The Daily Mail is bringing in a new business executive with plans to grow its direct advertising and launch (and monetize) popular new shows based around the tabloid's journalism.
On Sunday, the US outpost of the UK tabloid told Semafor that it had hired Mike Rothman, a veteran digital media hand who was most recently president of the center-right news startup The Dispatch, as the company's new general manager. The publication told Semafor that Rothman will oversee its North American business, with the goal of accelerating subscription growth and building partnerships with advertisers.
"I am delighted that Mike has joined Daily Mail at an exciting moment in its evolution," CEO Danny Groom said in a statement first shared with Semafor. "We are investing in journalism and innovative digital products, with the aim of securing a successful long-term future for the business."
In an email, Rothman, an early Thrillist employee who co-founded the parenting site Fatherly, laid out part of his new vision for better monetizing the tabloid's existing content.
He told Semafor that the company has long relied on programmatic advertising, but it needs to deepen its commercial partnerships and build new products, in addition to growing its subscription business through personalization, scoops, and tailored subscription bundles.
Rothman said the company plans to leverage its massive social followings on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and other platforms. The Mail wants to establish several hit social and video franchises, which could serve as attractive shows for advertisers to partner with on-platform. He also said the company expects social video revenue to grow to more than a third of total direct advertising revenue.
"I was drawn to the opportunity to build with an existing combination of scale, editorial instinct, and cultural relevance, instead of growing these capabilities from the ground up," he told Semafor. "What's remarkable is how much commercial upside still exists within the US given the large set of assets that Daily Mail already has."
The Mail's hiring of Rothman comes just a few months after Semafor first reported that he left The Dispatch amid differences with co-founders Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes about its direction. The company had been in talks with Axel Springer about a potential acquisition, but these cooled down after the German publishing giant purchased The Telegraph.
And the move reflects growing optimism in digital media that direct-sold video shows can prove a durable business, even as they struggle to maintain scaled programmatic advertising on a shrinking web.