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Speaker 1: I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are

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Speaker 1: going to have to start making better content. I think

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about this for a long time.

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Speaker 1: When you program for everyone, you program for no one.

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Speaker 1: I think it's that we're purpose driven platform, like we're

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Speaker 1: trying to get to substance. How was that? Are you

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Speaker 1: happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? It

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Speaker 1: really is? What's up? Laura And I'm Alexa Kristin. Welcome

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Speaker 1: back to Atlantia. Laura's in New Jersey today calling in

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Speaker 1: so close but so far away. I miss you. I

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Speaker 1: miss you in the studio. So today we have Pam

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Speaker 1: Wasserstein coming in UM from New York Media. They own

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Speaker 1: brands like New York Magazine, Vulture, The Cut, the Strategists, Intelligence,

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Speaker 1: are lots of other brands. Kind of an amazing story

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Speaker 1: because what I don't think a lot of people know

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Speaker 1: is that they're privately owned company, one of the few

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Speaker 1: uh still around. You know. Pam has been on board

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Speaker 1: for a few years now as CEO, and they have

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Speaker 1: really pushed and she's really pushed the company to think

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Speaker 1: about and get into very quickly, UH digital publishing. They

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Speaker 1: didn't have what I think a lot of companies have,

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Speaker 1: which is creating brands more organically and in the digital space. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it stands for a perspective, and there's certainly a sort

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Speaker 1: of level of premium associated with that. I think that's

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Speaker 1: reflective in the fact that they just created a paywall

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Speaker 1: in front of their content. Um, they're moving into merchandise

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Speaker 1: with some of their brands. They're thinking about, you know,

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Speaker 1: how to take the business offline and really tap into

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Speaker 1: the community and create a closer one to one engagement.

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Speaker 1: And so even though the brands, the individual brands which

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Speaker 1: you just mentioned earlier are leading UM with their unique

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Speaker 1: sort of perspective and what they're covering, sort of the

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Speaker 1: quality when you step back of what you expect from

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Speaker 1: New York Media backed properties, I think is consistent and

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Speaker 1: it'll be fun to hear um that perspective from Pam.

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Speaker 1: So with that, Pam from New York Media, we'll be

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Speaker 1: right back. We are back in the studio with Pam Wasserstein,

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Speaker 1: CEO of New York Media, Vulture, The Cut, New York Magazine.

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Speaker 1: What other brands intelligence are the Strategist You guys have

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Speaker 1: so many amazing brands. Welcome Pam, Thank you so much

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Speaker 1: happy to be here. Guys, We're so happy to have you.

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Speaker 1: Laura's calling in from Jersey. Hi. Everyone. So Pam, before

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Speaker 1: we get into the business, we want to talk about

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Speaker 1: how you came to be CEO of the business. Uh. Well,

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Speaker 1: I definitely did not start my career in media at all.

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Speaker 1: I was a corporate lawyer for several years, and then

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Speaker 1: I worked in private equity on the investment side, totally

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Speaker 1: different world, very very different. And then well, so for me,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to do something more entrepreneurial, something more creative.

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Speaker 1: I ended up working at Tribeca Film which was you know,

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Speaker 1: Tribeca Film Festival, and UM a bunch of other things,

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Speaker 1: and I ended up leading corporate development there. Stayed for

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Speaker 1: about five years, and then I came over to New

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Speaker 1: York Media, originally as a head of strategy and then

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Speaker 1: UM moving into the CEO position. So what was the

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Speaker 1: kind of for you, the thought process or the kind

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Speaker 1: of passion that drove you into like, yep, this this

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Speaker 1: feels right, this is right. I always loved media. I

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Speaker 1: was passionate about media, but I was neither a journalist

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Speaker 1: nor an advertising salesperson, and back in the day that

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Speaker 1: was sort of where the opportunities were in the industry,

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Speaker 1: one of those paths typically, right, So I think what

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Speaker 1: changed for me was that the industry changed and then

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Speaker 1: the business changed, and so suddenly there were a much

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Speaker 1: bigger set and frankly for me, a more interesting set

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Speaker 1: of problems and opportunities to start to dig into. So

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Speaker 1: you know, you suddenly are thinking about and a lot

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Speaker 1: of them tie to the future broadly, like what what

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Speaker 1: is the future um of marketing, what is the future

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Speaker 1: of content consumption and business models? Yeah, for sure, New

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Speaker 1: York was such an incredible brand that was still fresh

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Speaker 1: and vibrant and had a lot of I think opportunity

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Speaker 1: in the digital world and a really loyal, you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of core audience that we could build on. It's

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Speaker 1: a mainstay. I mean, so I would say, like in

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Speaker 1: New York the Post, in New York Magazine, and you

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Speaker 1: can walk into a New Yorker's home and you'll see

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Speaker 1: both of those publications. It's a mainstay and part of

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Speaker 1: the opportunity for our business, right was moving from that

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Speaker 1: kind and traditional in print. We're sort of four hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand circulation and New York d m a right, Um,

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Speaker 1: so it does tend to be more regional, and then

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Speaker 1: digitally we're like million monthly uniques on our own and

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Speaker 1: operated sites, and you know, quite national and even international.

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Speaker 1: What we're able to do when the Internet arrived just

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Speaker 1: kind of take that voice and authority which was always

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Speaker 1: through the fifty year history of New York Magazine sort

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Speaker 1: of ambitious and not really tied or limited to the geography.

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Speaker 1: It was always sort of trying to lead a cultural conversation.

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Speaker 1: But now there's so many new opportunities to achieve that.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that you all are obviously known

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Speaker 1: for very well is covering things that are central to

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Speaker 1: New York, right but understandably to scale and you know,

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Speaker 1: reach forty five million people with information that obviously goes

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Speaker 1: beyond what's happening within New York City. What was sort

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Speaker 1: of the reason to move into things like the strategists

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Speaker 1: or intelligence or like, what were the insights that said, hey,

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Speaker 1: we need to expand beyond covering or talking about things

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Speaker 1: just happening specific to New York. So that kind of

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Speaker 1: strategic push toward truly national coverage has been a long

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Speaker 1: time coming. I would spend probably twelve years now since

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Speaker 1: we first started UM one of what we call our

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Speaker 1: our verticals, our our digital brands, which was for scrub Street,

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Speaker 1: which covers restaurants and food, and Vulture came pretty quickly

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Speaker 1: after that, which covers culture and entertainment. Several legacy print publishers,

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Speaker 1: I think we're more hesitant to publish digitally because you know,

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Speaker 1: concerned about cannibalization of the print model and so forth.

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Speaker 1: We didn't really have that. Yeah. Yeah, for us, it

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Speaker 1: was like, oh, we you know, our audience loves our

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Speaker 1: cultural coverage. We can do so much more of it,

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Speaker 1: you know, in this arment and like serve our audience

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Speaker 1: better and more with our sensibility, take that lens and

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Speaker 1: kind of mix it with Internet voice and optimized for

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Speaker 1: you know, digital audiences. So it was relatively early, certainly,

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Speaker 1: I think for legacy print publishers that that we were

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Speaker 1: very gung ho about that, and I think on the

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Speaker 1: one the end, there was opportunity to serve our audience

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Speaker 1: even more. And then on the other hand, the business

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Speaker 1: model encouraged national coverage, so um digitally in an advertising

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Speaker 1: based model, typically local is a tough, tough business, a

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Speaker 1: tough business, right, So, and even when we started grab Street,

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Speaker 1: which was more local and its coverage because it was

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Speaker 1: more service and news around New York restaurant scene. And

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Speaker 1: then Vulture. What we quickly found was that you know,

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Speaker 1: for sort of the same resources, that you could talk

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Speaker 1: about something with more local interest, you could talk about

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Speaker 1: at the time, gossip Girl or Madman something like that

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Speaker 1: and reach an enormous, really engaged audience and find new audiences.

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Speaker 1: So that was a pretty exciting discovery for us, and

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Speaker 1: we just kept kind of growing, growing and building on that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: has that impacted the voice of New York magazine? The

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Speaker 1: need to go national? Do you find yourselves appealing to

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Speaker 1: an audience beyond New York? Do you find that that's

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Speaker 1: changed the way you cover news or politics or style

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Speaker 1: or do you still feel that you have a specific

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Speaker 1: lens at what you're covering things. It's a great question.

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Speaker 1: I think our voice is everything, Like differentiation in the

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Speaker 1: digital world, I think is everything, and so we we

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Speaker 1: try really hard to stay specific and true to that voice. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and you know that that's how we build real loyalty

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Speaker 1: and connection with our audience. I think just going scale

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Speaker 1: for the sake of scale is not ultimately a winning game.

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Speaker 1: You really need um you do need to achieve scale,

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Speaker 1: but you also need a loyal, engaged audience, and to

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Speaker 1: do that, your brand has to mean something and continue

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Speaker 1: to mean something over time. There does need to be

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Speaker 1: I think of voice and a sensibility, and at least

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Speaker 1: in our case, we're very, very focused on that and

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Speaker 1: kind of think of that as our core asset from

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Speaker 1: which the business follows. People that are in the kind

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Speaker 1: of cultural no like Saturday Night Live bring you guys

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Speaker 1: up in their skits, and it's this hilarious thing to me,

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Speaker 1: that culture when he's on Saturday Left. But and it's

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Speaker 1: I think happened a couple of times where they like,

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Speaker 1: if you didn't read it in Vulture, then you don't know,

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Speaker 1: like if it's not in Vulture, then it doesn't exist,

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Speaker 1: or something like that. You know, something to that effect.

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Speaker 1: And I think it's funny because at the end of

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Speaker 1: the day, as a New Yorker, as New Yorkers, we

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Speaker 1: know the SNL is like kind of this, it is

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Speaker 1: the New York Lens, but everyone in the world is watching.

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Speaker 1: It's very very SIMI learned to that, right. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: a great analogy actually, And it's funny because I also

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Speaker 1: think there's this halo of that brand, but then there's

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Speaker 1: a core that voice in that perspective that no matter

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Speaker 1: where you are, it's not about geography, it's about mindset

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Speaker 1: and mentality our audience. We try to understand our audience

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Speaker 1: really well and they it's sort of a psychographic right

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Speaker 1: it is. And the voice is also is not New

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Speaker 1: York the place. It's New York the idea of sort

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Speaker 1: of sophisticated, smart, witty, empathetic and and that's what we're

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Speaker 1: going for and there are a lot of people who

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Speaker 1: are really hungry for that right now in particular, but

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Speaker 1: over years as well. Yeah, So with a further push

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Speaker 1: into digital, you know, obviously you've launched podcast now you

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Speaker 1: are kind of two days. You've also implemented a paywall

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Speaker 1: in front of your content, So there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: change and use of technology to obviously both build community

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Speaker 1: but now also recognize the premium nature I'm assuming, which

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Speaker 1: is why you have the paywall of the content that

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Speaker 1: you're producing. Can you talk about some of those changes

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Speaker 1: that you're making as we move into twenty nineteen that

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Speaker 1: the marketplace needs to be aware of and sort of

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Speaker 1: new platforms and why the paywall. So our digital subscription

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Speaker 1: which we launched actually this week, which is exciting and

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Speaker 1: thank you. And on the tech side, we largely built

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Speaker 1: it ourselves. We have a custom content management system that

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Speaker 1: we developed ourselves that we actually license and partner with

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Speaker 1: other publishers on as well, and then so we've built

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Speaker 1: our subscription capabilities into that and it's an exciting next

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Speaker 1: step for our business. Been a year now that we've

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Speaker 1: been seriously working on implementing the paywall, not not even

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Speaker 1: from the tech perspective, but the messaging and marketing is

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Speaker 1: really goes hand in hand, especially because the subscription goes

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Speaker 1: across all our brands, which is a great value. And

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Speaker 1: part of the theory is that because there is really

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Speaker 1: a tight DNA around all our brands, and the subject

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Speaker 1: matter and focus is different, you know, that's between Vulture,

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Speaker 1: the Cut, Intelligencer, etcetera, but the sensibility is quite tightly similar.

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Speaker 1: And so if you are a Vulture reader a Vulture user,

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Speaker 1: you're likely reading about politics somewhere, or you're likely reading

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Speaker 1: about a technology and new ideas somewhere, and you're probably

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Speaker 1: going to love Intelligencer, and if you're not, then kind

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Speaker 1: of tightening to our consumers. The connection among all our

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Speaker 1: brands I think helps bring value to them and introduce

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Speaker 1: them to more opportunities to engage with us and engage

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Speaker 1: with these brands that they will likely really enjoy. New

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Speaker 1: York Media is a pretty unknown brand. You say New

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Speaker 1: York Meg and people are like, oh, yeah, okay, right

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Speaker 1: of course, right are you thinking about New York Media

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Speaker 1: kind of that brand coming out more or is it

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Speaker 1: stay in the background. Is it just a kind of

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Speaker 1: more of a business brand and you let the kind

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Speaker 1: of individual publications shine through. So that is our corporate name.

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Speaker 1: It was frankly somewhat of an accidental corporate name which

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Speaker 1: didn't really matter for a while. It doesn't really It

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Speaker 1: almost still it almost still doesn't matter unless it needs to.

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Speaker 1: I think from a like a business perspective, and it

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Speaker 1: depends on where you're taking it, and it depends on

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Speaker 1: how you're thinking about it. Well, we did have some

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Speaker 1: this subscription, what do you call it? And what we

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Speaker 1: decided is to call it the New York subscription. I

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Speaker 1: love that, but I think it's right. I think it's

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Speaker 1: I think for now New York Media will stay a

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Speaker 1: New York Work is very much a consumer facing brand.

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Speaker 1: So that's the way we treat it. Have you acquired

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Speaker 1: any brands, they've really been you've built, it's been organic. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: We did acquire Splitsider, which is a comedy focused site

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Speaker 1: and we incorporated that into Vulture and kind of made

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Speaker 1: it the heart of the comedy vertical within Vulture. So

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Speaker 1: many of these individual brands have followings, right, They have

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Speaker 1: I think there's this expectation that sort of you get

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Speaker 1: this insider perspective when you're hanging out with New York

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Speaker 1: Mag and The Cut. Can you talk about that sort

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Speaker 1: of online offline aspect of your business. Look, we are

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Speaker 1: can be and deep in connections. One way to deepen

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Speaker 1: connection and have a tangible relationship with a publishing brand

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Speaker 1: is through print. It's not the only way, but you know,

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Speaker 1: in an ephemeral world, to have like a thing that

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Speaker 1: you kind of snuggle up with and enjoy is actually

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Speaker 1: pretty powerful. But another form of tangible connection is around events.

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Speaker 1: We just did a Vulture Festival in l A a

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Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, which you know, something like over

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Speaker 1: ten thousand people come to and the programming of Vulture

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Speaker 1: Festival is designed towards the Vulture voice, and it's a

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Speaker 1: podcasts The Cut on Tuesdays, which there too, It's like, okay,

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Speaker 1: how can we deepen our relationship with our audience and

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Speaker 1: your life, um, help you be informed and help you

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Speaker 1: understand the world, be entertained all of that. Who are

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Speaker 1: some people that you're following in things that you're thinking

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Speaker 1: about to expand not just the brands, but expand their footprint,

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Speaker 1: expand the kind of offline online relationship where you guys

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Speaker 1: show up our brand. The Strategist is a little bit

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Speaker 1: different from the restaurant brands in the sense it's a

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Speaker 1: product recommendation site. The tagline is shop Smartly, or we

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Speaker 1: have another tagline that's an obsessively curated internet emporium and

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Speaker 1: it's doing really well and has all these like passionate

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Speaker 1: fans who basically come the Strategists to help navigate internet shopping.

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Speaker 1: So there too, we took authority that we had historically

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Speaker 1: in the case of shopping. New York Magazine from day

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Speaker 1: one in nineteen sixty was publishing something like best Bets

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Speaker 1: and telling you cool new things to buy, what's a deal,

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Speaker 1: what's what's beautiful, what's different? I'm always looking for the

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Speaker 1: what's different, and that's kind of the strategist sweet spot.

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Speaker 1: UM is there's a sense of discovery and it should

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Speaker 1: be something typically that you wouldn't necessarily find on your own.

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Speaker 1: One of the trends that Alex and I have been

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Speaker 1: personality as platform and the idea that communities galvanized around

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Speaker 1: people's perspectives and opinions. How are you thinking about elevating

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Speaker 1: journalists as talent? I think yes absolutely that. You know,

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Speaker 1: the individual brand in journalism and elsewhere is very much

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Speaker 1: a trend and a trend that's continuing. Ideally there mutually

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Speaker 1: reinforcing kind of synergistic relationship between the editorial brand and

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Speaker 1: then the individuals where everyone is made better and offers

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Speaker 1: a better product at the end of the day to

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Speaker 1: your audience. Intelligence Or which recently Uh kind of launched

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Speaker 1: in a more ambitious way, has this really cool homepage

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Speaker 1: experience you like slack integration with the editors, right, and

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Speaker 1: so you can actually talk to them and find out

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Speaker 1: what they're thinking about certain things that are happening. I'm

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Speaker 1: personally just such a fan of that because in my

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Speaker 1: own life, lurking in our editorial slack channels is like,

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Speaker 1: it's just the phenomenal. Yeah, it's so phenomenal, And we

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Speaker 1: wanted to kind of bring a piece of that experience

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Speaker 1: Also in a time where there's some distrust of media,

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Speaker 1: right a thing showing your work a little bit, and

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Speaker 1: I think helping our audiences understand what goes into what

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Speaker 1: we do, proving out kind of why we do have

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Speaker 1: the authority that we have with our audiences is powerful.

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Speaker 1: What are some of the partnerships that you've executed or

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Speaker 1: are working towards executing that demonstrate where the business is headed. Well, So,

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Speaker 1: one partner that we work with in a lot of

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Speaker 1: front ways is Amazon right this Strategist, which is a

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Speaker 1: truly editorial product, but you know, it's largely an affiliate

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Speaker 1: revenue business, which is of fascinating because we're we're suddenly

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Speaker 1: in the commerce business. We've done a lot of you know,

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Speaker 1: internal technology work to produce really interesting and useful insights

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Speaker 1: around purchase behavior people are saying, and then actually we're

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Speaker 1: able to take those insights to our grand clients and

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Speaker 1: help you know them build better eCOM experiences or content

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Speaker 1: experiences a around their objectives. What are your thoughts on

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Speaker 1: the status of print as a media channel. How does

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Speaker 1: that affect the decisions that you're making on the business side,

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Speaker 1: and what would your advice be two buyers in the market,

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Speaker 1: who are you know, deciding whether or not that's a

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Speaker 1: channel they want to think about in their media plans.

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Speaker 1: In I do think it should continue to be an

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Speaker 1: important piece of a media plan. It's a great brand play,

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Speaker 1: and I think sometimes in the marketing mix, some advertisers

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Speaker 1: have moved too far, too far down the funnel, and

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Speaker 1: you're not going to see the impact of that right away, right.

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Speaker 1: But if you're if you're really like being strategic about

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Speaker 1: your marketing mix, you need the lower funnel and you

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Speaker 1: also need the upper funnel. We agree with that. To agree, Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's it's not digital all the time. It's

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Speaker 1: definitely not print all the time. But it's where those

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Speaker 1: things and how you use those things and the content

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Speaker 1: right obviously matters. And people, you know, print subscribers, they

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Speaker 1: really love those publications, right, and they are an engaged audience.

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Speaker 1: It's a pleasure, it's a treat to I haven't to

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Speaker 1: cuddle up with your favorite magazine. There are a ton

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Speaker 1: of digital brands that you know not to mention away

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Speaker 1: suitcases like DTC brands who are coming out with their

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Speaker 1: own publication. Yes, I think there's a reason why so

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Speaker 1: many of businesses still go to the New York Times,

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Speaker 1: still go to New York mag to create an impact, right,

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Speaker 1: to make a statement, and to really create sort of

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Speaker 1: a clear, concise communication that's going to get attention in

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Speaker 1: a way that digital I just don't think has the

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Speaker 1: ability to do. So. I am all in on print.

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Speaker 1: Yeah it is. It's a high impact medium. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: totally agree, Pam. What would you kill? What would you buy?

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Speaker 1: And then what would you do yourself? What would you

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Speaker 1: what would you kill some of the self reporting fake stuff?

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Speaker 1: What would you buy for both buy and build. I've

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Speaker 1: been thinking a lot about products these days, bringing new

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Speaker 1: exciting experiences to our audiences. How can we developed products

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Speaker 1: like physical physical products? Yeah, The Cut has done these

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Speaker 1: T shirts and collaboration with Amazon. There's a new T

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Speaker 1: shirt every week. We've thought about it as content you

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Speaker 1: can live in. Basically an Amazon had originally encouraged us

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Speaker 1: to offer a lot of variety and a lot of

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Speaker 1: different skews and you know, different options, colors, etcetera. Like

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Speaker 1: that's typically how the playbook for doing well on Amazon.

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Speaker 1: And we're really just offering this one thing, and it's

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Speaker 1: gone really well to the point where apparently they've been

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Speaker 1: using it as kind of a case study internally, and like,

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Speaker 1: by the way, that's brand right, that's a brand. That's

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Speaker 1: brand pulling through the funnel right, by the way. Yeah, great,

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Speaker 1: it's a great example. Okay, what would you what would

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Speaker 1: you do yourself? TV? We're interested in TV. Where. Um,

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Speaker 1: that's great explaining I p for TV, Pam. If people

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Speaker 1: want to get ahold of you, how do they find you?

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Speaker 1: I think you can email me. Wow, everybody, get out

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Speaker 1: your pen the pen you bought from the article on

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Speaker 1: the strategies exactly. First go buy a pen from the

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Speaker 1: strategist and then use that pen to write down my

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Speaker 1: email address. It's Pam dot Wasserstein at and my meg

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Speaker 1: dot com. Pam. This is awesome. Thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for coming by. Big thanks to Pam. Thank you so

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Speaker 1: much for coming by. I think we've been talking about

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Speaker 1: having you on the show at least for a year,

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Speaker 1: so it's been long time coming. Thank you big. Thanks

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Speaker 1: to Dana, our producer. Everyone at Panoply Atlantia will be

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Speaker 1: talking to you in a couple of weeks. Full disclosure

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Speaker 1: Our opinions are our own.