The Financial Times has launched a new venture arm to invest in high-growth media and tech companies, executives told Axios, and FT Ventures' first investment is in Charter, a future-of-work media startup.

Why it matters: The separate investment arm lets the FT explore strategic investments in smaller, high-growth startups that wouldn't make sense for the broader FT Group.

How it works: The FT Group has already made several strategic minority investments to date, including one in the Business of Fashion. Such deals will now flow through FT Ventures.

• Bigger deals where the FT takes a controlling stake, like its investment in biopharmaceutical media company Endpoints News, will continue to be brokered through the FT Group.

State of play: The initial £30 million being deployed through the new FT Ventures fund will come from the FT Group's balance sheet, but FT Ventures will operate independently with a separate board.

• "We are looking for high-growth and innovative companies in the global information industry and tech companies that support them," said Alexandra Calinikos, corporate development and strategy director at the FT. That could be companies in media, data, intelligence, or technologies and tools that support those areas.

Between the lines: The FT's investment is part of a broader $1 million fundraising round that Charter will add to its $3 million seed funding, said Kevin Delaney, CEO and editor-in-chief of Charter.

• Bloomberg Beta, a venture firm backed by Bloomberg LP that funds companies that focus on the future of work, and Precursor Ventures also participated in the new round.
• The new round is a SAFE (simple agreement for future equity), which will allow investors to convert funding into equity when Charter eventually raises money at a certain valuation.

The big picture: Several established media companies are leaning into venture investing as a way to spur innovation.

• Hearst has a separate Hearst Ventures arm that it used to invest in BuzzFeed and many other startups in media and tech. In 2021, it launched Level Up, a venture fund focused specifically on Black and Latinx-led startups.

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Vox Media is the latest publisher to throw its hat in the ring to buy the rights to publish Sports Illustrated, sources told me and Axios' Kimberly Chin.

Why it matters: A dispute over the cost of Sports Illustrated's publishing rights led to the announcement last month that the storied media brand would lay off all of its unionized staff.

Catch up quick: The Arena Group, a publicly traded digital holding company, acquired the rights to publish Sports Illustrated from Authentic Brands Group in 2019.

• Those rights became available last month after the Arena Group failed to pay Authentic. Most of Sports Illustrated's unionized staff were laid off following the announcement.

Zoom in: Asked about the status of those layoffs, a spokesperson for Simplify Inventions, the venture firm that said it planned to acquire a majority stake in the Arena Group, said, "Most [employees] are still working — they received 60 days' notice."

• "Still TBD what happens after the 60 days. Depends on the licensing and negotiations."
• That representative confirmed that the Arena Group is "still negotiating with Authentic regarding SI."

State of play: Other brands, meanwhile, are eager to get their hands on SI's publishing rights. Authentic did not comment on the current state of negotiations.

• Vox Media has had conversations about acquiring the rights, two sources told Axios. Sports Illustrated could complement one of the oldest brands in Vox's portfolio, SB Nation. Vox Media declined to comment.
• RedBird IMI, a joint venture run by former CNN boss Jeff Zucker, also looked at Sports Illustrated but passed on the opportunity, a source told Axios. RedBird IMI invested in Front Office Sports, another sports publishing company, last year. RedBird IMI did not comment.
• Minute Media, the parent company to The Players' Tribune and other sports media sites, has also reportedly eyed the asset. Earlier this month, a spokesperson told Axios that the firm "is in a very favorable acquisitive spot with access to a lot of capital. With that, we are always keeping our eye on what makes sense for the business and our continually growing portfolio."

What to watch: The union representing SI's editorial workers filed an unfair labor practice charge against the Arena Group, accusing the company of "discharging employees because of their support of the union, engagement in union activities and engagement in other protected activities."

Fox Television Stations is teaming up with Madhive, a software platform for digital TV advertising, to launch a local marketplace for political advertising via (internet) connected television (CTV), executives told Axios.

Why it matters: Connected TV is one of the biggest drivers of the huge increase in political ad spend in the U.S.

How it works: Madhive's new marketplace will allow political and issue advertisers to buy TV ads at scale across many different publishers on internet-connected televisions.

• Advertisers will be able to target niche audiences and geographies, like suburban mom voters or Latino millennials. They can also target voters down to the congressional district or zip code.
• The marketplace includes targeting data from some of the biggest political data brokers across both parties, including Data Trust, TargetSmart, Experian and L2.

Zoom in: Fox Television Stations will be Madhive's first major client, leveraging Madhive's new offering at launch.

• Madhive is currently in the process of working with individual publishers to establish guardrails around which types of ads they will or won't accept across their networks.

By the numbers: Campaigns are expected to spend at least $1.3 billion on CTV ads this cycle, up from a little over $1 billion during the 2022 midterms, per AdImpact.

• CTV made up roughly 12% of all political and issue video advertising in 2022.

What to watch: While more streaming companies, like Hulu and Spotify, are starting to accept political ads, others remain wary.

• Netflix and Amazon don't accept political or issue ads, even though both are now heavily involved in selling CTV ads, both companies confirmed to Axios.

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Having reached a point of maturation in the U.S., subscription streaming companies are adding fewer net new subscribers each year, according to new data from streaming measurement firm Antenna.

Why it matters: Streamers are under more pressure to be profitable, but with growth stalled at home, they have to invest more in retaining subscribers if they want to get there.

• Subscriber churn, which includes cancellations and lapsed subscriptions, has nearly tripled in the U.S. in the past four years.
• Netflix continues to post the lowest churn rates of all streamers in its competitive set. Peacock saw the greatest improvement in churn last year, thanks in part to the NFL.

Zoom in: Disney, Comcast and Paramount have promised investors that their services will start to become profitable by 2024 or 2025.

• Warner Bros. Discovery's Max turned a profit in 2023 and is expected to do so again in 2024. But a weak earnings report last week still has investors on edge.

What to watch: The streaming slowdown is having a downstream effect on studios.

• Candle Media, the Blackstone-backed media rollup led by former Disney executives, has hired Moelis to help the company seek deals, per Puck.
• Candle hired Moelis "to explore specific potential acquisitions in the live action content space in order to give the company greater scale and operating efficiencies," a spokesperson told Axios' Kerry Flynn.

BuzzFeed's Complex sale and job cuts last week are part of a larger trend of formerly acquisitive digital media companies transitioning from buyers to sellers.

Why it matters: Once high-flying media brands are shrinking as the digital ad market tightens further, Kerry Flynn notes.

Driving the news: BuzzFeed announced the sale of Complex for $108.6 million, a company it paid nearly triple for as part of its SPAC in 2021. (The sale does not include "Hot Ones" producer First We Feast.)

• The Independent is in talks to take control of BuzzFeed's U.K. and Ireland operations for both BuzzFeed and HuffPost, per Reuters.
• BuzzFeed has explored selling its food brands, First We Feast and Tasty, per the Wall Street Journal.

By the numbers: BuzzFeed's shares have been pennies on the dollar for nearly a year, with a market cap well below what it just earned for Complex.

Zoom in: Meanwhile, Vice Media CEO Bruce Dixon on Thursday said Vice planned to lay off "several hundred positions" amid "fundamental changes" to its strategic vision, following a chaotic bankruptcy buyout last year.

State of play: Digital media companies previously sought to succeed through acquiring and launching new properties. Not anymore.

• Vice Media, acquired by a Fortress-led syndicate after filing for bankruptcy, sold i-D magazine to Karlie Kloss and laid off staff last year. It also was in talks to sell Refinery29, per WSJ.
• Vox Media, which an executive once dubbed the "most acquisitive company" in digital media, spun off its political brand NowThis last year. It laid off 4% of its overall staff in November and 7% in January 2023.
• G/O Media, owned by private equity firm Great Hill Partners, sold Lifehacker to Ziff Davis last March and Jezebel and Splinter to Paste in November. However, CEO Jim Spanfeller recently told Axios the company could still pursue acquisitions in its "passion areas."
• BDG has done continuous rounds of layoffs. It recently cut editorial staffers on its parenting brand Fatherly, per Adweek. That came after at least four rounds of layoffs over 12 months.

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Charter Communications is eying a takeover of Altice USA, per Bloomberg.

Why it matters: A deal would unite two telecom companies that have been hammered by the rise of streaming, Kerry Flynn writes.

The big picture: Cable and broadband providers like Charter have struggled with the decline of traditional TV packages and the rise of streaming services.

• Mobile operators like Verizon and AT&T also have eaten into their share of customers by providing home internet.
• The rate of decline for pay-TV subscriptions reached an all-time worst of 11.7% YoY in Q3 last year, per MoffettNathanson.