Buzzfeed reported total revenue of $47 million for the second quarter, down from $62 million a year ago.
Advertising revenue declined 19 percent year-over-year to reach $23.8 million, with programmatic advertising revenue at $16 million compared to $15.5 million a year ago. Content revenue plunged 48 percent to $11.4 million.
Jonah Peretti, founder and CEO of BuzzFeed, noted that this is the first quarter of year-over-year growth in overall programmatic revenues since Q1, in “a signal that the strategic and organizational changes we have made to stabilize our business are beginning to pay off.” Overall revenue continues to be pressured by headwinds in the direct sales channels, but Peretti said the company is excited by the progress.
“Our strong performance in Q2 marks a turning point we’ve been working toward for the past two years,” Peretti said. “We are beginning to see the benefits of our investment in a differentiated technology platform that allows us to accelerate AI product development, make our sites and apps more interactive and personalized, and increase the amount of content our team and audience can create using AI-powered tools.”
The company’s net loss is improving, with the media conglomerate reporting a loss of $6 million compared to a loss of $22 million a year ago. This comes after the company previously shuttered BuzzFeed News and made overall cuts of about 15 percent of its workforce and plans to reduce its real estate holdings.
BuzzFeed is now focused on increasing engagement on its owned and operated properties, which include HuffPost, Tasty, the YouTube show Hot Ones and First We Feast.
Peretti said the company is also “beginning to see the fruits of our experimentation and innovation,” with generative AI, interactive content formats, and enhanced personalization driving more audience loyalty, user logins, better ad targeting and more.
“Since the start of the year, we’ve built foundational capabilities with the help of AI that now power internal content development tools, like our AI copilots, as well as consumer facing experiences, like our AI-assisted content generators,” the letter reads.
Last year, Peretti said that BuzzFeed would begin to embrace more “AI inspired content,” including Infinity Quizzes and Chatbot Games.
Next quarter, the company said it expects overall revenues in the range of $58 million to $63 million, or approximately 3 percent lower to 5 percent higher than third quarter of 2023 and adjusted EBITDA in the range of $6 million to $11 million, approximately $8 million higher year-over-year at the midpoint.