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Lad Bible Group CEOs plan for growth: £200m, IP, M&A and more


Publishing firms like Lad Bible Group should not flourish. It depends on ad dollars and platform traffic at a time when brands are looking for news and platforms barely recognize publishers.

And yet Lad Bible Group, known for its youth oriented content, defies the odds. Its revenue has tripled in five years, from £30m in 2020 to £90m today. The driving force was advertising, which accounts for 98% of the group’s revenue. Meanwhile, its audience grew by 19% in the first nine months of 2024, surpassing half a billion people (503 million).

Digiday sat down with Lad Bible Group CEO Solly Solomou to reveal what the next year holds for the publishing group that owns titles like LADBible, SPORTBible, Betches Media.

Solomou on the outlook for next year

Last year marked what Solomou described as a “good step” towards Lad Bible Group’s ambition to become a “global entertainment powerhouse”. This year, the goal is simple: to maintain this momentum and get closer to achieving it.

In practice, this means working towards a worldwide profit of £200m. Of course, advertising will continue to be the cornerstone of these efforts, but so will strategic moves such as expanding its presence in the US, business deals with AI platforms and expanding IP management, Solomou said. Then there’s M&A.

“We have mergers and acquisitions that we’re always looking at, but we’re very selective about the acquisitions that we make,” Solomou said. “We see this as an opportunity to accelerate toward our $2 billion pipeline.”

Solomou on movement in a volatile market for traffic recommendations

Despite the business boom, Solomou knows that the media environment can turn on a dime. One of the biggest thorn in the publisher’s side? Unrelenting decline in referral traffic from social and search platforms.

Solomou and his team learned that lesson the hard way when Facebook shook up its commercial model last summer, cutting the revenue Lad Bible Group earned from ads on the platform. While the team managed to bounce back, the incident reinforced a cold, hard truth: maintaining an audience is just as difficult as building one.

For Lad Bible Group, that means continuing to lean heavily on Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat — the platforms that drive its ad dollars and know best. Of course, platforms will do what platforms do, often at the expense of publishers. The gimmick, Solomon said, is ready to roll with the punches.

Maintaining a 50/50 revenue split between direct ad sales and platform-driven ads is central to the group’s approach. “The plan is to do what we can to keep that balance intact,” Solomou added.

Solo on TikTok

TikTok is part of Lad Bible Group’s revenue plans, but it’s not the primary focus — at least not yet. The video app’s relationship with publishers is still evolving, and the lack of a dedicated publisher team makes it difficult to close substantial deals. For now, TikTok plays a supporting role in the group’s strategy.

This could change as the platform matures. Solomou sees the potential in TikTok Shop as a space for Lad Bible Group to explore as it continues to diversify its revenue streams.

“We’re watching it closely,” Solomou said, hinting that TikTok’s business potential may offer new opportunities.

He further stated on the point: “That [TikTok Shop] provides sources of income for creators through affiliates. From an indirect perspective, it will be different in terms of the monetization opportunity.”

Straw on IP

Nowadays, publishers are increasingly putting themselves in the position of IP owners and creating formats that can evolve into separate brands. Few endorsements confirm this ambition better than Snoop Dogg. The rapper personally requested an appearance on the publisher’s “Snack Wars” show last summer, comparing it to the popular YouTube show “Hot Ones.”

“That’s the kind of IP we want to continue to develop and build on,” Solomou said.

But it’s not just about selling ads around this type of content. It’s also about creating productions that brands are eager to sponsor directly. Solomou sees this as one of the most exciting opportunities for Lad Bible Group, especially as more and more advertisers get in on the fun. In fact, some brands like elf Beauty even have their own entertainment team. Lad Bible Group focuses on these types of advertisers – those who want to go beyond traditional commercials.

“By increasing the number of types of IP we have across the range, not just social formats, we are able to make our brands more distinct and also offer clients more access points to our audience,” Solomou said.

Solomou on working with AI platforms

AI platforms and publishers have found themselves in a bitter stalemate. Publishers are increasingly frustrated – and in some cases suing – with AI platforms that use their content to train systems without offering fair compensation.

Solomou receives complaints, but he chose a different direction: cooperation on the conflict. It’s a stance Lad Bible Group has long embraced, maintaining strong relationships with platforms such as Facebook, even as the platform has distanced itself from the wider industry.

The same goes for AI platforms. Lad Bible Group is already an enterprise customer of OpenAI, collaborating on projects such as language translation experiments.

“It makes more sense for us to work with these platforms than against them,” Solomou said. “We want to lean into it, even though the commercial model is not exactly explained.”

His comments reflect a broader dilemma facing many publishers today. Despite the risks, they are doubling down on platform partnerships because the financial stakes are too high to ignore. All they can do is sit back and hope the gamble pays off.



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