So long Dotdash Meredith, hello People Inc.

Back in late 2021, Barry Dillers IAC inked a $2.7 billion deal to acquire Meredith Corp. in a blockbuster move to create a digital media powerhouse.

We actually didnt really know what to call it, so out of convenience and necessity and speed, we just called it Dotdash Meredith, recalls Neil Vogel, the CEO of the company, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. It made everybody happy, nobody was mad. But we kind of knew that it wouldnt be a forever name. And so the company formerly known as Dotdash Meredith will, as of Thursday, now go by People Inc.

Its one of the largest media publishers in the world, with brands that include People, Travel Leisure, Brides, Better Homes Gardens, Entertainment Weekly, Food Wine and AllRecipes, so a rebranding is a big change, but Vogel argues that it is a logical move.

We kicked around names for some time, probably over the last year or two, and it just came around to us that we had the name we wanted, and the name was People, Vogel says. People is our flagship property, its sort of like how The Coca Cola Company owns Sprite and lots of other stuff, but it is still The Coca Cola Company.

The name is also a winking nod to Time Inc., whose brands make up a big piece of the companys portfolio.

But I think the second thing that we realized, which is actually fairly important, is that in this age of everything being synthetic and artificial and amalgamated and mashed up, we are people making content for people, people who are really passionate about things, he adds. So we thought the People name worked for that. Were not AI, were People and Food Wine and Travel Leisure and Entertainment Weekly and all these brands that you know that have been around for a really long time, and have this great legacy and this great trust.

People Inc.s brands are core to Vogels strategy, which he describes as being ruthlessly unsentimental.

In this new world where everything is just a little confusing, you dont know whats going on, brands are all that we have, right? Our brands, theyre whats going to carry us forward, Vogel says, outlining his philosophy. Theres more media being consumed now than ever in the history of anything. And our job is, if you have a brand that people love and trust and have an affinity for, you have a chance. And I think theres two things: One, youve got to pick your winners, which I think were doing, and two: Youve got to let those teams do their thing.

The debut of People Inc. comes at a tumultuous moment for media, which is grappling with a difficult advertising business and a looming threat from artificial intelligence, particularly with AI search threatening the entire model of the internet. Dotdash Meredith, for its part, has inked deals with companies like OpenAI as it seeks to navigate those challenges.

You, cant fall in love with what you did yesterday, because it may not work anymore. No fault of yours, Vogel says. We were great at the open web for really long time, but the open webs not growing anymore. Weve got to find other things to be really great at.

I always use People magazine itself as the example of how you can take something that is seemingly old and tired, and you can absolutely reinvent it for the new world. When we got our hands on People three and a half years ago, the whole thing was run by one editor-in-chief, a print person, who just dictated what happened everywhere, and it was very command and control, Vogel adds. We said, okay, were going to do this differently. The editor-in-chief was now in charge of the mission of the brand, but were going to have an entirely different newsroom and production process for print, web, TikTok, Instagram, our own app, YouTube, whatever were doing, rather than have some like central figure decide what goes everywhere.

And going forward, the company will apply that mentality to all of its brands.

The thing that weve learned is not all of our brands are going to have a future, and thats okay, Vogel says. The brands that we believe have the brightest future get the most resources, and those tend to be brands which is really interesting thing for us that have the history and the gravitas, Food Wine and Real Simple and Travel Leisure, and AllRecipes and Better Homes and Gardens, and all these brands that you know are the brands that are equipped to get to the next place.

Vogel says that People Inc. is poised to be a good story in a media business that is, in other places, struggling to survive.

The company (as Dotdash Meredith) reported Q4 revenues of $522 million, up 10 percent from a year prior, with digital revenue comprising $311 million of that total, and adjusted EBITDA that was up 5 percent. The company ended 2024 with $1.8 billion in revenue ($1 billion of that digital) and profits up 25 percent from the year prior. The company says that more than 175 million people a month visit People Inc.s brands

In a world where theres not a lot of happy, good media stories, were doing well, were coming off six straight quarters of growing digitally, Vogel says. We just wanted to do [the rebrand] now. Just put it out there, a stake in the ground around what were doing.