In February 2017, Richard Rushfield founded The Ankler, a Hollywood newsletter about the entertainment industry, which he then moved to the Substack platform two years later.

[1] In January 2022, Janice Min, former co-president of Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter, joined the company to form Ankler Media.

[7] In 2024, Min expanded Ankler Media's live events including the "Documentary Spotlight with Raoul Peck" at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) as well as "The Ankler x Pure Nonfiction's Documentary Spotlight" which featured panelists and keynote speakers, Andrew Jarecki, James Carville, and Matt Tyrnauer, among others, in Los Angeles.

Subscribers have included David Zaslav, Patrick Whitesell, Kathleen Kennedy, Donna Langley, and Maureen Dowd.

[1] The New York Times stated, "A focus of Ankler Media's coverage will be the clashes between the tech executives now making big decisions in Hollywood and the ones who have been around since moviegoers waited in line to buy tickets.