EDITOR'S NOTE: For 2019, we've expanded our annual publishing-industry honors program. It's now known as the Ad Age Publishers A-List and it includes the traditional Magazine A-List, a new Digital Publishers A-List and three shortlists of honorees in growth areas for publishing: video (below), events and audio/podcasting. Read the introduction and find links to the other portions of the package here.
The New York Times (The New York Times Co.)
The New York Times, which appears twice on our Digital Publishers A-List, also gets honored here on our Video Publishers A-List for its extraordinarily innovative use of the medium for both hard-hitting journalism (see, for example, episodes of the "Visual Investigations" series such as "A Black Driver, a Marijuana Bust and a Body Camera That Turned Off" and "Killing Khashoggi: How a Brutal Saudi Hit Job Unfolded") and simply delightful culture coverage, particularly in the brisk shorts produced by the staff of T: The New York Times Style Magazine.
Vox (Vox Media)
Vox's raison d'être, explanatory journalism, may have its most perfect expression in video form. Scroll through Vox's YouTube channel—"How smooth jazz took over the '90s," "Why women's pockets suck," "NAFTA, explained with a toy car" and "How IKEA gets you to impulsively buy more," "Why advertisers are tracking your emojis"—and there's pretty much no way you're not going to click and watch (and watch and watch). No wonder Vox surpassed 5 million YouTube subscribers in 2018. Extra credit to the brand for launching the Vox Video Lab—a tiered membership program (starting at $4.99/month) created with support from the Google News Initiative—in December.
Bon Appétit / The Food Innovation Group (Condé Nast)
In addition to being a Digital Publishers A-List honoree, Conde Nast's Food Innovation Group, led by flagship Bon Appétit, also gets honored here for having a blockbuster year in video. BA surged past the 1-billion-view mark in 2018 across platforms—that represents 38% year-over-year growth—thanks to hit series including "Alex Eats It All" (averaging 3 million views per episode) and "Handcrafted" (4 million). And Bon Appétit has been particularly blowing up on YouTube, flying past the 3-million subscriber mark on the strength of witty viral videos such as "Pastry Chef Attempts To Make Gourmet Twizzlers."
People (Meredith)
People magazine continues to be a multimedia powerhouse (see our Digital Publishers A-List), but in 2018 it particularly shined as a video publisher. Most notably, video content related to the May 19 wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle drove 24.3 million views across platforms over just four days, while the live webcast of the ceremony on People.com alone served up 1.82 million streams. And under new owner Meredith Corporation (following Meredith's acquisition of Time Inc.), a weekend edition of "People Now," the flagship show of People's OTT streaming network PeopleTV, began airing across all Meredith-owned stations starting in June.
Wired.com (Condé Nast)
Wired magazine is a Digital Publishers A-List honoree, but we're also honoring it here for its extraordinary performance as a video publisher. Most notably, Wired has been on fire on YouTube, pushing past 3 million subscribers and releasing more than 50 videos in 2018 that each surpassed the 1-million-view mark. The brand's most popular video series, the "Wired Autocomplete Interview," closed in on 400 million lifetime views across platforms while pilots for the new Wired OTT channel, including "Masterminds" and 'Tech Effects," got off to blazing starts will millions of views each within weeks of launch.
