The conservative podcaster and media company The Daily Wire has crossed the one million subscriber mark. In a year-end update to staff, co-CEO Jeremy Boreing also announced that The Daily Wire now averages about 80 million podcast downloads monthly, with co-founder Ben Shapiro’s podcast accounting for about half of those. The Ben Shapiro Show has been downloaded 1.2 billion times so far, Boreing said.
“One million active subscribers makes us one of the most successful conservative media companies of all time,” said Boreing said in a livestreamed town hall last week. “It took us five years to get our first 100,000 active subscribers. But we doubled down, reached higher, pushed harder and, just two-and-a-half years later, we’ve 10X-ed that number.” He said that 10 million subscribers is the “bare minimum” needed to effectively compete with the big media companies that they view as mouthpieces of the left. “To succeed in our effort to create a true news and entertainment alternative for the millions of Americans tired of the hegemony of the woke giants, we have to grow 10X, and then we have to grow 10X again,” he said.
The DailyWire’s growing subscriber numbers are lifting its revenue numbers. Its annual revenue has nearly doubled each year since the company launched in 2015, and management expects that to be the case again this year. It reported $100 million in revenue in 2021 and this year it projects revenue will approach $200 million.
The subscription DailyWire+ costs between $8 and $13 per month. Not all of its revenue is coming from podcasts or media, however. The Daily Wire launched a brand of razors, which it is calling Jeremy’s Razors. The move was in response to a decision by Harry’s Razors to pull its ads from The Daily Wire based on what it said was “homophobic and transphobic content” on The Daily Wire’s The Michael Knowles Show earlier this year. During his town hall, Boreing said that they have sold more than 100,000 razor subscriptions to date.
The company has also launched new podcasts this year. That includes The Comment Section with Brett Cooper. The Daily Wire says it has 1.4 million subscribers and 500 million views on YouTube so far. Conservative firebrand Candace Owens has also launched a daily podcast. And Jordan B. Peterson has brought his media properties, including his podcast, under the Daily Wire’s umbrella.
Looking ahead to next year, Boreing told staff that the Daily Wire is working on debuting more content targeting children as part of its pledge to invest at least $100 million on the initiative during the next three years. Film and television adaptations are also in the works for books including Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” and six titles which are part of Stephen Lawhead’s “The Pendragon Cycle” series.