Fox Corp. mentioned Monday it has bought Pink Seat Ventures, the digital media firm whose shoppers embrace former Fox Information stars Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson, in a bid to faucet youthful audiences and the rising podcast market.
Monetary particulars of the deal weren’t disclosed.
The deal represents an funding in a brand new space of media, the so-called creator financial system, during which particular person personalities reminiscent of Carlson, Kelly, Shawn Ryan and Candace Owens attain thousands and thousands of subscribers by way of podcasts and streaming reveals.
Whereas Fox Information stays the highest-rated cable information community, the 2024 election cycle revealed that some audiences most popular to get their data from podcasts. President Donald Trump’s look on the “Joe Rogan Expertise” in October was credited with serving to him attain an viewers of largely younger male voters.
Valerie Wirtschafter, a senior knowledge analyst within the Synthetic Intelligence and Rising Know-how Initiative on the Brookings Establishment, mentioned podcasts, notably conservative podcasts, have risen in reputation in a decentralized media panorama.
“Podcast hosts are extraordinarily trusted. They’re type of like pals,” she mentioned. “They’re extra intimate. They’re inside your head.”
Pink Seat Ventures — named for the purple seat in Boston’s Fenway Park that marked the park’s longest house run — supplies a spread of providers for expertise, from billing and payroll to manufacturing help. Its consumer listing consists of former New York Instances journalist Bari Weiss, former HLN host Nancy Grace, true-crime podcaster Chris Hansen, tv persona Dr. Phil and former Fox Information host Invoice O’Reilly.
The deal brings O’Reilly, Kelly and Carlson again within the Murdoch fold, although Pink Seat Ventures will function independently inside Fox’s Tubi Media Group, which operates a free video streaming service. The previous Fox expertise is not going to be employed by Fox.
“We see large alternatives to drive further scale in genres reminiscent of sports activities, information and leisure,” Tubi Media Group CEO Paul Cheesbrough mentioned in a press release.
This isn’t the primary such deal for Fox. In 2021, it acquired Outkick, a right-leaning sports activities and political commentary web site and podcast based by Clay Travis.