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Last week, I reported that Newsweek had seen its traffic decline nearly 75% in a single year, a collapse that coincided with layoffs across its sales, rankings, and video teams and the departures of two senior executives.
This week, chief executive Dev Pragad offered a counter-narrative: Despite the decline in readership, Newsweek is on pace to surpass $100 million in revenue for the first time in its 93-year history.
In a testament to the merits of revenue diversification, both things are true.
The publisher whose turnaround was built on a sophisticated programmatic advertising business has watched that foundation erode. Revenue from its publishing division is expected to decline between 20% and 25% this year, according to Pragad.
But critically, the businesses it bolted on over the past two years—internally referred to by their shorthands, Nexus and AdPrime—have grown quickly enough to more than cover the difference.
“When [traffic declines] come, they really are unpleasant,” Pragad said. “Despite that, this year will be our highest revenue ever.”
The company is projecting at least 10% revenue growth in 2026, up from roughly 3% in 2025, according to Pragad, who declined to share a revenue breakdown by source. Since taking over in 2018, he said, Newsweek has generated more than $500 million in cumulative revenue at profit margins of roughly 20%.
The merits of diversification
The largest driver of its revenue growth is Adprime, the healthcare-focused demand-side platform Newsweek acquired in June 2025, when most publishers were divesting their adtech assets.
The unit is pacing to more than triple its revenue this year, from $14.8 million to north of $40 million, at a profit margin above 10%, driven by healthcare advertising and connected TV inventory, according to Pragad.
Such growth would make Adprime, a business Newsweek bought without raising outside capital, responsible for roughly 40% of company revenue in its first full year under Newsweek ownership.
Nexus, the business-to-business division housing its rankings business and events, is growing just under 20% year over year, with rankings up roughly 15% and events between 40% and 50%, according to Pragad.
