In the latest digital media shimmy, Vice Media is now contemplating the assets of Refinery29, The Wall Street Journal’s Benjamin Mullin reported on Friday:

Vice Media is in talks to buy women-focused publisher Refinery29, according to people familiar with the matter, a deal that would unite two of the largest venture-backed media companies in the U.S.

Talks are still ongoing and it is possible an offer may not be made, a person familiar with the talks said…

Refinery29 has drastically shrunk its losses and grown its revenue this year by diversifying its revenue streams, according to a person familiar with the matter. Vice Media is seeking to diversify its audience and expand into new revenue streams as it seeks to meet Chief Executive Nancy Dubuc’s goal of returning the company to profitability.

No digital media outlet has really been spared in the cuts and consolidation this year, with BuzzFeed, Mic, HuffPost, and more seeing layoffs as the social-driven ad model struggles (and others seeing Bryan Goldberg merger 👀). Vice Media has seen its own set of troubles — cutting 10 percent of the workforce earlier this year, having its two HBO shows canceled, combining its verticals into one site, and letting some leadership go last month.

In the quest for profitability (and making investors happy), Dubuc has been aggressively plotting Vice’s next course since joining in May 2018. According to The Hollywood Reporter in October:

In terms of actual content, her first major swing will be a two-hour nightly live show that will air four nights a week on the Viceland cable network. She also plans to bolster Vice Studios, which finances and produces films and television shows for third-party buyers (including a feature drama called The Torture Report, starring Adam Driver and Jon Hamm, set to make a festival debut in 2019) and marketing agency Virtue (behind Google’s recent “Don’t Be a Browser” campaign). And while Vice Digital — a collection of web verticals like Noisey (music), Munchies (food) and Broadly (women’s issues) that hovers around 27 million monthly visitors — remains central to her plan, she calls Smith prescient for diversifying when he did, arguing that Vice no longer can be called a “digital media business.”

Adding a digital media publisher to its portfolio would…definitely make Vice stand out as a digital media business. Vice is still trying to diversify more significantly, which is where it seems Refinery29 comes in: Its audience is about as girly as Vice’s is bro-y. Refinery29 also cut 10 percent of its workforce in October. My colleague Laura Hazard Owen reported in March how Refinery29’s employees developed its fastest-growing Instagram account by and for black millennial women, bringing 50 percent of followers who are new to Refinery29’s work.

“Talks are still ongoing and it is possible an offer may not be made, a person familiar with the talks said,” Mullin reported on Friday.

Which will be the dominant culture? https://t.co/wT95XqaWXx

— Katerina Ang (@katerinareports) July 27, 2019

I’m not sure that this acquisition will “produce value”. These are sites with utterly different cultures, and I can’t see Vice adapting its culture to allow Refinery29 to thrive. https://t.co/1nWX39Xlaz

— Adam Tinworth (@adders) July 27, 2019

If this deal happens, it'll be all stock because both companies wanna preserve cash, have valuations that got ahead of their intrinsic value based on previous funding rounds; trade u 2 half-million $ cats for a million $ doghttps://t.co/x6MKJfbwhp

— AshkanKarbasfrooshan (@ashkan) July 27, 2019

Ugh, want Refinery29 to survive but don’t love the sound of this. What’s the next new media site you’re loving that hasn’t yet fallen to the sword of “profitability?” https://t.co/YkOyrvm1s9

— Andrea (@ShinyAndrea) July 29, 2019

The considation of companies without viable business models shall now commence!https://t.co/HVOvEyUV5Q

— Mike Steib (@msteib) July 27, 2019

Given a lack of evidence that the old bro @VICE is a thing of the past, it seems obvi that the idea to buy @Refinery29 would come from Dubuc – and it's weird. If the deal goes thru, hopefully she'll leverage the signal and invest in culture/better product. cc @karaswisher

— Stephanie Fierman (@stephfierman) July 29, 2019

Vice shuts down Broadly, buys Refinery29 🤔🤔🤔 https://t.co/FyCV0BIVrl

— Joseph 🇺🇦 (@JosephStash) July 27, 2019

Remember when Jonah Peretti, CEO/Founder – Buzzfeed suggested a big media consolidation? “You have Vice and Vox Media and Group Nine and Refinery”…https://t.co/GoDQH4pUWE #digitalmedia #entertainment #women #media https://t.co/xO7tr0MYVI

— Michelle O (@MichelleEmails) July 29, 2019