How we pivoted from Facebook to Instagram (Dave Finocchio, CEO, Bleacher Report)

Channels with Peter Kafka

Vox Media Podcast Network

Business News, News, Tv & Film, Technology

4.4 • 585 Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2018

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Bleacher Report CEO Dave Finocchio talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about founding a sports media site, selling it to Turner and leaving — and why he came back to lead the company again. Finocchio discusses the recently announced changes to Facebook's News Feed that will deemphasize news from publishers like him, but says Bleacher Report started migrating to other platforms years ago, and now sees the highest enagement with its content on Facebook-owned Instagram. He also talks about how the company is using Snapchat to understand its teen readers, how it weaned itself off of having unpaid contributors and what he thinks of sports media rivals like ESPN, SB Nation and Barstool Sports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Recode Media with Peter Kafka. That is me. I am part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:05.9	I am here at Vox Media headquarters in New York City. It's nearly February. Doesn't look miserable, but it's not warm. You know what's going to be warm? Southern. You can nod, Dave.
0:17.0	Southern California, mid-February. That's where we're having the Code Media Conference. We and Curis. Which are going to host it. We're going to have amazing guests, Maggie Haberman, Susan Mujeski, Tim Armstrong. By the time you hear this, you'll know that we're having Janice Min from the Hollywood Reporter, the founders of the skim, Rick Moran. There's a really cool person that I probably can't tell you about yet, but they run a company.
0:38.6	Everyone's very interested in, and they're going to be there. It's all February 12th and 13th in Huntington Beach, California. You can learn more about it at recode.net slash events. Okay, Dave was very quiet there. He thought he couldn't speak. No, I went last year. It was great. You did go. Yeah. That is an authentic, organic endorsement.
0:54.0	Yeah.
0:54.4	They had great surf outside of the hotel, too.
0:57.0	I didn't go surfing. Different location this year. Better surfing. Better surfing. Better surfing. The voice you hear, the surfing endorsing guest at RICO Media today. Let's keep that in there. It's authentic. Is Dave Finocchio. He is the CEO of Blutcher Report. Welcome, Dave.
1:13.8	Thanks for having me, Peter. How much did I pay you for that code media endorsement? Nothing. You paid me to attend. That's right. How good is this business? Oh, it's a great business. That's what we're going to talk about, right? You want to get in the events business?
1:26.6	Do you guys do any events?
1:28.1	We're dabbling.
1:29.3	Dabbling.
1:29.9	I don't know if it'll be a staple.
1:31.4	You're cool. talk about, right? You want to get in the events business? Do you guys do any events?
1:28.0	We're dabbling.
1:29.1	Dabbling.
1:29.9	I don't know if it'll be a staple.
1:31.4	Your core business is advertising about in case someone has not seen Bleacher Report.
1:38.7	Bleacher Report is the, I would say at this point, the leading millennial destination
1:43.6	for sports culture and news.
1:46.4	It's gotten pretty big.
1:48.1	Can you feel the vibes from SB Nation?
1:50.6	They're literally on the other side of that wall.
	...

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