G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller pushed back against comments that the financial news site Quartz, which it sold last week, is now a shell of its former self, reports Charlotte Tobitt of Press Gazette, although its new owner has laid off most of its staff.
Tobitt reports, “Spanfeller said Quartz quickly became profitable under G/O Media ownership although he admitted this ‘wasn’t a huge masterstroke of management’ as it benefitted from being part of a bigger company.
“But he added: ‘And then on top of that we built the brand. There’s a strong affinity for Quartz in the advertising marketplace and obviously in the reader marketplace. It wasn’t like we recreated the wheel. We just were able to, I guess, draft off that: by increasing the efficacy and efficiency of the technology and building the amount of engagement, we were rewarded.’
“According to Spanfeller, Quartz saw a 300% increase in page views in its final ten months of G/O Media ownership following a change in editorial strategy. He described a ‘meteoric rise once we switched things around in the newsroom. It took off.’
“The publisher reported in April 2024 that Quartz’s Comscore traffic in Q1 2024 was up 212% year on year and 311% quarter on quarter.”
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