This week we hear from Jeff Kofman, founder and CEO of Trint, about the dark abyss of transcription, whether Google and Facebook are serious about funding journalism, and the good, the bad, and the ugly of social media.
Continue reading “Trint founder Jeff Kofman on why journalists should be entrepreneurs”
We’re really pleased to announce that we’ve launched our first report for What’s New in Publishing! Media Moments 2018 explores seven key areas which have influenced the media and publishing industry this year, from reader revenue and platforms to advertising and data. It finishes with a look at some of the key opportunities for 2019.
Each section gives an overview of the media moments which have defined the past year, along with a look at where we are now, what we can expect to happen next year, and case studies of publishers and brands who have made their mark, for better or worse.
Continue reading “Media Moments 2018: A report from What’s New in Publishing and Media Voices”
This week we hear from Popbitch co-founder Camilla Wright about the origins of the influential celebrity gossip site, whether celebs ever try to plant stories about themselves, and the romanticism of clandestine meetings in dark pubs.
This week we hear from Rafat Ali, co-founder and CEO of boutique travel publisher Skift. We spoke about what connects the dots between paid content, travel, dining and wellness, his belief in trendlines not headlines, his long-term aspirations for Skift vs short-term VC plays, and why he wants to be useless to his business.
Continue reading “Skift CEO Rafat Ali on paid content and the perils of VC funding”
The women’s magazine ABCs are rarely a pleasant read for magazine aficionados. But one magazine stands out from the rest as having shown consistent circulation growth, as well as managing to increase its revenue for the sixth consecutive year.
We spoke to Women’s Health editor in chief Claire Sanderson on the podcast this week about some of the reasons behind the magazine’s growth, at a time when similar titles are seeing double-digit falls in circulation, and a few have folded entirely.
Continue reading “How Women’s Health is defying circulation decline in women’s magazines”
This week, Claire Sanderson, the editor in chief of Women’s Health (UK) talks about the magazine’s circulation growth, why they love working with influencers, and how mental health has become such a vital part of overall wellness. She also explains how integrating the print and digital teams helps them to drive audiences between both platforms, and why VR will be a huge part of health and fitness in the future.
Continue reading “Women’s Health editor in chief Claire Sanderson on defying circulation trends”
This week, Claus Enevoldsen, Head of Growth for news aggregation platform Flipboard, talks about being a technology company with media values, how their human-led algorithms work to surface quality content, and why now is the perfect time for a platform like Flipboard. He also dives into the reasons behind their rise in both users and referral traffic over the past year.
It was with some surprise that I read about the figures a few weeks ago revealing that Flipboard had taken fourth place, behind Google, Facebook and Twitter, for referral traffic to publishers, sliding just ahead of Google News. Even more surprising was how tight this race now was. It changes day by day, but today for example, Flipboard provides 1.9% of referral traffic, with Twitter at 1.8% and Google News at 1.7%.
Flipboard hasn’t been high up the priority list for publishers for a number of years now. But when I spoke to Claus Enevoldsen on this week’s episode of the podcast, he said that “This is the right time for Flipboard. We truly believe that our time has come.”
This week we hear from Grace Harrison, founder of true crime magazine Foul Play on managing a magazine as a side hustle, what mainstream titles can learn from independents, and what makes Foul Play an altogether classier type of true crime title.
This week, Julio Bruno, CEO at Time Out Group talks about the brand reaching a milestone 50th birthday, the growth of their different revenue streams, and how they stay true to the Time Out brand across 315 cities. He also explains why the print magazine is still a vital part of the business, and how their unique approach to Time Out Markets is their biggest opportunity next year.
Continue reading “Time Out Group CEO Julio Bruno on growing diverse revenue streams”
This week, Sally Hampton, Consumer Magazines Publisher at DC Thomson talks about how she manages such a wide range of magazines, the biggest shifts she’s seen in print publishing, and a surprising new growth opportunity for niche Scottish titles. She also explains why she’s so optimistic about the future of magazine media.
Continue reading “DC Thomson’s Sally Hampton on why magazines have a bright future”
Many quality publishers are navigating the “valley of death” on their migration from an advertising-funded model to one more reliant on direct reader revenue. It’s not a journey that they’ll all survive. But publishers are being driven by the realization that solely ad-funded models won’t work in the age of platform intermediaries and tech giants, which control both content distribution and advertising revenue. However, for publications with a loyal, engaged audience, the journey is worth the risk.
Continue reading “How publishers are navigating the perilous path to diversification”
In this very special live episode of Media Voices the team discuss the future of free media in front of an audience at Magfest ’18, the UK’s premiere magazine-focused event. On stage in the far-flung city of Edinburgh, the team are joined by Mike Soutar, chairman of ShortList Media Limited, and Radio Times Editor Mark Frith to discuss the fate of free magazines.
Continue reading “Media Voices Live: What’s the future for free?”
The era of untrammelled growth in digital news subscriptions might be over before it truly began. Despite the high-profile successes of The Times, the NYT and The Washington Post among others, the needle hasn’t significantly moved when it comes to the number of people who are willing to pay for a digital news subscription. The latest Reuters Institute Digital News Report found that only single-digit proportions of people said they would subscribe to a digital news source.
Continue reading “Lessons in reducing churn from some of the world’s biggest publishers”
This episode, we hear from Lucy Kueng. She’s one of the go-to names for macro and micro industry analysis, a Google Digital News Senior Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, and has a tonne of other roles in the industry that allow her to see the bigger picture. We spoke about journalism’s perverse relationship with Silicon Valley, whether publications can make it across the Valley of Death, and how external pressures change internal newsroom structure.
Continue reading “Lucy Kueng on how Silicon Valley has changed journalism”
Digital advertising has never delivered on its potential for publishers. Crowded ecosystems, a break in the value chain between creator and audience, and the prioritisation of direct reader revenue all demand the question ‘is advertising more hassle than it’s worth?’
Continue reading “Is advertising more hassle than it’s worth?”
In this episode of the Media Voices podcast Mathew Ingram, media writer for the Columbia Journalism Review, explains why publishers need to take a more human approach to their memberships, the role of platforms in disrupting those relationships, and whether ‘trust’ is a meaningful metric.
In this week’s episode of Media Voices, Peter talks to Rob Wijnberg, co-founder and Editor in Chief of Dutch ad-free, member-funded news site De Correspondent. After securing runway funding, Rob is in New York preparing the launch of The Correspondent, an English-language version of the news network, and he spoke about the obstacles and opportunities the team is encountering ahead of launching.
Continue reading “De Correspondent co-founder Rob Wijnberg on launching in the US”
With the rise of subscriptions and paywalls comes the realisation that there’s a large chunk of a publisher’s audience that they may never be able to effectively monetise. Only an estimated 5% of a publisher’s digital readership will convert to pay for a full subscription, according to Digiday.
But what’s the alternative? Micropayments are one of the alternative revenue streams touted by hopeful tech start-ups and half-heartedly trialled by some organisations. But you’d be hard pushed to think of a publisher in the Western hemisphere who has properly explored micropayments, for better or for worse.
Though the UK’s vote to exit the EU and the election of Donald Trump may have roiled the British and American public, both have been great for subscription sales. Stories of the readership surge caused by the Trump Bump and the Brexit Bounce are legend among audience development professionals.
Everyone knows, except maybe the president, that The New York Times gained more than 250,000 subscribers in the quarter after his election. The UK’s own Times newspaper doubled its subscription sales over the weekend of the EU referendum by opening access to deep-dive Brexit pieces like: Life after Brexit: what happens next.
Continue reading “You Can Sell Anything Once, But How Do You Keep Readers Paying for Content?”
