BuzzFeed is trying to sell YouTube sensation Hot Ones for $70M

Poultry in motion

Faced with a wall of debt and agitating activist investors, BuzzFeed is trying to sell one of its hottest commodities. But, after months of talks, the struggling media company is yet to find a buyer willing to pay the $70M asking price for First We Feast, the makers of smash-hit YouTube series Hot Ones, per Bloomberg.

Created by Chris Schonberger and host Sean Evans in 2015, Hot Ones — “the show with hot questions and even hotter wings” — joined BuzzFeed as part of Complex 3 years ago, and now has more than 300 star-studded episodes to its name. However, since Evans has produced the show with BuzzFeed under short-term deal extensions, contract disputes could shake up the tried-and-tested format as negotiations continue.

In the wake of BuzzFeed’s disastrous SPAC merger, which saw shares tank (once valued at over $1B, BuzzFeed’s market cap is now less than one-tenth of that), the company has been grappling with ways to pay off its $100M+ debt. In February, it sold media start-up Complex for $109M, but retained the crown jewel in the portfolio: Hot Ones. Now, just a few months later, holding onto its prized possession appears to be less of a priority than shoring up its balance sheet.

Slow burn

Its arguable that the success of Hot Ones — which has garnered many of the channel’s 3B+ views, and is currently vying for a talk show Emmy nomination — justifies the cost, with First We Feast reportedly making $30M in annual revenue... thanks in no small part to its lucrative sauce business.

Even so, the cynical view might be that $70M is a lot to pay for a media property that’s seeing its audience growth slow. In fact, in the last 3 years, First We Feast has added 3.4 million new YouTube subscribers. In the 3 years before that, it gained 6.6 million.