Founded in 2012, LADbible Group has redefined entertainment and news for a social generation. With a global presence, and offices in the UK, Ireland and Australia, LADbible Group has grown to become one of the biggest social publishers in the world with a global audience approaching a billion. LADbible Group operates across all major social publishers including Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube and reaches 69 million monthly users across its five websites including LADbible, UNILAD, Tyla, SPORTbible and GAMINGbible. It has been widely recognised across the industry for its impactful and perception-changing campaigns. LADbible Group publishes original and acquired content,[22][23] including editorial, video, and documentary material, some of which is broadcast live. Their content covers entertainment and celebrity interviews, as well as news and current affairs.
After seeking legal advice, Harry took the LADbible job, but he still had to work his notice period. “I wasn’t allowed in the office, but they made me write really long articles that weren’t read or published,” he says. “They’d literally disappear into a black hole.” Unilad switched all the bylines on Harry’s stories to the pseudonym “Christopher Blunt”, effectively erasing his entire body of work. Early trading in its shares pushed the market value of the business as high as £400m. By comparison, the US-based BuzzFeed is worth about $770m (£580m) after its share price fell sharply following this month’s listing on New York’s Nasdaq stock exchange. The LadBible co-founder Arian Kalantari, also 30, has cashed in shares worth £3m and retains a £10m stake in the business.
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In a 2019 report in The Drum, LADbible cofounder and COO Arian Kalantari is quoted as saying the two companies have joined together “incredibly well”. But according to a former Unilad employee, there’s still https://www.day-trading.info/ some lingering animosity between staff, with each side of the lad army “working separately on different floors”. Since Unilad shuttered, Bentley, Harrington and Quinlan have maintained a low profile.
Harrington and Quinlan launched a new media and technology business called Iconic Labs, affiliated to Manchester stem cell research company WideCells. Bentley’s LinkedIn has not been updated since he ran Unilad. Bentley, Harrington and Quinlan all declined interview requests for this story. After the administrator was appointed, LADbible bought up £5 million of Unilad’s £10 million debt, making them their rivals’ largest creditor. The full figure paid by LADbible for the takeover was not disclosed, but they clearly felt they got what they paid for, saying at the time that the deal “makes us the largest social video publisher ever”.
Back in June of 2018, few people had any idea of Unilad’s looming catastrophe. Although many of the former staffers I spoke to had gripes about Unilad management and pay, these were also the glory days. In 2016, LADbible Group, launched an in-house creative agency, Joyride, to offer https://www.forex-world.net/ advertising on their online platforms. The publisher, says Tyrrell, also rarely posts the same video across different platforms, making sure that clips are customised to what works best on each platform. Text, for example, is one thing that works well on Tiktok in her view.
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The publisher has recently delved into topics including the cost of living crisis and university tuition fees. Entertaining viral video content, much of it user-generated, helps the publisher build up its followings when accounts are first launched, says Rebecca Tyrrell, Ladbible’s group Tiktok and Instagram lead. Walker managed to claw back about £5,500 of what he was owed by Unilad, after taking a hard drive containing client material hostage, but he’s still owed around £3,500 in unpaid invoices. LADBible had long loomed large over their rival’s offices. Despite being founded by Leeds University student Alexander “Solly” Solomou in 2012 – two years after Unilad – it wasn’t long before LADbible caught up to its big brother. Both publishers competed to corner the banter-industrial complex of the mid-2010s, which usually meant seeing who could be first to publish viral articles about Game of Thrones and chicken nugget festivals.
“The most important thing is just spending time on Tiktok and seeing what kind of content is doing well and getting an understanding of why. Was it because it used a trending sound or did it use the in-built filter features?” says Tyrrell. “The important thing is also to make it look native so it’s like the content that people engage with from their friends and creators on Tiktok.” “We’ve already built up such big followings there that when the monetisation does get turned on, we’re already in a great position to start making money,” she says. “For Sportbible for example, the Euros or the World Cup last year really helped,” says Tyrrell who explains that the publisher has a Ladculture team dedicated to making sure that Ladbible is tapped into the cultural events that are important to its audience. Understanding how to package its news content for Tiktok is key, says Tyrrell. These charges are rejected by the Lad Bible’s marketing director, Mimi Turner, in an interview with BBC Radio 5 live.
- Bentley’s LinkedIn has not been updated since he ran Unilad.
- According to the 2022 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, 68% of Tiktok users are aged between 18 and 34.
- Ladbible currently posts between three and ten videos each day to the main Ladbible Tiktok account.
- It was June of 2018, and former colleague Simon Swales had set up an anonymous blog, Unilad Exposed, threatening to release damaging material about the company’s senior staff members.
- “We don’t really share straight news [on Tiktok] in the way we would on other platforms. So on Instagram and Facebook it’s about getting the headline out as soon as possible but on Tiktok it’s more thinking about the audience, why they’re there and what they want from Tiktok,” she says.
- At this point, according to Newswhip, in August of 2018 Unilad was still Facebook’s fourth biggest publisher, bigger even than MailOnline or the New York Times.
Since launching on Tiktok in 2019, Ladbible Group has grown to become the biggest news publisher on the platform, with almost 46 million followers across the group’s accounts. She told BBC Radio 5 live the site was growing by 250,000 followers a week and getting 3.5 million “likes”, shares and comments on its media every day. “That’s a type of content that lends itself to social media, whereas it was never a lever that Loaded or Zoo could pull.” During this period, as administrators sought a buyer for Unilad – before longtime rivals LADbible eventually swooped in – the rumour mill went into overdrive. Quinlan sent an email to staff, asking them to share statements online in support of Unilad.
Ladbible told Press Gazette last year that its group’s brands collectively reach two-thirds of this demographic in the UK. Around 30 people across the group work on Tiktok including channel managers, producers, presenters and social editors tasked with sourcing viral videos and the publisher’s Content Bible team which goes through the hundreds of videos submitted by its audience each day. Solomou used his life savings to buy the original LadBible Facebook page in 2012, and quickly learned how to game the site’s algorithms and make content go viral as social media use exploded. In the process he grew the business from a small outlet that recycled blokeish banter-heavy memes into a company that has about 450 staff, many of them young employees based in Manchester producing original content. Although Tiktok is one of the world’s fastest-growing social networks, Facebook remains a huge priority for Ladbible Group and is still the biggest audience driver for its brands. Ladbible posts around 150 videos and 100 articles per day on its Facebook pages, where it has a following on Facebook of 160 million, according to data shared with Press Gazette by the publisher.
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Aware of the site’s problematic early reputation, LadBible attempted to redefine the definition of a “lad” to mean a caring individual who looks after their friends’ mental health and worries about plastic waste. It produced material featuring mainstream celebrities, such as an infamous video of Dame Judi Dench rapping with Lethal Bizzle, in addition to building a substantial female readership. The LADbible project started in January 2012 when the channel published their first Facebook post which achieved over 75,000 interactions. While Ladbible’s content naturally appeals to Tiktok’s Gen Z audience, there are some key things that Tyrrell says have helped the publisher find success on the platform. “As the platforms continue to make more money obviously it means we can bring in more talent to work on those platforms. But we’ve got so many people who are experts on all of them already that we’re in quite a good position.” The company’s biggest and best-known brand, Ladbible, currently counts 11.5 million followers on Tiktok – almost three times as many as the next biggest British newsbrand in Press Gazette’s top 50 rankings according to a recent Press Gazette analysis.
Today’s headlines and latest breaking news from the UK and around the world. To make matter worse, because salaries at Unilad were low it was easy for LADbible to poach staff – but woe betide anyone looking to make the jump to their competitor. “It was like the Montagues and Capulets – that level of hatred,” says Harry.
By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content. At this point, according to Newswhip, in August of 2018 Unilad was still Facebook’s fourth biggest publisher, bigger even than MailOnline or the New York Times. One time, someone in the video team dragged a confetti cannon onto the first floor balcony, which looked out over reception, and set it off. “It scared the shit out of the receptionist,” Sara laughs. “It didn’t ever feel like I was going to work. It was always fun. There were times where projects would get you stressed or you’d argue with someone, but 90 percent of the time I absolutely loved it.”
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During the 2010s, investors poured enormous sums into so-called new media outlets such as Vice and BuzzFeed, on valuations that classed them as technology businesses. In reality, many of the companies struggled to meet financial growth targets and the market is increasingly valuing them more in line with traditional media outlets. The company now brands itself as an “environmentally and socially responsible business” that aims “to give the youth generation a voice by building communities that laugh, think and act”.
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Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, The Guardian, BBC, Huffington Post and the Independent covered the story, situating it within the bubbling ferment of “lad culture” on university campuses. He is adamant that he wasn’t aware of Unilad’s highly toxic brand of misogyny when he submitted his articles. “I thought it was a way to get my name out there as a writer,” he says. “Obviously, https://www.forexbox.info/ retrospectively it was an awful decision.” Did he really not see any of Unilad’s other content at the time? “I hadn’t really read over a lot of the content there,” Andy stammers. It was June of 2018, and former colleague Simon Swales had set up an anonymous blog, Unilad Exposed, threatening to release damaging material about the company’s senior staff members.
In contrast, there’s still no direct way to monetise content on Tiktok. Ladbible currently posts between three and ten videos each day to the main Ladbible Tiktok account. As with other publishers, being on top of significant news moments relevant to its audience has helped Ladbible Group grow its Tiktok presence. “We’ve definitely found that having someone work on the accounts full-time increases the following at a faster pace. It is possible, however, to build communities on Tiktok by marshalling resources from other platforms and departments,” says Tyrrell. Sportbible’s following surged from less than one million at the start of 2022 when a dedicated Tiktok creative was brought in, to close to five million currently.