People Inc, formerly Dotdash Meredith, has said it is seeing higher premium advertising revenue as programmatic ads decline.
Dotdash Meredith renamed to People Inc last week, honouring its flagship title while moving on from the name that represented a simple merger of two companies (IAC’s Dotdash and Meredith Corporation’s National Media Group) almost four years ago.
Chief executive Neil Vogel said: “As our business and ambitions have grown, we realized we already had the best name for us, People. People Inc. reflects our energy and vibrancy, the promise of our incredible brands, and our distinctly human legacy.”
The publisher, which claims to be the biggest online and print publisher in the US, publishes a range of brands across its key consumer verticals of health, finance, food and drink, home, beauty and style, travel, technology and entertainment. They include Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, Better Homes & Gardens and Investopedia.
People Inc’s revenue was $427.4m (£322m) in Q2 according to its latest quarterly results published on Monday as part of parent company IAC. This was 1% growth compared to Q2 2024.
Digital revenue, including advertising, performance marketing, affiliate and licensing, was up 9% to $260.4m (£196m) as it said “core sessions” (the number of visits to its websites) returned to growth.
Advertising revenue grew by 5% year on year, following 1% growth in Q1. This was attributed to “higher premium advertising revenue due primarily to the Health and Pharmaceuticals, Technology and Travel categories”.
But this was balanced by lower programmatic advertising revenue “due to lower impression volumes driven primarily by the higher premium advertising growth and related impression consumption, partially offset by higher rates”.
The publisher rolled out contextual ad-targeting technology D/Cipher in 2023, used to optimise ad performance across its 40 brands and 200 million-strong monthly audience as well as to buy advertising across the premium internet for paying clients.
[Read more: Dotdash Meredith CEO Neil Vogel: ‘If you make yourself essential, you will be fine’]
Meanwhile performance revenue marketing was up 14% year on year, improving from 11% growth in Q1. This was put down to 25% affiliate commerce growth but offset by declines in financial services.
Licensing and other revenue was up 23% due to “improved performance” in content syndication partners and Apple News+ as well as a full quarter of revenue from OpenAI.
Dotdash Meredith signed a multi-year deal with OpenAI in early May 2024 for its real-time content to be surfaced in ChatGPT answers and for use in training. The publisher in turn, like many publisher-AI agreements, received use of OpenAI tech as well as undisclosed payments.
The publisher is expecting year-on-year revent growth of 7-9% in Q3.
Print revenue in Q2 was down 9% to $173.5m (£131m) as the publisher optimises the portfolio and audiences and advertisers both migrate online, it said.
Adjusted EBITDA was down 1% to $63m (£47m) in Q2 due to investments made in D/Cipher and the launch of the People app in the quarter, as well as higher cost of revenue and an increase in online marketing spend. This was partly offset by higher revenue.
However, both revenue and adjusted EBITDA remained down compared to a peak in Q4 2024.
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IAC chairman and senior executive Barry Diller said Q2 marked a “new era for the industry-leading People Inc, a name that fits the way good names should: effortlessly and intuitively.
“With seven consecutive quarters of digital revenue growth, People Inc. continues to build and innovate, backed by premier brands, superior technology and unmatched scale.”
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