In lieu of an in-house expansion, TNL Mediagene has prioritised acquisitions of varying sizes and media verticals in recent years. To round out their business model, the company also acquired tech, data, AI, and adtech services for digital marketing offerings.

The Taiwan news company began their strategic transition in 2018 by pivoting into mergers and acquisitions of Inside and Sports Vision. 

Joey Chung, co-founder and CEO of TNL Mediagene, offered insights and discussed the evolution of the brand’s revenue, audience and market diversification at the recent INMA Asia/Pacific News Media Summit.

In 2013, TNL Mediagene was an independent media brand known as The News Lens (later shortened to TNL). 

“We quickly diversified from one media brand to eventually becoming a media group, eventually becoming a tech-data-AI-ecommerce [brand], that entire ecosystem,” Chung told summit attendees.

TNL Mediagene considers itself a next-generation Asian media company, targeting Millennial and Gen Z consumers, with a focus on “high-quality, newsworthy” content across a plethora of topics and focus areas. 

At one point, TNL Mediagene was one of the fastest-growing independent, digital-first media brands. Expansion into other markets included Hong Kong and southeast Asia, as it became clear to Chung that Taiwan was too small of a market. 

For Chung and the company, growth meant expanding into other verticals like sports and tech via acquisitions, which paid off in increased monthly readership. 

Pivoting from media sales to diversification of revenue

“Gradually we realised that we would also have to diversify our revenue offerings — 99% of all our revenue came from media sale: banner sales, sponsor content, traditional media advertising. As we got bigger and bigger, that also became more and more risky.” 

This realisation led to acquisitions in tech, data, and martech like a mobile ad tech company. Fortuitously, these investments occurred before the COVID-19 pandemic wrecked global markets and public health, allowing TNL Mediagene to draw from multiple revenue sources during lockdown to sustain itself. 

Thanks to a merger with Mediagene in 2023, the company sees more than 50 million unique users, and as of 2024 has 22 media brands within nine verticals across Japanese, English, Chinese, and Cantonese. 

“A huge chunk of our revenue now is diversified, it’s not just media advertising, but also data and tech,” Chung said.

Chung briefly explained the variety of smaller brands that exist within TNL Mediagene’s portfolio. 

For example, Sports Vision, which TNL acquired in 2018, provides quality sports content that includes e-sports, news, analysis and sports policy. Ohsowsow covers Korean film and TV news, while iCook claims to be the “largest recipe-sharing social platform in Taiwan and Hong Kong, with more than 250,000 visitors.” 

Other content that the TNL Mediagene owns include business news like Business Insider Japan, lifestyle content, and events and community engagement opportunities. With such diverse content options, consumers have a variety of choices that reflect and cater to their personal and professional interests. 

Due to their wide-ranging content portfolio and data-integrated approach, TNL Mediagene is able to strategically position its services and packages when working with partners. From media advertising in multiple languages to AI tracking to market research, TNL Mediagene is a one stop shop for companies entering and/or reengaging consumer markets in Asia. With their hyperfocus on data optimisation, Chung believes, “we’re able to become a much more efficient partner.”

Future of data and digital trajectory  

The future of TNL Mediagene lies in its expansion into other verticals, markets and languages, Chung said.

The brand has a large presence in Taipei, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. Prospective markets throughout southeast Asia include Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines.

In recent years, the company has fine tuned its portfolio to consist of intensive data collection through online research, social listening, AI analytics and market research. Other services include ad technology and SaaS for creative and content management.

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