks to the difficulty in reorienting publishing businesses that were built around traffic, since it’s been clear for some time that the traffic model was collapsing.

BI was not just a survivor of the traffic era; it was a winner of it. Axel Springer paid a whopping 6x revenue multiple for the company in 2015. t was a testament to BI’s unique editorial product that was looser and faster than stodgy competitors, as well as a nimble business that excelled at programmatic advertising. BI was a machine architected for the high metabolism of the traffic era, whether that was slideshows or what it's like to fly economy when tall. It sometimes read like an alien reporting back to their home planet, but it was not boring.