Good morning! Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Esther.
For creative publishers, micropayments are an invitation, not a cautionary tale — theaudiencers.com
‘Please not another micropayments article,’ you beg. There have been a lot recently. Analysts have got one whiff of a subscriptions slowdown and have all jumped to peg micropayments as the saviour for 2023. Apparently there are even a couple of mainstream publishers lined up to try them ‘properly’ next year.
Look, I would love micropayments to work. But rather than get preachy, I’m going to let this piece from Mark Stenberg explain why – at least for now – they just won’t. But more importantly, there are other ways of paying for content (think day/week/monthly access) that don’t involve readers having to jump straight into a long-term paying relationship with you.
“The gut logic of a micropayment system would suggest that there must be other ways of paying for news content that make more sense than the ones we are trying,” Mark says. “Consumers should have more options than the binary one – subscribe or don’t subscribe – they have now. They should feel empowered in their decision, not cowed into it, and there must be models out there that enable that.”
The last broadcast: traditional TV in transition as streaming wears the crown — voices.media
Streaming has overtaken traditional means of consuming TV, both in hours watched and interest from audiences. But as streaming services hunt for advertising revenue, the lines between TV and streaming are blurring. Chris Sutcliffe rounds up the year in broadcast and TV as part of our Media Moments 2022 report.
Research report: Succeeding with subscriptions — toolkits.com
Toolkits have released a really interesting report looking at consumer attitudes and behaviours towards publishers’ digital subscription products. Close to three in four people currently don’t subscribe to digital publications, but of those that do, 69% pay for more than one. Lots of growth potential there still.
Housty, is there a way we can attract graduates into magazine publishing? — internationalmagazinecentre.com
Peter’s latest column for the International Magazine Centre looks at ways we can tempt the young ‘uns into magazine publishing. In short, we need to get better at telling them about the good bits…oh, and paying interns and entry-level staff decent money.
New podcast:
Special: Highlights from Media Moments 2022 — voices.media
This special episode of Media Voices features the audio of our launch presentation for the Media Moments 2022 report. Chris, Peter and Esther each outline which media moment of the year they found interesting. The team are then joined by BuzzFeed’s Caroline Fenner, AdWeek’s Stephen Lepitak and Poool’s Ludivine Paquet to discuss what they’ve identified as the biggest shifts this year.
Media Moments 2022 is live! — voices.media
Our annual report has launched! Media Moments 2022 brings together the key events which have shaped the media and publishing industry this year, from the boom and bust cycles of the advertising market to news fatigue, the increasing prominence of climate coverage, and the impact of shifting trust.
