The Daily Beast’s Obsessed Nets 7-Figure First-Year Revenue

One year after the Daily Beast launched Obsessed, its vertical dedicated to coverage of television and film, the section has topped seven figures in advertising revenue and seen an uptick in readership, according to president of advertising and partners Lindsay Jaffe Levy.

The vertical, which publishes reviews, recaps and recommendations, grew out of a popular newsletter of the same name, helmed by senior editor Kevin Fallon. 

By launching as a standalone vertical, the section has sought to draw new readers into the Daily Beast ecosystem, and its scope of coverage has unlocked deeper—and occasionally new—advertising opportunities with entertainment companies.

“The opportunity to launch Obsessed was really exciting, and our advertisers have responded with enthusiasm,” Levy said. “Instead of drumming up scandal, Obsessed takes a fresh, fun approach to entertainment.” 

Reality TV boosts revenue

In its first year, Obsessed has signed deals with three of the four major cable networks, and 75% of its clients are renewals. Paramount alone has executed more than a dozen programs since launch, according to Levy.

The vertical derives its revenue entirely from advertising, 70% of which comes from direct sources. It has generated seven figures in top-line business, although the publisher declined to provide a specific figure.

The Daily Beast is backed by IAC, a publicly traded company that also owns Dotdash Meredith. While revenues at Dotdash Meredith have wilted in the sluggish advertising economy, Obsessed has been less affected by the downturn, according to Levy.

The vertical owes this resilience in part to a bit of luck. In a surprise to editorial leadership, coverage of reality television has proven to be one of the most popular offerings for Obsessed—outpacing genres like drama and true crime. The coverage is responsible for one-third of all entertainment revenue across the Daily Beast, according to Levy.

Reality TV also aligns well with the tone of Obsessed, which skews gossipy. And although the writers strike ended on Sunday, prior to its conclusion television networks and streamers pushed their unscripted offerings, including reality TV, in the interim. The serendipitous timing no doubt provided a boost in visibility for the nascent offering.

The commercial traction of Obsessed also comes as the streaming industry more broadly has looked to cut costs, including marketing budgets, according to Andrew Becks, the chief operating officer of media agency 301 Digital. 

Compared to 2020 and 2021, when new streamers spent lavishly to increase brand awareness of their offerings, many of the companies have since moved to embrace performance advertising.

Nowadays, streamers’ ad spend is largely determined by the calculus of cost per acquisition versus lifetime value of a customer, according to Becks. 

The fact that 75% of Obsessed clients are renewals speaks to the performant nature of its advertising. The relative affluence of the Daily Beast readership, as well as the incrementality it brings to streamers’ existing reach, could explain the traction, according to Becks, who has previously bought media from the Daily Beast. 

The six-person team also stayed lean throughout its first year, adding only an audience development strategist to boost reach. And while traffic growth has been modest, the second six-month period of its first year posted notable gains over the first six-month period, according to Levy.

In its second-half window, Obsessed saw 60% higher daily visitors and a 40% increase in time spent. Visits per user have also risen 25%, although the publisher declined to provide specific figures.

Newsletter sign-ups and subscriptions remain questions

The uptick in traffic has not translated into a meaningful increase in newsletter sign-ups, however. 

Although Obsessed was born out of the success of its namesake newsletter, growing its e-mail readership has not been a core metric used to measure success, according to Levy. Its list size has grown over the last year, but the publisher declined to say by how much. 

The section also remains the only vertical on the Daily Beast whose content is not paywalled. At launch, the publisher said it planned to gate Obsessed after its first year, but it has yet to do so and has no immediate plans to restrict access, according to Daily Beast chief executive Heather Dietrick.

The kind of content Obsessed produces is not the kind of writing that typically justifies a paywall, according to media analyst Simon Owens. 

While personality-based newsletters have proven more than capable of generating subscription revenue—as evidenced by the Substack model—web offerings lack the intimacy that email provides. 

Without original reporting and need-to-read information, Obsessed could struggle to convert readers into subscribers, meaning it could be most valuable as a top-of-funnel vehicle for advertising, according to Owens.

The nuance of the strategy—paywalling the Daily Beast but not Obsessed—reflects the changing calculus of publishers’ subscription strategies. In the last year, publishers that once levied hard paywalls, including Quartz, Time, Insider and the Chicago Sun-Times, have all adjusted their strategies.

“A lot of publications are realizing that subscription models, while great, have a ceiling at which subscriber churn starts slowing growth,” Owens said. “That’s why we’re seeing publications start to loosen their paywalls so they can grow out their advertising inventory.”