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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.”

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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.

Featured Post | Innovation

Inside Fox News’ winning podcast strategy

December 1, 2022 Charlotte Ricca – Independent Media Reporter

In an era of fragmented, news-hungry consumers, it’s become increasingly challenging for brands to cut through the noise and reach their target audience. New competitors and new strategies have forced established players to reassess their businesses and take action. This has resulted in new partnerships, products, and strategies that are yielding exciting results.

One strategy that is gaining traction is podcasting. According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in July 2021, around a quarter of U.S. adults (23%) say that podcasts are how they get news, at least sometimes. One of the most successful brands in this space is FOX News, whose audio network is currently number 11 in Podtrac’s list of top publishers.

Launched earlier this year, FOX Audio Network combines all of FOX’s leading news, sports and entertainment podcasts into a diverse portfolio that aims to capitalize on the collective power of its large audience. With a catalog of more than 40 on-demand news podcasts, the network delivered record high numbers in 2021, with nearly 180 million unique downloads and 29.9 million unique listeners. A growth of 18% and 15%, respectively, from the previous year.

Interestingly these numbers run counter to research from Reuters, which found that news fatigue is setting in. Less than half (47%) of the Americans in the sample were very, or extremely interested in news, compared with 67% in 2015.

“Post Covid our podcasts are still showing year on year growth, in terms of unique listeners and downloads,” says John Sylvester, Vice President of FOX News Audio.

Two-pronged attack

So what is Fox News Audio’s strategy to keep its audience engaged in a world that may just be tired of news in general?

“We take a two-pronged approach to our news podcasts,” explains Sylvester. “First, we aim to satisfy the needs of our listeners by taking an ‘anytime, everywhere’ approach across multiple platforms. FOX News Audio continues this journey. So whether they are working out, or walking a dog, our podcasts make sure they are staying connected.

“Second, we provide a full gamut of information in the news space. This includes hourly news updates to longer news podcasts, such as FOX News Rundown, which is a deep dive into the news story of the day. There is also weather, business, tech – every need is covered, throughout every aspect of their day. FOX News Audio offers a total solution.”

Their strategy is bolstered by a loyal fan base. Fox News averaged 1.4 million total viewers in July of this year, and was the only basic cable network to exceed the one-million viewer benchmark. It also has the largest audience among 25-54 year olds, averaging 200,000 total demo viewers and 281,000 during primetime. This demographic is coveted by advertisers, and also the key demographic for podcast listeners, making their podcasts a highly attractive marketing tool.

“We create every type of content for every type of advertiser out there,” says Sylvester. “By creating the FOX Audio Network we have provided a unique opportunity for them to reach our broad and loyal podcast audience.”

Perfect brand extension

The network’s advertising is managed by its advertising sales team. However, in a bid to maximize its potential FOX has teamed up with Megaphone, which hosts all content. Since its launch in 2015, Megaphone has been one of the leading podcasting platforms, and in March last year it was acquired by Spotify. With its publishing and monetization tools, the platform better empowers FOX Audio Network to monetize, measure and maximize FOX’s podcast content.

One of those tools is a service called Megaphone Targeted Marketplace (MTM) which tracks listener behavior and pairs it with Nielsen Media Research Segments, to insert targeted ads into podcasts. This innovative technology has seen a backlash, however, as audiences have balked against tracking. As a result, certain blocklists have added Megaphone to them. This means listeners cannot play podcasts if they use certain privacy tools and tracker blockers.

However, Sylvester says dynamic ad insertion hasn’t been a problem in Fox Audio Network’s podcasting space. Their revenue is still heavily driven by advertising, which is built on the loyalty of their audience.

“Our podcasting platform is the perfect brand extension for FOX News fans, and they trust our news and content,” says Sylvester. “We offer a best-in-class product, with a fair and balanced perspective.”

Unlike the viewability challenges often associated with digital video, satellite TV, and cable, these advertisers can rest assured that the vast majority of consumers actually listen to ads on their favorite podcast. An impressive 80% of listeners tune in to all, or most of every podcast episode they start. Furthermore, almost half of these ‘super listeners’ believe that podcast hosts actually use the products/services mentioned on their podcasts. Advertisers are making the most of these engaged listeners by creating relationships with podcast hosts and onboarding them to their service or product.

Trust also comes from the careful selection of the podcast host. While it may seem obvious, many brands neglect the importance of having a clear host for their podcasts. Ideally, brands should consider a host who has industry expertise, can speak to the target audience, and can bring something unique to the table. Bringing in established names, such as Bret Baier, Will Cain and Martha MacCallum, is another key element of FOX Audio Network’s strategy, to attract and retain big audiences.

“Podcasting is a very intimate experience,” says Slyvester. “Our audiences connect with the host on either a daily or weekly basis, which creates trust. They learn to understand their ideology, and rely on them to bring them interesting, relevant content.”

Multi-channel approach

According to Sylvester the main challenge FOX Audio Network faces is to “distinguish yourself and your brand from the robust content out there.” Aside from creating varied, quality content, Sylvester says the key to growing and monetizing your audience is to expand into a multi-channel marketing strategy.

“It’s vital to look at all platforms out there and create monetization levers across all of them,” he advises. “We have partnered with satellite radio, terrestrial radio, audio apps, smart speakers, and more to make sure we really are everywhere, anytime. It’s all about creating multiple areas of monetization opportunities.”

Given that more than half of Americans (56%) say they never get news from podcasts, Sylvester believes there are still opportunities for growth for this nascent industry. One exciting growth area is with video podcasts, which offer a great way to differentiate a brand and attract new audiences.

“We are starting to utilize video as part of our podcasting strategy,” says Sylvester. “Video gives us the opportunity to populate the social media space, so it’s another way to market our podcasts and reach that 56% which is not yet listening. It’s often when consumers discover a podcast on video platforms, such as YouTube or TikTok, that they are then converted to subscribers of the podcasts.”

Certainly, FOX News benefits from its massive audience numbers and the significant investment it is making in its audio strategy. But there are lessons to be learned for organizations of all sizes and at different phases of audio experimentation. Their audio network provides a useful example for brands trying to navigate the ever-growing podcast landscape and reach their target audience in a unique way.

Fox News has done an impressive job of leveraging its brand power to expand into the podcasting space. Indeed, the network has managed to replicate some of what has made it so successful in prime time, while also carving out a unique space for itself in this new medium. Their podcast strategy raises the network’s profile, which helps it grow its overall audience while deepening brand loyalty for existing ones.

Featured Post | Industry-Research | Revenue

What young media users pay for — and why

November 22, 2022 Suzanne S. LaPierre – Independent Media Reporter

Content may want to be free, but that’s not always a sustainable business model. So, what content are users — especially the highly coveted younger demographic — willing to pay for, and why? It’s a broad question but one that’s worth trying to answer.

Massive amounts of time and money have been spent trying to figure this out. So we are aggregating many of the most salient data points to find out what younger generations are opening their virtual wallets for — and what they can do without.

Gaming

Gaming is hugely popular among all generations — especially for young people — and it holds more meaning than mere entertainment. According to 2022 research by Deloitte, 80% of U.S. adults report playing video games, and the practice is almost universal among younger adults: a whopping 96% of Gen Z and Millennials identify as gamers. The study on media trends in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, and Japan found that these young adults play 11 hours per week. 57% of Boomers and Mature audiences identified as gamers in the same survey, reporting an average of six hours per week gaming. Gen Z adults rank video gaming as their favorite entertainment activity in all countries surveyed.

More than three-quarters (78%) of U.S. gamers in Deloitte’s study report that the practice relaxes them; 61% said gaming helps them express themselves. In addition, 59% agree gaming has helped them through a difficult time, and 53% say gaming keeps them connected socially. These numbers show video games’ importance to people’s lives, especially the more immersive, complex games.

Gaming also leads users to discover other media content. For example, in Deloitte’s survey, 51% of U.S. and 71% of Brazilians said they often discover new music while gaming. While online immersive gaming worlds like Second Life are typically free to join, gamers often choose to spend money on branded virtual goods or even physical merchandise bought in-world. In-game live events such as music concerts are popular, with a quarter of U.S. gamers attending an in-game event last year. According to Deloitte, 82% of those attending live in-game events have made a purchase because of the event. Worth noting is that 65% of the purchases were digital goods, and 34% were physical merchandise, an indication of the overlap between real-world and virtual selves.

Over half of Gen Alpha and Gen Z players have spent money on a game over the past six months, according to a recent report by Newzoo, and 33% of them did so on a mobile device. While young users appear less likely to pay upfront for games on mobile devices due to the prevalence of free games, they are likely to spend money in-game for virtual goods such as currency, gear, or characters. Newzoo reports these are a particular draw for young users, with 93% of Gen Alpha and 91% of Gen Z gamers reporting having made such purchases over the past six months.

According to Voxburner, the most popular games among Gen Z are Minecraft (76%), Call of Duty (73%), and Fortnite (68%). Roblox and Animal Crossing are also popular. While the mobile versions of these games are free or low-cost to install, companies are raking it in via ads and in-app purchases. For example, Fortnite made over $9 billion in its first two years, even though it is free to join and optional purchases such as skins are aesthetic with no impact on gameplay.

Streaming Video on Demand (SVOD)

Perhaps habituated by customizable gaming experiences, younger audiences seem to be customizing their video streaming experience — at least when it comes to spending. As a result, younger users of SVOD services are more likely than older users to churn through services — by joining and then canceling, sometimes repeatedly, according to Deloitte.

The study found Gen Z consumers are especially sensitive to more expensive services, engaging in “churn and return” — repeatedly canceling and rejoining. This behavior enables them to acquire desired content — like a new season of a favorite series — while avoiding paying for a service when they aren’t using it. In the U.S., 35% of Gen Z users and 38% of Millennials surveyed had canceled and renewed streaming video services during the last 12 months, compared to just 7% of Boomers and older generations.

Similarly, a Morning Consult study demonstrated users of all ages prefer ad-sponsored content that is free or lower cost to higher subscription costs — and Gen Z adults are the most cost-averse when it comes to monthly fees. Only 16% of Gen Z adults surveyed spend more than $30 a month on streaming services, compared to 31% of Millennials. These findings suggest ad-funded tiers could cut churn rates, as subscribers are unlikely to cancel a service with no monthly fee.

Research also suggests that combining media offerings is appealing to younger users. For example, 51% of Gen Zs and Millennials in Deloitte’s survey indicated they would stay with their SVOD subscription if it included gaming, a music service, or another SVOD service.

Social Media

While social media platforms offer free admission, time spent there often leads to purchases. Deloitte found 70% of people in the U.S. say they follow an influencer, and more than half of Gen Z and Millennials say these influencers sway their purchasing decisions.

Social media ads are highly targeted and personalized. More than half of American respondents, 72% of Brazilians, and about 40% in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan surveyed by Deloitte say they see ads on social media for products or services they have been seeking. Additionally, 39% of Japanese respondents say that shopping is among the top three activities they engage in on social media.

News

Research by The Knight Foundation found most U.S. Gen Z and Millennials surveyed (65% and 64%, respectively) said it is fair to pay for news, at least under some circumstances. Only 39% of Boomers agreed. About half of Gen Z and Millennials say it is reasonable for news organizations to charge for events; 37% of Gen Z respondents say it is reasonable to charge for exclusive or special content.

Although Gen Z through Gen X report paying less attention to all forms of news compared with the national average, more Gen Z and Millennials say they are willing to pay for news in the future, compared to older generations (22% of Millenials versus 12% of Boomers). Conversely, younger audiences were also more likely to agree that news should be free for all users via government funding and/or private donations: 30% of Gen Z agreed news should be free, compared to 17% of Boomers. Gen X and Boomers are more likely to agree it is fair to support news through advertising (38% and 31%, respectively) than Gen Z (20%).

Research from the American Press Institute’s Media Insight Project showed Gen Z and Millennials are more likely to pay for streaming services that include news content (57%) than pay for news directly (28%).

According to the Knight report, 52% of Gen Z — compared to 45% of Boomers— say they look elsewhere for news content when encountering a paywall. About twice as many Gen Zs (10%) as Boomers (6%) and the Silent Generation (5%) say they try to find the story on social media instead. In addition, boomers (29%) and Gen X (33%) are more likely to skip the news story altogether when encountering a paywall compared to Gen Z (21%). So while younger adults may believe it’s fair for news organizations to charge fees, they also appear to think it’s fair game to try to evade those fees by seeking similar content elsewhere.

Key takeaways for media companies

Young consumers avoid paying for costly subscriptions by churning through the service. Therefore, SVOD companies should explore low-cost or free ad-supported tier options less likely to be dropped by frugal users.
Young people tend to be committed gamers willing to spend money on in-game enhancements. So bundles and perks that include gaming could help SVOD services — and other media companies — retain more subscribers.
While younger generations believe it’s fair for news providers to be publicly funded and/or charge for unique content, they also seek news elsewhere when faced with paywalls. A twofold approach of bundling subscriptions while enabling premium single-serving content to be purchased ala carte may succeed with younger users who expect interconnected experiences with optional or customizable payment options.

Younger audiences may be highly sought after, but their preferences are pretty straightforward. Publishers paying attention to these desires can build packages that cater to them and build a loyal audience for years to come.

Featured Post | Innovation

5 principles to guide your media strategy for 2023

November 17, 2022 Damian Radcliffe, Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism – University of Oregon

“Only journalism will save journalism,” says Juan Señor, an award-winning journalist and President of the Innovation Media Consulting Group. It is heartening that, as he points out, “people have rediscovered journalism.” Its importance has been cemented over the past several years, he says, “starting with The Trump Bump. Then the pandemic. Now we have a war.”

Señor argues that high-quality, distinctive reporting produced during these tumultuous periods has had an impact. Now, he says publishers need to “keep this momentum going.”

This is a point he emphasizes in the latest Innovation in News Media World Report*, which Señor co-edits. He and fellow editor Jayant Sriram write that “we need to build from this position of strength, even as the media world at large is in a period of unprecedented flux.”

How can publishers do this? Based on our conversation with Señor, and his latest Innovation Report, here are five recommendations for publishers as they look ahead to the uncertainties of the New Year.

1. Keep your foot on the subscription gas

“The key thing is to press on with subscriptions,” Señor recommends. He is bullish about reader revenue, stressing the subscription spike many publishers have witnessed in the past few years. “People know they have to pay for news,” he says, “so be the one that they pay for.”

FIPP’s new Q3 Digital Subscription Snapshot finds that “growth for most brands remains healthy, with period-on-period gains of 5% or more for many.” But growth is slowing, cautions CEO James Hewes. Gains are “significantly down” from this time last year, “when low double-digit growth might have been expected each quarter.”

The cost of living crisis, coupled with rises in many subscriptions, may all be contributing to this. FIPP also points to a maturing of this market. That means that “it is inevitable that growth percentages will begin to decline.”

Despite this, Señor urges publishers to stay the course. “Keep pushing [subscriptions] first and foremost as a strategic priority,” he says, “even if it means heavy discounts.”

A key factor behind this rationale is the cost of attracting new subscribers, which is typically more expensive than keeping new ones. That’s one reason why many publishers are increasingly investing in efforts to reduce churn.

The habitual, relationship-based, nature of media consumption also matters. As economic conditions improve, you may be able to nudge up prices or upsell existing consumers. That’s harder to do with audiences who have churned off.

A picture containing timeline

Description automatically generated — *Retention tactics identified by the American Press Institute and featured in the Innovation in Media 2022-23 World Report*.

2. Continue to explore opportunities for revenue diversification

Alongside maintaining relationships with existing audiences, publishers need to continue to find new routes to revenue. To help them do this, the latest Innovation Report outlines 14 different business models publishers can adopt. Publishers can mix and match these efforts to pull together a good range of diversified offerings.

Aside from subscription-led approaches, other possibilities include a blend of B2B and B2C models such as memberships, events, affiliate marketing, and “think tank” style output. Educational activities, such as those offered by The Economist’s Executive Education program and Family Handman’s DIY University, may also be a good fit for some publishers and their audiences.

As many publishers know, if you wait long enough, then everything old becomes new again. In this regard, Señor is excited about what he describes as “the original habit-formation tool for newspapers – puzzles and games.”

The New York Times’ acquisition of Wordle is the poster child for this, having brought “unprecedented tens of millions of new users to The Times.” And, as The Innovation Report points out, “If even a fraction can then be converted to paying subscribers it would make for an excellent business proposition.”

Puzzles and games are again in vogue as gateways for publishers to capture new subscribers, generate fresh revenue streams and increase the “stickiness” of their relationships with audiences.

Nevertheless, as Esther Kezia Thorpe suggests, “offering games is not a strategy in itself … Publishers need to find ways to bring regular puzzlers into a deeper relationship,” she says, “whether that be through newsletters, social features, or additional layers to the games themselves.”

A picture containing chart

Description automatically generated — *Examples of different publisher business models,*
*from the Innovation in News Media World Report 2022-23*

3. Unlock the power – and results – of product thinking

Publishers have invested – and continue to invest – considerable resources in areas such as games, newsletters, and podcasts. Much of this is driven by a belief that these ventures can serve as a gateway to your content and drive subscriptions and aid retention by deepening bonds with their consumers. Señor calls them “conversion monsters.”

These efforts reflect product thinking, which has risen to the forefront of media strategies over the past decade.

“Product thinking begins with realizing that every way people experience the news is a possible product or feature,” the Innovation Report observes.

Each of these touchpoints, of course, is also potentially monetizable.

As a result, “publishers must now become product companies and not just news media publishers,” Señor believes. That’s a sentiment increasingly applicable to revenue strategies, as well as content propositions.

“Product is changing everything,” agrees Luciana Cardoso, the Brazil-based Vice Chair of News Product Alliance’s Board Of Directors. Cardoso comments on how product is a driver for innovation “because we need to have the customer at the center of everything.”

4. Be tech-led, not led by tech

This desire to be more consumer-centric, is accentuated by the need for publishers to prepare for a world without third-party cookies. Describing this as a ”first-party data moment,” Señor says these developments are “the key to a stronger future for our industry.”

“First-party data gives us the chance to have a direct relationship, control the pricing, content and dialogue with our readers without intermediaries,” the Innovation Report states. “This is a massive shift and one we must prepare for.”

Publishers must also look to the possibilities of Web 3.0. Señor points to the availability of “journalism without browsers” as one critical dimension of this brave new digital world.

“When you look at how Condé Nast is experimenting with this, it’s very, very interesting,” he told us.

One of their titles, GQ magazine, recently launched on Discord. “The way that we are thinking about it is we are throwing a party, GQ is the host, Discord is the venue and you are invited,” says Joel Pavelski, GQ’s Executive Director of Global Audience Development & Social Media.

*Sign-up screen to* *join GQ on Discord*
*(7^th November 2022)*

Condé’s approach enables them to engage with communities in private online spaces, potentially reaching new audiences and serving existing ones in fresh ways. It’s part of a “conscious uncoupling” some publishers are having with traditional tech platforms; and part of a wider shift in media habits seen within the creator economy.

Tapping into these emerging spaces and behaviors may reveal insights that can inform continued product thinking, drive subscription models, as well as support and shape first-party data strategies.

5. Invest in content, especially visual media

Despite encouraging publishers to keep a watchful eye on emerging tech trends, Señor emphasizes that organizations shouldn’t go overboard.

In terms of the industry’s wider financial footing, “the Metaverse, Web 3, none of this stuff will make the difference,” he contends. “What will make the difference is investment in journalism.”

“We need to do original reporting. A lot of people want that,” Señor says.

As part of this, he stresses the importance of high-impact visual journalism, which he believes is “absolutely essential,” and “perhaps the most exciting new field in journalism right now.”

Product thinking can also shape how – and where – these visual-first stories are told. ”This is transformative,” Señor says, pointing out how many of these efforts are driven by a “story first, platform second” dynamic.

Memorable examples, such as video Op-Ed’s pioneered by The New York Times and The Miami Herald’s award-winning “House of Cards” investigation, can also yield multiple outcomes for publishers. Impactful content can be integral to industry recognition (e.g. awards), and a key driver for unlocking new subscriptions, as well as the retention and upselling of existing consumers.

House of Cards: @MiamiHerald’s interactive investigation of the Champlain Towers South collapse is a riveting real-time multimedia masterpiece that helps make sense of the senseless tragedy that killed 98 people with corruption, incompetence and neglect https://t.co/ObrRnUL9vC
— Billy Corben (@BillyCorben) January 1, 2022

Strategic synergies: bringing these principles together

Noting that next year’s Innovation Report will be their 23rd annual publication, Señor says the examples they feature are focused on reach, relevance, or revenue. Often, these elements are deeply intertwined.

Parlaying that relevance into different spaces and products, and encouraging audiences to pay for it, remains essential if publishers are to traverse stormy economic waters and successfully navigate their way through 2023.

“Whatever you do, put all your efforts into gaining and retaining subscribers,” Señor advocates. Everything should be “about sustaining, developing, [and] amplifying your subscription strategy.”

There’s a myriad of interconnected ways to do this. This includes multiple means to generate revenues, distinctive products to attract and retain subscribers, the knock-on effect of memorable – often visually-led – journalism, as well as deepening relationships with audiences both on and off-platform; including in new and emerging digital spaces.

This consumer-centric model eschews the shiny object syndrome that many media players have been guilty of in the past. Instead, as a new year begins to loom on the horizon, focusing on solid content-led foundations should be their guiding light.

As the sun sets on 2022, publishers will once again set sail and steer a path into an uncertain future. Meeting audience needs through the trifecta of content, product and subscriptions, must be their North Star as we quickly advance into these unchartered waters.

*The Innovation In News Media World Report 2022-23 is available to WAN-IFRA members (for free) or for purchase via INNOVATION’s website.