Vinyl's cunning plan to make a buck; Unmade Index recovers
Welcome to Unmade on a day when our eponymous Index, along with the rest of the financial world, saw the glass half full.
As well as our Index breaking the 500 barrier for the first time since it registered the impact of President Trump’s Rose Garden tariff fest, we had Vinyl Group’s quarterly report lob and reveal the secret sauce that is going to take it to profitability: AI.
Today is a good day to upgrade to a paid membership of Unmade. Your annual membership includes:
A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including HumAIn (May 6), REmade (September 23), Unlock (October), and Compass (across November)
Member-only content and our paywalled archives;
Your own copy of Media Unmade.
Vinyl plays the AI card
Quarterly reporting from startup media conglomerate Vinyl Group that dropped this morning showed significant cash burn, a short runway and a recommitment to breaking even this calendar year.
Perhaps most alarmingly for anyone acquainted with actually using AI at work, Vinyl Group CEO Josh Simons wrote in the report that Vinyl’s “bold AI strategy” was an important part of the group’s “path to sustainable growth”.
Simons laid out the plan as “developing a suite of AI-driven publishing tools designed to multiply content output while supporting our journalists and editors.” Simons says the tools will increase margin and syndication opportunities, and lower the cost of customer acquisition.
As someone who has worked in both scale and niche digital publishing, I can tell you one thing that holds true across the board: more content beyond a certain threshold doesn’t equal more traffic or deeper engagement. You need the right content, at the right tempo, and after that it’s filler being poured into the void.
AI publishing tools that “multiply content output” sounds like a rewriting factory. It will be interesting to see what comes out of Mediaweek, Variety Australia, The Brag, Rolling Stone Australia and Concrete Playground in the new era.
There was no mention in the Vinyl reporting of its upcoming legal case with former Brag CEO and Vinyl executive Luke Girgis, who has alleged he was unfairly terminated and denied a $2m bonus payment. Vinyl revealed that Girgis sued the group in ASX reporting, flagging the case as a significant issue while strongly refuting Girgis’ claims and stating: “Following an external investigation, Mr Girgis was terminated for serious misconduct, including but not limited to financial misconduct.”
Big players have a good day on the Index
The big stocks on the Unmade Index followed the ASX’s lead, which followed Wall Street’s lead, which believed that Trump’s more chaotic instincts had been reined in and that Elon Musk was going back to work at Tesla.
Only Seven West Media bucked the trend, losing a cent (back to 13c, -3.7%). News Corp (+2.85%), Nine (+3.77%), Domain (+3.99%), and Ooh (+2.79%) all posted significant gains. The Unmade Index has gone back in time to the early days of April, before the full chaos of Trump’s tariffs had kicked in.
More from Mumbrella
Google says AI Overviews drive shopping, some marketers aren't sold
60 Minutes' US boss departs amid merger, lawsuit pressure
New Mumbrellacast: The Chrome threat; Click-through down on Google ads; Liz Hayes joins Seven
See that last link above? If you’re not a Mumbrellacast listener already, sign up and have a listen to the mini-interview I mentioned yesterday with In Marketing We Trust’s Paul Hewett.
See you tomorrow!
Hal Crawford
Editorial Director - Mumbrella
hcrawford@mumbrella.com.au