The Ankler To Launch International Newsletter, Double Down on Events

The Ankler’s ready for its close up. The media company that covers the entertainment business just hired two new employees to double its staff to 14 from a year ago. It’s also planning an international newsletter, is ready to go big in events and recently expanded coverage of the trending creator economy.

And it still hasn’t spent a drop of the $1.3 million provided by Y Combinator in 2022. All of the new efforts are being paid for by a seven-figure operating profit from 2024, when revenue totaled somewhere between $5 million and $10 million, Chief Executive Officer Janice Min told AMO. This year, that should reach $10 million with 30% from subscriptions, 35% from events and 35% from media sponsorships, she said. Revenue is currently 60% from subscriptions and 40% from sponsorships today, which should change as the company doubles down on events.

Subscribers across Ankler sit at 145,000—up from 75,000 a year ago when Min last spoke to AMO, when she said about 21% of its free readers convert to paid. The subscription price was raised in February to $169 for The Ankler itself from $149, though about 40% of the content is free. Min said the newsletter has an open rate of 70%. Covering the entertainment business is a competitive task with everyone from Bloomberg to The Hollywood Reporter looking for scoops.

What The Ankler isn’t doing is “junk food news hits,” which are easily found across the internet, and it’s not going broad. Instead, the company is laser focused on the business of entertainment, an ever-evolving industry, and being very cognizant of the news they are producing.

“We are trying to create things that make you put in your credit card number and pay for it,” Min said. “We are thinking about the audience of, ‘How is this helping them do their job better? How is this informing what they do?’”

And that includes covering the Hollywood that’s not in Los Angeles and has filtered out around the world (See: Netflix’s successful global production machine), as well as the thriving creator economy that’s bypassing the traditional big wigs of the entertainment industry (See: The independent film Anora swept the Oscars this month—made at the relatively measly cost of $6 million).

To that end, a creator-focused newsletter called Like & Subscribe launched in January, and the international newsletter, geared to a U.S. audience, will debut in the coming months, Min said.

“The audience is responding to independence, independent voices, because it is giving them that uncorporatized view of the world that is getting harder and harder to come by as M&A has taken over the last 20 years,” Min said.

The Ankler offers a number of newsletters, podcasts and subscriptions, including:

Newsletters:

• The Ankler by Richard Rushfield
• The Wakeup by Sean McNulty
• Prestige Junkie by Katey Rich
• Series Business by Elaine Low, Lesley Goldberg, Manori Ravindran
• Notable by Rob LeDonne
• Todd on the Town
• Entertainment Strategy Guy
• ICYMI
• Dealmakers by Ashley Cullins
• REEL AI by Erik Barmack

Podcasts:

• Art & Crafts
• The Ankler Podcast
• Prestige Junkie Podcast by Katey Rich
• Martini Shot Podcast

Separate subscriptions include:

• Like & Subscribe by Natalie Jarvey
• The Optionist by Andy Lewis
• The Ladder
• Series Business (standalone version, just TV coverage)

B2B Rocks

Min is finally getting comfortable investing in growing the company after being “scarred” by an industry that has famously boom and busted (Buzzfeed, Vice). That said, Min is honed in on remaining lean, and doesn’t foresee exceeding 20 employees in the near future.

After all, the media landscape is ever-changing, the current challenges include no longer being able to depend on Google Search or social media. Min spent several years working at traffic-dependent places like US Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter. She has since discovered the beauty of the B2B business and the premium sponsors are willing to pay to reach a specific audience.

“You’ve seen this advertiser reckoning of the last few years, where they’re like, ‘Why am I paying for all this garbage of scaled audiences and they’re charging me a premium?’” Min said. “We can tell you exactly who subscribes to us… We can give you the nature of who subscribes—like they know their bosses subscribe, they know their Oscar winning directors and producers are subscribers.”

It’s much more efficient for sponsors to know that they are reaching that specialized audience, she said. Thus far, The Ankler has featured mainly entertainment business advertisers like Netflix and Warner Bros. They are now turning to adjacent industries, who also have a great interest in reaching that elite audience—a survey showed that 30% of subscribers made upwards of $500,000. Watch for airlines, consultancies and banks to pop up as new sponsors for Ankler Media.

And while subscription growth has been strong, each new subscriber gets harder and harder to reach.

“You’re fighting twice as hard for the next person or for the next 130,000 so I think that’s where we have to be very focused on how we acquire,” Min said. That will likely include the addition of a subscriber manager. Up to now, with the exception of two useless ads on Facebook in the early days, they haven’t advertised the product at all.

Ankler Media has the opportunity to engage readers more, be it with live events or occasions like the recently introduced weekly live video series, “The Rushfield Lunch,” featuring co-founder Richard Rushfield.

The company’s also partnering with the National Association of Broadcasters for a convention in April.

“They came to us to program a business and entertainment track for them, knowing that we can deliver the kinds of names and have smart conversations on stage within their program,” Min said. “This year, there will be a lot of expansion, and I’m really excited to do it.”