Tags containing: "audiences"

Consumers value local news, though they fail to support it

May 21, 2024 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Consumers value local news media, with a large majority saying that local news outlets are at least somewhat important to the well-being of their local community according to new research from Pew. Most people also say local journalists are in touch with their communities and that their local news media perform well at several aspects of their jobs, such as reporting the news accurately.

Interestingly, Republicans and Democrats both display significant confidence in local reporting, with 66% and 78%, respectively, which showcases bipartisan support. This widespread trust highlights the local media’s role in ensuring accountability and integrity in governance.

Nevertheless, the landscape continues to shift as more consumers engage with local news through online forums and social media groups. Unfortunately, these days intermediaries have moved to the forefront and diminished the direct influence – and perceived value – of news publishers. In fact, a mere 15% of Americans say they have paid or given money to any local news source in the past year – a number that has not changed much since 2018. Oddly, this coincides with the finding that a majority of Americans (63%) say they think their local news outlets are doing very or somewhat well.

Consequently, local news outlets are re-evaluating their strategies to engage audiences effectively. Addressing how local news businesses can adapt, serve their communities, reignite an interest in, and support for, news media to flourish in the current media environment remains a critical challenge for the industry.

Local news is appealing, but to smaller audiences

Around 85% of those surveyed indicate that local news outlets are at least “somewhat important” to the well-being of their local community. Similarly, a majority believe that local journalists are in touch with their communities and perform well in various aspects of their jobs, such as accurately reporting the news.

However, despite reporting significant value and trust, Pew’s trending data shows that the share of U.S. consumers who actively follow local news very closely dropped from 37% to 22% in the last eight years. Additionally, many consumers are unaware of local news’s significant financial challenges. Of these, 63% (slightly fewer than in 2018) believe their local news outlets are doing very well.

Demographics impact the perception of local news

If attention correlates to valuing local news, the industry needs to pay attention to audience behavior. A decline in attention to local news has occurred across demographic groups, though there are significant differences by age. Young adults are much less likely than their older adults to say they follow local news: In 2024, only 9% of U.S. consumers 18 -29 say they follow local news very closely, compared with 35% of those 65 and older.

Americans with higher levels of formal education are less likely than those with a high school diploma or less education to follow local news very closely. While 17% of college graduates follow local news very closely, 28% of those with a high school education or less say the same.

Among U.S. adults ages 30 and older who have not paid for local news in the past year, the most common reason they cite is that they can find plenty of free local news. This is likely influenced by the sharing of local news – or at least information about things happening locally – via social platforms. However, as platforms “distance themselves” from the news, the likelihood of people encountering news from a publisher are increasingly diminished.

While 37% cite the availability of free alternatives, the most common reason given by Americans ages 18 to 29 is a lack of interest: 46% in this group say the main reason they don’t pay for local news is that they are not interested enough in it.

Local news consumption shifts to streaming

Streaming offers a viable outlet for local news. With nearly 40% of U.S. households reachable only through streaming TV, local news can deliver a converged linear and streaming advertising strategy to access the total TV audience in a local market. This shift to streaming enables personalization in local news content while catering to individual viewer preferences. It also allows local broadcasters to monetize local inventory across a broader spectrum of premium publishers, reinventing the advertising paradigm.

The evolving landscape of local news presents challenges and opportunities for the future of journalism. While digitization transforms how news is accessed and consumed, local news’ fundamental role in informing communities remains unchanged. Local news outlets can find new and direct paths to the consumer by adapting to changing consumer preferences and embracing digital innovation. By leveraging technology and engaging more interactively with their audiences, these outlets can enhance their relevance and sustain their crucial societal role.

A picture of young teens walking on the road towards gender equity

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Featured Post

Young people diverge on gender equity. News leaders need to act

May 9, 2024 Esther Kezia Thorpe – Independent Media Reporter

Something is shifting with Gen Z. Data from Gallup shows that in the US, women aged 18 to 30 are now thirty percentage points more liberal than men. That gap opened after decades of a roughly equal spread of worldviews. As media organizations seek to attract, engage and retain younger audiences, understanding what drives them and accurately representing them will be essential. However, as the news media struggles with increased polarization on many fronts, it appears that gender equity is rising on the list of contentious topics.

This divide is a result, and signal of, something more than young women simply becoming increasingly liberal. Research from King’s College London in February showed that, specifically when it comes to attitudes to masculinity and women’s equality, there is a growing division. In some cases, young men today are no more supportive of action on gender equality than older men, despite generally being more socially liberal.

A growing number of people – one in three in the UK– think that gender equality has been “solved.” Yet when it comes to the news, women’s perspectives remain “firmly niche,” according to The Missing Perspectives of Women in News report. “The proportion of people who believe that feminism has gone too far, that equality has been achieved, that’s growing across all groups,” the report’s author and researcher, Luba Kassova told us. “Gen Z young men are leading though: A higher proportion of them seem to think that.”

Source: The Missing Perspectives of Women in News

Women’s expert voices remain significantly muted in high-profile news genres such as politics, where men’s share of voice is up to seven times higher, and the economy, where men’s share of voices is up to 31 times higher. It’s not just female expertise that’s lacking: In 2019, the coverage of gender equality issues constituted less than half a percent of all news coverage in the U.S.

But do news organizations have a role to play in building understanding around gender issues, and closing the gap in attitudes between young men and women? And if so, where do they start? Kassova shared some context around these issues and steps newsrooms can take.

Including missing perspectives

Kassova’s first piece of advice is that newsrooms need to build on the work many already have underway to make sure that those perspectives which are not usually heard, including young women, are part of their coverage. “The more male-dominated the coverage is, the more it becomes a fertile ground for the view that everything is fine, because the news agenda doesn’t reflect the perspectives of women, who tend to be marginalized,” she explained. She notes that her research has shown for every female voice, there are three male voices in online coverage.

There have been concerted efforts among many organizations to improve diversity across the board, with Kassova’s research showing that a third of women hold top-level leadership positions in newsrooms. However, this hasn’t provided the critical mass previously thought necessary to improve women’s visibility in the news. “The relationship between the number of women in organizational resources, in newsgathering and in news outputs is not linear,” despite previous hypotheses, her report states.

The biggest issue, which particularly impacts younger people, is the culture in newsrooms and news leadership. It continues to be dominated by men who are older, white, educated and richer (MOWERs). “A more homogenous group of people who set the tone, set the culture, set the rules of what constitutes a story, which stories should be prioritized,” said Kassova.

She says that this really inhibits progress when it comes to serving young people. “All these biases lead to substantive organizational challenges, including the under-representation of young editors and reporters, the intersectional invisibility of young female employees, and content of reduced relevance to young audiences,” she recently wrote in Press Gazette.

For newsbrands who want to accelerate their efforts, the voices of women should be amplified at each stage of the news value chain, from news leadership and newsgathering to news coverage and consumption. Kassova has authored a report, From Outrage to Opportunity: How to Include the Missing Perspectives of Women of All Colors in News Leadership which gives detailed recommendations for how to go about this.

Counter misunderstandings on gender equity issues

One starting point when it comes to what to cover is addressing the very strong misunderstanding among people of all ages about what feminism and gender equality is. “There’s a mis-perception that it’s a zero-sum game, where women are elevated at the expense of men,” Kassova pointed out. “There are plenty of publications fuelling that narrative by using condescending terms when they cover either young people, or young men,or men in general. And that doesn’t help.”

“What’s really important is for journalists to educate society as to what it actually means; that it’s not a zero-sum game. There’s so much research that has been done to show that where there is a higher level of gender equality, everyone – including men – tend to be happier, more prosperous, safer… So it’s really important for journalists to act as a conduit for truth and to raise awareness of what feminism means, and what equality means.”

Countering the damaging zero-sum perception involves talking to both feminists and anti-feminists. Kassova explained that journalists covering gender are much less likely to engage with the male perspective of what men find to be troublesome in the narrative around gender. But digging into that can actually unearth some different perspectives and build bridges with reluctant audiences.

Source: How younger generations are dividing on masculinity and gender equality.

“Young people live in different worlds because the social media that we construct for ourselves presents different worlds,” she said. “The only way to bridge that is to reflect people’s different perspectives. And there isn’t enough of that happening. The ideology that we carry too often dictates the sources that we speak to. I think we need to be very mindful to counteract them, to present different perspectives so that everyone feels heard.”

As a practical example, this can be exploring how the millennia-old patriarchy has impacted both men and women. Although women are by far the biggest victims of the system, men suffer from it too. By not engaging with that, we end up with a situation where social issues like the #MeToo movement are presented as a men vs. women conflict.

“We have to stop that,” Kassova highlighted. “You can only achieve gender equality if dominant genders and all genders surrounding work and move in the same direction. What’s happened until now in many feminist narratives is men and women are pitted against each other, very often seeing men purely as perpetrators, and women as victims. And there isn’t a more sophisticated narrative.”

“The way to deal with it is really to be equitable, and to cover issues with compassion rather than judgment. There is not enough solution-based journalism and there is not enough understanding.”

Involve younger audiences in news coverage

With some parts of the news industry contracting significantly, age is something that news leaders have prioritized. But although there is an acute understanding that change needs to happen, this hasn’t always been approached tactically.

“One of the perennial questions strategically is how do we bring younger audiences in?” said Kassova. “But there the conversation tends to be around, how do we make the output that we’ve already thought about, the stories that we’ve already crafted, more attractive to audiences? There isn’t enough self-reflection to look at, what are the organizational barriers that lead us to produce content that is disengaging?”

This links back to the MOWER leadership issue highlighted earlier. The average age of a journalist is 47 in the US, and 43 in the UK, so there is already a generational mismatch between those who produce the news, and those who they want to consume it. But the answer is not necessarily to flock to TikTok.

“What’s really important is for news organizations not to think just about what platforms they go to, but what are the perspectives that haven’t been heard?” explained Kassova. If the structural and cultural issues within newsrooms are addressed, and marginalized perspectives prioritized, the rest will fall into place.

For those who aren’t persuaded by the need to cover underserved audiences, there’s a strong economic incentive too. “Covering more diverse perspectives, and having more equitable coverage leads to increased revenue, because it brings in new audiences,” Kassova pointed out. “There is about $11 billion waiting to be won by the news industry given the consumption gap that exists at the moment: around 11 to 12 percent. If the industry closes this gap by one percentage point a year, then in the next five years, there’s an additional $11 billion to be made.”

We need news coverage that is compassionate and equitable

Polarization in society can be driven by and inflamed by the media. Newsrooms have an important role to play in highlighting women’s perspectives and stories, as well as counteracting some of the misunderstandings and zero-sum arguments around feminism. If these voices aren’t heard, divisions in society, and among younger people, are only going to grow.

“I am a big proponent of equitable coverage and compassionate coverage,” Kassova concluded. “It’s really important because that’s the only way we can actually break the polarization that happens on so many levels; intergenerational, intragenerational societal polarization, global polarization. I think compassion is the glue that will bring us back together.”

One point Kassova was firm on is that more research needs to be done around Gen Z and their attitudes. There may well be growing diverging views within the genders as well, and as an industry, we need to work to understand the drivers of these changes, particularly as we work to build our audiences – and news leaders – of the future.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Supporter Spotlight

Reaching more women with news: lessons on gender representation from the FT

September 27, 2023 Rumyana Nikolova, Manager – FT Strategies

“He is a man, he has his back towards me and is not listening to me.” Those are the words one woman used to describe the regular FT reader as part of a 2015 focus group. Back then, the Global Media Monitoring Research Project showed women only appear in 29% of media coverage leaving women feeling that most content speaks to and is consumed by men.

The quote from the FT focus group was so powerful that eight years on it still propels many initiatives across departments to reach and engage a more diverse audience. From establishing an Audience Diversity team to running more inclusive marketing campaigns, FT has been working hard to resonate with the increasingly growing number of women in leadership positions across finance, business, politics and many other industries. Along the way, we’ve learned a great deal.

During the DCN Subscription Innovation Day held last week in New York, Daisy Donald, a principal consultant at FT’s media consultancy arm, FT Strategies, talked about some of the findings from these efforts and we share some of those here.

But we also decided to go beyond suggestions and guidelines at FT Strategies and developed a tool called FT Diversify that can help any media organization in its efforts to diversify its reporting, sourcing, and its audience. FT Diversify is a machine learning tool incorporated into the regular editorial workflow that counts gender imbalances in content and gives actionable recommendations for making the journalism more representative. And the implementation of this tool has also taught us lessons worth sharing.

Why is being representative so important for audience diversity?

Unfortunately, not a lot has changed in making media coverage more equal since 2015. Current numbers from the Gender Equality Tracker show that men represent over two-thirds of all names and pronouns in U.S. media.

Luba Kassova and Richard Addy’s research suggests that the lack of representation also translates into a news gender consumption gap: 60.1% of visits to the top 48 news websites were made by men. That marks a missed opportunity – not only in being socially equitable but also commercially prudent. News outlets are missing out on lots of visitors and subscribers that come from underrepresented segments. And this goes beyond gender into race, socioeconomic background, age, and more.

What can we do to analyze & increase representation?

During the session at DCN’s members-only event, FT Strategies’ Donald shared a few tips to address this: “the crux of it is a deep understanding of what segments of underrepresented audiences want, rallying behind that as an organization and having the motivation and diverse talent to translate that knowledge into journalism, products and experiences that these people are looking for.”

The way to achieve that is through feedback mechanisms that open up conversations with your readers. For example, ask yourselves: Can we create a survey on the home page? Can we bring them into the newsroom for a visit? Can our reporters talk to women readers to hear what pieces they really enjoyed? Can we do more to encourage women to participate in wider discussions such as in the comment sections?

It goes without saying that simply collecting that information isn’t going to change much. With our ‘Diversify’ product, we connect data on reporting with consumption data to produce a dashboard with statistics as well as actionable recommendations and next steps generated by its algorithms.

Would knowing what pieces resonate well with women and publishing more of those increase their engagement with your journalism and brand? Would having more women be featured as authors, sources and in images lead to an increase in women readers? From our experience at the FT and working with other publishers we believe the answer is a resounding yes.

We have also found that it is important to think beyond just the topics that women are viewing in order to avoid stereotyping. It’s more impactful to supplement that with information on what platforms and channels and in what formats women consume these articles. Writers and editors must also always be sure to consider the why.

During our collaboration with a Finnish publisher we created a dashboard that showed similar information to the FT Diversify tool: number of women in photos, bylines and quotes and viewership and time on page per topic, platform and format. We found out that there is a shortage of women writers in certain verticals and that women readers were viewing a lot more content on climate change than men. Our feedback mechanisms revealed that women were often short on time, juggling a few activities at once, and preferred a more informal, relaxed tone of reporting.

In order to solve those “problems” we experimented with a newsletter on climate change written by a group of women journalists on rotation, sharing their favorite climate stories from the week in a concise and informal way. The result was 6% more women subscribers to that newsletter compared to others in the short space of two weeks.

This shows that giving instant access to feedback and easy-to-digest data to journalists can be really powerful. It may not completely transform commissioning decisions or how reporting is done. However, it does nudge content creators to think more inclusively and focus on different formats, topics, and conversations. We have seen firsthand how this leads to better engagement and increases the impact of their journalism.

About the author

Rumyana is a manager at FT Strategies, and has worked with large media & publishing companies across Europe. She designed the Google News Initiative Audience diversity programme, and also has experience in content strategy, newsroom evolution and engagement tactics. She was recently part of the Financial Times’ Audience Engagement team supporting their audience diversity ambition to increase the amount of engaged women subscribers.

Industry-Research

Younger audiences pay for news—when they think it’s valuable

March 21, 2023 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Connecting with younger audiences is essential for digital news organizations. And, like each generation, their habits and preferences differ from the ones before. The good news is that today’s young people both consume and pay for content. The trick is engaging them and demonstrating value worth paying for.

New research, The Media Insight Project, a collaboration of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute, shows a positive connection between younger cohorts and paying for news content. Their findings state that while news consumption among younger audiences is rooted in social media, more than half (51%) of Gen Z (ages 16-24) pay for or donate to the news. Paying/donating for news content is even higher among younger Millennials (ages 25-31) and older Millennials (ages 32-40), 63% and 67%, respectively.

Notably, more Gen Z and Millennials, regardless of race or ethnicity, pay/donate for some news than not: 68% of Black Americans, 63% of Hispanic Americans, 60% of Asian Americans, and 57% of white Americans.

Online behavior

Those who pay/donate for news content have distinct usage behaviors compared to those who do not.

1. Time online

Twenty-seven percent of Gen Z and Millennials who pay/donate for news reports spending 9 hours or more online. In contrast, only 19% of those who do not pay/donate to any news source report spending 9 hours or more online.

2. Activities online

Gen Z and Millennials do numerous online activities. However, Gen Z and Millennials who pay/donate for news content are more likely to keep up with what’s happening worldwide, do more research online, listen to podcasts, and watch videos.

3. Seeking out the news

Gen Z and Millennials who pay/donate for news are more likely to seek out news (45%) than those who do not (27%). Yet, Gen Z and Millennials who pay/donate are also likely to bump into the news (54%), given their time and activities online.

4. News consumption

Gen Z and Millennials who pay/donate for the news are more likely to get news and information at least daily from traditional media sources than those who do not pay/donate for news content (56% vs. 28%). In contrast, when getting news daily on social media platforms, there is less distinction between those who pay/donate for the news and those who don’t (77% vs. 62%).

Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are the most-used platforms for those who pay/donate for the news and those who don’t. Interestingly, Twitter registers the most significant difference between those who pay/donate for the news and those who don’t (30% vs. 13%, respectively).

Topics of interest

Not surprisingly, the research finds that Gen Z and Millennials who pay/donate to the news tend to consume more across all content categories.

Topics most often followed by those who pay/donate for the news:

Information about Covid-19
News about celebrities, music, or TV
Sports
News about national politics or government
Information on traffic, transportation, or weather

Topics most often followed by those who don’t pay/donate for the news:

Information on traffic, transportation, or weather
News about celebrities, music, or TV
Sports
News about social issues such as abortion, gun policy, and LGBTQ issues
Information related to health or mental health

Content worth paying for

Younger audiences are likelier to pay/donate to independent news content creators than digital or print newspapers. Gen Z and Millennials also find newer and independent sources relevant, especially among those more racially and ethnically diverse.

The Media Insight Project research shows strong potential for digital news companies to develop younger and more diverse audiences. If news organizations create content valuable to Gen Z and Millennials, these audiences will pay/donate for access. Importantly, news businesses must meet younger audiences where they are, which means developing relationships with younger cohorts on different platforms.

Industry-Research

Sports media is losing Gen Z. How can they win them back?

January 16, 2023 Suzanne S. LaPierre – Independent Media Reporter

Live sports has long been a mainstay of must-see programming. But with the fragmentation of sports media distribution and evolving content consumption habits, even this staple might be losing its hold – particularly among younger audiences.

Gen Z is less interested in live in-person or televised sports events than any other adult demographic, according to recent research by Morning Consult. The survey responses from people ages 13-25 reveal that, in addition to attending fewer live games and watching fewer of them on broadcast or cable, only 2 in 5 Gen Zs have a favorite team that they follow. So, how can sports content providers change tactics to appeal to them?

The warning signs

Here’s a look at some warning signs revealed by the study:

38% of Gen Z responders agreed with the statement “I don’t have a favorite sports team” compared to 25% of adults in general.
Only 25% of those Gen Zs who do have a favorite sports team watch “all or most” of that team’s games, compared with 37% of adults in general.
47% of Gen Z have never watched a live professional sports event in person (compared to 41% of all adults), and 60% have never watched a college game in person (compared with 53% of all adults).
Only 28% of Gen Zs watch sports events live on broadcast or cable compared with 47% of adults overall.
Of Gen Z’s who haven’t watched a sports event on TV in the last couple of years, 57% said it’s because they are just not interested. 20% said the games are too long.

Gen Z fans relate differently to sports media

So, what does Gen Z like when it comes to sports entertainment? Streaming video wins this generation’s attention. Significantly, 32% of Gen Zs said they watch live sports via a licensed streaming service, compared to only 25% of all adults.

Gen Z sports fans can also be reached via their favorite social media platforms. Four of the top five media platforms where Gen Z gets their sports news are social channels, the survey found. YouTube, Instagram and TikTok were the top platforms Gen Z cited as places they look for sports news.

31% of Gen Zs looked for sport news on YouTube compared with only 21% of all adults.
26% of Zs used Instagram for this purpose compared to only 12% of all adults.
24% used TikTok for sports news compared to only 8% of adults overall.

In contrast, Facebook, ESPN, and ESPN SportsCenter were much less popular among Gen Zs than they were among older adults looking for sports news.

Expert advice

Experts recommend tapping into youth advisers or advisory panels to report Gen Z’s preferences, peeves, and trends to those in sports management and marketing.

When it comes to attending live events in person, lower ticket prices, flawless Wi-Fi, and community spaces are cited as factors that can help attract younger adults to arenas. Student-focused marketing may include discounted bundles of tickets and swag, theme nights, and hyping the fan experience in the stadium, such as the celebratory entrance of players to the field and tifos occurring in the stands.

Personalities and influencers

In an interview with Mark J. Burns, Snapchat creator Jack Settleman recommends hiring a special personality to connect with fans on social platforms, and utilizing SnapChat and YouTube thoroughly. Since Gen Zs rely heavily on social media, stadiums need to have excellent Wi-Fi to attract and keep teens and young adults who expect to be able to multitask and share experiences in real time. Settleman emphasizes the importance of excellent Wi-Fi during stadium events: “(Make) sure every NFL stadium has perfect Wi-Fi — that is so crucial. My first question when I go to a stadium is, ‘What is your Wi-Fi login?’ I’m always a bit nervous. I can’t post content. I can’t text my friends. I can’t follow along on Twitter.”

Recruiting the help of content creators and influencers on trending social platforms is also advisable. While following athletes and teams on social media may not directly translate into cash for the sports industry, Morning Consult found that 45% of Gen Zs report having purchased clothing sponsored by an influencer or celebrity. Other kinds of sports merchandise, event tickets, and subscriptions may benefit from this type of marketing as well.

Young sports fans expect integrated, immersive, and flexible experiences that respect their time, budgets, and preferences. They seek live connections over social platforms whether they are at home or in stadiums. There are still plenty of Gen Z sports fans; they just have different ways of relating to sports content than their predecessors.

Industry-Research

News organizations try TikTok to engage younger audiences

December 28, 2022 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Many media brands are now active on TikTok, the world’s fastest-growing social media platform. News brands see the platform as an opportunity to attract and engage younger audiences who are less likely to go directly to their websites or apps.

However, many media brands are holding off due to concerns with the platform’s Chinese ownership, as well as reservations about the platform’s environment for news. Reuters Institute’s new report, How Publishers are Learning to Create and Distribute News on TikTok, examines news media concerns and identifies how they can deliver professional content with influencer-type authenticity.

Methodology

Reuters Institute interviewed 20 news organizations and individuals from companies among the top news brands in 44 countries. Interviews included large, digital-only, socially native brands and some individual creators and activists. Reuters also tracked publisher usage activity across more than 40 countries.

Embracing TikTok

Many news brands are using TikTok to engage younger cohorts. Reuters’ Digital News Report 2022 shows that half of all global news organizations (49%) produce content for TikTok. Indonesian (90%), Australian (89%), Spanish (86%), French (86%), U.K. (81%), and U.S. (77%) publishers have the highest TikTok adoption. Overall, 40% of 18-24s and 28% of 25-34s use TikTok for any purpose, and 15% of 18-24s and 10% of 25-34s use it for news.

Regardless of concerns, news publishers use TikTok to build relationships with younger audiences and experiment with new vertical video formats. Others, like the Czech website HlídacíPes.org, use TikTok to help improve news literacy by identifying disinformation and explaining how to use open sources of information. Further, the Washington Post sees fact-checking and verification as their social strategy. They encourage users on TikTok to tag them to help to verify false footage.

Approaches to news content on TikTok

Reuters identifies two main approaches to news content on TikTok: a creator-first strategy and a newsroom-led approach.

The creator approach looks to a core team for content coverage. At the Washington Post, Dave Jorgenson leads the creative team trying to create light and fun videos that match the brand values of their news organization. While they try to keep a light and comedic tone in their videos, part of the TikTok DNA, they also create more serious stories. The French, Le Monde, also uses a creator approach on TikTok. Their mission is to explain the news by deploying different creative techniques using metaphors, drawings, fake video games, and acting.

The newsroom-led approach uses the whole newsroom and looks at TikTok as another distribution channel. For example, The Economist uses high-quality video to tell the story. Their mission, to explain geopolitics and economics, appeals to younger audiences. Liv Moloney, Head of Social Media, describes their strategy, “We’ll never be the first to tell you something’s happened, but we might be the first to explain it to you or explain it the best.”

Vice World News also uses a newsroom approach and focuses its TikTok content on short explanatory videos about international news. Vice’s content strategy blends news explainers, on-the-ground reporting, and listicle formats – adapting the content to the shorter attention span of TikTok users.

TikTok presents its problems with content distribution:

Transparency about the removal or blocking of news content especially given Chinese ownership and the potential for censorship.
Better monetization of content and compensation for the content value. While short videos are not the best advertising vehicle, publishers would like the ability to put links to their websites or apps, which currently is limited.
More detailed and timely demographic information is needed about who has viewed posts, with more data about how particular posts perform.

News organizations use TikTok to engage and build relationships with younger audiences. While many are concerned with its ownership and that short-form videos can marginalize important news stories, they are testing the waters. Importantly, news brands need to look to new technologies and platforms to reach new audiences, and while challenging, experimentation is key for growth.

Research

Adopting influencer practices can help journalists reach younger audiences

August 16, 2022 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Getting attention and creating awareness is vital to influencers and journalists since both compete in the same attention economy. As part of her Polis Newsroom Fellowship at the London School of Economics, Salla-Rosa Leinonen explores the idea of adopting an influencer style of journalism to bring the audience closer to the newsroom. In her new report Can Journalists be Influencers? she makes the case for newsrooms to support staff who want to experiment with a journo-influencer role to help build credibility among a younger target audience.

A vehicle to reach a younger audience

Influencers create original content with a distinct and authentic voice. Building creditability among a younger audience is an effective tool for marketing, branded content, and endorsements. Effective influencers attract a lot of attention on social channels like TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram. Leinonen suggests that journalists who want to reach a younger audience implement influencer practices on social media.

Notably, a new study from UK communications regulator Ofcam shows that for the first time, Instagram is the most popular news source among younger people (22%) of teens, with TikTok and YouTube close behind. Further, TikTok users participating in the study said they get more of their news from “other people they follow” (47%) than from news organizations’ accounts (24%). Another study, Reuters Digital News Report, also shows that 40% of young adults, 18- 24, report using social media as their main news source. Therefore, social media provides a critical point of connection for younger news consumers.

As part of her research, Leinonen interviewed Olivia Le Poidevin, a BBC reporter, to discuss the similarities between the journalists and influences. Poidevin noted that journalists use the news as a vehicle to connect to the audience, while influencers use their content. However, Poidevin concludes that there is a convergence between news and content. She states, “Up to now; there has been a clear division between ‘content’ and ‘news,’ in many media organizations as if they were two separate worlds. From the audience’s point of view, they are not separate; they are the same.”

Benefits of being an influential journalist

The report defines the role of an “influential journalist” as someone who gains awareness or fame through more traditional modes of journalism but also uses social media to build their following. Only pieces of their content like article excerpts, snippets, and clips are usually available on social media. They use social media to market, share, and showcase their work with new audiences who are not spending their time on traditional media platforms.

Leinonen cites Sandra Banjac and Folker Hanusch’s research on audiences’ expectations of content creators on Instagram, YouTube, and blogs, compared to journalists. The research finds that both content creators and journalists share many of the same values. These include likeability, the feeling of being directly spoken to, sharing valuable information, and expertise, which all drive followers to seek more information.

Importantly, “journo-influencers” can learn to leverage new storytelling formats without sacrificing the skills and integrity of journalism. They can also connect their journalistic style to their personality to build trust with their followers. This report suggests that journalists rethink their news reporting process as content creation to generate an authentic voice to connect to younger audiences.

Game on: esports offer a big win for media brands

August 4, 2022 Chris M. Sutcliffe – Independent Media Reporter

Warner Bros.' MultiVersus game leverages a broad range of the company's IP.

While the media and marketing worlds lose their minds over the metaverse, it’s worth bearing in mind that most of the purported benefits of that phenomenon already exist elsewhere.

The metaverse – whatever it ultimately looks like – is being built on the back of gaming audiences. From the platforms that early metaverse experiments were built on, to the community-based nature of interactions between brand and audiences on those platforms… it looks a lot like gaming with a new name. Besides, even if the metaverse actually emerges as a wholly new phenomenon, its audience will still bear a good deal of resemblance to gamers. So, products that serve this crowd are likely to bridge any eventual gap.

Either way, media companies must continuously attract new audiences to monetize in the race for subscribers and advertising spend. It also helps if those new audiences fit a particular profile that merits content development dollars as well. They need to be niche enough to have a community that is deeply invested in the topic and lucrative enough to be monetized effectively.

The largest niche on the planet

Gaming – the most lucrative entertainment medium globally – is certainly appealing in its own right. But importantly for media companies seeking new and valuable audiences, gaming offers scale characterized by numerous niches, each with the potential for product development that will attract, engage, and inform gaming communities.

Craig Levine is co-CEO at one of the largest esports organizations, ESL Gaming. He says: “There are so many niche communities within esports – and here ‘niche’ doesn’t mean small. I think ‘niche’ means focused. There are some very, very large niches in competitive gaming.”

Unsurprisingly, media companies with valuable IP continue to develop their esports plans. Warner Bros, for instance, has a hit on its hands with the platform fighter Multiversus, which sees exciting IP crossover. Meanwhile the latest Pokémon Presents on August 3rd opened not with information about its upcoming games, but the competitive scene that surrounds them. Esports titles like DOTA 2, CS:GO and Fortnite are perennially popular, with some achieving widespread brand recognition outside the gaming sphere.

Sports brands like Manchester United and the NBA have invested heavily in esports, from both grassroots and professional level. They recognize a growth industry when they see it.

According to the latest annual predictions from esports research specialist Newzoo global esports revenues will exceed $1.86bn by 2025, representing a CAGR of 13.4%. That is driven in large part by a rise in the size of the esports audience, with the global audience expected to reach 532 million by the end of 2022. The number of what Newzoo classes as “esports enthusiasts” is set to reach 261.2 million. This is this ‘niche’ that should set a fire under magazine publishers.

Charlotte Cook is MD of gaming-specialist agency Calm Consultancy. She says that the niches do exist within gaming: “When it comes to brands, advertisers, you do need to still segment them as different experiences exist on different platforms. A game on a mobile is very different from a game on a console.”

However, she states that the overall competitive gaming audience is growing. It is also broadening into demographics that advertisers are desperate to reach. Newzoo found that 74% of esports enthusiasts are full-time employees (compared to just 56% of the general online population), and around 44% fall in the high-income bracket compared to 33% of the general online population.

So, magazine companies looking to make some money around the world of esports specifically should adopt the role of bridge between brands and the community. Media companies like Future are already reaping the benefits of ecommerce based around high-value gaming audiences. The rise of esports also provides them with the ability to act as a trusted source for information related to high-value competitive gaming products.

Storytelling

Magazines’ core strength has always been around creating a compelling narrative. Just as with real-world sports stars, the focus of that storytelling around esports should be around the individuals within the space. Those esports stars are effective influencers within their community, which influencer-specialist marketers believe delivers the best rate of conversion on any ad spend. Moreover, since magazines are seen as a safe space for brands, it creates a new channel for the brands who seek to reach those audiences but run the risk of appearing opposite unsuitable content on the traditional esports platforms like Twitch.

Levine explains: “We’re currently in a world where players and influencers bring the power of creators, and that means a sort of this infinite distribution opportunity. The superstars of esports that come out are these incredible influencers who create tonnes of fandom around the games they focus on.”

That’s backed up by the rise of the gaming influencer, many of the most popular of whom are in the esports space. Small wonder that brands including Netflix, the NBA, and

Formula 1 have partnered with those streamers to expand their distribution channels for content among gamers.

Eyes on the prize

Much of the focus for the intersection of media and esports lies is still related to broadcasters bidding for the rights for esports competitions. Game companies like EA and Blizzard are betting the farm on esports broadcast rights, and arguably the prices commanded for those licences significantly undervalue the size of the audience.

Daniel Schnapp, esports specialist and partner at Sheppard Mullin, told Variety: “If you look at the most watched [and] consumed esports events over the last five to 10 years, they rival that – in terms of overall eyeballs and audience participation in viewership – of some of the largest sporting events that are put out by the traditional sports leagues.”

But, as with the ecosystem that has grown around traditional sports, there is space for magazine publishers to launch dedicated esports-related brands. The ecommerce opportunities related to the niche communities and ability to boost the profile of the pro players would benefit not just the magazine company, but the esports ecosystem as a whole. That virtuous circle of increased audience, attention and ad spend benefits the entire vertical – and magazines can claim a share of that pie.

For media companies, then, the question shouldn’t be “should we launch an esports title”, but “when should we?”

Industry-Research

Audio audiences are on the rise

March 12, 2019 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Podcasts helped reinvented the audio audience, attracting new listeners to a robust supply of binge-worthy news and entertainment content. Now consumers can listen to what they want, when and where they want. While podcasts had been around for over a decade, in 2014 they received an explosion of attention in the marketplace (with the incredible success of Serial and the debut of Apple’s podcast App).

Today more than 50% of people have listened to a podcast. In fact, according to the 2019 Infinite Dial Study by Edison Research and Triton Digital, at least one-third of the U.S. population reports listening to a podcast in the last month, up from 26% a year ago. That’s an estimate of 90 million people each month. Monthly podcast listening increased across all age groups year-over-year. Interestingly, adults 55+ report a significant increase in podcast listening from 33% in 2018 to 40% in 2019. Other demographics show smaller increases, persons, age 12-24 from 88% to 91%, and persons 25-54 from 73% to 74%.

Weekly podcast listening is up to 22% from a year ago (17%) among persons 12+, or 62 million people each week. Podcast listeners listen to approximately seven podcasts a week.

In addition, there are now 189 million listeners to online audio which includes listening to AM/FM radio stations online and/or listening to streamed audio content available only on the. In fact, online audio doubled since 2012 increasing from one-third to two-thirds of the U.S. population. Weekly listening to online audio is also growing, now at 60% from 57% last year. Weekly time spent listening to online audio shows a strong increase from 13 minutes 40 seconds to 16 minutes until 43 seconds.

Podcasting is not the only audio opportunity content creators should be focused on these days. Smart speaker ownership has reached 23 million, up from only 7 million two years ago. Amazon Alexa dominates the market (16 million) followed by Google Home (7 million). Audiobook listening is also on the rise, with million people saying that they’ve listened to one, up from 44 million in 2018. And while AM/FM radio still dominates in-car audio, both Online audio and Podcasts rose slightly. Audio is an opportunity that smart publishers are listening to.

As Tom Standage, head of digital strategy and deputy editor at The Economist, put it: “The commercial model for podcasts is really good, much better than video pre-roll, which is a horrible business. Video is expensive to make, and the CPMs are low. Advertisers want to reach podcast listeners.”

Perspectives

The key to reaching Gen Z is speaking their digital language

May 30, 2018 Vicki Brakl, Vice President, Marketing—MNI Targeted Media Inc.

You thought marketing to Millennials was tricky? Meet Gen Z. They’re not only digital natives, they’re social and mobile natives too. To gain insight into this generation, MNI Targeted Media Inc. commissioned a study of Gen Z behavior, surveying students at major universities about their media consumption habits. And we learned a lot.

This generation, born between 1995 and 2012, are mobile-first, and rarely seen without their phones in-hand. But don’t put them down just because they’re constantly staring at their smartphones: Gen Z-ers are socially fluid change agents with tremendous purchase influence.

They may be young, but they’ll be voting soon – and they’re more fiscally savvy than you think. Gen Z is entrepreneurial, saving up for and buying the things they want. Their purchase decisions are partly influenced by their peers and personalities they admire. But take note: These influencers also need to align with Gen Z values and marketers will want to recognize that Gen Z are influencers and entrepreneurs unto themselves.

It’s equally important for marketers to keep messaging relevant and authentic. Interestingly enough for Gen Z, celebrities aren’t their “go to” source. For a generation that lives on social media, their influencers can be their fashion forward friends, political influencers or even fellow Gen Z members who have already gained notoriety on their own terms. In this regard, context matters and the platform on which they engage with influencers will be as important to marketers as their messaging. Businesses that take the time to understand how this generation consumes media, how they grow to trust and how they shop and make purchases stand to benefit.

This generation is smart, and they’ll see right through attempts to “buy” them. But if you approach them with authenticity and engage them on the channels and platforms where they’re most receptive, you may just win them over. Publishers need to adhere to these same insights, with an appropriate responsiveness when there is urgency from their audience. We can look to the recent news of ABC canceling its #1 ranked comedy Roseanne after the star’s bizarre Twitter rant. In this case, we saw the network put authenticity and value before revenue – which in the end I suspect will pay off in spades.

The key to making a connection with them is to make sure you know and understand all the channels in which they consume media – that means podcasts, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, for starters. There’s more to it than just advertising or posting on these channels: you have to speak their language. You will want to have subject matter experts who really understand how Gen Z communicates on each channel so that your content is authentic. The language across channels varies, and the nuances will be important. Getting it wrong could mean losing this audience’s confidence for the long term.

With this in mind, here are six laws of marketing to Gen Z:

1. Keep your content platform-specific

This generation moves through social channels seamlessly, and they understand the value of the storytelling within each platform. They expect the brands they follow to do the same. You need to know the rules of engagement for each social network, and map custom content for each in a unique way. Here’s what they expect across channels:

Snapchat – A way to share real-life moments
Instagram – How they showcase their aspirational selves
Twitter – Their top news source
Facebook – A source of general information

2. Keep your prices competitive and your quality high

This is a generation of savvy shoppers. They like to save money and they know how to compare prices. If a competitor is selling a product for less, they will buy it for less. That said, they respect good quality, and will pay more for a better product.

3. Let them tell the story with their own original content

If you give Gen Z customers an opportunity to create user-generated content related to your product or brand, they’re likely to do it. There are big payoffs to relinquishing control of your branded content:

They like seeing their peers using products – and it will create a positive ripple effect.
They like posting content to their own channels.
They like getting noticed, and your brand benefits from going along for the ride. You get to enjoy the dividends by driving engagement and reinforcing your brand identity.

4. Be authentic

Millennials had a reputation for insisting that brands be “real,” but Gen Z takes it a step further. They want to feel like they know the people behind the brand, and they like brands that care about the issues that are important to them. Brands like Tom’s and Bob’s that donate to charity do well. Mattel’s support of same-sex marriage and Dick’s Sporting Goods halting sales of assault rifles were both Gen Z-friendly moves.

5. Want to capture them in-store? Consider testing AI

More than half of Gen Z shoppers go into stores, while their millennial contemporaries prefer to shop online. AI can help target and engage these younger customers while they’re in-store, creating more personalized and unique experiences. Sephora, for example, has created a new, AI-driven feature that helps shoppers find their ideal shade of foundation.

6. Ask them for feedback, and then listen to their responses

As digital, social and mobile natives, Gen Z is comfortable engaging in discourse with brands they care about. If you’re unsure about how a particular campaign or message you’re working on will resonate, solicit their opinion. They’ll respond, and they’ll be honest.

Adding Gen Z employees to your organization is the best approach to engaging them as consumers. These young adults have a language and a style of their own that is hard to replicate. So, bring in the real deal, and integrate them in with your older team members. Not only will this help your organization better understand how Gen Z moves through the world, it will ensure you’re not embarrassing yourself by posting three-month-old memes to your social channels. Gen Z team members will make sure you’re always authentic, and that your messaging is always current and on fleek.

I mean, on trend.

Vicki Brakl is Vice President, Marketing of MNI Targeted Media Inc., and its three business units, Targeted Media Health, MNI, and Harpoon Digital. A 16-year multi-channel marketing veteran with a rich background that spans executive management, strategy, branding, positioning, promotion, experiential and event planning, public relations and internal communications, Vicki has extensive experience developing innovative multi-platform brand plans and media strategies. Her previous roles include client and agency-side positions at PepsiCo, several below-the-line Omnicom agencies and a few startups in the CPG, Publishing and private-public partnership sectors. She has crafted and executed high-impact marketing plans for Pepsi brands, Walmart, Bank of America, TD Ameritrade, Citibank, Skinny Water, and countless others.

Perspectives

The other side of advertising: Why publishers need to think more about self-promotion

May 8, 2018 Tim Bourgeois — Digital Media Auditor and Consultant

Publishers spend most of their time thinking about how to sell advertising, not buy it. However, they should rethink advertising as a promotional tactic. As their sales teams likely say time and again, it can be used to increase brand awareness, viewership, and even paying customers. What follows are a few ideas for thinking about how to work old-fashioned advertising into a publisher’s promotional and audience acquisition strategy. (For more “traditional,” digital-centric tactics for increasing a publication’s audience, see my March 2018 piece, “How to Maximize the Value of Your Digital Publishing Properties”.)

Google Display Network

When campaigns are executed properly, the Google Display Network (GDN) can be a powerful tool for publishers to reach big audience groups, quickly and cost-effectively. The trick is to make sure that campaign settings are precise and strict.

According to some estimates, the GDN reaches as much as 90% of internet users. While Google makes most of its money on high-priced, keyword-based, pay-per-click activity, it also has a robust display advertising network that is global and reaches into the outermost nooks and crannies of the internet. For just pennies a click, savvy publishers can get their content in front of relevant audiences.

Twitter

Though, by comparison, considerably more expensive than Google (on a per-click basis), Twitter can nevertheless be a valuable tool in a publisher’s promotional bag-of-tricks. It is especially useful when a marquee or evergreen piece of content is at the center of a campaign. Marketers can easily serve up ads to audience categories that are known to be attracted to a particular topic.

(If you’re not on Twitter already, it’s high time you open an account. Then keep an eye out for ads – aka promoted tweets – from the New York Times, which has been particularly aggressive on the social network in recent weeks – along with the usual suspects Fidelity Investments, Starz, and Uber.)

Press Releases

Not typically considered as “advertising”, as apress releases can serve in a variety of roles:

To strengthen a particular content asset’s performance in the search engines (when aligned with a particular keyword(s) strategy)
Expand a content asset’s reach among secondary and tertiary target audience groups – such as other media outlets, which takes their cues from others, and pursue “me-too” stories
To legitimize a topic or subject, vis-a-vis the vetting methodology and reputation of highly regarded wire services

Keys to Success

Regardless of the techniques used to get eyeballs to a content asset or publishing property, a variety of baseline tactics need to be employed in order to maximize ROI on the money you spent to the get them there. These include:

Front-and-center conversions. Make it easy for site visitors to follow your social media properties, sign up for newsletters, and give you permission to engage with them over the long term. The ultimate goal is to gain a new subscriber, of course, but there are lots of interim, nurturing steps that need to be formidable to help convince suspects and prospects of your value.
Accommodate Google’s Best Practices. That means make sure your website downloads fast and secure, and is in line with the Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project. These accommodations lead to better search engine result placement, and more traffic. (When in doubt, look at properties like NYTimes.com and BusinessInsider.com for best practice guidance. And remember, we don’t need to respect the content, just the promotional tactics.)
Give Them An Offer They Can’t Refuse. Digitally-enable offers that you’ve been using for years via direct mail or at industry conferences: three months for one dollar, two years for the price of one, etc. Digital advertising, when done correctly, practically guarantees that your ads are being seen by like-minded individuals. Use what’s worked offline to convert passive online audiences into paying subscribers.

When employed strategically, online advertising can play a meaningful role in a publisher’s audience expansion plans. When combined with compelling content and baseline digital marketing best practices, internet advertising can help publishers find new paying audience groups and expand their footprints in a meaningful way.

Tim Bourgeois (@ChiefDigOfficer) is a principal at East Coast Catalyst, a Boston-based digital consulting company specializing in advertising audit services.

Innovation | Revenue | Video

Behind the YouTube video strategy at The Washington Post, Fusion, and The Atlantic

November 9, 2017 Ron Miller—Independent Technology Journalist

Video has become an increasingly important delivery medium for media brands. Given the investment, it might seem like they’d want to keep this video traffic firmly on their own sites. However, as with other types of content, most publishers have developed a distribution strategy for multiple platforms. Because YouTube offers such an efficient way for viewers to find, view, and share video content, it has become a de facto video distribution channel for many media outlets.

Undoubtedly, YouTube has become a primary video viewing destination for internet viewers. And media companies need to go where the viewers are. This is true regardless of platform – desktop, mobile, or OTT. It makes little sense to make a significant investment in video exclusively for your site if the video audience is off watching somewhere else.

So, it follows that companies investing in video content are giving YouTube a hard look. Of course, as with every content distribution decision, there are always trade-offs. However, many believe that reaching the sizable YouTube audience is worth the effort. While he described the evolution of their YouTube strategy as “a work in progress,” Jigar Mehta, SVP, head of video at Fusion Media Group believes it is well worth the effort. Topping the list of priorities is making Fusion’s video more discoverable on what he describes as “the second largest search engine in the world.”

Establishing a YouTube strategy

Each company will need to develop a YouTube strategy that suits its resources and objectives. However, some may want to follow the Washington Post’s lead. They think of YouTube as a distinct content delivery channel that attracts viewers who might not normally visit their website. That provides an opportunity to introduce your brand to an entirely new audience, an exciting prospect for any content producer.

“YouTube is a space with a great deal of audience and revenue potential that we have only begun to tap into. We see it as the primary place to build a diverse audience that will think of The Washington Post as video-first and engage with our visual journalism,” Nadine Ajaka senior producer for video platforms at The Washington Post explained.

She said that they have separate strategies for how they approach video on the Post’s website and what they deliver on YouTube. “The difference between what we choose to publish on washingtonpost.com and what we publish to YouTube is that for YouTube it must stand alone. On the site, there are times when video will lead the story, but often we are plugging in and embedding clips and social video that are meant to add to what has been written,” Ajaka said.

Although they share the Post’s desire to build an audience that might not frequent their site, Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg executive producer for The Atlantic says her company has taken a different approach. YouTube is central to their video distribution strategy.

“We recently switched to YouTube as our primary video hosting service. Now, we host all our videos on YouTube and integrate the player throughout TheAtlantic.com. This decision was motivated by a desire to build audience beyond our owned and operated platform. YouTube’s subscriber features, search functionality and recommendation algorithm all help us do that,” she said.

Long form anyone?

While audience development seems to be the be a primary driver behind using YouTube, it also offers a place to hone and deliver longer form content. This is because people see it as a destination where they can stay for a while and watch – if the content is compelling enough.

“YouTube emphasizes watch time over clicks and encourages viewers to watch with the sound turned on. We’ve seen amazing engagement. A recent 15-minute documentary has earned an average watch time of eight minutes,” The Atlantic’s Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg said.

Mehta pointed out that this emphasis on watch time correlates with better performance for Fusion’s long form content on YouTube. He said that they approach YouTube as a specific content destination (and not a competing channel for their own sites). As such, they specifically optimize their videos for the platform.

Ajaka from the Post emphasizes that you have to really present video people want to see on YouTube, or you won’t build a subscriber base for your channel. “With YouTube, there’s a real opportunity to hone your video inventory and create a coherent body of work. For some news publishers, video can be a churning out of quick-turn clips. Luckily, we have editors and video journalists who are continually working on long-form reported visual stories, that tell a cohesive story. These are perfect for YouTube as a platform,” she explained.

Monetizing content

YouTube offers more than delivery tools and audience engagement. It also provides a means for monetization, which is certainly welcome given that producing quality video can be expensive.

In fact, Mehta finds that YouTube offers better monetization options than Facebook or Twitter and he is optimistic about YouTube’s long-term roadmap. “We are currently utilizing AdSense on YouTube which is their programmatic option. YouTube also has other products including YouTube Red and YouTube TV that as they become more mature will be interesting options as well,” he said.

Ajaka said the Post is talking to YouTube about direct-selling of their ads, but it hasn’t yet come to pass.

At The Atlantic, Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg said that they are “primarily focused on direct sold sponsorships and pre-roll, both on our domain and off. Our main challenge month over month is keeping up with the demand,” (which is a good problem to have).

As with any external platform, there are going to be trade-offs, but YouTube offers companies a way to distribute video that puts it in front of an engaged audience with a good search engine and monetization tools. “Our YouTube audience is seeking video first and foremost, and will have an easier time surfacing our videos than someone searching the site,” Ajaka said. That seems like a compelling reason for any media brand to build a YouTube presence.