Looking at the Axios Charlotte Acquisition

The New York Times reported on Thursday that Axios had agreed to acquire The Charlotte Agenda for “close to $5 million.”

The plan worked. The Charlotte Agenda has thrived. It’s free for readers, supported by advertising and a membership program that has 1,700 supporters. It also has 235,000 Instagram followers and 55,000 newsletter subscribers, who on average open the emails sent to them 40 percent of the time, a phenomenally high rate compared with the industry average, which is half that. The website itself attracts 650,000 readers a month.