Why Axel Springer is interested in Business Insider

Ken Doctor writes for Capital New York about the strategy behind Business Insider in the wake of news that Axel Springer is interested in acquiring it.

Doctor writes, “While the Wall Street Journal (even as it expands and regroups its international products) and the Financial Times (perhaps newly refueled with parent Nikkei funding) aim for the top end of the business reader elite, BI aims more squarely for the middle. BI aims for a more mass audience than two-year-old Quartz, Atlantic Media’s nichier business news start-up or Bloomberg Media’s more typical business audience. In a sense, BI has, in 2015, updated the claim of a ‘free’ position in mass business news that Larry Kramer’s Marketwatch sought, until it was later bought by Dow Jones and then still later absorbed into the mothership.

“Business Insider’s cost-per-thousand advertising rates fall below the Journal’s or the FT’s, but above general news sites, given its target business audience. That audience, says BI, can count 1 in 5 Internet of its users having a household income of $100K or more and can point to good representation of overall business and IT decision-makers. While those numbers hold a small candle to the Journal and FT, their breadth compensates with a mean age of 38 and an audience that is majority (51%) 18-34. Consequently, BI pulls in a blended cost-per-thousand rate in the mid-teens, again below the Journal and FT, but above general news sites.

“Advertising provides about 75% of its revenue – which will top on somewhere between $45-50 million this year. BI, like its peers, seeks to diversify beyond advertising. Its events and research businesses have seen expansion as well, as BI has beefed and bulked up, with new investment. Tech Insider, its now-sister site, launched in August, backed by the new money as well. Then, there’s the global licensing business that produces its own beginning stream of revenue.”

Read more here.