Pleasure Media, dwelling to Out Journal, The Advocate and Pleasure.com, has been acquired by Equal Leisure and is rebranding as Equal Pleasure.
The acquisition covers all present property, together with the digital arms of Out and The Advocate, Out Traveler Journal and Plus Journal, and returns the nation’s largest LGBTQ-owned media, digital, TV and leisure firm to LGBTQ+ majority possession.
Extra from The Hollywood Reporter
Mark Berryhill will function Equal Pleasure’s chief govt officer, with Michael Kelley, chairman and president of world development and improvement, reporting to Berryhill. Diane Anderson-Minshall, Pleasure Media’s first feminine CEO, is ready to retain C-suite tasks as chief international and improvement officer, along with her work centered on editorial manufacturers and worldwide viewers growth. Joe Lovejoy is called chief monetary officer, with Stuart Brockington upped to EVP of gross sales and partnerships, efficient instantly.
Kelley and Berryhill are life and enterprise companions with a historical past within the media business. Previous to Equal Leisure, which makes a speciality of every day TV, movie star docu-series and branded content material manufacturing, Kelley got here from PwC, the place he ran the leisure innovation apply that constructed Hulu and, within the early days, AT&T’s advert choices. Berryhill served as Meredith’s vp of stories and advertising and marketing earlier than changing into vp of programming and inventive affairs.
The acquisition comes 4 years after Adam Levine, CEO of the Los Angeles-based funding agency Orevea, acquired Pleasure Media in 2017 via a management-backed buyout of Right here Publishing. In 2018, Pleasure Media kicked off a brand new period that noticed then-C.E.O. Nathan Coyle rent Phillip Picardi — recognized for launching Conde Nast’s Them — as Out editor-in-chief and Zach Stafford, A Unusual Loop co-producer, former Grindr CCO and editor-in-chief of the app’s digital journal Into — as editor in chief The Advocate.
By December 2019, Coyle, Picardi and Stafford — who additionally made historical past as The Advocate’s first Black editor-in-chief — had resigned or have been departing, together with a spherical of workers layoffs and extra govt departures, as then reported by The New York Instances. This was preceded by 42 freelancers publishing an open letter demanding Pleasure Media compensate them for his or her work. (That very same 12 months, an across-the-board pay lower was instituted and tensions round cost in Pleasure Media’s places of work reportedly resulted in work stoppages.)
Coyle printed a response promising cost whereas pointing the blame on the firm’s difficult internet of company possession. On the identical time, the corporate was dealing with public backlash over Levine’s political donations, with the fairness agency CEO discovered to have donated to anti-LGBTQ Republican politicians after pledging to cease doing so, in keeping with LGBTQ Nation.
Regardless of the journal’s latest rocky historical past, Kelley and Berryhill see the acquisition of Pleasure Media as a big transfer to develop the model, affirm present readership and usher in new audiences.
“We’ve now obtained not simply superb American historical past, however LGBTQ historical past and 55 years of media retailers monitoring the rise of equality from Stonewall to right now. You’ll be able to think about the wealthy tales we have now,” Kelley informed THR. “We’re thrilled that we have been in a position to get these main voices for the LGBTQ+ group into our portfolio and might actually start to develop and focus them at an important time, arguably, in our nation’s historical past.”
Plans are to develop present ventures, with continued dedication to print, returning the 55-year-old Advocate model “to its roots of stories, politics and leisure informed via a lens of equality,” Kelley mentioned. In the meantime, Out can have a lifestyled-oriented deal with each the homosexual male expertise and a bigger viewers of ladies and folks of shade. Kelley mentioned of the primary advertising and marketing campaigns for the legacy manufacturers is to encourage subscribers to donate learn points to native youth facilities, LGBTQ facilities, affirming church buildings and accepting colleges.
As for Pleasure.com, which Kelley says is “arguably probably the most helpful URL in all of LGBTQ media,” Equal Pleasure will probably be taking “a tough look,” doing focus teams with the LGBTQ group and advertisers to seek out out what they need. Early curiosity signifies a deal with Pleasure festivals, delight tales, popping out tales, music festivals with queer artists and performers and an NFT queer artist discussion board “so queer artists from in every single place can promote their works just about and likewise bodily.”
Moreover, the corporate is trying to closely develop into branded content material with video and social. “We checked out how can we additionally take a model that anyone perhaps has not heard of and introduce them? It’s simply very clear that right now, we have now an exquisite approach to do this via video and social — to maintain our shoppers who’ve been with us after which introduce a complete new era to queer media.”
Equal Pleasure will not be presently trying to develop into unique scripted over-the-top content material, in keeping with Kelley. However he confirmed that past extending its Pleasure Immediately video present past its current five-minute run because the group grows, OTT content material will probably be one other strategy to ship the corporate’s “progressive media voice” to its inclusive viewers of ladies, folks of shade and LGBTQ+ viewers via trending popular culture, way of life, and arduous information angled content material.
Pushing this work into worldwide markets, “particularly ones the place LGBTQ rights are so oppressed and suppressed,” Kelley mentioned, can be on the desk. The duo says the corporate, whose growth plans purpose to serve a broader vary of the LGBTQ+ viewers, already has advertisers lined up, with Basic Motors, Google Pixel, Gilead, Capital One, Disney/Hulu, TikTok, McDonald’s, Molson Coors, NBCU and J&J, amongst its 2022 consumer listing.
On a bigger staffing stage, plans are to not downsize however to develop considerably with Kelley telling THR Equal Pleasure has alrady introduced on a brand new chief advertising and marketing officer, a brand new head of video and a brand new editor. “We’re retaining each single individual. In reality, we have now a requirement,” he mentioned. “We want extra sturdy journalists. We want extra of us to assist us on the model aspect in advertising and marketing. We’re transferring into video. We’re creating a whole newsroom and Content material Studio for these manufacturers.”
The Equal Pleasure chairman additionally famous that the corporate is trying to begin an alumni affiliation that would come with staff who’ve labored with the manufacturers from their early beginnings. “We wish to be in contact with these individuals who formed these manufacturers, who formed the tales as a result of we’re probably the most susceptible within the workforce and it’s necessary for us to offer assist even after they’ve left us and to maintain that historical past alive, maintain well being alive.”
“It should take time. It should take self-discipline,” he added. “It should all take some large pondering however we all know we will do it .”
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