HuffPost and Fairfax Media joint venture in doubt
HuffPost Australia’s joint venture with Fairfax Media could come to an end, Mumbrella understands.
Should the joint venture end, Mumbrella understands a series of redundancies could occur but the future of the publication is in the hands of HuffPost management.

a very big proportion of those HuffPo audience numbers are driven by links from Fairfax sites. Watch for those audience numbers to plummet if the pin gets pulled on this partnership, and with it , any real chance of commercial success
44% of the Huff Post sites traffic here in Australia is from Google organic search
16.4% is referral sites, of which nearly half is The Age. (less than 8% overall) – is that what you mean by Fairfax traffic?
14.98% is social media and Facebook is 65.52% of that
0.1% of total traffic is from display ad’s
According to Similarweb: https://www.similarweb.com/website/huffingtonpost.com.au#referrals
Can anyone account up to 100%?
Looks like someone has confused traffic with audience.
Sigh. When will the digerati learn the difference?
“At the time of launch, the company was led by Chris Janz, now managing director of Fairfax Media’s Metro Publishing division. He was later replaced by RocketFuel managing director, JJ Eastwood.”
Doesn’t look like Janz left HuffPo in great shape. Now he’s helming Fairfax Metro – let’s see if he works his same magic here.
Let’s get real for a moment. Digital news brands with cut and paste “journalists” simply thought they could waltz into Australia and collect from the new rivers of Gold. News.com.au already has that market covered.
We don’t have the population or time to invest in these brands wholeheartedly and snacking on news here and there does not make for a profitable outcome.
The legacy brands will continue to dominate. News, Fairfax, ABC and the TV Networks.
Even the NY Times has slashed its subscription price in AU. Did they really think we were that gullible?
Do you not have a ‘stories to read’ function on your smart phone? I have been introduced at a plethora of great sites, some broad, others highly niche. Mobile traffic from recommendation engines works. Google’s is getting really good.
As far as I know, Huffpost use DFP and obviously Adx. I would also bet that their number one DSP is DBM. I’d love to know how much Google have been making off the back of their journalism. Same goes for Facebook. The challenge isn’t so much the market, it’s the 85c of every incremental dollar (that old stat) that our two frenemies are making that’s strangling publishers. Any pub with 2m+ UUs should have a solid business here. I wish the team in there all the best, they’re a great crew.
All I know is that it majorly p*sses me off when I click on a Fairfax link and get taken – with no prior warning – over to Huffpost.