[upbeat music] This week's episode of "The Rebooting Show" is brought to you by Beehiiv. Blockworks is one of my favorite B2B media companies.
I've had CEO Jason Yanowitz on this show a couple of times, and like most modern media companies, Blockworks is using email as a critical part of its distribution strategy.
If you don't know Blockworks, they're a crypto media company, and they have seven daily newsletters. Seven. Seems like a lot, and they run all of them on Beehiiv.
When Blockworks started working with Beehiiv, you know, they didn't just make the email easier, they made it smarter. Everything from segmentation to monetization happens in one place.
Blockworks editors can publish faster, experiment more, and actually see what's working across all seven audiences. And that's the beauty of Beehiiv.
It is built for serious publishers that want control, speed, and scale. It is the same platform powering newsletters at places like TechCrunch, Time, Texas Tribune, and Blockworks.
So if you are running a large publication and wanna see what the next stage of growth could look like for you, go to beehiiv.com/trb.
That is B-E-E-H-I-I-V.com/trb, and you can talk with their team today. [upbeat music] Welcome back to "The Rebooting Show." I am Brian Morrissey. Just a quick reminder, be sure to check out this week's "People Vs.
Algorithms." This is the other podcast I like to say that I do with Troy Young and Alex Schleifer and Anonymous Banker. Troy was traveling this week, so it was just me and Alex and AB.
Alex and I went into what makes a good media product and why so many media companies struggle at pulling it off, and how that's the elephant in the room when we talk about the need to create direct audience connections, because that has to start with a product that is worth people coming and seeking out.
So check that out if you can. And also, AB joins us to discuss why getting celebrities on a cap table is usually a terrible idea. At least I, I think it's a terrible idea, but maybe I'm wrong.
This week, I spoke to Jacqueline Cameron, the CRO of Axios. It is hard to believe, but Axios is going to be nine years old in January.
And I would even go out on a limb and say that it's now a legacy publication, considering that it launched all the way back in January 2017.
The landscape has shifted quite a bit in those nine years, and the format innovation that Axios brought to the table, also known as smart brevity, would seem well-suited for an age of AI summarization and an emphasis on human differentiation.
The company is also... It's no longer a nimble upstart. It's instead owned by Cox. And it's also, to me, like, a text-oriented brand.
It experimented in an HBO show, and it dabbled in podcasts, but it really has remained really focused on, on newsletters, to be honest with you, at a time when a lot of others have been branching out into multimedia.
It recently started a YouTube strategy. It's a little late to the game, but there's always space for a good execution.
It's also made a big bet on local, which continues to be the hardest of the hard areas of the media business. And it is also ramping up a live events business, which Jacqueline and I discuss.
And let's be real, that sector is incredibly saturated now. Lots of publishers are getting into events.
I swear, all of our gatherings, no matter where the conversation starts at our breakfast and dinner salons, it quickly leads to events. So events are a great area, but they are also very crowded.
And finally, you know, the type of advertising that Axios has long relied on, corporate public affairs spending, is no longer the best-kept secret in the industry.
You know, since it launched, just think Punchbowl, Semaphore, and Potkov all entered into the fray, along with, you know, longtime rivals like Politico.
And finally, you know, it launched with talk from CEO Jim VandeHei that it was gonna do $10,000-a-year subscriptions.
Now, it did go down the path of a high-priced corporate subscription focused on communications professionals, but it's only recently entered into a consumer-oriented subscriptions with vertical subscriptions for specific Axios products under the Axios Pro umbrella.
So I wanted to talk about all of this with Jacqueline, and she went into how Axios is, for all intents and purposes, an influence business. We get into what the B2I thesis is. That's business to influencers.
And also, I really liked how Jacqueline broke out the five audience segments that Axios optimizes for.
We also discuss why not having an opinion section is a competitive advantage in Washington, D.C., and how live programming works when it's designed to inform the right people versus just being sponsor-driven.
And we talk about the real business case for doing local at scale and how AI is being used at Axios to eliminate a lot of rote work, particularly in the revenue side of the organization, 'cause I think a lot of times we focus just on the news side, but these tools really, I think the big initial impact of them will be for the areas around the journalism, not actually in the actual journalism product.
And then we also talk about membership versus subscriptions, what Axios has learned in its return to video, andWhat it takes to grow high margin revenue lines. So this is a wide-ranging discussion. I hope you enjoy it.
Quick note, we, we recorded this one back in September. I'm a bit behind on all these great conversations I've had lately, so that's why I'm gonna be bringing them to you twice a week.
And I want your feedback on them and to see what kinds of podcasts you find most valuable.
You know, I try to go across the spectrum from, you know, revenue leaders at big publishers like Axios to, you know, independent newsletter businesses and vertical media companies, 'cause I like talking to all of them, honestly.
In any case, would love to hear your feedback. My email is brian@therebooting.com. Also, leave this podcast a rating or review wherever you got it. That always helps with discovery. And forward it to a friend. Why not?
Now, here's my conversation with Jacqueline. [upbeat music] Jacqueline, thank you for joining me. Really happy to have you on the Rebooting show. So glad to be here.
Thank you so much for all that you do and for having me today. Okay, great. Yes, this is a celebration of me. We can get back to that later, but let's start with Axios is over eight years old.
It'll actually be nine years- Nine years... really in, in January. Correct. Which is crazy for me to, like, think of. I keep getting older. But it's no longer sort of a new kid on the block, if you will.
And I went back... I always like to judge the sort of thesis of, of brands when they come out, and I think Axios got a ton right. Hmm. You know? And, and basically wh- what I was, like, listing on some of them.
One was things were too long. There was a, there was, you know, the, the inverted pyramid story was a lot of, like, hamburger helper and not enough hamburger.
And so the idea was, we're gonna, we're gonna give you just what you need to know, and that was the smart brevity bet, and I think that w- that proved to be 100% right on.
I think one of the other bets or thethi- part of the thesis was that publishers were falling into what Jim VandeHei memorably called the crap trap. Hmm.
And that was basically when you're chasing traffic in those models, you're inevitably gonna optimize yourself into some weird places.
One other that I, I've got, that email and direct connections to a specific audience was weirdly still underrated and incredibly powerful part of media businesses. I mean, I- And you wrote about this earlier today.
I read it. Yes, because I have long been an, an email person because I came from the B2B side where email was always cool.
And it, it's interesting to me that consumer, and you guys are sort of in between 'cause you're, it's more of a professional audience, a- is, you know, really now they wanna talk about email, email, email, and I love it.
The other one I've got is that, you know, the niches were, are where the riches are, particularly when you've got powerful and influential people. Again, it's pretty obvious now.
It wasn't then, you know, because people were chasing giant audiences.
A- and the final one is, and then there's others, but these are, I just had to keep it to five, was that specialized ad categories can be really great businesses.
And, and the specialized ad category that I have always associated Axios with is the CSR corporate influence.
I don't know what the umbrella term for it is, but usually it is companies looking to influence the regulators, lawmakers, et cetera, okay? It's a different type of advertising. They have...
A- and I don't wanna get into the, the, that whole ecosystem. There's... It's a, it's a parallel ecosystem really. I, I- It is. Public affairs is a- Public affairs... good way to describe it. Okay. Public affairs.
We will. But here's the thing, y- you end up having to learn new skills, right? And that's the thing with media. It's like the good news, bad news thing.
It's like good news, you nail everything, and that means that you have to, like, [chuckles] learn and master a totally related but different set of skills, and that can be in multimedia.
You gotta be multimodal these days. That can be in subscriptions. You need a direct revenue source these days. And, you know, Axios had started, you know, talking about a 50/50 split, you know.
Timing was not, like, attached to that, I, I assume, right? But, you know, you have to be able to do that. And then, you know, you've got the AI curve ball. So l- let, let, let's get into all of those, of those things.
When you're looking at the sort of landscape now, give me, like, where you think, you know, the biggest growth opportunities are at this juncture of, of the Axios story.
Well, let's first start with sort of underscoring some of the things that you mentioned.
When we think about the big bet that our co-founders made when they founded us almost nine years ago, to your point, what they had was clarity of vision.
So they knew that if they brought expertise to the table, they presented it in a way that was not going to waste time nor insult anyone's intelligence, and we delivered it in a way that would be one-to-one, that the audience would respond and become incredibly loyal.
And we've been able to prove that out over time, Brian, and you see that over and over where we've had incredible success, the more that we replicate that very specific model.
When it comes to where we're going, I think that there's still so much incredible opportunity in the space that is core to our business, which is what I refer to as B2I.
So we talk a lot about B2B in marketing, and we talk a lot about B2C efforts, but where we demand to win is in what we call B2I, so business to influence, and there is still so much opportunity for us to expand there.
Right.I-I've heard it B2P. Puck prefers B2P, B2I. You know, I like B2B, but that's fine. Like, I know it's, like, broader, and it is a, a different category.
But let's, let's dig into that because, you know, public affairs is one aspect, I would guess, of B2, B2I. And, you know, the Axios story is, you know, the, the co-founders came from Politico.
They, they, you know, drove the success of, of Playbook, right? And Playbook, to me, was an early model of what a lot of successful publishing companies are now, right?
It's not like it's a carbon copy of it, but Playbook wa-was his, like, an, a daily email. It was, you know, agenda setting, right? And it went to an extremely influential audience. Mm-hmm.
And that meant that companies clamored to be in Playbook, and I'm sure that Jim and Mike, and Roy knew the economics of that are pretty great, [chuckles] right? That's right.
It's a really crowded market now because that is well known. Now, when, when Axios launched going on nine years ago, there was no Substack. There was no, there was no Semafor, there was no Puck, there was no Punchbowl.
There was a Politico. There still is a Politico. A lot of people are, are after this category now. How do you differentiate? Yeah, that's, that's so important for us to remain differentiated in this very crowded space.
And, you know, I've been in the, the business of Washington for a very long time. I cut my teeth at Politico in this space.
I was with the co-founders back in two thousand and eight when they founded Politico, and I was there with them in DC for six years before I moved on. So it's really crowded today.
I would say that there's been more entrants and competitors who have entered that market over the past five to 10 years than the previous fifty. So it's really important to, to differentiate.
Well, here's one critical way that we differentiate: no opinion coverage.
So I think one of the most profound decisions that the founders made when they founded us nine years ago was to not hire opinion writers, not have an opinion section, not even have an editorial board.
And the impact that that has had is that we are received by all sides of the aisle today in a very balanced way.
What that also means is that we create a very brand-suitable experience for the brand partners who want to run with us.
There is no impact on our brand partners because of their work with Axios, and that absolutely matters in Washington. Okay. But, like... So I get it.
Like, I mean, uh, uh, particularly, uh, uh, I think one of the other things, actually, I probably... I nee- I might need to add a sixth one, which was kind of like flick the...
I think the, the early models sort of flicked at that, that institution's, the individual shift, and found a, found a place along that continuum, right?
Like, it's not, it's not like it's a Substack, a roll-up of Substack. You think of it like Puck is further down the individuals, you know. Substack is all the way at the end of the, the individuals. Mm-hmm.
Whereas, like, Axios is somewhere to, just from an outsider, is somewhere between institutions and individuals. There, there are individuals that, you know, that are, are stars.
I mean, you guys have, have developed, you know, for lack of a... You know, I know, like, journalists hate the word talent, right? But, like, you know, you've generated, like, you know, talent, right? I mean- Correct...
I, I, I saw you at the, at the Media Trends Live event last week here in New York City, and, and, you know, Sarah Fisher, w- in, in this area, has done, like, a tremendous job.
And, you know, Sarah would hate me to call her, like, a B- uh, an influencer, a B2I influencer. But, you know, in some ways, yeah, the shoe fits.
Sarah, Sarah Fisher, Dan Primack, Alex Thompson, Eleanor Hawkins, all of these executives and these reporters are experts. They're best in class. And so we're building franchises around them. That's absolutely right.
And what happens is that the, the, uh, amount of audience and the, the sort of purity of that audience, that's ultimately what is driving our business. Yeah. So when, when Axios did launch, right? Mm-hmm.
It was, it was mostly... It was very newsletter-centric, right? And it, it was very advertising driven. Now, everyone... I, I feel like these days it's about, it's about being multimodal, right? Mm-hmm.
And while B2I advertising is a great area, there's a lot of, there's a lot of people elbowing into that trough. Like, I mean, it's, it's gotten a lot... It's gotten pretty competitive.
I always wonder if there's gonna be as much spending because Trump just seems to make all the decisions, so I'm not sure who's being influenced. But y-y-you end up having to diversify these kind of business models.
So let's, let's, let's go with the multimodal, right? Because you're not primarily in the marketplace saying, "If you, if you work with us, you know, you can reach a lot of influential people through email." Correct.
That's right. It's absolutely about being multimodal. At the same time,
organizations, media entities, companies, they are stymied by complexity, so it absolutely matters which modes you choose, and you have to make sure that you're leaning into the areas where...
I heard last week on stage this comment of where you are permissioned. For us at Axios, we say where we can demand to win.
So we wanna make sure that any time we are bringing something forward to the marketplace, it's an area where-We feel really confident about our ability to do something that is distinctive, that is going to break through, that is going to add value not only to audience and also to our clients.
So when we think about if we're to use Sarah Fischer as an example, if we're to think about how we can bring opportunity to our clients around her expertise, it's not only about her newsletter, which is generating, you know, well over a hundred thousand subscribers that are currently consuming her every week, but it is also about how we can stand up best in class live moments.
So our Axios Live franchise has absolutely exploded over the, the past few years.
We see this marrying between expertise and one-to-one connection that has driven that business to incredible heights as of today. So it is about newsletter, it is about live, it is about site.
It is also about, in the Sarah Fischer case, the concept of membership. Right. So let's talk about, like, about events as, you know, one of the legs of the stool, right?
'Cause I said, like, I doubt you're, you're, you're making packages just around, like, you know, ads that run in newsletters and on the site and on the app. You know, most...
I don't know, tell me, but I think, you know, most sponsors want integrated packages.
You, you're competing against, you know, a lot of, like, automated ad systems, and u- and so most publishers that I talk to, you know, the reason that they always wanna talk about events is because events gets you out of that in some way, shape, or form.
M- arguably, that's why there are too many events, because, yeah, that's just how it goes. Now, Washington has always had a particular type of event, I feel like. And I don't know if this started with Politico or not.
It's like it's the breakfast event. Everyone in Washington has breakfast. In New York, they have dinners, and in Washington, they have breakfast. I don't know what that says about both places.
Partially because of the ethics rules, but- Oh, is that it? We can talk about that later. [chuckles] Oh, okay. I didn't... I thought, I thought, I thought nobody drinks down there.
I thought they were early onto the trend. I mean, I'm going in with breakfast. I'm having, again, my first breakfast, you know, next month. So I, I prefer a breakfast to a dinner personally. I'll do either.
Well, let me just say this- Any potential partners are listening, I'll do either. Let, let me just say this to your offering as when we were in Cannes.
I can tell the audience that if ever Brian invites you to a dinner- Okay, don't bring this up... you say yes. Don't bring this up. You say yes. I ha- just so everyone knows, I've mentioned this before.
I had an accidental activation at a clubstaurant. Uh, Jess [chuckles] was nice enough to... Again, it was a unique experience, right? I mean, that's, that's very- Sure was. Memorable.
I'm, I'm, I'm- That's what we're all after... I'm blushied, yes. So let, let's talk about the events th- because like, as I said, Wa- Washington's had a particular events. They're- Mm-hmm...
they're usually smaller scale, and it, it'll be a view from the top, which is a euphemism for, like, a sponsor session, and then there'll be, like, you know, a newsmaker, and they'll be mingling, and, like, a lot of lobbyists, I as- assume.
I assume the lobbyists are kinda like the ad tech salespeople of, of, of the New York [chuckles] sort of world. And they'll, they'll come, and they'll, you know, they'll hobnob and, and try to do business.
But, like, you know, most people are looking for leverage in an events business 'cause then all of a sudden you, you know, you can only do so many. I had Sherry Phillips from Forbes on- Mm-hmm...
and they, they do, like, hundreds of events e- a year, and it's... And that can be like a rubber grind. I mean, I've been in this events, like, thing. It's vortex. It can be- get a lot. How are you thinking about events?
I mean, Semafor is out there saying they're an events company. They wanna be the next Davos, and, I mean, I would love to be Davos. It's a great business. Talk to me about how Axios is approaching events and activations.
So we think of events as a real critical part of the portfolio because ultimately, Brian, it is the physical manifestation of our newsroom, and it allows us to build one-to-one connections with the audiences that we're bringing into that room.
And over time, that's gonna become even more difficult for brands to connect with those audiences. That's the reason why we see us as remaining a core value and partner to our brands.
When we think of events, we wanna make sure that we are breaking news, that we have something very unique to say, that there is a unique value that you're getting out of coming to one of our events.
And because of what we've been able to do over time, when we convene audiences, we're convening the most important individuals, not only in room, but also on stage.
So just last week in Washington, DC, we hosted the Axios AI+ Summit, and that program delved into what matters in AI, especially when it comes to the way in which some of these companies may be, how they're going to be impacted by potential regulation or policy.
And on that stage, we had the CEO of Anthropic speaking. That's what breaks through. That's what matters.
So how can we break news and tell incredible stories while in person with the audience and ultimately in partnership with these brands who also have to communicate to these audiences?
You know, I think in this space, it's a lot less about advertising, and it's a lot more about informing and educating these audiences. And live, we've proven, has been a great way for, for our brand partners to do that.
But what is the business model then for, like, let's just st- stick on, on this event. Or we can- Sure... we can also go into the, the one the, the Media Trends Live, 'cause I think they're, they're different, right?
Like that one... The, the one li- like last week, the Media Trends Live that I went toSeem more about me- about driving membership.
You know, there was some sponsorship, but, you know, having, yeah, having come out of a B2B like events business, I was like, "Oh my God," like, there's like 50 logos that would be up here if this event had been done at Digiday.
[chuckles] It would be like the entire LUMAscape would be like on a slide. So very tastefully done. Appreciate that. Thank you.
Very, very core to business is just making sure that the partners that we do work with ultimately can break through to tell their story. That's... We've learned that over the time that this isn't going to be
about logo soup, to your point. This is very much about providing opportunity for clients to give voice to their story, give voice to their business, so that ultimately they can do more business or do better business.
Yeah. But like, so give me the AI event. Like, what is the business model for that kind of event? Yeah. So it is multi-pronged.
We have the ability to sell against advertising, so we're talking about a figure that is, you know, seven figure, seven figures of advertising revenue that is driven against one day of programming, and that is underwritten by core sponsors who ultimately do get the time on the stage they're looking for, as well as activations around.
We also host dinners and breakfasts that surrounded, that are essentially expert voice roundtables.
So how do we convene a group of 20 to 25 of the most influential individuals on a particular topic and moderate a conversation that can move the needle on that particular topic? So it is very much advertising based.
What we've tried, and media trends showcase this, we also have experimented with ticketing, so ticketing has become a part of a number of our programs, and I see that as being an opportunity that we lean further into in the future, as well leveraging our events as, to your point, an upper funnel mechanism for driving membership, professional memberships that we've been creating around key reporters like Sarah and like Eleanor Hawkins.
Mm-hmm. But you're not like ta- like, so I think the, the, the sort of semaphore bet seems to be on like the, like a massive, like, event. Like, and I think when you get into events, you start to realize like the, the...
And, and the margins sound great if you're selling seven figures of like sponsorships, like that, those margins will, will work, right? But it's always been- High value, high margin- Right. It-... ultimately.
Like, that's my goal as the, as the- Yeah... CRO of Axios. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's like, you know, there's a lot of leverage in making a lot of money at once versus like an all right amount of money like many times.
Is this like a build to that? Because, you know, I mean, I think when you start to get into one-day events, like, you know, you start to get like it's, it becomes the calendar, becomes pin the tail on the donkey.
Pretty soon- Mm... you're in the Forbes category, and you're doing hundreds. And that's fine. That's just a different type of business, and there is some risk to that.
I mean, there's a risk of dilution, and there's also just a risk, like internally, of just becoming on this events treadmill that, that can really, you know, sap an organization. Yeah, 100%.
So the, the goal here and the strategy is not more for more. Mm-hmm. It is not about having hundreds of programs. That's just not in our calculus.
What we are doing, though, is experimenting constantly so that we do build toward moments where the impact is so great, similar to what we've been able to accomplish with the AI Plus DC summit.
So if you look, or if I look at the revenue implication year over year, it's always building toward that ultimate goal of having one critical moment in Washington that matters around AI, and that everybody is going to pay attention, not only brand partners, but also audience members, also the individuals who are going to agree for these one-on-one interviews on the stage with our reporters.
Yeah. And so for that AI event, like, i- is that invitation only or application?
Because I think one of the essential tensions of events that I, I end up seeing when-- 'cause look, look, a lot of people are coming to this area, and, you know, I spend a lot of time do, uh, you know, in this, and there is always a tension.
You wanna sell tickets, right? Right. But the, the, the people who will buy the tickets, like if, you know, in, in the sort of media world will be like a lot of, you know, ad tech salespeople, right?
And you're trying to sell an, a, a, a different audience a lot of times. So in order to curate the right audience, you know, you wanna have control over it, right?
And so I th-I sometimes th-think those things are intent-are intention because you, and media is about managing tensions, let's be real.
But because you're, you're selling a brand like Axios, and a brand is about, and to me, the tangible expression o-of, of it in media now is being able to get the right people in a room. Yeah.
And so completely agree, and the way in which we've operated is that we actually will open up the page so you can apply to register. And then we go ahead, and we start curating that list.
And what's interesting is that 458 individuals were registered in the room for our Axios, uh, AI Plus summit in DC, and of those, it was 50% that had a title director above. Like, that is absolutely core.
So making sure that that audience is going to carry the story that they're going to hear on the stage, that's absolutely critical to the success of the business. Yeah.
And do you end up like packaging that with-With like media Sure. You know, you wanna make sure that there's an anchor to every program. Right.
But what I think is most important, and I said this earlier, it's less about advertising and is much more about what is the client in the public affairs space ultimately facing as their challenge? Mm.
Is this a crisis comms moment? Is this a moment where they recognize that re-education has to take place? If that's the case, what are the many modes by which they can educate the audience?
Oftentimes, live is an anchor to a larger package. Right. And so let's talk about, a little bit about the public affairs space, 'cause it seems like you're very bullish on it, like, as far as its, its growth.
And like, look, the...
I, I lived in Washington very briefly in, like, the late 90s and, like, revisiting it can just, it just shows, like, how big the government has grown because I was like, "Oh, I remember those houses there were, like, two hundred thousand dollars in nineteen ninety-nine."
[laughs] Now they're two million dollars. And just the, the, the growth of, no matter what your political persuasion is, the growth of the government has been astounding, and therefore the stakes- Mm... are high.
There was a reason that the big beautiful bill was called big- Mm... because it was massive. And, you know, so companies a-a-are economic animals, and they act accordingly.
So in order to influence what goes into any bit of legislation or any regulation is just so massive right now. Cor-correct, Brian.
And, and know that th-that policy and that regulation, it is ultimately influencing the conditions in which these companies and industries will operate.
Um, all roads lead to and through Washington, and that's never been more true than it is today. Yeah.
I mean, and, and particularly as, again, right or wrong, the government and business are more entwined than they've been- Mm... right, at least in my, in my lifetime at least.
I wasn't paying attention when I was, like, 12. But I think, at least not to that. I was paying attention to s- like Phillies games and stuff. But, you know, I think the... I think AI is part of the story, right?
Because, like, for most of media, you know, I s- it's like [chuckles] I go to, like, last week before the Axios, the day before, or no, two days before, I'd been at this Wired AI Power Summit in World Trade right next to where you guys had your event, and, you know, it's a lot of doom and gloom when it comes to, like, publishing and AI.
Now, if you're Axios or [chuckles] one of its ilk, this is actually a pretty good time.
If anyone is motivated to influence regulators and has the, the c-capacity, it's people who are paying a hundred million dollars for an engineer. Regulation and, and, in AI is an existential thing.
Now, I mean, obviously with, with where Washington is right now, it's, it's very, it's very much, you know, it's one party control, right? So- Mm...
I don't think that there's, like, a massive risk that, that there's gonna be regulation that stops the development of AI.
I mean, there's this book out now, I don't know if you saw it, like, Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares about, you know, if they build it, everyone will die, which I like, you know, and it's a very direct title.
And, uh- It's a high P doom- Yeah. [chuckles]... score. Very high P doom. And they, you know, they're basically like, "Oh, we have to shut this down."
You know, we have to, you know, launch missile strikes against data centers and all this, like, kind of, like, pie in the sky stuff that is born out of, like, fever swamps in Berkeley.
That's just, it just doesn't match up with the reality of power these days, particularly in Washington. So explain how th-this... Am I right? Like, this, this has gotta be a nice boon to that business.
I think that any time where there is potential for policy and regulation, we see those industries activate by way of messaging and, and advertising. So
you could take the man out of DC, but clearly you remember the way that it works from the 90s.
Indeed, those companies are evaluating different ways in which they can communicate to the individuals and the teams that are going to make these decisions, 100%.
And then when it comes to AI, generally, there is a lot of discussion about doom and gloom, but for us at Axios, I do think that we sit at a place where we see a lot of opportunity, and I think we're incredibly bullish when it comes to the impact that AI can have on, on our company in a really positive way.
Yeah. Well, I mean, the, the, again, the near term is just as a revenue generator.
I don't know if you have, like, a figure that you would share about how much, like, of ad revenue is related to AI companies, but I'm sure, I'm sure it is, like, plus 600% or something from two years ago.
[chuckles] Like, this is, you know, the amount of money going into this area is such a massive bet, and particularly the technology industry.
You talk about the 90s, like techno-tech, the tech industry had ignored Washington for a long time until they tried to break up Microsoft, and then the tech industry was like, "Oh, God."
I don't think Google had anyone in Washington until, like, you know, the, like, 2005 or so. I, I have no idea how many people Google has now. Yeah, the office now is quite large. [chuckles] Yes, roughly.
What I, I do think is important, and what I can share, is that when I look at the categories of business that are operating with us today, and it's, it's been the truth since the very beginning, the top two industries are technology and financial services, and I can't give you exact figures- Yeah...
but I will- But that's the economy. That is the economy, and I think that that will absolutely continue being the case moving forward too.Yeah. So let's talk about multimodal, right?
Because I mean, to me, like Axios, and this is a little bit related to AI, right? Like, because the smart brevity format was obviously pioneered, trademarked even by, by Axios. It's a great book if you haven't read it.
I don't know if I have. It's... I'm sure it's a quick read. And, you know, I think again, with the AI, it's sort of like, you know, when you, when you go, when you're...
When I'm using ChatGPT, I'm like, oh, this is like kind of it's answering in the Axio in smart brevity format.
Obviously, AI is really good at that kind of summarization and, you know, being very ec-economical with, with its words.
You know, I think one of the things, this is maybe more on the editorial side like that, you know, I always wondered like for, for writers, if that was like a straitjacket of being all their stuff being almost
boiled down into a commodit-commodity format.
In some ways, I understand it from the reader perspective, but from a self-interested, career-oriented journalist perspective, I think there, there, there are trade-offs to that.
But like I, I think you- Well, what- Go ahead. If I, if I may, one of the things that absolutely is true is that in a world of AI, content will be commoditized. News, once published, will be commoditized.
But what AI will never do is break news. So AI will never be the sourced like, like be sourced like the human experts in Sarah Fischer or Dan or Eleanor, Ena. That just won't be the case.
And so that's, that's where we see the real opportunity as we navigate what is building in this industry. Right. But I think...
Now look, I, I was listening to, to Meredith Levien like on the Girl Room, I think it was last week. And there's again, I, I... Nobody thinks text is going away.
I mean, that's, that's crazy, but it's a straw man thing to say like, "Oh, text is not going away." It's like, whoa, okay, fine. [chuckles] Like agreed. Cursive writing is also not going away.
At the same time, cursive writing is soon to be only known by like tattoo artists. You know, when obviously the trends are moving towards more audio, more video. Again- Mm-hmm... this is the multimodal question.
Axios was really good at smart brevity in text. You guys went into podcasting, doing- We did... short podcasting. That didn't... I don't think that totally worked. I think you moved away from it.
It didn't, and it's actually something that we, we talk about in the sense that if it doesn't work, we're comfortable moving away from something if we find that it's not adding value in the way that we want it to. Yeah.
So it was a very s- important experiment, certainly. And weirdly, audio has gone in a totally different, whatever the opposite of smart brevity is, is whatever Joe Rogan does, I think.
[chuckles] And so I don't mind Joe, Joe Rogan. I don't listen to Joe Rogan, but every now and again. But let's talk about video, 'cause you guys did this, this HBO show that I liked. Thank you.
It was, it was a high-end show, didn't continue it, and meanwhile, YouTube is the new TV. And so- Mm-hmm... you're, you're going back. I've never really associated Axios with, with video much over the years.
Tell me about the video strategy now. Yeah. So one of the things that we have been thinking about is how, how can we add value in that space? And
one of the things that I think about as a revenue leader is, how can I look at the extraordinary work that's coming out of the newsroom,
the work that they're doing every day, and match it with the right demand and partners who would be interested in experimenting with us? And that's ultimately the way that the Axios show this season came together. So
we knew that we wanted to be there. We knew that we could add value. Ultimately, we ran a... We won an Emmy the first time that we had the Axios show a few years ago, so we know what we're doing in this space.
We found it to be the right time for us to reengage with video, and thusly the audience has responded. So we've seen really incredible numbers when it comes to reaching core audience profiles. We, we target five here.
Their core audience profiles are ultimately watching the show in a way that really exceeded even my expectation by way of total numbers. Yeah. Um- What are the audience profiles, by the way? Yeah. The...
There are five critical profiles that we think about at Axios, and I, I love it. I love the clarity and vision, so if I don't mention them, [chuckles] it's not for us. I would love to refer our clients elsewhere.
But the five audience profiles are influencers. We've talked about those, and we reach tho- them at scale, and we reach both sides of the aisle, which we think is absolutely critical to our success in the future.
C-suites and C-suite minus ones. We reach deal makers and investors. That's an absolutely critical part of our, of our work when it comes to the business suite- Yeah... that we bring to the table.
Media and communicators. A rising economic buyer we identified a few years ago was the chief communication officer.
They're so critical, not only for the way that brands operate, but also the way that brands are now leaning into advertising.
And then the fifth is the smart professional across the local ecosystem that we have established. So those are the five profiles that we, we lean into when we're talking to our clients.
Yeah, that's really interesting because, like, tech isn't on that list though. I mean, I guess they're like sort of CEOs, but like if I think about...
I mean, this is always like with, until I go on a tangent about Puck, but like I always say that I was like, how are you about power?
You're not like that big into like tech and like tech is like we are all downstream of tech.
Like if you're about power, maybe you should just be about tech because yeah, I mean, Washington is the ultimate power, but outside of that it's like Washington and tech really.
[chuckles] I think it could be like the two of them.When we look at isolating different subsets of, of audiences, we find a lot of the tech leaders are consuming our content.
It's just not in a direct, direct capacity, right? But they are reading Axios AM, they are reading AI+, which is our coverage on AI written by Ina. That is ultimately what they're consuming. Yeah.
And I think that audience profile approach is, is super smart, and I think it probably... That's like having email at the heart probably- Mm... helps that quite a bit.
I mean, and Meredith like made a mention of like Comscore not being about Comscore [chuckles] and I was like, "Oh my God, those were the days."
And I feel like obviously we've all moved, everyone has moved on, most people have moved on from, you know, talking about their uniques.
And, you know, being able to boil down specific segments like that is, again, it's like kinda boring in some ways, but it's absolutely critical in this kind of, of media ecosystem. Absolutely.
And you mentioned it again in, in your piece earlier today that is so critical to the way in which we're, we're ultimately making money here too. Right. So let's talk about subs.
Now when, when Axios launched, Jim talked about like a $10,000 a year subscription, which I thought sounded fantastic. It's one that, it's one that I, I would love.
[laughs] That didn't come to pa- I guess it kinda came to pass with, with what became Axios HQ, you guys went into, into SaaS. That's been like, that's been split off.
And, you know, subscriptions are one of those things that people always talk about, like at launch, like Semaphore for instance, they talked about like subscriptions. I haven't, I haven't seen that.
And it's, it's a long road, you know, to, to making subscriptions work. I mean, all power to The New York Times, but, you know, most media companies are, are not going to be mostly subscriptions.
You look at The New York Times and they're just, they're using that in order to build like a far larger business. What is the sort of subscription strategy now for Axios?
The recurring revenue stream that we lean into is membership.
So we have Axios Pro Deals, which is a B2B subscription service, so that is in-depth coverage of the most important deals in the space, and that is a multi-thousand dollar subscription, but it is very B2B and it's very specific.
Again, we demand to win in that space, so it is also very successful.
When it comes to the larger concept of subscription and news, where we've leaned in has been in this membership space around specific reporters, and those would be Sarah Fisher and Eleanor Hawkins.
Sarah writes for- Mm-hmm... the CEOs of media entities, chief marketing officers, and Eleanor Hawkins is a star amongst chief communication officers.
So th- through membership, we are standing up, you know, value for the professional class surrounding each reporter. They're creating special deep dives similarly to the way that you do.
They are hosting very specific event opportunities so that they can connect the members and create a network between members, really looking to just add value and make those professionals smarter faster, and with the ability to do their business better.
Yeah. And it's interesting you, you say membership, not subscription. And I think, you know, member... Sometimes they're used interchangeably. To me, the... If it's beyond like paywalling content and it involves
some kind of congregation element, I think membership may... I, I mean some- I think s- It's kinda semantics, but there is a difference. Like the Wall Street Journal- I think it matters...
talks about membership, and I'm like, "It's a subscription." I think subscription to me speaks to something that is more transactional. Yeah.
Membership speaks to something where you are engaged, and you're potentially adding value in the same way that you're extracting value from the experience. Right.
So why, why you, you build it around kind of individuals, which I think is, is kinda interesting. I mean, the... Let's leave aside the deals, right? The deals is a specialized, you know, really high-end- Mm-hmm...
maybe it's not membership, right? But y- when you talk about that, like why not just like an ax, like, you know, like pockets, like you get everything.
It's like you don't only get Dylan, but you also get all of these other, whatever sort of adjective John will use for how amazing the others, everyone is there. Why not just have an Axios? 'Cause that's clean.
It is clean, but it, it is also something that we've talked about in the past, but what we have identified, and at least till now, we have identified that what makes most sense for our business is to ensure that we remain a free newsletter, and if we want for the recurring, we lean into those very specific profiles that we think will, will convert into members.
But maintaining the, the free component of, of the vast majority of our content is still absolutely important to the way that we think about our business. Right. So I mean, the, the...
I guess what I see you doing is like creating a different like quote unquote "class of content," right? It's like, you know, I would say it's insights. There's news, and then there's insights, right?
Like an insights to me is, is something involving, involving data or like in-depth analysis that helps people do their jobs better. It is not this happened or we found out this.
Scoops are great-You know, that at, at the same time you don't build a membership on that. You can build a subscription on that. Mm-hmm. Uh, but you don't build, I don't think, a membership- Correct...
on, on, on, on Scoops. It's interesting because, like, I, I always wonder if about the ability to flex across into insights.
Any user s- like, audience survey I've ever run, everyone has always said that they want research.
A-and then you put it in front of them, and they're like, "Oh, yeah, we already get research from people who that's all they do. What you do is totally different, and we like what you do."
And I'm like, "But you told me [chuckles] this other thing," which is just how people operate when they are given surveys. How do f- I, I know this is like, you know, maybe more on the pro...
But, like, how do you end up thinking about, about that? Because you guys are... And again, it goes back to the multimodal thing.
It's like you can be really good at what you do, but you have to l- you have to, like, master other skills, and it is a kind of other skill to me. It is.
And also, it, Smart Brevity lends itself to helping us distill the information in a way that is easily accessible for these members.
So I think that makes, that, that adds distinction to the overall promise that we're making.
So for example, you know, so anyone can gain access to, let's say, publicly traded information about, um, a decision that, that Google has made, but ultimately,
Sarah going in-depth and underscoring it and presenting her analysis through the lens of Smart Brevity is just going to make the member smarter faster.
They, their, the work has been removed from them, and it has been done for them, and I think that's, that's part of the promise. Yeah. And I think that's one of the reasons why that membership has just continued to grow.
Sarah's membership, Eleanor's is o-over a year old.
Sarah's launched not long ago, and the numbers that we're seeing, especially off of the larger newsletters that each of them have, it's, it's significant and it's great business, and I think it's very promising for what comes next.
Right. So last topic is, is about local, right? So I mean, Axios got into local.
When I first saw, like, the, you know, you guys were getting into local, I think it was twenty twenty-one, I was like, "Ooh, man, it's truly zerp here. People are making weird decisions.
They're buying, you know, ape JPEGs [chuckles] in the crypto land, and Axios is getting into local." Obviously, y- uh, subsequent to that, Axios was purchased by, by Cox- Sure... uh, which is a lot of local media assets.
Give me the business case. I know, I know the, you know, the news desert, and I know- Mm-hmm...
all about how local is the hardest of the hard problems and that there is and should be a mission component to, to just about every news company.
But I just wanna zero in on give me the business case for getting into local. One hundred percent, and it does feel good.
As somebody who's long supported news organizations, Politico and The New York Times and Axios, it does feel very good to, to be able to impact the local news ecosystem.
But more importantly for me, when I think about the business, it is about providing our clients the ability to reach local smart professionals in a way that makes sense for their business.
And what we're doing is actually transacting with a number of industries and types of clients.
So I have a local sales team that is selling across the full thirty-four market ecosystem today, and they're selling to regional banks.
Some of them are even selling local for local clients, so Lowe's is a client that is local client spending across the local ecosystem.
Where there is incredible opportunity as well is with our national brands who have important public affairs stories to tell, and now they can tell them at the local level, personalized for those local policymakers, those local- Mm-hmm...
small business owners, and that has been, from an advertising perspective, that has been incredibly promising. The growth trajectory for this business is tremendous, so year over year, both of those teams
deliver an outsized increase in, uh, total revenue that they're bringing into the organization across the local ecosystem. And when you think about it, Brian,
there are very few organizations today that can reach smart professionals- Mm-hmm... across local at scale.
And so we're now able to deliver that not only for regional and local clients, but also for those national brands like a Meta, like a Walmart, who are telling economic impact stories in the city of Atlanta. Yeah.
So you're localizing national advertising. You're, you don't have feet on the street, as they say, you know, calling on the pizza parlor, on the local car dealership.
You're not getting [chuckles] into the, the, that business. No, that, that, that ultimately is, is not where I see the more immediate opportunity.
Where I see it is truly in regional and national brands looking to, to reach this audience. Yeah. And I think the question ends up coming down... Again, I talk with a lot of people on the local level who are...
You know, they're competing, I guess. I mean, they, they kinda go back and forth about whether they're competing with Axios or not. I mean, they s- a lot of times, and who knows, they could be positioning it to me.
That happens sometimes, Jacqueline, believe it or not. But they, you know, they see what's-- They're like, "Well, you know, Axios is going after, you know, national. They're not doing, like, the local hospital chain."
I'm like, "Wow, they might be a regional hospital tr-chain." Right. And, and that, thatCould impede on, on your business.
But it does sound like it's a slightly different approach, and I wonder how robust of an operation that can support.
You know, I think that they-- y-you can definitely make the numbers work, you know, with na-with localizing national advertising, but, you know, the reality of local is it's tough. It's tough for anyone. It is tough.
It's also promising when we track the audience that we've been able to generate and pull into the flywheel.
It is incredibly promising, and I do believe that this is an opportunity for us to do something very different at the local level. It'll be foundationally supported by some of those national brands.
It will continue to grow with effort around regional brands, and then who knows what happens at the local for local level in the future. Yeah. So you--
Is most of the advertising on-- that you end up running on the local level from existing clients who are doing, say, CSR work for you, or, or is this broadening your base of clients primarily?
Obviously, it's gonna be a mix, right? Like- It is a mix. It is a mix. As of today, it is, it is more about new logos that we've brought- Okay. -into the, the Axios family because of this local footprint. Okay, cool.
All right. Final thing is, you know what? For the balance of the year, what are, let's say, three things that you are, are very optimistic about?
I hear a lot of pessimism, so I'm, I'm, I, you know, I wanna do, I wanna do optimism. I li- I like it. I am incredibly bullish on the impact that AI is going to have specifically for my business team.
So my revenue team, I want my... I want every human to become superhuman, and I'm incredibly bullish on the opportunity that we have in front of us to do just that.
I am really bullish about where Washington and official public affairs messaging is going. I think there's lots of opportunity there.
And of course, with regard to the two critical products that are growing the fastest at Axios, it is all about live, and it is also all about local. Those two areas are just up and to the right. Yeah.
Just one bonus question on that, 'cause you mentioned it. Like, how are you using tangible... Give me a tangible use case for AI within your- Yes. -within the revenue organization. Like, we keep hearing about AI.
No, we're not gonna use AI to write. So I'm like, yes, okay. We've heard, we've heard it a lot. But like, obviously, the biggest opportunities are in things outside of the core journalism product. Mm-hmm.
I think people pretend that the cost centers in these publishers are in the people who are typing out words or are making content.
It's, it's-- There's so much more that goes into a publishing company than that, to a publisher than, than that.
And there are a lot of efficiencies to be gained, I think, on, you know, as someone who is now in, in sales. There's a lot of efficiencies to be gained. There sure are. So let me give you two quick ones.
We established two years ago a division within the organization called Axios Intelligence, and what we think about is that we're sitting on a top of a, a pile of priceless information when it comes to how these critical profiles that I talked about, how they're consuming editorial content.
So just what, what are they engaging with generally? I now have the ability to understand that and create much more performative recommendations for our clients through the use of AI within our Axios Intelligence team.
So immediately matching up what is their, their need state and what do we know about that audience when it comes to their consumption, that is really helpful.
Not only is it helpful, Brian, when it comes to making better advertising recommendations, but it's also really helpful when we're talking about public affairs.
It's also really helpful in making recommendations on communication style, agnostic of Axios. So lean more into this specific kind of AI tool versus this one.
Lean more into, you know, the, the concept of PBRs if necessary. Like, that ultimately is, is something that is unlocked that we didn't have before. Mm-hmm.
And then from a very tactical perspective, we now have created... I wish I had this when I was a individual contributor.
We've created a, a custom GPT within the organization where I can match not only the list of an executive, but their list, the activity against that list, and also what is currently happening in the news today, and create a hit list for a sales executive to prioritize their morning on who they should be going after based upon who's in their list, who is active, and also whether or not the client is in the news.
That is taking hours of prep work away, and they're able to- Yeah. -to run faster. So does that-- So you super empower the salespeople, right? Exactly right. Like, I mean, it's like in some ways it's the flip side.
I always think there's more similarities between, like, sales and reporting than either side probably ever chooses. [chuckles] We've talked about this before. Yes, indeed. Yeah. [chuckles] Absolutely.
But yeah, we've-- it's, it's super powering them to do their job faster, and it's removing as much rote work as possible, not only for the frontline sales team, but for the entire revenue division. Yeah. Awesome.
Thank you so much. Thanks for taking all this time. This was really great. Thank you so much. This was so great, Brian. Appreciate you. [upbeat music]