Amid layoffs and cost cutting, Time CEO Jessica Sibley is expecting a 'very strong second half'
Aug 27, 2024
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Jessica Sibley, the CEO of Time and a leader in media innovation, shares insights on navigating challenges in the industry, particularly amid layoffs. She discusses the company's shift towards a B2B sales strategy to focus on commercial strengths like AI, climate, and health coverage. Sibley also emphasizes the critical importance of partnerships with AI firms and addresses the evolving advertising landscape. She highlights the necessity for durable investments and strategic shifts to enhance audience engagement and maintain journalistic integrity.
Time CEO Jessica Sibley emphasizes a strategic shift towards a B2B revenue model, focusing on commercially successful areas like AI and health.
The potential interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve could provide publishers with increased advertising budgets, aiding recovery efforts amidst economic challenges.
Deep dives
The Power of Clean Rooms in Data Collaboration
Clean room technology serves as a significant enabler for data collaboration among publishers, allowing multiple parties to work together without exposing individual user information. This infrastructure facilitates secure partnerships where insights are aggregated, promoting transparency and control over data usage. By utilizing clean rooms, publishers can effectively gather market signals and audience understanding, which enhances their capabilities to create targeted advertising packages. Such collaboration ensures that privacy remains intact while maximizing the performance of advertising efforts.
Chick-fil-A's Streaming Service: A Risky Venture
Chick-fil-A is venturing into the streaming service space, aiming to provide family-friendly content. However, this decision raises concerns about the ideological direction of the programming, given the brand’s conservative undertones, which might polarize its audience. Previous attempts by brands to establish streaming services, such as Verizon's Go90 and Airbnb's earlier initiatives, have frequently ended in failure, highlighting the challenges of entering such a competitive market. The financial feasibility of Chick-fil-A's new endeavor is questionable, especially considering the difficulty in attracting and retaining viewers in an already saturated streaming landscape.
AI's Transformative Influence on Media
The rise of generative AI presents both challenges and opportunities for the media industry. Publishers must navigate the complexities of protecting their intellectual property while also finding ways to incorporate AI as an asset for content creation and audience engagement. By forming strategic partnerships with AI companies, media organizations aim to ensure their content is used ethically and enhances the quality of information available to the public. Moreover, addressing misinformation and maintaining journalistic integrity are essential focuses as AI technology continues to evolve and reshape the landscape of media operations.
Market Dynamics and the Impact of Interest Rate Cuts
The potential interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve signals a shift in the financial landscape that could benefit publishers facing economic challenges. Lower rates would ease borrowing for companies, potentially unlocking additional funds for advertising and recovery efforts in a tough ad market. This is particularly important for publishers like BuzzFeed and Time, which have recently cut jobs as part of cost-reduction strategies amidst declining revenues. As the market adapts to these changes, there lies an opportunity for publishers to capitalize on increased advertising budgets and improved sales prospects going forward.
Even billionaire-backed media companies are not immune to the challenges facing the media and digital advertising industries.Last week, 22 staffers were laid off from Time — which is owned by Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff and his wife and philanthropist Lynne Benioff — as part of a larger reduction of operational costs amid ad revenue declines. Cuts were made to the editorial, sales, marketing, technology and TIME Studios teams, according to a memo from CEO Jessica Sibley sent to Time staffers last week that was shared with Digiday. And more cost cutting measures are coming down the pike, including limiting contractors and downsizing its New York headquarters.At the center of these changes is focusing the company’s editorial and business strategy on its “most commercially successful work” and the “biggest opportunities for growth” at Time, which is its coverage of leadership – particularly in the categories of AI, climate and health — Sibley wrote. That, in part, has played a big role in the transition to the sales team’s B2B revenue strategy.On the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast (which was recorded on July 22, prior to the layoff announcement), Sibley discusses why she views Time’s B2B revenue strategy as the best path forward for growth, as well as other areas of revenue opportunity, including partnerships with AI technology companies like OpenAI and Perplexity.
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