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The social publisher The News Movement is on pace to generate a seven-figure revenue after launching in the U.S. a year ago, according to cofounder and president Ramin Beheshti.
While other media companies have increasingly sought to cultivate direct relationships with their readers, The News Movement has moved in the opposite direction, building its business on short-form video platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.
In the third quarter, the publisher grew its total social follower count by 40%, and total views rose from 30 million to 51 million, according to Beheshti. Overall, the company has 275,000 followers across all platforms.
“We spent the first year of our existence trying different things,” Beheshti said. “We are going to continue to experiment, but this next phase is about being a bit more deliberate about the content types that have resonated with audiences.”
Its atypical editorial strategy has made it a test case for the viability of social publishers in the TikTok era, even as publishers who built on the dominant social platforms of the last decade—including BuzzFeed Inc. and Vice Media—have suffered setbacks.
The company, founded by media executives from the BBC and Dow Jones, has attracted attention both for the pedigree of its founders and its unorthodox editorial strategy, but both have recently undergone shakeups.
Earlier this month, cofounder Will Lewis was hired as the chief executive of The Washington Post.
And as it heads into its second year, the company plans to narrow its editorial scope to focus on hard news and three supporting verticals: sex and relationships, arts and entertainment, and lifestyle, according to chief marketing officer Lotte Jones.
The 60-person newsroom, with outposts in the U.S. and the U.K., is not yet profitable, and it raised a second round of funding from its existing investors in September, although it wouldn’t share specifics.
Aiming to breakeven in 2024
This year, The News Movement generated half its revenue from branded partnerships with companies like Amazon, and half from managing social media services for fellow publishers, such as The Associated Press.
The publisher is on track to increase branded partnerships revenue next year to between 70% to 80% of its total business. A year of performance data from its campaigns could also help lure new advertisers, said Josh Rosenberg, the chief executive of the media agency Day 1.
