Live blogs have a valuable part to play in a quality publishing strategy. From engaging and updating subscribers to showcasing other products and getting newcomers up to speed, they are – so far – more resilient to the relentless march of AI overviews.

UK news brand The Times and Sunday Times has been undergoing a “fewer, better stories” strategy over the past few years. The aim is to increase the impact individual stories have and reduce the number getting under 2,000 views each, as well as demonstrating more value to subscribers.

Overhauling the live blog template has been a key part of this strategy over the past few months. Deputy Head of Digital Anna Sbuttoni explained that it was important to have a live blog platform and template that was as effective as possible to attract and retain quality audiences.

“You might typically have the live coverage, then a profile or reconstruction, or an explainer or analysis,” she said, outlining some of the changes they had made. “Now those can be presented right at the top for people to understand what’s happening… The live blog becomes a destination where you can fully understand what’s happening.”

For The Times, the bar is set high to turn a story into a live blog. “Our most well-read, impactful, and engaged-with live blogs are always at that moment of a big world event,” Sbuttoni noted.

In contrast with The Times’ subscriber engagement-focused approach, the Guardian uses live blogs to connect audiences with more of its reporting. Although it also spins them up around key events, they also have near-daily political live blogs in the UK and US. This was initially trialed during journalist Andrew Sparrow’s coverage of the UK election in 2010, and has continued ever since, rolling out daily to the US in 2020.  

“We’ll use the blog as the first draft of the story, even if it’s the first three paragraphs, or a quick hit,” said US Politics Reporter Shrai Popat, who was hired last year to lead the US politics live blog. He sees it as a reporter’s notebook, sharing shorter, more timely updates and context before events are more fully reported and written up. 

On an average day, 15% of total page views worldwide come from live blogs across the Guardian. US politics live “has consistently got the highest traffic… It’s always in the top 10, if not the top five across the whole Guardian.”

Popat also sees covering US politics live as a chance to be more informal. “We want it to be a bit like if you were chatting to your friends, but with constant, well-written updates about what’s happening,” he explained. 

“We want to make sure that people are tuning in and realize that this is a dialogue that is ongoing, and we’re getting more reporting and more ideas as it goes along… So be ready to enjoy that in a more informal way than if you need to check back and read a full news story.”

Highlighting key moments

Live blogs often perform well in search. So, they are often a first touchpoint for audiences new to a story. But both publishers also see influxes from newsletters and apps from subscribers when big events break. Timelines and overviews have therefore been prioritized in the design to help visitors get to grips quickly with key points.

The Guardian has a timeline of key moments at the top of each live blog. This helps newcomers to the story catch up with what has happened, as well as providing an overview of events so far. Any full articles and stories from the blog are also linked prominently above the timeline, if readers want more detail.

“This meets [audience’s] appetite for trying to be informed as easily as possible, while still knowing that it’s coming from both a reputable source and has some context for people who might be checking in and dipping in and out,” Popat said.

The Times’ new template has what Sbuttoni described as a storylines menu at the top linking off to related coverage and must-know moments. “You might typically have the live coverage, then a reconstruction or explainer or analysis right at the top for people to understand what’s happening,” she said. “That way, the live blog can be one destination where you can fully understand what’s happening.”

Contributors and communities

Another change The Times has made with its refreshed live blog templates visually is highlighting the faces and names of reporters and contributors. This reflects a wider industry change in audiences building more trust with individuals rather than faceless brands. “It’s really important for us to put faces to names in the coverage,” Sbuttoni noted.

Over at The Guardian US, Popat is the regular anchor for the US politics live blog. However, each day’s page also highlights the other reporters working on the blog. Additional journalists appear with a photograph under individual comments and contributions.

“We’re making sure that all of our reporters who are out in the field are contributing to the blog,” Popat explained. “They send [content]. We’re just editing it, putting it together, and dispatching it with their byline. It’s a collaborative effort with the newsroom.”

Now that the new templates have launched, The Times’ focus has shifted their focus to community engagement. “We are increasingly trying to get our subscribers to pose their questions below the line, and have journalists ready to answer,” Sbuttoni said, noting that their next step is making that functionality easier to find and interact with. 

The live blog revamp has played a part in The Times’ all-time record traffic growth this year. They are consistently among the most-read stories, which Sbuttoni attributes to the high bar they now have for launching a live blog around a story. She also shared that the average dwell time on live blogs is higher than their standard stories.  

Cultivating quality audiences

Although both publishers recognize the important role of live blogs, they come from different positions when it comes to their purpose.

The Times has a hard paywall on the majority of its content. Its “fewer, better stories” strategy has been centered on improving engagement for subscribers, and the live blogs are no exception. Sbuttoni explained that they measure ‘subscriber engaged minutes’ and repeat visits as key success metrics for live blogs, rather than total traffic. 

However, they have occasionally experimented with live blogs outside the paywall, particularly for global developing stories that everyone else is also covering. “We want to extend the reach and then use it to showcase within the blog some of [our] higher value pieces of analysis and comment – they are always behind a paywall,” Sbuttoni said.

Over the summer, the World Cup was covered live and for free in a World Cup match center. Each game had its own live page with stats, commentary, and team news. Sbuttoni explained that this was intended to allow guests to experience The Times’ football journalism. “We grew our reach on this coverage significantly, and it is helping to inform our longer-term strategy around the paywall experience,” she said.

The Guardian, which is free to read (with an optional donation and membership mode)l, sees live blogs as a showcase for the rest of the publisher’s work. “We try to make sure that the blog is a launchpad to more,” Popat pointed out, emphasizing that highlighting older stories can help provide context. “We have related stories, past stories, and hyperlinks to make sure that people understand we’re across the story.”

Related news emails are also prominently highlighted. On Popat’s US politics live blog, there is a clear link to sign up for the US Breaking News email. For the midterms, he noted that the live blogs are helping drive sign-ups to a new pop-up newsletter with midterm updates. 

Live blogs may seem like a curious product to have such enduring popularity, given the levels of news fatigue and avoidance. Popat speculated that their growth may well be down to a decreasing appetite for sitting through a full cable news show. Instead, people can dip in and out of a well-designed live blog as it suits them. “It’s a real saving grace for consuming that news,” he added.

“A great live blog should feel like you’re being guided through a story by an expert as it happens. A bad one feels like a barrage of barely connected developments being thrown at you relentlessly,” the Guardian’s Head of Editorial Innovation Chris Moran told the Reuters Institute. 

Although live updates and breaking news are available on many social media platforms, The Times and the Guardian are leaning into what they can offer exclusively: expert judgment, continuous verification, wider context, and information direct from named journalists. Their success shows that these are factors the audience still holds dear amongst the tidal wave of information.