Welcome to your week! Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Chris.
Fleet Street’s incursions into the US news sector
Sharing a primary language with the US has benefited British news titles for decades upon decades. But that’s been supercharged since the advent of digital news – and you could make a credible case that without access to US audiences the fortunes of UK-based titles would look very different in 2023. But, as this article from William Turville points out, there’s another landgrab ongoing as more UK titles push into the US.
“This year Reach plans to hire 100 staff to launch US websites for the Mirror, Express and the Irish Star. The Telegraph is currently hiring for two senior positions – US homepage and app editor and senior US SEO editor – to help meet its ‘ambitious targets for audience and subscriber growth in the US’. And the BBC is also expanding its news presence across North America.”
That’s in addition to the Spanish-language expansion from titles including the Independent. Global expansion is nothing new for news titles, but as the need for digital adspend grows we can expect to see more UK titles attempt to capitalise on their reputations in the US.
More changes to Twitter that prove Musk has no clue
When your newly-acquired media business is haemorrhaging advertisers due to the perception it’s an unsafe environment, what’s the obvious next move? Fire even more of the content moderation team, of course! Between that and the introduction of a 4,000 character limit in February it’s ever clearer that Musk has no idea what Twitter’s value is to its users and advertisers.
Media businesses make slow, slow progress towards representation
This is bittersweet news. Better representation in media businesses isn’t just a moral imperative, it’s better for the bottom line. That’s a win/win! And yet most media businesses are still only inching their way towards inclusivity, in part because of the inertia of our industry.
The Week Junior US goes from strength to strength
We love The Week Junior here at Media Voices. A counter-intuitive bet that still surprises people when they learn about it. So I’m well chuffed to find out that its US equivalent has topped 100,000 subscribers, and it managing to balance that with a growing advertising business as well.
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Throwback podcast
We’ll be back mid-Jan with a new season of the podcast. If you haven’t had chance to listen to our end-of-year review featuring BuzzFeed’s Caroline Fenner, AdWeek’s Stephen Lepitak and Poool’s Ludivine Paquet then here’s your last chance! Not really, it’s going to be up forever. It’ll be the last thing left on the internet.
