Jukin Media Acquired By ‘Reader’s Digest’ Owner Trusted Media Brands

Jukin, the digital media company known for its vast trove of user-generated content, has been acquired by Reader’s Digest owner Trusted Media Brands.

Founded in 2010, Jukin owns several massive content brands, including FailArmy, People Are Awesome, The Pet Collective, Poke My Heart, This Is Happening, and WeatherSpy, which together comprise more than 65,000 user-generated video clips.

These brands collectively net more than two billion views per month online, and 11 million hours of watch time per month on streaming TV platforms like Roku, Pluto TV, Samsung TV Plus, Sling TV, and ZEASN.

To date, Jukin has raised $8.6 million in funding, and has paid out more than $30 million–generated by views plus licensing deals with entertainment and marketing companies for inclusion in TV shows, films, ads, and more–to creators of its content.

In 2020 alone, Jukin says, it licensed more than 2,000 clips for use in major ad campaigns, and licensed a variety of clips for use by television programs and digital properties based in nearly 100 countries.

Jukin’s acquisition by Trusted Media Brands (formerly known as Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.) will form a multifaceted media company that operates verticals in food, home, lifestyle, wellness, pets, entertainment, and humor, the duo says.

Trusted Media Brands owns and publishes well-known magazines and websites including Reader’s Digest, Family Handyman, Taste of Home, Farm & Ranch Living, The Healthy, Birds & Blooms, Country, and CountryWoman. It is headquartered in New York City and has ten offices across the U.S. and in Canada, England, New Delhi, India, and Singapore.

“This is an amazing moment for the incredibly hard-working team at Jukin Media,” Jonathan Skogmo, Jukin’s founder and CEO, said in a statement. “We’ve spent the past decade pouring ourselves into this business, and that dedication shows in the success we’ve seen across streaming, production, social and licensing.”

Skogmo added, “Both Trusted Media Brands and Jukin Media are unquestioned leaders in user-generated content and we share a similar growth mindset that permeates everything that we do. It’s a remarkable fit, and we couldn’t be more excited about the shared vision we have with Trusted Media Brands to continue growing the combined entity.”

In her own statement, Bonnie Kinzer, CEO and president of Trusted Media Brands, said, “Trusted Media Brands’ powerful network of brand relationships, our growing portfolio of community-driven lifestyle media brands and our proprietary first-party data platform, together with Jukin Media’s social media, video production and streaming TV acumen, are positioning us for our future and fueling significant opportunity for long-term growth.”

Trusted Media Brands says its pre-Jukin portfolio reached nearly 60 million people, or more than a quarter of U.S. adults. Its acquisition of Jukin will immediately quadruple its overall monthly reach, it says.

Jukin recently expanded into original content and NFTs.