News publishers are seeking alternative avenues to appeal to advertisers in order to avoid the possibility of lost revenue during the U.S. presidential election season. Dow Jones is focusing on events and non-political content for its politically-averse advertisers, while The Guardian is targeting political and advocacy advertisers who want to show up against election coverage. Additionally, some publishers are considering going 'basically dark' by October 1, especially in the B2B tech category, to avoid campaigns against election coverage.

Josh Stinchcomb, global CRO of Dow Jones, mentioned that the business lens through which Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal cover news insulates the publisher from brand-safety concerns that plague general news. They ensure that advertising doesn’t run adjacent to politics if that's what the client wants, and they expect any paused dollars on thought leadership or B2B advertising before the election to be made up for later in the quarter, particularly with events like the CEO Council happening in December.

The Guardian is making a concerted effort to pursue political advertising dollars for the first time this year. Luis Romero, The Guardian’s SVP and head of sales for North America, is focusing on political dollars because it makes sense and in hopes of offsetting any potential losses from advertisers holding back due to the election.

Some advertisers are choosing to pause advertising by October 1 before the U.S. presidential election due to a combination of brand-safety concerns and competitive pricing. As the election approaches, advertising rates, especially in the political category, can spike due to increased competition in marketing. This decision is also influenced by budget considerations, as some clients may want to avoid advertising in such a competitive area, especially if they’re contracting with publishers quarterly or monthly.

Dotdash Meredith has struck a new, three-part deal with generative AI tech company OpenAI. This includes a licensing agreement to train OpenAI’s large language model on Dotdash Meredith’s content and to serve content and links to Dotdash Meredith’s sites in the generative AI chatbot ChatGPT. The deal aims to drive traffic from ChatGPT to the publisher’s sites and improve Dotdash Meredith’s first-party contextual targeting solution D/Cipher by mapping intent signals across a larger portion of the internet and various formats. The agreement is not exclusive, allowing for potential negotiations with other LLMs.