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Last week, in the waning days of the year, media company Literally Media acquired lifestyle publisher Mel Magazine from Recurrent Ventures, adding the formerly dormant title to its growing stable of comedy brands.
In dusting off the shuttered publisher, Literally Media provided a fitting end to a year defined by the death, and subsequent resurrection, of nearly one-dozen beloved media titles.
Mel joins only Gawker—which folded in February, only to be acquired once more in November—in sharing the dubious distinction of having been resurrected now on three separate occasions.
But both join a larger group of publishers, including Jezebel, Splinter, Paper Magazine and Vice Media, that returned from the dead this year. Others, including i-D Magazine, NowThis, Saveur, Study Hall and Complex Media, also experienced reincarnations of sorts over the past 12 months. Last year, two such properties—Creem and The New York Sun—enjoyed similar resuscitations.
“At this point, the extent to which a publisher can talk an advertiser into a direct deal hinges upon them having an extremely quality product and a brand that its audience cares about deeply,” Insider Intelligence media analyst Max Willens said.
At a time of unprecedented volatility in the media industry, the trend reflects the heightened value of brand equity, said Willens. With referral traffic from social platforms and search engines dwindling, the importance of a defined brand and a preexisting audience has only grown.
For media companies, resurrecting these distressed brands lets them import their readership and brand identity, rather than having to build them from scratch. In a saturated media ecosystem, that recognizability is an advantage—however slight—in the fight for consumer attention and advertiser budgets.
Bargain prices on legacy titles
The past year has proven historically challenging for the media industry, as a pullback in advertising spend, combined with broader economic factors, triggered layoffs and closures that affected publishers across categories.
In a bid to generate cash and reduce expenses, these conditions forced media companies to pare down their portfolios by selling or shuttering floundering titles. For the few buyers in a position to capitalize on the situation, the market became ripe with legacy publications selling at discount prices.
Paste Magazine took advantage of the situation, snapping up Jezebel and Splinter from G/O Media in November.
Likewise, Caldecott Music Group bought Gawker from Bustle Digital Group, which had shelved the publisher earlier in the year, and Street Media took in Paper Magazine in September following its abrupt closure in April.
