“Paving a way to profitability”: Adweek rolls out its 2019 Publishing Hot List
Adweek — continuing its annual tradition of honoring those in the media and digital landscapes with its iconic hot lists — has just released its Publishing Hot List for 2019.
The Publishing Hot List celebrates the best in both print and digital publishing, focusing on performance as well as impact, across categories for both digital natives and the digital arms of magazines and newspapers brands.
“Media is dying? Don’t tell that to the winners of this year’s Publishing Hot List,” say the Adweek editors.
Whether legacy media outlets or digital upstarts, these publishers are creating groundbreaking work, finding new revenue streams and otherwise nimbly adapting to an unstable landscape.
As Adweek celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, the Hot List — while continuing to honor the best in digital media — also brings “a fresh approach to the publishing category that acknowledges the significant ways that industry has evolved.”
You can check out the full coverage of this year’s Publishing Hot List honorees here, and below is a quick look at some of the winners in publishing for 2019.
The New York Times’s Meredith Kopit Levien is Adweek’s Publishing Executive of the Year. Under her stewardship, the Times reached close to 3.8 million paid, digital-only subscribers, according to its second-quarter results, an increase of 200,000 over the past year.
The publisher’s diverse revenue sources are also expanding. In that same quarter, the Times grew its digital ad revenue, including through podcasts, to $58 million; other revenue (including The Weekly, its new TV series with FX and Hulu) increased by $10.3 million.
Cosmopolitan’s site has grown 19% in page views under the leadership of Jessica Pels, who is Adweek’s Publishing Editor of the Year.
The site grew from 38 million unique monthly visitors to 46 monthly unique visitors. In all, Cosmo’s net audience, among print, digital and social media outlets, reaches a total of 54.2 million unduplicated adults, including nearly one in three women in the U.S.
New York — giving “new life to the print format while also reimagining how to translate a bustling digital news operation to print” — was adjudged the Hottest Magazine of the Year, while The New Yorker’s Toni Morrison cover was deemed the Hottest Magazine Cover of the Year.
The New York Times got recognized as the Hottest Website of the Year (and also Hottest in Subscription Services), with The Wall Street Journal being the Hottest in Business News.
ProPublica, the nonprofit news site which saw a 49% increase in monthly visitors to its website and added more than 50,000 newsletter subscribers, was awarded Hottest in News. And the Hottest in Social Media is The Washington Post, whose “TikTok is a great example of how a media organization can have some fun online without losing its voice or sincerity, or deviate too far from the heart of the hard news that drives a publication — all while potentially reaching a much younger demographic.”
Airbnb Magazine, created by Hearst Magazines, grew its reach from 350,000 to 1 million in the past year, becoming Adweek’s Hottest Custom Publishing Magazine.
BuzzFeed got Hottest in Ecommerce, Vox Media: Hottest in Podcasts, and the Bustle Digital Group: Hottest in Branded Content.
Other winners include The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project (Hottest Conversation Starter), Miami Herald’s ‘Perversion of Justice’ (Hottest Story of the Year) and Dow Jones (Hottest in Events).
Click here for the comprehensive coverage of this year’s honorees.
