Puck is closing in on a deal to acquire Graydon Carter’s Air Mail, reuniting the storied Vanity Fair editor-in-chief with his former staffer, Jon Kelly, who co-founded the newsletter outlet in 2021.
“Puck has entered into an exclusive agreement to acquire Air Mail,” the two outlets said in a joint statement. “This will unite Air Mail’s distinctive journalism, stable of luxury advertisers, and sophisticated commerce platforms with Puck’s portfolio of venerated journalists, scale, and proven subscriber engagement model.”
The merger would mark a key point of consolidation in the world of subscription-based newsletters that have become popular for news distribution but that lack scale. Consolidation has swept digital outlets and broadcast and cable companies alike.
Specifics about the deal including a purchase price have not been confirmed. Puck and Air Mail share investors with private equity firm TPG and Standard Investments, which is under Standard Industries.
Since its launch, Puck has raised more than $17 million and, as of last year, had 40,000 paying subscribers, according to the Wall Street Journal. Air Mail had raised $32 million since its launch, according to a New York Times report from last year, and Carter’s newsletter had amassed 500,000 subscribers.
In his time at Vanity Fair, Kelly founded the site’s business vertical, The Hive, which the magazine ended last month. He co-founded Puck with Max Tcheyan and Joe Purzycki, the latter of whom served as its CEO through 2023. It named former Twitter executive Sarah Personette as its CEO last year.
Carter co-founded Air Mail, a subscription-based weekly newsletter, with New York Times journalist Alessandra Stanley in 2019 after stepping down from his role at Vanity Fair in 2017.
Air Mail covers a variety of subjects, ranging from politics, art, environment and more, according to its website. It released its first issue on July 20 with Carter and Stanley serving the platform as co-editors. An individual with knowledge of the deal told TheWrap Carter, 76, would enter a consulting contract as part of the acquisition before he’s set to retire.
“We sensed that there was an audience of readers who were both tired of overly earnest news publications and found the ceaseless churn of the daily news cycle predictable, unnerving, and, quite frankly, unmanageable,” Air Mail’s description reads. “We also understood that this audience was a driving part of the world’s affluent intelligentsia — catholic in its tastes and curious about the world, not just the country they live in. How were we so sure? Because we counted ourselves among that group.”
Breaker’s Lachlan Cartwright first reported the news.
