Speaker 1: The company behind media brands like TheStreet dot com, Men's
Speaker 1: Journal is Surfer magazine as well, is changing its narrative.
Speaker 1: The Arena Group announcing its first ever profitable quarter in
Speaker 1: Q three. The turnaround charged by cutting quarterly operating expenses
Speaker 1: fifty one percent year over year and growing the audience
Speaker 1: a phenomenal amount. Joining us now as Sarah Sarah Silverstein,
Speaker 1: she's the CEO of the Arena Group. So coming to
Speaker 1: a profit for the first time, You've done that by
Speaker 1: reducing costs, But I know you haven't also shrunk the
Speaker 1: editorial team very much. So you're reducing costs, keeping your staff,
Speaker 1: and somehow growing the audience.
Speaker 2: How do you do it.
Speaker 3: We're keeping our editorial costs. We're also keeping our tech costs.
Speaker 3: We've made some cuts in lower margin businesses, but we
Speaker 3: feel like we really need good content and to continue
Speaker 3: to grow our real audience to go into the next
Speaker 3: chapter and show that not only can we be profitable,
Speaker 3: but we can also grow.
Speaker 4: And I want to get into the content story, but
Speaker 4: I do want to talk a little bit more about
Speaker 4: the cost cutting, because fifty one percent is quite a
Speaker 4: number when you look over the next year. For example,
Speaker 4: do you think that you're pretty much at the end
Speaker 4: of your cost cutting cycle or do you think that
Speaker 4: there's still more to come.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we really try to do all of that upfront,
Speaker 3: mostly because we really believe in transparency and our business
Speaker 3: leaders being a part of the decision making. So if
Speaker 3: that was always looming overhead, we were worried that they
Speaker 3: wouldn't get on board and help us make the right decisions.
Speaker 3: So we're really trying to open up our books a
Speaker 3: little bit to the team so that they can make
Speaker 3: the best decisions for long term profitability as opposed to
Speaker 3: short term results.
Speaker 2: I am curious about the role of different franchises that
Speaker 2: you have within the Arena group. You have different arenas
Speaker 2: as you've called them sports. What role does that play
Speaker 2: right now? How competitive is this space and how much
Speaker 2: room for growth is there given that you have people
Speaker 2: wanting to read more about sports and sports betting continues
Speaker 2: to take.
Speaker 3: Off absolutely so. Our Athlon Sports publication has grown really
Speaker 3: huge now they're in the top ten. I think they
Speaker 3: grew three hundred percent over the last few months, so
Speaker 3: it's been really exciting for us. And we have more
Speaker 3: than one sports publication. We also have this fun and Yeah,
Speaker 3: as people are more interested. You know, we follow the audience,
Speaker 3: We follow what their interests are.
Speaker 1: I typically would go to a newsstand and pick up
Speaker 1: like Men's Journal or old school Men's Fitness. Right, that's
Speaker 1: not how the kids are consuming media nowadays. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of companies aren't even putting out a paper
Speaker 1: magazine anymore. It's the same I imagine with Arena Group.
Speaker 1: How much bigger is you know, the online presence than
Speaker 1: the publishing presence.
Speaker 3: The online presence is the whole thing. So our digital
Speaker 3: media is really where we make our money and where
Speaker 3: are sustainable businesses. But we do still have magazines. Athalon
Speaker 3: does a lot of previews for each season instead of
Speaker 3: a regular weekly or monthly magazine, and same with Powder
Speaker 3: and Surfer. They have at least one issue that goes
Speaker 3: out a year, which is really nice for the brand.
Speaker 3: But that's not how we make our money.
Speaker 4: That's really interesting. I mean, there is something to be
Speaker 4: said for buying physical, heavy magazine with the glossy pages
Speaker 4: and the bright pictures.
Speaker 1: But you get on the airplane, you put it on
Speaker 1: your coffee.
Speaker 4: Table exactly exactly. But yeah, everything's online now. I want
Speaker 4: to talk a little bit about the portfolio of companies
Speaker 4: that you work with, because obviously you have a big
Speaker 4: presence in sports, in lifestyle sort of categories as well.
Speaker 4: What does the due diligence look like on your end
Speaker 4: when you're evaluating what brands that you want to work with.
Speaker 3: Well, right now, we're growing our audience so much because
Speaker 3: we don't have a pay well for any of our journalism.
Speaker 3: The only thing that is behind a paywell is our
Speaker 3: street investment product. All of our content is brand safe.
Speaker 3: We're really trying to build out a real retail ecosystem
Speaker 3: and expand our commerce team and our first party data
Speaker 3: and how all that connects. So for us, if it's
Speaker 3: part of the bigger plan, if it helps us grow
Speaker 3: our audience that we're reaching our real organic audience, then
Speaker 3: it's for us.
Speaker 2: How often are you thinking about inorganic opportunities you've turned
Speaker 2: a profit, can you put that money to work to
Speaker 2: acquire something to build any of your Yes.
Speaker 3: Right now we're I mean we would be looking at
Speaker 3: partners like things publications that we could bring on, and
Speaker 3: also tools and services that we could bring on. But
Speaker 3: we're certainly not looking to buy traffic right now because
Speaker 3: our value is in how do we leverage the real
Speaker 3: audience that we have.
Speaker 1: I like how you use the term arenas there. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess at the arena group, you say, this is
Speaker 1: our sports arena, this is our lifestyle arena, this is
Speaker 1: our finance arena, which is what you ran before you
Speaker 1: took over the parent company, and it's what I think
Speaker 1: we're most interested in, right, So, how did you drive
Speaker 1: so much growth at the Street. We notice it as
Speaker 1: a competitor and as a source a lot of times.
Speaker 1: And what do you think about interest right now in
Speaker 1: the finance arena as we hit all time highs on
Speaker 1: the S and P, you know, super tight spreads on credit.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's been great for the Street. The Street's
Speaker 3: original focus when it was under Jim Kramer was the
Speaker 3: subscription product, so I had a lot of room to
Speaker 3: grow and that the Street is such a smart team
Speaker 3: that it was really about how do we get this
Speaker 3: in front of the audience, And that was just a
Speaker 3: little bit about It was mostly about changing what we
Speaker 3: were covering instead of trying to be the statement of
Speaker 3: record where we can't compete with a Bloomberg that has
Speaker 3: twenty five hundred journalists. I'm probably going to say the
Speaker 3: number wrong. But we have a small team that's trying
Speaker 3: to story selection allows them to say this is what's
Speaker 3: important for you today, and that made a huge difference
Speaker 3: for us.
Speaker 2: Sarah, I think a lot of publishers are thinking about
Speaker 2: this right now. How are you thinking about the role
Speaker 2: of artificial intelligence as you grow your platforms?
Speaker 3: So we are not looking at artificial intelligence to create content.
Speaker 3: I think that we can't win in that area. Google's
Speaker 3: going to beat us, other people are going to beat us.
Speaker 3: But we are looking for artificial intelligence to help us
Speaker 3: in our technology and serving people better and like what's
Speaker 3: the next thing that they should read or to serve
Speaker 3: our retail partners better.
Speaker 4: All right, Sarah, it's really great to have this conversation
Speaker 4: with you. Hope to see you again soon. And that,
Speaker 4: of course is Sarah at Silver's Sign of the Arena
Speaker 4: Group