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Here’s an idea I absolutely love: the Wall Street Journal is running a limited-run newsletter based on archived content to find long-term readers and subscribers. A new series called the “7 financial crises that rocked the US” looks back at the most serious misdeeds in corporate America over the last century, from the world’s biggest Ponzi scheme to the Enron scandal.
Newsletter producer Liz Webber was researching items for its flagship What’s News newsletter, when she came across its archived coverage of Charles Ponzi, the namesake behind the fraudulent scheme. That led to the idea of a series the publication could provide an authoritative take on, which would also appeal to both new and existing Journal readers.
There are countless examples of how valuable archival and evergreen content is to publishers, but I think this is the first example I’ve seen of it being used to lead a newsletter series rather than as filler. I can’t wait to see the results.
The Guardian’s international growth continues – during the year international revenues grew to £93.2m and now account for 35% of revenues overall following sustained investment in journalism and digital capabilities (investing in your staff and tech = more revenue, who’d have guessed!) Over half of their reader revenue now comes from outside the UK.
Barry Diller’s company, IAC, and a handful of key publishers are close to formalizing a coalition that could lead a lawsuit as well as press for legislative action. Publishers have an interesting case to be heard here and there’s a vital conversation that needs to be had about business models for both generative AI tools and publishing to survive. But they might need to keep expectations in check.
CoinDesk finally has a consortium interested in buying the company. Jacob Donnelley has a number of thoughts on the deal: “$125 million for CoinDesk is unbelievably rich,” he says. “Last year, it did $50 million in revenue. This year, I suspect that number is materially lower. And based on what I’ve heard, the company remains unprofitable.”
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