Dollar Shave Club Cuts Entire Staff of Men’s Lifestyle Website MEL
Dollar Shave Club has laid off the entire staff of MEL, the company’s men’s lifestyle website, and the publication is seeking a buyer, Business Insider reported Wednesday.
MEL co-founder and editor-in-chief Josh Schollmeyer confirmed on Twitter that the magazine and the men’s grooming company are parting ways.
Some news: After six years of successful partnership and transforming the men’s health and media spaces for the better, MEL and Dollar Shave Club’s financial relationship will come to an end in 60 days.
— MEL Magazine (@WeAreMel) March 24, 2021
“After six years of successful partnership and transforming the men’s health and media spaces for the better, MEL and Dollar Shave Club’s financial relationship will come to an end in 60 days,” Schollmeyer said on Twitter. “MEL will stop publishing effective Wednesday, and the complete focus will now be on finding the right new owner.”
“This has always been a part of the plan for our brand-backed partnership, and we’re incredibly proud of what we’ve built together,” Schollmeyer added.
It’s unclear who may buy the online publication, according to Business Insider. John McDermott, a founding writer for MEL, told Business Insider that MEL afforded him, and other writers, an enormous amount of editorial freedom. “MEL never would have been as successful if we didn’t have that creative freedom early on,” McDermott said, “and I can’t imagine another business organization would provide the same level of support.”
The magazine diverged from the usual content of men’s lifestyle publications. As Fast Company reported in 2018: “One 2016 piece, written by a trans person, interrogated what it means to perform masculinity, and another, this one from last year, asked the uncomfortable question of what it means to cover men’s issues in the age of #MeToo.”
According to a recent report in AdWeek, MEL, which has an editorial staff of just over 20 people, reached about four million monthly readers, and had a newsletter with 60,000 subscribers. Women make up about 40% of the online magazine’s readership, and the website does not run advertisements, according to AdWeek.
In early March, MEL launched three paid newsletters, with the aim of getting 10,000 subscribers within their first six months. “The newsletter program is only the first in a series of revenue generators the brand plans to unveil this year, along with advertising and intellectual property extensions,” AdWeek reported.
Although MEL was owned and funded by Dollar Shave Club, “it maintained an editorial wall with Dollar Shave Club and was not a sponsored content vehicle,” according to Business Insider.
