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Gen X’s declining interest and the perception of traditional media content as distant, pedantic, and delivered on outdated platforms underscore the need to completely rethink how we deliver news.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.
Understanding how audiences engage with local news is crucial in the ever-evolving media consumption landscape. Research indicates a strong link between local news consumption and community attachment, fostering a sense of belonging. So, it’s not surprising that nearly all of the adults in the United Kingdom engage with local media (92%) according to the Local Media Survey, conducted by Yonder. Notably, most adults seeking local information look for local weather (70%) closely following local news and current affairs, 65% each.
Yonder’s research explores the types of local news and information consumed, the platforms utilized, and the sources trusted by the public. They found that online sources dominate the local media landscape (89%). Social media, messaging apps, and websites emerge as the go-to platforms, with local groups on social media leading the pack at 38%. BBC regional news bulletins on TV and the BBC website or app also boast significant shares at 35% each.
Local news sources
Local news plays a vital role in community integration because it is through local media that people learn about the world around them. Local groups on social media are the most popular sources of information, signaling a societal shift towards community-driven sharing. News aggregators find favor among younger demographics, while email newsletters and hyperlocal messaging apps appeal to an older audience.
Online services lead in traffic and travel information, while online sources dominate local events and government information. The BBC is the most utilized source for local news and information in the UK. Regional news bulletins on both BBC and other services, such as ITV or STV, claim significant viewership on television. Commercial radio stations, including Heart and Capital, cater to younger audiences, while local newspapers, both free and paid, are popular across all age groups.
Geographic and demographic differences
Interestingly, the survey identified a divergence in platform preferences across geographical areas. While TV remains the dominant medium for receiving news at the national and county levels, social media takes precedence at the city, town, neighborhood, and street levels.
Further, the survey illuminates regional variations in media consumption. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland exhibit unique preferences, with regional political programs gaining prominence. Additionally, consumers of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland favor paid newspapers as their primary local news and media sources. Whereas in England, free magazines enjoy greater popularity compared to other nations.
Delving into demographic nuances, social media, TV, and word of mouth are the primary platforms, with a noticeable generational divide. Younger individuals (16–34-year-olds) lean heavily on online sources, while the 65+ demographic prefers TV, radio, and print.
The Local Media Survey provides an understanding of how UK adults interact with local media, shedding light on preferences, platforms, and sources. Examining specific sources confirms a societal shift towards community-driven information sharing, with local social media groups taking the lead.
Demographic variations showcase preferences, with younger favoring online sources and the 65+ demographic relying on traditional mediums. As media landscapes evolve, these insights serve as a valuable compass for media organizations to navigate the ever-changing channels of news information consumption.
We hear a good deal about news deserts and the struggles of local news. However, at least in the U.S., local broadcast news remains a bright spot. Yet, as audiences increasingly flock to streaming for what had long been broadcast-based content, NBCUniversal is focused on staying in front of the migration. The company’s launch of 15 new news channels on nine streaming platforms including Roku, Peacock, TCL and Xumo over the past two years is not just a strategic move to keep them future ready, it’s helping their local news offerings reach a more diverse audience now.
In terms of strategy, of course, there is more to launching on streaming platforms than just technology. For NBCUniversal Local, it required careful planning and design of collaborative tools and tactics, as well as consistent communication to get staff on board both practically and philosophically.
NBC’s free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels were born out of the traditional linear broadcast and cable channels NBC already produces each day. But while the company leverages its existing content in its FAST offerings, they took a decidedly different approach according to Meredith McGinn, EVP of NBCU Local Media, Multicast Networks and Original Programming. “What we didn’t have in our portfolio was an all-news local channel,” she said, as she outlined their reasons for launching 24/7 local news channels in markets including New York, LA, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston.
They chose to stream partly to reach a younger audience. “But what we’re also seeing on these platforms is a more diverse audience in all demographics; age, race etc.,” said McGinn. “It was really important to reach a viewer who had either bought a new connected TV in the last three to five years, perhaps cut the cord, or was a ‘cord never’ and didn’t have an easy linear always-on source for local news.”
A blank slate
Being early movers to local news streaming has meant the team has had to work out both what the audience on streaming platforms want to see from a local news product, and what the best workflow is internally to deliver that. Angela Grande, Director of NBCU Local’s Streaming News Channels says they’ve experienced a lot of learning and had to move quickly in order to figure out the best strategy.
When launching a new newscast in a market, NBC typically includes in-market producers, writers and reporters for each location. But in this instance they took a different approach. “Instead of beefing up staff in each individual market to build a network from the ground up, we built a small central team,” McGinn explained. One reason for this was because the cloud server technology, cloud playout, virtual production control rooms, and other technology used to make the streams work was relatively new for the business.
“[The technology] could be best tested with a tight central team that could then put the new process through its paces. Then spokes go out and train each of the stations and personnel on how to use this technology. As we get product updates or new product ideas, we can test them again with a central team, again put them through their paces and then roll out more widely.”
Designing the setup from a blank slate meant that the team could test and learn first, without legacy technology and processes from the rest of the business slowing them down. But it was not without its challenges. “As you’re working with new tools, you realize that they’re not quite built for what you need,” McGinn outlined. “So we hired producers who pretty much became product managers working with vendors on development. They’re really trying to improve the product significantly day in and day out.”
Workflow, staffing, collaboration
The tech stack and staffing were not the only area the team had the opportunity to reimagine from scratch. McGinn noted that they were able to behave more like a start-up, but with a lot of resources to leverage from the wider business. It helped that the team was very eager to embrace change and new ideas.
One of the biggest learning curves for Grande’s team was collaborating and communicating with dozens of news stations across the country. “We had to break down the walls of communication to be sharing content and breaking news,” she said. “We’ve built this central team here in South Florida that works with all the stations across the country on best communication workflows, and how to actually work with us as virtual members of their news groups.”
To facilitate good communication and collaboration, the business set up Teams channels with every newsroom across the country. There are leaders on the central South Florida team who check in with ‘captains’ at each station on a daily basis. These check-ins and allowing the personal relationship to build have been a crucial part in keeping the streaming product front-of-mind for the teams.
“When we were setting up the business, we talked a lot about structure and workflow,” said McGinn. “There was a lot of concern around the ‘out of sight out of mind’. If you’re not there in the newsroom, are you and the platform going to be forgotten?”
Grande noted that initially there were a lot of reminders needed for the local newsrooms when news broke to make sure the information came to the streaming teams as well. “Then, after a lot of that practice, we really started to get the communication flowing,” she said.
Now, the teams communicate around the clock. “Someone’s always available to answer. So, if news were to break in Philadelphia, they can say, ‘Hey, there’s breaking news here, we’re going to go live,’” Grande explained. “Then folks here on our team can respond and jump in to help support the live event as they break into the channel. It’s really wonderful to see just how smooth all the communication is there.”
Integrating Spanish language and broader markets
NBCUniversal Local initially launched a select few English streaming channels, in order to get some early audience data that it could build upon. “The data from Peacock showed us that we had significant out-of-market, out-of-city viewership for our channels,” McGinn explained. “So we were able to see, for instance, that our South Florida NBC channel was being viewed in New York, and while it’s based in Miami, it was being viewed in Tampa and Dallas and LA.”
As well as the English language channels, NBCUniversal Local also has four regional streaming channels which bring live local news in Spanish to Hispanics across the country: Noticias California, Texas, Florida and Noreste. The wider business division already has 30+ Spanish language Telemundo stations and were aware that there was a growing opportunity in providing a FAST local news service to an Hispanic audience in those markets.
“So we took that data and thought, why don’t we do a different approach for Telemundo [streaming]? Why don’t we combine the resources in certain regions and create regional news channels? To beef up the coverage and recognize that there are many viewers out there who are interested in a broader view of local news, not just one hyperlocal market.”
The improved communication has made it easier for the Spanish and English teams to share content. It has also helped collaboration with the Telemundo channel teams, who now build newscasts for the entire region. “It’s something that they’ve never done before that they’re now doing through new types of collaboration to create these great streaming products,” noted Grande.
Sharing early successes
McGinn credits the instant messaging tools and channels like Teams with really helping to bring people together in the true spirit of collaboration. But she also noted that sharing early successes was just as important in cementing the new processes in people’s minds.
“As quickly as we received data from the platforms that proved to people that people are watching these channels, we shared that widely,” she said. “That told the newsrooms, ‘Oh, this is not just the latest social media fad that may be gone in a year. This is real, on-television viewing.’”
The successful set-up and centralized team to test and share technology means that additional expansion is on the cards. But the learnings go beyond NBC’s Local News initiatives in order to help keep the company ahead of the streaming pack. Importantly, this team is sharing its learnings with other divisions in the company. “We want to be able to help others launch channels and initiatives that they have,” McGinn concluded.
The Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media released study this month that demonstrates the ongoing significance of local news as a crucial information source for many Americans. The report specifically investigates the characteristics of regular local news consumers, including their demographics, geographic location, political beliefs, and preferred media platforms. As the authors point out, despite declines in both the supply and demand of local news, a significant portion of the American public still consider their local news outlets as an important source of information.
According to The Center’s study, approximately 29% of Americans regard local news media as a favorite source of news. Survey respondents were asked to provide up to three preferred news sources. Of those who specified local news as at least one of their three preferred news sources, 82% named one local source, 15% named two local sources, and 3% named three.
The research highlights notable variations in the proportion of local news consumers across different social demographic groups, regions of the country, and political ideologies. The survey used data from a Gallup Panel that was designed with The Knight Foundation and distributed to 10,226 adults in the U.S. via mail and phone from July 30 through August 26, 2021. Researchers used weights provided by Gallup for gender, age, race, ethnicity, education, and geographic region based on the 2019 Current Population Survey.
Local news consumers like national news too
In general, individuals who consume local news tend to consume more news overall compared to other news users according to The Center’s research. Local news users primarily rely on national news media as a top source of news with approximately 57% of local news users citing a national news outlet as at least one of their preferred sources. Other sources that local news users turn to include conservative news (19%), aggregators like Yahoo News and Apple News (12%), left-leaning news (10%), and social media (6%).
National news media are also a top source for other news users, but only 47% of those news users named a national news outlet as one of their preferred news sources. Other news users are more likely than local news users to consume partisan news. Sixteen percent of other news users named an aggregator as a preferred news source, and 11% named social media as a preferred news source.
Local news consumers’ digital news preferences
In order to determine the preferences for different media platforms, the sources mentioned by survey respondents were sorted into categories based on their originating medium: newspaper, local TV, radio, and digital outlets. The most commonly mentioned sources were local newspapers and local TV stations. Among those who listed a local outlet as one of their preferred news sources, slightly less than half mentioned a local newspaper (45%) or a local TV station (43%). This survey found a higher proportion of local newspaper users compared to other studies that compare different mediums; local TV is generally found to be higher than that of newspapers. Only one percent mentioned a local digital native outlet as a preferred news source.
It is interesting to consider these results in light of research from TVREV, also released in September, which found that two-thirds (68%) of Gen Zs and Millennials stream local news across various platforms. Even those 55 to 64 and those 65+ (45% and 35% respectively) say they stream local news. When asked about their preferred non-broadcast TV sources for local news, sports, and weather, about half of the respondents to the TVREV research aged 25 to 44 reported that they mostly rely on websites and apps.
It is unclear why the use of digital natives is so low in The Center’s research. The authors point to the fact that previous research has found that fewer articles by digital native outlets are found in news aggregators than those from print news outlets. The reports authors express concern that the fact that few respondents cite a digital news source as a preference for their local news conflicts with the “relatively large amount of resources and focus on these as remedies to news deserts and declines.”
The authors also state that the similarly high proportion of local TV news users to newspaper users should warrant an equal or higher proportion of focus on quality local TV news as part of a thriving local news ecosystem for more people. That is consistent with TREV’s conclusions.
The findings of these studies suggest that, while audiences consume local news digitally, they don’t appear to be seeking it out from digitally-native news brands. Rather, they look to their trusted local sources, regardless of consumption medium. Thus, it is important for local news providers of any medium to ensure that they are satisfying consumers’ digital demands.
“The rise of AI is an existential threat for media companies.”
“The rise of AI is a disruptive opportunity for media companies greater than the Internet itself.”
I overheard both statements in the last week. How can both be true at the same time?
While I may not be able to square that circle, I do know that DCN has spent the last decade focused on the future and not shying away from difficult questions like these. And, for the past six months or more, we have been among those immersed in the impending upheaval and unprecedented opportunity heralded by everyone from AI doomsayers to evangelists.
While the questions about the future of AI in the media are far from answered, there are a few plainly obvious truths emerging as we explore the full potential of AI.
The Large Language Model (LLM) data sets on which generative AI is being trained have been built upon what may well be the most extensive violation of copyright in history. The power and promise of AI to reshape industries is rooted in intellectual property that is a necessary ingredient in the equation. That bad math, that bad faith, must be recalculated and recalibrated in order for AI to evolve in a way that aligns with the true spirit of this extraordinary innovation.
Many challenges of the last decade remain constant in the AI era. Market power and abuse is a profound problem. It would be naive to rely on the generosity of trillion-dollar companies to silo negotiations to train tech companies’ large language models from the impact and the needs of the whole of the media business.
Consider the way in which Google has historically argued that it doesn’t detract from media sites’ revenue because it drives traffic to them. On the contrary, it is well understood that “search results” have become overwhelmed with advertising and offer “snippets” (scraped and trained by publishers’ sites) that often satisfy the user without having to click through. Generative AI takes this so much further, by allowing the search engine to compile information from a multitude of sites—without necessarily crediting any of them, much less driving traffic.
Privacy concerns around LLMs need more attention. Somehow the excitement and ready access to real-time output has swept this under the rug. Recent history should have taught us better.
Clearview AI, infamous for scraping billions of images across the internet without consent to fuel facial recognition, is the subject of a new book, Your Face Belongs to Us. And we learned in unsealed court docs earlier this year that Facebook used data brokers to train its machines to microtarget ads when they were forced to stop buying data outright. LLMs create a deep new well of data that is being opaquely collected and that will inevitably be exploited in ways consumers would not expect—or approve of.
Generative AI will increasingly be used for storytelling, whether in the fields of news or entertainment. However, responsible and successful media organizations recognize its limitations and human hands will still shape the creative output of these tools. As long as this storytelling involves humans at any point in the creative process, this content will require protection under the law. Otherwise, the devaluation of creativity and truth will be inevitable.
The sustainability of the free press is an essential ingredient for democracy. A free press supports an informed public, which holds the powerful accountable. Healthy competition and capitalism have unlocked opportunities and efficiencies that media companies have benefited from, and there’s no reason to believe that the AI era will be different. However, given the unhealthy dominance of the big technology companies, the last decade has been perilous for the press.
Therefore, any conversation around the future of AI must be anchored on the needs of an informed public, which starts and ends with an ecosystem that supports professional local and national newsrooms.
Given what we have witnessed over the past decade in the proliferation of mis- and disinformation, which has leveraged technology and vacuums in trust, the generative power of AI must give us pause. With power comes responsibility, and these are tools that we must use, and govern, wisely.
As someone who is listening, reading and thinking about what’s next as a full-time job, the acceleration of AI and its impact on media has got me on the edge of my seat. I’ve witnessed firsthand what media organizations have accomplished with AI for decades, and eagerly anticipate continued innovation. I also respect and acknowledge the efforts of media organizations to defend their work product, their creative output, the reporting, writing, photography, cinematography… as so much more than a mere data set.
We know our work. We know our worth. And we know our audiences and respect their values, which is why they value us. While the questions and innovations will keep on coming, there are unequivocal truths that should guide us as we continue to build a strong media ecosystem.
For the news media industry, the rise of artificial intelligence for is a double-edged sword. While some publishers are using it to churn out news stories regardless of how their audiences receive them, local news titles are considering how it can provide them with a major point of differentiation. For many, that will also be a lifeline.
A report into the state of local news in the UK from Enders Analysis and the News Media Association pulls no punches. It is clear about the extent to which local news publishers did not benefit from advertising spend moving from print to digital. It’s also candid about the likelihood of titles foregoing print entirely in the near future.
However, the report goes well beyond rehashing the impact of technology on the news media business. While it clearly sets the stakes for the industry, the report, “Signs of local life: a new phase for local media” also focuses on opportunities and collaborative strategies for local publishers as we move forward.
The authors note that “publishers have done very little to transition habitual paying print readers—or the next generation—into habitual paying digital audiences”. It also points out that local media have lost the war on digital classifieds and have no realistic path back to reclaiming that revenue.
That is exacerbated by other challenges facing print media. From higher production costs to the “effective monopoly” of the two major distributors, the ability to print and disseminate dailies and weeklies is becoming strained. The report states it expects the number of titles that go digital-only in the next decade will be greater than the previous 10 years.
As a result of that—and the absolute dominance of tech giants in digital advertising—the report states that appetite for external investment is limited: “No one in the industry would deny all this decline has driven investment sentiment away from the sector, and consequently depressed the value of local and regional media.”
Green shoots
But rather than being solely self-flagellation, the report highlights some of the irreplicable strengths of the UK local news industry. Owen Meredith, chief executive of the NMA explains that, “while clearly everything isn’t rosy, there are some positive signs of life. There is innovation there; DC Thomson [for example] is really good at building a membership model and subscription model that genuinely works in local news.”
As the report makes plain, the greatest strength of the local news industry is the direct relationship it has with its audience, and the trust that flows from its original journalism. It states: “At one time all of these distinctions were obvious because they were visible in the physical world: print was plainly different from other content and consumption. Online, these distinctions evaporate.”
So, the report argues that the local media industry needs to “shout these distinctions from the rooftops” particularly in the emerging era of generative AI-created content. Local news has provenance and personality. The report makes the argument that it will be difficult if not impossible for AI-generated content to take its place. In an age where the amount of noise online is to grow exponentially, local news media can provide the signal.
Meredith says local publishers like Newsquest are already set-up to take advantage of that trend: “We’ve got these huge scale audiences… there’s been a perception that a lot of that was driven by non-core local news.
“Actually, there is more data coming to light now… that you really do have deep engagement, multiple pageviews, reasonable penetration and good scroll-through. People are actually coming to local news sites for the local news product.”
That is in line with the recommendation by the report that local publishers move from pursuing digital advertising based solely on scale: “Too much revenue today is reliant on low-yield programmatic advertising” which has diminishing returns—particularly for the newspapers.
Show me the money
In order to survive to take advantage of that strength, however, local news organizations need time and investment, particularly around tech. Meredith says: Tech is a big-ticket item for a lot of smaller publishers. You can’t therefore do everything you might want to do at once. But I think you can do phased-based tech and there’s a lot of off the shelf solutions, frankly, that provide publishers with answers without massively excessive investment required.”
Given the long-term forecasts for ad spend and a lack of philanthropic support in the UK, the report suggests a number of alternative sources of funding.
In line with earlier recommendations from the Cairncross Review, the Enders report points out that direct government funding is basically impossible for any independent press that seeks to hold the government to account. Instead, it suggests alternatives that include more government advertising (already the largest single source of local advertising revenue across its many departments) with the local press.
Meredith concurs with this assessment, stating: “We think a genuine commercial exchange on advertising is fundamentally different to subsidy. We firmly believe that there is a long-term sustainable future for local news in a commercial way.
“We’ve been talking about the digital markets bill for ages. It’s not a silver bullet, but it will certainly help. There’s lots of elements but you [can] combine that commercial vitality without government subsidy or intervention, as well as the Competition and Markets Authority getting out of the way and allowing market consolidation to happen”.
Meredith is also keen to point out that the BBC has a key role to play in the future of the local press. It is a wholly unique organisation by any media standards, and Meredith argues that if it were proposed today its free-to-access nature means it would be immediately shot down by competition authorities. He advocates for a resetting of the relationship between the local press and the BBC, both through the BBC Local Democracy Reporting Service and other means.
Ultimately, the conclusion of the Enders Analysis report is that local news in the UK needs to make itself attractive to investment from outside the industry. That will be like ripping off a sticking plaster, as it has been resistant to change for years – for a variety of reasons. Executives at the major publishing houses have been accused of riding the slow decline of tested revenue sources in service of their payouts, for example.
True change in order to attract investment will require, as both Meredith and the Enders report advocate, collaboration and collective agreements in order to reach sustainability.
Local news publishers understand the need to evolve their newsrooms. To attract advertisers, subscribers, and younger readers, change is essential—from digital conversion to newsroom diversity. The Tow Center for Digital Journalism’s new report, Life at Local Newspapers in a Turbulent Era, examines transformation progress at local newspapers through the eyes of those making the news.
The authors, Damian Radcliffe and Ryan Wallace, provide a candid industry perspective when they check in with newsrooms to look at the state of local publishing. The survey respondents include more than 300 U.S. editors, reporters, publishers in small-scale newspapers. It’s important to note that reporters and editors (section/managing) accounted for 66% of total respondents, and more than half of the sample (53%) worked 10+ years in the industry.
Local news landscape
Local news outlets are closing at an alarming rate. In the past 15 years, more than one-fourth of the country’s newspapers have disappeared, with 300 newspapers closing in the past two years. Further, during the first year of the pandemic, approximately 37,000 U.S. news media employees were laid off, furloughed, or had their pay reduced. However, while the pandemic brought many challenges, it also added relevance to local news.
Overtime is the norm for journalists. More than one-third of respondents (37%) report working more than 50 hours a week, and a half (50%) work 40 to 50 hours a week. Forty-five percent feel secure in their jobs, although they feel less secure than at the pandemic’s start. Given the overtime, it’s not surprising that half of the respondents (49%) report that they’ve increased the number of stories they produce each week compared to the 2016 survey results.
Transformation in progress
With the transition to digital, more than half of respondents (57%) state they spend more time on digital products than three years ago. Interestingly, the increased time spent on digital is not offset by spending less time on print.
Further, many reporters are wearing more than one hat. As one respondent noted, “An editor also has to be a reporter, photographer, newsletter writer, and social media expert, and a graphic designer also has to be the webmaster, community outreach point-person, and legal notice compiler/writer.” Unfortunately, wearing more than one hat and increasing workload concerns cause high burnout rates.
Focus on social, new tools and audience metrics
In addition, 62% of those surveyed believe that social media platforms are growing in importance to their newspaper, followed by increasing local coverage (36%) and the diversity of sources and voices (32%).
More than two-thirds of respondents (67%) report learning about new tools and technology through articles in publications like Nieman Lab, Poynter, and CJR. Use of new technology and tools include:
Analytics and metric tools 50%
Newsletters 44%
Video reporting 39%
Live video services (e.g. Facebook Live) 37%
Alerts and push notifications 36%
Chat and messaging apps 24%
Podcasts 21%
Investing in the future
Unfortunately, many respondents report low interest in (1-2 out of 5) in new tools and technology. Forty-two percent show low interest in learning more about automation, 35% report low interest in Story formats on social networks, and 31% show low interest in alerts and push notifications.
Local news media companies to experiment with new revenue models, adding revenue diversification and moving away from their reliance on advertising revenue. The pandemics’ spotlight on local and hyperlocal news was a catalyst for a renewed interest in subscriptions. Now is the time for local newspapers to fully engage in digital platforms, new technology and tools, and sustainable business models.
Mobile is a massive opportunity only heightened during the pandemic as audiences turned to their smartphones for the comfort food of apps and entertainment. Significantly, though, throughout this period consumer tastes and appetites changed. Users had both the time and the desire to discover new apps and content, a dynamic that allowed many niche apps and content creators to gain mainstream appeal and profits. In some markets, it created a perfect storm of opportunity for hyperlocal news and entertainment that meets consumers where they are.
Continuing with our series of industry interviews [video below], I talk to Jani Pasha, Founder and CEO of Lokal, who is harnessing hyperlocal content in a play that has the potential to make it the NextDoor of India. With a model built on monetizing connections and transactions at the intersection of community, content, and commerce, Lokal is making the most of a booming opportunity.
The model is smart and replicable in other markets. However, Lokal also benefits from a seismic shift in the fabric of its addressable audience. For the first time, India now counts more Internet users in rural areas than cities. And rural users typically aren’t as interested in national and international news developments. Instead, they crave information about civic, political and social issues that impact their towns and villages.
But India isn’t the only country experiencing these shifts. The explosion in the number of Internet users, accelerated by the pandemic, reveals opportunities in regions such as Central and South America. While we might think that growth has slowed, in the last 12 months alone, the total number of Internet users globally has grown nearly 8% to reach 4.72 billion. That’s more than 60% of the world’s total population.
From silver surfers to app initiates, new users in these regions rely on mobile and apps as their personal lifeline for news and information (even education). They turn to them to make daily decisions about how they live and what they buy. Tapping that potential requires companies to micro-segment audiences and tailor content to the needs of towns and communities, not cities. It also helps to focus on fundamentals.
Understanding that new users are likely to be low on the learning curve, Pasha made a bet on voice that paid off. Bypassing bell-and-whistle tech features for a dead-simple interface like voice fast-tracked new users to frequent app use and interaction. Ease of use also increased trust in the app. And that trust allowed Lokal to acquire new users easily through the most effective advertising on the planet: word-of-mouth.
Voice also empowers every user to make a contribution. This enabled Lokal to grow its ecosystem at minimal cost. Users call in stories about developments in their local towns, creating the content that keeps other users engaged and loyal. They rely on the app to learn about offers and events nearby, sparking conversations that end in commerce conversions.
And this is where Lokal’s strategy to be a local content platform, not a content provider, makes business sense. By positioning itself as a super app — one that allows a user to access several services in one place — Lokal establishes itself as the trusted middleman in interactions and transactions. What’s more, Lokal drives in-app activities it can monetize. And let’s not forget that first-party data is gold.
In our interview, Pasha shares how Lokal is training creators to ensure its content is fresh, relevant and relatable for audiences who crave hyperlocal content on their terms. He also weighs in on the future technologies and opportunities local news apps and outlets everywhere should embrace to grow their revenue streams.
WATCH OR LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Peggy Anne Salz, Founder and Lead Analyst of Mobile Groove interviews Jani Pasha, Founder and CEO of Lokal:
Peggy Anne Salz: The pandemic had a massive impact on local media. In the U.S. alone, more than 300 national newspapers closed their doors. Local newsrooms also shut down contributing to the growth in news deserts, that is, cities where people depend on one local news source, if any at all.
But one company is bucking the trend big time, Lokal, a hyperlocal news app in India is not just growing its user base, it’s also making money. It’s a new twist on monetization. And we get the inside track here on Digital Content Next. I’m your host, as always, Peggy Anne Salz, mobile analyst, content marketing consultant, and frequent contributor to DCN, which is a trade association serving the diverse needs of high-quality digital content companies globally. And in this series, we shine a light on the people pushing the envelope. That’s why I’m so excited to have Jani Pasha, Founder and CEO of Lokal. Welcome, first of all, to Digital Content Next, Jani.
Jani Pasha: Hi, Peggy. Nice to be here.
Salz: Absolutely. And coming to us from a very hot Bangalore today, I understand.
Pasha: Yeah, right. It’s very hot, actually.
Salz: So let’s start with Lokal. You have described it as a hyperlocal Tinder because it cuts out the middleman in finding a date or partner. But it’s also a news service. It’s much more than that. So tell me about Lokal and, above all, the user experience.
Pasha: Yeah, Peggy. So we are not just only the Tinder of that place. We do quite a lot. But I’ll tell you the backstory of how we started. So essentially, if you take India, it’s a very diverse country with 90% of its population living in tier-2, tier-3 cities, and towns of India. And these people, most of them, have not traveled further than their adjacent district, because it’s so diverse that with every 50 to 100-kilometre radius, your food habits change, cultures change, language change quite frequently.
So they are staying in those locations of their towns and cities generationally with their parents, grandparents, their homes, and businesses. So naturally, they’re so curious to know about what is happening around them. And there is one more factor that kicked in, in 2016, Jio, a mobile operator who has reduced the prices of internet drastically to make India the cheapest place for 1 GB data for you to use mobile internet.
So then we have this, all these 90% Indians who didn’t have access to internet previously suddenly had access to internet. But essentially, these users are new internet users who are not comfortable in English language. And so then what will they do with the internet, right? So Lokal is the platform which we started it as a platform to deliver hyperlocal content, which is extremely useful for them. And that is the gateway of how they’re adapting to the internet to use internet more usefully in their life. So today, if you take this 90% Indian audience who are new to internet, they are using internet prominently for entertainment, either to… You know, we used to have TikTok. We don’t have it anymore. It is banned by the government. So there are many TikTok parallels and YouTube and Facebook. And then they use WhatsApp for communication.
Apart from that, they can’t use internet meaningfully. And Lokal is actually being that platform giving them the content that they can use and that is of importance for them. Then naturally, making them use internet for multiple use cases. And as at a location, our density of usage increased. We evolved as a platform. So you rightly said we evolved as a Tinder, a place where people find other people to get married. It’s a place for businesses to advertise about their businesses to local community. It’s a place for businesses or people to actually sell their properties. And all this is happening in their native languages of Telugu, Tamil, and Kannada. We are expanding across the country. And we have seen because we have a lot of density in that location, users are adopting platform like crazy with more use cases coming up almost every day.
Salz: But, of course, internet penetration alone doesn’t spell the profits that you’re getting. Part of it is also the experience. You talked about ease of use. You talked about local languages. What are some of the innovations in the UX and UI design that contribute to your success? What does an app with local news need to look like and offer?
Pasha: Very interesting and relevant question, Peggy. So when you talk about these new users right, so all the smartphones have the keyboards in English language. So one challenge when we’re trying to build Lokal was how can you make the content creation easy on Lokal, especially that of text format.
Like, a lot of information about what are the vegetable prices in that location to what are the updates happening in that town, not everything can be captured on video. So they have to be typed. How can you make that easy? So, the first thing that we did, or we built was, making this creation easy, where the user will input the content by voice instead of typing. So they are using voice to actually create the content. And once we started doing that, we realized that creation with our voice is much more convenient than typing on a keyboard because you have to… It’s not natural, right?
Like humans, we speak to each other. So that’s a major shift, right? So if you go on a website today like on Amazon, you have multiple navigation. There are filters, there is sorting, there are multiple pages, multiple categories, but for an interaction, like the natural interaction for a shopkeeper in our location is to go and ask to a small retail shop owner that, “You know, what is the cost of this item? And how can I get it?” It’s natural voice-based input. In India, a lot of businesses are SMEs, sort of small and medium businesses unlike in U.S. where you have a Walmart. You go and then you select. It’s a voice-based communication. You ask, the shopkeeper goes and gets the information, and we’re replicating the same because the technology has caught up.
Salz:Interestingly enough, you were talking about how your audience is very focused on local content. I mean, hyperlocal is really hot in India right now. It’s fascinating that local newspapers, right, newspapers are growing at a double-digit rate. Now, you also have impressive growth results. Now, I’ve seen numbers growing 25% roughly month on month, that’s the last I’ve read, and that’s because of your monetization model. So one is the content, but it’s also a very smart approach to how you generate revenues. Tell me about that.
Pasha: We have built a playbook, via which we launch a location, and we get local content creators in that location to create content, which is very relevant to that community, very, very hyperlocal in nature. And then you get a density of users using the application. And once you have that critical mass of density at a location level, then it becomes a platform where everyone…like, everyone relevant started coming onto the platform, and then they start doing a lot of things, which are monetizable.
Even this is true for people in the West also. Newspapers used to be the place for everything, right, at a location level. You want to do real estate, you want to do jobs, classifieds. Everything used to happen on newspaper. Internet came in. All the small, small parts became large businesses, right? Craigslist, Airbnb, they’re all part of this local newspaper, right? Had these newspapers, you know, are technology-friendly or had they been…had they had that vision or foresight, they would have been the super applications that everything is happening on them.
It’s just that the news publishers migrated their digital publishing online, but they left the rest of the parts for others to pick. In India, we have that opportunity right now, where it’s a very new audience. Internet is being built for them in their native languages. And Lokal is trying to do that with our approach of delivering hyperlocal content. So we don’t consider ourselves as a local news platform. We consider ourselves as a local content platform. So that is the different approach that we are taking compared to newspapers, Peggy.
Salz:That is fascinating because you’re showing that there is a great deal of benefit to being a fast follower here. I mean, you have purposely… It sounds like you have thought this through, Jani. How to be a content platform, keep the social media, keep the connection for yourself and not give it over to the big tech giants or the big social media platforms. That’s the focus. That’s the essence of your strategy. How do you keep the momentum? Because, of course, you’re on a growth trajectory, all of India is on a growth trajectory. And high growth usually means high competition. And how are you keeping these large companies literally from eating your lunch?
Pasha: Our competitive advantage that comes in is based on how hyperlocal we are and how much our team understands the nuances of India, which is very difficult for a tech platform sitting in the U.S. or sitting in some other place to understand and build for it. And these are very new behaviors Peggy. So, as I told you, right, how does a business establish trust digitally? What happens on Amazon is that you go and list on Amazon their ratings, and those are the places how you do it. But how will it happen for a new internet use case, right?
For these very new people where the trust on internet is low, right? How will you do that? It’s a new challenge that we will solve probably for a small business to establish trust very quickly on our platform, and how they can do it. So it’s just that, the nuance, I would say. I would like to summarize that the nuance is very difficult for someone to understand. And hyperlocal in general, is a network effects business, right? You have large density using your platform for multiple use cases, someone coming and replacing it would be difficult.
Salz:It’s interesting that you started monetizing wishes. Tell me about that.
Pasha: It’s just crazy. We never expected all this to happen. We just thought we’re solving a problem of local content not available digitally. When we started creating content, people started coming. So that is the nuance. Like, in India, you have this behavior.
In the small town of India, especially in the southern part, this is very prominent, so that south Indian part, that if Peggy you were a friend of mine and I want to wish you a happy birthday, and I want to do this in a way that everyone in the community would know that I care for you, and we are actually close friends. And how will I do that? I used to either buy advertisement on newspaper with your photo, my photo coming and I’m wishing you happy birthday. Or I am sticking a big banner in the city or town center wishing you a happy birthday.
So the same behavior has been adopted on Lokal now, where the same people who used to do that are posting their wish, like I’m wishing Peggy happy birthday. So there is a standard template where your photo, my photo, will come and I’m broadcasting it to 10,000, 15,000 people in the town, the same purpose they wanted to accomplish previously, now, they’re accomplishing on Lokal. And they have that data to see also that how many people are actually looking at it. So this is being monetized on Lokal. And this is a very, very interesting, unique use case, Indian use case that we are monetizing. And we are seeing a lot more use cases coming like this, and we’re super excited for that.
Salz: You’re also speaking very much as the maker of a content platform. And, of course, a content platform needs creators, needs citizen journalists. It’s all local. So it’s probably very much just about empowering individuals at the local level to grow your business, how do you do that? How do you find them? Train them? How do you make it possible for them to contribute to your platform?
Pasha: The prominent content distribution platforms used to be newspapers like how it happened in the West also. And over the last three, four-, or five-decades time In India, large news publications, this content distribution platforms, have created a lot more content creators in these locations by training them, by informing them, by letting them know what is happening.
And most of these creators in this town used to work for this large distribution platforms like newspaper or television for free, most of them. Why? Because I told you, right, how important these small locations and communities are for these people.
So if I am a creator who can get the word out in a big distribution place like a largest newspaper, I get invites to events happening in the town. Anything big happening in the town, I get to know about it first. So I’m an influencer in that location. So then we have these influencers across India, hundreds of thousands of them. What we simply do is that we have this network of people. We have this digital crunch of hyperlocal content; we just connect them. And that is how we are getting this content.
Salz: You are more than a Nextdoor in India, you’re a content platform, news platform connecting, making business possible, helping merchants. And the reason I have you here today on Digital Content Next is because there are lessons here for publishers everywhere. What do they need to pay attention to if they want to succeed in hyperlocal news?
Pasha: My take is that technology is evolving very rapidly. Publishers should be open to work with new technology coming in. Like, Substack is a great platform where publishers are able to monetize their content. So there are a lot more innovation that is coming. So publishers should be thoughtful and be open to experimenting with these technology players because these new platforms are coming in. And with the creator economy coming in, I’m also very hopeful of how publishers becoming much more important than what they used to be before.
Salz:We started off by talking about the situation particularly in the U.S. where local news, local newsrooms, they are declining, there’s no question. What would be some advice to those that are there to say, “Here’s what you can do to up your game. Here’s what you can do to be sustainable and successful?”
Pasha: I think for small-level publishers, I think what is working for us is being hyperlocal and having a plan. And for us, it’s about figuring out that playbook of how you can get or make the things work at a location. So I think for publishers, especially individual publishers, I think hyperlocal play is going to work, with them also having…who are open to work with, new technology players, which essentially are tools and not platforms possibly.
So Substack is a tool for you to distribute your content. It’s a tool, right? And essentially, for payments, you can use a tool. So someone who is more open to work with these technology platforms and having hyperlocal focus would be able to build sustainable businesses. That is what our belief is. And I can’t compare clearly India to U.S., but in India, specifically, because of how the market is, the maturity of the user towards internet interest, it’s going to be very, very large play in India, especially the focus of hyperlocal.
Salz: So very, very much about being a platform, which is what you’re doing connecting people, connecting businesses, that’s what local content can do really well. The monetization model currently is about classifieds. What’s it going to be going forward as you try to be more and more a super app?
Pasha: So, yeah, Peggy, we are today connecting people, and monetizing on that for the sake of making money, for the sake of selling property, for the sake of improving…giving deals to people, small businesses advertising about their offerings. As the trust increases among these people, we would eventually go into a place where we will enable commerce as well. So that is what the plan is.
We will enable commerce. We will enable these local economies much more digitally. And we are a user-focused company, Peggy. So we have a creator who creates content, and we always think about how we can empower him or her, how can we make their lives easy. Similarly, we have businesses and how can we better help them to get more business. In that, the natural next step is to enable commerce on the platform to have additional revenue streams for them. So we will figure out how we will monetize. But we want to build that use case on our platform. It can be search, it can be something else, we’ll figure out. It’s too early right now. Probably in a year or two, I can tell you a lot more about it.
Salz: Great, Jani. And I think I’ll be back to hear it as well. Thanks so much for sharing your story at Lokal with me today.
Pasha: Thank you, Peggy. And nice talking to you too.
Salz:And thank you, of course, for tuning in and taking the time. More in this series about how media companies like Lokal are taking charge of change in their business. And in the meantime, be sure to check out digitalcontentnext.org for great content, including a companion post to this interview, and join the conversation on Twitter @DCNorg. Until next time for Digital Content Next, I’m Peggy Anne Salz.
Local news outlets have been on the ropes for a while, and this year is no different. Competition for digital advertising has been fierce, and it is well documented that two technology companies eat the lion’s share of the revenue.
In fact, just this month, HD Media LLC, a news publisher, filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against the duopoly, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. The lawsuit asserts that the two companies are manipulating the digital-advertising market, making it difficult for the Charleston Gazette-Mail and others to survive.
Exacerbating the financial implications is the way in which these two tech companies disintermediate news distribution and consumption. Given this reality, how can local news organizations successfully compete and manage a successful audience relationship?
Local news study
Sarah Stonbely’s research, from the Center of Cooperative Media, identifies news ways to answer this question. Stonbely maps local news organizations (LNO) to their coverage area, using New Jersey as a proxy for other local news markets. She then applies demographics characteristics to these maps in a first step to understand which communities are served and to what degree. Importantly, studying the local news ecosystem offers insight into the needs and interaction of information producers, content, and their audiences.
This study includes local news outlets such as newspapers, local television, and radio stations and digital native news outlets in New Jersey. In total, 779 local news providers are part of the analysis.
Overview
Stonbely’s mapping of local news outlets shows that communities characterized by less education and located in rural areas are less served. Further, the research also shows that Hispanic communities are particularly underserved by local news.
In contrast, communities with higher income and located in the suburbs are served by more local news organizations. Interestingly, education is not a significant variable. The level of education does not necessarily correlate to whether a community is more or less likely to have a greater number of local news originators.
Economic divide
More affluent municipalities are more likely to have a greater number of local news providers serving them. And, in turn, a community in the lowest income bracket (median household income of $25,000 to $50,000) is more than twice as likely to be a news desert as a news oasis.
It is not surprising that local news organization coverage correlates to a higher median household income. Increasingly, local news outlets are supported by those able to pay for their content. While, the audience-revenue model is key to sustainability, the author’s findings suggests that this model does not serve lower income communities because they may lack the ability to pay for news access.
And even for those supported by advertising, more affluent communities are likely to boast more potential advertisers as well as present appealing demographics to those advertisers. In either case, less affluent communities are not able to sustain local journalism, which in turn can expand the economic divide.
Ethnic outlets
Municipalities with the greatest percentage of Hispanic residents are most likely to be news deserts. In fact, the likelihood of having a higher number of local news outlets increases as the percentage of the population that is Hispanic decreases.
As such, the research reveals that New Jersey’s largest minority is underserved (ethnic outlets were not available to map). While there are certainly some Hispanic news organizations, additional investment in local news would better support local markets.
Municipal spending
Local news also helps keeps a watch on municipal spending. Stonbely reports that New Jersey municipalities spent $15,1 billion the year this research conducted. Almost half, $7.4 billion, was spent in municipalities with zero to two local news originators. Community journalism’s coverage of municipal spending is important in maintaining a transparent and honest local governance.
Road to sustainability
The findings here align well with the Local Journalism Sustainability Act introduced in July 2020 by Representative Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ), which offers an alternate revenue model to fund local news. The bill allows individual and business taxpayers tax credits in support of local newspapers and media. In addition, the bill allows for philanthropic funding to be put toward local news operational costs.
Stonbely’s work offers a granular and comparative view of New Jersey communities served by local news coverage. The work provides insights into how mapping local news organizations to communities can highlight opportunities for improvement and growth. This study reveals gaps that news outlets can fill to fuel new audience relationships. It also provides a stark look at the realities of finding a model that both sustains local journalism and the interests of the communities these outlets serve.
As McKinsey reminds us, great products result when companies build bridges between technology innovation and audience preference. It is critical to deliver a holistic experience across functions and every stage of the customer journey. In media, aligning teams to develop data-informed products that engage audiences is more than a pathway to excellence. It’s essential for survival.
However, it can also be expensive to support. The record number of newsroom closures in 2020 offers unsettling proof that quality content cannot be the only draw. Organizations need to combine content and experience in new ways that decrease friction, increase satisfaction, and adapt to how consumers want to interact and where they are in the journey.
Continuing with our series of DCN video interviews, I talk to Millie Tran, chief product officer at The Texas Tribune. A local news success story, the Texas Tribune has built a sustainable business, employing more than 60 journalists through a range of revenue sources, including thousands of paying members.
Drawing from her experience at the Tribune, as well as The New York Times and Buzzfeed, Tran shares how the Tribune aligns editorial with the back-end processes to adapt content and coverage to what most readers find most useful. She also reveals how her team harnesses audience data and innovative news modules and visualizations to drive a 2x increase in homepage views and keep readers coming back.
Watch the video or read the full transcript below.
Transcript
Peggy Anne Salz: Product is the new marketing, but it’s not a new focus. It is gaining new significance as content companies’ perfect ways to draw from their data, to customize content and measure the results. But what are the business benefits? How can you individualize flagship products to drive views and longer sessions? How should you focus efforts and investments? Tough questions, yes, but we get the inside track here today from The Texas Tribune on Digital Content Next.
I am your host, Peggy Anne Salz, mobile analyst, content marketing consultant and frequent contributor to Digital Content Next. Of course, DCN is a trade association serving the diverse needs of high-quality digital content companies globally.
So my guest today is the chief product officer of The Texas Tribune. So it is a perfect match with our topic. That is where she leads audience, engineering, data, design, marketing, and communications and loyalty teams. Before this, she was deputy off-platform editor at The New York Times and before that global growth editor.
I am so excited to have her here today to talk about how she creates a holistic and successful product. Millie Tran, welcome to Digital Content Next. Great to have you here.
Millie Tran: Thanks for having me Peggy. I am excited to talk.
Peggy: It is a great topic. Product is so important, and I would like to start by understanding the alignment between product and the newsroom.
So, just thinking about your day-to-day routines, strategically and in practice, what does that look like?
Tran: I love this question. You know product can feel really opaque. I think traditionally we think of product as sitting in the center. But at a news organization, the news is the product.
So that alignment between product and the newsroom really manifests in the alignment with me and our editorial director Stacy-Marie Ishmael. I would say we are constantly in communication. And one of our core functions in each of our roles is just making decisions, making a call under conditions of uncertainty, conflict, complexity and increasing and sometimes unknown interdependencies.
We make a decision over here it can affect two things over there. And we are in a process of constantly anticipating those downstream effects so we can make the smartest decision based on our strategy. The balance between editorial decisions, product decisions and revenue decisions.
How I see my job. I think it is a mix of people, process and product. And I think it has to be in that order. It has to be that you understand people, their roles, their jobs, their skills, to work together most efficiently and effectively to build that product.
Salz: I love that because first of all you have people first, that resonates with me and you are thinking about not just the output, not just the articles, videos, podcasts, whatever it needs to be. You are focused on an experience. What you yourself have called a more holistic product. I would like to understand what you mean by that. I think you have also tweeted about that as well.
Tran: Probably. Speaking of tweets, I was just reminded of this tweet that Margaret Sullivan shared the other day about how she is a big fan and supporter of local news. But the websites are so horrendous, and I think that neatly ties up with what you are asking. Holistic to me means the whole experience. All of those things you mentioned, those modules, articles, videos, podcasts. There are micro experiences to each of those things, but all of those add up to the overall user experience.
When I say holistic user experience, I also mean not just the engineering, not just the CMS, it is also the design. It is also the way we write headlines, for example. So it is organizationally something we want to provide our users. I know even the ads we consider putting on our website, are not random ads that are offensive and distracting to the journalism. If you go to our website, you will see right now the ads are very relevant to someone interested in Texas, for example.
Salz: That is very important because relevancy, as you said, it is the entire experience, and it has to fit together. What are the systems I am even interacting with or working with in the first place? It goes far beyond CMS is what I’m hearing.
Tran: It is, and I would say we have a great tech setup here, our CMS is homemade, so that is our engineering team’s biggest product, and that powers our website. We have our data visuals team who are doing one off projects that we can test and learn from.
So we have a way to experiment with new products and a nice process to build it into the broader systems to make it easier. It is this nice feedback loop of experimenting, learning, and then integrating it into how we just do our work.
So our journalists and editors can also make these things easily because that also informs the work product at the end.
Salz: I want to get back to the whole idea of delivering a product, a product is the new marketing. We said that at the top and it is a success when it either acquires audiences or deepens the connection with existing ones. What is it at The Texas Tribune? What is your audience approach? Is it acquisition or retention or maybe, something else?
Tran: That is a great question. I think it has to be both acquisition and retention.
One of our big strategic priorities right now is double and diversify. Doubling our audience and making our audience reflect Texas, be more representative of Texas.
I often think about our membership. We want to grow the number of people who are supporting us through small dollar donations. The way to increase the members is to either have more people come to your site and then you have this natural conversion flow.
A percentage of our total readers are members so there is this natural conversion flow already. So you get more members by increasing the number of people who come to you or you increase the effectiveness of converting them. So at every point, do they come back, do they potentially sign up for a newsletter? We have seen that newsletters are our most effective channel in membership conversion. So: getting a reader to donate to us. I think it is about putting both of those things into a framework that helps you understand the costs and benefits of each at every point.
So, I think it is about having all the data, putting it in a model and framework that helps you balance all of these things. I don’t think you can just choose one or the other. Having that broad view will help you make better decisions.
I said that is a quantitative framework and to loop back to what you said about product is the new marketing. I think people subscribe to things. They support organizations, they support brands for reasons that we can’t always quantify. It is really important also to understand the emotional connection that someone has to your product and your organization, your brand.
I think in addition to having that quantitative framework, you need a way to understand why people are supporting you. I think that goes back to an organization’s mission and values.
Something that I am really proud that we do is have our journalism free to publish for kind of any news organization.
When you support us, you support Texas overall having a better news ecosystem. I think people, that resonates with people. I think understanding that resonates with people is really important, even if you cannot quantify it in that model I just talked about. To your question it is balancing the acquisition and retention, but also balancing the measurables and immeasurables.
Salz: I like that because that is exactly it, it is very holistic. It is about looking at what you can measure, and we will talk about that in a moment.
There are events, there are metrics, there are things you want to optimize too, but you also want to optimize the experience. That is thinking about the people, the audience, what resonates with them, what did they appreciate?
Now I would love for you to unpack that. Maybe you can give an example, walk us through the homepage because that is where the conversions happen. That is where the conversations happen.
Tran: Yes, so let me just pull up my homepage for you. This is The Texas Tribune homepage. There are two things on here already that I can talk through that we just launched within the past year during my time at the Tribune.
So this navbar is something we launched and what you’re seeing here, by the way, these little green numbers are live audience data. We use Parse.ly for this so we can see in the last 10 minutes or whatever time period, what people are clicking on. We can see what is of interest, what is resonating with people, that will inform, not necessarily decide, what we choose to feature.
Going back to what I was saying, about our two teams, the data visuals team, which is in the newsroom and then the engineering team. This navbar was code that was in a previous, I think it was in an election page, a way for us to highlight different topics on that page. We ended up pulling that code and the engineering team made it a part of our core CMS.
So we took something that was a one-off, we learned about how people used it and then saw a need for it. There are so many coronavirus stories that we did not know how to surface all the different lines and angles. We knew that we had the code. We took it and then the engineering team built that feature into our CMS. Now editors can just choose their own topics each day and highlight the most important. I think that is a great example of the culture of experimentation, it is a culture of learning and iterating.
When the most people are on our homepage, we want to optimize for the most important things that they should see.
That was one quick way that we did that. Another way is this coronavirus in Texas model you will see here.
I think the beauty in all of this again, is the flexibility and adaptability. It’s actually not a coronavirus in Texas model. It is a model to feature any kind of series that we choose.
You can imagine this not being here. If you are scrolling through, it would take so long to see all the relevant stories in one place. This in itself is such a great product because it does a lot of things. It gives you the latest coverage in a very skimmable way. So you are not having to scroll so deep because most people don’t, and again, that is understanding the audience behavior and making it a better product, given that information. We also have feature coverage, so it is not just chronological, it is our editorial priorities.
I talked about newsletter subscribers and having that module there is really important to us because if we can get people to subscribe to our newsletters, they can become part of our email universe and therefore eventually hopefully become a member.
Salz: Absolutely. You can re-engage with them and talking about engagement you have some other modules that you were showing me in prep that I was very interested in. How you turned a news story into a module. Can you walk me through that as well?
Tran: Yes, absolutely. This is a story that we did, late last year about how Texas has made it easier and harder for people to vote in the pandemic.
You will see if you notice the order here. This was not the original order and what we did was make sure that we were tracking what people were clicking on, so we can get a sense of what people needed to know most. We ended up moving that question about when was the last day to register to vote first. And again, I think that’s just being responsive to reader needs, working with our newsroom, working with our engineering team, working with our data visuals team to really have an integrated news driven, but reader informed product. And you’ll also see here there’s fiscal support, right?
So April Hinkle who’s our chief revenue officer was able to take it to market and get funding for it. Again, this is just one way that we really tied in, the newsroom, product and revenue.
Salz: You more than doubled your views to the homepage in just one month.
So you went from 400,000 in February to more than a million in March, obviously breaking news, very important. We’re all talking about COVID, but that number is also consistent. So you keep them coming back. We talked about how that works when there’s news, breaking news, but of course it’s not a static world out there.
So I’d like to understand how you adjust to make the changes in the editorial product accordingly to keep that number as high as it is.
Tran: We found that our readers who visit the homepage are just also more engaged with us, right? They’re more loyal. They visit an average of 2.3 pages versus 1.4 of all visitors on site. They stay on the site for longer to 2 minutes, 45 seconds compared to 1 minute and 10 seconds for all visitors.
So they are more engaged. They’re reading more, they’re staying longer. So I really want to retain this audience. If this goes down, that would be a huge red flag to me because there are people who have come to, I would say, depend on us.
So I think it’s one, meeting that editorial promise and mission. And then two, it’s about making that experience better. And that’s all the things we talked through about making the homepage, you get more information in one glance, it’s fast. Speed matters in page loads.
And going back to your very first question about alignment between news and products, that’s one way to bring together that news promise and also making the best product experience for that person looking for information.
Salz: Of course, there’s another side to this. There are the challenges, you see it everywhere. Local newsrooms are crunched, even closing down. I’d like to have an understanding about the investment and staffing necessary to achieve what you’ve been able to do.
Tran: I’ll always say that it begins like starts and ends with the journalism, but I think just as important is having the kind of architecture and infrastructure to support that journalism.
So I think it’s really important to invest just as much in the scaffolding around the journalism to enable that journalism, with a continued focus on the reader and I think it’s important to say also the revenue.
And in terms of investment, we’re hiring two people right now for our marketing team because that marketing function actually serves several parts of the organization.
It serves our republishing strategy. It serves our event strategy, which has a direct line to revenue. And it serves our membership strategy, which has a line to revenue. Thinking about all the things that make things you see at the back end possible is really important. So that’s where we’re focusing our investments for this year.
Salz: I’d like to just think about going forward in a different way. You talk about holistic product and I’m looking at this all the time, what is the next big thing? Although I have to say we have a lot of work to do on the existing products we have.
We haven’t really nailed it in apps, but we are talking about AR, we are talking about voice, both are poised for explosive growth.
So let’s talk about what other innovations you might be looking at or ways you want to make your product or plan to make your product more engaging, more accessible, and increase of course engagement retention in the process. What’s on the horizon?
Tran: You mentioned AR, that’s definitely not in my roadmap. But voice on the other hand, that is more plausible.
With voice for example we have a pretty robust suite of audio products already. We just rebooted Point of Order which is our podcast with our CEO, Evan Smith ahead of The Texas Legislature being in session again. So I think it’s about aligning what we have currently to build off on and then really sizing the opportunity for us. Again, I’m really laser focused on understanding the ROI of every investment, predicting and modeling the outcomes of that. And I think in doing that you’re balancing high risk with high reward. And I think not everything will fall into that. But you also don’t want to limit yourself in not taking those risks. So anyway, to your actual question… I’m thinking about all of it and hoping that we can make the smartest decisions that aligns with our strategy, with the information we have.
Salz: I think you will, because of course you have these very specific guidelines. You’re thinking about people, you’re thinking about process, and you’re aligning to create a holistic experience. Some of these will play a role. Some of them, of course, maybe not. But all of it will be very interesting to watch as it goes forward.
Thank you so much for sharing Millie, for speaking about what you’re doing at The Texas Tribune, showing it as well in your homepage and giving us a little peek into where your thinking is going into the future. Thanks again for being on.
Tran: Thank you so much Peggy. This was great.
Salz: Thank you. And of course, thank you for tuning in and taking the time today. In the meantime, of course, be sure to check out all the great content here on digitalcontentnext.org or join the conversation on Twitter @DCNorg.
So until next time, I’m your host Peggy Anne Salz signing off for Digital Content Next.
Around the world, mobile accounts for just over half of all online traffic. However, a concerningly large number of local news publishers have sites that are either inaccessible to mobile users, or are slow to load and clunky.
“A good mobile experience is absolutely pivotal,” emphasized news industry analyst Ken Doctor, who is launching his own local news outlet Lookout in the fall. “At least 65-70% of news reading is mobile. That defines the landscape. If you want to be in the news distribution business, you’ve got to go where people are.” And they are using their phones.
But providing a good local news experience is about more than just making sure the content is accessible to readers. “The massive yet slow movement of traditional publishers to the web meant that they largely took their news sections and put the headlines on mobile in the most boring way possible,” Doctor explained. “A good local newspaper always gave you a sense of city life. It would show you the problems. But it also told you what was going on in town, fun things to do, characters in town.”
According to Doctor, most mobile experiences from local publishers lack a sense of place. “And local press at its best has always been about a sense of place.”
Many legacy organizations struggle to cater to the growth of mobile. But some recent launches have shown just how vital a good mobile experience is. Here, three publishers explain how they’re putting the mobile experience at the front and center of their local news delivery.
Spectrum’s new News App
SSpectrum Networks, a News and Sports Network owned by Charter, has recently launched its own local news app. The Spectrum News App combines written reporting from existing newsrooms and curated content from partner news organizations. It also includes local weather and linear feeds of all Spectrum News networks.
Although Spectrum already has local linear news networks, they saw a mobile app as a way to go deeper into those communities with a wider range of content. “We were seeing these trends with mobile growth just exploding, and TV and mobile getting to a similar amount of time spent,” said Alison Hellman, Group VP, Audience and Content Strategy at Spectrum. “It made sense for us as a business, but when you look at the gaps, there really is a gap in high-quality, targeted local news. We wanted to bring it to a new platform, and that’s how we got here.”
The app has live video and podcasts as well as text content. Hellman emphasised that it was how it all worked together which is one of the key draws. “Weather is critical for local news, and it’s not just the data, but it’s about the context,” she explained. “If we do this right, we are a one stop shop. People are doing some of these pieces well in the mobile space. But no one was providing it all.”
The app is free to access to all 28 million of Spectrum’s residential customers. For non-customers, the company offers a 30 day trial. The mobile initiative is a play for a long-term relationship with their customers. “We want to be a part of their lives in the way that they live their lives,” Hellman said. “If they watch TV, we want to be there. But if they’re on the go, we want to be providing that information as well.”
Each locale in the Spectrum News App features original content produced specifically for the app by dedicated local digital journalists. It is also includes content from nearly three dozen local news partners. Sources range from major daily newspapers to community digital news outlets. This has helped bolster the app’s content in local areas.
Launching The Longmont Leader
McClatchy is another publisher using mobile as a key part of its local news strategy. The company has partnered with Google to found The Compass Experiment. This news laboratory explores new sustainable business models for local news. The second of their local news sites, The Longmont Leader, was launched in May in Colorado.
Rather than building the site from scratch, The Compass Experiment partnered with Village Media, which operates a number of local news sites in Canada. Village Media’s platform is mobile-responsive. It also has features such as classifieds and obituaries which can sometimes be complex to build and manage from scratch.
The Compass Experiment’s General Manager Mandy Jenkins explained that partnering means the team can focus resources on reporting rather than development. “I’ve seen other startups that have built their own thing. It always ends up being more expensive and more clunky than they think,” she said. “Ultimately, there’s a lot of people who do this well. And I don’t feel like we have to reinvent the wheel.”
The team did extensive research in the local community before launching to find out what people’s expectations were around both the content and the experience. The answers were unsurprising, but included not wanting hugely busy screens, ads popping up or autoplay videos. A clear, easy-to-navigate site was needed. And with the vast majority accessing the internet via mobile, a mobile-default mindset was essential.
This mindset extends back even to before the stories are published. “Even within the CMS, when [the journalists] produce stories, we get a mobile preview by default,” explained Jenkins. “Most of our readers are on mobile, so that’s where we have to look at it.”
This mobile-first thinking doesn’t have to mean producing an app as there are plenty of ways to engage users through mobile sites. “Although we’re not going with an app strategy, we’re sticking with a mobile web strategy, we’re still looking at doing mobile push alerts,” Jenkins outlined. “Not just for breaking news, but things like local election alerts and what’s going on around town. We’re starting to put together the strategy around that and how we’ll use them.”
Lookout for local news in Santa Cruz
Unlike Spectrum and The Longmont Leader, Ken Doctor’s Lookout has yet to launch. However, he is applying his extensive knowledge of the news ecosystem to how he and the team are shaping the Santa Cruz, CA publication.
Doctor is working on the assumption that around four fifths of the readers are going to be on mobile. So, the whole experience will be mobile-first. Like the Longmont Leader, Lookout has chosen not to build the site from scratch. Instead, they’ve opted to use the L.A. Times’ Graphene platform. The team will benefit from the technology expertise and development resources of a much larger publisher, which allows Lookout to focus on the content.
Lookout will also focus on just content for the first few months, saving audio and video capabilities for later down the line. But they are looking to get the community involved very early on.
“We have a number of community features and interactive features that are important in terms of the two-way communication between our reporters and the public,” Doctor explained. “It’s a small community – 275,000 people – and to get to know them, to be able to interact with them and do weekly chats with the correspondents, those kinds of things are build-in.”
However, a good mobile experience is just a part of the puzzle piece for local news organizations. “It’s a combination of what kind of content [it is], how it’s presented, what the overall experience is, and how it’s optimized,” Doctor outlined.
His advice for local publishers looking to provide a better experience is to work hard to understand their readers and would-be readers. “They need to understand how their reading habits work today, because they’re not going to change those reading habits,” he emphasized. “It takes a mind shift and it takes investment, and it’s amazing how slow both moves have been.”
The onset of the coronavirus pandemic has galvanized the media industry into action. Even as audience numbers have “skyrocketed,” the advertising revenue that sustains much of the media ecosystem has taken a sharp hit. And this, even as a new batch of advertisers seek to reach a newly minted niche of stay-at-homers, big spenders in retail and luxury markets are suspending buying activity. According to chief executive of G/O Media Jim Spanfeller, the situation feels similar to that following 9/11.
For some publications that are dependent on local advertising – those in local and regional media and freesheets/ alt weeklies – the situation is acute. There have already been some high-profile newspaper closures. Some publishers are already making cuts, and taking drastic measures to keep costs down, while continuing to pump out the news people need.
Fiscal responsibility
Even some incredibly well-known media brands
are being forced to reappraise models that have seemed sustainable in the past,
with the Evening Standard freesheet in London cutting its circulation to manage
costs as advertisers pull out. Its chief executive Mike Soutar noted that “in
the context of currently lower advertising volumes, it makes good economic
sense.”
However, for every publication like Playboy – which is cancelling all print issues for 2020 – there are other media companies launching endeavors in the light of what seems likely to be “the new normal.” Given the uncertainty about whether the advertisers that have decamped will return, coronavirus has effectively pressed fast-forward on trends that have been ongoing for years, forcing publications to adapt quickly rather than relying on a slow tail of dwindling print advertising, news avoidance, and limited growth in subscription revenue.
Rapid digitalization
Jokes about Zoom being responsible for the outbreak aside, the pandemic has demonstrated the extent to which media businesses with events-based portfolios are exposed to mass shutdowns. Even with government support, some events-oriented media businesses are looking at furloughing employees, making redundancies, or shuttering entirely.
It’s been gratifying, then, to watch the speed
which publishers large and small have transitioned to digital-only events.
UK-based news start-up Tortoise, for instance, used its ‘ThinkIn’s (intimate
events for members) as one of its key selling points in the first few months of
its existence. Within a week of the (inadequate) UK government advice, it had
transitioned to hosting Digital ThinkIns instead.
By doing so it is continuing to provide for its core audience, delivering on what its cofounder Katie Vanneck-Smith has described as a club-like mentality model of membership: “I think people will pay for what they value, and really brilliant businesses and brands have always built their businesses based on consumer insight, understanding what customers want, and then super-serving it.
“But I think, particularly in my industry, if
you’re a newspaper – we’ve always had an arms-length relationship with the
consumer, and that physical manifestation of the relationship we had actually
became in many ways a cultural manifestation. And I think we lost that
relationship. We forgot that ultimately we’re there at the service of our
reader.”
Meanwhile, UK magazine The Big Issue is primarily there at the service of the seller. The magazine’s content is excellent. However, it is better known for the revenue-share model it operates with its street vendors, in order to lift them out of poverty. Noting that it – and therefore the vendors – will be hit hardest by a lack of footfall in cities, it has prioritized its digital subscriptions. While it is yet unclear about how the revenue share will work in the meantime, it has brought attention to the existence of the digital subscription offer at a time when readers are becoming habituated to paying in that way.
In the states, Gannett, which publishes about 100 local papers and 1,000 local weeklies, is trying its hand at supporting the local businesses that, in turn, are the lifeblood of its advertising. The media company launched a new website, Support Local, which encourages users to support local businesses in their community by buying gift cards for use at a later time.
Subscription
trials
There is a separate debate to be had about whether news publishers should make their coronavirus coverage free to access. Many already have. What is undeniable, however, is that a raft of media companies have loosened or dropped their paywalls for the foreseeable future.
While many are motivated by a mandate to keep the public informed during this pandemic, some are doing so because event cancellations mean that they effectively have no product to sell. As sporting events are postponed or outright deleted from schedules, broadcasters with tentpole sports channels have transitioned to retention strategies. In the US, for instance, both the NFL and the NBA have offered free access to their sporting archives in lieu of new content. What this means for The Athletic, which has recently been on a hiring spree, is less clear.
Some brands have spotted the opportunity of opening the vaults to fitness apps and services. Popsugar bumped up the launch of its fitness service Active. While there are still plans to monetize it further down the line, for now the service will remain free in order to act as a lightning rod for audiences seeking at-home fitness classes. Digiday’s Kayleigh Barber reports that Active’s general manager Angelica Marden said: “We’re happy to introduce the people to this platform in this weird time and hope that they will come back to us.”
By doing so, the hope of many is that a newly
captive audience will develop a habit. Whether that’s because of appreciation
for a service when they needed it, or because they got a taste of the quality
that exists behind the paywall, it doesn’t really matter. Once something
approaching normality has resumed, the hope is that those habits linger.
Step up
For newspapers the ambition is greater still.
Trust in a title is the measure by which audiences choose which outlets to
subscribe to. In an age where perhaps only ten international English-language
news brands can sustain themselves through subscriptions, this is a golden
opportunity for papers to demonstrate their worth.
Even brands that haven’t historically been known for their hard-hitting coverage are stepping up. LadBible, the youth-oriented social publisher best known for its “lads lads lads” school of content curation, was praised by the World Health Organisation for its ‘Cutting Through’ COVID-19 campaign.
For subscription-focused publications, the
coronavirus has acted as a Trump Bump or Brexit Bounce in fast-forward (COVID
Crunch?), pushing audiences to well-known brands in order to find out the facts
about the spread of the pandemic. Bloomberg and The Atlantic have seen spikes in subscriptions. Given that they are
among the titles that have dropped the paywall for coronavirus coverage it
suggests that audiences are either altruistically supporting titles they
believe are fighting the good fight, or that vital news coverage has a halo
effect on subscriptions.
The inevitable tide
That said, some of these moves were not
entirely unforeseen. Playboy, for instance, was already several steps down the
path to repositioning as a “luxury bookazine,” while membership-based
journalism projects like Tortoise were already looking to build digital
audiences through online events.
Membership schemes were already on the rise. However, coronavirus is providing publishers with a clarion call to which supporters can rally. Even the sports broadcasters were already looking at their stock of past broadcasts in an effort to set themselves apart from competitors.
While there have been a few entirely novel projects – like a mooted magazine about self-isolation – publishers are still playing catch-up with the pandemic, particularly as they scramble to set up remote working and reel from the health impact on their own staff. There will undoubtedly be new business and journalistic opportunities launched over the coming months as the new reality becomes apparent. For now, however the dreadful treadmill of survival is setting an unforgiving pace, and an industry that was already perilously close to the edge is now forced to sprint to keep up.
