OpenAI Is Paying Dotdash Meredith At Least $16 Million to License Its Content

The partnership and payment

The $16 million is paid out in quarterly installments of roughly $4 million, which Dotdash Meredith includes in the licensing section of its financial reports. The section also includes other licensing revenue, such as payments from Apple News+.

In the seven quarters before the OpenAI deal, Dotdash Meredith generated an average of $25.5 million in licensing revenue. In the two quarters following the announcement of the deal, licensing revenue has brought in an average of $29.75 million.

Most of the deals that OpenAI has struck with publishers are structured around two components, according to a leaked pitch deck obtained by ADWEEK in May. Publishers receive a fixed payment based on the value of their archival content and a variable payment based on how often their content appears in OpenAI products.

The $16 million represents the fixed payment, but Dotdash Meredith has not received—and therefore has not yet reported—its variable payment. As a result, the size of the total annual payment will almost certainly be higher.

In the case of Dotdash Meredith, there is also a third component of the partnership. In addition to the data licensing, the two parties are also partnering to enhance D/Cipher, the contextual ad-targeting tool Dotdash Meredith launched in May 2023.

In its most recent earnings, Dotdash Meredith reported its third consecutive quarter of double-digit digital advertising growth.