“Couldn’t we make even more money if we had AI do it?”
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Embattled media company BuzzFeed is selling off First We Feast, the company behind the extremely popular interview show called “Hot Ones,” for $82.5 million to save itself from a mountain of debt.
The deal will bring down the media empire’s debt load from almost $124 million by $88.8 million, the New York Times reports.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, BuzzFeed is using the opportunity to double down on its “pivot to AI” strategy, arguing that the tech will allow the company to pull itself out of a years-long struggle.
“The sale of First We Feast and continued reduction of our convertible debt marks an important step in BuzzFeed, Inc.’s strategic transformation into a media company positioned to fully benefit from the ongoing AI revolution,” BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti said in a statement. “In the coming years, we will continue to invest in our most scalable and tech-enabled services, launching new AI-powered interactive experiences, and delivering for our loyal audience and business partners.”
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But whether unloading a beloved property built on human personalities in favor of automated content will pay off remains to be seen.
After a disastrous 2023, BuzzFeed‘s stock has been recovering at a steady pace throughout this year. Its latest announcement that it would sell off First We Feast and its highly visible “Hot Ones,” however, has sent the stock plunging by over 36 percent over the last five days.
Its efforts to pivot toward AI haven’t instilled much confidence, either.
In March 2023, Futurism found that the media company was using AI to quietly churn out repetitive, dull, and poorly-written travel guides. A recipe-generating AI, dubbed Botatouille, also turned out to be a complete disaster.
In April 2023, the company shut down the award-winning BuzzFeed News, causing its share price to plummet below the one-dollar mark, with the Securities Exchange Commission warning that it could be delisted from the NASDAQ if it couldn’t recover (its stock is currently floating around $3.43 per share.)
Then in February of this year, BuzzFeed cut even more of its business by selling Complex for a cool $108.6 million to raise some more cash.
Peretti has previously promised investors that “generative AI will replace the majority of static content, and audiences will begin to expect all content to be curated and dynamic with embedded intelligence.”
Its latest decision to sell off an extremely popular — and likely cheaply produced — show led to plenty of mockery online.
“That a dude with a couple cameras and a plate of appetizers can make something worth $82.5 million,” one BlueSky user wrote, “and a media company looks at that and goes ‘couldn’t we make even more money if we had AI do it?’ tells you exactly how stupid these people are.”
More on BuzzFeed: What Happened After BuzzFeed’s Pivot to AI: Catastrophic Stock Collapse
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