I have been reading the Wikipedia articles on media and publication conglomerate M&A (mergers and acquisitions) for a while now. Media M&A is never foolproof, a

I have been reading the Wikipedia articles on media and publication conglomerate M&A (mergers and acquisitions) for a while now. Media M&A is never foolproof, and my thesis is that M&As take into account the probability of failure, which represents the majority of the deals. The survival of most startup media/publication companies is focused on one thing: demographics. Millennials in their 20s are different from millennials in their 30s, or Gen Z in their 20s. Considering this limited shelf value, it often results in them shutting down or being acquired. The companies that do acquire them have gone through this same cycle of failures and know that there is a high likelihood that the userbase will age out and the acquired company will eventually fall. This is so frequent, I bet they even financial engineer deals that may lead to some kind of benefit upon failure.