Salon Media Group Inc (SLNM) SEC Filing 10-Q Quarterly report for the period ending Saturday, September 30, 2017

Exhibit 99.1

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 9, 2017

Salon Media Group Reports Second Quarter Fiscal 2018 Results

NEW YORK, NY (November 9, 2017). Salon Media Group, Inc. (“Salon” or the “Company”) (OTCQB: SLNM) today announced its results for the six months ended September 30, 2017.

Highlights:

Revenue for the quarter ended September 30, 2017 was $1.2 million, an increase of 20% from $1.0 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2016. Revenue for the six months ended September 30, 2017 was $2.6 million, an increase of 13% from $2.3 million for the six months ended September 30, 2016. The increase in revenue was a result of a continued significant industry shift in online advertising from advertising sold by a direct sales team to advertising increasingly being sold through software-based “programmatic” technology.

Net losses for the quarter ended September 30, 2017 decreased to $0.8 million as compared to $0.9 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2016. Net losses for the six months ended September 30, 2017 decreased to $1.4 million as compared to $1.7 million for the six months ended September 30, 2016. The decreased losses resulted from an increase in revenues and steady operating expense at $1.9 million for both the quarters ended September 30, 2017 and September 30, 2016. Operating expense reduced to $3.7 million for the six months ended September 30, 2017 compared to $4.0 million for the six months ended September 30, 2016. The net losses included several non-recurring items, including $0.3 million non-cash interest expense recorded for the beneficial conversion feature of capital raising transactions during the quarter ended June 30, 2017, as well as the reversal of accrued bonuses for prior employees.

The Company has been making changes to its advertising footprint to capture the greater programmatic opportunity for its display and video advertising inventory, allowing the Company to improve its CPMs from its programmatic advertising by 56% in the quarter ended September 30, 2017 as compared to the quarter ended September 30, 2016. The higher programmatic CPMs were offset, however, by a decline in traffic from the same period last year, which led to a smaller inventory of ad products to sell, and consequently, a smaller relative increase in revenues.

Salon has continued to roll out a strategy to produce original video content focused on news, politics, and entertainment under the banner of Salon Talks and Salon Stage, with a goal to add high quality, diversified content to Salon’s Website and to attract video advertising that commands higher CPMs as compared to display advertising. Popular recent interviews on Salon Talks included Senator Al Franken, scientist Bill Nye, and actors Niecy Nash and Jay Ellis, while Salon Stage hosted acoustic sets by, among others, the Revivalists, Lukas Nelson, and Wyclef Jean. Salon has seen growth in its video views, reaching over 35 million video views during the quarter ended September 30, 2017, compared to about 12.8 million views during the quarter ended September 30, 2016.