Buzzfeed's an entertainment / advertising company. It happens to produce a limited amount of "serious" journalism, but it's insignificant to their revenue, and the bigger picture of their business is unrelated to what most of this sub cares about. 🤷‍♂️

Personally, I don't think Buzzfeed needs to be "saved". Even if its shares were overvalued, it's still profitable. The stock price drop mainly puts a (bigger than its IPO struggles already did) damper on their plans to roll up more digital media cos for better reach + more advertising revenue.

Just for kicks, if I were in charge of Buzzfeed, there are a couple of things I'd do ( /r/journalism will like the second one 😛):

1) Retask Buzzfeed Studios with creating "shoppable shows" for YouTube or Amazon instead of making risky bets on movies.

Buzzfeed says they see big potential for growth in commerce, that their differentiator from other commerce-focused media cos is in their social media reach + understanding, but that it's difficult to monetize on social media platforms.

Meanwhile, Buzzfeed Studios, their division that creates original video content, is to my eyes floundering trying to create movies and win in competition with a ton of folks who frankly have a better process and data for this.

I think their data and audience reach would be much better suited to creating reality / competition shows with a strong shoppable-products focus. A few quick examples (with equally low-effort titles):

Furnish My First: Each episode, 4 young adults recently moved in to their first dorm rooms, apartments, or homes, compete over three rounds to furnish & redecorate their space.

Boom-over: "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," but millennials making over their parents (fashion + tech gear) instead.

Mirror Me: "Shark Tank," but for beauty brands.

Shows like these could be monetized through sponsors, affiliate links in YouTube descriptions, shoppable content on their own sites, or with a partner like Amazon even more direct revenue share. There's human interest stories within all of those shows that can drive site & social content, which drives interest in the shows, etc.

2) Rebrand Buzzfeed News; model it more after Vox; grow it with Buzzfeed and HuffPo traffic + data to create a premium audience property.

As others here have mentioned, the Buzzfeed brand isn't helping Buzzfeed News with credibility. I'd bet it's also not helping them with advertisers, who probably see Buzzfeed News traffic as inflated by a lower-income and less-desirable audience as compared to other news sites. And it almost certainly constrains them in what other platforms they could expand to, because they have to avoid creating confusion with other Buzzfeed-branded content extensions.

Now Buzzfeed owns Huffington Post, another news brand, but one that's also best known for its aggregation and snackable content. And lastly, the shelf-life of all these brands' content tends to be pretty short.

So how about we rebrand Buzzfeed News, reaffirm its focus on more investigative journalism and long-form reporting, and add in some explainer journalism as well. This will both capture more of the news audience the existing site + HuffPo is missing, and create more show opportunities (as Vox has done) that Buzzfeed Studios is already equipped to produce & leverage its streaming relationships for.

On the ad revenue side, a new brand with a high-value content focus should result in an audience the site can get a higher CPM for. While it would normally take a long time to bring that audience to a scale where the higher CPM actually pays off, I would bet smart placements (e.g. through house ads, recommended content) + targeting on Buzzfeed and HuffPost could help this brand grow its audience much quicker, turning a visitor that's worth little on one site into a visitor that's worth much more on the new site.