Anonymous Banker's bleak view of the media M&A market

I spoke with Anonymous Banker, an M&A advisor with a front-row view into the market for buying and selling digital media companies. Needless to say, it’s a buyer’s market.

AB breaks down the market for digital publishing assets – broadly those with page-based models – into three types of buyers:

1. Harvesters
2. CAC jockeys
3. Vanity projects/rich person playthings

“If you're a publisher with a mostly ad-supported site, odds are your business will be worth less next year than it is now,” he said. 

Deals are still getting done, but the buyers are different. These are no-name PE firms above ice cream shops in the outskirts of Miami. We go through the list, which ranges from Valnet to Static Media to Savage Ventures to Regent. The playbook is to buy undervalued media properties, slash costs, and milk the programmatic revenue with hyper-lean models that rudely dispense with the nostalgia of “when the going was good.”

“Any content they invest in has to be ROI positive within 30 days,” AB said. “You’ll never see them spend $20 million hoping advertisers show up. Those days are done.”

Other topics we covered:

• How AI uncertainty is creating overhang that depresses valuations and makes long-term modeling nearly impossible
• Why the most resilient media businesses are lead-generation machines or conversion front-ends
• We debate whether the Chernin Group content-to-commerce thesis was wrong
• How Substack’s recommendation engine is the most efficient user acquisition channel in media
• What kinds of content investors still believe in (hint: high-intent verticals, not general news)

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