Exclusive / Daily Wire, under pressure, seeks strategic investors, targets IPO

Once seen as the Fox News for the next generation of conservatives, the Daily Wire has stumbled over the last several years. Strategic missteps and internecine fighting have led to key departures and audience attrition.

The company parted ways last year with CEO Jeremy Boreing, who had spearheaded its expansion into big-budget scripted film series. The move came at the same time that Shapiro clashed with former Daily Wire employee Candace Owens and other media personalities on the right, including Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon.

The Daily Wire’s paid subscriptions — which make up about three quarters of the company’s revenue — dropped by a third in 2025 from a year ago, to roughly 850,000 people. Ad revenue, which is 20% of its revenue, has also dropped every year since 2022.

Despite boasting 3.2 million subscribers, recent YouTube videos have notched only tens of thousands of views, and it has begun to lose subscribers on that platform, according to political digital media analyst Kyle Tharp.

Highmount ascribes some of the company’s recent struggles to an epic medieval scripted series, the Pendragon Cycle, that “did not fully resonate with the core Daily Wire audience,” and “consumed the majority of the 2025 content budget, leaving fewer resources for new programming that could drive subscriber acquisition and marketing.” The Daily Wire spent $50 million on the effort, the memo said.

The restructuring also created a clearer leadership chain of command and clarified the media company’s business priorities. Highmount, an investor in the sports and comedy media company Dude Perfect, envisioned significantly expanding its consumer products division, which already includes Daily Wire-endorsed household goods like Jeremy’s Razors.

“The NYT has done an excellent job of expanding the value of its subscription beyond core news by adding games, cooking, Wirecutter product reviews, The Athletic, and audio content; creating multiple daily touchpoints that justify a premium price and reduce churn,” it said. “Daily Wire has the opportunity to follow a similar playbook for its audience.”

As part of the restructuring, Shapiro agreed to take less podcast money for more equity in the company, and the company planned to hire five “emerging talents” to produce podcasts and social media content. The memo also said that the company will increase its editorial investment to $6.4 million a year from $2.4 million and boost headcount to 67 from 22 as it expands beyond politics into breaking news, investigative journalism, national security, business, sports, health, and opinion.

The Daily Wire is one of several right-leaning media companies that are interested in competing for ad dollars from blue-chip companies. It plans to host a series of events this week at the annual Cannes Lions ad festival.

“The advertising environment for Daily Wire has shifted meaningfully over the past two years. The stigma that kept many mainstream brands from advertising on conservative media platforms during the 2020–2023 period has largely dissipated,” the memo said. “The return of Fortune 500 advertisers validates the platform’s scale and audience quality, and we expect the advertiser base to continue broadening as Daily Wire’s content mix diversifies.”

Even if the $1 billion price tag or the potential IPO price remain far-fetched for a business that relies heavily on a handful of individual personalities like Shapiro, the Daily Wire’s significant paid subscription business easily makes it one of the biggest players in this era of political digital media.

The last several months have clearly shaken the confidence of some investors, but the previously unreported financials suggest the publication’s audience decline could be a blip attributed more to a reduction in content and paid marketing dollars.