A UK-based digital culture magazine that started life as a blog when the founder was at university now has around 30 full-time staff.
Far Out was founded in 2010 by Lee Thomas when he was at Leeds Metropolitan University. Most of its editorial team is based in the UK, with two full-time copy editors in India, one writer in the US and one graphic designer in Greece.
Despite pressure on traffic for many online publishers, Far Out has averaged 20 million monthly page views (eight million unique users) over the last year and a half, according to Thomas, with its focus on music, film, travel and the arts.
“I created it at university as a passion project – as everyone did at that age…trying to make something work,” said Thomas, adding he was inspired by self-published “zines “from the 1970s and the 1980s “like Sniffin’ Glue and some of the Riot grrrl zines”.
“It felt … there wasn’t really a … direction at the time, it was more of a case of this is something that we feel is important… everyone should have a chance to say something.”
While websites have “become more legitimate” over time, said Thomas, the zine inspiration is “still an ethos that I really…try to maintain” with Far Out.
From sports reporting to full-time Far Out
Current managing editor of the title Jack Whatley worked on it alongside Thomas when they were at university and helped keep it “ticking along” afterwards.
Thomas become a sports reporter after graduation, going on to be hired by The Guardian’s Martin Belam to front up a new project with the Mirror, called Row Zed – a “modern version of sports reporting, which was a bit sillier”.
This period saw Far Out publish “one or two pieces” every day between Thomas and Whatley – “it wasn’t really doing traffic. It was just it existed for a small amount of people.”
Far Out then went “from a blog to a sort of gung-ho-inspired open forum for people to log in, publish whatever they want.
“I would meet people [at music events], …give them a login to the website, and then the next morning something would turn up, and it was not monetised at all.”
Arriving for a shift at the Mirror one day, Thomas said: “It was raining and it was cold and I wasn’t feeling it. And then I got an email as I walked into the office saying your domain has expired on Far Out magazine, and it was £250…I was just like…do we want to continue? And there were moments like that where we weren’t sure, but we did it anyway, because so many years have been invested in it for so long that we felt compelled to keep going.”
Thomas worked as senior sports reporter for Metro and then editor of Online Betting Guide before going full-time on Far Out in 2019.
“For me, I just couldn’t ever do [freelance]. So… I just made the decision to work on Far Out magazine full-time.
“Maybe because I didn’t feel like a sports reporter… maybe …culture gave me an opportunity to keep my sort of passion alive for writing.”
‘A lot of traffic’ from nostalgic content
Much of the site’s traffic comes from revisiting old interviews with famous cultural figures.
For example, Far Out might explore “an article…from 35 years ago in which Bob Dylan spoke about his admiration for Leonard Cohen,” said Thomas. “It might be a two-sentence line about him…we’ll build a colourful story around a nostalgic time in history. These pieces have historically done a lot of traffic.”
The site has two sections it’s “most famous for”, said Thomas – From The Vault on music history and Cutting Room Floor on filmmaking.
“And these are essentially what we built our name on early doors,” said Thomas. “We wanted to create a culture for a new generation of music and film lovers who are not so interested in gatekeeping.”
‘Huge benefit’ from Google Discover
Thomas said Far Out’s “easy reading” content around fandom and nostalgia “works a lot for Google Discover because the headlines are light”.
Discover (Google’s smartphone-based news aggregator) is the biggest source of referral traffic for some publishers.
[Read more: Publishers hooked on Google Discover traffic risk race to the bottom]
Thomas said Far Out has seen “huge benefit” from focusing on Google Discover, “at a time when a lot of publications were focusing on SEO”.
Thomas said Far Out could never compete with established music brands like Pitchfork and NME on SEO content. “For us to try and do things like the ten best rock songs, for example, we would never overcome them.”
He said that some 70% of Far Out’s traffic came from Discover “for a long time” and today this proportion sits at 63%.
“Roughly 70% of our editorial output is geared towards high-traffic opportunities – stories designed to perform strongly on Search or Google Discover,” Thomas said. “This is essential to keep the business sustainable.”
Far Out also amends its content to appeal to Discover users, making headlines “more suggestive in order to drive the traffic, then we have to ensure the piece is the best it could ever be”, said Thomas. Current examples of these sort of headlines on the site include: The role Clint Eastwood refused to reprise: “Not at my age” and The venue that Aerosmith hated playing with very good reason: “We got ourselves to the emergency room”.
Thomas added that while Google’s core updates cause “volatility”, traffic is maintained at a “consistent level” thanks to the site growing audience of newsletter subscribers.
“We’re now learning to manage our referral traffic and build our own mail list and try to take a bit back of our ownership of our own audience, which I think has been a huge problem in the past three years.
“There was a time when we could post on social media and get traffic, and we own that audience. Now we feel a little uneasy about how much Google can control the traffic we can and can’t have. But our relationship with Google has been really good, and it’s benefitted us hugely.”
Automated, subject-specific newsletters
The magazine has more than a dozen subject-specific newsletters based around specific topics, such as The Beatles, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Bob Dylan, which are promoted in relevant articles.
Newsletters don’t follow a set frequency but are sent out once enough articles have been approved for that topic and the “bucket” is full, Thomas said, at which point an email is sent out aggregating the relevant article headlines and links.
“So we’re trying to create a system that is automated, rather than having to pay another salary for somebody to manage our mailing lists,” he added.
All income in ads, all out in wages
Far Out started to make money “five or six years ago”, said Thomas, and has “one income in, which is ad revenue, and one outgoing, which is staff salary”.
In latest figures filed on UK business registry Companies House, the company reported net assets of £3.07m as of 31 August 2024 – up 58% from 2023 (£1.94m).
All revenue is generated from advertising (a mixture of on-site display and video) and branded partnerships.
Asked for his advice to other publishers, Thomas said: “We’re a unique case in that it’s easy from this level to [tell publishers to]… just give [content] away and put ads in there and make money. But … we drive enough traffic to make money. That’s the difference.”
Thomas added that for publishers to “go for a free model and based on ads, you’re going to have to work really hard”.
“That’s the reality. I mean I think I’ve taken one holiday, which was my honeymoon in the past seven years,” he said.
While the magazine “never sets revenue targets”, it does set a traffic target of about a 10% increase across the board every year.
“This includes organic website traffic, Google Discover/Search/News etc, social media growth, and newsletter readership. These goals help keep us focused without tying us to revenue targets.”
‘Hundreds of music magazines’ struggling with AI
Far Out considers itself a “zero AI company” when it comes to content production and Thomas said he “completely” agrees “with the owner of Cloudflare that AI will be the biggest risk to our content”.
“AI is the biggest struggle … we’re no different to the millions of websites and the hundreds of UK music magazines that are struggling with this type of thing,” he said. “Thankfully… we have found a way for our content to be sustainable. But…we don’t know if Google Discover becomes completely different.”
Despite this, Thomas said: “For independent publications in the next five years, if they focus on what they believe in… and build… a small, cultivated audience, it will be enough.”
He added there is a “chance” advertising rates will go up for independent publications as “there might be a bursting point where advertisers don’t want to advertise on pages full of AI traffic, because it doesn’t generate revenue…
“Whereas, if you’ve got an independent publication which is has an engaged readership of a million readers per month, and you focus on a niche area, I think advertisers would be more willing to spend on it.”
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