This story was originally published in On Background with Mark Stenberg, a free, weekly newsletter that explores the key themes shaping the media industry. You can sign up for it here.
Amazon and Dax, the digital audio arm of the U.K. media firm Global Media Group, plan to unveil an audio advertising partnership in the U.K. next month, according to a deck obtained by ADWEEK.
The tie-up, shared earlier this month at a closed-door presentation for media buyers, would let brands layer Amazon’s first-party retail signals onto Global’s audio inventory, including its network of radio stations and streaming properties.
An Amazon Ads spokesperson declined to confirm the deal, saying the company has “nothing to share at this time.” Global did not respond to a request for comment.
The partnership, branded as a collaboration between DAX and Amazon Ads, would be billed as a first of its kind in the U.K. audio market.
The deal, while exceptional in some aspects, is best understood as the latest in a series of such partnerships that Amazon has inked in order to grow the market share of its demand-side platform, ADSP.
In October, Spotify opened its streaming audio and video inventory to Amazon’s DSP across the U.S., U.K., Canada, and several other markets.
SiriusXM followed shortly after, integrating with Amazon Ads to let brands pair its first-party signals with SiriusXM’s streaming and podcast inventory. In November, iHeart came aboard, with Amazon DSP gaining access to iHeart’s streaming audio portfolio, with broadcast radio inventory set to follow.
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The DAX deal is the latest chapter in that saga, although with one notable difference. While U.S. audio partnerships have so far dominated the headlines, the Global tie-up would be the most significant extension of this model into international markets.
Global is one of the U.K.’s dominant audio players—it brought in roughly $1.1 billion in annual revenue in the year ending in March 2024—and DAX is its digital advertising platform, making this a meaningful step for Amazon in European audio.
The strategy, however, extends well beyond audio.
Amazon has been pursuing a parallel set of partnerships across the connected TV space, striking deals with Roku, Disney’s ad exchange DRAX, and Netflix in the last year. Each partnership hinges on the same core premise, which is that the ability to layer Amazon’s retail data onto ad buys makes the inventory more appealing.
As a result, the more data-enriched inventory Amazon can make available through its DSP, the more indispensable the ADSP becomes as a buying platform.
For advertisers who care about linking exposure to purchase behavior, Amazon data is nearly impossible to replicate. As a result, the pitch to buyers is better targeting, better attribution, and a cleaner path from audio ad exposure to measurable purchase behavior that can be activated programmatically.
In a market where CTV and digital audio are both growing rapidly, controlling the demand-side infrastructure gives Amazon significant leverage, and the DAX deal fits neatly into that ambition.
It also marks the moment Amazon’s data-enablement strategy officially crossed the Atlantic in audio, a quiet but consequential expansion of what is fast becoming one of the ad industry’s most valuable infrastructure plays.
Talking Heds
The Atlantic Sponsorship (EXCLUSIVE): Credit where credit is due: Few sales teams are more creative than the fine folks shilling The Atlantic. Earlier this week, the publisher penned a three-year partnership with the cruise liner Seabourn, an arrangement that entails sponsorship and advertising commitments, but is primarily a sui generis subscriptions play. The tie-up will see The Atlantic providing onboard programming and curating the library with Atlantic magazines and works from its bench of famous contributors, while ship-goers will receive complimentary access while aboard and a three-month trial subscription following disembarkation. The deal, although simply the latest in a long line of creative commercial ventures from the publisher, is certainly its richest in terms of available wordplay.
The Post Flight: While much has been rightfully made of the exodus of reporting talent to flee The Washington Post amid its tailspin, too little attention has been paid to a similar scattering of its commercial talent. To wit, The Guardian recently snapped up two former Post notables, Will Carrico and Anthony Lanotte, who are joining the publisher as director and associate director of advertising partnerships, respectively. If the D.C. outlet continues its convulsions, I imagine these departures will be merely the first of many.
Apple Maps Adds Ads: If you, as I once did, endured the inferior quality of Apple Maps because you preferred an interface not yet larded with ads, let this be the official notice that you can finally give up the ghost. On Tuesday, Apple announced that after fourteen years, ads would be coming to Apple Maps this summer. The move is part of a broader initiative from the Cupertino outfit to bolster its growing advertising business, which is on track to generate around $8.5 billion in revenue this year.
The Eater App Retools: Eater announced a dramatic redesign of its mobile app on Tuesday, debuting an entirely reimagined interface whose primary purpose is helping users find restaurants, according to Jill Denhert, its senior vice president and group publisher. The new product foregrounds map-based discovery, enables delivery through Grubhub, and will soon roll out robust community features and ads. When I covered the launch of the first Eater app, in October 2024, I contextualized the move as part of a broader trend from publishers toward serving their users as utilities. Since then, such moves have only become more commonplace, with media increasingly acting as a wrapper for businesses with better unit economics.
Social Media Week Returns: In just a few weeks, ADWEEK will once again be hosting Social Media Week, by far the coolest event in our portfolio and one whose insights can legitimately help make or break your brand. I will be on-site, moderating panels and trying not to look washed, and would love to see you there. So join ADWEEK, on April 14 – 16 in New York, to tap into the cutting-edge tactics powering social for the top brands, media outlets, agencies, and creators in the world. Click here to learn more.
Pulled Quotes
“Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.”
Upper Middle author Andrew Burmon, quoting François de La Rochefoucauld, explaining Ted
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“And sometimes a story that’s too good to be true is just that.”
The Atlantic journalist McKay Coppins, on the cartel Olympics
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“AI is not very popular in the US right now.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, speaking at a BlackRock conference
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“Startups apparently need taste like A.I. needs data centers.”
New Yorker writer Kyle Chayka, on the rise of “taste” among the Silicon Valley set
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Quote/Unquote
Neil Vogel is the chief executive of People Inc., the company formerly known as Dotdash Meredith, one of the biggest digital media companies in the world and the steward of iconic titles including Food & Wine, People, and Better Homes & Gardens, among others.
Earlier this month, I interviewed Neil on-stage at the Marketecture Live event in New York, where we discussed how People Inc. has transformed its business in response to the paradigm shift posed by AI. The conversation below is adapted from that interview.
This interview has been edited.
Mark Stenberg: People Inc., formerly known as Dotdash Meredith, was once nearly synonymous with the open web. But now the open web is shrinking, and yet People Inc. has seen nine straight quarters of growth. How?
Neil Vogel: There are two truths in media: If you have great brands and you do great things, you can build durable audiences. Because we used to be so focused on Google, we were the first to see it changing. About three years ago, we realized we needed to change our business, so we invested heavily in TikTok, Instagram, email, apps, and direct relationships. Now, we’re good at 20 things instead of one. It’s harder, but it’s much more durable. We’re nearly $1.8 billion in revenue and over $300 million in EBITDA.
Mark: Has the growth in these new channels compensated for the loss in the old ones?
Neil: About 60% of our business is flat—this is the traditional web model: people come to sites, we sell ads. Google referrals are down about 50% over the last two years. The other 40% of our business is growing at nearly 40%. That includes events, social video, AI licensing, Apple News, and more. So our business now is a race: How fast can we grow the 40% before the 60% declines? So far, we’re winning.
Mark: The one constant in the media business seems to be its decline.
Neil: Decline in some capacity is a constant in every business. You have to deal with it, not complain. Move resources from what’s declining to what’s growing. Media companies think they have a divine right to exist because they had a brand people used to love. You don’t. You have the privilege of trying to exist.
Mark: Where is People Inc. in terms of participating in content marketplaces, i.e. systems where AI firms pay publishers for use of their content?
Neil: There are really two types of AI deals. One is an “all-you-can-eat” licensing deal, which is what we’ve done with OpenAI and Meta. The other is a marketplace model, like with Microsoft Azure, where companies license content on a per-use basis. We don’t really care which one wins—we just want to be paid fairly and be in the room. AI needs three things—power, models, and information—and right now, it’s running out of information. That makes publishers valuable again, especially for fresh content.
Mark: In the open internet era, having a massive portfolio was an advantage. Now, media companies like Condé Nast are openly whittling down their portfolios. How is People Inc. reassessing its house of brands in response to this new paradigm?
Neil: We have about 40 brands. Internally, we say about 10 really matter. The other 30 serve a purpose, but they’re more limited. The top brands have the most permission—they can expand into events, licensing, commerce, and more. For example, Better Homes & Gardens has a massive licensing business with Walmart, Food & Wine has a huge events business, and People is a full-scale media operation. But some categories—especially traditional service journalism—are shrinking. Take Parents: if your kid has a fever, you go to Google or ChatGPT, not a publisher site. Those brands require the hardest decisions.