Today’s vast television ecosystem combines streaming services, traditional pay-TV, and free ad-supported platforms, reflecting a sea change in how viewers find and consume video content. The scales are tipping in favor of online sources their first stop when seeking out video content. Over two-thirds (67%) of respondents report they turn to an online source first when they want to watch TV. Only 26% default to a traditional MVPD (Multichannel Video Programming Distributor) set-top box. Hub Entertainment Research’s new report, Decoding the Default, highlights an increasingly fragmented ecosystem where viewers lean more toward online platforms than ever.
From traditional TV to streaming
As cord-cutting and “cord-never” populations continue to grow, the number of viewers who rely solely on traditional pay-TV services is dwindling. According to Hub’s findings, more than twice as many viewers use both traditional pay-TV and streaming platforms rather than just one type. Audiences find that streaming platforms offer more options and flexibility than traditional TV. Deloitte’s Digital Media Trends report echoes this, noting that many consumers find streaming services more aligned with their viewing needs. They prioritize content that matches their schedules rather than set broadcast times.
Viewers’ SVOD stack
Viewers’ video-on-demand (SVOD) “stacks” are getting larger, with many people subscribing to at least three different services. The report shows that the percentage of consumers using three or more SVODs more than doubled since 2020, illustrating the growth of multi-platform use. This expansion is partially due to the massive libraries each SVOD offers; for instance, Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ have extensive catalogs covering different genres and audience segments.
Yet, while viewers may stack multiple services, only a few platforms become their “default.” Netflix leads this default category, with 26% of respondents choosing it first. This trend toward Netflix as the initial go-to aligns with its status as a pioneering platform with an established reputation for both quantity and quality of content. Hulu and Amazon Prime Video follow while Disney+ and Max (formerly HBO Max) fall slightly behind.
Online streaming is the new “home base”
Hub’s findings underscore that, for most viewers, the default experience of “turning on the TV” starts with online streaming. About one-third of viewers say they now go directly to a built-in smart TV app, showing a 50% increase in usage since 2021.
The appeal of smart TV apps lies in their convenience. They provide immediate access to various streaming platforms without additional hardware. The transition to smart TV apps represents a natural evolution of how viewers experience TV.
Research from the Leichtman Research aligns with this trend, finding that 87% of U.S. households own a device connecting their TV to the internet, from smart TVs to streaming media players. This widespread connectivity facilitates using apps like Netflix, Hulu, and Prime Video, solidifying them as the primary sources of TV content.
SVOD loyalty driven by “favorite shows”
Hub’s report highlights a crucial driver of platform loyalty—exclusive content. When viewers have a specific favorite show exclusive to a particular SVOD, they’re more likely to remain loyal to that platform. This “stickiness” effect is essential in a crowded market where content variety can make or break viewer retention.
On the other hand, traditional MVPDs still hold an edge on live TV, particularly for sports and news. These content categories remain strongholds for pay-TV providers, appealing to a demographic that values real-time events. However, this loyalty is eroding. The report notes that nearly a quarter of MVPD users would consider canceling their service if forced to choose between platforms.
The growth of FAST
FAST services are also becoming a mainstay for many viewers, especially those who prioritize content variety over exclusivity. FAST platforms appeal to cost-conscious consumers who prefer a broad selection of programming without additional monthly costs. Their rise complements subscription streaming by offering a fallback for when paid services are unavailable or too costly.
FAST providers such as Pluto TV and Tubi are gaining traction as they offer a unique blend of on-demand and live content with a more traditional TV-like feel. According to a survey from eMarketer, over half of U.S. adults now use FAST services. For these viewers, the trade-off of ads in exchange for free content is more appealing than paying for an additional SVOD, further underscoring the complexity of the modern TV ecosystem.
Will MVPDs adapt?
The rapid decline of MVPD set-top boxes poses an existential challenge to pay-TV providers, who now face pressure to innovate or risk further market loss. Some MVPDs are pivoting to streaming bundles or hybrid solutions to capture traditional and digital audiences. However, Hub’s report suggests these changes may be too late. As smart TV apps and streaming services become the “default” choice for viewing, MVPDs could be relegated to a niche role unless they compete with streaming platforms on convenience, affordability, and exclusive content.
As more people rely on streaming services and smart TVs, the influence of traditional MVPDs is waning. Netflix’s leading SVOD “default” position reflects its early mover advantage and vast content library. Meanwhile, traditional TV’s staples—live news and sports—feel less essential as viewers increasingly favor on-demand content.
TikTok is becoming an increasingly important platform for content creators, brands and media companies of all kinds. That’s especially true for those seeking to connect with younger audiences. Today, young people take a distinctly different news journey than older generations in which social media and visually-led content plays a leading role. Specifically, about 40% of those under age 30 in the USA regularly get news from TikTok. That’s up from around 10% in 2020, highlighting how quickly this demographic is adopting the platform as part of their news diet/habits.
TikTok – once viewed as a passive entertainment platform – is evolving into an algorithmically driven engagement powerhouse for content of all kinds. Estimates of its audience size vary, spanning from a massive 1.5 billion to close to two billion users worldwide. Regardless of this variance, there’s no denying that the network has a huge reach, and that it has grown astronomically since launching globally in 2018. It’s now the sixth-largest social network in the world, and its users worldwide spend 34 hours a month on it. That’s way ahead of its rivals in terms of time spent.
“Roughly 170 million Americans use TikTok,” The New York Times noted earlier this year. “That’s half the population of the United States.” Charting 19 ways the platform has influenced American life, the Gray Lady observes that “Even if you’ve never opened the app, you’ve lived in a culture that exists downstream of what happens there.”
With that in mind, here are four things media companies need to know about TikTok, and how to harness it to reach new audiences effectively and build brand awareness, while at the same time making their content more accessible and relatable to younger consumers.
1. TikTok is a highly participatory social network
There’s a widely held misconception that TikTok is a “lean-back,” passive platform. However, new research from Weber Shandwick, a global communications and consulting firm, shows that TikTok consumption is more engaged and intentional than you might realize.
“Comments are king,” the report states, observing how “the comments section is where people go to learn more, fact-check claims, make jokes and attempt to make sense of what they have seen.”
Talking to Digital Content Next, Dr. Claire Wardle, a Cornell Professor who worked on this research, shared in more detail how users actively engage with TikTok content through the comments. This includes visiting the comments to determine if they agree, or not, with certain stories, the entertainment value they offer, as well as using insights from their peers to determine the veracity of a video. Many consumers see these behaviors as an intrinsic part of their experience on the platform.
For media companies, this may mean that engagement on TikTok should go beyond just creating content. It might require active involvement in the comment sections, given that this is where audiences spend a great deal of time and energy.
Determining the best way to do that, however, isn’t easy. “If I’m a publisher, what am I doing in the comments? What’s my role?” Wardle asks.
One potential solution stems from an idea proposed by Sophia Smith Galer. The freelance journalist and former BBC and Vice staffer has argued that newsrooms should encourage and support “individual journalist creators” on TikTok. It may be easier for people in that guise, to respond to comments on the platform, instead of through an anonymous brand account.
Nevertheless, despite the importance of TikTok’s comments section, Weber-Shandwick’s report cautions that this arena can be a home to trolls and other bad actors. Subsequently, “a detailed protocol for engagement in the comments of your own TikTok videos or videos posted by others is a must,” they advise.
2. Authenticity is key to audience-media connections on TikTok
Authentic was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year in 2023. “Authentic (their italics) is what brands, social media influencers, and celebrities aspire to be,” the company said.
On TikTok, as with many other visually led social networks, perceptions of authenticity are fundamental to audience engagement. I say “perceptions” because, as Social Sprout points out, seemingly lo-fi content is often actually highly produced.
Nevertheless, at its heart, this is content that intentionally looks a little less polished. In turn, this rawness can also make it more relatable and accessible. Furthermore, this style of content may be seen as more trustworthy and authentic with younger audiences than traditional media, the latest Digital News Report found.
However, the style of content that often does well on TikTok may fly in the face of traditional media production values, and that can sometimes be difficult to reconcile.
That’s amplified by an anti-establishment feel that the platform has, a notion “that came through very strongly in the research,” Wardle says.
As a result, TikTok “is not an obvious place for The Wall Street Journal or CNN to turn up,” Wardle reflects. That’s partly based on the style of content on the network, user preferences – which lean towards independent creators – and a concern that media outlets just look like they’re trying too hard to fit in.
Nevertheless, it’s no surprise that the most successful brands on TikTok lean into authenticity. Morning Brew’s account, in my opinion, is a great example to learn from. It’s funny, irreverent and looks like the creators shot it in their home (perhaps they did). As a result, it fits seamlessly with the style and tone of other content in my feed, while also managing to make some valid points (on occasion).
For publishers, key ways to curate an authentic aesthetic include using more casual delivery styles, behind-the-scenes content, and collaborating with creators who understand TikTok’s culture. Adapting, or partnering, in this way matters if you want to be relevant on the platform.
3. Navigating algorithms when familiarity breeds contentment
Reflecting on how Americans use TikTok, the Pew Research Center recently highlighted the value of its recommendation technology, and in particular its “For You” page. For users, this is a highly curatable space, one that enables you to teach TikTok what you want to watch. As Buffer explains, that is part of the app’s secret sauce. “The blend of familiar and new content is tailored meticulously to user preferences, making the social network addictive and fresh,” they explain.
As a result, it’s perhaps not surprising that “users generally like the content the algorithm serves them,” Pew’s research found. Their data revealed that “40% of users say this content is either extremely or very interesting to them.” In contrast, just 14% of their survey respondents said this wasn’t relevant or interesting to them.
For brands and content creators, this makes it all the more important that users know you’re on the platform. If they’re not following you, it can be hard to find and discover you on TikTok.
The success of this algorithm is a key factor behind users devoting so much time on the app. eMarketer anticipates that Gen Z, adults aged 18-24, spend an average of 77 minutes per day on the platform.
There are long-standing concerns, however, that algorithms can create echo chambers. This could reduce the perspectives that audiences are exposed to and lay the foundations for misinformation.
TikTok users, it seems, actively embrace – and are highly cognizant of – these concerns. Users acknowledged that “I know I’m not seeing anything from the other side, but I really love that,” Wardle said. “I love that I never come across people who are different to me.”
Users are aware that they are in echo chambers, but rather than trying to break out of them, they revel in the familiarity of their feeds. And they also feel confident that if they need to step outside of their comfort zone, then they know how to do so.
Responding to this is challenging, especially for news outlets. But, rather than trying to fight the echo chamber, publishers may just want to lean into it. This may mean producing more non-news content, as well as niche or specialized content that resonates with specific audiences, alongside evergreen content, and material beyond the daily news cycle.
4. News media and social issues on TikTok
That said, despite these cultural and algorithmic challenges, news does still have a place on the platform. Despite its reputation for entertainment, TikTok has become an important arena for consuming news and discussing social issues.
In fact, many users report encountering social and political content regularly, even though TikTok is not traditionally seen as a news platform. The latest Digital News Report found that nearly a quarter (23%) of 18–24s in the markets they surveyed, use the platform for news, as did 13% of all digital news consumers.
“These averages hide rapid growth in Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia,” the authors note, with “more than a third now use the network for news every week in Thailand (39%) and Kenya (36%).” Figures are lower in countries like the United States (9%) and the UK (4%).
Perhaps more importantly, according to Weber Shandwick, although users don’t necessarily seek out news on the platform, they do stumble upon it through trending content.
Users often perceive that they see these stories first on TikTok, Wardle told us, with the mainstream media playing catch up. “Our survey results validated this,” Weber Shandwick’s research says, “77% of users said TikTok is where they first learn about news on political or social subjects at least some of the time.”
However, much of this news discovery does not come from traditional news brands. Instead, individual creators and commentators drive many of these conversations.
This once again reinforces the need for news organizations to partner with influencers and creators who have already mastered the platform’s style and audience. Encouraging individual journalists to build their own presence on TikTok may also help bridge the gap between traditional reporting and this new media landscape. Collectively, collaboration and empowering journalists to engage with the platform directly could be pivotal for ensuring many publisher’s stories reach and resonate with younger, highly engaged audiences.
So, is TikTok right for your media brand?
The size of TikTok’s audience suggests that the platform is too big to ignore. However, the style of content and community culture that flourishes on it can be difficult to tap into. As a result, publishers need to carefully consider if it is a good fit for them.
Media companies that can adapt to this environment will find opportunities for deeper connections with audiences. Meanwhile, those who simply see TikTok as just another outlet for distributing their content, often doing so in the same format as elsewhere, may struggle to make an impact.
Worse still, efforts to blend in risk being seen as trying too hard. “How do you show up in a way that doesn’t look like a dad dancing at the wedding?” Wardle asks.
Part 2! Better Explainer on Kamalas plan to expand #medicare to include #homehealth options vs Trump plan to privatize medicare and create a tax shelter? Out of it? Idk.. #kamalaharrispolicies
Audiences, Wardle says, are “kind of resisting” traditional players, preferring instead to get their content from native providers like Under The Desk News. A consistent favorite with my students, Kelsey Russell is a Media Literacy Influencer and Co-Host of First Stop News. Russell, the self-professed ‘Print Princess’ reads different newspapers and magazines to her audience, and has garnered nearly 100,000 TikTok followers in the process.
The key takeaway for publishers wanting to flourish on TikTok is to balance being relatable and informal, with being useful and entertaining. They need to do so in a way that doesn’t force humor or tap into trends in a way that feels inauthentic and “cringe.”
That’s potentially a tall order, and these efforts may not drive traffic to your site or other platforms in the way that most publishers have historically used social media.
Nevertheless, if media companies can foster authentic connections with audiences, this can help to build brand loyalty and awareness, potentially unlocking long-term benefits that go beyond simple click-through metrics.
As Enrique Anarte, a journalist at Context previously told IJNet, “You’re not on TikTok to go viral; you’re really on TikTok to reach the audience you wanted to reach.” “It’s better to get a video with lower views, but high positive engagement from the people you want to reach,” they added.
For many younger audiences, TikTok may be the first time they encounter your brand, creating a connection that may well pay even further dividends down the line. It won’t be for everyone, but if you’re prepared to play the long game, mix up your video style to fit in, and find the right people to collaborate with, then TikTok might well become a key plank in your social media strategy in 2024 and beyond.
It’s been nearly 20 years since Apple took podcasts mainstream, but the tech giant seems to be losing its grip on audio audiences: A recent study out this summer found that YouTube is now the most used podcast platform in the U.S.
That’s left some publishers and podcast production houses scrambling to figure out a video strategy to complement their audio-only offerings. But there’s at least one player in the game that seems well prepared for the platform shift: Crooked Media.
The company, which is focused on news, politics, and liberal-leaning commentary and analysis, currently boasts more than 40 podcasts in its portfolio. And video is a big part of Crooked Media’s strategy — but they’re not just playing on YouTube. The company is also pushing video content on TikTok, Instagram, and X (formerly known as Twitter). And even better? Crooked Media is generating revenue along the way.
The YouTube video-podcasting strategy
“We started putting streams of Pod Save America on YouTube in early 2018,” says Matt DeGroot, the company’s vice president of production.
These days, every audio-only episode of an ongoing and regularly published Crooked podcast also has a video component, which is uploaded to YouTube. For Crooked, the foray into video has been part of a deliberate plan to grow its audience.
“Really the biggest impetus there and why we’ve pushed so hard is that people who consume podcasts on a traditional platform like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, tend to go to those platforms knowing exactly what they’re looking for. So, there isn’t a ton of discoverability,” DeGroot says.
“Everyone uses YouTube, and YouTube — for better or for worse — knows what people want to see. YouTube will find our shows and basically serve it up to people,” he says. “And people on YouTube might be a little more curious and willing to take a chance on new content.”
Over time, Crooked has built a significant audience that is unique to the platform. It has 10 channels and playlists that are updated regularly, and the company currently claims more than 1.2 million YouTube subscribers.
When a big news event happens, Crooked can leverage its political commentary and analysis from a show like Pod Save America and tap into an audience who may already be searching YouTube for information. “If there’s a big story happening and Pod Save America is doing an episode, reacting to it or explaining the context, that’s a great opportunity for someone new to sort of stumble upon it,” DeGroot says.
For example, earlier this month, the company posted a segment from Pod Save America that featured the hosts of the show discussing Vice President Kamala Harris’ debate performance, and global superstar Taylor Swift’s endorsement of the Democratic candidate.
Those events were dominating broadcast news, digital media outlets, and social platforms. And Crooked was there, ready and waiting for curious YouTubers to find them. Their video on the subject got nearly 730,000 streams as of this writing, and is one of the top 15 most popular videos on their channel.
“We’ve really been able to harness that power and seize those moments in a way that is hard to do on a podcast platform, where, like I said, people really know what they’re looking for when they open the app,” DeGroot says. “YouTube just gives us more opportunity to find new people.”
Beyond giving people a new entry point to their content, video gives audiences a new format to access the Crooked universe. “More and more with the advent of smart TVs, we’ve been seeing a lot of people who are really consuming the YouTube product from their televisions and treating it like watching the evening news,” DeGroot says.
This is especially true for older audiences.
“My mom, bless her heart, she does not know how to use a podcast,” DeGroot says. “She doesn’t know how to find a show there. But she knows YouTube and she knows how to type in Pod Save America and get to the channel and pull up the latest episode.”
However, while video has helped build Crooked Media’s audience, the experience remains audio-centric. “We get anecdotal comments of people saying, ‘Oh, I put this on while I’m making dinner.’ They may not be watching it a hundred percent with their eyes on the screen the whole time, so it’s still somewhat of an audio experience, because they’ll have it on in the background while they’re cooking.”
Cashing in on YouTube
Because the company publishes Crooked Media’s podcast content as YouTube videos, its ad sales team has more touch points to offer potential sponsors.
“YouTube runs ads and we have that aspect of monetization. But then our sales team also does sell against that for the podcasts,” DeGroot says. “So an episode of Pod Save America, for example, the ads that appear in the podcast when you listen are also in the YouTube version.” In this way, a client gets a two-for-one. It can buy ads from one media company and get two distinct audiences.
In addition to selling to two audiences, Crooked is also leveraging video content to create exclusive offerings for advertisers. “That’s something we’ve started doing this year — having a single sponsor,” DeGroot says. “Someone like ZBiotics sponsors Hysteria’s ‘This F*cking Guy’ series. So we’ll include a 30 second ad read in the middle of the video, and maybe a short mention of the sponsor at the beginning. It’s a great way to add that additional revenue and help pay for the production costs that do naturally come with video, because it is a time consuming and work intensive thing.”
However, Crooked is looking beyond advertisers when it comes to monetizing video. The company has a paid subscription offering — called “Friends of the Pod” — which provides subscribers with ad-free podcast feeds, bonus content from Crooked hosts, and the ability to talk directly with on-air talent on Crooked’s subscriber-only Discord server.
“Friends of the Pod” also get subscriber-only YouTube shows. “One is a weekly, called, Terminally Online, and then we have a couple biweekly shows — Dan Pfeiffer’s Poller Coaster, and another election special called Inside 2024,” DeGroot says. “Those are available as both audio and video components to subscribers.”
Social video strategy
While Crooked Media is going big on YouTube, it’s not the only social video platform the company is publishing on. “There are real opportunities in that sort of shorter form content,” DeGroot says. “We are not oblivious to the fact that a lot of people, if they see a video on YouTube even if it looks really appealing to them, if it’s 90 minutes long, they’ll say, ‘I don’t have time for that. I’m not gonna take a chance on this random video.’”
To counter this, Crooked Media will splice one of its full length episodes into shorter clips — something that’s 60 or 90 seconds long — and upload that content to TikTok, Instagram, or X. “People are willing to give that a chance,” DeGroot says. “They’ll see a video short clip and be like, ‘Oh, what are these people saying?’ And from there it draws them in and makes them curious to hear more,” which could lead them to YouTube or a podcast platform.
Pod Save America has about 14,000 followers on TikTok, but their short videos reach way more people than that. A recent post discussing a press conference that former President Donald Trump had garnered more than 100,000 views.
Crooked’s podcast host will also create what DeGroot calls “ancillary” content — behind the scenes moments that still speak to the brand’s broader tone. That might include the hosts’ live reaction to Donald Trump’s guilty verdict in his recent criminal trial, or an on the ground video message from the Democratic National Convention.
“For those videos that live on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube shorts, it’s a feature that we’ve been really pushing lately and finding a lot of success with,” DeGroot says. “We’ve found that doing those types of things really helps the content spread on those platforms and bring in new people who then get excited to watch the podcasts.”
For DeGroot, the video strategy across platforms is all about creating more touch points — for audiences and advertisers.
“It’s gonna take some time to build that audience, and you really have to nurture it over time,” he says. “As long as you keep on your patterns, stay with it, and stay consistent, you will get the rewards from that.”
Not that long ago, using the social web as a news distribution platform was a relatively straightforward process: all you had to do was grab the headline and maybe a photo and then post it to Twitter and Facebook — where most news publishers and journalists already had verified accounts with thousands or even tens of thousands of followers — and then watch the pageviews and clicks roll in. Over the past year or so, however, changes to both Twitter and Facebook have made the social-web approach less and less useful; in many ways, both services have gone from being either neutral or somewhat useful as a distribution mechanism to being actively hostile environments.
In the case of Twitter, now known as X, the acquisition by Elon Musk has changed the nature of the service in a number of ways. For one thing, the algorithm that determines who sees what has been altered, based on unknown criteria. So, many publishers and journalists now say they get less engagement from the platform than they were used to in the past. There also seems to be a lot more content that is racist, sexist, or is otherwise disturbing and/or uncomfortable — as a result of what Musk claims is a commitment to freedom of speech. All of this makes the platform seem like a much less hospitable environment for traditional news and journalistic content.
Facebook, meanwhile, has backtracked on some or all of the commitments it made in the past to journalism and the media, by canceling or downsizing funding it used to provide through a variety of programs under the former Facebook Journalism Project. Most of the staff associated with those programs have left or been reassigned, and the platform has made it clear that the newsfeed algorithm will not be promoting or recommending news content in general. Facebook and its parent Meta have removed news from the Canadian version of the service as a protest over a new law designed to force digital platforms to pay publishers for the news content they carry.
What is the fediverse?
Some see the emerging “fediverse” as a potential solution to these issues, or at the very least a workaround. As Rande Price recently wrote for DCN recently, the word fediverse is an umbrella term that covers dozens of different social platforms, from Mastodon (a Twitter alternative) to Lemmy, one of the fediverse’s would-be replacements for Reddit.
Each of these services has different features and a different design, but they all have a few things in common: they are all open source, meaning the source code that powers them is freely available for anyone to download and modify. They are also all “federated,” meaning they can interoperate with each other — posts or content from one service can be easily cross-posted to another platform, or at the very least they can be exported and then imported. This is all powered by an open-source programming system called ActivityPub.
That may not sound like a big deal, but when you think about the way that content is siloed in the current environment, it definitely sounds like an improvement. Twitter or X allows you to download all of your posts and other data in bulk — something that the previous management regime put in place — but it doesn’t make it easy to import it anywhere or do anything with it. Crossposting of tweets or posts can be automated with third-party tools such as Buffer or dlvr.it, but the process inevitably fails at certain points because Twitter and Facebook don’t really want you to crosspost things. Each of them wants your content to live on their platform and nowhere else.
One recent exception to this rule is Threads, the new-ish service from Meta. Launched in July of 2023 as a spin-off from Instagram, Threads grew rapidly — so rapidly that it was one of the fastest-growing social services in history, gaining 100 million users in a matter of days. In another first, Threads also said from the beginning that it wanted to join the fediverse by allowing Threads posts to be federated, so that people using a fediverse client could follow a user on Threads without having to set up their own Threads account. Others are also working on fediverse integration, including Tumblr, Flipboard, and Medium, and so are some individual publishers, including 404 Media and The Verge. While it’s difficult to say exactly how many people are part of the fediverse, one estimate puts the number at almost 12 million.
Meta has kept its Threads promise
It’s probably fair to say that there was a massive amount of skepticism about Meta’s pledge to join the fediverse, since the company is not exactly known for being open to other services. In fact, Facebook is notorious for down-ranking posts that contain external links, and Instagram won’t even let users post links with their content. Instead, they have to use a third-party service to add links to their bio, and then point users there, something that is so user-hostile it’s hard to believe that it still exists. Therefore, it seemed hard to believe that Meta’s hostility to external links would suddenly change.
As difficult as it might have been to believe, however, Meta actually followed through on its promise. In March, the Threads accounts belonging to Threads manager Adam Mosseri and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg joined the fediverse, when the company implemented a sharing or federation mechanism that allowed anyone with a Mastodon account to follow them from the Mastodon app without having to have a Threads account. Meta has said that it is now rolling out this feature across the service.
Why would Threads do this? One possible answer is that, since Threads is the underdog compared to Twitter, Meta is hoping to use integration with the fediverse as a lever to quickly expand its user base. One internet rule of thumb has been that platforms and services that see themselves as the underdog are alway much more interested in interoperability than incumbents or monopolies are. Whether smaller incumbents are willing to look favorably on this behavior is very much an open question. A number of servers have blocked Threads integration because they believe it is going to overwhelm their services, or because they view Facebook and its ilk as a negative element.
The upside of fediverse distribution
That’s one possible downside. However, for publishers and others interested in reaching the broadest cross-section of users, Threads joining the fediverse provides a potential positive solution. One of the problems with the fediverse from an institutional standpoint is that it consists of so many services — Mastodon, PeerTube, Pixelfed, and Friendica to name a few — with so many different terms of service and behavior rules and other criteria that it can be hard to navigate the landscape as a publisher or news outlet interested in distributing content in the most efficient way possible.
If Threads continues its push into the fediverse, that problem could be mitigated. In this case, all a publisher would have to do is post to Threads, and have that content distributed through all of the other services that Threads is federated to. While that may solve one problem, however, doing so could create two new potential problems. One is that posting content indiscriminately to multiple social networks can be seen by users as spam-like activity, and therefore might not be received well. A second problem is that doing this would mean ceding a lot of control over a publisher’s social strategy to Threads, and therefore to Meta, which some might see as a step backwards.
In some senses, it’s a Catch-22: publishers who try to make use of all of these different platforms individually could wind up stretching themselves too thin, producing little return from a social strategy. But those who outsource their distribution to Threads and the fediverse could also wind up getting hit by a backlash, which would blunt the effectiveness of the strategy. The only possible upside is that since the fediverse is still relatively new, it’s not totally clear how it is going to evolve. But those who spend a little time experimenting with it could find themselves ahead of the curve, and wind up learning a lot about social interaction along the way.
Despite the challenges thrown at publishers by obfuscating metrics or deliverability changes, newsletters continue to grow in importance. Media companies increasingly use email newsletters as a key tool for maintaining relationships with audiences away from social media, finding new readers, building habits, and opening new revenue streams.
At The Publisher Newsletter Summit, publishers came together to share strategies, advice and case studies on everything from newsletter monetization to audience growth.
Here are some of the strategies that they shared:
1. Don’t be afraid to center personalities
The role of journalists with followings has grown more complicated than ever in recent years. One theme that emerged at the Summit from a number of the sessions was that – if managed right – individual members of your team can serve as an incredible audience-building tool.
Women’s membership and community publisher Black Ballad started a newsletter from founder Tobi Oredein as a way to create a bond with the reader, because people build connections with humans, not brands. “Social media is very noisy,” Oredein outlined. Given that Black Ballad has paywall, she finds that “there is a barrier with people who can’t afford a membership. The newsletter is free, so everyone that’s signed up with their email gets that newsletter every week. So it’s a way to create that personal relationship.”
Leaning into this has also opened up revenue opportunities, although Oredein said that she chooses partner organizations very carefully. A recent campaign with the Founder’s Letter newsletter saw Black Ballad work with Maltesers around maternal mental health as Oredein was about to give birth to her second child.
“I wrote this newsletter on letting go of the Superwoman complex as a mum, second time around,” she explained. “It all came together and the newsletter opened the partnership; we had an editorial video that went alongside the essay, and it just went nuts. People loved the partnership. We realized that my personal newsletter opens up partnerships. Now the newsletter stands alone as the most requested advertising channel and is the most popular source of revenue for Black Ballad.”
There are risks with building newsletter audiences around individual journalists, but these can be managed. It’s an issue UK news brand The Telegraph faced when a big-name writer for their political newsletter left, and the team had to decide what to do next.
“We’ve grown [the newsletter] substantially since then,” Head of Newsletters Maire Bonheim said, explaining that they gave another political journalist a chance to fully front the newsletter. “He’s in your inbox at exactly 1pm every day. He’s really passionate about it, and he gives it his own edge. People have built up a habit and a relationship with him.”
2. Prioritize newsletters for retention and conversion
Special interest publisher Immediate Media monetizes many of its brands like Good Food and Gardeners’ World through subscriptions. Head of CRM and Customer Retention Matt Nash sees newsletters as playing a vital role in their subscription strategy, especially for long-term relationships.
“One of the big reasons why we’re so focused on newsletters from a subscription capacity is that 25% of our app subscribers received or read a newsletter before going on to subscribe,” he said. “So on average, there’s about 18 months between someone registering on Good Food and then converting to an app subscriber.”
“We also find that conversion from trials – mainly we run free trials going into paid subscriptions on the app – is around 10 percentage points higher for people that have previously been on our newsletter base before converting to a subscription.”
Nash shared that they have a two-part email strategy for pre- and post-subscription. The first half is focused around getting eyes on the website, showcasing the product and the subscription offers. “Every newsletter we send is an opportunity for us to try and convert someone if they look like they’re likely to subscribe,” he explained.
Once someone has converted, the focus switches to the “core readership phase,” where newsletters are part of a multi-channel tech stack optimized to try and get existing users to continue their subscription. The publisher uses a range of personalization options, from content type to send frequency and time to hit the readers at just the right frequency for them.
3. Consider repackaging content for educational courses
A number of publishers offer newsletter “courses” with a clear start and end point as an alternative way of engaging audiences. As part of its newsletter strategy, Pew Research Center launched an email course, which allowed them to leverage their reports and blog posts on U.S. Immigration. More recently The Guardian released a five-week email coaching plan called Reclaim Your Brain, which has attracted over 140,000 sign-ups.
Seeing examples like these, Ruth Hardy-Mullings, Head of Content at Community Care, a publication for social workers, wondered if newsletter courses could help solve some of their challenges. Their biggest driver of traffic was their weekly newsletter. She was also aware of the friction readers faced finding time to log onto the website and proactively seek out training content. A course delivered straight to their inbox would be a good way to prove value.
They launched some test courses in March 2021, delivering six emails a week over a three week period. “We took the content from longer guides and hosted it within the body of the email itself, so it solved that problem of having to go and log in on the site,” Hardy-Mullings explained. “Someone was able to open up their email, read the content and get that learning wherever they are, whether they’re in a car before they go and do a home visit, on their commute home, making use of those small amounts of time that people do have.”
Each email had a recap section at the beginning, a progress bar to keep people motivated, further reading links, and a reflective exercise at the end. Hardy-Mullings noted that signing up for a finite period of time was helpful for professionals who get thousands of emails. “The general feedback was that people really loved the convenience of the course and that format of learning, a good way that could genuinely fit into their working week,” she said.
Email courses may not suit every publisher. However, they can be a strong way of repurposing evergreen content, reducing friction points for membership organizations, or giving samples of journalism for paywalled publications, to name a few use cases.
4. Prioritize list-cleaning for a healthy newsletter strategy
One of the most revealing sessions at the Summit was Maire Bonheim and David Alexander, Head and Deputy Head of Newsletters respectively at The Telegraph. They talked about how to turn around an underperforming newsletter, and noted that they often have to use different tactics across almost 40 newsletters in their portfolio.
Alexander was keen to emphasize that although metrics have a place in your newsletter strategy, they need to be the right ones. “If you put all your effort into getting a massive list, and you trick people into signing up to your newsletter, they’ll get it. But no one will care because they didn’t mean to get it in the first place,” he explained. “You’ll have a massive list, and over time, your email provider will think it’s spam, and they’ll just put it in everybody’s junk. Pursuing vanity stats is a fool’s game. Massive lists are not the aim. You want people to read your stuff.”
Clearing lists and pursuing slower, more genuine engagement is a braver path to take, especially with other commercial and business pressures publishers face. Bonheim said that they have different time periods for list cleaning different newsletters. “If a newsletter is a daily send, then we wait a shorter amount of time before we list cleanse, whereas if something’s weekly or even monthly, we wait longer,” she explained.
The Telegraph was also facing an issue where when some marketing emails were sent to editorial newsletter segments, readers were getting confused and newsletters were ending up in the promotions tab.
“As a whole at The Telegraph… the volume of emails had gone up hugely, and we needed to get smarter about our overall email strategy and cleverer about who we segment and target,” Bonheim said, explaining that they send warnings about removing readers from lists if they don’t ‘Click to stay’. “So to combat that, we became much more stringent with our list cleanse emails, and that seems to be having a positive impact.”
The takeaway
These strategies may not work for every publisher, and one theme which emerged strongly from the Publisher Newsletter Summit is that newsletters can be used for a wide range of different purposes. The key is to be very clear for each newsletter what its purpose is, and how that will be measured.
“[Key metrics] are so different across all our titles,” said Alexander of his work on The Telegraph’s newsletters. “I’ve worked on newsletters that have had almost 1,000 words in them, and people want to read them more than anything. I’ve also looked after newsletters where it’s all about getting people through to the site. You have to be really clear on what’s important.”
Whether it’s exploring the potential of short email ‘courses’ or letting editors take a personal lead, there are plenty of ways to freshen up a newsletter strategy. But whether this is through iterative changes, pivots or launches, keep the newsletter’s purpose front and center.
In today’s media landscape, engaging younger audiences is both a challenge and an opportunity for newsrooms. Understanding the media habits and preferences of Gen Z is crucial for the sustainability and long-term relevance of players across the media industry.
Two recent papers, the latest Digital News Report and FT Strategies Next Gen News Study, offer valuable insights into younger audiences and strategies for effectively reaching and engaging them.
Here are the key trends media executives need to be aware of, followed by suggestions about how to act on them to improve engagement among young audiences.
Trend 1: A preference for digital
Not surprisingly, we need to start with (or truly accept) the shift away from traditional media habits. Having grown up with media on-demand and the ability to consume on mobile devices, younger audiences tend to access content very differently from their parents.
In terms of news media, as Nic Newman – the lead author of the Digital News Report – notes, younger audiences are “much less likely to use traditional sources such as TV and radio news and much more likely to access via social media, aggregators, and search.”
Instead, preference is usually given to both short-form and long-form video content on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. “The youngest group (Gen Z) are most likely to say that social media is their main source of news,” Newman adds.
Trend 2: Authenticity over traditional credentials
Another critical shift can be seen in concepts of credibility. Traditional benchmarks such as awards and brand recognition, hold less sway with younger consumers, observes FT Strategies’ Liat Fainman-Adelman.
Instead, perceptions of authenticity are key to this group’s definition of trustworthiness.
“Someone who identifies with a certain community / group or has lived through that event is seen as more credible in covering a related news event,” Fainman-Adelman explains. “Someone documenting their daily life in Ukraine on TikTok may be more popular and trusted than a trained journalist sent to cover the war.”
This trend helps explain the gravitation towards individuals over institutions seen in both reports.
“Young people want to feel connected to those who are delivering them news and information,” Fainman-Adelman contends. “It’s important for them to see who they really are and understand their underlying motivations.”
Trend 3: A level of news skepticism
Gen Z audiences want to understand the motivations and identities of the people behind the news. However, the formats used by many traditional media outlets often fail to speak to this need. In turn, this has led to a heightened skepticism towards the traditional news media.
“Individual contributors are seen as more personable and relatable than a faceless byline,” Fainman-Adelman says.
Subsequently, Newman explains, “because they are exposed to so many different sources, and see so many different perspectives, young people tend to [be] highly skeptical of most information and often question the ‘agenda’ of all news sources including mainstream news providers.”
This tendency is also heightened by the more “lean back” approach seen among many younger users, whereby they consume media in a more passive – and less intentional – manner. Their media experiences are often mediated through algorithms, rather than by going direct to specific sources.
That means this group is “much less likely to have a connection with traditional news brands preferring the news to come to them,” Newman says, observing how relationships are “driven more by relevance of the content itself rather than where it comes from.”
Trend 4: Broader definitions of “the news”
Younger audiences also have a looser, more fluid, interpretation of what is news and the trusted sources that are sharing it (e.g. alternative/independent sources, personalities and influencers).
As Newman outlined in an email interview, “young people make a distinction between ‘the news’ as the narrow, traditional agenda of politics and current affairs and ‘news’ as a much wider umbrella encompassing topics like sports, entertainment, celebrity gossip, culture, and science.
“Often they see narrow(ly-defined) news as a chore to spend as little time with as possible. But are prepared to spend more time with passions and diversions.”
Trend 5: Navigating information overload
Participants in FT Strategies’ study were born after the year 2000. “That’s had a pretty significant impact on how they interact with media and technology,” Fainman-Adelman told me via email.
Growing up in the digital age, young audiences are adept at filtering the large volume of content we are exposed to every day to find the material that interests them. That’s one reason why short-form media is particularly appealing to them.
And despite concerns about shorter attention spans, FT Strategies found that younger audiences do engage in long-form content (e.g. podcasts, online videos etc.) if it is of interest to them.
Five strategic recommendations for media companies to engage younger audiences
Given these insights, media players need to adopt a multifaceted approach to engage younger audiences. Of course, this demographic is not an homogeneous group. Nevertheless, we can identify a number of broad characteristics that publishers should be looking to adopt.
Here are five key approaches media executives need to implement (if you have not already):
Tactic 1: Embrace visually-oriented social networks
Prioritize platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, where younger people spend much of their time. As Newman notes, the last few Digital News reports have shown that younger audiences are increasingly turning to these networks for news and other content.
Although media outlets tend to prioritize connections that they can monetize, Fainman-Adelman suggests “developing socially native content to build brand awareness on platforms (and eventually transitioning to more direct relationships).”
“Engaging the next generation will be crucial for legacy media’s sustainability and reducing the gap now will undoubtedly pay off in the long run,” Fainman-Adelman believes.
Tactic 2: Understand platform dynamics
YouTube, Instagram and TikTok have some shared qualities, but audiences use them differently. Creators need to tailor content based on the features and audience expectations of each network.
Fainman-Adelman advises, “Ensuring that news media is highly accessible (e.g., in terms of language, tone, humor) and engaging (e.g., multimedia, interactive, participatory). This “will be critical for building and retaining loyal audiences in the long run.”
Tactic 3: Emphasize authenticity
Shifts in tone are also key to providing a sense of intimacy and authenticity younger audiences crave. The Next Gen News report identifies “how social media personalities’ lived experiences boosted their authenticity and relatability when it came to certain topics.”
This can be hard for mainstream outlets to replicate. But, the Digital News Report highlights younger players – such as Dylan Page (aka News Daddy) in the UK, Vitus Spehar (best known for Under the Desk News on TikTok) in the USA and Hugo Travers (Hugo Décrypte) in France – which others can learn from.
Stressing transparency in reporting processes and clearly distinguishing between news, analysis, and opinion can also help build credibility among skeptical younger viewers.
Tactic 4: Embrace diversity
This can take many forms, including using formats such as short videos, podcasts, and interactive articles that are engaging and accessible. Broadening the range of topics covered and adopting a more conversational tone can also make news more appealing to Gen Z audiences.
Meanwhile, FT Strategies make the case for “partnering with creators, empowering editorial talent to share their [personal] stories, and … [hiring] younger and more diverse journalists who are permitted to express themselves in an authentic way, particularly on social media.”
Sophia Smith Galer (ex-BBC and Vice News) and Taylor Lorenz (The Washington Post) were identified by the report’s Advisory Board as exemplars with large social media followings who enable “their authentic personalities to shine through their work.”
Tactic 5: Change the narrative
“One of the most profound shifts we’ve seen among younger audiences is who and what they see as trustworthy” Fainman-Adelman says.
Media players need to learn from this and avoid doing things the way that they always have done. Afterall, for many younger audiences, these tried and trusted techniques don’t resonate with them.
Changing the paradigm means being clearer about editorial processes, funding sources, and potential biases. A genuine openness to feedback and audience engagement also matters.
Incorporating solutions journalism and more positive narratives may also help. Offering content that provides hope and inspires action can resonate with younger demographics (and others), moving away from the “doom and gloom” narrative many consumers associate with the media.
Bringing it all together
Engaging more effectively with younger audiences requires a deep understanding of their media habits and preferences. There are also potential long-term benefits to this too. As Fainman-Adelman reminds us, “several studies show that young people are often accurate predictors for broader shifts in society.”
Existing trends like widespread multimedia consumption, passively accessing content via social and other indirect ways (instead of doing direct), as well as a desire for shifts in the tone and breadth of content being provided, are here to stay. And they are only going to become more mainstream.
As a result, media players must be willing to experiment with new formats and approaches. These should prioritize authenticity, relevance, diverse content and more diverse voices. Through this, news organizations and publishers will be better placed to build trust and loyalty among younger audiences.
In doing this, Newman reminds us that “mainstream news brands cannot please all young people all the time due to the fragmented ways in which they consume media.” But, he says, “they can give themselves a better chance of being chosen more often.”
As the media landscape continues to evolve, those who adapt will not only survive but thrive. In an increasingly fragmented environment, adopting these strategies to connect with younger audiences can transform media organizations into trusted and preferred content sources for both the next generation and everyone else.
The data is clear: a chasm exists between what traditional news offers and what younger audiences crave. Decades of research haven’t bridged this gap, and proposed solutions often fall short. Blumler and McQuail’s (1970) Need for Gratification Theory suggests people use media to fulfill specific desires. You do have to wonder if the problem a mismatch in needs. Perhaps traditional news fails to satisfy younger generations’ hunger for in-depth analysis or a more positive outlook, driving them to seek information elsewhere. This disconnect demands a fresh approach – one that bridges the gap and fosters genuine connection.
A Spring 2023 Harvard Youth Poll reveals that young Americans prioritize economic concerns like inflation, healthcare, housing, and job availability, alongside social justice and environmental issues like reproductive rights, climate change, and immigration. This focus mirrors global trends. However, traditional media coverage often falls short on these topics. The rise of “alternative platforms” and the demand for short, relatable, and authentic content signals a broader shift in news consumption. Furthermore, Gen X’s declining interest and the perception of traditional media content as distant, pedantic, and delivered on outdated platforms underscore the need to completely rethink how we deliver news.
Despite the challenges, a bright future awaits news media built on growth and audience engagement. The key lies in a shift towards hyper-local coverage. This doesn’t mean abandoning national and global news. Rather, it means prioritizing content that resonates with the local audience. Imagine relatable journalists delivering stories on local issues through engaging formats like social media posts, listicles, explainers, and high-quality video content. This focus has demonstrably built loyal readership and increased audience size for news organizations around the country.
A decline in news interest among Gen X and Millennials, as reported by the Pew Research Center, and a growing preference for authenticity in news presenters, according to Reuters 2022 Digital News Report, paint a clear picture of the current news consumption landscape. Addressing these audience preferences and tailoring content to local issues can foster greater trust and engagement with news media.
The solution seems straightforward: connect the dots between state or regional events and their impact on local communities. However doing this effectively is harder than it seems. News outlets must transition from high-level reporting to a more responsible and objective approach. This means translating complex issues into clear, concise explanations that highlight the specific impact on people’s daily lives. For example, a national story on rising gas prices might be tailored locally to show how much transportation costs have increased in your city and how residents are coping.
Take, for instance, the Miami Herald’s recent spring climate change article on sea levels rising. This article uses multimedia storytelling to explore the rising sea level’s impact on Miami, a city particularly vulnerable to coastal flooding. The article features data insights from local scientists and researchers and explains how climate change is affecting the city’s infrastructure and communities. By connecting the global threat of climate change to the specific challenges faced by Miami, this article highlights the urgency of addressing sea level rise. This focus on local impacts can potentially empower younger audiences to engage with the issue in their city, and “actionability” is something that is particularly resonant with this group.
As we navigate the evolving media landscape and changing news consumption habits, traditional media must redefine its role. It should not only inform, but also serve as a vital resource for today’s and tomorrow’s generations. This shift is crucial for both local and national news outlets as they strive to bridge the generational gap and earn trust.
Younger audiences increasingly seek news that offers practical and useful information for their daily lives. This demand highlights the need for journalism to evolve beyond reporting. News organizations must provide guidance and resources on various topics, offering actionable insights that empower readers.
The challenge lies in transforming news into actionable resources that not only inform but also empower and engage audiences. Organizations like NPR have shown the way by expanding their coverage to include comprehensive guides and interactive tools on topics like financial planning and mental health resources. These resources equip readers to make informed decisions and take meaningful action based on factual reporting.
By providing practical resources alongside factual reporting, news organizations can empower readers with deeper understanding and the tools they need to take action. This ensures content remains informative while upholding journalistic integrity. In an era where accessible knowledge and meaningful impact are highly valued, this approach fosters informed decision-making and strengthens audience engagement.
Embracing hyper-local coverage and authentic storytelling will enable news organizations to bridge the chasm that separates them from Gen X and Millennials. Focusing on issues that directly impact these audiences’ daily lives fosters a sense of relevance and connection. Authentic voices, relatable formats, and clear explanations that empower readers with actionable insights will cultivate trust and engagement. This also translates to a more valuable audience for advertisers, potentially leading to increased revenue streams.
In essence, a focus on local issues and a commitment to genuine storytelling that makes issues personally relevant represents a strategic investment in the future of news. By prioritizing content that resonates with younger generations, news organizations can not only ensure their long-term sustainability but also cultivate a more engaged and informed citizenry. A future where news is relevant, sustainable, and fosters meaningful connections between audiences and journalists is entirely within reach.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics heralded the digital transformation of Games coverage. Fans no longer need to stay glued to the TV to see what they want. Nor do they have to or solely rely on news titles to keep them up to speed on the big picture. Younger audiences in particular consumed highlight clips rather than watching linear coverage and followed their favorite athletes on social media to gain a more in-depth, behind-the-scenes insights. In fact, the IOC clocked6.1 billion digital engagements on Olympic social media channels during the competition.
Four years later, as we approach the Paris event, these trends are again set to influence international consumption of Olympic content. News and sports organizations have already learned from these new social media-inspired audience dynamics, with live blogs offering a valuable means of competing with social channels for mainstream media share of voice. The delivery of real-time, snackable content that enables interactivity will continue to be essential in 2024 Olympics coverage. Still, there are also new, broader issues to address to capture audience share – particularly among Gen Z, or ‘the purpose generation‘.
Beyond the sport
Olympics coverage is no longer simply about sport. Athletes and governments have always used the Games to spotlightpertinent social and political issues, from Black Power and anti-apartheid to LGBTQI. Now, younger generations increasingly see the potential for activism from the sidelines. Environmental sustainability and the participation of transgender athletes have emerged as important topics for Paris 2024. There’s also likely to be an impact from the substantial political tension caused by the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas conflicts on the event. Newsrooms will need to have one eye on the sport, and one eye on the bigger picture to ensure audience engagement.
News providers covering the Olympics must, therefore, up their game (pun intended), adopting audience-first strategies that cater to theneeds of Gen Z and beyond to ensure they compete in the race against social media for audience share. They must deliver authentic, personalized, and interactive content that addresses both the event and the wider issues surrounding it.
Incorporating multiple, intertwined storylines to provide greater depth and insight and encourage engagement will be vital. By doing so, they can boost traffic, dwell time or subscription conversions and encourage brands keen for Olympics association to spend money on advertising.
Prepare for the marathon, not the sprint
However, with the Games lasting two weeks and spanning 320 different competitions across 32 sports, it’s no easy feat to keep audiences up to date on the sports that interest them, provide athlete and behind-the-scenes insights and tune into the wider news stories that intersect with the Olympics. Newsrooms must, therefore, box clever when it comes to delivering on audience expectations.
Live blogs offer an important starting block to help reach this goal. They allow newsrooms to create an engaging and responsive experience tailored to the audience’s preferences by offering real-time updates, encouraging active participation, and enabling a multimedia-rich format. But live blogs can also go beyond real-time news to deliver much more.
Curated content to meet multiple audience needs
The beauty of the live blog format for long events such as the Olympics is that it allows content to be curated, drawing on a range of mixed media to tell the wider story and showcasing numerous perspectives in easily digestible snippets. From integrating Q&As with athletes and coaches for greater depth of insight to fans’ social media posts, multimedia clips of key moments or retrospective and contextual news bits relating to the environmental, political and social issues surrounding the games, live blogs can effectively serve a wide range of audience expectations.
The 2022 European Championships ably demonstrated how live blogs can communicate complex event information in simple terms for spectators, volunteers and employees. From rain delays and available transportation to coverage of medal winners, funny anecdotes and heart-wrenching athlete stories, reporters delivered both range and depth of coverage, harnessing the live blog’s visual storytelling power to share close to 600 photos of what made the event so unique. Custom tags allowed each post to be categorized so that users could easily search for and access the information they wanted.
User-generated content (UGC) creates a more engaging and inclusive narrative beyond just text. Surveys, polls, unique social media hashtags, and live comment blocks all enable a two-way flow of information. Stufffrequently uses this to good effect in their live blog coverage, giving its passionate sports community the chance to engage on topics such as the All Blacks World Cup Squad Announcement, and the team’s return home. This involves audiences in the reporting process and establishes a sense of community to strengthen the media-audience relationship.
Live blogs also allow individual journalist and editorial styles to shine through, creating further audience bonds. We see many young journalists creating social-style videos to tell stories, with their personalities influencing how viewers consume content. DER SPIEGEL’s reporters demonstrated the power of personality intheir coverage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023, expressing personal opinions, cracking jokes and reacting with emojis in a lively dialogue. This gives the audience a deeper understanding of the people behind the content, injecting personality and making it more relatable and authentic.
On your mark, get set, go!
The evolution of Olympics coverage reflects the changing preferences of audiences, particularly younger generations. As we look forward to the Paris 2024 Olympics, it’s clear that news and sports organizations must continue to adapt to digital and social media consumption to compete. In order to capture and maintain audience engagement, a focus on delivering real-time, interactive, and curated content that addresses both the sporting events and the broader social, political, and environmental issues surrounding the Games is crucial.
Live blogs have emerged as a valuable tool for providing both real-time and in-depth coverage while catering to diverse audience needs and preferences. As newsrooms prepare for the marathon-like coverage of the two-week event, prioritizing audience-first strategies will be essential to ensure a meaningful and immersive Olympic experience for all. Leveraging live blogs during the Games enables publishers to inform, educate, engage, and connect with audiences on a new level.
Influencers, independent journalists, and smaller news outlets sharing news and commentary on social platforms increasingly compete for audience attention with traditional and digital news brands. These “alternative voices” can also provide a place for a diverse array of opinions and perspectives—though the most popular accounts don’t appear to be particularly diverse or alternative, unless the term alternative is simply defined as delivered by social platforms outside of established news brands.
Platforms like TikTok and Instagram offer access to creator tools and global distribution, which helps these accounts reach large audiences. However, measuring the extent of news consumption on social and video networks is complex due to the diverse range of accounts and topics discussed. However, Reuters’ Institute’s new report, Digital News Report 2024, provides a snapshot of the most influential accounts and the balance of attention between alternative news sources and mainstream. The report examines the nature of these alternative voices and their followers and evaluates the reliability of the information and the implications for the marketplace.
Recall of alternative news accounts (58%) surpasses mainstream news brands in the U.S. (42%). This indicates a significant shift toward news creators and influencers. This trend also underscores alternative voices’ growing influence, as well as the continuous evolution of news content and delivery.
Linked to this trend, video storytelling is an increasingly crucial online news source, especially among younger audiences. Short news videos – popular on TikTok and Instagram – are accessed by 66% of respondents each week, while longer formats attract around 51%. Most online news video consumption takes place on social platforms. Audiences favor these platforms for news (72%) over publisher websites, which only attract 22%. This increases the challenges around monetization and connection for traditional news publishers.
Audience and content analysis
Reuter’s report asked respondents to name accounts they follow most closely across six popular platforms—Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. Respondents identify Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan as the accounts they follow most closely. Interestingly, the most mentioned (top 10) individual names offer political commentary or chat rather than original newsgathering. Most of the popular content is also partisan, with little or no attempt to present a balanced view. And the entire top 10 list is comprised of white men. Many of these names are hardly “alternative,” as they come with decades of experience in legacy media ― traditional cable or talk radio networks.
Some alternative news brands are comprised of multiple creators, such as the Daily Wire and Blaze TV (conservative), Young Turks, and Medias Touch (progressive). Regardless of their politics, the look is consistent and video-centric. It’s somewhere between a podcast and a TV broadcast – with mostly male hosts talking to mostly male guests.
The nature of some of this content may not appeal to advertisers. As a result, some personalities find other ways to generate revenue, such as appealing directly for donations or selling merchandise. A few, such as Tucker Carlson, are trying out premium subscriptions, providing additional content or networking opportunities for a fee.
Reliability and impact on society
The reliability of information shared by alternative voices is a critical concern. While some independent journalists and creators provide valuable insights and diverse perspectives, others report misinformation and partisan content. The decentralized nature of these platforms makes it challenging to regulate content quality, leading to potential societal impacts, such as increased polarization and the spread of false information.
The rise of alternative news sources and the popularity of individual’s “news” accounts shows a growing audience preference for creators and influencers—even in their consumption of what they define as news. These alternatives claim to offer free expression, positioning themselves against mainstream media, which they accuse of suppressing the truth or serving elite interests.
The insights provided by Reuters’ findings makes evident the popularity of short form video for news among audiences. It also sheds some light on the types of storytelling and storytellers who audiences find most engaging. News media outlets should explore new creative formats and personalities and showcase creators’ individual style and personalities to embrace changing news preferences and engage today’s audiences.
Media companies say they want to grow their younger audiences. So, why aren’t executives making more of a concerted effort to lean on that same generation for guidance on how to reach that audience?
Earlier this year, I attended an industry conference event in San Francisco where leading executives from the fields of advertising, marketing, broadcasting and streaming came together to exchange thoughts and ideas on how their industries are converging and where things are headed next.
One of the presenting panelists was Jasmin Corley, a 20-something billed as a “social media influencer” who, in fact, has spent the formative years of her young life establishing and building her own fashion and beauty media brand across social video platforms. Hundreds of thousands of people follow Corley across Instagram, YouTube Shorts and TikTok. Her best-performing clips have north of 1 million views — not an easy thing for anyone to pull off.
Corley shared the stage with executives who hailed from a leading electronics company, a television start-up and an advertising manager from a streaming-focused joint venture. Each of those panelists got more time to speak than she did. In fact, even the moderator — a well-known former reporter for an entertainment trade publication who now covers the free streaming space for a media research company — spoke more than Corley did.
She was asked just two questions, one from the moderator, one from a panelist who sought validation in his own product. The tone seemed to be this: Corley was lucky to share a stage with such esteemed executives in the media and advertising industry. Really, though, they were lucky to share a stage with her. Ultimately, it was a lost opportunity to hear from someone who not only reaches the younger generation on a regular basis, but who walks among them, too.
The same old management
If Corley was frustrated by the experience, she didn’t show it. She graciously exited the stage and went home. I wish I had been as graceful in my 20s. When I was hired to oversee digital initiatives for a Tribune Media-owned newsroom in 2008, I was a baby-faced 21-year-old who was still in college. I thought the company was hiring me for my ideas. Over time, I came to realize they brought me on because I could do a lot of work quickly. And they didn’t have to pay me very much to do it.
Every week, the station assembled different department heads for a meeting. In my first few meetings, I said nothing, though I had a lot of thoughts. Eventually, I spoke up, but it seemed like things were always being shot down. Conversations usually ended with the message that “it isn’t the way we do things here,” or “things are done for a reason,” something along those lines. The meetings did little to accomplish anything, except that everyone seemed annoyed with me toward the end. It was mutual. They mistook my confidence for arrogance; I mistook their arrogance for incompetence.
Times change but too many things stay the same
Perhaps if all sides had gone in with more of an open mind, things would have been different. Back then, media companies had very little to lose — traditional platforms were doing as well, if not better, than emerging digital ones. Today, the opposite is clearly true. Traditional platforms like broadcast radio and television are struggling to address a downturn in their advertising businesses. Meanwhile, next-generation platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram seem to have more money than they know what to do with.
The reasons are numerous, and not too hard to understand. Take TV, for instance. While traditional TV still frames itself around a 30-minute or 1-hour episode, content creators on YouTube or Instagram can go as long as they want, unencumbered by schedules or time limits. They can 30-second clips three times a day, or a 30-minute tutorial twice a month, or any combination or variation in-between. While traditional TV might require a fully-developed script or outline, along with numerous pitch meetings and ad sales justifications, young people can simply grab their phone and create whatever they want to bring into the world.
The proliferation of tablets and smartphones, coupled with the abundance of social video platforms, has lowered the barrier of entry for content creation and distribution. No one understands this better than the generation who grew up with a mature Internet and digital toolset capable of handling those things. And they are taking full advantage of it.
The end result is highly-engaging content that connects with younger consumers, and influences them in many ways, including purchase intentions. A survey by Nerds Collective as reported in The Drum found that 45% of young Europeans who identify as Generation Z “want brands they’ve seen an influencer or celebrity wear,” while just 18% say they’re influenced by what their friends wear.
Young people turn to TikTok
Fashion is one thing. News and information is another. But similar trends apply. Young people are increasingly turning to TikTok and Instagram over Google to find things online (and, to be honest, you can’t really blame them, because Google is a hot mess). When it comes to news and current events, younger audiences are gravitating toward unfiltered personalities and curated experiences that podcasters like comedian Joe Rogan, radio host James O’Brien and French YouTube channel Hugo Décrype offer.
Why is this happening? Over the past few months, I’ve reached out to a number of key figures in media and entertainment to find out. Three executives told me they had to run things up the chain before they could speak with me — suggesting corporate bureaucracy has changed little since I worked in that TV newsroom all those years ago. I managed to secure interviews with three others. But it seemed that they either didn’t understand the situation or could only offer answers that didn’t address the issue at hand.
Change in strategy
I spent more than a month doing precisely the wrong thing: Trying to secure interviews with people with nice executive titles at well-established places, but whose businesses embody many of the problems that this column is trying to address. About two weeks ago, it finally occurred to me that I needed to reach someone who wasn’t involved in media and entertainment, but who spends a lot of time thinking and writing about these problems: Charles Benaiah.
Like me, Benaiah spent his early career working for established media brands before venturing out onto his own. Today, his job as the CEO of Watzan is to observe the landscape and dream up ways for it to improve.
“There are decades of ingrained expectations that are going to have to change,” Benaiah told me in an interview, after I filled him in on the above issues. “It’s not going to change quickly.”
Benaiah agrees that one way to attract and engage younger consumers is to create content that resonates with them. To do so requires hiring young people into key decision-making roles. It also means allowing personality to bubble through. He likens it to the better days of the newspaper industry, where someone might pick up a copy of the daily edition to read the latest clip from their favorite columnist. In the process, they have to flip through several pages of news, and might stop on a story here or there that is connected to, but otherwise separate from, the editorial section.
These days, the editorial page is X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “We’re 25 years into social media, and I’ve always looked at Twitter as being the social media place for journalists,” Benaiah remarked. “Journalists are writing somewhat dry stories, because that’s what they’re asked to do. They’ve got these great, brilliant quips, and they toss them out all day, but they don’t work their way back into the personality of the newsroom — they make their way onto Twitter.”
Personality and connections
Newsrooms didn’t have a chance to embrace the idea of Twitter before young journalists gravitated to the platform on their own. Once news organizations saw that young journalists could attract a blockbuster following on the platform, they encouraged their reporters to link to their stories, as a way to drive traffic to their website.
The growing pains came when journalists really started to stretch out and let loose on Twitter. Controversies followed. Suddenly, a reporter’s off-hand remark or poorly-landed joke became fodder for another reporter’s mini exposé. Newsrooms that had never developed a framework of acceptable use and best social media practices suddenly found themselves cleaning up a lot of messes.
Some news organizations handled that better than others. However, for the most part, the industry really struggled to find an appropriate balance between giving young journalists the freedom to be themselves on a public platform and applying standards and ethics policies in a non-constraining way.
Striking that balance is important, Benaiah says, because newsrooms that are too rigid risk losing authoritative voices, many of which are deeply engaged with younger audiences. But a free-for-all is also problematic, because authority in news requires trust, and to be trust-worthy, one must be honest and believable.
Supporting young leaders
Young journalists can build authority and trust by being mentored by industry veterans who impart the best practices while embracing the idea that the way things have traditionally been done might not be the best way of doing things in the future. It won’t keep a young journalist from making mistakes, but a guiding hand can encourage them that it isn’t the end of the world. The payoff for giving emerging reporters the space to be themselves and the guidance to be accurate and reliable will be recognized in the long term, in a way that benefits both individual brands and companies at large.
Likewise, media companies that want to reach younger audiences have to hire young people into leadership roles and allow them to be an integral part in content creation and audience engagement strategies. That is the first step, and it is a substantial one. Not engaging young professionals as part of the process is a bit like asking someone who speaks English to create a product slogan in Greek. It makes no sense, yet this is what corporate America has done for years. It is not a winning formula.
At the industry conference I attended earlier this year, everyone in the room should have been clamoring to give Corley their card. They should have asked if she was willing to be a brand ambassador, to help put their product or service or company in front of her audience. They should have asked her for a little insight into the secret sauce that makes her content so tastefully appealing to thousands of viewers.
But no one did. Not that it mattered much to Corley. She went home, and immediately started working on her next project: The “Fr$h Editing Bootcamp.” Over the course of 30 days, Corley educated her followers on the best ways to make short-form videos really pop on social platforms. To date, those videos have amassed tens of thousands of views, and likely influenced the next batch of content creators. It is tough to predict what platforms those videos will live on in 5, 10, 20 years — but if traditional media companies are smart, they’ll do whatever it takes to bring those content creators in before they’re left in the dust.
The introduction of AI-generated search results is just the next step in a long line of the platforms moving more of the audience interactions behind their walled gardens. This is an accelerating trend that’s not going to reverse. Google began answering common questions itself in 2012, Meta increased its deprioritization of news in 2023, and now some analysts are predicting that AI search will drop traffic to media sites by 40% in the next couple years.
It’s a dire prediction. Panic is understandable. The uncertainty is doubled by the sheer pace of AI developments and the fracturing of the attention economy.
However, it is important to know that this is another situation in which it is critical to focus on the fundamentals. Media companies need to develop direct relationships with audiences, double down on quality content, and use new technology to remove any inefficiencies in their publishing operation. Yes, the industry has already done this for decades. However, there are new approaches in 2024 that can allow publishers to improve experiences to attract direct audiences.
All-in on direct relationships
When there’s breaking news, is the first thought in your audience’s mind opening your app, or typing in your URL? Or are they going to take the first answer they can get – likely from someone else’s channel?
Some media companies view direct relationships as a “nice to have” or as a secondary objective. If that’s the case, it’s time to make them a priority.
Whether direct relationships are already the top priority or not, now’s a good time to take a step back to re-evaluate the website’s content experience and the business model that supports it. Does it emphasize—above all else—providing an audience experience that encourages readers to create a direct relationship with your business?
When the cost to produce content is zero, quality stands out
This brings us to the avenue that drives direct relationships: your website, and your app. Particularly as search declines as a traffic source, these become the primary interaction space with audiences. We’ll follow up next month with frameworks for your product team to use to make your website and apps more engaging to further build your direct audience traffic.
It’s no longer about competing for attention on a third-party platform—for example through a sheer quantity of content about every possible keyword. It’s about making the owned platform compelling. Quality over quantity has never been more important.
Incorporating AI into editorial workflow
As the cost to create content is increasingly commoditized via the large language models (LLMs), the internet will fill up with generic noise—even more so than it already is.
Content that’s actually of genuinely high quality will rise in appreciation, both by readers themselves and the search engines that deliver traffic to them. Google is already punishing low quality content. So are audiences. The teams using LLMs to generate entire articles, whole-cloth, are being downgraded by Google (and this approach is not likely to drive readers to you directly either).
But AI does have its uses. One big challenge in generating quality content is time. Ideally, technology gives time back to journalists. They’ll have extra time to dig into their research. They may gain another hour to interview more sources and find that killer quote. Editors have more time to really make the copy pop. The editorial team has more time for collaborating on the perfect news package. The list goes on.
AI is perfect for automating all the non-critical busywork that consumes so much time: generating titles, tags, excerpts, backlinks, A/B tests, and more. This frees up researchers, writers, and creatives to do the work that audiences value most, and deliver the content that drives readers to return to websites and download apps.
This approach has been emerging for a while now. For example, ChatGPT is great at creating suggestions for titles, excerpts, tags, and so on. However, there’s a new approach that’s really accelerating results: Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG).
RAG is the difference maker when it comes to quality
The base-model LLMs are trained on the whole internet, rather than specific businesses. RAG brings an organization’s own data to AI generation. Journalists using ChatGPT to get generations will get “ok” results that they then need to spend time fixing. With RAG, they can focus the results to make sure they’re fine-tuned to your particular style. That’s important for branding, and also saves creatives time to use for other things.
The next level not only uses content data, but also performance data to optimize RAG setups. This way, AI is not just generating headline suggestions or excerpts that match a particular voice, it’s also basing them on what has historically generated the most results.
In other words, instead of giving a newsroom ChatGPT subscriptions and saying “have at it,” media companies can use middleware that intelligently prompts LLMs using their own historical content and performance data.
Do this right and journalists, editors, and content optimizers can effortlessly generate suggestions for titles, tags, links, and more. These generations will be rooted in brand and identity, instead of being generic noise. This means the team doesn’t need to spend time doing all that manually, and can focus on content quality.
Using RAG to leverage the back catalog
Media companies have thousands upon thousands of articles published going back years. Some of them are still relevant. But the reality is that leveraging the back catalog effectively has been a difficult undertaking.
Humans can’t possibly remember the entirety of everything an organization has ever published. But machines can.
A machine plugged into the CMS can use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand the content currently being worked—what is it about? Then it can check the back catalog for every single other article on the topic. It can also rank each of those historical articles by which generated the most attention and which floundered. Then it can help staff insert the most high-performing links into current pieces.
Similarly, imagine the same process, just in reverse. By automating the updating of historical evergreen content with fresh links, new articles can immediately jump-start with built-in traffic.
Removing silos between creation and analysis
While Google traffic might be declining, it will nonetheless remain important in this new world. And in this period of uncertainty, media organizations need to convert as much as possible of the traffic from this channel while it is still operating.
We call this “Leaving the platforms behind.” Media companies should focus on getting as much of the traffic from search and other channels into first-party data collection funnels as possible. This way, they can build enough moat to continue floating if any or all of these traffic channels completely disappear.
Most teams today have dedicated SEO analysts who are essentially gatekeepers between SEO insights and content production. The SEO analysts aren’t going anywhere any time soon. But the new table stakes are that every journalist needs to be able to self-serve keyword insights.
It is important to use analytics tools that bring search console data directly to the approachable/easy article analytics page that the editorial team already knows how to use. Ideally, analytics tools should connect keywords and other platform traffic to conversions, so everyone on your team can understand their impact on leaving the platforms behind.
Done well, you’ll create a feedback loop that evolves and improves your content in a way that resonates with readers and machines.
Quality is all that matters
This is not the first “all hands on deck,” moment for the media industry. That being said, what we’re seeing is that the barometer of success is a truly aligned strategy and execution that brings product, business development, and editorial teams together to pursue creating first party relationships with audiences. The organizations that have little brand identity, and pursue traffic instead of subscriptions, are suffering—and will likely continue to do so.
Over the past few years, publishers have seen formerly reliable sources of traffic like Google and Facebook dry up, with no new platforms on the horizon to make up for that loss. Shifts in user behavior and changes in algorithms have left publishers scrambling to respond across both search and referral channels. And with the rise of generative AI-enabled search, the ability to find new sources of referral traffic and build a loyal audience has become even more critical for publishers.
To gain a better understanding of how traffic declines are affecting them and the steps they’re taking to address challenges, Arc XP partnered with Digiday to survey 115 publishers for the report The state of publisher traffic: Framing the evolution and impact of search and referral in 2024. We asked about the referral traffic trends they’re seeing, how those trends have impacted their revenue, and the steps they’re taking to either rebuild their traffic or find other ways to reach and grow their audience.
In this article, we’ll focus specifically on what we heard from publishers about their referral traffic from social media platforms (like Facebook and TikTok), news aggregators (like Apple News), and other third-party platforms (like Reddit).
Publisher referral traffic trends in 2023
Referral traffic is an important revenue driver for publishers, with 98% of survey respondents saying that referral traffic has a moderate or very significant impact on their annual revenue. But 2023 proved to be a challenging year for publisher referral traffic, with most survey respondents saying they experienced a 1% to 20% decline.
The publishers in our survey experienced traffic declines across the major social media channels. Respondents named Facebook as a channel where they expect continued declines (82%), followed by YouTube (67%) and TikTok (57%). Given Meta’s announcement that it will de-prioritize news content on its platforms, the decline in referral traffic from Facebook is not surprising. And across all social platforms, opaque changes to algorithms have made it difficult for publisher content to stand out among the vast array of options presented to users.
According to survey respondents, the primary ways referral traffic decline impacts their revenue are decreased advertising ROI (63%) and changes in collaborations with brands, influencers, or other publications (54%). They also cited a change in competitive positioning, change in quality of audience, and a decline in social media engagement (each named by 43% of respondents).
How publishers are responding to referral declines
When asked what challenges they face around responding to the trend of declines in referral traffic, 54% of respondents named building/maintaining strong relationships with external platforms as a challenge. This was followed by adapting to social media trends (52% of respondents). Accurately pinpointing referral sources (49%) and constantly changing algorithms and updates (46%) were also top challenges.
Despite these challenges, the publishers we surveyed are forging ahead with tactics to combat referral traffic decline, including experimenting with new forms of video content and increasing their presence across social channels. 81% of respondents said they are experimenting with live streams and long-form video content, and 70% said they are focusing on short-form original vertical video for TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram.
Long-form video content will ultimately offer publishers more control over monetization options than short-form videos created specifically for social channels. With long-form videos, publishers can incorporate in-depth reporting that sets them apart from other content sources and encourages deeper reader engagement and return visits.
The “pivot to video” isn’t new for publishers. Unfortunately, they’ve been burned before by making big bets on video content that didn’t pan out. This time around, publishers need to think carefully about what they want to accomplish with their video strategy: is it about getting advertising revenue from the videos? Driving readers from other channels to their website? Or creating longer-term audience relationships?
Surprisingly, only 56% of respondents said they are increasing direct-traffic efforts (newsletters, owned podcasts, etc.). Given the inherent unpredictability of social platforms, all publishers would benefit from thinking about how they can build more direct connections with their readers.
Publisher referral traffic expectations for 2024
When publishers look ahead to 2024, they are optimistic that referral traffic will rebound. Most of the publishers we surveyed expect referral traffic to increase by 1% to 20% this year, a trend that will likely driven by newsworthy events like the summer Olympics and the U.S. presidential election.
Publishers’ cautious optimism about 2024 might also reflect confidence in the tactics they’re implementing to combat referral traffic declines. But with platform changes and user behavior shifts it’s likely that referral traffic will never fully rebound to previous levels. Publishers will need to continue exploring ways to boost traffic across all channels, including owned channels that enable direct connections with readers.
