Younger audiences, especially Gen Z, are shifting much of their video consumption to platforms like YouTube and TikTok. These platforms evolved from simple entertainment spaces into hubs that meet various emotional and intellectual needs, increasingly replacing traditional media consumption. The rise of these digital spaces fundamentally changes how people create, share, and consume media.
Digital Content Next’s (DCN) new study, Decoding Video Content Engagement explores how Gen Z and Gen Y interact with video content across YouTube and social media. These platforms, central to younger generations’ entertainment and information routines, feature a range of content. This content includes professionally produced material by established media brands and more spontaneous creations by independent influencers. This study provides insights into the motivations and behaviors of these audiences, with a follow-up quantitative phase planned to deepen the understanding.
How younger generations connect with video
The study identifies four primary themes in the way Gen Z and Gen Y engage with video content:
1. A primary entertainment medium
For younger generations, video is the primary entertainment medium. Unlike traditional media, which often require scheduled programming, platforms like YouTube and TikTok offer on-demand access to diverse content for education, escapism, and entertainment. This flexibility meets emotional and intellectual needs and enables creators and media brands to connect with younger audiences where they already are.
2. Algorithm-driven discovery
Algorithms are crucial in helping users discover content that matches their interests. Gen Z and Gen Y are active in shaping their feeds by engaging with content they enjoy, using likes, comments, and shares. This active participation enhances user satisfaction and ensures the platform serves more of what resonates with them, increasing their video consumption and deepening their engagement with YouTube and TikTok.
3. Instant decisions
Viewers often decide to engage with a video within the first 10 seconds. This makes the opening moments of a video critical for capturing attention. Whether from an influencer or a media brand, personal, relatable, and authentic content is more likely to engage viewers. Dynamic intros and the creator’s personality play a central role in sustaining interest and encouraging engagement.
4. Creator-driven content
Creators play an essential role in driving content consumption, as their personality, interests, and authenticity are key factors in fostering viewer engagement. Creators often appear as real, personal, and relatable figures. Therefore, audiences feel they can form connections with them, even if they are strangers in real life.
Consistency in content, whether in tone, subject matter, or humor, is vital in maintaining trust and building a loyal audience. Users anticipate new videos based on their enjoyment of previous content and expect a certain level of predictability. However, the authenticity of the personal brand, or media brand, is paramount.
Monetization and platform preferences
The rise of creator-led content presents new monetization opportunities as creators entertain and turn their audiences into valuable assets. Platforms like TikTok and YouTube allow creators to generate income through sponsorships, partnerships, and other revenue streams. The 50 Richest Content Creators study further highlights the earning power of top creators.
Media companies must recognize creators’ ecosystems and understand how they engage audiences. By understanding how creators and influencers resonate with younger demographics, media companies can enhance their brand presence and create authentic content that aligns with the expectations of their target audience.
Influencers’ role in the news ecosystem
The rise of news influencers further illustrates how traditional media consumption disrupts. According to the Pew Research Center’s study on America’s News Influencers, about one in five U.S. adults, and 37% of 18 to 29 year-olds, regularly access news through influencers on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. These influencers often operate independently of traditional media organizations and blend entertainment, personal branding, and journalism to engage their audiences.
Influencers often provide diverse content, from factual updates to humor, opinions, and breaking news. As the DCN study highlights, influencers often present differing opinions and foster engagement by offering unique perspectives. Pew reports that 65% of followers believe influencers enhance their understanding of current events. However, concerns about accuracy and accountability persist.
Navigating opportunities and challenges
As the digital landscape evolves, DCN’s findings underscore the need for media brands to adapt to the changing behaviors and preferences of younger audiences. Platforms like YouTube and TikTok offer opportunities to create personalized, authentic content that resonates with Gen Z and Gen Y. The growing creator economy further illustrates the value of influencer partnerships, enabling media companies to tap into established audiences and generate revenue through sponsorships and other collaborations. However, brands must remain vigilant about authenticity, as younger viewers quickly reject content that feels disingenuous or overly commercialized.
DCN’s follow-up quantitative research will provide deeper insights into these trends. It will offer actionable recommendations for media companies aiming to connect with younger audiences more authentically and engagingly. As video content continues to dominate the digital ecosystem, understanding the role of creators and their influence on consumer behavior is essential for navigating the future of media consumption.
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The value proposition of streaming may once have been ad-free experiences. However, today’s media companies seek to have as many viable revenue sources as possible. And, for streamers, that inevitably means showing commercials. However, there’s a balancing act between offering a streaming service worth subscribing to and advertising experiences worth paying for.
There are lessons to be learned throughout the streaming ecosystem. One thing that experts agree on is that improved targeting is critical to attract brands and advertisers. Providing the insights that marketers want is essential for getting them to spend their ad dollars on streaming platforms.
Mixed revenue moves to the fore
The shift to a mixed model didn’t all happen this year, but these last 12 months feel like a point from which there is no turning back, not least because Amazon Prime Video joined Netflix in having an ad-supported offering. Other services have had them from the outset—a smart move given the high sign-up rates for ad-supported streamers.
Adding a cheaper ad-supported tier into the mix helps streaming services bring in the last holdouts and retain more of those that may be tempted to quit. To some extent, the companies actually want their customers to drop into the advertising tier because the more people seeing adverts, the more the streamers can charge for the spots.
Amazon faced a particular backlash when it launched its ad-supported tier on Prime Video this year. Unlike equivalent offerings on Netflix and Disney+, which make such tiers cheaper, Prime Video subscribers get adverts by default at the existing price and have to pay extra to not see them. To encourage retention when introducing an ad tier, companies must avoid making users feel like they are getting a degraded service or having a price rise forced upon them.
For Netflix, the addition of an ad-supported tier seems to be working. In the third quarter of this year, it added 5.1 million subscribers. The company said that in countries where the Basic with Ads tier is available, it accounted for over 50% of those taking out a subscription. This growth is crucial to Netflix because, while it might be the biggest streamer overall, it needs to find a way to bring that heft to its advertising offering.
A course correction
This is all despite the fact that, for years streamers (and Netflix in particular) worked hard to convince the audience that they wanted subscriptions instead of adverts. As Tom Harrington, Head of Television at Enders Analysis puts it: “Netflix had been telling its subscriber base for basically a decade ‘ads are the worst thing. You don’t need ads. Just pay us money.’”
However, after two bad quarters, the streamer changed its tune and launched the Basic with Ads tier in 2022. Harrington describes this as a “kneejerk” reaction. He believes that the Netflix ad product is not innovative. He also argues that traditional ratings arbiters produce more reliable data and provide a better understanding of who is actually seeing the adverts.
The lack of granularity remains a key problem among streamers as they try and draw in brands. Harrington explains that “Netflix doesn’t really know that much about its subscriber base” and argues that Netflix “is not set up” for advertising and rather rushed out its product.
The ad tools from Netflix and other streamers remain rather blunt and old-fashioned. These firms know which account played a show and which ads were served, but seemingly very little beyond that. Ollie Beckwith, Head of Digital Engagement at consultancy Sodali & Co. shares a similar view to Harrington. He argues that other digital platforms might still be more useful to advertisers, despite the popularity of streaming.
“Even in an evolving cookie-less world, social channels like LinkedIn have grown to reach users based on highly detailed demographic variables,” he said. “On the flip side, despite Amazon owning Amazon Web Services (AWS), a platform that collects and delivers data and insights, the targeting capabilities on Amazon Prime Video are too broad to have a meaningful impact on corporate individuals, the same can be said about advertising on Apple TV.”
Thus, it is critical that streamers work to improve their targeting capabilities to stay competitive in the digital ad space. AI is likely to play a significant role in this. Spotify has already incorporated it and other platforms need to focus on an effective rollout of ad-related AI technology for everything from operations to creative.
Offer meaningful advertising opportunities
Jayesh Rajdev, Controller of Advanced Advertising at ITV, a Public Service Broadcaster (PSB) in the UK, pushes back against the narrative that streaming ads are inefficient. He says that the partnerships his company has with credit ratings agency Experian and major supermarket Tesco help it provide its advertisers with meaningful targeting.
He explains that ITV has “a really well-established partnership with Tesco where we’ve matched [streaming service] ITVX users to Tesco Clubcard holders at a registered user level. So, you’ve got the biggest viewer graph, if you like, matched to the biggest shopper graph.” Ultimately, the ITV ad innovator argues that the “ability to build an almost funnel centric approach to how you use or deploy your TV advertising has become really powerful.”
Things are moving forward too. “We’re evolving from attributes to attributes plus intent,” he says. I.e., instead of just knowing characteristics of the person with the account, they can identify some shopping intentions too. This is going to be another crucial thing for any streaming platform to develop moving forward.
Streaming advertising opportunities ahead
Given the developments we’ve already seen over the last 12 months, the year ahead in streaming advertising is likely to be a fascinating, and rapidly evolving, one. Making advertising more interactive will be one area of focus for the industry.
Mike Caprio, SVP, GM Global Advertising at unified video tech platform JWP Connatix believes that in 2025 we will see “the fusion of commerce and video as payment processors like PayPal and eCommerce platforms like Shopify enter the fray. Shoppable video—with seamless purchase integrations—emerges as a critical tool for performance-driven campaigns.”
Rajdev reveals that ITV is “about to launch our own really pioneering lead gen ad format that is all remote control initiated for the viewer, and a really slick experience that enables our to convey interests in an ad on ITVX really, really quickly and in a super, super slick way.”
Another key area of opportunity is sports, where viewers are generally used to, and accepting of, advertising. “Sports will serve as a huge opportunity for the growth of ad-supported streaming in 2025,” according to Keith Bedford, General Manager EMEA of streaming tech company Wurl.
“As studios and sports broadcasters struggle to tie in major upfront deals and connect with younger audiences, new models for revenue and content discovery will be required,” adds Bedford. “Short-form video could be one way we start to see sports content companies garner interest and boost engagement for their long-form and TVOD [transactional video on demand] businesses.”
One thing is clear, from adding interactivity to improve targeting, those offering ad-based streaming platforms are going to have to keep innovating if they want to draw in marketing dollars from big brands. Despite the fact that streaming seems to edging closer to classic television experiences (and business models), today’s brands expect to know their money is being spent wisely, and streaming platforms will need to prove it.
Media companies are increasingly exploring innovative revenue models as a strategic element of ongoing efforts to reduce their reliance on advertising and subscriptions. This is significant because, although the global advertising market continues to grow, the proportion of these revenues coming to publishers has long been in decline. Similarly, despite the fact that the media industry has seen numerous subscription success stories, research suggests that the opportunity may be leveling off.
Given these financial realities, revenue diversification is essential. Fortunately, there are many ideas out there to learn from. Here are five alternative – and well-established – revenue sources that are poised to become more prominent, and important, for publishers in the year ahead.
As Generative AI continues to gain traction, many media companies are signing licensing agreements with the companies behind these technologies.
There are pros and cons to this, with several publishers currently litigating against their content being used by these platforms. However, for some media companies, AI licensing agreements offer an alluring mix of copyright protection and monetization opportunities.
Examples that we have seen in the past year include:
Hearst’s partnership with ChatGPT which promises “appropriate citations and direct links.”
Reuters, Axel Springer and the USA TODAY Network are featured content partners for a voice delivered summary of the news and weather that is built into Microsoft’s Co-Pilot product.
Reuters also agreed a multi-year deal with Meta, supplying content for queries asked about the news in Meta’s AI chatbot.
However, not all publishers are ceding the AI opportunity to tech companies, which could offer licensing revenue closer to home. One major publisher, Dow Jones, recently signed up nearly 4,000 news publishers for Factiva Smart Summary, a new Generative AI feature in its business intelligence platform. These licensing agreements span more than 160 countries and 29 different languages. Partners include The Associated Press, Swiss News Agency AWP Finanznachrichten AG, News Corp Australia, and The Washington Post.
As Generative AI continues to expand, expect more of these partnerships and products in 2025.
2. Live events and experiences
Pre-pandemic, live events offered a major source of revenue optimism for publishers. Post-COVID, this has morphed into a mix of in-person, online, and hybrid models. To draw sponsors and sell tickets, events work best when aligned with your brand and the content you are known for, an approach that a growing number of media outlets are leaning into.
Forbes has capitalized on its 30 Under 30 list by wrapping a live multi-day event around it. Their 2025 program includes a private concert, networking opportunities, industry-focused excursions, as well as sessions with speakers.
Condé Nast leveraged one of its best known brands to launch Vogue World in 2022, which are going strong. Hosted in global fashion capitals like New York and Paris, these annual one-day events are also live streamed. Hollywood is the location for their 2025 event. The company is also hosting an immersive exhibition in London, narrated by Cate Blanchett, which explores the history of the modern runway show.
The Innovation Consulting Group notes that some publishers derive up to 20% of their income from events. Events, they observe, can “help hike circulation, attract advertisers who might not advertise in the magazine’s media,” as well as “give magazines “face time” with their subscribers and potential subscribers.”
Given these strategic and financial benefits, we can expect more publishers to explore the burgeoning events market in the year ahead.
3. Podcasting revenue innovation
Podcasts have been a bright spot for many publishers for a while, with many doubling down on the medium despite wider financial challenges. For the biggest shows and brands this can be a particularly profitable space.
Continued optimism for this medium means that some publishers are looking to expand their podcasting portfolio and innovate on the ways they monetize.
Meanwhile, the merging of events and podcasts is growing in prominence and revenue potential. Fans can connect with hosts and each other, deepening loyalty to brands and shows. All the while, podcasts offer media companies multiple monetization opportunities that go beyond advertising and subscriptions.
This summer, The Ringer hosted a residency for six of their podcasts at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles. “As an audience engagement tool it takes fandom to a different level,” says Geoff Chow, Head of Podcast Studios & Managing Director for The Ringer.
The Wall Street Journal’s recent dive into “The Rest Is History” podcast revealed that its hosts were netting nearly $100,000 a month, through a combination of their podcast, monetizing clips on YouTube and live events. “History professors struggle to get students excited about the past,” the Journal wrote. “Yet at a recent live show in London, Holland and Sandbrook drew a raucous Gen Z audience with a rock-concert vibe.”
Wondery is similarly looking to create live tours for some of the most popular podcasts. With more than 200 active shows, over a quarter of which hit No. 1 on Apple Podcasts, they have a potentially large paying audience to tap into. Participants in their membership plan, Wondery+, get early access to these live events, a membership benefit deployed by Slate and others.
As podcasts continue to evolve, these types of live events and tie-ins with wider memberships programs, will only become increasingly intertwined.
4. E-commerce and affiliate partnerships
With e-commerce now worth nearly $1.2 trillion in the USA alone this year, this is too big a market for media companies to ignore. In response, media entities are progressively integrating e-commerce into their platforms, selling merchandise and other products directly to consumers.
The Daily Wire generated over $22 million from commerce in 2023. nearly 10% of its revenues. Axios reports that much of this derived from its Jeremy’s Razors products, which produced $19 million in sales. Their merchandise store made up most of The Daily Wire’s remaining commerce income.
Recommendation sites are another area of e-commerce that media players continue to explore. The Associated Press partnered with Taboola in March to launch AP Buyline, offering how-to guides and reviews in areas such as fashion, beauty and wellness, tech, pets and Black Friday deals.
This launch came against a backdrop whereby some of AP’s core business is being squeezed. Local publishers Gannett and McClatchy ended their long-standing partnerships with AP, due to a desire to cut costs and invest elsewhere. As the AP themselves note, fees from U.S. newspapers were at one point responsible for “virtually all of its revenue.” However, diversification means “U.S. newspaper fees now constitute just over 10% of its annual income.”
Across the pond, The Independent, a UK newspaper, reported a 26% increase in revenue from e-commerce in the past year. Although review sections have potentially been impacted by recent changes to Google’s site reputation abuse policies, some publishers are growing their e-commerce revenues, despite inflationary pressures and a cost-of-living crisis.
Such initiatives highlight how publishers can leverage their editorial authority to benefit from reader’s purchasing decisions. Effectively creating affiliate partnerships can assist audiences and a publishers’ bottom line.
5. The games people play
The last piece of our revenue puzzle for 2025 sees publishers continuing to invest in games.
As twipe explains, games “engage readers differently than traditional news content.” “They provide a mental break, foster daily engagement, and satisfy psychological cravings… forming daily habits crucial for subscriber retention.”
Subsequently, games can be a valuable plank in helping to drive loyalty. Jonathan Knight, head of games at The New York Times, says that “when we see subscribers engage with both games and news in any given week, we’re seeing some of the best long-term subscriber retention from that pattern.” Subsequently, the Gray Lady has expanded their portfolio of games. They’ve also made games more prominent on their app, encouraging audiences to “come for the games, stay for the news.”
In that vein, French outlet Ouest-France publishes a game called “mystery photo of the day”. Readers must match the photo with the article in which it featured. “It’s a way to get them to discover our articles,” says Emmanuel Chevalier, head of Ouest-France’s digital acquisition department. Meanwhile, Hearst’s acquisition last year of Puzzmo is another example of a publisher flexing their financial muscles to expand their games offering.
Games can offer an escape from an often bleak news agenda, providing a means for audiences to come back every day, and thereby create a deeper connection between readers and publishers. Because of this, games are poised to play an even more critical role in engagement in revenue strategies in 2025 and beyond.
Looking ahead at the importance of revenue diversification
From AI licensing to live events, e-commerce, podcasts, and games, publishers are actively diversifying their income strategies in response to shifts in markets and consumer needs. While advertising and subscriptions remain critical components of the media revenue landscape, media companies continue to experiment and innovate to leverage their brand strengths to create other revenue streams.
Through these efforts, publishers are finding new ways to connect with audiences and drive revenues. In doing this, they are also trying to lay long-term foundations, with several of these strands focused on fostering loyalty, deepening engagement, and connecting with audiences in innovative ways.
As we head into 2025, the challenge will be scaling these initiatives in an increasingly competitive landscape. When many publisher peers are doing similar things, distinctiveness, brand value and relationships, as well as pricing points, will be paramount.
At the same time, given the need to reduce reliance on traditional revenue models, diversification remains more important than ever. Doing this successfully requires flexibility, creativity, and a willingness to experiment.
If this is executed well, like some of the examples that we have seen here, then innovative strategies to create income offer more than just means for survival. After all, revenue diversification offers perhaps the only pathway to long-term growth and resilience in an ever-evolving media ecosystem. As such, the need to explore some of the types of ideas outlined in this article, and to actively move away from a reliance on advertising and subscriptions, is non-negotiable.
As we barrel into the new year and all that awaits, the media industry is at the nexus of technological disruption, regulatory upheaval, and changing consumer sentiment in terms of media and expectations for it. From the rise of artificial intelligence to intensifying antitrust enforcement and the shifting stance of dominant platforms, the stakes for publishers and content companies have never been higher.
Here’s a look at five critical trends in the media landscape and what they may mean in the future.
1. AI disruption triggers both innovation and legal challenges
Artificial intelligence is reshaping content creation and distribution with breakneck speed. AI-generated search results are increasingly the norm, while the fate of the underlying articles and video remains murky. Publishers are leveraging AI to scale production, personalize experiences, and streamline workflow. However, while this boom propels media forward, the underlying AI models are contentious in their devaluation – or outright dismissal of – property rights, IP, and the fair value of content, not to mention debate around the quality and accuracy of AI generated search results and source attribution.
In 2025, marquee copyright cases are slated for trial. Courts will tackle questions about how intellectual property laws apply to works created or transformed by AI rather than humans. At stake are the legality of using copyrighted material to train AI models and the extent to which those models can monetize their output while risking, if not entirely supplanting, the clear licensing opportunity for publishers. These rulings will set precedents and could rewrite the rules of the road for both AI developers and publishers.
Joining the groundswell, Canadian media orgs jumped in last week by collectively suing OpenAI, alleging unauthorized use of their news reporting to train its models. Similar lawsuits are expected to continue globally as publishers push for enforcement against misappropriation and/or copyright violations of their work.
Media companies must once again prepare for these shifts by walking and chewing gum at the same time. As ever, publishers must safeguard their media content while continuously experimenting. The challenge will be striking the balance between embracing AI’s potential and ensuring accountability with their strategic technical platform partners.
2. The role of a free and plural press amid political threats
In this era of heightened political tensions, the role of the press as a democratic watchdog is paramount. In the U.S., the new administration brings with it a wave of uncertainty. Media leaders watch with a wary eye as leadership nominations roll in.
Concerns about surveillance, legal pressures and expense, and erosion of journalistic protections here and around the world are intensifying (to say the least). Globally, authoritarian regimes are leaning on tech to suppress dissent and control narratives, challenging the resilience of independent media.
For publishers, protecting and promoting a pluralistic media ecosystem is essential. This means investing in news reporting, supporting press freedom initiatives, and maintaining commitments to accuracy and integrity despite political pressures. As threats to press freedom grow, a robust fourth estate remains critical to the industry’s long-term viability as well as to democracy itself.
3. Social platforms: shifting sands in distribution
Social media’s dominance in content distribution is being reshaped by user migration. Elon Musk’s tumultuous leadership of X (formerly Twitter) has alienated advertisers and much of its user base, notably journalists. This has fueled the rapid rise of Bluesky, a decentralized alternative designed to resist the power of billionaires and governments. Remarkably, Bluesky is approaching or has surpassed Meta’s Threads in certain usage metrics. Bluesky’s embrace of open-web principles and support for journalism – very different from the current suppression of links on X and Threads – has further endeared it to journalists and publishers.
These platform shifts come amid the FTC v. Meta antitrust trial, scheduled for April 2025. Although the legal complaint focuses on the relevant market of social media built around the personal social graph (thereby excluding X, Bluesky, Threads, and LinkedIn), the dynamics of platform competition remain crucial for publishers to connect with new audiences where they want to be reached. It is also as yet unclear how the incoming Trump administration will respond to a potential ban of TikTok, which is set to hit a key milestone the day before his inauguration.
For media companies, platform diversification has long been a requirement. Relying too heavily on any one distribution channel leaves brands vulnerable to algorithm changes, shifting user sentiment, and unpredictable policy shifts. Building owned-and-operated platforms, prioritizing direct relationships with audiences, and leveraging multiple distribution channels are essential strategies to ensure resilience in this fragmented ecosystem.
4. Regulatory and court interventions reshape big tech
2025 is shaping up to be a watershed year for antitrust regulation and enforcement. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has already won its search antitrust case, calling for the divestiture of Google’s Chrome browser and potentially its Android operating system. Meanwhile, the DOJ’s Virginia adtech case (expected to result in another major win) foreshadows broader changes to Google’s dominance in digital advertising. Next up: the Texas adtech trial in March, followed by the previously mentioned FTC antitrust case against Meta.
Beyond the U.S., Canada’s competition regulator called for the breakup of Google’s adtech business last week, with the European Union likely to follow suit. These developments could significantly reshape the global ad market, which would offer publishers an opportunity to regain control over their data and revenue streams.
However, it also introduces uncertainty. Navigating new partnerships, technologies, and regulatory frameworks will require adaptability and leaning into a long-term strategy while bearing short-term headaches (read: costs). Building strong first-party data capabilities and exploring alternative adtech solutions will be crucial for growth in this evolving environment.
5. Advertising reinvented: privacy, AI, and accountability
Advertising is undergoing a transformation driven by consumer privacy concerns and regulation. The death of third-party cookies and the rise of privacy-focused technologies have elevated the importance of first-party data. This means that publishers’ direct relationships with audiences and the high-quality content they provide are more valuable than ever.
Google’s antitrust challenges are also poised to reshape the future of advertising. The cases brought against the company globally allege manipulation of ad auctions and abuse of its monopoly power to harm publishers and consumers alike. If successful, these actions could reinvigorate competition and enable publishers to negotiate better terms, which would have been available for the past 10 years if it weren’t for Google’s behaviors. The greatest fruit of Google’s abuses across search and adtech may well be YouTube where Google has been able to marry its unparalleled access to search, location, web-wide browsing, and adtech data with the largest pool of streaming video inventory on earth. It will be interesting to see if this attracts regulatory scrutiny in 2025.
At the same time, AI is accelerating the evolution of advertising strategies. Predictive targeting, on the fly ad creative, and more advanced tech to control ad campaigns are helping large platforms capture new dollars from offline retail media while better maintaining privacy. For publishers, a dual focus on consumer trust and innovative monetization will be critical for success if they want to peel off some of these dollars.
Outlook: shaping the future of media
In 2025, the media industry is defined by rapid change and high stakes. From AI-driven innovation and platform fragmentation to regulatory challenges and shifting consumer expectations, content companies face a complex and evolving landscape. Success will require a commitment to trust, adaptability, and creativity.
As DCN has long advocated, publishers prepared for these shifts – whether through diversifying revenue streams, strengthening first-party data, or doubling down on audience relationships – will be well-positioned to survive if not thrive. In this new era of accountability and competition, it’s not just about outlasting disruption; it’s about shaping what comes next.
As news consumption evolves, The New York Times’ R&D Lab department is at the forefront of redefining how stories are told. Their goal? To enhance the narrative experience without sacrificing journalistic integrity.
With a focus on exploring how emerging technologies can be applied in service of journalism, the department is proving that innovation can enrich journalism rather than distract from it. But it’s a fine balance. In a landscape littered with shiny new things, where innovation is often considered a buzzword, the R&D Lab team pioneer new technologies to serve the story.
Scott Lowenstein, director of research and development strategy at The New York Times, oversees the R&D team, leading experimentation with the next generation of storytelling. The R&D group is a mostly technical team that works on applications of emerging technology in the service of journalism, but also for their products and business, he explained.
From the NYT’s R&D Lab’s experiments in mixed reality journalism.
The launch of virtual reality (VR) in 2016 marked a significant achievement, as the R&D Lab created over 30 immersive films that showcased the narrative potential of VR. The films received high viewer engagement marked by over 1 million downloads of their VR app. In 2017, the team supported newsroom storytelling by integrating emerging technologies like mixed reality and connected home devices, while also improving public figure identification in photos through automation.
In 2021, the team developed the Times’ first AR game and animated sequences for augmented reality, continuing to explore spatial journalism and improve media transmission with 5G technology. By 2022, they emphasized integrating locative data and spatial understanding into journalism, aiming to better reflect and connect with communities, thus enhancing storytelling.
“Never ending cycle of exciting, interesting problems to tackle”
A lot of the R&D team’s work starts when Times’ staffers come to them with an ambitious project they’d like to do, but don’t know where to start. Lowenstein said the team does their research on technologies, the latest tools in the market, and projects in adjacent industries from architecture to game design.
“We prioritize the ones that feel achievable. We find the technology to match the ambition of the story,” Lowenstein said. “We will oftentimes say, this technology is really cool, but it’s not ready. But, when we do find an idea that works and match it well with the story, then we’ll help that team come up with the first execution.”
And, when the team finds a technology that works, they’ll find ways to make it repeatable, so that future stories within The Times can use it. “We’ll also often open source our work and share it with a broader journalism community to help replicate what we’ve done.”
spatial journalism in a broad sense, which encompasses things from 3D to mixed reality and virtual reality.
“The mission is to try to use these tools in service of great storytelling and not try to do something gimmicky. Instead, we want do something where this new tool could help us do what we couldn’t do before,” Lowenstein said.
A lot of the projects are seriously ambitious. They’re not only hard to do, but they also require a large team of technologists, editors, and resources. So, the Lab is invested in how to facilitate this process.
“A lot of our ambition is trying to just make that whole process easier for the teams so that they can just say, we want to do this and that they can do it the same day,” Lowenstein said. “Some of it is building software and templates and things that don’t require a super-specialized 3D engineer to build a 3D story. That’s where a lot of our effort goes: finding those repeatable things and creating the tools that allow editors to do that work with less or no help from us.”
Some of Lowenstein’s favorite stories were during the early days of augmented reality. “We built a lot of stories that we published as 2D stories on the web, and then translated specific slices of them into AR, that people could use on their phones. Some of those were very well received and we learned a ton from that experience.”
Balancing innovation and integrity
The New York Times R&D Lab is not interested in employing the latest technology just for the sake of doing it. Technology is a tool in the service of their mission, not an end in itself. “One of the great things about working with our amazing journalists and editors is that their gimmick meter is really strong,” Lowenstein said.
Timeline of innovation at The New York Times’ R&D Lab
2006 – Launch of R&D Lab
Foundation: The New York Times R&D Lab was established to innovate and experiment with new technologies and storytelling methods.
2009 – Multimedia Applications
Commuter App: An innovative app that combines traffic cameras, Google Maps, and location-specific Times content, enhancing news delivery through geocoded articles and blog posts.
2011 – Interactive Technology
Magic Mirror: A data-bearing mirror using motion sensing and voice recognition to deliver on-demand information via the Times’ APIs.
2014 – Semantic Listening
New Tools: Developed systems for extracting semantic information and crowdsourcing data on cultural artifacts.
2015 – Wearable Technology
Focused on wearables, examining their potential uses in the media landscape.
2016 – Virtual Reality (VR)
Created over 30 immersive films.
2017 – Emerging Technologies
Shifted focus to support newsroom storytelling by integrating technologies such as mixed reality and connected home devices, while also improving public figure identification in photos through automation.
2019 – Photogrammetry, Spatial
Computer Vision: Revealing hidden narratives within visual content.
Photogrammetry: Creating immersive 3D environments from 2D photos.
Spatial Computing: Exploring new storytelling formats in augmented reality.
Media Transmission & NLP: Enhancing photo and video transmission and extracting insights from the NYT’s extensive archive.
Developed the Times’ first AR game and animated sequences for augmented reality, while continuing to explore spatial journalism and improving media transmission with 5G technology.
2022 – Spatial Journalism
Emphasized integrating locative data and spatial understanding into journalism to better reflect and connect with communities, thereby enhancing storytelling.
Technology evolves rapidly, and having a solid understanding of emerging tech applications is incredibly valuable. The R&D team began exploring large language models back in 2019. Now that these models are widely adopted, they have a significant advantage in knowing how to apply them responsibly.
From the NYT R&D Labs’ work on media transmission and provenance.
Lowenstein emphasized the importance of transparency in their work. “We’re always going to tell our readers when and how we’re using these emerging technologies,” he said. “I view it as a duty to our readers to explain how we’re using these technologies. And in that process of explanation, that is the process of balancing storytelling and integrity in action.”
Those principles show up in reader-facing ways. This is evident on their website, where stories include methodologies, labels, and sometimes tutorials or explanatory text. Those principles also show up in industry-facing ways. The R&D Lab shares their work as much as they can on their website, and through open source libraries for others in media.
“I think that’s one of the great benefits of having this kind of open source mentality is that we can see, we put our stuff out there and we can see how the community is using it,” Lowenstein said.
A lot of people are using the photogrammetry, the spatial journalism and 3D storytelling, using the libraries and contributing to them, he explained. “It’s super gratifying to see this little community built up around some of the photogrammetry, the spatial journalism. It’s awesome to see how people have taken that work and evolved it and made it their own.”
From the NYT’s R&D Lab’s experiments in spatial journalism.
Technology should be in service of the story
As technology and journalism continue to evolve, other organizations can glean valuable insights from The New York Times R&D Lab’s approach to experimenting with emerging technologies. For one, Lowenstein emphasizes that technology should be in service of the story. “That’s first and foremost. We don’t do it for the sake of doing it. The story should come first and you should really look through if the ambition of the story warrants it.”
Embracing experimentation is equally vital, and even though trial may lead to error, each misstep could lead to unexpected insights. “We often try things that don’t work the first time or the fifth time, and then you find the perfect fit,” Lowenstein said.
Lowenstein suggested keeping a record of what you’ve tried and what you’ve learned along the way. He says that oftentimes, things will pop up you didn’t know would be useful in the future. Keeping records allows you to adapt to new possibilities.
Finally, the director suggested that it is important for media companies to have principles about how they use technology responsibly and in service of their work. It helps guide decision making.
By establishing clear principles for the responsible application of emerging tech, organizations can carve out a focused space to innovate while delivering quality journalism that resonates with audiences. Ultimately, it’s this blend of technology, experimentation, and integrity that will empower the industry to navigate into the future.
“In some ways, having those clear principles about when and how you use technology is a great creative constraint. It allows you to define the parameters of how you want to use the technology in service of quality journalism. And, working within those boundaries from the beginning makes it achievable and makes the space of things that you could do smaller so that you can actually focus on the right stuff,” Lowenstein said.
WhatsApp may be the fourth most popular social network in the world. However, to date it has not been a place publishers have had much success building audiences. Over the last few years though, the Meta-owned messaging app has been building out capabilities for brands to connect with its thousands of millions of users.
One promising component, WhatsApp Channels, was launched globally in September 2023 following a few months of trials. Rather than being a two-way communication tool like Communities or chats, Channels are a broadcast feature; the first time WhatsApp has experimented with this type of one-way communication.
Despite the relative newness of Channels, WhatsApp is an established, trusted and popular platform with audiences. A year on from its official launch, publishers who made the move to launch Channels early on are seeing success. Here’s how Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance and Reach plc are using Channels to connect with global audiences, drive pageviews, and experiment with content sharing.
Bloomberg: leaning into global audiences
Bloomberg was one of a few publishers invited by Meta into a pilot program of WhatsApp Channels 18 months ago. This meant that they were present when Channels was rolled out more widely, which Katie Boyce, Head of Digital Editorial at Bloomberg says was an advantage. “Being there at the start has really helped us grow that audience,” she said.
The main Bloomberg News WhatsApp Channel has 2 million followers. The publisher also has a number of more targeted accounts, from Bloomberg India with 32k followers and Bloomberg Africa with 36k followers, to Spanish and Portuguese language Channels with 9k and 1k followers respectively. They also have a separate Bloomberg Opinion account, to separate out columns from the news shared in their primary channel.
“We have a robust global audience so we’ve been looking for an opportunity to do something with them for a while. And, given WhatsApp’s international user base, they opted to launch region-specific Channels. During the run up to elections in India, they also experimented with offering free articles to audiences who came from newsletters and WhatsApp Channels as a way for them to sample paywalled content.
This was used as a tactic the other way too, as Boyce explained. “In [articles about the] India election, we then promoted following us on WhatsApp and subscribing to the newsletter as a way to get more of an engagement tool to reach those users directly.”
However, Boyce said that the majority of users are finding Bloomberg’s Channels within the app themselves as they’re browsing, searching, or onboarding.
The team receives metrics on traffic and clicks from WhatsApp Channels. And, given that sharing news links is a very strong user behavior on the platform, it makes sense to promote links there. But it’s not just links that work; images and polls also perform particularly well.
“We have been experimenting more with image list posts, to see if we can add variety in the channel,” Boyce said. “Polls have also seen some nice engagement. But generally, we focus on having an image with every post, because those perform best.”
Despite Bloomberg’s success so far, they still view their foray into WhatsApp as an experiment. “For us, our top priority from a distribution perspective is to build direct connections with our audiences,” Boyce emphasized, noting that audience-building on homepages, apps and newsletters is where most effort is focused. “But we see WhatsApp as an experimental platform, particularly in key international markets where we can reach new audiences.”
Yahoo Finance: focused experimentation
Yahoo Finance has also benefited from being early to Channels. They spotted that Meta was leaning into the platform last year, and once Channels were available more widely, they set one up. “We approached it like any new platform where we can go and meet different audiences, and figure out what they like,” said Yahoo Finance’s Head of Distribution, Michael Kelley.
Kelley believes the early mover advantage has helped propel them to 2.6 million followers. “Organic growth is hard to come by on mature platforms,” he said, explaining that from an audience development standpoint, opportunities like this are rare as a rush of people check out new tools, and platforms make it as easy as possible to discover. “From a publisher standpoint, getting in early and posting things consistently that are resonating, you can catch that initial window of organic growth.”
Unlike Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance has decided to concentrate on one Channel and build engagement and growth there. So far, the team is concentrating on posting, building up workflows and best practice, and seeing what works best.
Charts and data visualizations have done especially well, leaning into the publication’s authority in the finance space. He has also noticed increased interest in international stories, with one chart about the Mexican peso performing particularly strongly.
Yahoo Finance is also still in an experimental stage with WhatsApp Channels. “I’m encouraging our editors to experiment, have fun, try to see what the audience is reacting to, and focus on the brand and displaying the quality content,” Kelley emphasized. “Everything else will follow.”
Reach plc: a strategic approach to WhatsAppcommunities and channels
UK regional publisher Reach plc has had a presence on WhatsApp for some time. They were early experimenters with WhatsApp Communities; a unified space for multiple groups with various topics and interests. Audience & Content Director Dan Russell explained that Reach saw an opportunity for a different type of communication with Channels, and they now run both.
“For instance, we’ll have a WhatsApp Community for a local area, but a WhatsApp channel for all our money content. So it’s the same platform, but different mechanisms and results,” he said, noting that many of Reach’s 70+ regional publications will all write about money in one way or another.
However, Russell has noticed some differences between the two tools. Channels, in his experience, grow very, very quickly. But the returns – pageviews in Reach’s case – aren’t nearly as high as Communities. Reach has 2.3 million people following various Channels compared to 270,000 members of Communities. He told the World News Media Congress in May that Channel members only drove around 1 million page views a month, but by contrast, almost every Community user reads at least one thing a month.
The engagement disparity is partly down to the way WhatsApp notifies for new content between the two. But Russell acknowledged that for them, the focus on growing a UK audience on Communities for Reach’s primarily UK-based content makes it more relevant than the more global audiences reached through Channels.
There is an opportunity here for the publisher. “Channels gives us access into different markets, especially for things like sport; Man United, Arsenal – those teams have members from around the world,” Russell said. “Channels in some countries is a lot bigger, massively bigger than they are here. So what that’s allowing us to do, which is very valuable, is to reach those people wherever they are.”
“Say 45% of [a Channel’s] members are from African countries. Do we commission a piece on an African football player specifically for Channels, does that get a better click through rate?”
Like Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance, Reach has found that growth to Channels is rapid without requiring much additional promotion, especially in other countries. Russell noted that their Arsenal Channel has 550,000 followers which have all grown completely organically.
“Polls do very well,” he said, when asked what types of content they were experimenting with. “We want people to click through because at the end of the day, that’s how we make money.
“But the other thing we do is share YouTube videos in there, because YouTube’s videos in Channels work really well. You can watch it [in the app], and get your share of the advertising revenue that YouTube puts on it.”
As Meta continues their work on Channels, building out more detailed analytics, Reach is continuing to invest effort into their presence on the platform. They also use Channels as an opportunity to promote related newsletters, which helps get more first-party data on users.
Challenges with WhatsApp Channels
Despite the positive organic growth all three publishers have seen on WhatsApp Channels, the experience has not been without its challenges. Metrics are still very basic. Publishers aren’t given much of a sense of the demographics or who the users are who follow them, unlike other social media platforms.
“They don’t have established analytics, but that’s not surprising given it’s basically a year old… Even with Instagram and Facebook before that, it takes time for the platform to figure out and build, from a product and engineering standpoint, those robust back-end analytics,” Yahoo Finance’s Kelley pointed out.
He says this has led to a lack of clarity over what the best cadence is for publishing to a Channel. Some publishers post hundreds of updates each week. Yahoo Finance posts once or twice a day to their Channel, with Kelley worrying that too often will turn people off.
Although the broadcast-style nature of Channels can be appealing to publishers, Bloomberg’s Boyce said that the lack of interaction with followers could be a challenge. “We’re able to track what users click on, but we’re not able to engage with them like a traditional social platform,” she said, explaining that users can only respond through emoji reactions.
Reach’s Russell said that it had taken some hoop-jumping to get their Channels verified by Meta. But he believes this has immensely helped growth when people are looking for trusted Channels to follow. He warned other publishers that it can be difficult to get a workflow going that makes it worth it, “because you do have to put a lot of work in to get going. But once you are going, it’s a big benefit to us.”
The elephant in the room when it comes to any Meta-related platforms is the somewhat turbulent relationship they have with publishers, particularly news organizations. Major brands were courted for many years when Facebook prioritized getting quality content into newsfeeds, only to have licensing fees, journalism initiatives and huge followings canceled or reach dialed down when it no longer suited Meta. More recently, there have been regulatory conflicts in Canada which has seen news completely banned on Facebook and Instagram and has had a deep impact on Canadian media.
Russell’s approach to this is pragmatic. “We still get good referral traffic from Facebook,” he said. “It’s nowhere near what it was, but if it’s there, we’ll use it, and if it’s not there, we won’t!”
Yahoo Finance’s Kelley is also unconcerned. “Our approach to social media is more about the brands and audience development, and meeting people where they are with our high quality content,” he explained. “So there’s not as much of a downside or risk of a rug pull, because we’re not dependent on it for that.”For these publishers, riding the wave of growth while WhatsApp offers easy tools to build a following to Channels is a no-brainer. As more Channels are set up, it will be harder for publishers to stand out from the crowd. But any strategy which explores WhatsApp Channels as a component should also build in a way to turn unknown, relatively anonymous followers into known, direct audiences.
Gone are the days when a sports fan could locate their favorite team’s game quickly on a predictable outlet. Instead, broadcast contracts are divided among many media outlets, with sporting events appearing on dozens of broadcast, cable and regional sports networks, as well as streaming services. In fact, it’s gotten so tough that ESPN thinks that the biggest win for sports fans may just be having an easy way to figure out where an event is being offered in time to catch the opening kick-off, tip-off or puck drop.
Disney’s ESPN set out to solve the sports discovery problem with its new “Where to Watch” feature. Offered on its main app and website, the feature helps viewers instantly locate any sports event appearing on ESPN platforms and elsewhere, including cable and broadcast networks or streaming services. ESPN is aiming for this feature be comprehensive across the market, not just for ESPN and ABC properties, because the goal is to solve fan fragmentation and frustration.
Where to Watch, which debuted in August, showcases tens of thousands of events across dozens of leagues. Included are events from the NFL, NCAA football, NCAA men’s and women’s basketball, MLB, NHL, NBA, WNBA, NASCAR, UFC, F1, PGA Tour, MLS, tennis majors, Premier League, Champions League, and other live sports events that air on Disney’s ESPN platforms—with plans to grow.
We recently spoke with Casey Grabbe, senior director of ESPN Strategy, and Chris Jason, executive director of ESPN product management, on the development and objectives of this ambitious feature.
The feature aims to solve fragmentation
“Where to Watch is an easy-to-use guide for sports fans to locate any sports event on ESPN platforms and beyond. That includes broadcast, cable and regional sports networks and streaming services,” Jason explained. “From Where to Watch, fans can view all the sports events for an entire day, along with the network or service on which to find them, with quick one-click access to ESPN network streams for pay TV authenticated users and ESPN+ subscribers.”
Beyond just ESPN, fans are also linked directly to select partner networks, which currently include regional sports networks such as NESN and Monumental Sports, Jason said. Fans can search for events, filter, and customize the guide to prioritize their favorite teams and leagues.
“This makes for a fast and easy to discover what they care about most, all tied to their ESPN profile and personalization preferences,” Jason explained.
The motivation behind the Where to Watch feature was simple: reduce complexity.
Disney’s internal research found that sports fans are confused about where to find games, according to Grabbe. As sports viewing has become fragmented across many TV networks and streaming platforms, it has also become difficult and confusing for people to know where they can watch their favorite teams, players, and sports.
“We are hoping to solve that consumer pain point by creating a centralized home for sports viewing information with an intuitive interface that is easily accessible from within their daily routine of visiting ESPN.com and the ESPN App,” Grabbe explained.
How Where to Watch works
Where to Watch is designed to be a simple, scrollable, time-based guide of sports events, Jason said. It is powered by a proprietary event database, managed by the ESPN Stats and Analysis team.
The event database aggregates ESPN and partner data feeds along with originally sourced information and programming details from more than 250 media sources, including television networks and streaming platforms, Jason explained.
“We currently support coverage of tens of thousands of events across dozens of sports and leagues, and other live sporting events airing on ESPN platforms,” Jason said.
In order to watch an event, fans need only press boldly colored “watch” buttons on live game selections, which takes the viewer directly to the broadcast. That is, provided that they are a subscriber to ESPN+ or a pay-tv service. Fans can also customize the feature to highlight a specific sport or league.
Event-driven database drives discovery
Where to Watch is currently available for free to all ESPN App and ESPN.com users, which do not require a paid subscription. The feature employs an event database that was created by and is managed by the ESPN Stats and Information Group. The Stats group aggregates and analyzes data from ESPN and partner feeds. It combines that data with that of more than 250 other media sources. This includes television networks and streaming services. ESPN has a partnership arrangement in which it links users on the ESPN App directly to partner feeds to view content, in an effort to cut down on the friction of finding and assessing sports content.
Sports fans using the Where to Watch service see two primary features: A Favorites element and the Guide. If the fanhas a favorite team, sport or league they wish to watch, they can set that information into the feature and it will display upcoming games or events at the top of their screen. The viewer need only click on the event they want to be directed to. The viewer can personalize or change favorite settings at any time. Otherwise, the Guide feature will display all of the options available to watch at a given time on a given day.
Early feedback says Where to Watch is a winner
Jason notes that the Where to Watch feature was designed with the sports fan desires in mind, and that seems to have paid off so far.
“Fan feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, primarily in that this is focused on solving a real pain point for sports fans,” Grabbe said. “We see this sentiment reflected on social media, through various media outlets following launch, and ongoing interactions with sports fans. Several million fans have already used the feature, which is a really promising sign that this can become an indispensable utility going forward.”
Initial partnerships have been formed with only a few regional sports networks – NESN and Monumental Sports – to link fans directly with their programming, with plans to increase the number of these partnerships.
“We want ESPN to be a part of every sports fan’s daily routine,” Grabbe stressed. “Providing fans with this added functionality is helping to further strengthen ESPN’s position as the preeminent digital sports platform. We are always thinking about how we can put the sports fan’s needs first.” ESPN also plans to launch a new stand-alone direct-to-consumer product in 2025, and hopes to include its Where to Watch feature.
“Our near-term focus is to expand coverage across more sports events and leagues,” Jason said. “We are also working on adding additional utility within the experience, for example giving fans the ability to set reminder alerts for games they are interested in. In parallel we continue to monitor fan feedback to evaluate additional ways to improve the experience.”
One of my new favorite YouTube channels is First We Feast, specifically the show Hot Ones, where celebrities answer great interview questions as they eat progressively hotter wings. While it’s always entertaining, a recent interview with Academy Award winner Matt Damon really stuck with me because of the way it parallels what is happening with news media today.
He was asked about the macroeconomics of Hollywood, particularly how streaming has affected the subjective quality of content compared to decades ago. Damon explained how DVDs once generated huge revenue, allowing studios to take more creative risks because they could rely on profits from DVD sales after a film’s theatrical release. He shared an example from a studio executive who explained that making a movie would, in theory, cost $25 million, with another $25 million for print and advertising. Gross box office receipts are then split with theater owners, who typically keep about half. This structure means the film would need to earn around $100 million just to break even or beginning to even discuss profit.
Safe bets versus experimentation and adaptability
This hit me close to home, even though I’m in a different industry. It made me think about how the news media industry has also undergone drastic changes due to technology, shifts in audience consumption habits, and declines in traditional revenue streams like print subscriptions and classified ads. Both industries now take fewer risks in unpredictable environments, arguably leading to a drop in content quality and diversity. While exceptional work is still produced, the shift toward safer, commercially viable content is evident. Yet the evolving landscape hints at a future that demands a more integrated and adaptive approach.
Hollywood content creation, as Damon suggests, centers on box office hits that drive significant revenue in their theatrical run. In news media, revenue reliance is on digital ads, subscriptions, and paywalls.
Damon’s discussion of the economics of film made me wonder: What’s the new “DVD-sales” for the news media industry? What will create sustainable revenue beyond conventional methods? As technology advances, I believe the solution is in building new models that effectively leverage current tech and audience trends to offer long-term financial stability.
While traditional news content remains important, it’s clear that audience expectations constantly evolve. Technology unlocks new possibilities which organizations must experiment with to master. At the same time, communities and influencers are reshaping how audiences connect with news. To stay relevant, news media has to adapt to these changing consumption patterns and provide deeper engagement. It’s time for journalism to meet these evolving demands, focusing on the key areas that will define the future of news and become the industry’s new “DVD-sales.”
Diverse and individualized identity in media
As audience preferences evolve, identity and self-representation are becoming central to media consumption. People no longer want just content—they want content that reflects their values and creates a sense of belonging. Subscriptions, affiliations, and donations have become extensions of personal identity, allowing individuals to support causes, movements, or news platforms that align with who they are or aspire to be. This shift is empowering. It fosters deeper connections between the audience and the media. However, it requires representation and relatability.
Audiences increasingly seek a voice in the content they engage with. Community-led journalism and immersive experiences meet this demand by offering behind-the-scenes access, deeper insights into investigative reporting, and platforms for expressing concerns and successes within communities. These media-driven town halls—both in-person and virtual—create spaces where passion and substance shape the conversation. Historically, community-led journalism has also empowered underserved groups. It gives them ownership of their stories, fosters empathy, and reinforces a sense of identity as individuals see themselves reflected in the content.
Mission-driven partnerships
As audiences seek media that reflects their authentic selves, corporations and philanthropic organizations are aligning with news outlets that share their values to forge impact-driven partnerships that open new revenue opportunities for news media. These partnerships—particularly with philanthropic foundations, renewable energy companies, and organizations focused on health and sustainability—fund journalism with shared societal goals. Rooted in corporate social responsibility, they empower journalism to deliver objective reporting while driving meaningful social change.
By supporting investigative journalism, documentaries, and projects that resonate with consumers’ values, these partnerships enhance engagement and create a sustainable, mission-driven funding model. And companies that invest in media that align with their core values forge deeper connections with consumers who see these efforts as an extension of their own identities. This trend could shift news revenue models from short-term advertising to long-term, scalable partnerships, offering a significant and exciting opportunity for the future of news media.
Transformative role of technology
While sticking with the tried-and-true tactics may seem like the safe bet, the industry will need to reinvigorate its spirit of innovation and risk to best connect with ever-evolving audience expectations. Technology has empowered today’s audiences to be more authentic by providing quicker access to information and more immediate ways to explore their interests. Information access helps people understand themselves and the world around them with greater speed and depth.
Newsrooms can harness this shift by embracing immersive reporting through interactive experiences like AR and VR, which allows individuals to step into different perspectives, fostering empathy and engagement. These immersive technologies, from placing reporters on the front lines to using interactive learning platforms, enable audiences to connect more deeply with content, helping them refine their views and consider how they want to contribute or enact change.
The real breakthrough, however, is in AI’s role in driving personalized engagement. AI allows news organizations to deliver hyper-personalized content based on individual habits and preferences, a process once manual and time-consuming. With AI-enhanced data insights, organizations can understand their audiences at a granular level, offering timely, relevant, and highly customized content. This deeper connection with consumers anticipates their needs and creates impactful experiences, potentially transforming how news is consumed and delivered.
The road ahead for media revenue
So where is this all leading, and how does this become the new “DVD-sales” for news media? The answer lies in a transformative, identity-driven, community and tech-powered ecosystem where audiences help shape the content. This approach will foster loyalty and create scalable, sustainable revenue beyond traditional ads and subscriptions. By leveraging the combined power of community and technology, news organizations can form partnerships with purpose-aligned entities, redefining how journalism is funded and experienced.
I envision a digital platform where users actively participate, voting on story ideas or contributing content in an environment that tackles local and global issues. With AI and data-driven personalization, users can receive tailored content and news organizations can create high-demand immersive experiences like virtual town halls.
If you’re wondering how these ideas translate into reality, take a look at City Bureau in Chicago, which is already putting some of them to work. This journalism lab is reimagining local media by equipping communities to address information inequity. Their Documenters program trains and pays residents to cover local government meetings, boosting transparency and citizen involvement.
This concept upholds journalistic integrity, ensures accuracy and drives meaningful community involvement. It integrates the community into the editorial process without compromising professional standards. The approach builds authentic connections and strengthens trust, which is crucial for attracting corporate sponsorships and philanthropic partnerships. No, it does not come in a handy book-sized package like the DVD. However, this is a model that puts the audience at the center to build a sustainable model through experimentation in how the news is made, delivered, and funded.
While in some ways the web has evolved organically, it also functions within accepted structures and guidelines that have allowed websites to operate smoothly and to enable discovery online. One such protocol is robots.txt, which emerged in the mid 1990s to give webmasters some control over which web spiders could visit their sites. A robots.txt file is a plain text document that is placed in the root directory of a website. It contains instructions for search engine bots on which pages to crawl and which to ignore. Significantly, compliance with its directives is voluntary. Google, has long followed and endorsed this voluntary approach. And no publisher has dared to exclude Google considering its 90%+ share of the search market.
Today, a variety of companies use bots to crawl and scrape content from websites. Historically, content has been scraped for relatively benign purposes such as non-commercial research and search indexing, which promises the benefit of driving audiences to a site. In recent years, however, previously benign and new crawlers have begun scraping content for commercial purposes such as training Large Language Models (LLMs), use in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) tools, and inclusion in retrieval augmented generation outputs (aka “grounding”).
Under current internet standards such as the robots.txt protocol, publishers can only block or allow crawlers by domain. Publishers are not able to communicate case-by-case (company, bot and purpose) exceptions in accordance with their terms of use in a machine-readable format. And again: compliance with the protocol is entirely voluntary. The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) held a workshop in September on whether and how to update the robots.txt protocol and it appears the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which is responsible for the protocol, plans to convene more discussions on how best to move forward.
A significant problem is that scraping happens without notification to or consent from the content owners. It often violates the website’s terms of use in blatant violation of applicable laws. OpenAI and Google recognized this imbalance when they each developed differing controls (utilizing the robots.txt framework) for publishers to opt out of having their content used for certain purposes.
Predictably, however, these controls don’t fully empower publishers. For example, Google will allow a publisher to opt out of training for their AI services. However, if a publisher wants to prevent their work from being used in Generative AI Search—which allows Google to redeploy and monetize the content—they have to opt out of search entirely. It would be immensely useful to have an updated robots.txt protocol to provide more granular controls for publishers in light of the massive scraping operations of AI companies.
The legal framework that protects copyrighted works
While big tech companies tout the benefits of AI, much of the content crawled and scraped by bots is protected under copyright law, or other laws which are intended to enable publishers and other businesses to protect their investments against misappropriation and theft.
Copyright holders have the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute and monetize their copyrighted works as they see fit for a defined period. These protections incentivize the creative industries by allowing them to reap the fruits of their labors and enable them to reinvest into new content creation. The benefits to our society are nearly impossible to quantify as the varied kinds of copyrighted material enrich our lives daily: music, literature, film and television, visual art, journalism, and other original works provide inspiration, education, and personal and societal transformation. The Founding Fathers included copyright in the Constitution (Article I, section 8, clause 8) because they recognized the value of incentivizing the creation of original works.
In addition to copyright, publishers also rely on contractual protections contained in their terms of service which govern how the content on their websites may be accessed and exploited. Additionally, regulation against unlawful competition is designed to protect against the misappropriation of content for purposes of creating competing products and services. This is to deter free riding and prevent dilution of incentives to invest in new content. The proper application of and respect for these laws is part of the basic framework underlying the thriving internet economy.
The value of copyrighted works must be protected
The primary revenues for publishers are advertising, licensing, and, increasingly, subscriptions. Publishers make their copyrighted content available to consumers through a wide range of means, including on websites and apps that are supported by various methods for monetization such as metered paywalls. It is important to note that even if content is available online and not behind a subscription wall, that does not extinguish its copyrighted status. In other words: It is not free for the taking.
That said, there are many cases where a copyright holder may choose to allow the use of their original work for commercial or non-commercial purposes. In these cases, potential licensees contact the copyright holder to seek a negotiated agreement, which may define the extent to which the content may be used and any protections for the copyright holder’s brand.
Unfortunately, AI developers, in large part, do not respect the framework of laws and rules described above. They seek to challenge and reshape these laws in a manner that would be exceptionally harmful for digital publishers, by bolstering their position that content made publicly available should be free for the taking – in this case, to build and operationalize AI models, tools and services.
Publishers are embracing the benefits of AI innovation. They are partnering with developers and third parties, for both commercial and non-commercial purposes, to provide access and licenses for the use of their content in a manner that is mutually beneficial. However, incentives are lacking to encourage AI developers to seek permission and access/licensing solutions. Publishers need a practical tool to signal to bots at scale whether they wish to permit crawling and scraping for the purposes of AI exploitation.
Next steps and the future of robots.txt
The IETF should update the robots.txt protocol to create more specific technical measures that will help publishers convey the purposes for which their content may or may not be used, including by expressing limitations on the scraping and use of their content for GAI purposes. While this should not be viewed as in any way reducing the existing legal obligations of third parties to seek permission directly from copyright holders, it could be useful for publishers to be able to signal publicly and through a machine-readable format what uses are permitted, e.g. scraping for search purposes is permitted, whereas scraping to train LLMs or other commercial GAI purposes is not.
Of course, a publisher’s terms of use should always remain legally binding and trump any machine-readable signals. Furthermore, these measures should not be treated as creating an “opt out” system for scraping. A publisher’s decision not to employ these signals is not permission (either explicit or implicit) to scrape websites or use content in violation of the terms of use or applicable laws. And any ambiguity must be construed in favor of the rights holders.
In order to achieve a solution in a timely and efficient manner, the focus should be on a means to clearly and specifically signal permission or prohibitions against crawling and scraping for the purposes of AI exploitation. Others may seek to layer certain licensing solutions on top of this, which should be left to the market. In addition, it should be ensured that there is transparency for bots which crawl and scrape for purposes of AI exploitation. Any solution should not be predicated on the whims of AI developers to announce the identities of their bots or operate in any manner that obscures their identity and purposes of their activity.
And, critically, search and AI scraping must not be comingled. The protocol should not be allowed to be used in a manner that requires publishers to accept crawling and scraping for AI exploitation as a condition for being indexed for search.
Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past by allowing big tech companies to leverage their dominance in one market to dominate an emerging market like AI. Original content is important to our future and we should build out web standards that carry forward our longstanding respect for copyright in the AI age.
TikTok is becoming an increasingly important platform for content creators, brands and media companies of all kinds. That’s especially true for those seeking to connect with younger audiences. Today, young people take a distinctly different news journey than older generations in which social media and visually-led content plays a leading role. Specifically, about 40% of those under age 30 in the USA regularly get news from TikTok. That’s up from around 10% in 2020, highlighting how quickly this demographic is adopting the platform as part of their news diet/habits.
TikTok – once viewed as a passive entertainment platform – is evolving into an algorithmically driven engagement powerhouse for content of all kinds. Estimates of its audience size vary, spanning from a massive 1.5 billion to close to two billion users worldwide. Regardless of this variance, there’s no denying that the network has a huge reach, and that it has grown astronomically since launching globally in 2018. It’s now the sixth-largest social network in the world, and its users worldwide spend 34 hours a month on it. That’s way ahead of its rivals in terms of time spent.
“Roughly 170 million Americans use TikTok,” The New York Times noted earlier this year. “That’s half the population of the United States.” Charting 19 ways the platform has influenced American life, the Gray Lady observes that “Even if you’ve never opened the app, you’ve lived in a culture that exists downstream of what happens there.”
With that in mind, here are four things media companies need to know about TikTok, and how to harness it to reach new audiences effectively and build brand awareness, while at the same time making their content more accessible and relatable to younger consumers.
1. TikTok is a highly participatory social network
There’s a widely held misconception that TikTok is a “lean-back,” passive platform. However, new research from Weber Shandwick, a global communications and consulting firm, shows that TikTok consumption is more engaged and intentional than you might realize.
“Comments are king,” the report states, observing how “the comments section is where people go to learn more, fact-check claims, make jokes and attempt to make sense of what they have seen.”
Talking to Digital Content Next, Dr. Claire Wardle, a Cornell Professor who worked on this research, shared in more detail how users actively engage with TikTok content through the comments. This includes visiting the comments to determine if they agree, or not, with certain stories, the entertainment value they offer, as well as using insights from their peers to determine the veracity of a video. Many consumers see these behaviors as an intrinsic part of their experience on the platform.
For media companies, this may mean that engagement on TikTok should go beyond just creating content. It might require active involvement in the comment sections, given that this is where audiences spend a great deal of time and energy.
Determining the best way to do that, however, isn’t easy. “If I’m a publisher, what am I doing in the comments? What’s my role?” Wardle asks.
One potential solution stems from an idea proposed by Sophia Smith Galer. The freelance journalist and former BBC and Vice staffer has argued that newsrooms should encourage and support “individual journalist creators” on TikTok. It may be easier for people in that guise, to respond to comments on the platform, instead of through an anonymous brand account.
Nevertheless, despite the importance of TikTok’s comments section, Weber-Shandwick’s report cautions that this arena can be a home to trolls and other bad actors. Subsequently, “a detailed protocol for engagement in the comments of your own TikTok videos or videos posted by others is a must,” they advise.
2. Authenticity is key to audience-media connections on TikTok
Authentic was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year in 2023. “Authentic (their italics) is what brands, social media influencers, and celebrities aspire to be,” the company said.
On TikTok, as with many other visually led social networks, perceptions of authenticity are fundamental to audience engagement. I say “perceptions” because, as Social Sprout points out, seemingly lo-fi content is often actually highly produced.
Nevertheless, at its heart, this is content that intentionally looks a little less polished. In turn, this rawness can also make it more relatable and accessible. Furthermore, this style of content may be seen as more trustworthy and authentic with younger audiences than traditional media, the latest Digital News Report found.
However, the style of content that often does well on TikTok may fly in the face of traditional media production values, and that can sometimes be difficult to reconcile.
That’s amplified by an anti-establishment feel that the platform has, a notion “that came through very strongly in the research,” Wardle says.
As a result, TikTok “is not an obvious place for The Wall Street Journal or CNN to turn up,” Wardle reflects. That’s partly based on the style of content on the network, user preferences – which lean towards independent creators – and a concern that media outlets just look like they’re trying too hard to fit in.
Nevertheless, it’s no surprise that the most successful brands on TikTok lean into authenticity. Morning Brew’s account, in my opinion, is a great example to learn from. It’s funny, irreverent and looks like the creators shot it in their home (perhaps they did). As a result, it fits seamlessly with the style and tone of other content in my feed, while also managing to make some valid points (on occasion).
For publishers, key ways to curate an authentic aesthetic include using more casual delivery styles, behind-the-scenes content, and collaborating with creators who understand TikTok’s culture. Adapting, or partnering, in this way matters if you want to be relevant on the platform.
3. Navigating algorithms when familiarity breeds contentment
Reflecting on how Americans use TikTok, the Pew Research Center recently highlighted the value of its recommendation technology, and in particular its “For You” page. For users, this is a highly curatable space, one that enables you to teach TikTok what you want to watch. As Buffer explains, that is part of the app’s secret sauce. “The blend of familiar and new content is tailored meticulously to user preferences, making the social network addictive and fresh,” they explain.
As a result, it’s perhaps not surprising that “users generally like the content the algorithm serves them,” Pew’s research found. Their data revealed that “40% of users say this content is either extremely or very interesting to them.” In contrast, just 14% of their survey respondents said this wasn’t relevant or interesting to them.
For brands and content creators, this makes it all the more important that users know you’re on the platform. If they’re not following you, it can be hard to find and discover you on TikTok.
The success of this algorithm is a key factor behind users devoting so much time on the app. eMarketer anticipates that Gen Z, adults aged 18-24, spend an average of 77 minutes per day on the platform.
There are long-standing concerns, however, that algorithms can create echo chambers. This could reduce the perspectives that audiences are exposed to and lay the foundations for misinformation.
TikTok users, it seems, actively embrace – and are highly cognizant of – these concerns. Users acknowledged that “I know I’m not seeing anything from the other side, but I really love that,” Wardle said. “I love that I never come across people who are different to me.”
Users are aware that they are in echo chambers, but rather than trying to break out of them, they revel in the familiarity of their feeds. And they also feel confident that if they need to step outside of their comfort zone, then they know how to do so.
Responding to this is challenging, especially for news outlets. But, rather than trying to fight the echo chamber, publishers may just want to lean into it. This may mean producing more non-news content, as well as niche or specialized content that resonates with specific audiences, alongside evergreen content, and material beyond the daily news cycle.
4. News media and social issues on TikTok
That said, despite these cultural and algorithmic challenges, news does still have a place on the platform. Despite its reputation for entertainment, TikTok has become an important arena for consuming news and discussing social issues.
In fact, many users report encountering social and political content regularly, even though TikTok is not traditionally seen as a news platform. The latest Digital News Report found that nearly a quarter (23%) of 18–24s in the markets they surveyed, use the platform for news, as did 13% of all digital news consumers.
“These averages hide rapid growth in Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia,” the authors note, with “more than a third now use the network for news every week in Thailand (39%) and Kenya (36%).” Figures are lower in countries like the United States (9%) and the UK (4%).
Perhaps more importantly, according to Weber Shandwick, although users don’t necessarily seek out news on the platform, they do stumble upon it through trending content.
Users often perceive that they see these stories first on TikTok, Wardle told us, with the mainstream media playing catch up. “Our survey results validated this,” Weber Shandwick’s research says, “77% of users said TikTok is where they first learn about news on political or social subjects at least some of the time.”
However, much of this news discovery does not come from traditional news brands. Instead, individual creators and commentators drive many of these conversations.
This once again reinforces the need for news organizations to partner with influencers and creators who have already mastered the platform’s style and audience. Encouraging individual journalists to build their own presence on TikTok may also help bridge the gap between traditional reporting and this new media landscape. Collectively, collaboration and empowering journalists to engage with the platform directly could be pivotal for ensuring many publisher’s stories reach and resonate with younger, highly engaged audiences.
So, is TikTok right for your media brand?
The size of TikTok’s audience suggests that the platform is too big to ignore. However, the style of content and community culture that flourishes on it can be difficult to tap into. As a result, publishers need to carefully consider if it is a good fit for them.
Media companies that can adapt to this environment will find opportunities for deeper connections with audiences. Meanwhile, those who simply see TikTok as just another outlet for distributing their content, often doing so in the same format as elsewhere, may struggle to make an impact.
Worse still, efforts to blend in risk being seen as trying too hard. “How do you show up in a way that doesn’t look like a dad dancing at the wedding?” Wardle asks.
Part 2! Better Explainer on Kamalas plan to expand #medicare to include #homehealth options vs Trump plan to privatize medicare and create a tax shelter? Out of it? Idk.. #kamalaharrispolicies
Audiences, Wardle says, are “kind of resisting” traditional players, preferring instead to get their content from native providers like Under The Desk News. A consistent favorite with my students, Kelsey Russell is a Media Literacy Influencer and Co-Host of First Stop News. Russell, the self-professed ‘Print Princess’ reads different newspapers and magazines to her audience, and has garnered nearly 100,000 TikTok followers in the process.
The key takeaway for publishers wanting to flourish on TikTok is to balance being relatable and informal, with being useful and entertaining. They need to do so in a way that doesn’t force humor or tap into trends in a way that feels inauthentic and “cringe.”
That’s potentially a tall order, and these efforts may not drive traffic to your site or other platforms in the way that most publishers have historically used social media.
Nevertheless, if media companies can foster authentic connections with audiences, this can help to build brand loyalty and awareness, potentially unlocking long-term benefits that go beyond simple click-through metrics.
As Enrique Anarte, a journalist at Context previously told IJNet, “You’re not on TikTok to go viral; you’re really on TikTok to reach the audience you wanted to reach.” “It’s better to get a video with lower views, but high positive engagement from the people you want to reach,” they added.
For many younger audiences, TikTok may be the first time they encounter your brand, creating a connection that may well pay even further dividends down the line. It won’t be for everyone, but if you’re prepared to play the long game, mix up your video style to fit in, and find the right people to collaborate with, then TikTok might well become a key plank in your social media strategy in 2024 and beyond.
In September, Dow Jones announced the creation of the Dow Jones Leadership Institute, a commercial proposition focused on executive learning and leadership.
Plans are still in their early days. But Alan Murray, former Fortune Media CEO and newly appointed President of the Dow Jones Leadership Institute, believes that senior executives are in need of a trusted authority to guide them through leadership challenges. They also think that Dow Jones is in an ideal position to do this.
“I’ve been covering business for more than four decades. I don’t think in those four decades there’s been a time quite like the present, where the speed of change is so rapid, and the multiplicity of issues that leaders of large organizations have to grapple with is so great,” Murray explained, outlining the opportunity Dow Jones spotted. “You’ve got a technology revolution going on that’s moving very fast. ChatGPT was announced in November 2022, and within 60 days, the people who run large companies were being told their whole company was going to be disrupted by this technology that they’d never heard of 60 days ago.”
Murray also pointed to other global forces affecting businesses, from energy transformation and decarbonization to geopolitical threats. Many larger companies were founded in a world where they could operate freely globally. “That’s no longer the case any more,” he noted. “There are all sorts of geopolitical threats, massive rethinking of supply chains, and realigning manufacturing facilities.”
As global pressures affect the way businesses run, Murray is emphatic that executive leadership has to transform as well. Given Dow Jones’ position as a world leader in business information and news, he believes he can create an offering to help executives navigate these changes.
Bringing together communities under one umbrella Institute
Dow Jones already has an existing collection of executive communities. The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council is one of the most well-known. It also boasts CFO, CMO, CIO and CCO Networks.
These vertical networks are valuable as they bring together C-suite executives from different industries but with similar responsibilities to share experiences and advice. What Murray hopes to do with the Dow Jones Leadership Institute is create a horizontal ‘umbrella’ network, which links them together.
“We’re thinking about: who are the groups of people who we can bring together, who can learn from each other? And what are the other information services, data and research services, education and coaching that we can provide to help them through that journey?” he said, explaining that many of the challenges such as AI disruption are the same across job roles. “How do you lead in the face of such rapid change? How do you rethink what you’re doing?”
One of Murray’s key observations from his experiences moderating C-suite technology panels over the past few years is that the conversation may start on technology, but it always comes back to people. “We’re talking about, how do I get my middle managers to embrace this technology, not reject it? How do I get people to adopt new ways of working?,” he illustrated. “Those conversations have left me convinced that while technology is evolving very rapidly, and lots of people are focused on how we make technology evolve rapidly, not enough people are focused on how leadership evolves to match it.”
The Dow Jones Leadership Institute will focus its attention on addressing this, rather than specific technology solutions. But it also faces another challenge: time. Senior executives are notoriously time-poor, and continuous learning is a particularly acute challenge for them. Murray said that they are also reluctant to show their vulnerabilities to their board or employees.
The value of peer learning communities for executive leadership
Addressing the time issue will mean creating opportunities for executives to stay up to date with what’s happening in ways that suit them best.. Murray outlined that the Dow Jones Leadership Institute will be serving those needs through creating thought leadership content, videos, education programs, surveys and research data.
But first and foremost, the priority will be on peer learning. This is, from Murray’s experience, what senior executives value most: “having the opportunity to share ideas, experiences and plans confidentially with someone who is in a job similar to their own.”
Virtual events will have a role to play, especially as Murray’s mandate is to “make this a global organization.” But in-person gatherings in the US will be the main focus as the Institute starts out. “There’s something different about being together in-person, things happen when you have an in-person interaction that don’t happen virtually,” he observed. “So there’s a role for both, but I do believe in-person gatherings tend to be more powerful.”
Other outputs will depend on the demands of members. As a business with membership as its primary revenue stream, Murray emphasized that they need to be “relentlessly focused on our members and provide them with any services that they think would be helpful.”
Details of membership pricing are still being planned out. A membership to the WSJ’s CEO Council comes in the ballpark of around $25k. So, a similar range would seem appropriate for building up a pricing plan for the Leadership Institute.
Sponsorship will be an additional revenue stream, but the driver will be membership. Dow Jones is in a strong position to build this, as it has doubled its digital news subscription footprint over the past four years under CEO Almar Latour. Murray noted that Latour is dedicated to making the Leadership Institute a “significant pillar of the future of Dow Jones,” and has joined the executive leadership team as a show of commitment.
Complementary to news coverage
Dow Jones is a leading provider of business news, and is home to titles like the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and MarketWatch. Education and community services are a very different proposition to news, but Murray believes that their deep well of expertise, and robust business news acumen, gives them an edge in building an executive Leadership Institute and communities around it.
“A lot of the changes in how you lead are very news-driven. It changes around new concepts, new technologies, new things happening,” he explained. He also points out the fact that traditional universities, and even private professional service companies can be slow to adapt. [Dow Jones] “is an organization that’s all about the new, it’s all focused on the leading edge. What’s happening right now that is going to change the way you have to look at leadership in the years ahead? That’s going to be our secret weapon.”
For Murray, the measure of success for the Dow Jones Leadership Institute in the years to come will be the response of its members. “It’s member appreciation, member engagement, member renewal,” he said. “Whether it’s measured by an NPS score or by the size of the membership, our goal is to provide value to members, and the members will show us if we provide that value.”
Although there are many elements of the Leadership Institute which other publishers could look to for inspiration, Dow Jones has a clear advantage in having its own established C-suite networks which it can bring together. While first party data, particularly information about registered and premium subscribers can help an organization develop an offering such as this, few media companies have successfully built their own community initiatives. However, particularly as social networks decline for distribution and audience building, extensions like these show the value of leveraging audience relationships to drive deeper connections and new revenue.
Miraculously, US v. Google II ended on day 15, a whopping three weeks earlier than initial estimates. During the last week of trial, Google had the opportunity to present its defense, which, as expected, focused on technical legal arguments, choosing to reframe their conduct, rather than to refute it. Many in the courtroom see this as a function of necessity. The facts aren’t on their side, and Google’s credibility has long been damaged by evidence deletion.
The crux of Google’s argument asserts that even if their conduct in isolation is bad for publishers, it could be good for advertisers on a whole. And if it’s good for advertisers, it’s good for the market. The problem is that they were unable to really see this argument through. Google focused their efforts on, for example, trying to land their preferred market definition so that the rest of their points might make a material difference. Unfortunately for the defense, proving their market definition argument requires some big logical leaps, even without considering the DOJ’s masterful case to the contrary.
Dubious definitions and distinctions
For Google to land its argument that adtech is a single two-sided market, the Court would need to agree on a couple of ill-argued points. (And ignore even numerous contradictions and absurdities.)
First, the defense made the case that adtech is not comprised of distinct product markets serving different customers and purposes. Rather, it is one massive product market for tools that connect buyers and impressions. The product, in their view, is the “connection” that is made. They rely on this in order to downplay their market share, and distort the competition that they face.
Second, they stated that this massive market is a two-sided platform, where both buyers and sellers are present for the transaction, and there are indirect network effects such that benefitting one side of the market ultimately benefits another. They rely on this to distort their exclusionary conduct and justify their harms. It’s not tying and exclusionary conduct, they say. It’s vertical integration. Therefore Google’s legitimate refusal to deal has procompetitive effects that benefit everyone.
A weak combination
Unfortunately for Google. combining these two arguments weakens the plausibility of each one on its own. The DOJ indeed agrees that the ad exchange can be considered two-sided. But, as we saw with Dr. Israel’s testimony this week, extending this to the publisher ad server, for example, creates an absurd result. Google needs the Court to believe Israel’s suggestion that if a publisher ad server degrades in quality, it will somehow result in advertisers moving spend to social platforms. To many in the courtroom, this is a ridiculous argument. In fact, the DOJ demonstrated this throughout the trial and in their rebuttal. Google further contradicts itself in maintaining that the presence of more sellers would increase the value of the platform to buyers, while simultaneously saying that restricting RTB to AdX is procompetitive, as it allows Google to allegedly perform robust vetting and ensure inventory quality, safety, and security.
Then there’s the matter of reasonable substitutes, where Google, especially through Israel’s testimony, put forth a number of substitutes that are either not viable, or are not actual substitutes. According to the Google argument, a publisher can just “move” their ad inventory from web to apps, Israel suggested, which ignores the practical realities.
If a publisher doesn’t have an app, Judge Brinkema asked, wouldn’t that cost publishers money? In that case, yes, there would be an additional step, Israel concedes. Daily Mail’s Wheatland further illustrated the impracticality and insufficiency of app ad sales as a substitute for open web display upon rebuttal. Only 2% of their readers have downloaded the Daily Mail app, even after a campaign aiming to increase app usage.’
Transparent wrap
While DOJ’s case focuses primarily on harm to publishers, there was an approximately 30 minute stretch at the beginning of Israel’s testimony where his only mention of anything publisher-adjacent was to explain the origin of the “cellophane fallacy” as the theory that prices for cellophane might go up so much that people resort to wrapping their sandwiches in newspaper. Ultimately, Google demonstrated to the Court its complete disregard for its publisher customers, while simultaneously insufficiently making the case how advertisers benefitted.
Bill Isaacson: How many small independent publishers are left?
Dr. Israel: There was some discussion in my report. Clearly, many fewer than there were.
This is all confused further by Israel’s suggestion that products in this alleged market are both complements and substitutes. They’re asking for the Court to do quite a bit of mental gymnastics, with eyes closed. They’d also expect the Court to ignore all of the evidence presented by the DOJ’s credible experts and sincere fact witnesses about the scope and effects of Google’s abuse of power and to look past the emails and documents demonstrating the damning realities of Google’s intent. In a move that could only be intended to win by confusion, they ask the Court to follow the arguments made by a career-expert-witness who derives 80% of his income from such assignments and has been lambasted for his “misunderstanding and misapplication of antitrust concepts” in the past.
Google Digital Advertising Antitrust Litigation, No. 20-cv-03556- BLF (N.D. Cal.)
No-nonsense Judge Brinkema said Google’s contradictory position on market definition in Northern District of California is “problematic for Google.” He called their employee testimony “highly questionable.” So, it seems unlikely that this judge will follow Google blindly into this particular rabbit hole to its far-fetched wonderland.
We’ll find out soon enough. The parties must submit their revised Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law by November 4th, and closing arguments are set for 10 a.m. on November 25th, with a decision to follow likely by January ‘25. In the meantime, Google can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. The evidence is out there, and their systematic, multi-year effort to capture and maintain control of the adtech ecosystem to the detriment of its customers is on full display. The company is currently awaiting remedies for the Search antitrust case, and still has the 2025 adtech antitrust trial in Texas to look forward to. As light continues shining into Google’s darkest corners, their troubles are just beginning.
