Over the last couple of years, Hot Ones has emerged as the hottest interview series in the U.S., literally and figuratively. Hot Ones regularly garners millions of views, but BuzzFeed apparently sees brighter horizons in AI. BuzzFeed has sold off Hot Ones for a spicy $82.5 million. While aspects of the buyer’s identity are a little hazy, it seems like there might be good news therein.
Hot Ones offers celebrities and fans a notably different experience from the usual press interview, with host Sean Evans dishing out questions as his guests eat chicken (or cauliflower) wings doused in increasingly intense hot sauce. Contenders who have taken on the “wings of death” include huge names like Ariana Grande, Pedro Pascal, Key & Peele, Will Farrell, Jenna Ortega, and even Donald Duck. Hot Ones is so big that even Kamala Harris’s campaign tried to get her on but was turned down because the show didn’t want to enter the world of political interviews. (Which, honestly? I get it.)
Hot Ones airs on YouTube as a part of the First We Feast network. BuzzFeed has owned First We Feast since 2021. However, BuzzFeed is $124 million in debt, and First We Feast became an easy sell to alleviate some of that burden. Hot Ones and First We Feast were sold to a group of investors.
Good for Hot Ones, bad for BuzzFeed
Initial reports were murky about exactly who this “group of investors” was, except that it was led by the Soros Fund Management (as in George Soros). But after the news initially broke, the murkiness cleared away to reveal some good news for once: one of the key stakeholders is now host Sean Evans himself. Other stakeholders include First We Feast founder Chris Schonberger and podcast media company Crooked Media (of Pod Save America fame, a company in which Soros also has a stake).
So as far as Hot Ones and First We Feast are concerned, it looks like the sale might be a good thing. If the other stakeholders don’t exert an overly large influence on the show, it seems possible that the actual creators might now have more influence on their company and programming—which is, of course, great.
But BuzzFeed—oh boy. In a press release, CEO Jonah Peretti celebrated the sale as a milestone that “marks an important step in BuzzFeed, Inc.’s strategic transformation into a media company positioned to fully benefit from the ongoing AI revolution.” He continued, “In the coming years, we will continue to invest in our most scalable and tech-enabled services, launching new AI-powered interactive experiences …”
And so continues the trend of CEOs of media companies being wildly out of touch with the real desires of actual people. In April 2023, BuzzFeed completely gutted and shut down BuzzFeed News, one of the richest media outlets on the internet. Ever since they’ve leaned heavily on AI content. Considering I haven’t seen a single soul talk about BuzzFeed between the News layoffs and the First We Feast sale today, I assume the AI content is going as anyone would predict: poorly, with no readership.
Good for First We Feast for getting out of there and taking charge of their own output. Given the depressing road BuzzFeed seems to be heading down, I think Sean Evans and Co. are much better off.
Published: Dec 14, 2024 1:51 PM UTC