Inside Skift: Rafat Ali on Intelligence-Driven Media and What Comes Next

Mark Shashoua, CEO of Hyve Group, joins the AMO Show to break down Ascend 30, the plan to nearly double the B2B events business to just shy of $900 million in revenue and $300 million in EBITDA by 2030. We get into the 60% organic and 40% M&A split behind that goal, how Hyve geoclones brands like Shop Talk and Health into new markets and where that hits a ceiling, what it means to run an event like a media brand, and how Mark evaluates founder-led businesses and decides when to pay up.00:00 Intro1:47 From the family business to rebuilding Hyve3:27 Betting against globalization and the main-event strategy14:18 Buying Shop Talk and running an event like a media brand16:35 The centralized operating model behind the brands25:13 Surviving COVID, Russia, and taking the business private35:42 Inside Ascend 30 and the 60/40 growth plan54:20 Geocloning at scale and where it hits a ceiling56:07 Rebuilding the org into five divisions1:04:17 How Hyve buys founders and the events M&A wave

Adam Ryan is the co-founder and CEO of Workweek, a B2B media company built on creator-led newsletters and verified professional communities across HR, healthcare, marketing, ecommerce, and fintech.In this episode, Adam and Jacob trace how Workweek's thinking has evolved since 2022, why its communities blew past their target to more than 200,000 verified members, and the Partner Platform Workweek built to prove newsletter ad performance by pushing verified, account-level clicks into advertisers' CRMs. They also cover why Adam cut the creator roster from 18 to six, how revenue actually breaks down across newsletters and events, the inventory ceiling holding growth back, why the company isn't profitable yet by choice, and where he wants to take the business next.Become an AMO Pro member: https://www.amediaoperator.comChapters0:00 — Intro 1:25 — The Experience Paradox and how Workweek has evolved since 2022 5:20 — Why Disney is the North Star (and the mistake Adam made copying it) 10:16 — Workweek's durable asset: first-party data and identity 14:04 — Communities blow past projections to 200K+ verified members 26:10 — Cutting the creator roster from 18 to six 33:13 — The ad business and why CPMs keep climbing 37:53 — Inside the Partner Platform: verified clicks and CRM attribution 41:53 — Why lead gen was never about intent 49:32 — Keeping data fresh, and how the communities and events work 1:05:31 — Revenue, the inventory problem, and growth levers 1:12:10 — Profitability, scale, and how big Workweek can get 1:17:23 — The biggest risks and the two closing questions

Episode SummaryJacob sits down with Griff O'Brien, co-founder and CEO of Estate Media — the personality-driven real estate media company he built with Million Dollar Listing's Josh Flagg and Carolwood's Andrew Shanfeld. In just over two years and on $2.65M of total capital raised, Estate Media has done over $6M in cumulative revenue, signed 30 of the 37 biggest agents in America, and reaches 750,000 realtors through its owned-and-operated channels alone. Griff walks through the tension of running a half-B2B, half-consumer brand under one roof, what really happened when Estate Elite — the $1,500-a-year membership — failed, and why he now believes international real estate could become the single biggest line of the business.Chapters0:00 Introduction1:18 The thesis — flipping content from cost center to revenue line4:43 What "personality-driven real estate media" actually means8:41 Running B2B and B2C under one roof and the 75/25 → 65/35 shift13:11 The Magnolia Network comparison and why a consumer product line isn't next18:19 Reaching 750,000 realtors and the social intelligence data layer25:19 Talent acquisition — trusted and loved, and de-risking Josh as the brand29:50 Talent economics: 50/50 splits, equity alignment, and 100% IP ownership36:41 The real revenue stack — $1.75M, $4M, $6M projected, and Q1 at $1.5M39:02 Estate Elite: why the $1,500 membership failed45:16 The agency business — $100K MRR, 70% margin, and the agent feeder system50:35 Inside the advertising business and B2B vs. B2C product lines54:22 The Arrow Global partnership and the international thesis1:07:16 Why he'd never wind down the B2B side1:12:17 Why a big events play doesn't work in residential real estate1:15:33 What comes next — and seller vs. buyer1:18:49 The risks — talent, becoming a branded content house, and macro1:25:02 Closing thoughts: niches, clipping, horses, and being maniacal about media

I spoke with Dan Loosemore, CEO of InfraXMedia, for the AMO Show this week. In this episode, we dug into how he transformed DCD from a regionally structured events business into an integrated platform doing £55 million in revenue at 30% margins, why the company launched Yotta as a separate brand that's already projecting 7,000 attendees and roughly $13 million in revenue in its third year, how the Academy training business has shifted from individual certifications to multi-year enterprise contracts now representing 22% of revenue, and the market intelligence product launching in Q4 that Dan expects to scale to £10 million in ARR.0:00 - Introduction1:23 - Why Dan stayed at DCD for eight years5:17 - The transformation from events business to platform business14:32 - Taking over from the founder17:29 - Opus Origin's investment thesis and the path to £55M22:32 - How the integrated sales team sells outcomes, not products29:23 - 100% client retention and the infrastructure behind it36:38 - Customer success vs. account management43:17 - Why B2B media is still running old playbooks47:05 - The DCD Connect events portfolio55:17 - Why Yotta needed to be a separate brand1:00:28 - Inside DCD Academy: pricing, diagnostics, and multi-year deals1:06:01 - The market intelligence product launching in Q41:13:09 - £55M revenue, 30% margins, and the pie chart1:15:05 - Acquiring Data Center Nation and SDxCentral1:20:36 - The bet that didn't work1:24:27 - How Dan underwrites acquisitions1:26:29 - Advice for operators and what Dan's obsessed with

Adam White started Front Office Sports as a freshman class project at the University of Miami in 2014. Today, FOS is majority-owned by Jeff Zucker's RedBird IMI at a reported $40 million valuation, with 70 employees, projecting $20-24 million in revenue this year, and on track for its first profitable year. We get into the full cap table history — from giving up 51% to his first investor to RedBird taking majority control — how FOS actually makes money, the NFL and league content partnerships, the studios bet that landed a number-one Netflix film, and why FOS still doesn't charge readers a dime.Timestamps0:00 — Intro 1:25 — The founding story and building FOS at Miami 10:49 — How to start a media company from nothing 19:09 — Why brand matters more than audience 25:06 — The "prosumer" positioning and who actually reads FOS 35:33 — The investor journey: SC Holdings, Crain, and RedBird IMI 38:03 — What Jeff Zucker actually changed 42:37 — Editorial independence when your owner invests in sports 44:34 — The numbers: $24M projected revenue, first profitable year 48:00 — Revenue mix: digital, social, branded content, and events 49:15 — The Yahoo partnership 51:47 — Faces and franchises: building sub-brands inside FOS 58:00 — The events business and getting Adam Silver on stage 1:04:17 — The NFL deal and why FOS pays for league IP 1:09:05 — FOS Studios and the Netflix Brett Favre film 1:14:37 — Why FOS doesn't charge readers 1:18:28 — Profitability and what comes next 1:22:27 — The exit question: who buys FOS? 1:30:12 — What every media operator should focus on 1:32:11 — What Adam is obsessed with right now

Tim Hart is President of the Americas at Arc, the EagleTree-backed B2B events, data, and media platform that has done nine acquisitions in four years and now generates roughly $130 million in revenue across HR, education, financial services, and agriculture. In this conversation, Tim walks through how Arc is organized — a three-layer structure of platforms, communities, and shared services — and makes the case that the post-COVID value in B2B media has permanently shifted away from events-only toward a year-round content and connections model. He gets specific: Arc's revenue is 60% events, 30% marketing services, and 10% memberships and subscriptions, with the subscription line as the fastest-growing segment and a target to double it. Tim breaks down the Touchpoint Markets deal — an unusual intra-PE transfer that brought first-party data and lead gen capabilities into Arc and pushed marketing services revenue from 20% to 30% — the economics of geo-adapting HR Tech Conference from Las Vegas to Amsterdam, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi, and the real P&L behind a $500K hosted buyer summit running at 60–65% gross margin. He also explains why, after running M&A at UBM through the "Events First" era and the £4 billion Informa merger, he believes that strategy was a moment in time — and why Arc is deliberately building the opposite.Timestamps:00:00:00 — Intro 00:01:50 — Tim's career thread: UBM, Informa, Emerald, and why he joined Arc 00:04:13 — Arc's thesis: why these verticals belong together and how the platform is organized 00:14:44 — The subscription bet: DA+, ThinkAdvisor, Credit Union Times Pro, and the push from 10% to 20% 00:18:23 — Inside a hosted buyer summit: $500K revenue at 60–65% gross margin 00:22:06 — Geo-adapting HR Tech from Las Vegas to Amsterdam, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi 00:28:18 — Deal-making lessons from UBM, the Informa integration, and what goes wrong 00:36:30 — Evaluating acquisitions: pricing, founder expectations, and what changes post-close 00:40:35 — The Touchpoint deal: intra-PE mechanics and what the capabilities actually brought to Arc 00:51:13 — Organic growth, launches, and why Arc hasn't done a deal in a year 00:56:35 — Arc by the numbers: $130M revenue, mid-20s EBITDA, and where AI is driving margin 01:02:03 — The exit thesis, the "clean story" question, and why Events First was a moment in time 01:09:39 — Advice for operators and what Tim is obsessed with right now

Five years ago, Jason Yanowitz came on the AMO Show running a bootstrapped crypto media and events company doing $25 million in revenue. Since then, he's cut the news division, killed a conference brand, turned over half the company, and rebuilt Blockworks into a data and software platform now valued at $192 million. In this conversation, Jason walks through exactly how that transition happened, what the revenue actually looks like, why his investors asked him to strip media off the P&L, and why he thinks the Substack era is "mostly cope."Chapters:00:00 — Introduction 01:33 — From media company to data platform 06:39 — Cutting news, Permissionless, and half the company 09:33 — Why enterprises replaced investors as the customer 12:44 — Raising at a $192M valuation 18:41 — The three products explained 24:59 — Three-sided monetization and usage-based pricing 32:07 — Are podcasts and events still revenue lines? 37:05 — Should Blockworks kill advertising entirely? 40:00 — The future of news, AI, and print 55:49 — Why Permissionless got cut 58:16 — DAS as an ARR growth engine 01:01:49 — ~$40M ARR, path to $100M by 2028 01:05:32 — M&A: rolling up 50 crypto data companies 01:10:30 — The IPO path 01:13:25 — Why the Substack era is cope 01:14:51 — Advice for operators

Jacob sits down with Jeff Mancini, CEO of Arizent — the B2B information company behind American Banker, The Bond Buyer, Financial Planning, Accounting Today, and three other financial and professional services brands. Jeff joined the company (then SourceMedia) in 2018 as Chief Strategy Officer and took over as CEO in late 2023. In a detailed, numbers-rich conversation, Jeff breaks down how he flipped the revenue mix from 60% marketing services to nearly 50% subscriptions, why he's betting on role-based intelligence products and unlimited enterprise licensing, and how he's centralizing AI operations after watching decentralized experimentation remind him of the early dot-com era. He also shares the post-COVID events mistake that killed a flagship show — and the 30% EBITDA margins and 33% EBITDA growth the business posted last year.

Takeaways:Rafat Ali discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally transformed his approach to financial resilience and operational strategy.The evolution of Skift's events business towards a more intelligence-driven model is a response to post-pandemic market demands.A key focus for Skift is embracing AI technologies to enhance efficiency and profitability across various business operations.Rafat highlights the necessity of adapting staffing strategies in the context of an increasingly AI-driven workforce.The conversation reveals that Skift has shifted its revenue model, with an emphasis on sponsorships over ticket sales in events.Rafat emphasizes the importance of human connections in business, advocating for a growing focus on events and networking opportunities.

Takeaways:In our discussion, we addressed the strategic rationale behind HubSpot's acquisitions of media companies, emphasizing the importance of building valuable content properties that cater to high-intent audiences.Jonathan Hunt articulated the significance of measuring the effectiveness of media channels, particularly newsletters and YouTube, in generating software customers for HubSpot's offerings.We explored the notion that audience development has transformed into a more collaborative effort between content creators and businesses, aiming to maximize engagement and revenue generation.The integration of AI technology into the content production process has allowed HubSpot Media to enhance efficiency, enabling the rapid creation and distribution of diverse content formats across multiple platforms.We discussed the necessity for media companies to pivot towards a focus on intent-driven content, rather than merely chasing impressions, in order to foster deeper audience relationships.Jonathan Hunt highlighted the importance of allowing creators the autonomy to drive content direction, as their familiarity with audience preferences often leads to more authentic and engaging material.