One of my favourite media management quotes is from Jim Brady who said that when it comes to building a sustainable business, there are no silver bullets only shrapnel. The first two items in the newsletter today reinforce that both from a strategic view and also from a practical view at the Financial Times. Anita Zielana outlines a great process with three short case studies from independent media from around the world for diversiying revenue streams. One case study that leaped out at me was URL Media, which is a network of BIPOC (US acronym for Black, Indigenous, and people of color) media outlets. They provide support services to this network including audience development, recruiting and philanthropic funding development. All of the examples speak to the creativity that is needed to make a modern media business thrive.

I also like the onion principle of revenue diversification, which recommends that publishers focus on core existing revenue streams and build out from there. This helps a publisher leverage existing capabilities to grow from a solid base.

Why a diversified revenue portfolio is the best sustainability insurance for media organizations – RJI

rjionline.org/news/why-a-diversified-revenue-portfolio-is-the-best-sustainability-insurance-for-media-organizations

The FT is a good example of so many solid management techniques - from their North Star framework to their embrace of data. And this has meant a diversified set of revenue streams that mean solid results.

Online subs, events and advertising fuel FT revenue boost for 2022 to £458m

Globally the FT Group grew revenues by 5% in 2022 according to unaudited accounts.

pressgazette.co.uk/media_business/financial-times-revenue-profit-2022

In this week’s Pugpig Media Bulletin, we covered a new report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism that added some qualitative data to their quantitative data on subsciption trends. While the cost of living crisis (inflation) was the top reason that people cancelled their subscriptions (especially in the UK), the second biggest reason is that people didn’t perceive value from the subscriptions. They simply didn’t develop a habit of using it. The importance of good subscriber onboarding and building habits with new subscribers immediately is a theme that we touch on often at Pugpig Consulting.

Reuters Institute: Cost, failure to develop habit driving subs to cancel - Pugpig

We review the range of ways that apps can contribute to higher average revenue per user including acquiring new paying users.

www.pugpig.com/2023/09/29/reuters-institute-finds-price-and-failure-to-find-value-driving-subscription-cancellations

This week in Google: Shifts in podcast distribution and giving publishers a choice on LLM training

Podcasting is in transition right now, with podcast publishers and distributors making changes. Google has announced that it will retire its podcast app next year and point users to YouTube Music. Users have long been using YouTube to listen to or even watch podcasts so this leans into audience behaviour.

Google Podcasts to shut down in 2024 with listeners migrated to YouTube Music | TechCrunch

Google announced this morning it will be shutting down its Google Podcasts app later in 2024 as part of its broader transition to move its streaming

techcrunch.com/2023/09/26/google-podcasts-to-shut-down-in-2024-with-listeners-migrated-to-youtube-music

Digital publishing professionals in my social media feeds were noting that Google had released a tool that allows them to block their sites from being scraped from generative AI.

Google Will Enable Web Admins To Block Systems from Scraping Sites for AI Training

This will likely become a requirement for all generative AI projects.

www.socialmediatoday.com/news/google-block-systems-from-scraping-sites-for-AI/695123

I am highlighting this expansion of a local news provider in the US because it provides a great playbook of community-centered engagement and design. They have held house parties and other community meetings that not only gives people a voice in their future direction but also builds relationships between the publisher and community.

From the CEO: San José Spotlight is expanding its reach - San José Spotlight

Nearly a year ago we started exploring what an expansion of San José Spotlight could look like—five years after launching the publication that’s become a national leader among nonprofit newsrooms. We hear almost daily from readers who hope our impactful journalism can serve other South Bay cities. While our commitment to our hometown of San...

sanjosespotlight.com/from-the-ceo-san-jose-spotlight-is-expanding-its-reach

In one of the first battles in the rising AI economy, Hollywood writers have largely achieved their aims. It sets a good standard on how workers can respond to AI, but it is a question whether other workers that will be affected by AI such as marketers and journalists will have the same bargaining power.

The writers strike is over; here's how AI negotiations shook out | TechCrunch

After almost five months, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) has reached an agreement with Hollywood studios to end the writers strike. Starting

techcrunch.com/2023/09/26/writers-strike-over-ai

Social Media: Canadian journalism students and nonprofit outets suffer in battle with platforms

Canada passed a bill earlier this year that required digital platforms like Google and Meta to negotiate with news publishers on payments for their content. Meta decided to block all Canadian news content rather than comply with the leigislation. Critics of the legislation said that any benefit from it would flow to major publishers but leave small publishers out. And now small publishers such as student and nonprofit community outlets are cataloguing the impact of the legislation on their efforts to reach audiences. “It’s having an outsized effect on small publishers. Gizmodo spoke to half a dozen student journalists and station managers who say the ban on news links, intended to hurt big-name publishers, has instead hamstrung their vital ability to fundraise, recruit volunteers, or engage in community outreach.”

Meta's Canadian News Blackout Is Crushing Student Journalists

Student publications and nonprofit community outlets are caught up in a drawn-out battle between the Canadian government, big-name publishers, and Meta.

gizmodo.com/facebook-instagram-canada-news-student-journalist-meta-1850835646

One of the dangers of AI was that it could be used to quickly and cheaply generate disinformation and scams. Social platforms are rushing to develop new rules to manage this tsunami of dangerous content. It’s going to battle of attrition between the platforms, the propagandists and the grifters.

As More AI Bots Infiltrate Social Platforms, Each Is Developing New Rules To Keep Up

AI bots are becoming more prominent, peddling scams and spam on social networks.

www.socialmediatoday.com/news/more-ai-bots-infiltrate-social-platforms-each-developing-new-rules/694686

Friday and Saturday, I got to catch up with two friends in the industry, Greg Piechota of INMA and Damon Kiesow, the Knight Chair in Journalism Innovation at the University of Missouri. Greg and I talked about a lot of things including the cost of developing an app for a news organisation and where apps sit in the conversion funnel for publishers. I came away thinking that the presumption of app development being pricey might be due to the high cost of in-house development. And I would have said that before I joined Pugpig because I’ve always been more on the buy side of the buy versus build discussion. We also talked about the business models that support local journalism. I’m more sceptical of advertising-supporting models than Greg is. I’m definitely a reader revenue convert. I say convert because I thought that digital advertising would provide more revenue than it has. And it still can, but the real revenue is in direct sales and not programmatic or network ad sales. However, the real issue might not be down to advertising-supported models versus reader-revenue supported models but rather those newspaper groups that are solely focused on local and those like Gannett and Reach that try to balance the demands of local and national publishing.

Damon and I talked about a lot of things including what Press Forward means for US local news, but one of the topics that really interested me was a research idea that he had. When thinking about the future of local journalism, there is a question about what services can be shared and what services are best locally controlled and executed. Large newspaper groups like Gannett (Gatehouse before it) and Reach have centralised a lot of services to try to reduce costs in the face of declining revenues. It’s a very typical business strategy, but if it was the answer, both groups would be performing better than they are. Although Damon appreciates that it runs counter to conventional wisdom, it is worth thinking about what services make economic and operational sense to centralise. Centralised and regionalised reporting has been a mixed bag to be sure, but I also would argue that centralised direct sales has failed to deliver. The local relationships that both reporters and ad sales staff have are core to the business. Back-end services can definitely be centralised, although when I was at Gannett in 2014-2015 the HR function was so centralised that HR partners had to cover multiple states. It really is a good question, and we both thought that the first step was convincing people that it was a reasonable question to ask. To be honest, it is the kind of industry research that needs to happen, and I wouldn’t mind doing it (if I wasn’t already busy with my day job).

Speaking of Reach, as someone who consulted with Reach on Engagement for a couple of years (2016-early 2018), I still have a soft spot for them because their teams were so dedicated and innovative. They have needed a strategic pivot because their current strategy simply isn’t working, and I welcome the fact that they are trying to diversify their revenue from advertising and platform-driven volume. Here is a bit of straight talk that I hope my friends don’t mind. The first challenge with these paid-for products will be to convince customers that they are worth paying for. Some of their brands have lost a lot of equity in their communities.

Reach reader revenue trials: Premium apps, paid-for newsletters and ad-free Express

Reader revenue: Reach is trying out an ad-free offering on the Express, metered apps on the MEN and Liverpool Echo, and paid-for newsletters.

pressgazette.co.uk/paywalls/reach-reader-revenue-experiments-premium-apps-newsletters-ad-free-express

Very apropos of the discussion about internal services, the New York Times has an interesting piece from a member of their print hub team. The Print Hub at the New York Times takes copy that was written for digital platforms and edits it for print. It shows how digital-first these processes have become, and it also pulls back the curtain to let readers understand how the sausage is made.

Lessons Learned From the Print Hub

After a few months writing (and rewriting) headlines for the front page of The New York Times, one journalist has some takeaways.

www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/insider/lessons-learned-from-the-print-hub.html

This story shows that the local journalism crisis is a North American story, not just a US story, and in many ways, the headlines out of Canada about job cuts and the wholesale shuttering of titles has been starker than in the US over the last year. This headline was incredibly shocking, and it’s unclear what happens next.

Toronto Star owner cutting 600 jobs at regional papers, seeking bankruptcy protection for unit | CBC News

Nordstar, the company that owns the Toronto Star and other newspapers, announced Friday that it is seeking bankruptcy protection for the unit that owns more than 70 local newspapers and axing more than 600 jobs in the process.

www.cbc.ca/news/business/torstar-metroland-nordstar-1.6968044

As someone who has worked in local print, TV and radio media in the US, I find this fascinating. The crisis in local media in North America is undeniable. Press Forward is just one effort to respond to this crisis. Another comes out of US public radio. Public radio provides invaluable services to local communities across the US. My first full-time journalism job was in western Kansas, and I used to listen to High Plains Public Radio reading service for the blind. It was a service intended for the blind or visually impaired, but for me, it was a great way for a poor journalist to listen to what was, in effect, an audiobook service. But the news service was spread out over thousands of square miles, and they often relied on local newspapers for material. It will take creativity and a lot of different experiments to address the crisis. I think small digital outlets will be the foundation, but I also see public radio playing a role as well.

'Public Media and the Future of Local Journalism' position paper released - Editor and Publisher

A coalition of public media organizations has published "Public Media and the Future of Local Journalism." The paper, endorsed by more than 120 leaders across public media, presents a shared vision for the role public media can play in the future of local news and provides specific action items to face the growing information crisis.

www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/public-media-and-the-future-of-local-journalism-position-paper-released,245730

Revenue pressures are not just on local journalism groups but also on digital creators such as the writers on Substack. Like bigger outlets looking to increase ARPU through bundling, Substack creators are looking to diversify their revenue by adding podcasts.

Substack writers are launching podcasts on the platform to ease reliance on ad revenue

Hoping for more subscription revenue – and to lessen their reliance on ad revenue – Substack writers are bringing their podcasts to the platform.

digiday.com/media/substack-writers-are-launching-podcasts-on-the-platform-to-ease-reliance-on-ad-revenue

And in today’s review of AI headlines, we have news out of the UK of AI 'editorial ‘co-pilots’’ but also a bit of news about efforts to monetise archives. Again, this is about creating resilience at publishers by leveraging technology not just to squeeze costs from the business but also to add revenue. This is promising.

Editorial 'co-pilots' and monetising archives: What likes of ITN, Future, Bauer and AP are doing with generative AI

We round up the best things publishers told Press Gazette's Future of Media Technology Conference 2023 about what they're doing with AI.

pressgazette.co.uk/platforms/ai-news-publishers-future

And my friends over The Mix look at the challenges that generative AI pose to publishers. This article looks at the challenge that AI chatbots could pose. As we often say at Pugpig, now is the time to lean into creating direct relationships with audiences. Instead of worrying about what Google, Microsoft and others do, this is the time to act.

Generative AI threatens to undermine news media business models. How are news publishers reacting and adapting? - The Fix

As generative AI gains prominence, news publishers are grappling with concerns about its potential impact on their business models. Can they devise a winning strategy to stay afloat?

thefix.media/2023/9/8/generative-ai-threatens-to-undermine-news-media-business-models-how-are-news-publishers-reacting-and-adapting

The Texas Tribune not only helped inspire a wave of non-profit newsrooms in the US but also sold its experience in the space as a way of earning revenue. So when it recently announced its first ever layoffs, questions were asked. Andrew Ramsammy has a reminder for anyone who suffered from romantic thinking about the non-profit model. “"Non-profit media isn't a business model, it's a tax status." Andrew offers some very useful advice for people looking to launch a non-profit. First off, it’s important to acknowledge that non-profits suffer from the same business challenges that for-profit companies do. He also points out that a large donation might lead an organisation to expand beyond its long-term revenue streams. Yup, and also philanthropy often comes with reporting requirements and many times a requirement to cover specific issues or areas. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

For my money, I would explore B-corp status. It has its own requirements, but I think that it helps align the missional aspects of journalism with the business. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have to make money, but it does mean that your missional goals are baked into the enterprise.

The Myth of Non-Profit Media Immunity: A Deep Dive into Sustainability

In the fast-paced, constantly changing media landscape, a declaration has reverberated: "Non-profit media isn't a business model, it's a tax status." It's a statement I've made multiple times in public forums, and to this day, it stands as a stark reminder that, in the world of journalism and media,

www.linkedin.com/pulse/myth-non-profit-media-immunity-deep-dive-andrew-ramsammy/

While much of the attention in English-language media is about the travails of local media in the US and UK, The Fix rounds up efforts to support local media across Europe. This really describes a common issue: “Local media often prioritise community service over economic viability. This leads to precarious financial standing for the outlet in the medium and long term. Lack of funding also puts more pressure on the journalists and reporters as they would then need to do their work on a voluntary basis.”

Overcoming the financial problem – strategies used by local media in Europe - The Fix

As European local publishers are struggling to secure funds, they are looking for novel ways to fund their projects.

thefix.media/2023/8/18/overcoming-the-financial-problem-strategies-used-by-local-media-in-europe

This is a great piece about the hit model of media. “In an apparent contradiction, the internet both fragments and concentrates attention.” Yes, and with every new format - like podcasts - there is a period of massive expansion when new players can rapidly stake a claim to attention before major players get involved. It’s an exciting time, but eventually, consolidation takes place. A thoughtful piece maybe to read over the weekend.

Power Laws Have More Power Than You Think

Why hits will persist in a world of infinite content

every.to/p/power-laws-have-more-power-than-you-think

One of the things that my master’s degree gave me was a deep appreciation of the power of qualitative research. I’m a data geek at heart, but I learned how critical adding qualitative data is in terms of product development and research. Here is a case study from Oz about how Nine uses a community platform to conduct qualitative research to canvas its audience in a much more informal and consistent way.

Nine uses its Conversations platform to learn more about its audience communities

The Conversations platform is an online solution that gives audiences a chance to provide feedback, offering valuable qualitative insight.

www.inma.org/blogs/value-content/post.cfm/nine-uses-its-conversations-platform-to-learn-more-about-its-audience-communities

I had heard about this through the former Guardian employees’ network. I was at the Guardian when we launched the local project, and while I had my doubts about the positioning of the project, I was saddened to see that it only had a year-long runway to test the idea. The journalists were doing exactly the right things. It’s good to see one of the team take what they learned and apply it to the modern local model. It’s another data point in how newsletters are now the MVP - minimum viable product - of local journalism.

Journalist quits Meta job after Edinburgh-focused Substack takes off

A journalist who worked on The Guardian's local news pilot in 2010/11 wanted to revive the spirit behind it with a Substack for Edinburgh.

pressgazette.co.uk/newsletters/edinburgh-guardian-substack-newsletter

Media companies might not be presenting a united front on the IP issues related to AI, but The Guardian has joined a growing group of major news groups that are blocking OpenAI’s GPTBot crawler.

The Guardian joins other publishers, including Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Reuters, and CNN, in blocking OpenAI's GPTBot web crawler

By Dan Milmo / The Guardian. View the full context on Mediagazer.

mediagazer.com/230901/p8

We are now onto our second and third round of stories about Mark Thompson taking the helm at CNN. Personally, I think that 24-hour cable news channels are an anachronism. They are powerful when a major news event demands live coverage, but most news doesn’t require the wall-to-wall coverage that can be done on a 24-hour channel. However, the ability to go live when you need to and have the capacity to be on demand at other times, I think there is something compelling there.

Can Mark Thompson revive CNN’s struggling fortunes?

The former BBC and New York Times chief has been tasked with revitalizing a news network that seems to have lost its way

www.theguardian.com/media/2023/sep/03/mark-thompson-cnn-chief-executive-new-york-times

Poynter highlights a story that was making the rounds in journalism Twitter last week about a family in Pennsylvania that was fighting each other over the sale of four titles it owns to vulture fund Alden Global Capital. And Poynter calls for new policy to prevent more consolidation in local media in the US.

Action needed to avoid local news setbacks like Pennsylvania sale - Poynter

Alden Global Capital's purchase of four local papers highlights the need for new policies and more options.

www.poynter.org/commentary/2023/opinion-action-needed-to-avoid-local-news-setbacks-like-pennsylvania-sale

Social media and creator economy roundup

I have to say that there was a time when I thought that Substack was pivoting its way to oblivion, but it finally seems to have put the product features together that have created a compelling network media play with newsletters, podcasts and a social network coming together to support the creators.

Substack introduces new AI-powered audio transcription tools | TechCrunch

Substack is introducing new AI-powered tools that are designed to make it podcasting on the platform easier.

techcrunch.com/2023/08/30/substack-introduces-new-ai-powered-audio-transcription-tools

And we have more news about Meta stepping back from news as it faces more regulation globally. Canada is trying to make its case for a new law that requires Facebook to pay news outlets. Meta isn’t biting and will continue to block news in the country. And in Europe, Meta is closing its new tab. Also in Europe, it is considering a subscription offering that would eliminate ads.

Canada tries to address news law concerns, Facebook not convinced

Canada unveiled draft rules on Friday for a law to compel internet giants to pay news outlets, saying it was addressing the tech companies' concerns, but Facebook said it would stick to plans to block news in the country.

www.reuters.com/world/americas/canada-says-addressing-google-facebook-concerns-over-online-news-law-2023-09-01

Meta plans to eliminate the Facebook News tab in the UK, France, and Germany in early December 2023 and won't sign new deals for news content in those countries

From Meta. View the full context on Mediagazer.

mediagazer.com/230905/p6

Meta’s Considering a New Subscription Offering Which Would Enable EU Users to Eliminate In-Stream Ads

How much would you pay for an ad-free Facebook?

www.socialmediatoday.com/news/metas-considering-a-new-subscription-offering-which-would-enable-eu-users/692645

When the industry publication like the Press Gazette in the UK prints this, it feels like a wake up call about the state of regional journalism in the country:

Gilson’s point is that efforts to save local journalism in the UK - here call regional journalism - shouldn’t be focused on propping up the large newspaper groups such as Reach and National World, which he called “a handful of husk-like companies led by overpaid chief execs employing ever-decreasing numbers of low-paid but blameless reporters”. Ouch again.

In short, he wants to allow these large companies to continue to decline while there is support in the way of grants, charitable endowments and also some state funding to support start-ups that are exploring new models.

From the experience in the US, this will happen regardless of what the government does or does not do. The big giants in the US and the UK are becoming less and less rooted in communities and much more regionalised, spreading thin staffs over wider areas and providing less community news. This is allowing scrappy small players to develop and grow on their own. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Former editor argues support for local news should be directed outside major publishers

Michael Gilson, ex-editor of the Belfast Telegraph and The Scotsman, shares his outlook on the future of the UK local journalism industry.

pressgazette.co.uk/comment-analysis/future-local-journalism-comment-michael-gilson

And Gilson refers to a report from well-respected media watchers Enders Analysis that says that mass print has only a few years left, about three to five. From what I’m hearing in my work, the costs of print are simply becoming prohibitive. Publishers really need to game out what would happen in a digital-only or at least digital-dominant local journalism world. In Reach’s latest quarterly results, digital revenue was down 16% to £60m while print revenue still dwarfed that figure at £217m. Even if you take the costs of print out of the equation, those businesses simply couldn’t operate at that scale if they lost the bulk of their revenue. Enders says that publishers will have to transform themselves into sustainable digital businesses. While the UK has some unique challenges, this is possible.

Next five years critical for survival of UK local media as mass print enters 'final phase'

A new report from Enders Analysis urges advertisers and the government to support local media.

pressgazette.co.uk/comment-analysis/next-five-years-critical-for-survival-of-uk-local-media-as-mass-print-enters-final-phase

And almost on cue, one model is attracting not only audiences but also investment. Newsletter-first publisher, The Mill has seen investment from the former NYTimes CEO and recently named CNN CEO Mark Thompson and Axios Publisher Nicholas Johnson. It’s a smart move by Johnson who is building out his own local newsletter network in the states under the Axios brand. For established players, newsletters have become a critical audience development tool, and for start-ups, they have become the MVP - the minimum viable product - that allows them to enter new markets.

Leading media figures invest £350,000 in local news start-up The Mill

The Mill investment: Backing from Mark Thompson and Axios Publisher Nicholas Johnston gives The Mill £1.75m valuation

pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/regional-newspapers/the-mill-invesment

I mentioned that lay-offs the Texas Tribune earlier this week, and Nieman Lab called on the organisation to be more transparent about what happened so that other non-profits can learn from it. One thing that seems to have happened is that the Texas Tribune received some of its funding from educational advertising, which seems to have been curtailed under new rules by the state of Texas.

The Texas Tribune’s first-ever layoffs worry the news industry

Frustration over a lack of transparency has been amplified by the newsroom's status as "the gold standard of nonprofit journalism" and a role model other outlets have been encouraged to follow.

www.niemanlab.org/2023/08/the-texas-tribunes-first-ever-layoffs-worry-the-news-industry

A look at the positive reception that Mark Thompson is receiving as he takes over the helm of CNN. I think that his ability to navigate the ‘institutional politics’ of an organisation like CNN will be his most valuable trait. Seeing as his predecessor came in and shuttered a new digital-only offering, it will be interesting to see what Thompson brings in terms of digital strategy to CNN.

The coronation of Sir Mark Thompson

Imagine how Chris Licht must have felt reading the coverage of Mark Thompson’s arrival as the new head of CNN. When Licht stepped into the network’s top job last year, he was met with deep media skepticism. (Coverage often dismissed him as a “late-night producer.”) That sense of doubt was ultimately vindicated by a series […]

With much of this newsletter focused on local news, here is a good thing to digest over the weekend: an overview of the relationship of the decline in local journalism and increased partisanship in the US. I do remember when I was a local editor that some local folks who had an axe to grind about Big Media didn’t distinguish the coastal media elites that they loved to rail against and our tiny local newsroom.

The connections between decline of local news and growing political division

Judy Woodruff recently examined how the loss of thousands of local newspapers across the country is depriving communities of some of the glue that holds them together and fueling division. She now looks at how some news outlets are managing to hang on and whether what they’re doing is sustainable. It’s part of her series, America at a Crossroads.

www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-connections-between-decline-of-local-news-and-growing-political-division

Today in AI: Gannett pulls back from an experiment after glaring issues and authors sue OpenAI

Gannett was in the news and definitely not the kind of headlines it would want. The US newspaper giant was using AI to write some of its local sports reports, and sadly, it seems that they didn’t think to have a copy editor take a look over them. Sigh.

Gannett to pause AI experiment after botched high school sports articles | CNN Business

Newspaper chain Gannett has paused the use of an artificial intelligence tool to write high school sports dispatches after the technology made several major flubs in articles in at least one of its papers.

www.cnn.com/2023/08/30/tech/gannett-ai-experiment-paused

This case will have a profound impact on the interpretation of copyright in the age of large-language models. If a piece of content is used to train an LLM, does that mean that every work is derivative of the original scraped works? And if so, how will compensation be determined?

OpenAI disputes authors’ claims that every ChatGPT response is a derivative work

Authors claim generative AI is just a "grift" that repackages original works.

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/openai-disputes-authors-claims-that-every-chatgpt-response-is-a-derivative-work

Ben Smith of Semafor posted this in the wake of the announcement that the Washington Post would be laying off staff from its Arc XP CMS platform. I think the issue is that while Vox and the Post built tools that worked for them and then tried to seek a new revenue stream by selling on that technology. The issue is that is split the focus of product development for the businesses and created tensions between the internal product roadmap and the roadmap for their external customers. The Post tried to strike a balance and still seems to be trying to succeed in that balancing act. But whether the layoffs at the Washington Post are indicative of larger problems for the parent company or another data point in why publishers shouldn’t become tech companies has yet to be seen.

The Post and Vox both took serious runs at building internal tech companies, and made very cool stuff, but in the end the business didn't work

— Ben Smith (@semaforben)
Aug 29, 2023

And one last social media note for the week. Meta’s Threads is trying to iterate quickly to regain lost momentum. Meta is good at that, but the social space is particularly cluttered right now. There will have to be a shake-out of all of these platforms that have sprung up in the wake of Twitter’s drama-filled decline since Musk bought it as his personal plaything.

Threads Continues to Add More Elements as it Seeks to Capitalize on Early Interest

Has the opportunity for Threads already passed?

www.socialmediatoday.com/news/threads-continues-to-add-more-elements-as-it-seeks-to-capitalize-on-early-i/692408

By now, publishers have acknowledged the importance of first-party data as platforms like Google and Apple offer privacy as a feature to users. It might seem self-serving for those companies, but there is customer demand for it. Now, Dorrine Mendoza with the Local Media Association in the US introduces the idea of zero-party data, where users willingly offer you data when they offer you information about themselves with registrations, newsletters or contest offerings. It’s quite an old idea - users trade their data for access or some other tangible benefit, but with the changes in the industry it is gaining new currency. I think the new realisation is that while data is critical so are the relationships that you have with your audiences. It is the basis for sustainable reader revenue business.

Putting the power of your community to work for you

Dorrine Mendoza, project lead for LMA’s Family and Independent Media Sustainability Lab, shares her takeaways from LMA’s annual conference, which included a discussion about the challenges and opportunities around collecting customer data.

localmedia.org/2023/08/gimme-your-email-the-power-of-first-party-data-in-todays-digital-age

Publishers are working hard to adjust to the new world of AI, and in doing so, they want to own their destiny. One area that seems to be a focus of experimentation and product development is the development of AI chatbots using their own material, and the tech publisher behind Macworld and PCWorld are trying their hand at building their own AI chatbots.

Can news outlets build a “trustworthy” AI chatbot?

Tech sites including Macworld and PCWorld are using a new AI tool.

www.theverge.com/2023/8/25/23844868/ai-chatbot-macworld-pcworld-journalism-smart-answers

Another area of experimentation with AI is using the tools to make simple editorial tasks easier such as transcription or summarisation. Paul Cheung at the Reynolds Journalism Institute in the US reviews a couple.

Two friendly AI sidekicks for web reading – RJI

These plugins help summarize, synthesize and analyze

rjionline.org/news/two-friendly-ai-sidekicks-for-web-reading

Industry News - Layoffs at the Washington Post and the Texas Tribune

Layoffs (or redundancies for my UK readers) are sadly not an uncommon thing in media, but these two rounds highlight some shifts in the industry that bear mentioning. The Washington Post has announced layoffs at its CMS division - Arc XP. This comes after it passed on an opportunity to sell the business and it announced long-term plans for it.

The Washington Post lays off staff from tech arm | Semafor

The move displeased staff, who have been furious with recurring layoffs at the paper over the past year.

www.semafor.com/article/08/29/2023/washington-post-lays-off-staff-from-arc-xp?utm_source=pushly

And the Texas Tribune also announced a round of layoffs, its first ever. The non-profit news organisation has been held up as a model for others to follow, and it was an early mover in what is now a movement in the US towards the non-profit model. However, the same issues plaguing for-profit news operations - a shift in the platform eco-system and soft ad sales - are affecting the non-profit standard bearer as well.

The Texas Tribune’s first-ever layoffs worry the news industry

Frustration over a lack of transparency has been amplified by the newsroom's status as "the gold standard of nonprofit journalism" and a role model other outlets have been encouraged to follow.

www.niemanlab.org/2023/08/the-texas-tribunes-first-ever-layoffs-worry-the-news-industry

While local news has been seen as one of the most challenging areas of the journalism and media business in the last decade in the US and UK, there are positive developments. And in the US, a local publisher in the South - New Orleans and other communities in southern Louisiana - has been doing quite well. The secret is revenue diversification, and that is one of the major themes on the commercial side of publishing. The more sources of revenue a publisher has, the more resilient the business is.

Local newsroom expansion? How NOLA did it

Newsrooms looking to not just survive but thrive can take inspiration from how NOLA.com/The Advocate recently expanded its coverage to Shreveport and added ten new reporting positions through a combination of both traditional revenue, community and philanthropic support.

localmedia.org/2023/08/nolas-newsroom-expansion-to-shreveport-is-a-new-model-for-sustainability

This development caught my eye mainly because it is pinned to a new phase of international expansion for the Independent. Their registration-driven, data-led strategy is definitely paying dividends.

Christian Broughton promoted to CEO as Independent announces more US expansion

Christian Broughton, The Independent's managing director and former editor, has been appointed the next CEO at the digital-only newspaper.

pressgazette.co.uk/the-wire/media-jobs-uk-news/the-independent-ceo-christian-broughton

And there were two major misinformation stories over my long weekend - one to do with Russia and another to do with the Chinese. As both countries face challenges, they will increasingly turn to information operations in an attempt to manage the information space both domestically and internationally.

Russians impersonate Washington Post and Fox News with anti-Ukraine stories

Fake articles masquerading as legitimate stories from The Washington Post and Fox News were spread online by a Russian disinformation campaign attempting to undermine Western support for Ukraine, according to Meta’s latest threat report.

therecord.media/russians-fake-news-anti-ukraine

Meta closes nearly 9,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts linked to Chinese ‘Spamouflage’ foreign influence campaign

Company says users targeted in Australia, UK, US and elsewhere by political spam network across more than 50 platforms

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/30/meta-facebook-instagram-shuts-down-spamouflage-network-china-foreign-influence

As someone who embraced blogging back in the early 2000s and can honestly say that blogs helped transform my career, it is sad to see a blogging platform in France pass into archives. But it’s an interesting look at the transformation and transition in technologies and social technologies.

An influential early blogging platform logs off

Last week, a piece of internet history died. If you live outside of the French-speaking world, you likely won’t have noticed. You may not have noticed even if you live in the French-speaking world, but, if you’re between the ages of thirty and forty, the news may well have hit with a prickle of nostalgia. […]

At Pugpig, we have a mutual admiration society with Madeleine White and The Audiencers, the content side of the consulting wing of subscription service provider Poool. The Audiencers consistently has top-notch coverage of how publishers are experimenting with reader registration and revenue strategies, much of driven by Poool’s quite interesting technology. In this podcast interview with Journalism.co.uk, Madeleine discusses a range of successful strategies that publishers are using. The one highlighted front and centre is how Journal du dimanche in France integrated a payment solution directly into their paywall and managed to increase conversation by 40%. It goes to show that by reducing friction, publishers can increase their conversion rates.

"Integrating payment directly into the paywall uplifted conversions by 40%": Podcast of the Week

The Audiencers is a B2B publication by Poool (a membership and subscription tech platform). Armed with a rich data set of statistics from its

mediamakersmeet.com/integrating-payment-directly-into-the-paywall-uplifted-conversions-by-40-podcast-of-the-week

In a great interview with Chris Stone of the New Statesman, journalism.co.uk talks about the commercial strategy underpinning their podcasts. The progressive political magazine has a very solid audio offering, and Chris has talked about how they have unified their podcast feeds. But in this interview, he discusses their commercial strategy, which is leaning into branded content, which makes a lot of sense considering their audience of professionals and policymakers.

Inside the New Statesman’s award-winning podcast commercial strategy

70 per cent of podcasting revenue is coming from bespoke deals with clients. Branded content is emerging as the space to watch

www.journalism.co.uk/news/inside-the-new-statesman-s-award-winning-podcast-commercial-strategy/s2/a1064070

A good rundown of the most popular apps in the UK. What is amazing is how the BBC stands so far ahead of other news outlets in the UK.

Most popular news apps in the UK: Paywalled Times and Telegraph report highest time spent per user

Press Gazette's quarterly ranking of the most popular news apps in the UK, using data from Ipsos iris. Apple News and BBC News are top.

pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/media_metrics/most-popular-news-apps-in-the-uk-paywalled-times-and-telegraph-report-highest-time-spent-per-user

This is a good reminder that when product managers are developing services for internal use - whether they include AI or not - they need to bring their customers - their colleagues - with them. It is a hard lesson that I have had to learn over the years.

Product teams must keep newsrooms in mind with AI product development

Product teams develop new things, these days often with AI in mind. And the success of those new products depend on newsroom adoption of a growing to-do list. Here are a few thoughts on the best workflow considerations for success.

www.inma.org/blogs/product-initiative/post.cfm/product-teams-must-keep-newsrooms-in-mind-with-ai-product-development

I am not sure that this headline is accurate in that monetisation via social media was always a challenge. Publishers who were more aware that social media was a brand-building tool rather than seeing it as a direct monetisation tool have have been more successful. However, seeing how publishers who did rely more on social media make the shift to new strategies is instructive. It provides a template for other publishers looking for new audience and commercial strategies.

Pink News makes 'significant shift' towards direct partnerships as social media monetisation falls

Pink News has carried out a "significant" transformation to its business in the past year with growth in direct sales partnerships.

pressgazette.co.uk/media_business/pink-news-business-partnerships-social-media-benjamin-cohen

As publishers have shifted to subscriptions, it is important to consider the broader subscription landscape. What other services are you competing against? Streaming is definitely one of the biggest challengers for consumers disposable income. And now, we have data on how price pressures and competition are affecting the fortunes of streamers. In the US, churn is up to 47%. Cord cutters are now cutting back on the number of subscriptions that they have. What does this mean for publishers? As Reuters Institute said in their annual digital news report, we are now in a winner takes most world. What will it take for your subscription to be one of the fewer that people keep.

Research: Consumers cutting streaming services to save money

Parks Associates, the technology research firm, has released the consumer study Video Services: Shifting Demand, presenting a focused analysis of the video serv

advanced-television.com/2023/08/24/research-consumers-cutting-streaming-services-to-save-money

And this news shows how economic pressures are affecting publishing models of all stripes. The Texas Tribune has been one of the standard bearers when it comes to non-profit news models, and it is having to turn to layoffs (redundancies) for the first time in its 14-year history. The unsteady economy and advertising volatility seem to have taken a toll, but it also appears that the outlet is feeling pressure “to explore new platforms”. Again, platform pressure is one of the major themes of the year.

Texas Tribune holds first layoffs in 14-year history - Poynter

CEO Sonal Shah told staff that 2023 has been uniquely challenging for the outlet, which many have come to see as a model for nonprofit journalism

www.poynter.org/business-work/2023/texas-tribune-layoffs-first-ever

The week in platforms

This should come as news to no one, but Facebook groups have exposed readers to hoaxes. Research by the charity Full Fact identified 1,200 posts on a range of topics that were “designed to terrify local communities”. If you wonder why people are dealing with increasing levels of anxiety, I direct you to Exhibit A.

Facebook groups exposed to hundreds of hoax posts, study shows

Charity Full Fact finds more than 1,200 false posts on topics from deadly snakes to serial killers at large

www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/24/local-facebook-groups-hoax-posts

And if that wasn’t bad enough, we now have AI feeding content to pink slime, fake local news sites, and with wildfires in Canada, this kind of information not only terrifies local communities but it might be deadly. And in Canada where Google and Meta have stopped linking to real news sites due to legislation in the country, it is a perfect fire storm of false information.

Hundreds of AI ‘news’ sites busily spew misinformation. Google and Meta’s Canadian news ban may make it worse

As it becomes increasingly difficult to trust what we read online, experts say it’s critical to learn how to tell real media from fake — here’s how.

www.thestar.com/business/technology/hundreds-of-ai-news-sites-busily-spew-misinformation-google-and-meta-s-canadian-news-ban/article_734f1666-94ba-5f3f-ad5a-5fde47043393.html

And Mr. Musk continues to conduct what I referred to as “product vandalism” by removing headlines from lines on the social network formerly known as Twitter. Sigh.

Elon Musk to strip headlines off news links on Twitter in latest overhaul

Move by the billionaire owner of the social media site may be an attempt to drive up subscription of the app’s premium service

www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/22/elon-musk-x-twitter-changes-news-links

With stories about the rapid rise and fall of Meta’s Twitter-competitor Threads, they just rolled out a web interface for it in the hopes of renewing engagement.

Meta launches web version of flagging Threads app

‘Twitter killer’ social media platform experienced initial boom in sign-ups when it launched in July

www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/22/meta-launches-web-version-of-flagging-threads-app

A good piece from The Verge on how Google’s YouTube is trying to negotiate with the music majors so that they can use their content to train their AI engines while telling “the rest of the web” that they have the right to scrape their material without compensation. That might be a slight exaggeration, but Google is pushing hard in the AI wars because it is behind companies like OpenAI.

Google and YouTube are trying to have it both ways with AI and copyright

When AI Taylor Swift sings “My Way,” who gets paid?

www.theverge.com/2023/8/22/23841822/google-youtube-ai-copyright-umg-scraping-universal

We’re in a period of profound change in media and journalism right now, and I think that Edward Roussel, head of digital for The Times, puts it best when he says that there the relationship between “media brands and audiences is fraying”. I was just re-reading this year’s Reuters Institute digital news report, and it puts a figure to this fraying “Across markets, only around a fifth of respondents (22%) now say they prefer to start their news journeys with a website or app – that’s down 10 percentage points since 2018,” the report found. Add to this news avoidance and a collapse in trust in news not only in the US but the UK and elsewhere, and it begins to underscore the challenge facing media companies. We must develop and nurture direct relationships with audiences so that they will be willing to support what we do, whether that is journalism or more creative content.

From this overview by INMA, Roussel says that media companies need to end their reliance on search and social. For social media, it is a recognition of the collapse in traffic from social platforms, but moving away from search is also future-proofing your business for expected changes brought by AI. This is a shift from demographic profiling to individual profiling, from third-party to first-party data and from a focus on growth metrics to engagement metrics. This is worth keeping in your back pocket because it summarises some of these major shifts in media and also how companies will need to respond to them.

News publishers should shift their strategies in 3 ways to drive subscription revenue

During this week’s INNA members-only Webinar, Edward Roussel, head of digital for The Times, shared insights into how news publishers can drive digital subscriptions, something made more difficult in the AI era.

www.inma.org/blogs/newsroom-initiative/post.cfm/news-publishers-should-shift-their-strategies-in-3-ways-to-drive-subscription-revenue

When it comes to making these changes, data underpins it all, and WAN-IFRA has a report on what drives data adoption. I remember at a recent conference by FT Strategies and Google that an FT product manager spoke of how data had become a common language that bridged different parts of their business. I’m commonly asked how to start the journey to becoming a data-led organisation, and this report discusses the various ways that news organisations are doing this. One takeaway: Yes, there are best practices, but every journey seems to have unique elements based on the culture of the organisation.

New report: 9 deep dives into data best-practice - WAN-IFRA

2023-08-22. We have just published a new report titled Data Champions in the Newsroom, delving into how nine newsrooms have made data a core part of their publishing strategy. Here’s a glimpse into the report and why you should read it.

wan-ifra.org/?p=61109

And while subscriptions are the foundation of a modern media business, successful companies quickly branch out into other products and revenue streams to add resilience to their operations. Content licencing is just one of many options.

"A healthy new revenue stream": Content licensing evolves into a dynamic marketplace

As part of Mx3's Collectif, in which we feature the work of our partners (see more here), Joris van Lierop of The Content Exchange discusses how

mediamakersmeet.com/a-healthy-new-revenue-stream-content-licensing-evolves-into-a-dynamic-marketplace

A daily newsletter is a real commitment, and I remember from a time when I had the time that this newsletter almost became daily. Here are some great tips on how to remain committed and engaging. “Helping guide you through the noise.” Yes, please, more of that.

What’s it take to make a great daily newsletter? Axios’ Kendall Baker is planning to bring one to Yahoo Sports

"I believe, if we do our job as well as we can, we're going to make sports fans into even bigger sports fans, and we're going to make people who aren't yet sports fans into sports fans."

www.niemanlab.org/2023/08/whats-it-take-to-make-a-great-daily-newsletter-axios-kendall-baker-is-planning-to-bring-one-to-yahoo-sports

Columbia Journalism School opens doors and provides its students with a tremendous network and step up for any journalism career. But the price of admission is too much for many, and the costs can weigh journalists down for years and also prevent them from taking many opportunities that don’t pay six figures. It’s important to note that my first journalism job paid $2000 less than a first-year teacher in the community where I lived, and local journalism jobs can often pay as little as $22,000, the starting salary that was paid to

The Columbia J-School wants to help its alums in nonprofit news pay back their student loans

"It takes away a little bit of anxiety about pursuing a degree in journalism if you know that there is a path through which the cost can be covered.”

www.niemanlab.org/2023/08/the-columbia-j-school-wants-to-help-its-alums-in-nonprofit-news-pay-back-their-student-loans

This makes me profoundly uncomfortable. When platforms have so much power that they get in the way of people getting critical public safety information, then I’m really not happy about that.

Canadian Politicians Criticize Meta Over Local News Bans Amid Wildfire Crisis

Meta recently blocked news outlets in Canada in a dispute over its Online News Act.

www.socialmediatoday.com/news/canadian-politicians-criticize-meta-over-local-news-bans-amid-wildfire-cris/691457

As we wrote about in this week’s Pugpig Media Bulletin, there was quite a bit of chatter about Blendle shutting down its micropayment service in journalism circles. Digging a little deeper, my team member James and I looked at both the micropayments model and also why Blendle didn’t live up to the hype that met it when it expanded from its base in the Netherlands in the middle of the last decade.

The central focus has been on what this means for micropayments, and it definitely raises questions about the place that micropayments play in the subscription stack. As my colleague James pointed out in the piece, micropayments increase conversion challenges because you constantly have to convince people to pay. And I’ve seen a number of different models to reduce this friction, but they all require network effects that no micropayment system has ever been able to achieve. Meaning, a micropayment provider needs to reach a scale so that they make sense for users. Or a publisher might add micropayments for those potential subscribers who just want to read a single article - a day pass for those loosely connected audiences. And we are seeing that with the new generation of dynamic paywall systems.

But more than the issue around micropayment, looking at Blendle, it seemed that they focused too much on the payment system and missed the pivot to aggregators, which they could have made with the high-profile early backers they had. Blende missed a pivot that could have made them a much bigger player, especially for mobile aggregators like News Break. I have to wonder if all of the attention that they received for micropayments blinded them to an opportunity to the shift in user behaviour and the market. Instead, they were acquired by Cafeyn - an ‘information streaming’ service aka an aggregator.

Why micropayment champion Blendle ditched the model and where it might fit in subscription strategies - Pugpig

There are lessons in Blendle's missteps for publishers that can make your subscription and product strategy stronger.

www.pugpig.com/2023/08/18/why-micropayment-champion-blendle-ditched-the-model-and-where-it-might-fit-in-subscription-strategies

Before the pandemic, events were a huge revenue driver for publishers, especially financial newspapers like the FT or B2B businesses. But COVID really dented that business, which is an understatement. While publishers are looking to events as an important source of revenue, there are other pressures or motivations driving publishers, and FIPP reviews how environmental imperatives are also being taken into consideration. It will be a difficult balance between the drive for face-to-face networking, costs and environmental imperatives.

"A shift from face-to-face events into digital": Insights on publishing’s green impact, from FIPP World Media Congress 2023 | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News

“Trying to educate your users about the importance of them reducing their carbon footprint is every bit as important about actually reducing our own carbon footprint.” Attended by more than 400 delegates from 43 countries, the FIPP World Media Congress in the Portuguese town of Cascais kicked off with a look at the innovation that’s …

whatsnewinpublishing.com/a-shift-from-face-to-face-events-into-digital-insights-on-publishings-green-impact-from-fipp-world-media-congress-2023

I am always on the lookout for great resources, and the Washington Post has shared its guide for optimising web performance, including SEO.

WPDS - Web Performance and SEO Best Practices and Guidelines | Resources

Proven strategies and guidelines for optimizing web performance and search engine optimization (SEO)

build.washingtonpost.com/resources/guides/performance-and-seo?itid=lk_inline_manual_5

This week’s development in AI and media

I do feel a bit like a broken record about all of these AI stories, but it is good to see this guidance from AP about how to describe generative AI systems. Language matters, and there has been laziness in describing what large language models are doing.

“Not a replacement of journalists in any way”: AP clarifies standards around generative AI

One new AP Stylebook entry cautions journalists to avoid "language that attributes human characteristics to these systems."

www.niemanlab.org/2023/08/not-a-replacement-of-journalists-in-any-way-ap-clarifies-standards-around-generative-ai

And we have the latest installment in what will be an important front in the battle between AI companies and publishers. The New York Times is considering suing OpenAI. It might well be a legal gambit by the Times to improve their negotiating position with OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, but we will see a lot more of this.

'New York Times' considers legal action against OpenAI as copyright tensions swirl

The news publisher and maker of ChatGPT have held tense negotiations over striking a licensing deal for the use of the paper's articles to train the chatbot. Now, legal action is being considered.

www.npr.org/2023/08/16/1194202562/new-york-times-considers-legal-action-against-openai-as-copyright-tensions-swirl

As Google makes progress on the technology that many publishers fear, which is a system in which chat services mean that users do not have to come to publishers’ websites to get the information that they need. This will challenge publishers to find a new way to monetise their content, and this is why publishers are putting renewed emphasis on building direct relationships with their audience. These developments will put more distance between ad-based volume publishers and reader-revenue value publishers.

Google's AI search experience adds AI-powered summaries, definitions and coding improvements | TechCrunch

Google today is rolling out a few new updates to its Search Generative Experience, the company's AI-powered conversational mode in Search.

techcrunch.com/2023/08/15/googles-ai-search-experience-adds-ai-powered-summaries-definitions-and-coding-improvements

As someone who has been fortunate enough to navigate many changes in media, this is a good list of how to navigate changes in your media career. It is a good resource.

More than 20 resources for navigating change in your media career - Poynter

Tools to survive layoffs, effectively network, hunt for a job and more: We’ve compiled this list of Poynter articles and guides to provide inspiration and practical tools for our readers.

www.poynter.org/business-work/2023/journalism-career-change-resources

The stories have been rolling out about how engagement has collapsed on Meta’s Threads in a short time after its introduction. Can Zuck’s team pivot the product fast enough to re-engage lost users? (I am re-engaging because it is still a nicely quiet social media space.)

Meta Rolls Out New Elements for Threads as Engagement Continues to Decline

Threads has lost its early hype, but can it still win out?

www.socialmediatoday.com/news/meta-develops-new-elements-for-threads-as-engagement-continues-to-decline/691230

Sigh. This week’s drama at Twitter X is that Musk is throttling links to the New York Times, Reuters, Substack and Facebook. I guess this is the cage fight with Zuck. Social media is really becoming a soap opera.

Elon Musk’s latest petty move targeted The New York Times and others - Poynter

Have you noticed a delay when clicking on links in tweets to the Times, Reuters, Substack, Facebook and others?

www.poynter.org/commentary/2023/elon-musks-twitter-x-throttle-traffic-news-sites-rivals

A very deep dive into Community Notes, a new Twitter feature. This looks at how the algorithms work that surface the notes.

What do I think about Community Notes?

vitalik.ca/general/2023/08/16/communitynotes