DotDash Meredith
IAC-owned US digital publisher; Investopedia, People; $16m/yr OpenAI licensing deal.
Last refreshed: 10 May 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Is DotDash Meredith's $16m OpenAI deal a good benchmark for other publishers?
Timeline for DotDash Meredith
Mentioned in: Reach signs AWS pay-per-usage AI licensing deal
Media's AI Pivot- How much is DotDash Meredith getting paid by OpenAI?
- DotDash Meredith's OpenAI content licensing deal is valued at approximately $16m per year, according to the Content and Journalism Lab. This is one of the few publicly-disclosed figures in AI content licensing negotiations.Source: event
- Who owns DotDash Meredith?
- DotDash Meredith is owned by IAC, the internet conglomerate controlled by Barry Diller. It was formed through the 2021 merger of Dotdash (IAC's digital publishing Arm) with Meredith Corporation, the legacy magazine publisher.
- What brands does DotDash Meredith own?
- DotDash Meredith owns over 40 digital media brands including Investopedia, People, Food and Wine, Travel and Leisure, Better Homes and Gardens, and Allrecipes, among others.
Background
DotDash Meredith signed an AI content licensing deal with OpenAI valued at approximately $16m per year, according to reporting by the Content and Journalism Lab. The deal grants OpenAI access to content from its portfolio of over 40 brands including Investopedia, People, Food and Wine, and Travel and Leisure. At $16m annually, it represents one of the few publicly-disclosed dollar figures in AI content licensing, providing a market benchmark for the sector.
Formed through the 2021 merger of digital publisher Dotdash and legacy magazine company Meredith Corporation, DotDash Meredith is a subsidiary of Barry Diller's IAC conglomerate. It operates a portfolio-wide digital-first strategy under CEO Neil Vogel, having shut down or pivoted most Meredith print titles to online-only formats. The company has been one of the more aggressive US publishers in optimising content for search and structured data — an approach that makes its content particularly useful as AI training material.
The $16m/yr figure has become a reference point in industry negotiations: publishers below that threshold argue they are being systematically undervalued; those above treat it as a floor. The deal structure — a licensing fee rather than a revenue-share or usage-based model — has also attracted scrutiny from publishers who believe pay-per-usage deals (as Reach plc pursued with AWS) will ultimately generate more revenue as AI query volumes grow.