Weekly Digest: The Atlantic’s Push to Hollywood, Future CEO’s Retirement

The Atlantic is looking to expand its monetisation sources using new film and TV projects, Axios reports. Despite gaining subscribers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 164-year-old magazine is not profitable today; it’s set to lose about $10 million this year. 

Thus, the push to Hollywood is an important part of the company’s path to profitability, with two documentary TV and film projects based on The Atlantic’s reporting being launched now. Over a dozen other projects are “optioned or in the production phase”, Axios notes based on the interview with CEO Nicholas Thompson.

As Axios notes, “in addition to film and TV projects, The Atlantic is also licensing its IP [intellectual property] for books and experiences”, such as by launching a book imprint and an exhibition in Los Angeles. The magazine has 843,000 subscribers, nearly half of them digital-only. The vast majority of revenue today comes from subscribers and advertising. 

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Four media outlets in the United Kingdom and the United States are facing libel claims over reporting on Kazakhstan’s ex-president Nursultan Nazarbayev, The Guardian reports. 

The media organisations targeted are The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), openDemocracy, the Telegraph, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. The reporting alleges financial links between UK-registered company Jusan Technologies, Nursultan Nazarbayev and his family, and Nazarbayev’s fund.

As The Guardian notes, “the legal action has reignited the debate whether strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapps) are being used to chill public-interest journalism”. SLAPPs are defamation suits filed in cases where claimants know they are unlikely to win but use the lawsuits to “dissuade journalists from reporting on a controversial story by making it as costly and time-consuming as possible.”

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Zillah Byng-Thorne, CEO of British media company Future, announced she would step down next year, likely in the second half of 2023. The reports of her departure caused the company’s share price to drop by 15%

Byng-Thorne spent almost nine years transforming the organisation, publisher of Marie Claire and multiple other magazines and publications, “from an ailing group of magazines” into a large and successful digital media company, Financial Times notes.

“Under her tenure, Future has become one of the most prolific London-listed acquirers of media assets, bucking the trend of a sector which has been wary of striking transformational deals in recent years”, Sky News reports. 

Bonus — Three more stories you might want to check out:

• The Guardian: Ministers to review Channel 4 privatisation and scrapping of BBC licence fee 
• AP News: ‘People’s tribunal’ seeks justice over journalist killings
• The New York Times: Axel Springer Accused of Failing to Stop Sexual Harassment

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