The terms “echo chamber” and “filter bubble” are often used to describe social media’s selective exposure of news content to audiences. Industry research has found that platforms using algorithmic rankings and recommendations produce less diverse and more segregated audience opinions. However, television news is generally excluded from these analyses. New research, Quantifying partisan news diets in Web and TV audiences, seeks to illuminate the impact of television news as a driver of partisan ideology.
Authors, Daniel Muise, Homa Hosseinmardi, Baird Howland, Maarkus Mobius, David Rothschild, and Duncan Watts used nationally representative panel data between 2016 and 2019 to analyze minute-level usage from national TV tracking and second-level laptop/desktop browser tracking. They conclude that partisan audience segregation affects between three and four times more Americans via TV news than online news.
On average, the report says that 17% of Americans are partisan segregated through television news. However, they find that only 4% of Americans’ partisan-bias is a result of online news. This contrasts starkly with the belief that the digital ecosystem has amplified echo-chambers.
TV news’ partisan audience
The research also finds that television news consumers are likelier to maintain their partisan news consumption for a longer time than online audiences. While right-segregated online news consumers are somewhat more likely to remain segregated after 1 month (29.1%), and more than three times as likely to remain after 6 months (6.3%), online partisan segregation—when it arises—is generally fleeting at the monthly level.
News source exclusivity
One significant factor is the number of sources for news available in each medium. While the online news environment offers numerous choices, TV news viewers still only have a handful of sources. And, once they’ve chosen, it becomes the default choice. The research finds that TV audiences do not stray from their most preferred sources compared to online audiences. Among partisan TV news viewers, those who consume mostly MSNBC rarely consume news from any other source besides CNN. Further, audiences that consume mostly Fox News do not go elsewhere for TV news content.
Online audiences, however, tend to be more inclusive in preferences for their news content and include some mainstream and moderate sources.
Demographic analysis
The authors also analyze TV and online news consumption by age, race, and educational level. Not surprisingly, partisan segregation is much more apparent among older adults in the TV audience. Interestingly, adults 55 years old and older viewers lean toward right-leaning biased segregation. In contrast, older adults are more likely than younger adults to be partisan segregated to the left via online news.
White Americans are far more likely to be partisan segregated to the right on either platform than Americans who do not identify as white. The most partisan-segregated news consumers are postgraduate degree holders on the left. Seventeen percent of highly educated Americans are TV news consumers whose news diet is mainly left-leaning.
This research finds that segregation is more prevalent, concentrated, and persistent on TV than online. While the overall TV news audience is shrinking, the partisan TV news audience is growing in absolute terms. TV news audiences are undergoing a cleansing process of alternative viewpoints, and there are consequences for our democracy. Significantly, this research establishes a clear need to consider television when examining the existence and impact of filter bubbles.
Getting attention and creating awareness is vital to influencers and journalists since both compete in the same attention economy. As part of her Polis Newsroom Fellowship at the London School of Economics, Salla-Rosa Leinonen explores the idea of adopting an influencer style of journalism to bring the audience closer to the newsroom. In her new report Can Journalists be Influencers? she makes the case for newsrooms to support staff who want to experiment with a journo-influencer role to help build credibility among a younger target audience.
A vehicle to reach a younger audience
Influencers create original content with a distinct and authentic voice. Building creditability among a younger audience is an effective tool for marketing, branded content, and endorsements. Effective influencers attract a lot of attention on social channels like TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram. Leinonen suggests that journalists who want to reach a younger audience implement influencer practices on social media.
Notably, a new study from UK communications regulator Ofcam shows that for the first time, Instagram is the most popular news source among younger people (22%) of teens, with TikTok and YouTube close behind. Further, TikTok users participating in the study said they get more of their news from “other people they follow” (47%) than from news organizations’ accounts (24%). Another study, Reuters Digital News Report, also shows that 40% of young adults, 18- 24, report using social media as their main news source. Therefore, social media provides a critical point of connection for younger news consumers.
As part of her research, Leinonen interviewed Olivia Le Poidevin, a BBC reporter, to discuss the similarities between the journalists and influences. Poidevin noted that journalists use the news as a vehicle to connect to the audience, while influencers use their content. However, Poidevin concludes that there is a convergence between news and content. She states, “Up to now; there has been a clear division between ‘content’ and ‘news,’ in many media organizations as if they were two separate worlds. From the audience’s point of view, they are not separate; they are the same.”
Benefits of being an influential journalist
The report defines the role of an “influential journalist” as someone who gains awareness or fame through more traditional modes of journalism but also uses social media to build their following. Only pieces of their content like article excerpts, snippets, and clips are usually available on social media. They use social media to market, share, and showcase their work with new audiences who are not spending their time on traditional media platforms.
Leinonen cites Sandra Banjac and Folker Hanusch’s research on audiences’ expectations of content creators on Instagram, YouTube, and blogs, compared to journalists. The research finds that both content creators and journalists share many of the same values. These include likeability, the feeling of being directly spoken to, sharing valuable information, and expertise, which all drive followers to seek more information.
Importantly, “journo-influencers” can learn to leverage new storytelling formats without sacrificing the skills and integrity of journalism. They can also connect their journalistic style to their personality to build trust with their followers. This report suggests that journalists rethink their news reporting process as content creation to generate an authentic voice to connect to younger audiences.
Social audio creates opportunities to grow and engage with audiences. It also provides an ideal medium for tackling big issues. However, The Texas Tribune’s social audio experience reminds us about the importance of concentrating on key issues that affect the everyday lives of audiences.
Austin-based Texas Tribune keeps a tight focus on specific issues, events, and questions when using social audio. “Our approach to live social audio is to ensure that we’re talking about a topic or a storyline,” rather than a project or its journalistic process according to Bobby Blanchard, Director of Audience, who oversees Texas Tribune’s social channels.
Topical discussions
The Tribune has found that there are topics that resonate with their audiences and keep them more engaged over others, Blanchard says. “We generally lean towards service work — how to vote, to understand and follow elections, how to prepare for possible power grid problems. These conversations attract a wide variety of readers because they’re all impacted by what’s discussed,” he says.
For example, The Tribune held a Twitter Space on preparing for the winter in December 2021, which discussed how and why Texans should prepare for the winter ahead. The conversation centered around the power grid and safety, and it featured the president of the Austin EMS Association.
The following month, The Tribune held a Twitter Space on redistricting and voting coverage. The discussion focused on what citizens should know about voting in Texas in 2022, what redistricting is and how it affects the election, and what would be on the ballot. The event featured former Tribune executive editor Ross Ramsay and Alexa Ura, demographics and voting rights reporter of The Texas Tribune.
“The Texas Tribune helps its readers navigate and understand how Texas policy and politics impacts their day-to-day lives,” says Blanchard. “Answering reader questions and engaging with our audience is a key part of our service journalism work.”
In addition to providing critical information, social audio does help The Tribune build community by giving the audience the chance to engage directly with the reporters behind the news they read. However, their emphasis remains on using the new platform to provide readers with what they expect from the brand.
As Blanchard points out, people consume information in all kinds of ways — some via text, some via visual and some via audio. “I think giving our readers multiple ways to consume the news helps us serve all types of readers. I also think it strengthens our relationship with them. It helps our readers understand that, like them, we’re humans doing this work.”
Preparing to go live
While Twitter Spaces and other social audio platforms gives anyone the option to go live, it’s not something The Texas Tribune does on impulse. A lot of planning and logistics goes into preparing for an event and they leverage lessons they’ve learned over time.
The Tribune has a thorough process to be prepared before going live on social audio. Blanchard says that, prior to going live, they give everyone a chance to test their tech and make sure they’re in a space with a good connection and have the equipment they need to record good audio. Blanchard and his team prefer wired headphones to wireless headphones, for example.
“We always have a preference for actual microphones or wired headphones to Bluetooth or built-in laptop microphones. It ensures a higher level of audio, in our experience,” Blanchard says. “We’ve just found the audio quality is better and there is a lower chance of technical problems with the audio when you use wired headphones as opposed to wireless. Best to remove as many chances for things to go wrong as possible.”
It is critical to ensure that the moderator is prepared and set up with everything they will need. “We write an introductory script for the moderator and prep questions ahead of time, just in case we get very few audience questions,” Blanchard says. “We pepper in a lot of reminders for the moderator to do a fresh table setting of what the conversation is about midway through, so folks who join late can easily catch up. We try to limit these conversations to 15-30 minutes.”
Blanchard noted they don’t open the mic to everyone. If listeners want to ask questions, they have to tweet at or direct message The Tribune. From a moderation standpoint, Blanchard says letting just anyone speak can become a minefield. If anyone can join the conversation, it opens up the possibility to trolls or bad faith actors trying to attack journalists or guests. “We don’t want that to happen — it spoils the conversation. There’s also enough of that online as it is. There’s no need to make space for anymore of it.”
As for timing their social audio events, the Tribune tries to schedule them when people are most likely to tune in, which is typically lunch time, according to Blanchard. Time of day affects how engaging a conversation is and how many people tune in. “If you do a live audio conversation at 4:45 PM, when everyone is driving home, you’re not likely to get a ton of listeners.”
“It’s my working theory that people enjoy listening during lunch,” he says. “I’ve also seen newsrooms have success with this in the early morning or late evening. I consider 1-5 PM a bit of a dead zone, and typically avoid programming live conversations then.”
Monetize like a sponsored event
Beyond audience engagement and a new storytelling platform, media organizations can look to social audio as a potential new revenue source. The Tribune does not generally have sponsors for its social audio events. However, in some cases they’ve used social audio for what would have traditionally been a live event. As such, they secured a sponsor as they would for those events otherwise.
“Our conversation about our primary preview coverage on March 1, 2022 — for example — was sponsored by The Marchant Good Government Fund and Raise Your Hand Texas,” Blanchard says. However, he notes that “financial support plays no role in picking topics or guests for these conversations — or any of our journalism.” And, because The Texas Tribune is a not-for-profit organization, sponsorship is not a significant driver behind its social strategy. However, other organizations seeking to build a revenue stream on social audio might emulate the live-event model as one approach.
Certainly, monetization opportunities seem promising. However, social audio falls into a class of its own. It isn’t as neat and tidy as podcasts. Its immediacy and intimacy is one major differentiating factor, and it still seems to be space in which content companies are experimenting.
Takeaways
While Millennials might be digital natives, Gen Z are social natives, having grown up watching video and listening to audio instead of visiting traditional news sites, according to the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2022.
Thus, it seems likely that social audio will play an increasing role in their consumption habits, given Gen Z’s heavy reliance on social platforms. Digital content companies need to keep an eye on the changing needs and wants of this next generation, as they exhibit different behaviors than those who came before.
However, when conceiving a social audio strategy, it’s critical to think about what audiences need, and expect, from your brand. Priority number one is to figure out how social audio uniquely serves an audience and what you’re trying to accomplish. For this brand, having a narrow focus on service-based journalism works best.
At The Texas Tribune, social audio offers immediate engagement with audiences and the opportunity to provide useful, practice advice and trusted guidance, and address its readers’ needs in a moment. Their experience demonstrates how social audio can be used to help audiences make decisions, on what to buy, how to do something, answer specific questions, and solve their problems.
Publishers should target the medium, not the platform to capture the next generation of news consumers.
The 2022 Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford paints a grim picture. More people are avoiding the news than ever before, especially younger generations. But these social and digital natives are not necessarily next up in the queue of eventual news consumers nor are they a target audience, yet. This article aims to highlight who publishers should target and how.
Targeting too young, too soon.
It’s easy to read the aforementioned report and feel exasperated. Thirty eight percent of people surveyed around the world are selectively avoiding the news, up from 29% in 2017. In the U.S., it’s 42%, up from 38% in 2017.
The percentage of avoiders grows the younger the dataset gets with 20-somethings actively avoiding certain genres of news as a form of self-care.
“I actively avoid things that trigger my anxiety and things that can have a negative impact on my day. I will try to avoid reading news about things like deaths and disasters.”
—Male, 27, UK
This is distressing for any journalist to read. However, there’s an interesting yet subtle distinction in how younger consumers are classifying news which helps explain it.
“…younger audiences often distinguish between ‘the news’ as the narrow, traditional agenda of politics and current affairs and ‘news’ as a much wider umbrella encompassing topics like sports, entertainment, celebrity gossip, culture, and science.”
This means that younger generations are lumping proper journalism in with their entire digital diet. This makes sense based on how different types of information bleed together on social feeds. A video from the New York Times on the war in Ukraine might be sandwiched between a video from an influencer doing the latest viral dance trend and a video showing how to make burrata caprese. If you’re on your phone for another dopamine hit, “the news” isn’t going to satiate.
So called “older generations” (35 is the cutoff in the report) are much more interested in “the news” as opposed to “news”. They seek out the news because they feel it’s important, useful and a good way to learn new things as opposed to younger generations looking for entertainment or something to discuss with friends.
This sense of duty to be informed is the perfect audience subset for publishers and that passionate niche only grows larger with age. Some publishers are setting the bar even higher than 35. The Washington Post’s Phoebe Connelly, director of Next Generation Audiences told Poynter’s Senior Media Writer Tom Jones that younger audiences are anyone under 45. That’s just ten years younger than the average news consumer.
The Reuters report shows that younger audiences are less engaged and are even having a difficult time understanding the news. I should be clear that these audiences shouldn’t be ignored. It’s worth exploring how to increase media literacy and develop a sense of duty to be well informed. But newsrooms need to be strategic with their limited audience targeting resources, so whether it’s due to self-care or just wanting to be entertained, publishers should mostly put the millennial and Gen-Z generations on the shelf while they mature into vintage news consumers and focus on the tier below their current audience.
45 is the new 55
Most consumers are getting their news from social media on mobile devices, even this older demographic. But there are key opportunities in this subset for publishers compared to the younger audiences.
They are about 13% of the U.S. population (37 million and the third largest set)
They are twice as likely to have a digital subscription to news than 35-45 year olds. (8% or 3 million)
About 25% either mostly watch or have a balance of watching and reading the news. (9.2 million)
This last bullet point is key because it highlights a consumption trend that can result in huge engagement and revenue growth for publishers.
While only about 25% of older consumers mostly watch or consume the same amount of content via video or text, the younger generations are consuming nearly 35% via video. Our research at Oovvuu finds this to be true across its publishing partners as well. A global average of 34% of news consumers prefer video while on a publisher’s website, not just social media.
This trend isn’t going to change. TikTok is a video-only platform and it’s the most popular social media platform in the world with the youngest users. TikTok will come and go, but those users have been conditioned to consume video from the days of Facebook and Twitter to Instagram, YouTube and now TikTok. When they grow up and fit nicely into the 45 to 55 news-hungry demographic, odds are they’ll still want video.
Engagement and revenue opportunities
Already, 41% of consumers who prefer video say it is more engaging than text. When publishers embed contextually relevant video on a news story the time spent on that page doubles. It also increases the likelihood of that viewer returning to the site.
This strategy isn’t new. It’s usually mentioned every few years when a publisher “pivots to video” for the umpteenth time. The problem lies in the execution of that strategy. The road to proper video implementation is riddled with landmines: auto-play, long non-skippable pre rolls, too many ads, loading too many videos and weighing down the page, and a lack of contextual relevance are all recipes for disaster with news video consumption. One landmine can turn off a consumer or an advertiser. They’ll still want or pay for video, it just won’t happen on your site.
The winning formula is the right video, at the right time, in the right place.
This formula works because video is 34 times more profitable than display advertising when implemented correctly. At Oovvuu, we’ve found that publishers who are willing to follow the formula are rewarded with media agency partners who are willing to pay premium CPMs for those videos and consumers who actually engage with the content. Here’s the formula again with more detail.
The reality is that journalists still need to do the work, and publishers can empower them with this strategy because it translates across all levels of the organization. Contextually relevant video journalism making more money for the publisher means newsrooms could do something they haven’t done in a long time…grow.
Contextual relevance applies to video, but also the consumer
There is one more potential pitfall to this strategy worth mentioning. A digital publisher or broadcaster can have a 1:1 perfect match between an in-house video and an article, but over time the publisher will still see a lack of loyalty from its consumers. But why if the video and article are in perfect harmony?
Social and digital native audiences are more casual, less loyal, less trusting and more skeptical in their news consumption. Loyalty and trust are built through representation and diversity. A publisher who relies on one brand or one internal group of talent – no matter how good – is likely turning off younger consumers.
Publishers can’t hire every demographic. They also can’t source every video. This means that publishers and video providers need to work together to have the best audience representation possible. Publishers who have video from hundreds of providers around the world are able to publish a larger variety of reporting perspectives and viewpoints with more races, accents and dialects offered from news presenters.
Contextual relevance through diverse video sources will leave audiences feeling represented, empowered, and part of the news. Couple that with a proper video strategy and consumers will be more likely to engage with “the news” and less likely to disassociate with it.
DCN’s editorial director Michelle Manafy interviews Nicole Carroll, the Editor-in-chief of USA Today and Aja Whitaker-Moore the Executive Editor of Axioson Newsroom innovation: What’s the future of storytelling at the Collision conference, which was held in Toronto, Canada June 22-24, 2022.
[Full transcript below.]
WATCH/LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Michelle Manafy
I’m back! But I’m in good company. I’ve got some terrific speakers here joining me to talk about newsroom innovation. If we could, I feel like the topic is just huge. If maybe you’d like to kick us off with what the heck does it even mean?
Nicole Carroll
You know, I think innovation now, in the olden days, it was always tech and what’s the next product? And what’s the next thing? And I think now honestly, it’s about engagement is like how do we truly authentically engage with our audiences. And that could be tech that could be in person storytelling, that could be, you know, lots of different ways. I also think innovation always is just about to keep moving forward, you know, every generation of journalists is going to do it a little bit differently. And I think we’ve got to find our way. So, I think about innovation, not just in a technology sense, but literally everything we do in hiring, and how do we fund our journalism? How do we connect with our audiences? We’ve got to keep moving forward.
Michelle Manafy
Aja, anything you want to add to that?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
No, I mean, I think you’ve covered a lot of it. And from the actors perspective, you know, we’re a startup. And so everything that we do is kind of innovative, in our opinion. And we were born of, you know, we thought a problem, which was, there’s too much information, and people don’t know how to keep up with it, they don’t know how to access it. And, you know, we think that our promise is innovative in the sense that we came up with a new format, came up with a new delivery mechanism, and are coming up with new ways to reach an audience on an everyday basis. So that’s our version of innovative, I think.
Michelle Manafy
So let’s go back to Axios then for a second. How do product and editorial work together in your organization, and how do you drive innovation in that relationship?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Yeah, I mean, pretty closely, because, you know, like I said, you know, we are focused on smart brevity and packaging things in a way that people want to digest them. And that means that we’re mobile first. And that means that everything we do has to be looked at from a product perspective, how are we delivering lists in a mobile friendly format? How is our app working? How are we delivering products to people, you know, in the way that they want them. So we work really closely together with a product team that I think understands journalism and understands news in a way that is really important.
Michelle Manafy
I mean: easy for you to say, “built from the ground up.” But let’s talk about USA Today. Like, is there a tight integration of product and editorial, editorial, huge,
Nicole Carroll
we’re, you know, we’re one of the OG startups, but we were actually smart, brevity 40 years ago, and we’re pretty, you know, made fun of because of that. So I’m you know, I’m glad to see the world has, you know, come around to that you can get good information in smaller amounts of words or video. So I, I’m really proud of the work we’ve done. But yes, we are really tight with our product teams, the fact that we just want to call with them this morning. You know, we’re constantly looking at not here’s what we should do. But what is the outcome you’re looking for? And then working together? How do we get to that outcome? We try not to go into it with the solution you go into it with what’s the outcome you’re looking for, and what do we need to bring to that equation?
Michelle Manafy
So one of the things you touched on in like your “what is innovation” was: staffing, diversity, leadership, those those issues… Can you tell me a little bit — let’s start with USA Today — about how you’re approaching leadership and recruiting with an eye to fostering innovation to fueling it.
Nicole Carroll
It’s never been more important to recruiting and what we’re doing right now. And I don’t know if how many of you are in the industry. But there’s the great journalism shuffle going on right now. I mean, everybody is moving somewhere else. Right now, there’s a real fight for talent and leadership. And I think people want to be part of authentic companies, who are really trying to again, I always say our job is to spread truth, you know, to engage with our audiences. And so showing a path having mentorship programs showing an opportunity for leadership, showing industry leadership is really important to creating the culture that will keep people in our organization. We’ve made the pledge at Guenette, that we want our newsrooms to reflect our communities by 2025. And we measure ourselves every year against that benchmark around racial diversity. I measure it every quarter at USA Today and report that to the staff. I think it’s really important we hold a mirror up to ourselves and be really honest about how we’re doing.
Michelle Manafy
How about Axios? What what what is the approach? How are you thinking about like, what is this newsroom? What is the staffing what does the leadership mean, to our ability to be innovative?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Yeah, I mean, I think we we agree at that at the start the diversity of our newsroom should reflect the diversity of our audience. And that will then you know, result in diversity of coverage and that’s really what we’re striving towards. You know, our founders are committed to that goal as well. You know, in the fall, we’re releasing a smart brevity book. And they dedicated the proceeds the advance from that book to fund a fellowship program that we’re really proud of where we’re focusing on hiring from diverse communities in underrepresented backgrounds, to mentor them into Axios. And focusing on developing a beat developing the next generation of leaders that we think is, you know, missing from journalism right now. And it’s something that is a part of, you know, our newsroom recruiting our newsroom leadership. Axios is led by two women of color. And myself, and our editor in chief, Sara Gu. And it’s something that we you know, walk, talk, live, breathe and think, is the future of innovation at our company and everywhere, so we’re really focused on it.
Michelle Manafy
Alright, so let’s shift gears a little bit. We there’s been a kerfluffle, of late around the social presence of journalists online, rather spectacular, blow up, in fact, quite visibly on social media. For for Axios, let’s start there. How are you balancing the desire for reporters to have a social presence to leverage that social presence? With your standards?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Yeah, and when I think we’re, we’re not like, any, you know, we’re similar to every other media organization out there, that’s figuring out, you know, how to balance that, but we’ve been really proud of our track record so far, you know, in the past five years, you know, we we’ve really just said to our staff, we trust you. You arer adults. Represent yourselves represent Axios the way that you, you know, would expect to in public. And that’s actually what’s happened. So I think we are, you know, proud of how we’ve done it so far. And we’ll continue to act accordingly on social platforms, and still be able to share our journalism with the world engage with people in a responsible way. And I think we’re all doing that.
Nicole Carroll
I know that at USA Today, the social presence is a big part of the work. So how are you setting your standards and communicating to your staff that this is important? But you still have to represent our brand.
Right? I mean, we know that, you know, our integrity and our fairness. And all of that is just the bedrock of what we are. And so we want to make sure that we represent our way ourselves that way. On social, we tell people, we want you to bring your authentic selves, we want you to bring your lived experiences. But obviously, we can’t slip into advocacy. And I say this all the time: The power you have as journalists, to choose stories to tell stories to spread stories, is so much more power than you’re going to have in that tweet. And so you know, again: Bring your true selves, bring your authentic selves, but but let’s not tip into advocacy that could harm the integrity of our brand.
Michelle Manafy
So I think another issue digitally in particular is the 24 hour news cycle, right? We’re all facing this kind of pressure to constantly be online, constantly be informing our our consumers. But how are you balancing the 24 hour news cycle with your again, with your standards and your goal to provide actual, trustworthy news?
Nicole Carroll
Well, we’re really lucky and that we’re spread across the country from, you know, Washington all the way to LA. And then we also have a London bureau. So, we really are on 24/7, which, which makes things a little bit easier. But you know, I tell people 100 times out of 100, I’d rather be second than wrong. 100 times out of 100. So if you’re ever in doubt, don’t do it. Double check it triple check it, I’m going to be fine. If we’re last as long as we’re right.
Michelle Manafy
I see a lot of scoops and exclusives at Axios. So how about you? Is there a difference there? Is there pressure?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Yeah, Imean, I think that our philosophy is a little bit different. We’re not there to deliver you every piece of news. We’re there to deliver you what you need to know, and the things that are important. And so I think that our model is a little bit different in that we package our version of the 24 news cycle into a newsletter suite. So if you’re getting Mike Allen’s AM, and PM and Finish Line newsletters, that’s what we call our daily essentials. And he’s set a really diverse kind of breakfast table for you in the morning. Happy Hour, four in the evening. And he’s telling you the stories that you need to know and so we’re curating that and packaging that I think in a different way than you know, a news wire or or a news organization that’s giving you breaking news 24/7.
Michelle Manafy
It’s interesting. We used to call those “newspapers” where we curated what you need to know i the course of a day. I do think it’s interesting. The last panel was very much touching on this deluge; this fire hose, and how we can discern. And of course you know, I advocate for trustworthy sources like y’all.
Nicole Carroll
Yeah, absolutely.
Michelle Manafy
All right. So, innovation in delivery and formats. I know you specifically mentioned Axios being mobile first. And I think that’s for a little while there that was almost a cliche industry. But I think it’s, it’s a given, is it not? Are you thinking a lot about innovating in terms of say, Tik Tok? Let’s just throw out like, are you looking at new formats?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Tick Tok? Not so much. Not yet. I mean, we have experimented, I think on all the platforms, you know, we do Twitter spaces, we do curated videos on You know, on Instagram, I think Tik Tok is an amazing platform. And a lot of I think publishers have figured out a great way to do it. But I think it actually is we, you know, right now, you know, we really are interested in podcasts, we’ve found a way to tell long form stories in smart brevity, through audio, which, you know, is is challenging, but we’ve done it with our How it Happened podcast series. It’s got, you know, 3 million downloads, and it’s really resonating with the audience. And we also have, you know, a daily podcast that we think is, you know, really innovative and how we’re telling stories in, you know, 10 minutes a day, and our audience is telling us, you know, they can’t get enough of it. So, I think that’s definitely interesting to us. You know, we just hired our first SEO editor and we’re really focused on you know, packaging our stories for social and, you know, making sure we’re we’re meeting people where they are.
Michelle Manafy
I know that social audio has been really good for you guys too. How about USA Today. What do you do?
Nicole Carroll
Well, it’s funny: I was just checking or TikTok I think we’re just checking to see how many followers I think we’re over a million somebody check me so we’re over a million and when we you know, I love it. My son’s 16 He gets all his news on Tik Tok. So whenever we show up in his feed, he’s really proud. He’s like, there’s my mom. So I mean, we’re gonna be in the spaces where people are, we’re doing Twitter Spaces, we were on Clubhouse, we were doing all the things. Really, it’s because we just want people to know that we’re there with the information they need, again, whether it’s Instagram, or Tik Tok, or a newsletter, or a podcast. And it just helps the overall reach and hopefully, you know, to your point about trust and media, if they see us enough, if they see that we’re right enough, if they see that we’re responsible enough, I want to develop that trust. And so I think it’s not just about the audience. It’s about developing that relationship and trust and like, Oh, I’ve seen you three or four times now. You know, I I know your real I know, you’re a trustworthy news source. And that’s really important to me.
Michelle Manafy
Yeah and that’s interesting, because you both mentioned, you know, being where they are.
Nicole Carroll
Yeah.
Michelle Manafy
But then your values like perpetuated values and your ethos there to build that trusted relationship.
Nicole Carroll
Well, it’s funny when the last join some of the January 6, and we made some decisions about, you know, we didn’t errors, certain of Donald Trump’s speeches, because I did, they were misinformation, and we chose not to air them live. We would go back and we would package them so we could fact check them before we did it. I actually went on Tik Tok. And I told people why we were doing that. And I did a video like: Hey, here’s we may be hearing about this. And this is why we’re doing that we think it’s important to fact check before we put information out there. So it was kind of fun to be able to talk directly to that audience
Michelle Manafy
Addressing that that demand for immediacy. Head on,
Nicole Carroll
Right, exactly.
Michelle Manafy
We want it now. But here’s why we’re not.
Why don’t you tell me each of you just very quickly, a project or product that you’ve done recently that you feel is particularly innovative?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Sure. I mean, I think Axios local is probably our biggest project of the year. And, you know, talking about rebuilding trust, we want to meet people in their communities, and talk to them about the economic situation where they live, the lifestyle opportunities, where they live, also, the political landscapes where they live. So we’ve stood up in 17 cities, and we’re going to be in, I think, another 25 by the end of this year. So, we’re really proud of that expansion and trying to recapture some of what’s been lost in the local news landscape. And, you know, it’s really resonating with audiences, we’ve had over a million subscribers in those local markets, generated, you know, 5 million in revenue last year from loca. And so we think that’s, you know, a really big part of the future of Axios. And hopefully the future of restoring trust and journalism in America.
Michelle Manafy
No small feat.
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Yeah, just a little, just a little project.
Michelle Manafy
Just a Tuesday. How about at USA Today?
Nicole Carroll
Sure. Well, I really hope you guys will check out some of the AR we’ve been doing. And again, this leans more into the tech, but it’s really cool tech. So you can we did a series this past year on 1961 and the importance of what happened in 1961, around voting rights to what’s happening today. And our AR team built this amazing experience where you could actually ride the bus as it was being attacked by rioters and you can hear the story and you can you can you can hear we brought in historical video and audio. And you really feel like you can see the flames around you and you are really immersed in that experience. So, you know, again, we’re trying to bring the truth to people and help them understand news that empathy that you get from immersive storytelling is really important. Not just reading it; you’re experiencing it. So really proud of some of the work we’ve done on AR.
Michelle Manafy
That’s a great example. Just before we’re done here: How about something that you think that everyone is talking about in media right now, that maybe is hype or that maybe you’re a little skeptical about?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Just in general?
Michelle Manafy
In the digital media industry. Hype cycle?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
I don’t know,
Michelle Manafy
Alright, we can do NFTs? [laughter]
Aja Whitaker-Moore
Well, we do have a newsletter that covers crypto and I think we do talk about that, you know, quite a bit. And NFTs have their place in the crypto world.
Unknown Speaker 15:48
Oh ho ho. No, it doesn’t have to be NF T’s. Metaverse can do another one. You guys bullish?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
I mean, I think the Metaverse is interesting. If you think about it from the standpoint of like, we’re just building it now. You know, we don’t actually know what it’s going to be.
Michelle Manafy
Is it going to be the Facebook-averse. Is that? Or is it going to be an open platform?
Aja Whitaker-Moore
I guess it depends on who you ask.
Michelle Manafy
We’re not going to ask Mark. Apparently, he didn’t want to talk to us about this.
Nicole Carroll
Which is weird. So weird. I mean, I think we just have to keep moving forward. Like I said at the beginning in all these spaces, and here’s the cool thing, we get to invent them, right? We get to say what they’re gonna be. So that’s awesome. We’re like, you know, I know, there’s a lot of stress in media right now. But I’m really excited about where we’re at right now in media, we’re, we get to invent the future. And that’s pretty cool.
Michelle Manafy
All right. The very last thing: leadership, like if you are looking out into the industry, and you want to just impart one piece of wisdom about leading an innovative team, no pressure. Aja: pressure.
Aja Whitaker-Moore
I mean, I think it’s really just about having a culture of activation and being able to experiment with an idea and nurture it from experiment, you know, to fruition. I think we do that, you know, every day at Axios. And really, every day in media. Every day, we’re writing a story. It’s like, you know, where’s this going to take us at? Where’s this gonna go? And just continuing, you know, to do that?
Michelle Manafy
I love that.
Nicole Carroll
Yeah. I think it’s all about the people. No matter what you do, you’ve got to create the culture. You’ve got to believe in people you’ve got to have, I think I call realistic optimism. We are in a tough world. But you realistically have to think “we can do these things.” And you have to impart that to people. You have to have a culture of “yes, let’s try it.” What can you do? What can you do in a month? What can you do in two months? We have to keep moving forward.
Michelle Manafy
Love it. Well, thank you both. I sincerely appreciate this. It was a great conversation and went to fast.
As the world learns from Australia’s news media bargaining code that has reportedly driven $200 million of funding to news organizations, a whistleblower revealed the tactics to try to stop other nations from importing and building on it. This panel featured the CEO of the whisteblower’s law firm, an advocate for the digital future of news organizations, and a member of Parliament working on new laws to create a more competitive market.
Held June 23, 10:45-11:05am ET at The 2022 Collision Conference in Toronto Canada
Jason Kint, CEO, Digital Content Next Libby Liu, CEO, Whistleblower Aid Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Member of Parliament for Beaches – East York, House of Commons of Canada Alex Kantrowitz, Founder & Editor-in-chief, Big Technology
The U.K.’s DMG is a media heavyweight by most measures and the group’s Daily Mail ranks close to the top on any chart for online newsbrands. In terms of web traffic, it places fourth in the U.K., 10th in the U.S. and sixth globally according to the U.K.’s Press Gazette.
At the FIPP World Media Congress in Portugal earlier this month, the U.K. news giant outlined its adoption of a “launch everyday” philosophy that, surprisingly, owes a lot to the paper’s print heritage. The result was a 300% increase in subscriber numbers in just two years.
Product director Simon Regan-Edwards was unable to travel, but Denis Haman of CMS supplier Glide stood in to explain how the Mail+ team brought a print mindset to the evolution of the Mail+ subscription product first launched in 2013.
Mail+ began by replicating the newspaper experience online. Between its launch in 2013 and 2020, Mail+ secured 40,000 subscriptions as a digital replica available across multiple devices, including Kindle and Amazon’s Alexa.
In March 2020, the decision was taken to begin building out the Mail+ offering and by June 2022 it had 120,000 subscribers in total, with 76,000 digital only subscribers. This level of growth is impressive in itself, but even more so considering the free-to-access Mail Online site sits alongside it.
Two years, nine updates
Over the two years between the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2022, the Mail+ team delivered nine major updates.
These started with the introduction of briefings and newsletters and the addition of content in areas where the audience wanted to see more — TV and radio, food and health. Mail+ today incorporates Best Of sections, ListenTo functions and puzzles.
Moving through a homepage rebuild and a new storefront to improve the subscriber sign-up journey, Mail+ then made the shift to an edition-based format with three daily updates.
Additional releases have since brought author and category pages, new sections, and enhanced search functionality. More recently, the team implemented a second home page redesign to pull together a unified Mail+ offering.
“It’s been actually incredible to watch,” said Haman, “The Daily Mail team has managed to work and rework the product and reconfigure what it means to the customers. I have rarely seen a product move at such a pace and reinvent itself repeatedly.”
Haman began by exploding the misconception that a print foundation will slow digital development, arguing that print is possibly the most agile of all content channels.
“It gets destroyed and remade every single day, with the opportunity to redraw it, reshape it, rework it. And it has to hit the deadlines,” he explained. The Mail digital team brought that print mindset to the rebuilding of Mail+. That meant launching “every day, every week, every month.”
Of course, digital is not the same as print and Haman noted that there are “sensible limits” to digital development, meaning everything takes more time than you might think. Quoting Alan Hunter, former head of digital at The Times, Haman said: “This means you won’t be asking for a new product feature on a Tuesday and expecting it to be in the app by Friday.”
Crucially, the Mail digital team was given license from the very top to keep going until the right formula was found for Mail+. From that foundation and armed with audience data that suggested there was a real interest in the evolving subscription product, the team built quickly following a rigorous framework for decision making.
Ask what problem you are solving
Haman described the sweet spot for innovation between visibility, viability and desirability. He said it was important to be disciplined in asking key questions. Do customers want the features you are developing? Are they financially viable and are they technically possible with the available resources?
“It’s really important to fall back on the process,” said Haman. “If you’re under pressure you can easily find yourself jumping to conclusions.”
Data is crucial in building insight into what is building habits and why people do what they do. But Haman said it is also important to be open to new voices. He highlighted customer-service teams, sometimes overlooked, but often a powerful source of knowledge into what motivates or demotivates readers.
Data also avoids the HIPPO trap — the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. Haman explained, “without data, it’s just an opinion.”
Networked teams bring together diverse groups with different perspectives and different skills, all the disciplines needed to launch a product. It’s important to give everyone access to the data to understand how it relates to revenue, engagement, and readership.
Haman emphasized the importance of giving everyone on the team a voice, and making sure that they are truly engaged in asking “What problem are we solving?” However, he took care to explain that although everyone should have a voice, “not everyone makes the decisions.”
Be realistic
To separate “should” from “could” and focus on priorities, the Mail+ development team used the MoSCoW methodology:
Must have
Should have
Could have
Won’t have
This helped the development team move faster and, crucially, get data back quickly to provide valuable insights for moving forward.
The team used digital tools across functions to “dig into” designs before development started. Haman compared this to making sure your architect’s plans are solid before starting to build; it’s considerably cheaper to revise plans than tear down half the house to make things right. Then lock designs to prevent changes at the 11th hour. “I love the fact that they would laminate designs,” he said. “It’s genuinely locked until it is released.”
The elegant exit
Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, said it is important to act on your temporary conviction as if it was a real conviction; and when you realize that you are wrong, correct course very quickly.
Data, again, provided insight to what was working and what wasn’t for The Daily Mail. And if something wasn’t working, Haman said it was important to ignore the sunk cost fallacy — that we have spent all this money and we have to make it work. He explained, “If it’s going in the wrong direction, you need to be brave enough to cut your losses, pivot, or rather elegantly exit and move to a new direction.”
Regan-Edwards made a guest appearance at the end of the session via Zoom and I asked him if he thought at the start of the project he would make nine major updates in two years? He said, “No, but I think what we learned through this whole process is don’t predict what’s coming in two years time, focus on what are we delivering for this next quarter. What makes sense in this next quarter? What do we want to do in the quarter after that?”
He also re-emphasized the importance of being led by feedback from customers. “We have a big focus on puzzles,” he said. “That’s come from the feedback of how people are using the product.”
And finally, he said, overcome the “moonshot mentality” that says, “We’re done now, let’s put it in the cupboard. Instead, get into the mentality that you want to constantly improve.”
As the subscriptions race has intensified, media companies are turning their attention to the substantial segments of their audience who aren’t willing — or financially able — to pay for a full subscription. Some are returning to the tried and true tactic of lower-cost ad-supported offerings, while others have doubled down on putting the plus in premium.
News brands have always run the gamut from super-premium to completely ad supported. And some have speculated that the trend of premium digital news offerings – with the notable success of The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Financial Times – bodes poorly for readers in search of quality and value. And the proliferation of low cost or free offerings can often overwhelm, and even under-inform when consumers actually avoid the news.
It’s possible that a new approach is emerging which may address these issues – and offers premium brands a way to expose a broader range of consumers to their content.
A financial case
Last month, Financial Times launched a new lightweight offering called FT Edit. The app offers readers eight hand-picked stories every weekday for just £0.99 per month.
Though it has amassed 1.2 million subscribers to date, FT has traditionally attracted a certain kind of subscriber due to the high-end financial news it covers. A typical subscriber is of a higher income, with an interest in or working for the financial sector. Its most affordable digital package, which ranges from $40-$69 a month (£35-£55) would be a stretch for those who don’t need specialist financial coverage. If a consumer is after more general news, plenty of other organizations have more affordable subscriptions.
But increasingly, FT is gaining a following outside of its financial journalism. Part of that appears to be the result of making certain facets of its broader scope publicly available. Its coronavirus coverage was the first to be made freely available in March 2020. It currently has a page dedicated to free-to-read coverage of the Ukraine war “to keep everyone informed as events unfold”.
“We are known for financial news, and we’re incredibly strong at our core product. But we produce a wide breadth of news that matters, and I don’t think people really know that about the FT,” Assistant Editor Janine Gibson explained. “We weren’t really sure whether people wanted to read our free stuff more than anyone else’s, but it was very, very, very successful.”
Creating a more affordable product
The team began to see that there was a much wider appetite for their journalism. The conversations started to turn towards what a much lower-cost product would look like for the publisher. Their research about what people wanted came back with a core message: a simple product with a start and end point. Something more reflective, analytical, and deeply reported – but also expertly curated.
“There’s a different thing happening in the world of quality journalism. People understand that paying for quality journalism is vital, but they don’t necessarily have the resources or the appetite for the full, unexpurgated experience,” Gibson said.
Within a matter of months, FT Edit was conceived. Not only is the price point low, the limited offering provides a concise and digestible solution to too much news. The company says “the purpose of FT Edit is to provide an alternative to endless scrolling, allowing readers time to digest eight important stories selected for them each day. It will launch with the strapline: time well read.”
An audience-centric approach
The concern for many publishers considering this option is cannibalization of the existing subscriber audience. But Gibson sees the audience for FT Edit as adjacent to their core subscribers, not competing.
“This app isn’t here to solve a problem for a news organization,” she explained. “So many digital product launches over the last decade have come from a position of weakness, like ‘We need to replace this revenue gap’. This is, is there a wider audience out there at a lower price point for the FT? But we don’t need to offset the cost of what we already do.”
“The price point really reflects the commitment from the board and the chief executive to genuinely saying, ‘I would like to expose a much wider audience of people to some FT journalism.’”
Now, the app will go through some tweaks to find out how many stories each day works best. It is early days, but should the app get a good response in the UK, Gibson said a dedicated US version with content curated for a US audience would follow.
A bracing shot of news
FT is not the first publisher to experiment like this. The Economist’s Espresso app is the most well-known example of a separate, lower cost, lower quantity subscription offering. The recently updated app, launched eight years ago, was introduced as a daily digital briefing to complement the core magazine, with short pieces of news and analysis. It was marketed as a quick ‘shot’ of news to get readers ready for the day.
Espresso is included as part of The Economist’s full digital subscription. It is offered as a standalone app for $7.99 (£7.99) in the UK after a seven day free trial. Those who don’t choose to subscribe can still read one article a day.
The publisher has been working on an upgrade of the app over the past few months. The new version delivers Espresso stories in both written and audio form, alongside charts, facts and quotes each day. It also includes a ‘For You’ tab that lets the user sample four stories a week from the main Economist site, based on their interests.
“The new Espresso is aimed at readers who may not have the time or inclination for the more in-depth Economist experience,” a spokesperson told us. “We see it as introducing a new generation of readers to the Economist brand.”
“We imagine that, over time, some will migrate to an Economist subscription as they come to appreciate the role that our full journalism offerings can play in their lives.”
Is an app the perfect outreach product?
The question of affordable quality journalism is likely to become ever-more pressing as more publishers turn to reader revenue. From the Washington Post to Bloomberg – and even The Smith’s yet unlaunched Semafor – the market is saturated with publications targeting the global elite who barely blink at paying hundreds of dollars a year for news access.
The challenge for publishers looking to attract a wider audience to quality journalism is pricing for access. This is where paid products like apps or even newsletters can be a good way of building a relationship with readers without asking them to pay premium prices.
The longevity of Espresso and the initial success of FT Edit also demonstrate that audiences respond well to content with a start and a finish point. Aside from the obvious parallels to print newspapers, a carefully curated, high-quality set of stories is now seen as a refreshing antidote to the endless scrolling, misinformation, and frantic news cycle. In other words, for a tiny fraction of the cost, you get a tiny fraction of the news: just what you need to know, concisely offered and expertly crafted and delivered.
Now, limited is in demand. A small bundle of stories well-packaged for mobile could be the key for other publishers to unlocking their vast untapped audiences who haven’t yet opened their wallets.
Mental shortcuts, snap judgments, gut feelings: everyone uses these to some degree while navigating an increasingly overwhelming news landscape. However, new research finds that these instant reactions are even more prevalent among the 25% of the population with the lowest trust in news. Low trust audiences are more likely to receive the bulk of their news incidentally while engaged in other online activities such as socializing, shopping, or searching for specific information pertinent to their daily lives. Significantly, low trust aligns with low interest. These individuals are unlikely to visit news sites on purpose. They are also the least-studied segment of the population when it comes to news-related behavior.
It is important that content providers understand the impact of snap judgments because they occur upstream of further engagement with news material. Research from the Trust in News Project out of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford offers insights based upon an exploration of the behaviors and habits of this audience segment.
News, cues, and clues
The report, Snap judgements: how audiences who lack trust in news navigate information on digital platforms was based upon a qualitative study that involved participants from four countries: Brazil, India, the United Kingdom and the United States. One hundred individuals were interviewed in depth via videoconference as they used one of three platforms: Google, Facebook, or WhatsApp, between December 2021 and January 2022.
Six types of cues were found to serve as as shortcuts for evaluating news:
Pre-existing ideas about news in general or particular news media brands, including reputation and perceived reliability of the news outlet.
Social endorsement cues, especially from friends and family.
Tone and word choice of headlines, with a skepticism for headlines that seem sensationalized.
Visual cues, with a preference for photographs and videos perceived as recent and relevant, as well as numerical data and links to other sources.
Presence of advertising or indications of sponsored content are often seen as indicative of bias and profit-driven motives.
Platform-specific cues such as Facebook likes and Google search engine rankings. (insert cues graphic)
Comfort and control
The study found low-trust individuals have much more favorable opinions of Google, Facebook and WhatsApp than they do of professional news sources. They consider these platforms valuable tools used in everyday life, whereas many stated most news is irrelevant to them. In fact, some perceive news as an attempt to manipulate them; many stated that politicians control major news sources. In “shoot the messenger” fashion, low-trust users tend to conflate content they dislike or find upsetting with news journalists or brands.
News reports on hot topics such as politics and issues that have become politically charged such as the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic are viewed with particular skepticism by the sample group. Participants indicated that content providers have more incentive to be untruthful about such topics.
Low-trust users are more likely to look favorably upon information presented in a manner perceived as enabling them to make up their own minds. Some participants cited the presence of numerical data or links to other sources as indications that news was reliable, while others praised Google search results as such a resource.
Addressing the audience gap
While some of the 25% have overtly hostile feelings towards news organizations, indifference is more to blame for lack of engagement. Lack of knowledge in how journalism works is also a factor. Those aware of their limited knowledge may be less confident in their ability to decipher content and more likely to ignore it altogether or rely on opinions of trusted social contacts.
Trust-building strategies employed by digital news organizations tend to focus on the behavior and practices of the savviest news consumers. This makes sense if the goal is to solidify one’s base. However, expanding outreach requires more understanding of the less-engaged 25%. Building relationships with new user groups requires deeper understanding of how they engage with their platforms of choice.
This research is significant for digital media providers because it represents data from the least-studied segment of the population, and because the findings are not limited to this group. While some of the cues relied on by these users are under exclusive control of digital platforms, others can be utilized by news providers. The study has compelling implications for how information can best be conveyed to those hardest to reach.
CNN is not new to digital. Its first iOS offering dates back to 2014. Things have changed a lot since then, though. Today, the market is overflowing with more than 600 streaming services and mobile apps from news and entertainment brands of all kinds. However, the company views its latest digital play as the most important step since Ted Turner launched CNN in 1980. With CNN+, the company is betting on an enhanced, interactive product that offers a truly premium digital experience.
As Robyn Peterson, CNN’s Chief Technology Officer, described the opportunity to me, “The New York Times has cornered the market in subscription text news. There is a white space in video news and there is not a video news subscription service of the caliber of CNN+. CNN is the only news organization with the resources, global credibility, and experience in video storytelling to offer a compelling product worth paying for.”
At launch, CNN+ offers an impressive slate of original and exclusive programming. They’ve dedicated roughly $100 million in development and a team of 500 staffers to the product, an investment that the company believes will set it apart from rivals, and compel free viewers to pay $5.99 a month for the enhanced offering.
Interactive innovation
In addition to the daily live shows CNN viewers already know and love, CNN+ adds the news brands’ first interactive streaming programming. For example, “Interview Club” is a service it’s counting on to “give subscribers access to newsmakers like never before.” This offering invites subscribers to submit questions from their computer, tablet or mobile device live or in advance of daily scheduled interviews between CNN’s journalists and newsmakers
“Interview Club fundamentally transforms what it means to become part of the story,” Courtney Coupe, Senior Vice President of Content Strategy and Operations for CNN+, said in a press statement. “Weaving this crucial element of interactivity into the core of CNN+ sets it profoundly apart from anything else that exists in the streaming marketplace.”
Historic depth and cultural relevance
Another attraction (and a first for news streaming apps) is exclusive on-demand access to more than a thousand hours from the library of CNN Original Series, CNN Films, and CNN Special Reports. This positions CNN+ to be a one-stop destination to access Emmy Award-winning titles and 40 years of history as told by CNN.
But CNN+ isn’t just opening the archives. Another selling point is the production of Pop Docs. These premium documentary specials, focused on pop culture stories, are more than an attempt to tap into our collective Zeitgeist. They are a part of the eclectic content arsenal CNN+ is counting on to expand its audience beyond die-hard news fans (the median age of a CNN viewer hovers around 64) and engage cord-cutting Millennials.
“With CNN+, we are expanding the reach and scope of the CNN brand and delivering additive content to our fans,” Peterson explains. “Offering content exclusive to CNN+ gives them something valuable worthy of pay.” The focus, he adds, is “global news highlighting our global resources around the world.”
Subscribe now
The monthly subscription package is priced at $5.99 (the same amount Fox News charges for Fox Nation, which launched in 2018). CNN+ is also offering early subscribers access to the “Deal of a Lifetime,” or 50% off the monthly plan – as long as they remain subscribers.
CNN+ is also revamping its mobile app to remove friction and fuel subscriber numbers. Currently, CNN+ is not a standalone app. It is integrated into the primary CNN app (launched in 2008). It appears as a plus sign that features prominently in the bottom navigation bar to allow easy navigation between platforms.
“The CNN+ logo and experience is also prominently featured on top of the CNN.com homepage for users to access the new streaming platform from CNN.com,” Peterson explains. While a user interface that is essentially a tab on a newly updated CNN app means more clicks, there are advantages to providing subscribers CNN+ and TVE (TV Everywhere) access. “We are working to make this the best experience for our customers, and part of that is featuring all CNN content within one CNN app so we can limit any potential customer confusion.”
This and other perks pave the way for CNN+ to achieve what Andrew Morse, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer of CNN Worldwide and Head of CNN+, has called a “very ambitious but achievable subscriber target.” While Morse doesn’t disclose the exact figure, he has hinted that a bundled offering with HBO Max and Discovery Plus is on the roadmap. The $43-billion combination of Discovery with AT&T’s WarnerMedia will undoubtedly result in a plethora of assets and bundles. The question is: Will audiences pay for it?
It’s tricky to call, particularly when the Corona bump that marked a surge in audience interest in subscription streaming services is ebbing. While the streaming market continues to grow, the pace of that growth has slowed significantly. Last quarterly earnings from most streaming service providers fell short of expectations, and Netflix even reported its lowest year of subscriber growth since 2015.
With CNN+, CNN is making an ambitious premium play in a crowded market. However, its investment in new interactive offerings, as well as the decision to offer a deep archive may put it in a class of its own in a sea of streaming apps.
It took The Boston Globe seven years to reach the first 100,000 subscribers. It only took a year to add the next 100,000. They’ve found that the key to accelerating growth is an introductory subscription offer so low, they’re practically giving the news away.
Head to bostonglobe.com and non-subscribers are given the option to read all the content they want for a bargain $1 for the first six months. While the Globe’s generous offer comes with an expiration date, a surprising number of subscribers decide that it’s worth paying more to stick around.
“We’re at the point where 90% of growth and revenue comes from subscriptions,” Tom Brown, vice president of consumer revenue for Boston Globe Media, said of the company’s digital operations.
How The Globe got here
With subscription growth slowing, The Boston Globe decided to try an experiment in 2018. The Globe, which has long believed its product was worth $1 a day, began charging that rate in 2015. It also decided it would try to accelerate subscriber growth with a bargain introductory offer.
In the first few days after making the one dollar introductory offer, Brown said they got thousands of new subscriptions “which was far higher than the 150 or so subscriptions that came in on a normal day.”
Beyond that, though, a higher number of those one dollar introductory offers converted into full-rate subscriptions. The Globe’s 2018 experiment alone led to a tenfold increase in subscriber conversions. “You’re stepping more people to the full rate every week than you ever would have with another other strategy,” Brown said.
“We felt good right away that we had not mortgaged our future in any way to do this test.” In fact, more than 80% of subscribers kept their subscriptions in the first month after prices reset. That fell over time but remained above 60% by the time a subscriber hit their three-month anniversary. And more than 30% of people continue to subscribe to bostonglobe.com after two years.
Attracting young audiences
There’s one almost surefire way to get a new customer to try a product — a discount so good it can’t be refused. That is especially true with younger audiences, which are accustomed to getting news from places like Instagram and TikTok.
“New and younger audiences were willing to give us a shot because it’s almost like a free trial,” Brown said. However, while a free trial might seem an obvious choice, research has found that charging any amount increases the odds audiences will convert from trial to subscriber at the end of the introductory period.
The paper also tried offering a four-week subscription for 99 cents but ultimately found the details of the offer didn’t make a meaningful difference in conversion rates. Audiences are required to enter a credit card to pay their $1 balance and are told their subscription will eventually renew at the weekly rate of $6.93.
Full funnel options
Brown notes that many younger subscribers didn’t grow up with a newspaper subscription so they were unaware of the breadth of the local paper’s offerings. “We’re a general interest news site that has so much and I’m not sure how much everyone knows all that we have,” he said.
Most visitors to bostonglobe.com get at least one free article. This classic move is designed to keep the top of the customer acquisition funnel open and signaling to Google and other platforms that audiences are engaging with the site.
Because an estimated 80% of Boston Globe readers don’t hit a paywall right away, readership – and ad views – don’t suffer because of a strategy aimed at driving long-term revenue growth, according to Brown.
Long-term customer value
It is wise to invest in the lifetime value of a customer. While an offer like this may take cash out of your pocket today, it offers the promise of exponential returns if audiences are happy with their experience.
“We’re making lots of decisions that we know may hurt or may not pay off this year, but will pay off over the long term,” Brown said. “The more subscribers you can acquire now, the better off you’ll be in the future.”
Nowadays, Brown and his team focus on making revenue-maximizing decisions without getting hung up on the small sacrifices it might take to get there. “This strategy is the right one for us,” he said. “The pandemic crystallized that in the sense that we became even more relevant to our readers as advertising became extremely volatile.” Being reader-supported makes the brand less vulnerable to the whims of advertisers.
And while the first few months after a price reset triggers some cancellations, those who stick around tend to be loyal customers. The volume of new subscribers can also make it easier to stomach the churn. “Our model is as tight as it’s ever been, and our audiences are larger,” Brown said.
The pandemic is just the latest thing to show subscription revenue can be much more dependable than ad revenue, Brown said. “It’s certainly not recession proof, but news is very relevant to people in times of crisis.”
The Center for Cooperative Media sees collaborative journalism as a way to share power among journalists, readers and others to deliver information that centers and addresses people’s needs. They believe that collaboration can be particularly impactful when it involves the community.
Their research analyzes three collaborative journalism experiments in Europe:
The Bureau Local in the U.K is a nonprofit collaboration of journalists and non-journalists (data scientists, academics, citizens, etc.) engaging in topic-driven reporting projects.
“L’Italia Delle Slot” in Italy is a collaboration among one legacy, and two start-up news organizations focused on a single topic.
Lännen Media in Finland is a co-op collaboration among regional news organizations through shared content production and distribution.
They conducted 29 interviews among journalists, senior management, community organizers, data analysts, technical experts, and others.
Collaboration models
Each of the three publications offers different collaboration models:
Lännen Media
This is a co-op model where similar news organizations join on specific topics and do not compete. They manage daily reports via video conferencing and skype with editors and share a content management system to follow what they work on in the different newsrooms.
This setup allows journalists to rotate into the cooperative from the regional newsrooms for two or three years and then return to their original masthead. While larger newspapers contribute more, all members share the costs of running Lännen Media.
“L’Italia Delle Slot
A contractor model that establishes a commercial contract to dictate the collaboration among organizations with specific areas of expertise. In this case, a large legacy news publisher combines efforts with two data-journalism-focused start-ups. In 2013, Effecinque, a start-up, began researching the increase in slot machines in Italy. Effecinque partnered with Dataninja, a data-journalism network, to investigate if slot machines in Italy correlated to the rise in gambling addiction. Effecinque and Dataninja partnered with GEDI Visual Lab to produce a web portal, data visualizations, videos, and other interactive content to showcase the details of the investigation.
This approach allowed the two start-up organizations, GEDI and 13 local newspapers, to define their roles based on areas of expertise. Further, the 13 local newsrooms provided local knowledge to tell the stories about their community using the data set.
The Bureau Local
This project-based collaborative model relies on a nonprofit to act as a central hub that coordinates and supports parallel investigations. It’s often a diverse collaboration from regional BBC bureaus to commercial, chain-owned newspapers to independent local dailies, community-owned sites, and freelancers. Many organizations share data managed by a NGO nonprofit newsroom focused on public interest. This also allows for non-journalists such as data scientists, designers, and others to work together. This type of collaboration often coordinates investigations across national and local levels to help drive discussions among local and national politicians and policymakers.
The digital media ecosystem is a great environment to start collaborations such as establishing networks across localities and shared resources. Jenkins’ and Grave’s research illustrates three collaborative journalism models to showcase each of their unique approaches. Lännen Media’s co-op model shares resources across regional newspapers, “L’Italia Delle Slot’s” contractor model engages expert journalists on short-term investigations. The Bureau Local NGO model manages a shared database by a nonprofit. Each model offers a viable model for publisher sustainability – maintaining a healthy structure of shared economics, goals, and healthy competition.
