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Succession: 5 ways to ensure a smooth leadership transition

March 16, 2023 Damian Radcliffe, Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism – University of Oregon

This month sees the return of one of my favorite TV shows: Succession. The HBO series focuses on the internal battles at a fictional media organization as the children of its aging patriarch jostle to take over. Though imaginary, its characters and storylines could be ripped directly from the headlines, and numerous media and business dynasties have been cited as inspiration. Showrunner Jesse Armstrong refuses to name names, though, telling Variety, “there’s loads of succession stories to draw on.”

That’s the truth. Changes in leadership, and the departure of long-standing founders, are definitely not just the stuff of Emmy-winning dramas. Everyone has experience with this. Unfortunately, this experience is often “shit-tastic,” says Amy L. Kovac-Ashley, author of the News Executive Leadership Transition Guide, which was published last week by the Reynolds Journalism Institute.

Because changes in leadership are inevitable, it’s an area all media companies need to face head-on. So, how can they improve their succession planning and processes for organizational change? With that in mind, we spoke to Kovac-Ashley – Head of National Programs at the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, – about her research and some of the transferable lessons from it.

5 principles for smooth leadership succession

Here are five principles and behaviors that media leaders and organizations should put into practice.

1. Take time to reflect

The best leaders are self-aware, says Kovac-Ashley. They know what they want and what their organization needs. Ideally the two are aligned. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Pace of change, and the speed of day-to-day operations, means that individual and organizational priorities evolve and shift.

Yet it can be hard to recognize this, given the constant “urgency and crisis” that many media leaders contend with. “We don’t take enough time to reflect and think and sit in the quiet to really make good decisions,” Kovac-Ashley says.

As a result, it’s important to make time to step-back and evaluate. “I think that a lot of individuals have a hard time doing that. [So] you get founders or others not providing what the organization needs, because they haven’t had the time to reflect on their own contributions.”

Once they carve out the time, there are several mechanisms to help leaders tackle these big personal and organizational questions. These instruments include reflecting on your own drive and motivations, harnessing performance evaluations and checking in with trusted friends and advisors. Executive coaches can also play a valuable role.

2. Acknowledge leadership needs can change

The continued transformation of the media landscape means that the best leader for a company at one point in time is not necessarily the right one for the future. You might need new skills. Or a leader might find they are no longer firing on all cylinders.

Again, this is an area where self-awareness is a strength good leaders possess. In this case, that means “knowing whether what they are offering, and doing, is what the organization needs at this point in time and [in] its development,” Kovac-Ashley says.

Operational health and organizational longevity require this type of reflection and analysis. On occasion, leaders must accept they may not be the best fit for their company anymore. After all, as Kovac-Ashley reminds us, in a lesson applicable to leaders everywhere, “no one wants to tell the founder, it’s past time for you to be here, right?”

In those circumstances, “people have to kind of get out of their own way and out of the way of the organization when they realize it’s time to go,” she says. Whatever happens, “the best outcome here is that you have a smooth transition,” Kovac-Ashley contends.

3. Start by planning for emergencies

It doesn’t matter what your business model is, leaders will always come and go. The universality of this reality means that Fortune 500 companies, family owned, non-profit, legacy and alt-media outlets alike all need to be thinking about this issue and taking steps to prepare for whenever change comes.

Knowing where to start may seem daunting, so Kovac-Ashley recommends planning for emergencies. “Because an emergency can happen at any time,” she says, “as we all experienced during Covid.”

This means preparing for the unpredictable: a sudden death or health crisis (either of a leader or a member of their family), and “because somebody is being removed because of poor behavior.”

“Emergencies can come in a lot of different packages,” Kovac-Ashley explains. To help organizations prepare for these types of unforeseen circumstances, her guide features a detailed list of worksheets. These cover areas such as designating a temporary success, and operational areas such as personnel, governance and finance. She’s also “eager to know what’s missing,” and encourages DCN readers to reach out with suggestions and recommendations for improvement.

The need to capture this type of information is particularly important at a time of increased remote working, she notes. It’s especially valuable in the early days of a company when systems and processes can be embryonic and often only understood by one or two people. Transparently breaking down – and sharing – workflows, ownership and processes can also break down organizational silos, Kovac-Ashley says, as well as enable systems to work better.

4. Don’t rush to find a replacement

Too often people want to rush to find a new CEO or other leader, and that may be a mistake. “Scrambling isn’t going to get you the best outcome,” Kovac-Ashley says, instead urging organizations to pause, rather than hiring too hastily.

The board – and the organization – require time to evaluate their needs and explore a range of options. That might mean hiring an interim head, or exploring opportunities to implement a co-leadership model – approaches that are typically underutilized across the media industry.

It might also mean ascertaining if a leader really needs to leave at all, or if some “time out” is what’s needed, rather than a departure. Sabbaticals aren’t common in the media industry, and they’re not a panacea, but they are an effective part of academic or religious professions. These are fields Kovac-Ashley believes that the media can learn a lot more from.

Avoiding dashing headlong into hiring also matters when organizations are trying to diversify their leadership too. Failure to do so may make it harder for these new, more diverse, leaders (such as women and people of color) to succeed. Pausing can avoid “essentially giving them an organization that’s broken and saying ‘you fix it’,” Kovac-Ashley says, “when that’s completely unfair.”

5. Involve your staff throughout

To help leaders see the full organizational picture, Kovac-Ashley recommends performance evaluations incorporate 360-degree feedback. These “can be really helpful for people who are willing to actually listen to their staff,” she says. “Hopefully, they have created an environment in which their staff feel they can be honest about what’s working and what’s not.”

And when leaders depart, she advises that personnel from across the organization are involved. “I have a very strong point of view about this, that maybe others won’t share, which is fine,” she says.

As part of this, Kovac-Ashley advocates listening sessions with staff and incorporating them in the interview process. That doesn’t mean giving them veto power over an appointment, but ensuring they have input.

“Once you start to get into finalist candidates, I think one or two people from the staff, depending on the size of the organization, of course, need to be part of that process,” she advocates. And “I also think staff need to be more involved in the onboarding of new executives, because a top-down approach in onboarding does not bode well, for good culture.”

Looking Ahead: why everyone must start preparing for change

The need for succession planning will only grow, Kovac-Ashley believes. Just as the Great Resignation has seen many people re-evaluating what they want from the world of work, it’s also triggered a spike in similar reflections at the C-Suite level.

Kovac-Ashley notes how leaders at organizations founded at the start of the Great Recession (such as Politico, The Texas Tribune, and award-winning local site VT Digger) have recently stepped aside. Many of these founders have moved on to new opportunities or decided to retire. The Covid crisis was often cited as the tipping point for making these life-changing decisions.

These moves have been accompanied by further personnel transformations across other parts of the industry. Mergers and acquisitions, for example, have meant leadership changes in multiple media organizations. Alongside this, founders frequently discover that their passion lies in the start-up phase rather than managing a more mature business. That can be especially true for younger leaders.

“A lot of younger founders don’t necessarily want to be there for 30-40 years,” Kovac-Ashley says. “They’re really excited about starting something… and getting it on to a good footing, but… they might want to go on and do something else.”

This issue is not going to go away, either. “Every single organization that’s launching today is going to have the same issue going forward,” Kovac-Ashley reminds us. “And because of the way the industry is changing, there’s going to be more and more smaller entrants trying to figure out how to sustain themselves beyond their founding stage.”

Leadership transitions can be tumultuous times for organizations. However, change is inevitable and succession planning is a critical process for all publishers. From emergency planning to encouraging leaders check in with “their personal board of directors,” there are clear tips and guidance to help media companies prepare and to ensure they don’t need to start from scratch.

This matters, because many of the factors that prompted Kovac-Ashley to explore this topic look set to continue. Covid has refocused many people’s work-life priorities, and leadership changes will only be further triggered by continued M&A activity, lay-offs, (overdue) conversations about burnout, and a greater focus on issues of mental health and well-being.

As a result, the need to plan for leadership changes and manage effective transitions, are areas that no media organization – large or small, new or established – can afford to overlook.

Featured Post | Innovation

Media execs weigh risks, challenges of generative AI

March 14, 2023 Jessica Patterson – Independent Media Reporter

For a decade, artificial intelligence (AI) has enabled digital media companies to create and deliver news and content faster, to find patterns in large amounts of data, and engage with audiences in new ways. However, with much hyped recent announcements including ChatGPT, Microsoft’s next-gen Bing, and Meta’s LlaMA, media outlets recognize that they face significant challenges as they explore the opportunities the latest wave of AI brings.

In this second story in our two-part series on the evolution of AI applications in the media business*, we explore six challenges that media outlets face around AI tools, from the misuse of AI to generate misinformation, errors and accuracy, to worries about journalistic job losses.

Misinformation

While it has been used by media companies for various purposes over the last 10 years, AI implementations still face challenges. One of the biggest is the risk of creating and spreading misinformation, disinformation and promoting bias. Generative AI could make misinformation and disinformation cheaper and easier to produce.

“AI language models are notorious bullshitters, often presenting falsehoods as facts. They are excellent at predicting the next word in a sentence, but they have no knowledge of what the sentence actually means,” wrote Melissa Heikkilä for MIT Technology Review.

Generative AI can be used to create new content including audio, code, images, text, simulations, and videos—in mere seconds. “The problem is, they have absolutely no commitment to the truth,” wrote Emily Bell in the Guardian. “Just think how rapidly a ChatGPT user could flood the internet with fake news stories that appear to have been written by humans.”

AI could also be used to create networks of fake news sites and news staff to spread disinformation. Just ask Alex Mahadevan, the director of MediaWise at the Poynter Institute, who used ChatGPT to create a fake newspaper, stories and code for a website in a few hours and wrote about the process. “Anyone with minimal coding ability and an ax to grind could launch networks of false local news sites—with plausible-but-fake news items, staff and editorial policies—using ChatGPT,” he said.

Errors and accuracy

Julia Beizer, chief digital officer at Bloomberg Media, says the biggest challenge she sees around AI is accuracy.

“At journalism companies, our duty is to provide our readers with fact-based information. We’ve seen what happens to our discourse when our society isn’t operating from a shared set of facts. It’s clear AI can provide us with a lot of value and utility. But it’s also clear that it isn’t yet ready to be an accurate source on the world’s information,” she said.

Thus far, AI content generators are prone to making factually-inaccurate claims. Microsoft acknowledged that its AI-enhanced Bing might make errors, saying: “AI can make mistakes … Bing will sometimes misrepresent the information it finds, and you may see responses that sound convincing but are incomplete, inaccurate, or inappropriate.”

That hasn’t stopped media companies from experimenting with ChatGPT and other generative AI. Sports Illustrated publisher Arena Group Holdings partnered with AI startups Jasper and Nota to generate stories from its own library of content which were then edited by humans. However, there were “many inaccuracies and falsehoods” in the pieces. CNET, which also produced AI-written articles and came under scrutiny for factual errors and plagiarism in those pieces.

Francesco Marconi, longtime media AI advocate and co-founder of AppliedXL, said that though AI technologies can reduce media production costs, they also pose a risk to both news media and society as a whole.

“Unchecked algorithmic creation presents substantial pitfalls. Despite the current uncertainties, newsrooms should monitor the evolution of the technology by conducting research, collaborating with academic institutions and technology firms, and implementing new AI workflows to identify inaccuracies and errors,” he said.

Search traffic

Generative AI applications like ChatGPT have the potential to eat away a portion of publishers’ search traffic by generating answers without requiring a user to visit a news website.

“The introduction of generative summaries on search engines like Google and Bing will likely affect the traffic and referral to publishers,” Marconi said. “If search engine users can receive direct answers to their queries, what motivation do they have to visit the publisher’s website? This can impact news organizations in terms of display ads and lead generation for sites that monetize through subscriptions.”

Filter and context

The amount of data and information created every day is estimated around 2.5 quintillion bytes, according to futurist Bernard Marr. With the rise of generative AI models, the growth of information available to digital media companies and the public is exponential. Some experts predict that by 2026, 90% of online content could be AI-generated.

It presents a new challenge, according to Marconi. The explosion of data from IoT has created a world where there is too much of it. “We are now producing more information than at any other point in history, making it much more challenging to filter out unwanted information.”

A significant challenge for journalism today is filtering and contextualizing information. News organizations and journalism schools must incorporate computational journalism practices, so that journalists are also responsible for writing editorial algorithms in addition to stories.

“This marks an inflection point, where we now must focus on building machines that filter out noise, distinguish fact from fiction, and highlight what is significant,” Marconi said. “These systems are developed with journalistic principles and work 24/7 to filter out irrelevant information and uncover noteworthy events.”

Replacing journalists

AI-powered text generation tools may threaten journalism jobs, which has been a concern for the industry for years. On the other side is the longstanding argument that automation will free journalists to do more interesting and intensive work. It is clear, however, that given the financial pressures faced by media companies, the use of AI to streamline staffing is a serious consideration.

Digital media companies across the U.S. and Europe are grappling with what the potential of generative AI may mean for their businesses. Buzzfeed recently shared that it planned to explore AI-generated content to create quizzes, while cutting a percentage of its workforce. Last week, CEO of German media company Axel Springer Mathias Doepfner candidly admitted that journalists could be replaced by AI, as the company prepared to cut costs.

There is a valid concern regarding job displacement when considering the impact of AI on employment, Marconi agreed—with a caveat. “Some positions may disappear entirely, while others may transform into new roles,” he said. “However, it is also important to note that the integration of AI into newsrooms is creating new jobs: Automation & AI editors, Computational journalists, Newsroom tool managers, and AI ethics editors.”

Potential legal and ethical implications

One of the other biggest challenges digital media companies and publishers will face with the rise of AI in the newsroom are issues around copyright and intellectual property ownership.

ChatGPT and other generative AI are trained by scraping content from the internet, including open-source databases but also copyrighted articles and images created by publishers. “This debate is both fascinating and complex: fair use can drive AI innovation (which will be critical for long-term economic growth and productivity). However, at the same time it raises concerns about the lack of compensation or attribution for publishers who produced the training data,” according to Marconi.

Under European law, AI cannot own copyright as it cannot be recognized as an author. Under U.S. law, copyright protection only applies to content authored by humans. Therefore, it will not register works created by artificial intelligence.

“AI’s legal and ethical ramifications, which span intellectual property (IP) ownership and infringement issues, content verification, and moderation concerns and the potential to break existing newsroom funding models, leave its future relationship with journalism far from clear-cut,” wrote lawyer JJ Shaw for PressGazette.

Questions remain

While AI is not new, it is clearly making an evolutionary leap at present. However, while media companies may have been slow to adopt technology in the early days of the internet, today’s media executives are keen to embrace tools that improve their businesses and streamline operations. But given the pace at which AI is evolving, there’s still much to learn about the opportunities and challenges it presents.

Currently, there are some practical concerns for digital media companies and large questions still to be answered, according to Bloomberg’s Beizer. She questions how the advancement of these tools will affect relationships: “If we use AI in our own content creation, how should we disclose that to users to gain their trust?”

Wired has already made the first step by writing a policy that places clear limits on what they will use AI for and how the editorial process will be handled to ensure that a quality product is produced.

Beizer also poses the question of “how publishers and creators should be compensated for their role in sourcing, writing and making the content that’s now training these large machines?”

While in some eras, media companies have been swept along with the tide of technological change, with AI media executives are clearly grappling with how to embrace the promise while better managing the impact on their businesses.

*Part 1: Are we entering the age of artificial journalistic intelligence?

Featured Post | Innovation

Are we entering the age of artificial journalistic intelligence?

March 9, 2023 Jessica Patterson – Independent Media Reporter

From simple chatbots to generative content creation tools, artificial intelligence has become a force to be reckoned with for digital media companies. But while interest has heated up lately, artificial intelligence (AI) has already been employed by media companies for about a decade. Among other things, AI has long enabled journalists to analyze large amounts of data, extract insights, and identify patterns and trends. It also offers ways to engage audiences through personalized experiences and recommendations.

However, while it is not a new phenomenon, AI has come a long way since 2014 when some of the first media companies started using it for journalistic purposes. In this two-part series, we explore the evolution of AI use in the media, what’s different now, the opportunities that it offers publishers, as well as challenges including the misuse and abuse of AI, errors and accuracy, and concerns about job losses for human journalists.

AI + journalism

The news industry has witnessed three phases of AI innovation over the past decade: automation, augmentation, and generation, according to Francesco Marconi, computational journalist and the co-founder of real-time information company AppliedXL. “During the first wave, the focus was on automating data-driven news stories, such as financial reports, sports results, and economic indicators, using natural language generation techniques,” Marconi said.

In that first wave, AI offered a way to free journalists from menial or repetitive tasks so they could engage in more complex, high-impact, and investigative journalism. It was touted as a way to save organizations time and money by automating the production of certain types of news stories based on data.

For example, The Washington Post used its in-house automated technology Heliograf to cover weekly high school football games in Washington, D.C. and The Associated Press used AI to automate quarterly earnings reports – generating more than 3,000 stories per quarter compared to just 300 previously.

During the second wave, the emphasis shifted to augmenting reporting through machine learning and natural language processing to analyze large datasets and uncover trends, Marconi explained. AI was a tool for journalists to use to analyze large amounts of data, text, video and images, to help them identify trends, patterns or outliers.

During this period, digital media companies also began experimenting with chatbots to help journalists tell stories differently. Chatbots simulated human conversations by responding to specific questions with pre-programmed answers. Early examples included Harvard Business Review’s Slackbot, and AccuWeather’s chatbot for Facebook Messenger that took questions from users and provided weather-related answers.

AI today

The third and current wave is driven by the AI generative movement, powered by large language models, which are capable of generating narrative text at scale.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3 was trained on massive amounts of text (large language models), which it scraped from the internet. This allowed it to learn the patterns and structures of language to “make educated guesses based on the words you’ve typed previously.” ChatGPT reached 100 million users in January, two months after its launch. Not wanting to be left behind, Google released its own AI chatbot called Bard Facebook announced its AI large language model called LlaMA, and search engine DuckDuckGo has announced DuckAssist.

In recent days, digital media companies have been experimenting with and examining how they can use ChatGPT and generative AI. Last month, Jim Mullen, chief executive officer at Reach PLC, told the Financial Times his company had set up a working group to examine how the tool might be used to assist journalists to write short news stories or compile coverage of local weather and traffic.

For media companies that have used AI for years, this new crop of AI has been interesting to watch. While ethical and quality uses are well-established, some of the current applications are still a work in progress.

One early adopter, Bloomberg Media, has used AI for more than a decade. Their deployment uses natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to extract information from documents, including detecting people, companies and organizations found in the text of their stories. In addition, they also extract insights to help reporters find news about companies or sectors they cover.

“Like most consumers, I’ve been enchanted by the latest crop of AI tools. Tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney are showing us how much creativity these tools can unlock,” said Julia Beizer, Chief Digital Officer at Bloomberg Media.

“But alongside the enchantment, I’ve felt a fair bit of unease. These are early, very public experiments and we are seeing in real time how easy it is for unproven tech to get the facts wrong. This should be a reminder to all of us – particularly those of us in the journalism business – how important the work we do is,” she said.

The difference in today’s AI

For digital media companies, AI is different now for a number of reasons. Newer generative AI models have broader capabilities because of increased computational power, which means models can process larger amounts of data faster. There have been improvements in NLP, which has allowed AI to generate more nuanced language.

And, in recent years, AI tools have become more accessible for digital content companies. The current crop requires far less tech savvy and investment because they’re open-source.

“Initially, AI in the newsroom was limited to big newsrooms with significant resources,” explained Marconi. “However, with the widespread availability of AI infrastructure, such as open-source models and APIs, the technology is now accessible to every newsroom. This broad accessibility will also bring major challenges as the news industry rushes to adopt new standards and workflows.”

Bloomberg’s Beizer believes that the big difference right now is creativity. “The best technology feels like magic. It fades to the background so all you’re left with is the experience. ChatGPT is a simple interface over one of the most powerful pieces of technology we’ve seen,” she said.

So what’s new?

Given the leap forward in ease of use, AI may create new opportunities for those willing to adapt and innovate in this rapidly changing landscape.

“The economics of the media business are changing dramatically. AI has substantially reduced the cost of production” such as including editing, story writing, and creating multiple versions. “But newsgathering and fact-checking still necessitate specialized knowledge and infrastructure that technology companies lack,” Marconi said.

He added that media companies have an opportunity to become a major player in the AI space. That’s because they possess valuable assets for AI development: the text and image data for training models and ethical principles for creating trustworthy systems.

Advances in technology have disrupted the media industry for many years. According to Beizer, generative AI is only the latest chapter. “What I believe has changed this time around is that we are now mature digital companies with digital businesses to protect and grow. This time around, I have no doubt that our industry will rise to the occasion of thoughtfully exploring this disruption from all its angles – and setting the right strategies for our businesses and quality content to flourish,” she said.

Opportunities ahead

There are valid concerns about whether generative AI will be used to flood the market with content in the future. However, reputable media outlets will find that there are responsible applications of AI that will actually allow them to double down on the quality of their journalism and provide better content recommendations and experiences.

For Beizer, the biggest opportunity at the moment is “focusing our companies on what matters most: our customers… In this moment, we should lean even harder into building direct relationships with those users, getting to know what they want and delivering that value. We have the biggest opportunities in the kind of differentiated value that a chatbot cannot provide – analysis, novel points of view, human connection, nuanced reporting and writing. We should deprioritize anything that isn’t that. The future of our business depends on it,” she said.

However, as AI becomes more sophisticated, there are other promising applications for journalists. Imagine an AI-based tool that could help with large projects that newsrooms could never have enough staff to do, or one that checked facts, style, and grammar.

Marconi sees the evolution of AI in recent years as the foundation for the next phase of AI in journalism, which he believes will come to fruition over the next decade. He calls it artificial journalistic intelligence, where machines are able to automate news gathering and production, resulting in improved accuracy, efficiency, and impartiality, he said.

“Nonetheless, humans will continue to play a significant role. Creating editorial algorithms requires human supervision. As a result, in this new era, transparency and auditing of algorithms will become critical functions of newsrooms in the future,” he said.

PART 2: Media execs weigh risks, challenges of generative AI

In part 2, we look at challenges and concerns around generative AI, including the misuse and abuse of AI, errors and accuracy, legal and ethical issues, and concerns about job losses for human journalists.

Featured Post | Innovation | Perspectives

Spilled ink: How to prevent AI from vacuuming up your business model

March 2, 2023 Jason Kint, CEO – DCN

The many profound possibilities for creators leveraging artificial intelligence have been quietly heating up over the last decade. So, what really changed in the past few months? Certainly, the clever roll-out of ChatGPT only months after DALL-E 2 has thrown gas on the burner. Right now, press coverage and industry chatter are mostly focused on uncovering real-world applications offered by generative AI, which are exciting to be sure. However, wise publishers will heed lessons learned from past experiences in which their data were scraped and take an active role in preserving their business value.

“Scraping the web” is a term as old as the web itself. It’s no secret that Google’s core business was built by crawling companies’ servers to train its search engine to find and deliver satisfying results across the vast world wide web with speed and precision. The result: Google now plays the role of gatekeeper for much of the web.

The reality is that any publisher who made the radical decision not to allow Google’s crawler to do its thing would quickly become almost impossible to find online. Giving Google the free right to crawl your site is the cost of business to exist on the open web today.

Just last week Google began testing blocking news properties in Canada. As Campbell Clark wrote for the Globe and Mail earlier this week, “It’s not a threat, of course. Sometimes people just wake up with a horse’s head in their bed.”

This is yet another stark example of Google’s power. No individual publisher has the bargaining power to opt out and impact Google’s business. So no one does.

It’s not actually that different from the way in which Facebook built its social media platform into a digital advertising juggernaut. After many years scraping and collecting user data across the web and its partners – from far beyond the walls of its garden – Facebook began using AI to leverage its massive data warehouse appropriately named “The Hive” in a manner that is irreversible. Publishers are only now learning how all of this data was used, and abused, through lawsuit discovery and leaked documents.

Importantly, as was uncovered through one of these leaked documents, Facebook engineers used the metaphor of ink spilled into a lake to describe what happens to a person’s data once it makes its way into the Facebook’s data warehouse:

“We’ve built systems with open borders. The result of these open systems and open culture is well described with an analogy:

Imagine you hold a bottle of ink in your hand. This bottle of ink is a mixture of all kinds of user data (3PD, 1PD, SCD, Europe, etc.) You pour that ink into a lake of water (our open data systems; our open culture) … and it flows … everywhere. How do you put that ink back in the bottle? How do you organize it again, such that it only flows to the allowed places in the lake?”

This brings us to generative AI – 2023’s hot topic. It’s unequivocal that the Large Language Models are being trained by ingesting the work of newsrooms across the web. To better understand this fact, consider that Google disclosed that a whopping 15% of Google’s daily searches are completely new searches.

Now think about that for a moment: The most likely trigger for a novel search is an unfolding news event. That means the simple fact that these searches occur was triggered by the work of news media. And, as we know, Google monetizes answers. Particularly when confronted by a new query, Google’s machine learning algorithms lean into authority brands – those deemed likely to provide a trustworthy response. Guess who those are? You can see by looking at the top results presented by a search around breaking news: the results are called “top stories” and you guessed it: they come from media brands.

No one should doubt that a similar level of interest, intelligence, and impact on generative AI will be instigated—and answered—because of the work product of the news media, particularly given the role of Large Language Models in their training and operation.

So, if the output of newsrooms, writers, artists, and media companies were not available to scrape, what would happen to the quality of 2023’s much-hyped generative AI?

Copious effort and investment go into the creation of premium content. The use of premium content to train AI models is akin to fueling your machine with gasoline you “found” in someone else’s garage. It doesn’t inherently mean that the machine is not powerful, or useful. But that fuel was not free to create. If your machine can’t run without it, something is not quite right with the system.

Given Facebook’s metaphor, the publishing world may need to serve notice to OpenAI and its ilk before they can make the claim that the ink flow can no longer be reverse engineered. Let’s hope it is not already too late.

In November, DeviantArt rolled out an HTML tag so that an artist can inform web robots not to crawl their images to train art-generating AI. Media companies need to consider whether the right course of action is to launch a similar tag, which tells bots not to crawl and train their AI with publishers’ work. Of course, like many technical issues on the open web, this would only rein in the good robots and would not solve for bad bots.

But it is important that we make a start, before too much ink has spilled.

Almar Latour, CEO, Dow Jones and Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next in conversation at the 2023 DCN: Next Summit

Featured Post | Innovation | Perspectives | Policy | Video

Brand-true omnichannel strategy dominates the 2023 DCN: Next Summit

February 22, 2023 Carol Brzozowski – Independent Journalist

While evergreen issues around trust and a focus on the audience experience peppered the first in-person DCN Next: Summit since 2020, emerging opportunities – and concerns – around generative AI were also focal at the event. Held at the Fort Lauderdale beachfront Conrad Hotel, the 2023 summit hosted a wide range of speakers from inside and outside the DCN membership to discuss the business and future of media, brand mission, omnichannel strategy, consumer preferences, and the impact of the challenging economic and regulatory climate.

Surveying the regulatory landscape

DCN CEO Jason Kint kicked off the event with a focus on current key regulatory issues that impact digital media. He emphasized that the focus must remain on aligning content experiences, advertising behavior, and data usage with consumer expectations. He also looked at the current state of antitrust regulation.

As Kat Downs Mulder, SVP and GM of Yahoo News put it: media brands have a responsibility, in asking consumers for their information through sign-ons, “to be protective of our asks and thoughtful about what we request.”

Shoshana Zuboff, Harvard Business School professor and author of the book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism at the DCN: Next Summit 2023 — Shoshana Zuboff, author of the book *The Age of Surveillance Capitalism*

Kint’s points were hammered home by Shoshana Zuboff, Harvard Business School professor and author of the book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Zuboff delineated the history of privacy erosion leading to tech companies’ engagement in a “secret massive scale extraction of human data” and how regulation is a driving factor in reining it in.

The current drive towards antitrust and reining in the dominance a few players have over the ad market was a focal point for Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee, who addressed attendees via Zoom. He discussed a bill he is reintroducing “in a few weeks with bipartisan support,” which is designed to restore and protect competition in digital advertising and improve advertising transparency.

“Unfortunately, big tech behemoths like Google have inserted themselves as middlemen into this relationship, extracting monopoly rents not just on their own properties, but from every corner of the entire internet ecosystem.”

How brand focus empowers growth

The impact of emerging regulation is far from the only challenge media executives currently face. Speakers touched on inflation, supply chain disruption, European conflict, U.S.-China tensions, the ongoing impact of Covid, climate concerns, labor challenges, the erosion of trust in institutions, and the fight for free speech.

However, Almar Latour, CEO, Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal publisher (pictured at top) said that challenges like these actually drive brands closer to their mission. For his brands, that mission is to go deep with products to provide truth relevant to different aspects of the business world, he added. This strategy is one he believes will lead to subscription growth.

Producing great products consumers love and return to over and over is indeed a driving factor in subscription strategy, as illustrated in a discussion between Julia Beizer, Bloomberg Media CEO and chief digital officer and Mulder. She noted that consumers value connecting with authoritative voices in brand podcasts and newsletters.

Bloomberg Media CEO and chief digital officer Julia Beizer, & SVP and GM of Yahoo News Kat Downs Mulder in conversation with Axios' media reporter Sara Fischer at the 2023 DCN Next:Summit — Bloomberg Media CEO and chief digital officer Julia Beizer, & SVP and GM of Yahoo News Kat Downs Mulder in conversation with Axios’ media reporter Sara Fischer.

Indeed, building an infrastructure on the foundation of staying true to one’s brand is key to success, according to Bonin Bough, Group Black co-founder and chief strategy officer.

Brand, however, is not some vague marketing tool. Scott Mills, BET president and CEO said that maximizing brand requires a comprehensive data-driven ecosystem encompassing linear, streaming, and digital platforms.

Advocating for truth and accuracy

Maximizing brand value requires providing consumers with a source of much-needed, trustworthy information – particularly when others seek to tamp it down and create a void that is often filled with dis- or misinformation.

Scott Mills, BET president at the 2023 DCN: Next Summit — Scott Mills, president of BET

Addressing Florida’s Department of Education rejection of the AP African American History course, Mills noted that such actions will “drive us to allocate more of our resources or more of our attention to ensuring that our community—and people who value and respect our community—have access to accurate information.”

Clearly, the need for accurate information is a global one, though journalistic approaches and press freedoms vary widely. In his work as the manager for East and Southern Africa at the organization Journalists for Human Rights, Dr. Siyabulela Mandela has found that offering training to local journalists not only empowers them, but helps their work better serve local communities. He said that improving journalism’s role of providing checks to those in power is critical at a time when “there seems to be a shift from more democratic ways of doing things towards more totalitarian ways.”

Dr. Siyabulela Mandela, manager for East and Southern Africa at the organization Journalists for Human Rights, speaking at the 2023 DCN: Next Summit — Dr. Siyabulela Mandela, Journalists for Human Rights

Mandela advocates for an approach that enables Western journalists to reframe stories in East and Southern Africa and the Middle East with a more contextual focus on human rights by leveraging his organization’s local knowledge base. He favors the idea of a collaborative exchange program for mutual training with journalists from East and Southern Africa. Each, he pointed out, has much to learn from each other.

Evolving with the times

In addition to providing content that continues to address the needs of audiences, speakers discussed how innovation in storytelling provides creative and impactful ways to engage and inform audiences.

For Emblematic founder and CEO Nonny de la Pena, that means finding new ways to use virtual reality. Nicknamed “the godmother of VR” de la Pena illustrated techniques and showed behind the scenes insights into how some of the most powerful VR stories have been created. However, despite her enthusiasm, she said that given the fact that creators of misinformation often leverage powerful tech, it is essential to establish immutable provenance for footage to make it difficult to manipulate.

Alice McKown, publisher and CRO of The Atlantic speaking at the 2023 DCN: Next Summit — Alice McKown, publisher and CRO of The Atlantic

Encompassing non-traditional strategies to engage new audiences requires portfolio diversification, noted Alice McKown, publisher and CRO of The Atlantic. While the company has digitized its entire archive of 30,000 articles from its 165 years, it also has expanded efforts into creating new ways to leverage its IP, including immersive art exhibits, video, podcasts, book publishing, and events.

Hannah Yang, Chief Growth Officer of The New York Times Speaking at the 2023 DCN: Next Summit — Hannah Yang, Chief Growth Officer, New York Times

The National Geographic also has instituted strategies to evolve with the times while staying true to the brand’s core attributes. The magazine still attracts a relatively small, but incredibly loyal following, according to editor-in-chief Nathan Lump. These days, however, National Geographic brand reaches millions of people via social media, the National Geographic Channel on Disney Plus, virtual reality, live events, a travel business, consumer products, books.

Given the many ways that the brand now reaches audiences, Lump pointed out that National Geographic is the biggest it’s ever been in its 135 years. National Geographic boasts 714 million global followers across the major social platforms alone.

For The New York Times, Chief Growth Officer, Hannah Yang told the audience that its impressive subscription growth is achieved through three well-defined missions: a subscription growth mission to meet financial goals; consumer-facing mission offering desired options such as games and cooking; and platform mission to ensure that all parts of the business have the technology and data perspective they need to thrive.

What’s next

“There’s never been a better time to monetize audiences,” noted Alex Michael, managing director of LionTree Group. He stressed the value of omnichannel strategy and bundling while discussing the investment opportunities his company is leaning into this year.

Richard Plepler, founder, EDEN Productions and former HBO chairman and CEO speaking at the 2023 DCN: Next Summit — Richard Plepler, founder, EDEN Productions

The power of omnichannel was echoed by a number of speakers, including board member Robin Thurston, Outside Interactive founder and CEO. He said, “The concept of single sign-on omnichannel helps connect the dots and create value.”

Richard Plepler, founder, EDEN Productions and former HBO chairman and CEO, reminded attendees of something he’s advocated for many years: quality over quantity. “More is not better; only better is better. I am not of the belief that tonnage gets you more subscribers – what gets you more subscribers is when brands deliver on their promise.”

As DCN members map out strategies for 2023, innovation and audience focus remain constant. However, to win amidst contemporary challenges developing a seamless omnichannel strategy, while staying to brand mission, will be key to attracting new consumers and retaining existing ones.

Content production policy captures the global spotlight

February 9, 2023 Bryson Masse – Independent Journalist

Discoverability, funding, IP ownership, and cultural sovereignty are topics at the forefront of how and to what degree streaming companies should be put under government regulations. As today’s over-the-top streaming platforms continue to navigate emerging domestic rules and regulations, jurisdictions outside the U.S. have started to introduce new content and funding obligations for these services.

The ability to transcend borders has long been a defining characteristic of video streaming platforms: Anyone with an internet connection could view all the content. Initially, incumbent broadcasters and traditional distribution channels faced massive disruption as consumer preference shifted away from linear channels to the choice of what to watch and listen to from hundreds of options. With the wide adoption of digital distribution technology, streaming services became content creators themselves, while traditional content producers launched non-linear platforms to compete.

As is often the case with rapid technological advancements, legislation and regulation are now playing catch up. Local players in global markets have long made the case that the playing field must be leveled against the size of U.S.-based streaming companies, and officials have started to listen. Regulations are evolving to include localized content mandates and participation in domestic industry. Here’s how it’s playing out.

Europeans make early moves

In 2018, the European Union passed the Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive which included stipulations that the streaming platforms must offer a 30% quota of European content to European consumers. It also built a framework that allowed individual countries to mandate the streamers allocate revenues back into domestic production.

Right now, France is one of the countries with strongest local content rules. Streaming platforms must reinvest 20 to 25% of the domestic revenues back into French production. In France and elsewhere in Europe, since the regulations have been in place, Netflix has reached or exceeded the 30% local content requirements.

English language markets feel the squeeze

Because of the cultural juggernaut that is the U.S., other English-language regions have long felt compelled to shore up local production with support from their respective governments. This trend continues to be a flash point in debates about government overreach.

At the end of January, the Canadian senate passed Bill C-11 or the “Online Streaming Act,” an updated version of the country’s Broadcasting Act, which will allow the federal regulator to include international streaming services in its powers to levy fees and control how content is displayed. It’s expected to become law within a few weeks. Canadian governments have long sought to counter the influence of the cultural output south of its border, and the legislation attempts to extend those rules into the online space.

Similarly, Australia announced its own new “National Cultural Policy” around the same time. While it doesn’t outline the exact plans to regulate online streaming services, the Australian government laid out its goals to address the decline in local broadcasting revenues and bolster the creation of domestic productions.

While the report acknowledged the level of quality and popularity of the current slate of Australian content on the platforms, “these services have no requirements to make Australian content available on their platforms. The ready availability of mass content produced in other countries, particularly the United States, risks drowning out the voices of Australian storytellers,” read the Australian government’s cultural policy plan “Revive.”

While no longer part of the AVMS, the UK’s government continues to investigate the creation of rules so that the Office of Communication (Ofcom) will have jurisdiction over overseas streaming services. This recently came to a head when complaints about the Netflix docuseries featuring Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had no official avenues to be heard.

Canada’s new legislation stands out

The proposed legislation north of the border has faced headwinds from entities both large and small because of the unique nature of the proposed laws. “C-11 is a bit of an outlier. In that it extends to user generated content on platforms like YouTube or Tik Tok. The European example does not,” said the University of Ottawa’s Canada Research Chair in internet and E-commerce law, Michael Geist.

Major pushback has resulted in the inclusion of user generated content and subsequent amendments have been put forward to avoid some of the issues with attempting to put all online content under the Canadian regulatory umbrella.

In September, Disney and Spotify asked the federal government to be more flexible about what it considered “Canadian content.” The streaming services warned that certain material, while ostensibly produced in Canada with a Canadian cast, wouldn’t count under the current rules, which include Canadian ownership of intellectual properties.

However, it’s worth noting that trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) include provisions that protect the ability of companies to trade in audiovisual services across the Canada-U.S. border. Already, the U.S. embassy has expressed reservations about the proposed laws violating non-discrimination terms of the free trade agreements signed by the two countries.

While the bill is slated to pass the legislature, much of the specifics will need to be determined by the arms length content regulator the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunication Commission (CRTC). So the final rules and the structure of the regulatory framework remains unclear and will be subject to a public consultation process.

Despite the efforts in international English-language markets to avoid being drowned out, English language markets still generally benefit from the sympatico of shared language with the largest content producing sector in the world.

“Those English markets have had significant success, attracting investment from large streaming services and large production companies,” said Geist. “To Canada’s case, it’s a thriving sector that’s based in part on tax, [and] part on proximity to the U.S. market. So I don’t know that that necessarily suggests that what you need is more protection.”

Advertising | Featured Post

Retail media: the hot trend media execs can’t afford to ignore

February 2, 2023 Damian Radcliffe, Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism – University of Oregon

In the rapidly changing landscape of digital advertising, retail media is fast emerging as a powerful new force.

According to GroupM, global advertising revenues directed to retail companies already accounts for 18% of total digital advertising and 11% of total advertising spend. “We expect retail media advertising to increase roughly 60% by 2027,” GroupM’s 2022 E-Commerce & Retail Media Forecast noted back in September. Globally, that will make it a $168 billion market.

Another firm, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), estimates that by 2026, retail media will account for 25% of digital media spending.

These are big numbers. So, given media companies continued reliance on advertising revenue, any emerging player in this space is one to watch. Retail media is no exception.

Here’s what you need to know about its growth, potential impact on digital ad revenues, and what publishers stand to learn from this booming market.

What is retail media?

As Zenith explains, retail media refers to display and search advertising that appears on e-commerce websites and/or the online platforms of brick-and-mortar retailers.

Retail media networks (RMNs), such as those operated by Amazon, Walmart and Shopify, offer multiple opportunities to deliver targeted advertising. They also provide the means to deliver other forms of sponsored content to consumers, both on their own sites and increasingly off-site, too.

Why is it growing?

Retail media isn’t new. But it is in its ascendancy. GroupM estimates that global advertising revenue for retail-based companies was worth $88 billion in 2021, growing to $101 billion in 2022.

This uptake, eMarketer says, can be attributed to “the death of the third-party cookie–as well as retailers’ ability to leverage their first-party data on customers.”

Alongside this, we also must consider the continued impact of the pandemic in shifting consumer behaviors and driving more people to shop online. As e-commerce has grown, so has the desire of brands to be in spaces where we are increasingly spending more time. And money.

Not surprisingly, brands and manufacturers are using retail media to reach customers at the point of purchase, or when they are most likely to make a purchase decision. That’s often on e-commerce sites and on online shopping channels.

Threats

There are several clear challenges here for media companies. The first lies in the worry that retail media will further contribute to the cannibalization of publisher’s advertising revenues. As advertising markets continue to grow, there’s a very real concern that publishers will not get a bigger slice of this pie, as monies flow to other platforms and providers.

For agencies and brands, the volume of first-party data that retail media platforms have access to makes them highly appealing. It also makes them potentially difficult to compete with.

Alongside this, these platforms also offer the opportunity for both highly targeted ads and advertisements that may trigger trackable purchase decisions there and then.

Of course, publishers offer this functionality too, often packaged through – and around – compelling content. This can also inspire purchases, but the journey to transaction might be more complicated, or less immediate. For example, online shopping through an affiliate partnership might take you offsite to complete a purchase. In contrast, seamless, frictionless, transactions are the bread and butter of traditional e-commerce sites. Unlike on many publisher sites, transactions can be completed within their walled garden, without the need to visit a partner’s site.

New data from the Reuters Institute notes that nearly a quarter of media leaders in 53 countries around the world described e-commerce as an “important,” or “very important,” revenue stream for their company in the year ahead. As these media companies seek to grow their e-commerce revenues, the UX and targeting that retail media networks can potentially provide, may offer some stiff competition to these ambitions.

Lastly, we should also note that retailer’s media activity is not just about advertising. Some retailers are also investing in traditional content too. This includes time-honored staples such as in-store magazines through to live shopping experiences, developing relationships with influencers, and running their own in-house media companies, like Target’s Roundel.

*Image: Screengrab from a* *presentation* *by New York performance marketing firm* *Tinuiti*

Opportunities

As eMarketer explains, “the most important benefit that retail media offers brands is a closer relationship with retailers, followed by creative services, access to owned and operated media/properties, first-party sales data, and personalization opportunities through creative.”

That makes for a compelling case for many brands and advertisers. But, of course, some of those characteristics are applicable to media companies too. Moreover, retail media isn’t a sector that publishers are locked out of. Far from it. There are multiple possibilities for media companies to tap into this market.

For example, Grocery Dive notes that retailers are increasingly looking to add shoppable video, live streams, and other multimedia content on their sites. Some do this in-house and have large creative teams. However, this increasing demand for content presents opportunities for creative and publishing partners. They might range from start-ups like Firework – a video commerce solutions provider – through to the content studios at large publishers such as The New York Times’ T Brand Studios and Bloomberg Media Studios.

Yahoo! meanwhile has created a tech stack to support RMN’s run by Lowe’s and Marriott, which inc l udes enabling ad buyers to use anonymized data to target customers using Marriott’s app and websites. In the future, that will come to TVs in their hotel rooms too. It will be interesting to see if additional content layers – such as local news, weather and sports – will be added to these spaces in the future, so that consumers are served content related to where they are staying from trusted publishing partners.

There are also opportunities to double-down on some of the partnerships between retailers and media brands. Walmart has already partnered with BuzzFeed to offer Tasty branded kitchenware and shoppable recipes. Inspired by a recipe idea, users could have the items needed to create it added to an online basket, picking up the items later in the store or having them delivered to their homes.

But given that retailers are also offering food inspiration on their own sites, that model could be flipped on its head in which case, RMNs would send traffic to publishers’ sites (e.g. NYT Cooking) to continue their journey.

*Thanksgiving-themed shoppable videos on Safeway’s website,* *via* *Grocery Dive*

Lastly, it’s worth noting that some retail media providers offer offsite, often co-branded ads. This means that some of RMN’s ad dollars may still flow towards media companies. In fact, they already are, according to Gavin Dunaway from The Media Trust.

As he explained to DCN readers last summer, “When retailers buy off property, they need high-quality inventory in well-lit spaces.” That might mean marquee publishers with large audiences, or more targeted niche outlets. Within that, the ability to offer contextual ads, and to do so in a less crowded space than a typical online shopping space, is potentially very appealing.

Moreover, given concerns about brand safety, quality publishers can also be a safer bet for retailers and their advertisers, than some of the vagaries of the programmatic marketplace. That too makes them attractive for RMNs and their advertisers.

Looking ahead

The rise of retail media represents a significant shift in the advertising landscape and one that publishers cannot afford to ignore.

Retail media is expected to exceed $50 billion in the United States in 2023 alone. That represents 20% of total U.S. digital ad spend, AdWeek reports. It is daunting to face another major competitor in the digital ad marketplace. However, it’s an area that publishers should consider exploring and learning from. With companies like Amazon and Walmart already generating substantial advertising revenue, media companies should be paying close attention to the strategies of these companies, if they are not already.

As part of this, trends such as shoppable videos and the intersection of retail media and connected TV (another advertising channel that is also growing rapidly) are worth watching.

And, if nothing else, the emergence of retail media highlights the importance of a strong first-party data strategy, and the potential power it holds with advertisers and consumers alike. This once again reinforces the need for publishers to ensure that they do not get left behind when we move to a cookie-less world.

Areas that retail media are already majoring in – first-party data, shoppable video, sponsored content, and contextual ads designed to spark purchases – should be reviewed with this new competition in mind. There is also much to learn from their efforts in these arenas, as well as opportunities to partner with RMNs on everything from e-commerce strategies to ad inventory.

As the retail media market continues to expand and evolve, it looks set to play a growing role in the advertising industry and in shaping consumer habits. Subsequently, it’s a space that publishers must pay attention to by continuing to revisit and check out. After all, just because you’ve seen one retail media network, it doesn’t mean seen the mall.

Beneath conservatives’ big tech concerns, liberals may find a common cause

January 26, 2023 Chris Pedigo, SVP Government Affairs – DCN

Liberals and conservatives have different flashpoints when it comes to big tech. But they all trace back to the same problem.

Conservatives believe their viewpoints are being suppressed by big tech platforms and are taking steps to highlight the problem in this new Congress. Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), the new Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, recently wrote to five tech companies demanding information about whether they colluded with the Biden Administration to “suppress freedom of speech online,” in particular conservative viewpoints. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), the new Ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court as part of the landmark Gonzalez vs Google case to be heard next month. He claims that “platforms have not been shy about restricting access and removing content based on the politics of the speaker, an issue that has persistently arisen as Big Tech companies censor and remove content espousing conservative political views.”

In response, some have argued that tech platforms are simply trying to suppress offensive speech and disinformation. In fact, Twitter’s research showed that its algorithm actually favors conservative views. Google and Facebook and their proxies have made similar assertions that no such discrimination is happening. However, without any independent evidence, we’re left in a position where the platforms are grading their own homework and we’re all asked to simply trust them. Unlike the mass media, which thrives in the clear light of public scrutiny, it is impossible to understand the full impact of what goes on in the platforms’ black boxes.

Competitive viewpoints

Whether you agree with Rep. Jordan and Senator Cruz or not, conservatives’ concerns clearly underscore a related problem in our current marketplace: a lack of competition. Big tech controls untold data and influence. To date, they pretty much write their own rules with copious support from cooperative industry groups. The IAB has taken on a heavy load by carrying Google and Facebook’s water in its efforts to defend “commercial surveillance.” CEO David Cohen uses inflammatory and polarizing rhetoric intended to protect the interests of big tech under the guise of defending the interests of “entrepreneurs and small businesses.” In fact, the one thing guaranteed to protect the needs of smaller players is an end to monopolistic practices.

And, while he defends the practices of IAB members Google and Facebook, Cohen selectively calls out Apple for its ” cynicism and hypocrisy.” It seems more than coincidental that Apple is not a member of the IAB. Apple is, in fact, an organization with a clear track record of participating deeply at open multi-stakeholder groups like the W3C to develop privacy solutions.

Dominant industry platforms preference their own products and services to the detriment of any nascent competitors. We’ve already seen clear evidence of collusion emerge in the government lawsuits against Google and Facebook in which these two companies shut out their competitors in the advertising market. Undoubtedly, we’re likely to see more revelations of this nature are as the Department of Justice filed suit against Google this week alleging the company unfairly manipulated the advertising marketplace for its own advantage.

Apple has been accused of leveraging its dominant App Store to develop and promote its own apps to the detriment of competitors. Amazon is under the spotlight for developing its own products to compete with those in its ecommerce marketplace – by employing analytics derived from that same industry-dominating marketplace. The list of anticompetitive complaints against a handful of powerful players grows longer by the day.

Healthy competition

While revelations continue to emerge as these cases make their way through the system, we can’t help but wonder what other harmful activities are still hidden? Without competition, these companies can – and do – operate as monopolies with all the trademark bullying and unchecked arrogant, anticompetitive, even illegal behavior. Who’s to say these companies haven’t also used their dominant market position to suppress (or otherwise influence the proliferation of) political viewpoints?

Cultivating healthy competition in the digital marketplace would go a long way toward building transparency and accountability for the big tech platforms. If Instagram were still a separate company, imagine how differently it would have reacted after the endless scandals for Facebook starting with Cambridge Analytica? Imagine how the market would have reacted to news of Jedi Blue if there was a viable alternative to Google’s ad serving tools? What would pricing and user experience look like if the places we purchased goods weren’t tilting the scale hard in their own favor?

Instead, in today’s world of monopolies, we see a blizzard of PR and legal subterfuge followed by self-serving half-measures.

Policy lags but has legs

Europe passed the Digital Markets Act last year with enforcement expected to begin later this year. If past is prologue, true results will take a few years. Just look at the most recent groundbreaking cases from GDPR. Facebook was deemed to be illegally processing data at the end of 2022, though GDPR became law in 2018. Congress tried to pass bills last year to address the competition problem but frustratingly came up short. Now, Republicans enjoy the majority in the House. Yes, they are worried about the behavior of the big platforms but have voiced concerns about overly empowering federal regulators.

There are legitimate debates to be had about how best to inject transparency and restore healthy competition. But make no mistake, the marketplace for tech is broken and policymakers need to act. Without a policy solution, monopolists will continue to spin PR and make small performative adjustments while they shape the marketplace in their favor and to the detriment of everyone else: small and medium sized companies – and, yes, maybe even divergent political views.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

Weather Channel and Consumer Reports reveal the power of the subscription bundle

January 19, 2023 Charlotte Ricca – Independent Media Reporter

Subscription fatigue is a major concern for media brands, as top performers consolidate their market position, while new challengers vie for audience attention. Add to that the current economic downturn, and media businesses are rightly concerned about churn rate and revenue. According to recent research, two out of every three people surveyed have canceled at least one service in the last year.

To combat subscription fatigue, media brands need to focus on providing clear value propositions and high quality content, as well as giving consumers more flexibility and control over their subscriptions.

“We have identified two pain points for consumers,” says Sheri Bachstein, CEO of The Weather Company and GM of IBM Watson Advertising. “The first is managing tons of subscriptions in multiple places, and the second is the cost of those multiple subscriptions.”

Innovative bundling solution

One solution is subscription bundling, which can help lower both pricing to the consumer and investment from the brand. Bundling is most viable and financially rewarding when a brand is part of a larger media portfolio, such as Disney or Apple Services. However, not all businesses have such clout.

The Weather Company has come up with an innovative solution by developing a platform that enables bundling across media portfolios. “We are striving to disrupt the subscription economy by going across media companies that aren’t traditionally connected,” says Bachstein.

These bundled subscriptions are another way for the Weather Channel to provide additional value, by aligning with brands that help people make more informed decisions in their daily planning. One surprising collaboration is with ratings organization Consumer Reports.

“The Weather Channel helps consumers make daily decisions about their day, and Consumer Reports does the same thing, by offering valuable information and services. So it was a very natural fit,” explains Bachstein. “I expect we will see more collaborations like this in the future, but it is certainly one of the first.”

This latest bundle helps consumers access the latest weather along with news, ratings or shopping information in one location. Other partnerships include USA Today, MightyNest Shop and TripAdvisor Plus.

A compelling package

“It’s unusual to have different companies together, offering discounts on a bundle, but our partners are carefully chosen,” states Jason Fox, VP Chief Digital Officer at Consumer Reports. “Both the Weather Channel and Consumer Reports are highly trusted, non-partisan organizations, so we compliment each other well. You could call us ‘post partisan’ as we represent the larger demographic of society and we are proud of that.”

As a non-profit organization, subscriptions make up the bulk of Consumer Reports’ revenue. Therefore, Fox says it’s critical to bring their product to a new audience, while creating a more compelling package for their current customers in order to reduce churn,

“The average U.S. consumer is willing to take out between five and eight subscription services,” Fox explains. “The likes of Netflix, Disney Plus and larger media companies, such as The Wall Street Journal and New York Times take the bulk of this, so we are fighting for remaining slots.”

In addition to driving subscriptions numbers, Fox says the bundle with the Weather Channel is part of their wider growth strategy. “It’s about brand awareness and getting our name out there as a leader in the space,” he says. “While this is an ancillary benefit, and not the main reason for this partnership, it’s an important part of our growth strategy.”

Bachstein agrees that partnering with businesses who share the same mission and values helps strengthen their brands overall, while leveraging their audiences. “I honestly can’t think of a reason to not bundle,” Bachstein states. “You extend your reach, extend the brand and extend your direct to consumer relationship. And if the technology is already built for you, as it is with the Weather Channel, then it’s a win win.”

Subscription innovation

So, what should media executives be thinking about when evaluating the opportunity to bundle?

“It’s important that both brands complement and trust each other,” says Bachstein. “You don’t want to share a competitive space, you should be adjacent verticals, with shared values and orientations. That’s the sweet spot. To use cable channels as an analogy, you want to have a portfolio approach that offers a value proposition to your consumers.”

Value is key in the current climate. Statista predicts that by 2025 there will be 1.5 trillion subscriptions in the US alone, with the average person spending $1k a year on subscription services. However, consumers increasingly want more value, more advanced features and a more premium experience.

“At a high level it’s really important for a company to think about subscription innovation,” says Fox. “It’s one thing is to set up a paywall, but anyone can do that. It’s about what makes you distinct from others. I really believe that in the world of commoditised content if you are not offering something special it will be a hard sell to create a meaningful subscriptions business. This idea of coming together and offering something greater than we can do individually, is really powerful.”

Featured Post | Innovation

Vox Media on effective multiplatform podcast extensions

January 9, 2023 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Independent Media Reporter

Established in 2017, the Vox Media Podcast Network has enabled the publisher to bring together the podcasting efforts of its brands under one umbrella. Its 150+ shows span technology, news, pop culture, emerging trends, business and sports, with centralized teams to streamline production, monetization, workflows, and more.

Vox Media recently promoted two of its top podcast executives, Ray Chao and Nishat Kurwa. Chao is now SVP and GM of Audio and Digital Video, and oversees Vox Media’s digital video business as well as talent deals and distribution partnerships. Kurwa is SVP and Executive Producer of Audio, leading programming, production operations, content strategy and new show development across the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Having led a number of successful expansions of Vox Media’s podcasts into other platforms, Chao and Kurwa have a great deal of expertise in what does and doesn’t work for publishers looking to take shows to the next level. They spoke to DCN about their priorities for Vox Media’s Podcast Network this year, and what to consider when building out a podcast brand into live events, video, licensing and more.

Here are three factors that have made Vox Media’s podcast extensions so successful, and what other publishers can learn from them.

An audience-first approach

Vox Media’s podcasts have a wide range of extensions designed to engage audiences beyond just listening. Some, like tech and business podcast Pivot, have partnered to produce videos of the show, as well as launching their own tech conference. Others, like narrative series Land of the Giants, have been adapted into TV series. “When we’re thinking about extensions, everything is on the table for all of our shows,” said Kurwa.

When it comes to deciding where and how to expand, audience signals are crucial. “We get a lot of feedback from our audiences, which is really meaningful and helpful,” Kurwa explained. If they get a lot of the audience saying they’d love to see hosts on video or suggesting other ways of interacting, the feedback is all taken into consideration. “It’s a strong indicator for hosts as well when they think about how they want to spend their time,” she noted.

The audience is also the first measure the team turns to when evaluating the success of an extension. “We always ask ourselves, does this expansion resonate with audiences?” Chao said. “Is this something that our listeners, our viewers and our audiences are excited about? Are they listening and watching and engaging with the content?”

Getting this kind of feedback can be challenging with podcast listeners. It’s important to encourage communication early on – and respond – via channels like email and social media. This in turn will help when assessing which extensions will work well for audiences and the response to them.

Experimenting with video for audio

Video podcasts have become a hot topic, following studies that have shown YouTube is actually a top destination for podcasts. It’s still a fairly new area for Vox Media, who are approaching the use of video on a show-by-show basis.

Pivot is one of the publisher’s early forays into video podcasts. Their partnership with Salesforce+, an on-demand streaming service for business professionals, gives the platform four exclusive clips each week from Pivot. The partnership has been running for just over a year, and has taught the team a great deal about video production.

“You might think it’s as simple as sticking a camera in the recording room, taking that video and posting it, but it really does take a lot to get polished video, even for a conversation show like Pivot,” Chao explained. “We’ve learned a ton just in terms of video production and workflow.”

Videoing the shows has also given the team the opportunity to experiment with posting short clips on social. “It’s been so exciting for us to see how much listener engagement we have when we post short highlight clips of Scott [Galloway] or Kara [Swisher] reacting to something a guest has said on a show,” said Chao. “It’s been really beneficial for us not just for the audience feedback, but because it helps us build and foster the community in a space like a social media platform. Those videos also spread the word about Pivot for people who might not have listened yet.”

Although it’s difficult to attribute growth specifically to clips on social, Chao said that Pivot has seen a lot of healthy audience growth recently, which they believe engagement on the video clips on social media has contributed to.

The Verge has also been experimenting with video clips across its two podcasts, Decoder and The Vergecast. The team behind the shows have been taking short video clips from the podcasts and posting them to TikTok and YouTube with the primary aim of finding new listeners.

“We are very much in a test-and-learn phase with video,” he acknowledged, when asked if any other shows would be trying it out. “We’re approaching it on a show by show basis.”

The power of the Podcast Network

The Vox Media Podcast Network, where all of the podcasts are produced and supported under one umbrella rather than as individual brands, also lends strength to multiplatform extensions. “By having the network, we can pursue bigger, more exciting and more holistic growth opportunities than if it was one brand or one show on their own,” explained Chao. “We’re very connected to other parts of the business and editorial stakeholders that are working on projects and initiatives outside of the audio space.”

One example Chao illustrated this with is podcast subscriptions. Podcast Network division CAFE, which has a weekly interview podcast with former Manhattan U.S. attorney Preet Bharara as its flagship show, has a subscription product rooted in podcasting.

“We learned a ton just by operating that podcast subscription product, growing it, and working with that team,” he said. “We’re now not only applying those learnings on the podcast subscription front to other podcasts that we’d like to launch subscriptions for in the future, but we’re leveraging a lot of the internal infrastructure that we’ve built for subscriptions outside of the podcast base.”

Whether it’s New York Magazine’s established subscriptions business, Vox’s contributions model, or paid newsletter experiments at The Verge, consumer revenue opportunities can work across both audio and non-audio. “On the business side, the product side, the engineering side and the marketing side, we’re able to really share learnings and best practices across the network to find new opportunities for growth,” Chao added.

Focus on the podcast first

Despite the success of the publisher’s various podcast extensions, Kurwa and Chao were adamant that when developing new shows, the quality of the podcast always comes first.

“We don’t approach our podcast conceptualization or production thinking about television adaptation,” Kurwa emphasized, when discussing the recent TV adaptation of their podcast Land of the Giants. “We’re focused on the podcast first. And that alleviates pressure.”

It’s an important lesson, especially as stories grow of podcasters selling out arenas, landing huge licensing deals, and more. If a podcast doesn’t work as a podcast first and foremost, any planned extensions are futile.

Finally, both executives urged caution with successful multiplatform extensions. What works really well for one show may not for another.

“We’re not going down a laundry list of ‘here are all of the different things that a podcast could expand into’, but we’re trying to be thoughtful about what makes sense for the audience, what makes sense for the show, what makes sense for the host and the show teams, and what they have bandwidth for,” Chao noted. “We’re really looking for those types of opportunities that check all of those boxes for us.”

For savvy publishers, the opportunities to extend podcast brands beyond audio are limitless. But true success comes in expanding wisely.

Featured Post | Innovation

6 ways media companies use AI to meet their strategic needs

December 15, 2022 Damian Radcliffe, Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism – University of Oregon

From audience analytics to programmatic advertising and automated story creation, media companies have used Artificial Intelligence (AI) for some time. However, this technology is rapidly maturing and opening up new creative and business possibilities that media executives need to be aware of.

In fact, AI is creating what venture capitalist and MIT fellow Paul Kedrosky describes as the “most disruptive change the U.S. economy has seen in 100 years.”

ChatGPT, an AI chatbot, is the current poster child for this robotic reckoning. Garnering a huge amount of column inches in recent weeks, the application can provide detailed answers to questions and prompts. Along with other AI-generated innovations like the portrait app Lensa and OpenArt – a gallery of works created by AI – these tools have inspired the latest wave of discussion about the implications of this technology.

Amidst copious innovation and optimism, concerns have also surfaced around AI-generated content, consent, bias, labeling and regulation, as well as the impact on labor markets. None of these issues are going to go away any time soon. Nevertheless, while media companies and policymakers navigate this unfolding landscape, the roll-out and adoption of AI continues to gather pace.

Artificial intelligence at work in the media

With AI having a real moment right now, this is the perfect time to explore the ramifications for media companies. Here are six uses of AI technologies that need to be on your radar:

1. Driving engagement

One of the most common ways publishers are using AI and machine learning is through AI-powered algorithms which personalize content recommendations.

This can help increase engagement and keep readers on your site for longer. That’s particularly useful if time on site is a key performance metric. Of course, it can also enable you to serve more adds to your audience too.

Personalized recommendation technology has long been the mainstay of platforms like Amazon, Spotify, and Netflix. Now it’s becoming increasingly common for other forms of content too.

One early proponent, The Washington Post, uses AI to personalize the news that they deliver based on readers interests and preferences. It’s an approach they’ve been using for some time across their app, newsletters and now the homepage.

*Sign up page* *for The Washington Post’s “For You” newsletter, highlighting the personalized nature of this product (Dec. 2022)*

As Digiday explains, the Post offers a personalized “For You” section on the homepage that taps into information provided during onboarding. At sign-up, subscribers or registered users can select their topic preferences. Recommendations are further augmented by your reading history and other performance data.

It’s an area the Post looks set to double down on, as they and other outlets seek to move to a more tailored content offering and away from the “one size fits all” approach of yesteryear.

2. Tailoring your paywall

There are many different types of paywall possibilities. But, whatever your approach, the end goal is the same: to convert readers into paying subscribers.

One of these models, dynamic paywalls, deploys AI to change free article limits. As a result, users hit the paywall at different times, based on their behaviors and other indicators that help to determine a consumer’s propensity to pay.

There is “no magic number” after which readers will subscribe, notes Piano CEO Trevor Kaufman in an article that asked: “Has AI brought an end to the metered paywall?”

“Piano has seen visitors subscribe after a single pageview. Others take much longer to make the decision to convert, while some aren’t likely to ever subscribe at all,” Kaufman observes. In response to this variance, he argues, we need “smarter, more satisfying automation.”

AI can help. New York Media and Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ, Switzerland) are just some of the publishers to adopt this model. They have used AI to determine individual paywalls, based on variables including geography, consumption habits and visit behavior, as well as subject matter and the device being used. Expect more publishers to follow suit.

3. Creating content

Many early newsroom experiments with AI focused on the potential to craft stories that typically follow a predictable formula.

One of the earliest to leverage AI for content creation, The Associated Press (AP) has been using AI since 2014 to generate summaries of earnings reports from publicly traded companies. This allows them to quickly and accurately provide readers with key information, freeing up reporters to do other work. “Prior to using AI, our editors and reporters spent countless resources on coverage that was important but repetitive,” their website notes, adding that this “distracted from higher-impact journalism.”

Alongside freeing up reporters, the technology has allowed AP to create more of this content. Automated story generation has enabled AP to increase the volume of these corporate stories by a factor of 10.

At a simpler level, AI is also being used to liberate resources otherwise hoovered up by resource-heavy work such as interview transcriptions.

AP is currently working with local newsrooms to help them increase their use of AI tools. In a survey asking what would be the most useful use of this technology, automating transcription came top.

4. Distributing content

A further potential benefit of AI can be seen in its ability to support publishers in their desire to get material in front of audiences – wherever they may be.

POLITICO Europe has used AI to convert two of their popular newsletters, Brussels Playbook and London Playbook into daily podcasts. The audio option gives subscribers another way to consume this content on the go.

This type of technological solution can help publishers manage their resources more efficiently, as well as distribute content to different platforms in a timely and cost-effective manner.

A further mainstream iteration of this idea is also being developed by Google. Dyani Najdi, Managing Director of Video and Display EMEA, has highlighted how the tech giant is experimenting with a tool to reformat landscape videos for YouTube. Viewers will see videos in square or vertical formats, with the shape automatically determined by how you are accessing the platform.

Although currently only available for certain video-ad products, it’s not a big leap to imagine this being used for other content in the near future. If it is, that would be a huge time-saver for many publishers. A further boon is the possibility of this technology opening up new distribution avenues, without the time and expense of repurposing everything.

Where we go from here: two trends to keep an eye on

The manner in which AI is being employed is constantly changing. Its possibilities have sparked discussion about the implications for education, journalism and other creative work, as well as the wider knowledge economy.

Within that, here are two key AI-trends for publishers to closely follow and potentially adopt.

1. Leveling-up content, and ad, personalization

Based on their interests and preferences, AI can personalize the news that publishers deliver to readers. Its usage is only likely to increase and become more ubiquitous.

More than 9,000 publishers use Taboola’s recommendation platform. Earlier in the year, they announced that AI functionality had been added to their homepage techstack. The company said that in beta testing companies such as McClatchy, The Independent and Estado de Minas in Brazil, had seen a 30% – 50% increase in clickthrough rates for homepage sections personalized by Taboola.

Alongside content, AI can also be used to deliver a better ad experience. Publishers like Condé Nast are using machine learning to find patterns that can lead to more personalized and contextual ads. In a cookie-less future this type of approach will be essential if ads are to be targeted and relevant.

2. Improving and streamlining workflows

With cuts being seen across the media landscape, a key challenge for publishers in 2023 will involve maintaining output levels (never mind launching new products and verticals) with fewer staff.

*Image via FIPP:* *Innovation in Media 2022-23 World Report*

AI may help here, given its ability to be used for A/B headline testing and other forms of predictive analysis. It can also tag and generate content such as business, sports and real estate stories. Or, as seen at Forbes, provide detailed prompts for writers.

It can further support social media and off-platform strategies too. The South China Morning Post saved resources akin to work done by 3.9 full-time employees by using AI to streamline its social media management.

Meanwhile, in Germany, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has used AI to help editors understand which stories to put behind the paywall. This matters given their freemium model, and the need to balance free content that drives subscriptions with premium subscriber-only content that readers value.

The big picture

This list of uses is far from exhaustive. To it we can also add important developments such as the ability of AI to help address inequalities (through the automatic creation of audio articles, and work to measure gender disparity in news coverage), as well as the rise of automated fact checking and many others.

Although no one knows how this technology will play out, it’s clear that AI can play a valuable role in helping publishers with their operations. As a result, it is no surprise that key activities unlocked by this technology – such as data analytics and automation – are among the top investment areas for publishers in the coming year.

Previously, as the Knight Foundation has found, “when we talk[ed] about AI in newsrooms, we seem to lean heavily on the newsgathering part of the process and maybe do not pay as much attention to the product or the business side of the ecosystem.”

In 2023, that may begin to change, as we see an overdue shift in the thinking about the role that AI plays in supporting the strategic needs of publishers.

From shaping the content you see (Pink News’ positive news filter), to aiding with translations of new international editions (Le Monde’s digital English language product) and improving your SEO (Summari and other tools), AI is here to stay and increasingly integral to publisher strategies.

Against a challenging business backdrop, as outlets begin to focus more on areas like product, subscriptions and retention, AI’s contribution to a publisher’s success will become more prominent and important than ever.

Featured Post | Industry-Research | Perspectives

7 critical media trends to factor into your strategy

December 8, 2022 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Independent Media Reporter

It’s been another breakneck year for the media industry. Every year at Media Voices we round up the biggest moments from the past 12 months, and explore how they impact publishers. This year was certainly not short of industry-defining events, and Media Moments 2022 summarizes these across 10 chapters, from advertising and subscriptions to newsletters and emerging technology.

Stepping back from the big moments of cookie delays, Twitter takeovers, and bumpy ad markets, there have been a number of developments this year which have the potential to shape publishing strategies in 2023 and beyond. Here are seven key themes from the report that will inform your approach moving forward:

1. Adblocking has returned to an all–time high

The days of adblocking causing sleepless nights for publishers seemed to be long–gone. Between the demise of third–party cookies and vigorous blocklists costing huge amounts of revenue, executives in the ad department have had plenty of other things to worry about.

Unfortunately, adblocking needs to move back up on the agenda. It has returned to levels last seen at the peak of the phenomenon in 2018, with 290 million web users actively blocking ads worldwide, according to the 2022 PageFair Adblock Report. This is an average of 21% across all geos and verticals. Solutions to tackle the problem are in short supply, and are likely to remain so unless it is prioritized again.

2. Streaming accounts for the majority time spent with TV

In August, streaming officially topped cable as the most popular method by which people in the U.S. consume television content. According to Nielsen, which runs a monthly Gauge study of TV consumption, streaming now makes up more than one–third (34.8%) of all television consumption, overtaking cable (34.4%), and far ahead of broadcast (21.6%).

Unsurprisingly, streaming powerhouses like Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ are leading the charge. However, this is a notable milestone for streamers across the board. It marks a major shift in how audiences – especially younger people – engage with what we’ve traditionally thought of as television content. This opens more opportunities for publishers in the video space to get well–told stories in front of audiences. But it also means that the video landscape is more fractured than ever.

3. Local news can be profitable on just reader revenue

The past five or so years has seen local news start–ups grow all over the world as access to publishing and revenue tools has opened up. Some have shown real promise this year, offering tantalizing glimpses of a sustainable future for local publishers.

In the U.K., The Manchester Mill, a Substack–based local news publisher, reached profitability last month with just 1,600 paying subscribers. The two–year–old brand says they are profitable off annualized subscription revenue of around $164,000. Founder Joshi Herrmann has launched two sister titles off the back of its success: the Liverpool Post and Sheffield Tribune, which are at 650 and 900 paying subscribers respectively.

For local news to truly thrive, we will need to move beyond models of just one or two reporters per city. But the early green shoots of success are encouraging.

4. There’s no sign of subscriptions decline…yet

Following Netflix’s Q2 subscriber tumble, many analysts have forecast a downturn in subscriptions. As economic pressures begin to bite, almost 30% of consumers polled by Toolkits and the National Research Group said that they planned to reduce the number of online subscriptions they hold.

But the second half of 2022 has shown that the subscriptions market is resilient. Netflix saw a spectacular bounceback in Q3, adding 2.41 million new subscribers and beating its own and analyst expectations. Publishers are seeing continued growth too: AOP members reported digital subscriptions growth at almost 15% over the last 12 months. Some have reported record performances, from the New York Times’ 9 million subscriber milestone to The Economist posting its most profitable year since 2016 on the back of 1.2 million subscribers, and total subscription revenues accounting for more than 60% of its revenues.

We may yet see a downturn depending on how pressures on consumers play out over winter. But for now, people are happy to pay for content they find valuable.

5. Email newsletters are an unexploited revenue opportunity

Email may be one of the oldest forms of digital communication, but as a revenue driver it is still very under–used by mainstream publishers. Despite the wave of Substack–led paid newsletter creators over the past few years, few publishers have attempted anything similar themselves.

A recent report from WAN–IFRA highlighted the opportunity gap around email newsletters. 48% of publishers they surveyed did not monetize their newsletters. Of those that did, advertising and exclusive sponsorships were used by 32% and 16% respectively. Significantly, newsletters were used as part of a subscription bundle rather than standalone offering were used by 30% of publishers.

Quartz is one publisher who dropped its paywall entirely this year. Interestingly, they still kept the membership scheme, and instead have a suite of premium emails they send to members. “We found that 75% of Quartz members read us primarily through email, so we’ve been putting more of our best stuff directly in their inboxes,” said CEO Zach Seward.

When it comes to advertising, I wouldn’t wish the ad tech that plagues the rest of the internet on our email inboxes. But the tech to improve the advertising experience in email via personalisation and segmentation is getting there. Now, we just have to behave responsibly with it. Newsletters have a reputation as a premium engagement method for a good reason.

6. News headlines are in a negative spiral

Following the headline findings from the Reuters Digital News Report about the growing issue of news avoidance, there has been much discussion this year on how to rebuild trust with audiences. As publishers compete for attention online, they have found ways of standing out and getting readers to click and share content. But this isn’t necessarily positive.

One study in particular from PLoS ONE showed just the extent to which media headlines have become increasingly negative over the past two decades. The research showed headlines expressing anger were up 104% since the year 2000, fear, 150%, and sadness 54%. This isn’t because the world has got worse, even if “permacrisis” is the word of the year for 2022. Rather, negative and emotionally–arousing headlines are more likely to attract clicks and attention, which in turn means more revenue for publishers.

It’s a difficult cycle to break. The sheer amount of competition for attention means that it’s understandable publishers have to find ways of breaking through the noise. But the long–term effects of stoking outrage and despair on a near–constant basis are just beginning to be recognized.

7. Some emerging tech is good to jump on early. Others, not so much!

Publishers who tried early experiments in NFTs have been richly rewarded. From digital covers to archive images, NFT projects have generated millions for brands like TIME, The Economist, Forbes, and Playboy over the past few years.

However, the bottom has since fallen out of the NFT market, driven by the tough year cryptocurrency has had. NFT trading volumes collapsed 97% between January and September this year. So it’s not surprising to see publishers like CNN wrapping up their NFT marketplaces and projects.

Caution in other areas, however, is wise. Apart from a couple of publishers like Vogue testing metaverse experiences, it has been mainly consumer brands rushing to the space.

Audiences so far have not followed. Meta had aimed to have 500,000 monthly active users for its flagship platform Horizon Worlds by the end of 2022. By October, they had revised that figure down to 280,000, although the current tally is allegedly less than 200k. Other metaverse platforms are also struggling; audits on Sandbox and Decentraland have shown that user numbers are small. Platforms seeing success like Roblox are primarily built for gaming. As yet, there is little justification for publishers to lever themselves into the metaverse at great expense.

Trends and strategy

What is more evident when compared with previous years is how quickly things can crash. We suspected when authoring last year’s edition that, for example, that the NFT bubble would burst. We couldn’t have foreseen that would happen just months later.

Instead, innovation – whether that be audience-building, revenue generation or product – is to be found in formats that have been around for decades. Podcasts, newsletters and apps have been used by publishers of all shapes and sizes this year to deepen relationships and reduce churn. The key is to be where your audience is with a product that they need. And so far, you won’t find them in the metaverse.