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Audiences | Featured Post

Publishers weigh Substack opportunity and risk

Since its launch 2017, Substack has gathered momentum and attention across the media – both from independent journalists building their own newsletters, but also from big publishing brands seeking out new audiences. Several successful startup publications have developed on the platform, not least Hollywood b2b outlet The Ankler, and Bari Weiss’s The Free Press. Pre-existing mainstream publishers now use it to distribute email newsletters. Notable among these is Reach, which publishes the likes of The Mirror and The Express in the UK, and the Daily Mail.

Substack is easy to use and has developed its own network. Authors and publications recommend one another, which helps drive audience growth. And, importantly, subscriber data, notably email addresses, can be exported, for free, at any time. However, there are concerns that all Substack newsletters look the same, which may dampen brand affinity. And, more significantly, some worry that publishers are being dragged into yet another dead-end platform relationship.

An effective email tool with revenue benefits

Dominic Ponsford, editor of Press Gazette, moved his outlet’s daily newsletter onto Substack. He says there are various benefits to doing so: “Number one, it’s free. If you’re not selling subscriptions through it and just using it as an email delivery platform, it’s free.”

However, if you do sell subscriptions, Substack takes 10%, with payments processor Stripe taking an additional cut.

Ponsford adds that Substack is “extremely good at sending emails,” by which he means his content generally gets whitelisted, arriving in inboxes as it should. This is not necessarily the case with other email distribution systems.

The daily email is free “because it’s sort of top of the funnel, especially since we started charging for the website,” explains Ponsford. The fact that it doesn’t rely on newsletter subscriptions does not prevent Press Gazette from monetizing its emails on Substack though. The publication sells newsletter advertising directly, from which they keep all the revenue.

Doomberg is one of Substack’s success stories, regularly appearing in the top 10 finance newsletter leaderboard. The writers are anonymous, appearing publicly only as a wide-eyed green chicken. The voice behind the avatar tellsDCN that “we saw early on, through our consulting in this space, that that Substack had a winning product.” (Indeed, the Doomberg team have such confidence in the product that they invested in the company during an author-led funding round.)

They charge a high subscription fee: $300 a year for the standard tier, $1,200 for the pro tier. This means they turn a significant amount of money over to Substack. However, the team are not looking to leave. They feel a sense of personal loyalty to the company through which they have built “life-changing wealth,” and still have “have an 85% operating margin business,” when all the subscriptions are processed.

Audience growth from the network effect

One key feature that both Ponsford and Doomberg highlight is the network effect within Substack. Writers can recommend other newsletters, meaning that when someone signs up to one, they can easily subscribe to those that are recommended too, fuelling growth.

Ponsford says that while most Press Gazette sign-ups come from its website, a meaningful amount also come via Substack. Doomberg says that even as that publication launched, Substack was “winning the network effect for Internet writing, and they were offering good discoverability tools”. This can be of huge benefit both to startups and traditional publishers losing traffic as a result of Google changes.

This may explain why Reach has chosen to publish a number of newsletters using Substack. The company, which runs both national and local outlets, has around 450 newsletters, both paid and free on Substack. Some are by named expert writers, others cover specific topics.

In June, Jenna Thompson, audience and content director for secure audiences at Reach, told The Publisher Newsletter Summit that the free newsletters help build a relationship with readers. “We’re demonstrating to the readers who are signing up for that, that actually we are providing all of the best information that there is to know about this topic,” she said.

The Royalist newsletter from The Daily Beast is now on Substack, as is some content from the Daily Mail.

Substack alternatives vie for market share

Not everyone is as keen to embrace Substack though. When he left CNN to start his own newsletter, media reporter Oliver Darcy chose to use rival service Beehiiv. He explains that he chose Beehiiv “because I wanted Status to have its own unique individual identity, and Beehiiv’s tools allow you to create an entirely custom website, an entirely custom newsletter that has its own unique identity and feel… every Substack looks the same.”

This is not something that concerns Ponsford from Press Gazette . “You’ve got the Press Gazette masthead on there… people are probably overthinking an email… if it’s got headlines and words and photographs in it… that’s all good” he says.

Access to advertising might be another key factor for a publisher debating how to do newsletters. Substack currently has no advertising network, although “I suspect we’ll see ads on Substack,” Darcy tells DCN.

Other platforms, including Beehiiv and Kit, already have such functionality. Programmatic advertising and sponsorship opportunities are extremely helpful for independent writers (like me), though, probably less so for a major publishing seeking a newsletter platform.

Substack: Just another platform?

Over time, Substack has gone from being an email, podcast and subscription management tool to something far broader. Substack has long offered the ability to publish podcasts as well as words, but it now has video tools too. On the back of a $100 million funding round last month, it is reportedly looking into launching its own advertising network too, making this an important moment for media companies of all kinds to assess its value to them.

Substack also offers chat functionality, and a Notes tool akin to Twitter.  When combined with its app, it’s all starting to feel rather like a social network.

According to Ponsford, who keeps a close eye on such things: “The big brands, I think they just see it as another platform to be on, to spread their bets, like Twitter, Facebook… I think it’s sudden it’s got big enough now that they feel it’s something they need.”

Substack undoubtedly has a lot to offer publishers of all sizes, whether they use all its functionality or just send emails. While publishers can access crucial user data, they must be wary of launching any products built on a third-party platform, given the ever-gr owing importance of having a direct relationship with your audience. Media companies need to understand how best to leverage platforms to reach new audiences alongside building brand loyalty, and not risk diluting it at the hands of another platform promising to solve all their problems.

-Consumer holding phone; business person gathering data for digital advertising-
Advertising | Featured Post | Revenue

Capitalize on first party data (like platforms do)

Two Thanksgivings ago, Amazon Prime streamed its first Black Friday NFL game, part of its groundbreaking exclusive deal for Thursday Night Football broadcasts.

Pundits from the broadcast and streaming industries were watching to see whether Amazon’s servers could handle the load (no problem) or whether its production standards were up to snuff (mostly).

The thing that caught my eye?

The QR-codes embedded alongside some traditional 30-second commercials. They explicitly invited viewers to whip out their phones and get early access to pre-holiday deals.

On Amazon, of course. Without ever taking an eye off the game.

In a single moment, Amazon crystallized the changes happening in advertising. They clearly demonstrated how first-party data owned by the tech platforms trumps the decades of experience of those of us in ad-supported media industries.

Buy direct

If those QR codes don’t make your blood run cold – well, they should. They’re one more sign of the need for those of us in traditional media to get serious about understanding our audience members as individuals and build direct relationships with them.

“Amazon’s real advantage is the depth of their first-party data,” says Bill Day, former senior vice president of the media research firm Magid Associates. “Prime Video accounts are directly tied into your Prime shopping account – a seamless integration from video exposure all the way to point of sale activation for endemic categories.”

In other words: Amazon knows who its audience members are (including credit-card numbers), where they live, what they buy. And they can connect them to a one-click purchase system.

Viewers are buying

Up next, Day says: Moving beyond endemic categories to local advertisers.

Amazon even has a fancy product name – “Interactive Video Ads” – a combination of QR codes, remote-control cues and other triggers to allow viewers to research and buy advertisers’ products without leaving the stream.

Last Thanksgiving, Amazon sold out its Black Friday game inventory four months ahead of the games. Even the Super Bowl rarely sells out that early.

Jay Marine, Amazon’s global head of sports, pitched the IVAs thusly as this year’s upfronts telling the Hollywood Reporter, “What we’re able to do, which excites advertisers, is deliver that live event scale, combined with the digital insights, combined with the Amazon shopping capabilities.” He pointed out that “a customer can go from watching the game to seeing an interactive advertisement that they can one-click ‘buy,’ and it’s showing up at their door in a couple hours. … I think we’re really positioned to deliver something that they can’t find in the rest of the market.”

(He doesn’t think. He knows. Can your media outlet do that? Didn’t think so.)

Individual knowledge, and data, is power

It’s not just Amazon, either. Every member of the so-called FAANG club knows more about individual audience members than we do. Meta understands consumers’ content consumption on Facebook and Instagram. They also have deep insight into audience members’ other browsing through their tracking pixel.

Alphabet can build a dossier based on a users Google Chrome browser history and YouTube viewing. Then they can deploy that data through the chunks of the programmatic ad ecosystem that it owns.

Apple has data from iPhones, its podcast platform and, increasingly, Apple TV+. Netflix knows what, when and where you watch video.

Meanwhile, too many of us talk in broad demographic strokes: “We’re No. 1 with women 25-54!”

Know your audience now

Regardless of our industry of origin – newspaper, broadcast, digital native – media companies are severely handicapped compared to the tech platforms, who have decades of first-party data and the expertise to use it effectively.

So what do we do?

Start with a serious commitment to gathering more of your own first-party data – from digital log files, from active outreach like quizzes and newsletters, through value exchanges with our audiences.

We should think, too, about how we might revisit and refresh ideas the industry considered, and rejected, decades ago.

One of my favorites, from Ye Olden Days of the ‘90s: The legacy newspaper industry formed a consortium, the New Century Network, to build collective tools in the then-emerging technologies of the internet. One of those proposed answers was universal registration system (what today we would call a single-sign on attached to a data lake) that would aggregate identity and usage data across the major news sites of the day.

My mentor Owen Youngman – then a senior executive at Tribune Co., later a professor of digital media at Northwestern – loudly advocated for that system (and probably crafted most of the pitch). It was basically laughed out of the room by companies who believed their classified-ads monopoly was divinely granted and immortal. So, why worry about first-party data?

Oops.

Within a decade, Google effectively built out that model. Using tools like Gmail to get users into their ecosystem, then adding in data from search and Chrome to build a dominant position in the programmatic ecosystem.

De-FAANGing the internet

There are glimmers of hope, though: The European Union is aggressively confronting the FAANG companies’ data practices; even the U.S. Justice Department is showing some renewed vigor toward anti-trust enforcement.

However, we can’t afford to complacently hope the regulators will solve all problems. Though we can hope those actions open a small window of opportunity. And it’s time to figure out if your media organization is building the data and skills it needs to make the most it.  

About the author

Tom Davidson is the Bellisario professor of practice in media innovation at Penn State University. He was a longtime reporter turned media executive and product developer at Tribune Co., PBS and Gannett.

-crumbling roads leading to a Google-like G to suggest the end of the open web from AI Mode-
AI | Audiences | DCN-Research | Featured Post | Policy

Facts: Google’s push to AI hurts publisher traffic

The numbers are in – and they are damning. DCN’s latest member-survey shows median year-over-year referral traffic from Google Search to premium publishers down 10% over just eight weeks. Non-news brands took the biggest hit, down 14%. News brands fell 7%. Declines outnumbered gains two-to-one, most in the -1% to -25% range. 

The worst weeks were brutal: news brands plunged 16% the week of May 25th; non-news fell 17% the week of June 22nd. Mind you, these aren’t random fluctuations. They are sustained losses hitting both breaking news publishers and evergreen entertainment brands. And let’s not forget that this is the exact content Google’s AI is trained on and now replaces with its own summaries. The company that has long draped itself in the flag of the open web is now trampling it, trading the public square for a walled garden built on monopoly profits.  

From search “partner” to search competitor 

Over the past year starting in May 2024, Google has been rolling out AI Overviews, now AI Mode. These AI-generated answers, in which Google synthesizes publisher content into Google’s own product, sit at the very top of search results. This transforms what has long been the discovery engine for our daily lives into a place where all traffic dead ends at Google. Searchers get an answer and the click to the source vanishes. Of course, that’s the point. Google wins. 

The Pew Research Center recently confirmed what DCN’s member data makes plain: when AI Overviews are present, users are significantly “less likely” to click on links to publisher websites. Instead, they stay on Google, consuming summaries pulled significantly from Wikipedia, Reddit, YouTube, and work of premium publishers, all of whose content the AI is paraphrasing.  

This is the definition of what has long been called a “zero-click” environment. In this system, the platform harvests and delivers information without sending the reader to those who actually created it, often at significant cost and always with the intention of serving their own audiences. For premium publishers, it means fewer readers, ad impressions, and subscription conversions. For the open web, it means less discovery, diversity, and accountability in the information ecosystem. 

Google’s sunny story – and the cloudy reality 

On August 6th, Google published a blog post proclaiming (arguably gaslighting) that “AI in Search is driving more queries and higher-quality clicks.” The tone, utterly unsupported by data, suggests that publishers should be thrilled. 

The reality drawn from DCN’s member data – which spans 19 companies, from major national newsrooms to global entertainment brands – tells quite a different story. Over eight weeks in May and June 2025, the median Google Search referral was down almost every week, with losses outpacing gains two-to-one. For non-news brands, the downward slope was steady and unbroken. 

This isn’t noise. It’s a structural change in how Google distributes (or withholds) traffic. And it comes as Google sits on more than 95% of the mobile search market, with a pending remedies order from Judge Amit Mehta in the landmark U.S. v. Google Search antitrust case. Unless Judge Mehta adopts the Justice Department’s proposed publisher safeguards and immediately restricts Google’s tying of AI training of AI Overviews to search inclusion, the “recidivist monopolist” will keep publishers in handcuffs. 

Why this matters for the future of journalism and entertainment 

For DCN members, 78% of digital revenue still comes from advertising. That revenue depends on reach. Every point of search traffic lost to AI modules squeezes the budgets that fund investigative reporting, global coverage, and ambitious entertainment.  

In terms of advertising monetization, this continues a trend DCN has been monitoring for the last decade. During this period, Google’s advertising revenues have shifted from a 50/50 split with the rest of the web to surpassing more than 90% last quarter for the first time. 

And the harm isn’t limited to media companies. When Google’s AI modules surface information from unverified or lightly moderated sources like Reddit or YouTube – sometimes above trusted, accountable outlets – users get convenience at the expense of quality. It’s a degradation of the public information supply, dressed up as innovation. 

A familiar pattern, with a dangerous twist 

This certainly isn’t the first time platforms have siphoned value from publishers. Google’s featured snippets, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), and Facebook Instant Articles all promised to improve the user experience. And all ended up centralizing control and weakening the economics of publishing across the open web. 

The difference now is intent. Google’s AI results don’t just excerpt; they replace. Pew’s research shows many users stop at the AI answer. That’s direct substitution, without fair bargaining or licensing, and it maps to the declines DCN measured. 

Even breaking news, which DCN members suggest is still somewhat protected from AI Overviews, isn’t entirely safe. As the AI models improve and update faster with daily training, even those moments of publisher advantage may vanish. 

What needs to change 

  • Transparency: Google must disclose auditable data on AI Overview click-through rates by query type, content category, and geography. 
  • Real opt-out: publishers need a way to block use of their content in AI answers without sacrificing search visibility. 
  • Fair licensing: if OpenAI, Amazon, News Corp, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and others can make licensing deals, so can Google. It’s an emerging, important market for publishers. 
  • Regulatory oversight: treat AI Overviews and AI Mode as part of Google’s search monopoly. A monopoly self-preferencing is not innovation; it’s foreclosure. 

The choice ahead 

Premium journalism and entertainment don’t appear by magic. They’re the product of significant investment, skilled creators, editorial standards, and increasing risk. Google’s AI rides on that work, and now threatens to cut off the audience that sustains it. 

This is not a call for special treatment. It’s a call to preserve the integrity of the open web. We must ensure that the same AI “answers” users see at the top of Google Search don’t become a free substitute for the original work they’re based on. 

If we allow the search monopoly to wall off the web behind AI-generated summaries, we’ll end up with fewer sources, weaker journalism, and a less informed public. The open web is worth defending. And the data is clear: the time to act is now. 

Audiences | Featured Post | Revenue

Inside 3 premium publishers’ Apple News strategies

Between changes to Google search, the evolution of AI queries and algorithmically-driven social feeds, finding new audiences is harder than ever for publishers.

Apple News offers something many of the other tech and social platforms don’t: a highly-engaged, quality audience keen to read. But publishers have been burned badly by platforms in the past. Many are cautious about crafting strategies specifically for yet another channel.

The dilemma is more acute for publishers with membership and subscription strategies. Balancing free and paywalled content can be challenging enough, before considering Apple’s own paid News+ offering.

Here’s how Scientific American, STAT News and Outside Inc. approach Apple News, from which content to publish to the next steps they encourage readers to take.

Reaching new audiences

“The big challenge for us, and for every publisher right now, is finding your audience and reaching people,” said David Ewalt, Editor in Chief of Springer Nature title Scientific American. He specifically pointed to  Google’s increasing ‘zero click’ searches and AI summaries as causing a drop-off in new audiences. The primary advantage of publishing to Apple News, as compared with prioritizing discovery on other platforms, is the high intent of users who come to the app. “Aggregators like Apple News are incredibly useful in reaching new people, especially people who are passionate about reading,” says Ewalt.

Apple News is also seen primarily as a top-of-funnel acquisition source by Outside Inc., which publishes outdoor brands covering everything from climbing and skiing to backpacking and mountain biking. Chief Media Officer Heather Dietrick explained that the platform offers a more generalist audience than those who find them via Google search, and one more willing to spend time. “They’re definitely willing to stick around and read our long-form pieces, they have a big hunger for those,” she noted.

Health and medical publication STAT News, produced by Boston Globe Media, also sees Apple News as an exposure opportunity.  “The way we envision Apple News from a STAT lens is that it is very much top-of-funnel brand awareness,” explained Engagement Editor Alexander Spinelli. “But I like to think that any person could end up being a paid subscriber.”

The paywall debate…on platform

For each of these publishers, deciding what to offer across Apple News for free and their own sites is a careful balancing act. To complicate the strategy further, publishers can also put content behind Apple’s own premium offering, Apple News+. While publishers are circumspect on the subject, it can be a direct revenue generator as Apple shares revenue based on a reader’s engaged minutes with a publisher. 

For Outside Inc., this is an opportunity to showcase longform content. “We’re constantly looking at the data, seeing what the audience is responsive to, seeing what is more scarce on the platform,” Dietrick said. She explained that they are very flexible when it comes to what they publish across News and News+, depending on demand.

Despite having a registration wall and metered paywall on the website, Scientific American publishes the majority of its stories to Apple News. Ewalt said that this was because the priority for the platform is to get people exposed to SciAm’s stories, rather than as a conversion tool in itself. 

STAT has clearer dividing lines. As a B2P – business-to-professional – publication, they keep more specialized content to the website. “We’re really succinct about what we choose to be free versus [paywalled],” Spinelli outlined. “A lot of [articles] that are public health related…which we feel the masses need to know will be free. That’s what ends up going to Apple.” 

This suits STAT well as the Apple News audience is more generalized. But this also means they don’t publish to Apple News+. Spinelli said that they would prefer to nurture paying subscribers themselves than manage that relationship through a platform. “Our [premium] Plus model is so specific to our subscribers that we didn’t want to offer it anywhere else,” he explained. “We really nurture our Plus subscribers…it’s a really robust offering.”

An edition-based approach

One strategy which has proved successful for Outside Inc. is publishing “mini magazines” to Apple News+. The publication puts out a print magazine, Outside Magazine, which comes out four times a year. But they keep an eye on traffic and trends for the Apple audience.

“Often, we’ll package up content when we see that a particular topic is really drawing interest,” Dietrick shared. “We’ll surround that topic in a 360 way, package up content and make a mini magazine from it.”

This content can come from across any of Outside’s brands. It’s then pulled together into a bundle, and repackaged for Apple News+. “Readers get deep into a category,” said Dietrick. “They spend longer with it and consume more stories per session.”

As well as mini magazines, Outside also promotes guides created for other channels to Apple News+ as a magazine. Their Summer 2025 Gear Guide brings together reviews of over 800 products across their brands. This also allows the publisher to drive additional revenue with affiliate links.

“Apple has recently been prioritizing affiliate stories…so we’re giving them more affiliate content,” Dietrick said, explaining that reviews are already a key pillar for Outside Inc. “It’s already content that we’re creating for other referral sources and our sites, so we’re not creating anything extra for them … its great that Apple’s strategy aligns with ours.”

Encouraging further engagement

All three publishers make use of call-to-action [CTA] boxes in Apple News articles. Scientific American prioritize directing readers to content on their own site. “I’s a good way to get users back into our ecosystem and start showing them some subscription notices,” Ewalt noted.

By contrast, STAT are heavily focused on driving newsletter sign-ups. “We have a great offering of free newsletters, and if people are enjoying our free content, they’re more than likely going to enjoy our flagship newsletter,” Spinelli outlined. 

STAT reappraised their CTA strategy at the end of last year, bringing in technology partners such as FlatPlan to manage more flexible and UX-friendly boxes. This has proved fruitful, with the team now able to experiment, track and measure what is working. “Any time we have a story now, we’re getting new [newsletter] subscribers, whether that’s five, or fifteen, or 20. Every new subscriber helps,” said Spinelli.

They chose to focus on newsletter sign-ups because they didn’t want to overwhelm users, as Spinelli explained: “We pick and choose where we focus our efforts [in Apple News], and then the second they get back to our site, they’ll get to see all the offerings and other things that we do.”

Outside Inc have a variety of strategies for Apple News CTAs depending on whether a user is known or new. “We’re always thinking about the signals that readers give us to say where they are in their own activity journey so we can figure out what we should put in front of them,” said Dietrick. She explained that new users are encouraged to read more from Outside’s channels. Known users are encouraged to sign up for newsletters or read more tailored recommended content.

Opportunities and limitations

For publishers who have a clear understanding of Apple News’ place and potential in a subscriber funnel, it can be a powerful tool. Scientific American’s Ewalt emphasised the high-quality nature of the users. “The Apple audience is a great audience for us. It tends to be the kind of consumers who are going to read our content and subscribe to the magazine,” he said.

Outside’s Dietrick emphasised that a successful Apple News strategy ultimately comes down to a partnership between audience development and editorial teams. “You need to have people who are looking at the data, seeing what’s working, being willing to make tweaks to it, and not have it drive any editorial decisions, but just shape what content you want to put in front of this audience,” she added.

All three acknowledged the limitations of longer-term Apple News strategies. Ultimately, if Apple’s priorities change, these traffic and revenue sources could easily fall away. 

STAT’s Spinelli has a more pragmatic take. “The majority of mobile users in the world have this device that prompts them with this immediate access to information,” he said. “I realized that if I get a million page views on a story on Apple but only get one paid subscriber, a million people just saw STAT’s reporting and STAT’s journalism.”

“[Hopefully] you’re going to want to come back to us, maybe it’s not the first, or second, or the fourth or the 10th time, but that’s the funnel process. I’m happy to play the long game,” he concluded.

---Spilled "Google" soda can to illustrate Google Zero, which is the end of referrals from search due to AI Overviews ---
Audiences | Featured Post | Innovation | Perspectives

Direct audience engagement is key to surviving Google Zero

We’re not at Google Zero quite yet. But, as we near this point where Google search results provide direct answers and reduce outbound links, publishers face a critical imperative: They must build direct connections, maintain the loyalty of existing readers, and deeply engage audiences.

Since Google introduced AI Overviews 14 months ago, the AI-generated summaries have hurt publishers’ bottom lines, scuttled search traffic, and impacted ad revenue and subscriptions. This has resulted “zero-click” searches and a sharp decline in traffic, which some have dubbed “Google Zero”. News searches resulting in no click-throughs to news websites grew from 56% to nearly 69% as of May 2025, according to report from digital market intelligence company Similarweb.

About 40% of The Atlantic’s traffic comes from search, CEO Nicholas Thompson told Azeem Azhar, founder of Exponential View. “We’re seeing a significant decline, maybe a 20% decline,” he said. This translates to an 8% drop in overall website visitors, impacting ad revenue, subscriptions, and brand awareness.

AI Overviews appear in 39% of Google queries, according to Website Planet. An estimated 5.6% of U.S. search traffic on desktop browsers last month went to AI-powered large language models, according to market intelligence firm Datos, The Wall Street Journal reported. And analytics company Authoritas found that a site previously ranked first in a search result lost 79% of its traffic if results were delivered below an AI overview.

Whether publishers like it or not, that traffic isn’t coming back. Google Zero looms large on the horizon. Pew Research found that for searches with AI summaries, Google users clicked on a traditional search result link in only 8% of visits, compared to 15% without AI summaries.

And plenty of publishers aren’t happy about things. A legal complaint was submitted to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority over the impact of Google AI Overviews on news publishers, arguing that Google is abusing its market dominance by using publisher content in AI-generated responses without fair compensation, while simultaneously reducing traffic to news websites. Additionally, The Independant Publishers Alliance filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission in June, alleging that Google abuses its market power in online search.

Meanwhile, as publishers adapt to this new reality, DCN spoke to some industry experts to reveal what’s working.

Direct relationships important, valuable

Some publishers aren’t waiting for Google Zero, they’re already building the direct audience relationships and cultivating reader loyalty that will matter even more when search traffic disappears.

Hearst Connecticut Media Group strategically builds direct audience relationships as part of its long-term audience strategy. Their GameTime CT high school sports vertical, which serves high school parents, athletes and coaches, drives subscriptions according to Mandy Hofmockel, managing editor of audience at Hearst Media Connecticut.

“It goes above and beyond game coverage and is a formula for success in serving local audiences,” Hofmockel says. “Our high school sports coverage is evolving to be less about the sport itself and more about athletes, their stories around the game. We are building depth, experiences and connections.”

To deepen engagement, the company launched it’s first texting campaign for UConn basketball during March Madness this year, she says. “That platform allowed that small but engaged pool of UConn fans to message us directly with questions on everything from player injuries to coach strategies, to just like where they could watch the game,” she says.  

Hearst Media Connecticut is also deepening its reporting in key local areas, including weather, education and real estate, even adding a meteorologist to its team and developing weather tools and trackers. Hearst’s hyperlocal approach, covering school closures, local weather patterns, and community-specific issues, provides indispensable information creating direct traffic that survives the death of search.

Being a local publisher provides advantage. “We know what it’s like to live in, go to school in and eat across the state. That’s reflected in our coverage and the key coverage areas for the newsroom,” Hofmockel says. “Our readers don’t hesitate to share us with us what they think of our coverage because they feel that connection to us.” This means when readers need to know what’s really happening in their town or city, they come straight to Hearst instead of searching for answers.

Direct engagement, across multiple platforms

BBC Studios has “embraced all manner of platforms to reach audiences wherever they are, from a thriving BBC News WhatsApp channel to Instagram clubs for our Culture super-fans.” However,  their primary focus on building stronger, direct relationships through product innovation and editorial strategy, says Ben Goldberger, GM and executive director of editorial content. “Central to this is the relaunch of our BBC.com site and app, which offers a premium, more streamlined user experience that encouraged repeat visits and deeper engagement,” Goldberger says.

The company rolled out a new pay model on BBC.com in the US, which Goldberger called an important step in strengthening the connection with their most passionate users. The launch of the new pay model will help them gain greater insight into their audiences’ preferences and behaviors, and to strengthen those connections.

“One constant has been our commitment to our owned-and-operated channels,” he says. “We have seen meaningful success driving engagement on our platforms as we reduce reliance on those of others.”

BBC Studios operates 11 regular newsletters for global audiences, spanning topics from US politics to personal health. Goldberger says the response to these has been incredibly encouraging. “Our newsletters subscribers are deeply engaged with our work, regularly visiting BBC.com from newsletter links and taking the time to send thoughtful, considered feedback,” he says. “Indeed, the outpouring of notes from readers of our In History newsletter led us to create a recurring section featuring reader memories that is among the most popular.”

BBC Studios aren’t just creating an email list, they’re creating a feedback loop where engaged newsletter readers become content contributors and reliable traffic drivers. It’s a two-way relationship that generates both audience loyalty and editorial material. BBC Studios owns every touchpoint in the reader journey, making them insulated from external platform disruptions like Google Zero.

Building stories AI can’t replicate

David Skok built The Logic, a Canadian business publication focused on technology and innovation, as a subscription-first publication from launch in 2019. “Our business model necessitated us having a direct relationship with our readers from the start,” the CEO and editor-in-chief says.

In a recent column about AI’s impact on journalism, Skok delved into the existential question facing publishers as AI upends traditional web discovery. He believes in creating stories that no AI platform can summarize accurately.

“If you’re writing stuff that is yours, exclusively yours, you cannot get anywhere else and isn’t answered in just one pithy response from a chat engine, that’s how you’re going to win,” he continues. “The thing that’s really still going to differentiate you is what stories are you assigning and what stories are your reporters pitching? Are they things that you cannot get anywhere else?”

Beyond content strategy, The Logic is intentional about their audience engagement. “I think intimate events are really working,” Skok explains, describing some of The Logic’s recent events. “We’ll go to a place like Calgary or Vancouver and have 30 people for breakfast and just talk about the issues of the day, bring in one of our columnists, and those kinds of things are extreme value for a smaller group of people. And they feel it.”

The Logic also has a Slack channel for direct engagement with reporters, and hosts virtual events based on breaking news. “We try to make sure that our readers understand that what they’re getting with The Logic subscription is way more than just access to ungated content behind a paywall,” he says.

Beyond the (zero) click

“Publishers will have to shift their expectation expectations from some of the primary referral sources we’ve relied on in the past,” Hofmockel says. “It doesn’t mean we completely give up on search and social. But we have to adjust our strategies and find additional ways to connect with our communities.”

As one publisher noted in the Tow Center’s May 2025 report Journalism Zero: How Platforms and Publishers are Navigating AI, “there’s no way around the platforms” because “the platforms are … where the audiences are.”

As publishers focus on direct relationships, they continue to make sure they’re “maximized for visibility,” on Google because “it’s still an important channel for distributing our work,” Hofmockel from Hearst says. However, it is important to take a strategic, rather than dependant, approach. In other words: never be solely dependent on platforms for your core business model.

Hofmockel believes it’s an opportunity to reevaluate not just audience strategies, but publishers’ content approach. “We can build new, distinctive products (that) are rooted in data, go deep in the categories that matter… and make sure we’re giving readers reasons to come and subscribe. Building around these needs with expert reporting will make us essential with or without platforms,” she says.

Building direct relationships, on whatever platforms you own, whether it’s newsletters, events podcasts, or content verticals, publishers must be conscious and intentional about owning their audiences, according to The Logic’s Skok.

“I think that’s the most important relationship you can have, and it’s the one that will allow you to withstand this change. The thing with a subscription business, like a paywall business like we have is, it’s so much harder to build it up. It’s slower, it’s more methodical. There’s no quick hack, growth hack to make it happen. But once you’ve built it up, it’s really hard to tear it down because these readers are invested in your success.”

As AI reshapes digital discovery, publishers who cultivate direct, meaningful relationships with engaged audiences, position themselves to survive and thrive in the post-Google Zero landscape.

AI | Featured Post | Innovation

Putting AI to work for news audiences by design

As the entire media industry grapples with AI’s rapidly evolving future, I can’t help but see a potential harmony between artificial intelligence and news media. And this prompts me to wonder: What do we truly want this relationship to look like now, in 10 years – and beyond? AI is transforming how we process information, forcing us to confront fundamental issues of trust, ethics, and the sustainable future of journalism.

I’m sure I’m not alone in turning to television, film and books to articulate the ways in which AI may play out in our industry. In this case, my mind goes straight to Star Trek. Data and the Borg offer two starkly different visions of what AI can become. The character Data was built to learn from and with humans. Data is curious and evolving, committed to understanding and serving the people around him. The Borg, on the other hand, are designed to assimilate. Their goal is not growth through understanding but domination through absorption. One AI is shaped around growth and human relationships. The other is built for control.

It is my belief that AI  – developed with purpose – can enhance human understanding, much like Star Trek’s beloved Data. At the other extreme, it will indiscriminately devour information, similar to the formidable antagonist Borg. It would yield results that erase our humanity, putting technology and efficiency above helping communities better engage with news media and understand the world around us.

AI design for good news

Audiences now expect access to large volumes of data and information delivered at high speed. What they’re looking for now is clarity and understanding to make sense of what they’re reading and seeing and how it connects to everyday life. Whether it’s a school policy or a change to housing codes, people are beginning to rely more on AI-synthesized insight and summaries pulled from whatever is most available, statistically frequent, and easy to read. That doesn’t always guarantee the information is complete, useful, or meaningful. And over time, these easy (often incomplete) answers shape how people view institutions, public decisions, causes, beliefs and even journalism.

When developers design AI tools to support clarity and accuracy, journalists can focus on the parts of their work that deepen understanding. They can focus on the work of the journalist: asking thoughtful questions rooted in real life, connecting facts in meaningful ways, and highlighting stories that help people see why something happened and what it means next. With the right tools, they amplify voices that often go unheard, raise questions absent from the record, and draw a clear throughline between past events and current developments—showing how decisions take shape, how systems evolve, and how stories gain meaning over time.

AI, much like the character Data, possesses a remarkable ability to process vast quantities of information with incredible speed. AI tools can deliver a clarity that propels opportunities for thought and innovation to move forward. We’re already seeing this in newsrooms today. AI can effortlessly summarize dense material, identify patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed in large datasets, and eliminate some of those tedious manual steps that often slow us down, like transcribing interviews or sifting through public records. This gives journalists more opportunity to delve deeper into their work and operate with heightened focus. Intentional AI design is truly about augmentation, providing a powerful partner rather than a replacement for human ingenuity.

Developing AI tools that serve the audience

Pew Research finds that people continue to view local journalism as absolutely essential. Audiences place their trust in local reporters to deliver accurate information. Many media organizations aim to reduce the workload for (or even the need for) journalists. However, some are beginning to build agentic AI that directly serves audiences. The prospect of creating tools that empower individuals to make everyday decisions with confidence is exciting. It directly builds on that trust. 

These tools don’t need to be all-encompassing. They simply have to be useful and intuitively reflect the ways people already seek out information. By design, these AI tools would deliver task-oriented insights, much like explanatory journalism, but do so in an interactive and personalized way.

For instance, newsrooms are already experimenting with tools that help residents visualize how a proposed school budget might impact classroom sizes at the schools closest to them or how a specific zoning decision could influence traffic and housing prices in their very own neighborhood. Another tool might, for example, transform a public health message into something clear and easily understandable. Even better, it might adapt to how an individual comprehends language or processes information.

Wise AI tool design

On the contrary, we must think carefully about how we use AI tools. If we apply them solely to speed up output or increase volume, we risk reinforcing the same pressures that have already strained the industry—pressures that replace depth with summaries and bury real insight in the shuffle. When systems treat all inputs the same, they strip away context and diminish quality.

The value of journalism comes from knowing what questions to ask and why the story matters. AI might spot a spike in illness at a local hospital. However, if a reporter doesn’t dig into who is affected, why it’s happening, and what it means for the community, the human story—and its impact—won’t come through. AI tools can support better access and make the work more efficient. But their impact depends on how they’re guided and who is behind the questions.

We’ve seen before how technology built for efficiency can still deepen harm when no one questions its impact. The cotton gin made cotton production faster, but it also fueled the expansion of slavery across the South. That outcome wasn’t baked into the machine, it emerged through systems that used speed and scale without regard for justice.

Similarly, today’s AI tools generate articles, prioritize content, and process vast datasets in ways that appear productive on the surface. But without human judgment, AI tools fail to explain why something matters, who is being left out, or what risks might follow. The strength of journalism isn’t in speed or volume. It’s in knowing which questions to ask, what stories need depth, and how to connect the facts to people’s lives.

AI is a powerful accelerant for journalism, not a replacement for the invaluable human element. As of today, It excels at streamlining certain tasks, which can allow journalists to dedicate more time to the core of the profession. This has and will remain human-centered storytelling, nuanced interpretation, and the exercise of sound editorial judgment. AI can efficiently surface the foundational “who, what, when, and where.” However, it is the unique human capacity for critical inquiry, lived understanding, and ethical reasoning that uncovers the “how” and “why,” transforming mere facts into meaningful narratives. 

The future of journalism hinges on intentionally integrating human ingenuity with technological tools. We can leverage AI for efficiency while unequivocally prioritizing human traits like interpretation, accountability, and narrative depth. These qualities remain paramount in helping audiences not just receive information, but truly comprehend its significance.

---- Crystal Ball with Play Button on TV to show that YouTube is the future of Publishing ----
Audiences | Featured Post | Video

Yes, YouTube is the future of publishing: here’s why

YouTube celebrated its 20th birthday earlier this year. Over the course of two decades, it has played a major role in upending how content is viewed, created, and consumed. 

But, unlike a number of other legacy social networks, the platform continues to go from strength to strength. Back in 2022, I argued on these pages that media companies need a dedicated YouTube strategy, a sentiment that remains equally relevant three years on. 

Here are six reasons why many media companies need to reconsider the value they attach to YouTube, and six proven tactics to help maximize their impact and approach to the platform.

YouTube enjoys huge reach and engagement 

According to the Business of Apps website, YouTube has more than 2.7 billion monthly active users. Over 238 million of these users are in the U.S., the StatsUp site notes. In terms of reach, that makes it either the biggest, or second largest, social network in the world, depending on your source. Either way, it’s a huge audience.

Lastly, engagement dwarves other social networks. “YouTube takes the lion’s share of … social media time,” comments Simon Kemp, the Chief Analyst at DataReportal. “The world spends almost twice as much time using YouTube as it spends using the platform’s next nearest rival, TikTok.” 

Despite this, many publishers continue to treat YouTube as an afterthought compared to shinier, newer, visual-oriented platforms like the aforementioned TikTok or Instagram. 

Esra Dogramaci, a digital news executive and YouTube specialist, who has worked for international broadcasters including Al Jazeera, BBC, DW, and others, agrees. “News organizations [and] publishers should have always been paying attention to YouTube,” she told me. “We often forget that YouTube is the second biggest search engine, and [the] world’s largest video platform.”

It’s a core platform for reaching Gen Z and Gen Alpha

Efforts to more effectively engage younger audiences is a key goal for many media companies. It’s no surprise that YouTube can be a pivotal plank in these strategies. Afterall, as Rande Price, VP, Research at Digital Content Next, recently reflected, “prioritizing video formats that are concise, authentic, and visually native to social platforms is essential to reaching Gen Z.”  

Data published at the end of last year found that more than seven in 10 Gen Z consumers (71%) discover new media content (such as music, podcasts, and TV series) through YouTube, only just behind social media as a whole (72%).

Moreover, 73% of U.S. teens aged 13-17 (a mix of Generation Z and Generation Alpha, a demographic born after 2010) say they use YouTube every day. According to insights from the Pew Research Center, that means YouTube is “the most widely used and visited platform” among this age group. That includes 15% who said that their use of the platform is “almost constant.”

Short-form video is growing in popularity 

There are multiple ways to harness YouTube to attract younger audiences. As Price points out, “tone, pace, and relevance” are intrinsic to this. Those sentiments are applicable to all content on the platform, including YouTube Shorts, an area seeing considerable growth. Last month, Neal Mohan, YouTube’s CEO, revealed that “YouTube Shorts are now averaging over 200 billion daily views!” 

That audience isn’t just Gen Z, although they are a significant share of Shorts consumers. 

Publisher’s short video strategies therefore should encompass YouTube, as well as TikTok, and Reels on Facebook and Instagram. These formats can also encourage consumption of long-form video, as well as acting as their own, standalone, genre.

“YouTube Shorts is… the ‘take away’ version prior to the ‘dine in’ experience,” contends Dogramaci. She argues that Shorts can serve as a gateway to your main channel especially if it is fully optimized. (For tips on how to do this, read to the end of the article!) 

“It appeals to younger audiences with short-form content,” she says, “provided that you’ve done all the housekeeping in terms of channel and video optimization.”

YouTube is becoming a podcasting behemoth 

YouTube now has 1 billion monthly active podcast users worldwide. That’s more users than Spotify, Variety says. 

According to Edison, YouTube is the most popular service for listening to podcasts in the United States, ahead of Spotify and Apple. So, if content creators aren’t distributing their podcasts on YouTube, they are potentially missing out.

Furthermore, “YouTube is often the first place people go when looking for a new podcast,” the platform’s blog claimed earlier this year. To aid with this discovery, in May, the company began releasing a weekly chart of YouTube’s Top 100 podcast shows in the U.S.

And as the differentiation between video and audio content continues to blur, Gen Z is driving much of this trend, Edison found. Their research stated that this age group feels that “video provides a better understanding of context/tone through facial expressions and gestures,” and it also enables consumers to feel “more connected to the podcaster(s).”

It’s big on screens of all sizes 

Although the smaller screen garners a considerable amount of YouTube consumption, the growth of connected TV’s (CTV) has also been pivotal in YouTube’s continued growth. 

In the U.S., YouTube is now watched on TV screens by more people than on mobile. Or, as the company put it at the end of last year, “YouTube is the new television.”

That said, the platform is at pains to point out that this isn’t the same as “the ‘old’ television,” pointing to Shorts (which are popular on TV, just ask my kids), live streams, podcasts, sports, and full shows, as part of the platform’s content mix. 

Emphasizing its popularity, data from Nielsen shows that 11.6% of all TV viewing time in the United States is to YouTube.  That’s ahead of viewing time from the likes of Disney, Fox, and Netflix. 

Given these findings, in an age of investment in FAST channels (Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television) it’s a reminder that brands and media companies still need to factor YouTube into their video strategies. Its TV audience is simply too big to ignore. 

YouTube matters to news consumers 

The variety of content on YouTube, and its reputation as a source for entertainment, influencers, and User Generated Content (UGC) can mask its popularity as a platform for news and information. New data from the Digital News Report 2025 emphasizes this. Around a third of their global sample uses YouTube (30%) for news each week, just behind Facebook (36%). Given that weekly usage of YouTube for any purpose stood at 63% this is a high percentage of global digital news consumers using the platform for news. 

Source: Slide 15 of Esra Dogramaci’s presentation (see below)

In major markets such as India, the use of YouTube for news stands at more than 50%, an important consideration for international news brands seeking to gain a foothold in the world’s most populous nation. Large news audiences on the platform can also be found in other major emerging markets such as Nigeria, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Brazil.

Making inroads into these markets won’t necessarily be easy for traditional media brands, however, as much of the consumption is centered around what the Report authors refer to as “alternative media voices.” This category includes online influencers and personalities, independent journalists, as well as politicians who can go direct to audiences, by-passing traditional media gatekeepers. 

Nevertheless, given concerns about misinformation on YouTube – and other social networks – there are opportunities for trusted news and media brands to meet user needs for news and information. And they are in a position to do so in a manner that also offers the credibility that audiences desire.

Conclusion

YouTube’s reach, variety of content offerings, and resonance with younger and news audiences mean that it is an essential distribution platform for publishers in 2025. Of course, it’s not without its challenges. Around 70% of content is algorithmically recommended, meaning that YouTube’s recommendation engine can divert viewers away from publisher channels to other creators. It can also be very difficult to drive traffic from the site back to your own properties. 

Yet, YouTube’s size, versatility, and reach – especially with Gen Z and teens – make it hard to overlook. Whether your goal is audience growth, revenue diversification, or brand-building, a dedicated YouTube strategy will be a must for many content creators. Publishers who invest in understanding and leveraging YouTube’s evolving ecosystem will be best positioned to thrive in the digital content landscape; and the pivotal role YouTube plays in this space. 


Bringing it all together: 6 essential tips to successfully implement a YouTube strategy

Esra Dogramaci has been leading teams innovating on YouTube for more than a decade. Her experience includes leading the BBC World Service YouTube channels, through to receiving a YouTube Innovation Grant in 2023. The grant enabled her to develop and iterate on YouTube Shorts, while working as the Managing Editor at SBS, one of Australia’s public broadcasters.

In June 2025, Esra presented a session on YouTube for Changer on behalf of the Google Digital News Initiative on YouTube for busy newsrooms. The presentation is here.


Based on that presentation and our conversation, here are six practical recommendations that will enable media companies to nail their presence on YouTube. 

Ditch the “Archive” Mindset: Stop treating YouTube as a mere “archive or simple video upload mechanism,” she says. Many media companies with a broadcast arm fall into the trap of “cutting and pasting TV content onto YouTube.” This material “regularly fail[s] to perform because the audiences are different.” 

Meet User Needs: Success on YouTube is “less about volume, and more about understanding your audience and curating an offering that will resonate with them,” Dogramaci advises. 

She highlights how former Vox producers Cleo Abram and Johnny Harris use YouTube to illustrate this. They “upload once or a few times a month and their videos will typically perform better” because “they know their audience, so they can engineer their content to perform.” 

Presented in a style that “is a far cry from the buttoned down presenter reading your evening TV news bulletin,” their work remains substantial and substantive. It’s not dumbed down and connects with audiences by explaining “why this matters,” or “why you should know,” or “why this affects you.”

Prioritizing the Right Metrics: Don’t get fixated on views alone. “A view can be one second, it can be 10 minutes, it can be the same person watching a clip over and over again.”
Instead, Dogramaci advises that the most important performance indicators on YouTube are watch time, subscribers, and active subscribers. 

Watch time, representing the “actual amount of content consumed,” is crucial; “the more the better,” as it signals resonance and makes your video more likely to be surfaced.” Think of subscribers as your “loyal fans,” she suggests.

Engineer Every Video for Peak Performance: This means obsessing over the thumbnail, a “shop window” that must entice viewers. Your headline must be catchy, and accurate, supported by keywords, tags, and accurate video descriptions. A great banner, custom URL, and content organized into playlists, are also vital for success.

Embrace Niche and New Formats: The “best performing channels are those that know their audience and don’t try to be everything to everyone.” Even big broadcasters might see that their best-performing content is focused on niches. This content, like Deutsche Welle’s “dress code” series, can be evergreen. In contrast to broadcast, “YouTube content [often] has a much longer shelf life,” Dogramaci says. 

Implement Continuous Improvement Don’t just upload and forget. Dogramaci recommends bringing different YouTube teams and channels together to learn from each other. By sharing best practices, Dogramaci helped oversee growth at 20 BBC YouTube channels, akin to “the biggest growth of any off-platform product in those years (300% in watch time and 550% in subscribers).” 

In applying these principles, media leaders should avoid simply piling more work onto busy teams. “The bottom line is… always about doing less, just doing it better,” she says.
Speakers on stage at a Summit to represent live events in the media business
Featured Post | Revenue

Events boost media businesses’ subscription strategies

Live events can be a vital pillar of a media business’ revenue strategy. They provide unparalleled sponsorship opportunities, direct revenue through ticket sales, and the content can often be repackaged and repurposed elsewhere after the fact. As an example, Atlantic Media’s events wing now accounts for over 20% of the business’ overall revenue. 

However live events are often an expression of the “soft power” of a media brand. They act as a statement of the company’s influence, whether through big name sponsors and celebrities that attend, or by effectively setting the agenda for the industry through insight and expertise. They are a demonstration of the media company’s relevance for both its audience and potential commercial partners, whether B2C or B2B.

It is no surprise, then, that events remain a priority for many media businesses. However, while they are a source of revenue unto themselves, they are also being employed to support other revenue streams, including subscriptions.

Events and subscription marketing

Live events – especially the flagship conferences and exhibitions held by consumer titles – are exclusive by nature. While their content is often repackaged in article or video form, there is a cachet in attending them in-person and rubbing shoulders with celebrities and peers.

That exclusive nature is therefore being used by savvy subscription- or membership-focused media businesses. Access to those events is desirable, and is being used in subscription marketing material throughout the funnel. The Guardian, for example, offers its members discounted tickets to events at its owned-and-operated live events space in London, a physical benefit in addition to its central message of supporting its journalism.

However, events can support subscription growth as well. Anna Bross, SVP Communications for The Atlantic explains that, “Access to our events is a selling point from the first welcome and onboarding for our subscribers. We also market subscriptions in tandem with our events: ‘become a subscriber to unlock the full breadth of our journalism’.”

“The Atlantic has focused on exclusive events benefits for subscribers, particularly for our flagship event The Atlantic Festival: things like early access to ticket sales; subscriber-only event moments; and discounts. We have also produced subscriber-only virtual events.”

Brad Greenawalt, Vice President of Subscriptions at Hearst Magazines, notes that the appeal of live events can be used throughout the funnel when it comes to converting readers. “We view live events as an opportunity across the funnel. It can be a great audience expansion opportunity, getting new audiences closer to the brand and experience, as well as a lower funnel strategy for more niche premium subscription events. 

“Live events are a key selling point for our premium memberships and help drive subscriber conversion and retention.” He cites the UK’s ELLE Collective’s Beauty Masterclasses and GoodHousekeeping’s VIP membership Book Club conversations with authors as some of the events that work especially well for its subscription-oriented publications.

In line with the ongoing trend towards making access to journalists a selling point for subscriptions, live events are also being used and marketed as a way to speak to those journalists in-person. Every organization spoken to for this article mentioned that live events are being used to deepen engagement by way of connecting subscribers with the journalists whose content they consume.

Dow Jones’ VP, Leadership and Event Marketing Laura Verklin said that “Audiences used to be dependent on news organizations for access to information. Now that information is somewhat of a commodity but reliability is the differentiator. Our events allow us to foster a deep sense of trust and transparency with our audience by allowing them to engage and interact directly with reporters and editors while they’re on stage with global decision makers. It underscores the Journal’s editorial integrity and access to global leaders shaping our future.”

Superfans and creating touchpoints

The rule of thumb is that it is far easier (and, crucially, cheaper) to prevent a subscriber from churning than it is to convert a new reader to a subscriber. As a result, events are being considered as a major means of developing the relationship between publication and their readers to a degree where they will pay to support its mission. 

More than half (63%) of audience members who complete post-event surveys for the Guardian, for example, say they are more likely to financially support the Guardian after attending one of its events. 

A Guardian spokesperson explained that is due in part to using the live events to showcase the Guardian’s unique selling points during the event, which in turn supports those same messages in its membership marketing materials: “Our audiences appreciate the opportunity to ask their questions to our journalists and guests to feel closer to our journalism. It is also a great opportunity to showcase the human element of Guardian journalism in contrast to the rise of AI-generated content.”

Greenawalt also cites post-event feedback as being a significant source of audience information. The team uses the insights provided to tinker with and inform future events and other marketing strategies.

Bross explains that “Hyper-engaged subscribers are more likely to attend events. But those who attend events, whether hyper-engaged or not, are less likely to churn than those who do not attend events. Ultimately, we utilize our experiences to strengthen the perceived value of a subscription, deepen brand affinity with The Atlantic and give our subscribers unique access to our journalists and journalism.”

Creating events for new subscribers

However, that isn’t to say that events are aimed at or even solely marketed towards “superfans.” While these highly-engaged audience members are often the most lucrative for consumer brands, they are also touchpoints for new potential members. Publications are creating events with those new members in mind. The Guardian spokesperson explains that “It depends on the event. It is true that many of our supporters who frequently read the Guardian attend our events. Different speakers and topics also attract different audiences.”

That considered, curated approach is as important for information-based publications, which are predicated on appealing to very specific audiences. Verklin explains that “Exclusive access to our live events is a key differentiator when we market a subscription or membership to one of our C-Suite communities. These moments of in-person connection help deepen trust in the brand and create tangible value that differentiates a premium subscription from more transactional options.”

So as with trial memberships or limited access to some content on a timed basis, events are being created as a ‘lure’ for potential subscribers. Greenawalt says: “Although events draw in highly engaged members, we’ve also found success using it for our new audiences as well. Our newest membership, Veranda Gold Design Society, offered members the opportunity to go on an exclusive tour at the Kips Bay Decorator Show House in Palm Beach with Editor-in-Chief Steele Marcoux earlier this year.“

Event strategy and subscription marketing strategies, then, are becoming more intertwined. Each is being used to support the other, with discounted tickets or exclusive access being used to demonstrate the value of a subscription throughout the funnel.

A melting clock to show that time is up for platforms / big tech's anticompetitive behavior
AI | Featured Post | Policy

Time’s up for platform privilege

Just as a leopard doesn’t change its spots, Google and Meta haven’t changed their ways. Despite mounting legal threats and public backlash, both big tech platforms continue to behave as if rules don’t apply to them.

New evidence has emerged to underscore that Google’s original unofficial motto of “Don’t be evil” was never really their true North Star. Instead, it is a smokescreen for big tech’s naked ambitions. Meta’s early motto—“Move fast and break things”—may have been more honest, but the honesty makes it even more damning. As it turns out, the broken things weren’t just outdated norms or sluggish competitors. They were the foundations of fair competition, user privacy, democratic discourse, and now, copyright law. The damage isn’t merely collateral; it is strategic.

Big tech’s anticompetitive behavior enters its AI era

Now we’re seeing a similar pattern unfold with generative AI. In Kadrey v. Meta, evidence unsealed early this year suggests Meta execs, including Mark Zuckerberg, chose to pirate copyrighted content to train its LLaMA AI model. It was revealed that Meta initially explored licensing but opted instead to download pirated content via BitTorrent from LibGen under the reasoning that doing things the legal way would take too much time.

Worse, the company allegedly stripped copyright management info from the files to cover its tracks. Clearly, they’re following the motto of moving fast and breaking things. This time around, they seem intent on breaking copyright law. Given Meta’s long track record, I’m not sure what is most surprising: the planning of such a sophisticated heist or the ham-handed cover up. Either way, they graciously documented it all in email.

Meanwhile, over in Mountain View, Google has once again leveraged its search dominance to take traffic and revenue from publishers. In May, Google launched AI Mode, which scrapes and summarizes publishers’ original content to give users the answer without needing to click through thereby extracting out all of the incentives for the publisher.

In a bit of stunning bravado, Google rolled out AI Mode just 48 hours before closing arguments in the remedies phase of the Google Search trial, where the evidence clearly shows that Google abused its market power in search to maintain its significant advantages in crawling, clicks and query data which are paramount to the AI era. Google claims publishers can opt out. However, they can only do so by removing themselves from search entirely–which is no choice at all when it involves a company with more than 95% of the mobile queries. Google’s unauthorized use of copyrighted content to create a substitutive product has, to no one’s surprise, led to a massive downturn in traffic to publisher sites. Simultaneously, Google announced that Gemini will soon be on by default for consumers, collecting data about their activities. This is an oft-used strategy by Google. They tune the defaults to maximum data collection, knowing full well that consumers won’t know or take the time to shut them off.

The courts push back

However, despite big tech’s brazen and predictable pattern of brutish behavior, the legal system may be starting to catch up with the platforms’ anticompetitive tactics. Google has been found guilty of violating antitrust law in both the search and ad tech markets. And at least in the search case, the Court has been very focused on ensuring AI is a competitive marketplace rather than the fruit of more Google abuses. In addition, we’re starting to get additional clarity on how copyright law applies in this new digital age of AI.

In Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence, U.S. District Court Judge Stephanos Bibas ruled that Ross infringed copyright by using Westlaw’s headnotes to train an AI competitor, despite Ross’ claims of fair use. Initially, Ross reached out to Thomson Reuters to license the content but ultimately opted to acquire the Westlaw content from a third party, LegalEase (which sounds eerily similar to Kadrey v Meta).

Judge Bibas rejected all of Ross’ defenses, stating that innocent infringement, copyright misuse, merger defense, scenes à faire defense, and fair use did not apply. On fair use, Judge Bibas eloquently analyzed the four established factors: the use’s purpose and character; the copyrighted work’s nature; how much of the work was used and how substantial a part it was relative to the copyrighted work’s whole; and how Ross’s use affected the copyrighted work’s value or potential market.

On the fourth factor, Judge Bibas found that Ross “meant to compete with Westlaw by developing a market substitute.” He wrote that this factor is “undoubtedly the single most important element of fair use.” That seems like an important ruling in light of the way Google’s AI Mode trains on and serves as a substitute for publisher’s original content.

In April, U.S. District Court Judge Sidney Stein rejected OpenAI and Microsoft’s motion to dismiss, thereby allowing all of the copyright and trademark dilution clams from The New York Times’ suit to proceed. While the bar is admittedly lower for a motion to dismiss, Judge Stein noted “that plaintiffs have plausibly alleged the existence of third-party end-user infringement and that defendants knew or had reason to know of that infringement.”

Then, in May, the U.S. Copyright Office released a report on AI training and fair use. It concluded that using massive troves of copyrighted content to generate commercial AI outputs likely fails fair use, especially when done through illegal means. The report also notes that “effective licensing options can ensure that innovation continues to advance without undermining intellectual property rights.” The Copyright Office rightly recognized that creative works are not mere “data” to be harvested, but expressions of human authorship protected by the Constitution and enshrined in U.S. copyright law.

From slogans to standards

So, what does this mean? For one, courts are rejecting the Silicon Valley myth that fair use lets AI companies take whatever they want. Licensing isn’t just viable, it’s required. Congress should pay attention.

Although there will inevitably be bumps along the road as fair use analysis is unique to each case, these rulings act as a compass to where things are headed. They send important signals to big tech companies with a history of anticompetitive behavior: don’t be evil or you may be held liable. The old playbook—take first, ask questions never—isn’t going to work in this new AI era. It’s time for a better North Star: accountability, transparency, and fair competition.

Screen shot of the WNBA league pass landing page to illustrate the growing importance of women's sports
Advertising | Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Featured Post | Video

Women’s sports are hot. Media: don’t miss your shot

July 31, 2022 is a historic date for soccer fans in England. It’s the date on which they saw their women’s team win the Euros on home soil, becoming the first senior England side to triumph in a major tournament since the men won the 1966 World Cup. The Lionesses achieved this in front of a global audience of 50 million. Some 365 million people watched some part of the tournament according to UEFA figures, which are the sum of “TV, out-of-home viewing and streaming.”

Three years on, the Lionesses are set to defend their crown in Switzerland next month, and the appetite for women’s sport has never been greater. Whether you’re a broadcast, digital or print outlet, female athletes, the stories around them and the competitions they participate in provide the opportunity to attract new viewers. Revenue can take time to build, but the appetite is there. And, by failing to invest and get involved in the coverage now, there is the real risk of being left out of a crucial growth area that serves as a cost-effective way to get into showing live sports.

Expansion drive in women’s sports

On Tuesday, the Women’s Super League, the top female domestic league in England, announced that it is expanding from 12 to 14 teams for the 2026/2027 season. In the U.S., a peak of 2.8 million tuned in to watch Caitlin Clark return from injury on Saturday as she helped the Indiana Fever beat the New York Liberty. American tennis star Coco Gauff’s win over Roland Garros was watched by 1.4 million, a 94% increase over  the previous year.

Francois Goddard, an analyst at Enders Analysis, noted that women’s football received a bump from the 2022 tournament. It looks like the same thing could happen again at the end of this summer too. With this in mind, the moment for companies to strike is now, according to The Athletic’s women’s football writer Megan Feringa. “If anyone is looking at the summer and hasn’t already assembled at least a one-person team, but ideally, more than that, I think they’re going to get to mid-July and think, oh shoot, we are so late on this,” she told Digital Content Next.

There are lots of reasons why women’s sports provide such an exciting opportunity for media companies. To start, while there is some crossover, women’s sports tend to attract a different type of audience from men’s sports, which lends them a family-friendly reputation. “I think we do see that in general women’s sports competitions, fans over index for having children in their households,” says Danni Moore, Senior Analyst at Ampere’s Analysis. This means streamers and TV could bring in the wider family audiences to their service by investing in women’s sports. (And this also offers a fresh and appealing audience for advertisers.)

Rights heat up

Another sign that moving into women’s athletics now makes sense is that the cost of female sports rights is already starting to go up. “The WSL, I think the women’s Bundesliga and the Spanish Liga F, they’ve all gone up,” according to Moore. However, they are still low-cost relative to their male equivalents, which provides a great entry point for streamers looking to get into the live sports game. “Now it’s a good time to get in because they are cheaper,” she says, “but if the prices do go up in the future, [media companies would] be missing that opportunity.”

This all helps explain why Disney+ has become the home of Women’s Champions League soccer in Europe. It has taken the rights previously owned by Dazn for an unknown prize in a five-year deal. ESPN, Disney’s multiplatform sports brand, will produce all live matches for Disney+ with commentary offered in multiple languages, alongside pre- and post-game programming. The broadcasts are set to launch in October, with no additional subscription cost for viewers to access the games.

It’s a good move for Disney, according to Goddard, because the company “needs more content in Europe, more local content and more regular content.”

The pan-European tournament ticks all those boxes. It also allows a platform that has not shown live sport in a mass way before to dip its toe into the water without splashing out huge amounts of cash.

The excitement around women’s sports goes beyond soccer and basketball though. “What if we look at women’s hockey,” says Feringa. “What if we look at women’s softball, cricket, rugby? You’ve got Ilona Maher, who has sort of exploded the rugby scene,” she adds. “It seems inconceivable that people don’t want to jump into this space. It just feels like an obvious win”

Adland’s interest increases

Advertisers are increasingly interested in women’s sport too. In the age of subscriptions and streaming, live sports are still a popular placement for advertising. “This makes it even more attractive as an option for local, regular content,” says Goddard. As with the price of the rights, the cost of advertising against women’s sport is understood to be less than in men’s sports, providing marketers and brands with a way to make their money go further in the sports space.

Rihanna’s brand Fenty Beauty has signed a sponsorship deal with the New York Liberty, the first time it has moved into marketing withing sports and Feringa notes:

“The [National Women’s Soccer League] NWSL and the WNBA have done such a fantastic job in terms of sort of aligning themselves with brands, and vice versa, brands aligning themselves with different sports and different teams.”

With the WNBA continuing to dominate the headlines, the women’s Euro’s set to bring some of the best in the world together. And there’s so much more to come in this booming space. Thus, media companies of all kinds need to think about how they are going to show up for female athletics to capture engaged audiences and advertisers seeking family-friendly fare.

Already, we’re seeing a growing number of media brands introduce targeted coverage for women’s sports – including Associated Press, USA Today, Roku and CNBC. Audiences and advertisers are showing up in growing numbers. But there are still plenty of opportunities out there. For media companies still sitting on the sidelines, now’s the time to get into the women’s sports game or risk being left behind.

AI | Featured Post | Industry-Research | Perspectives

Don’t rush to replace your science reporters with AI just yet

The promise of AI’s efficiency and speed in sifting through vast amounts of data and producing content has led many to speculate that it can replace parts of the journalistic process. (This despite a lukewarm reception from news consumers and ambivalence among journalists themselves.) However, Axios’ recent move to ask employees to argue why a human should do a job that AI might be able to do seems to signal a false binary. In this either-or situation, we’d replace expertise with expedience, possibly at the risk of accuracy – which could have grave consequences.

Axios is far from alone in experimenting with AI to augment journalism. However, as is the case in many industries, there is a rush to employ AI in a way that supplants rather than supplements. And that, in turn, could create a gap in the entry level employee pipeline. In the case of journalism, this may mean that the established process of developing expertise breaks down. It is certainly a challenge to build deep subject domain knowledge. But it is possible that this lengthy process could be restructured to be both more supportive and efficient.

A recent study, Generalization bias in large language model summarization of scientific research published in Royal Society Open Science, highlights a critical issue: media coverage of scientific research often fails to capture the nuance and complexity inherent in the scientific process. However, the research finds that AI also fails at the task of summarizing scientific papers and abstracts accurately. As more and more people – journalists, medical professionals, scientists, educators and students – rely on AI-generated summaries and content, the results of this study beg the question as to whether we’re integrating AI to effectively support work processes.

Media coverage of scientific research has issues

As the public’s primary source of information on the latest scientific discoveries and advancements, the media holds the power to shape public understanding, perception and opinion. Accurately presenting findings from scientific and medical studies is paramount. As this study and others show, AI agents tested weren’t able to do the job. This seemingly automatable task would appear to be not-so-automatable after all.

Reporting on scientific research isn’t simple, as we’ve seen in the past. The temptation to prioritize sensationalism and oversimplification over nuanced reporting looms large, in part because of media business models driven by engagement metrics and fast news cycles. Scientific work does not produce definitive outcomes (inferences) so much as it accumulates evidence to suggest a truth. Even in the case of studying phenomena that are reasonably and reliably measured, such as in physics, the theories that are the outcome of science are, in fact, theories! For example, if a study says a certain treatment was found to reduce incidences of a disease in a very specific group of people during a 10-week trial, the exciting news might seem to be that a given disease is now curable. Sadly, it isn’t. This would be a misinterpretation of the study results.  

Moreover, science itself is rarely straightforward. Study results can be contradictory, because of subtle, or not so subtle, differences in hypotheses, cohorts, measurements and methodology. Particularly because journalists often work on tight deadlines, statistics may be misinterpreted or decontextualized thus potentially misleading the public.

This new research found that, when summarizing scientific texts, chatbots may omit details that limit the scope of research conclusions, leading to generalizations of results broader than warranted by the original study. (Mind you, they compared the chatbot-derived summaries to those published in The New England Journal of Medicine Journal Watch, and did not check other types of summaries written by individuals with lesser domain expertise.) Press releases written to “hype” new research, may succumb to overgeneralization, as well. And, like all research, there are likely other teams putting AI tools to similar tests. So, even as I anchor my point to the article published in RSOS, I remain keenly aware that new research that reinforces, expands, or contradicts these findings may be published imminently.

What’s at stake when media fails to get science right

It is critical not only that we best employ emerging tools such as AI to support the production of quality journalism, but also that we continue to support and foster the development of science reporters. There’s much at stake if we fail to get scientific coverage right.

At its worst, the media’s coverage of scientific research can contribute to misinformation and the erosion of public trust in science.

However, at its best, science-based journalism has the power to inform the public and help set the agenda in two ways: First, by circulating what the scientific community considers the most important discoveries and applications. And secondly, by generating public interest in specific ideas, discoveries, or technologies that have previously been rejected or overlooked, as noted by Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw over 50 years ago.

Science communication acts as a bridge, shaping perceptions and priorities on both sides. As new breakthroughs emerge, the media plays a crucial role in determining which ones capture the public’s attention. This symbiotic relationship between science and society is an important dynamic for media professionals to understand. Journalists must embrace the nuance and complexity of scientific research to effectively inform and educate the public, even as AI threatens to displace journalists and media organizations move beyond delegation towards automation.

Using the tools properly to create the best science journalism

If science reporting is indeed in crisis, reliance on AI will not improve the situation. Instead, we should give novice journalists the opportunity to summarize abstracts and papers, thereby learning to translate scientific jargon into more accessible language without losing context and nuance. Perhaps, this could be achieved through collaboration with a “dumb” AI chatbot and a human mentor, fostering a learning environment that emphasizes the importance of nuanced understanding.

If the future of white collar work is to rely more heavily on experts and cutting entry level positions, as suggested by both Anthropic’s CEO and Axios’ chief executive, then the future does indeed look grim. Experts aren’t hatched fully formed. Expertise is cultivated through experience and engagement with complex tasks. It starts, however, by slogging through the boring, automatable tasks now passed on to AI. As a doctoral student, I would have been tempted to use AI to summarize academic papers, find relevant quotes. But I wouldn’t be the expert I am today if I had taken that shortcut. A person becomes an expert. No one is born an expert, and neither is an AI assistant.

I’m not arguing against the use of AI. It’s a brilliant tool with valuable applications. However, as with most major shifts – and scientific discovery and reporting itself – it is often necessary to invest time and effort to get things right. Media leaders may want to take a step back, evaluate the hype and explore ways to integrate AI that supports the delicate task of reporting on science in a nuanced, thoughtful way. Perhaps then, we can ensure that reporting on science informs rather than misleads, ultimately fostering a more scientifically literate society.

Media executive considers YouTube video distribution
Featured Post | Video

Broadcasters take a considered approach to YouTube

The reality of digital publishing means that audiences are exposed to a wider variety of voices. Newspapers compete for attention with Tumblr, Facebook, individuals’ newsletters and countless other sources of information. This requires media companies to periodically reassess their appeal. They must also consider how they can best use new platforms to build audience and revenue.

This has been especially true for broadcasters. Where once their competition for video content might have been a handful of terrestrial channels, they now compete for time and attention with digital video platforms. That has led to concern among commercial broadcasters, as advertisers seek to reach those younger audiences – often at the expense of ad spend on traditional broadcast channels.

Globally, media buyers GroupM predict that linear television revenue will decrease by 3.4% over the course of 2025 as ad spend shifts over to streaming television. And, while linear TV still accounts for a significant portion of viewing, streaming is nearly equal. Millennials and Gen Z viewers are driving the move toward streaming and social video platforms, favoring the flexibility to watch content on-demand and across devices. These factors put pressure on traditional broadcasters to accelerate the shift to digital-first strategies that will satisfy audiences and advertisers alike. 

Programs and priorities

The form of video content audiences choose to watch has been altered by new platforms. Short-form video has become the standard for many viewers, particularly those who are spending increasing amounts of time on platforms like TikTok. That’s especially true for younger viewers: fewer than half of Gen Z viewers in the UK watch broadcast television. The 48% that do spend roughly three times as much time watching video on platforms like TikTok and YouTube. In the US the trends are similar: TikTok has roughly ten million more users than linear TV in the Gen Z demographic.

In particular, YouTube is too big for broadcasters looking to recoup those audience and revenue shifts to ignore. When it comes to competition, the video-sharing platform is now literally encroaching on traditional broadcasters’ territory: as of earlier this year more time is spent watching YouTube on TVs as on users’ phones.

That has led to radical shifts in production and distribution strategy. So, how are major broadcasters keeping up with those changing audience habits – and using their expertise to stay ahead of the pack when it comes to taking advantage of new platforms – YouTube in particular?

YouTube: A channel for video discovery

Ashley Hovey is Chief Digital Officer for the CW Network. She explains that YouTube is a priority for the company as it seeks to create new means by which audiences can discover its programs: “YouTube is a part of the broader fragmented media ecosystem, which plays a role in driving audiences that can complement our [owned and operated] platforms. YouTube is a great place for discovery and sampling, while owned properties can drive deeper engagement and brand advocacy.”

That speaks to the need for broadcasters to approach YouTube in a way that does not cannibalize existing video audiences or ad revenue. Despite the headlines, traditional broadcasting still attracts a vast amount of ad spend overall. Thus, it is vital to protect that revenue as broadcasters experiment with new platforms.

A Channel 4 spokesperson affirms that the strategy is to find complementary audiences on the platform, rather than migrating existing audiences over: “The audiences on YouTube are additive. So, it is a great way to direct people to content that we think they’ll enjoy and engage a larger, younger-skewing audience.

“We experiment heavily with the great data that YouTube generates. It is at the heart of everything we do. On YouTube, video distribution and views are as reliant on algorithm science as they are an entertaining format.”

As a result, that discovery flows both ways: through the use of YouTube’s tools – designed specifically for digital distribution – broadcasters are able to find out more about their audiences online. That informs not just ad sales, but commissioning strategy as well.

BBC Studios is the commercial subsidiary of the UK’s first public broadcaster. Its Digital Commercial & Partnerships Director Anaïs González Espinosa explains: “Through the YouTube Content ID tool, we’ve also been able to only not protect our content, which is very important for us, but also use the data as a demonstrator of consumer demand to inform our content pipeline and some of the choices we make.”

Space to experiment

For many broadcasters, YouTube is also a staging ground for new formats. That can range from content specifically created with digital video in mind – such as Channel 4’s upcoming “social-first short-form channel focused on cooking and food.” It also offers an opportunity to repurpose existing content.

Some broadcasters, for instance, upload entire episodes of their stock of programming to YouTube. That can be entire season, series, or “taster” episodes designed to entice viewers to seek out the rest of a season on their owned-and-operated channels. Others, meanwhile, create short highlight videos with the same goal in mind, but geared towards short-form social sharing.

The Channel 4 spokesperson shared that “One area we saw go from strength-to-strength in 2024 was full-episodes on YouTube, with an increase of 331% for UK views in the first nine months of 2024. Key titles that pulled in audiences were entertainment series… and documentaries including Click for Murder and 60 Days on the Estates, plus made for YouTube shows such as Minor Issues and Tapped Out.”

Compared with broadcast television, in which audiences were largely separate, watching from their own sofas, YouTube and other digital video platforms allow more opportunities for viewer interaction. Taking cues from livestreaming specialist platforms like Twitch, YouTube has prioritized live audience chat alongside much of its content. Espinosa says: “We use posts and community tabs to engage with our fandoms, enhancing their experiences with our content on the platform. Views are important but engagement on YouTube is key to success.”

Hovey confirms that the CW Network is also set to experiment with those “live” features soon, as a result of the increased engagement it can deliver.

However, she also notes that the platforms’ other creator-led features allow for experimentation with distribution: “The CW tests out new YouTube features depending on the content type. For example, we use the Thumbnail Test & Compare feature for our sports clips. This allows us to test different thumbnail designs for WWE matches and NASCAR races and helps optimize overall watch time for both.”

With YouTube’s increased focus on AI to translate its content to other languages, and further changes to memberships on the platform on the horizon, there is plenty of scope for broadcasters to continue experimenting. And thy have the added advantage of not needing to invest in those tools themselves.

Considered and careful

Traditional broadcasters, then, are approaching YouTube with both commercial and audience considerations in mind. The platform itself is too big to ignore. In fact, there would be an opportunity cost to not at least have a presence on it.

However, what is especially apparent in 2025 is that broadcasters are being highly considered when it comes to YouTube. It is a competitor for ad revenue, but also a collaborator when it comes to discovering new audiences and new opportunities for engagement.

As a result, broadcasters are constantly reappraising their strategy for publishing to the platform, as ad spend continues to shift and new tools and formats emerge. With the rise of features such as content locked behind memberships and in-app merch stores on the platform, broadcasters have access to new revenue and engagement models via YouTube – and are finding ways to do so without diminishing their opportunities on more traditional platforms.

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