Weekly Digest
Market Trends | Business Insights
Innovation in News Media World Report 2022 The latest edition of the annual Innovation in News Media World Report has been officially released at the WAN-IFRA Virtual World News Media Congress between 29 November and 2 December 2021.
Deloitte TMT 2022 Predictions: More Entertainment Choices Equals More Churn The global consulting firm Deloitte released its 2022 technology, media and telecom predictions Wednesday. What’s next for technology, media, and telecommunications? 150M+ people will cancel a paid streaming subscription in 2022, leading to a 30% global churn rate, including 38% in the US, driven by Gen Z.
The Future of Digital Spaces and Their Role in Democracy Many experts say public online spaces will significantly improve by 2035 if reformers, big technology firms, governments and activists tackle the problems created by misinformation, disinformation and toxic discourse. Others expect continuing troubles as digital tools and forums are used to exploit people’s frailties, stoke their rage and drive them apart.
World Press Trends preview: Publishers upbeat about future business The first results of WAN-IFRA’s global industry survey show that publishers around the world are confident about their digital transformation efforts as well as their ability to tap into new revenue sources.
Consolidation of US news publishers is hitting record levels with many newspapers owned by only a few companies, says Justin Eisenband, a Managing Director in FTI Consulting’s Publishing + Digital Media practice at https://t.co/mlbpGmtXgB
What happens to society — and our democracy — when community and regional journalism dries up Americans must understand the existential threat facing local news outlets, writes Margaret Sullivan. www.washingtonpost.com
New Report: Reader revenue takeaways from Digital Media Europe 2021 As audiences-first strategies start to build momentum around the world, a natural knock-on effect of that is its relationship with a publisher’s reader revenue strategy. The topic was prevalent in most of the case studies presented at WAN-IFRA’s Digital Media Europe 2021.wan-ifra.org
Media startups anxiously await BuzzFeed’s stock market debut A slowdown in SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies) earlier this year pushed some digital media companies that were considering going public via SPAC IPOs away from the idea, such as Vice. www.axios.com
Tech is improving at an exponential rate. Here’s what that means for society Azeem Azhar, tech analyst, entrepreneur, and author, walks us through his new book on our exponential age. Azhar argues the rate of technological change is leaving the institutions of yore—regulators and lawmakers, mostly—in the dust, and leaving society dizzy. The tension emerges because of the exponential gap. This is not about saying that the technology is necessarily, and in all cases, bad. It’s really about closing the gap. www.morningbrew.com
The publisher / US post office partnership fractures The United States Postal Service (USPS) is jumping on the bandwagon, adding one more financial and operational burden to newspapers nationwide. www.editorandpublisher.com
Frustrated with agencies, CMOs say bringing media buying in-house is back on the agenda As brands get their marketing back on track post-pandemic, marketers say in-housing media is taking priority. And they want more help from agencies to achieve it. www.thedrum.com
Why Publishers' Adoption of Twitter Blue Is About More Than the Money Publishers like the LA Times and The Washington Post are joining Twitter Blue more for its audience data and transparent payout system than its revenue share. www.adweek.com
He’ll keep the blue check, though: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is stepping down His replacement, CTO Parag Agrawal, had only tweeted 10 times in 2021 before today. www.niemanlab.org
Twitter Has a New CEO; What About a New Business Model? The missing context in Dorsey’s announcement was Elliott Management, the activist investor that took a stake in Twitter in early 2020 and demanded that Dorsey either focus on Twitter or step down; Twitter gave Elliott and Silver Lake, who was working with Elliott, two seats on the board a month later. That agreement, though, came with the condition that Twitter grow its user base, speed up revenue growth, and gain digital ad market share. stratechery.com
New impact investment vehicle to help preserve the editorial independence of news organisations in Europe Pluralis is launched at the initiative of Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), King Baudouin Foundation Foundation, Tinius Trust, and Mediahuis nv. Pluralis B.V. is an impact investment vehicle for news companies that provide independent, quality reporting in countries in Europe where plural media is at risk. Pluralis is acquiring 40% of GremiMedia, publisher of Rzeczpospolita in Poland, following the acquisition of a 34% stake in Petit Press, a.s., Slovakia’s second largest publisher. www.mediahuis.com
ScaleUp Capital invests in Sifted Sifted, backed by Financial Times, raised a £4 million (€4.7 million) investment from ScaleUp Capital. They plan to double its staff, now comprising over 40 employees, within the next year to “continue scaling the definitive resource for insights on the European startup ecosystem.” According to Sifted, the outlet has 10 million unique visitors per month, particularly 100,000 newsletter readers. www.privateequitywire.co.uk
BuzzFeed’s Commerce Slowdown Undercuts Its Investor Pitch Ahead of Stock Listing BuzzFeed’s optimistic projections about the potential of its commerce business was undercut earlier this month when the company revealed that revenue growth in that area had slowed dramatically in the third quarter and that the fourth quarter was showing similar trends. BuzzFeed, which is due to go public in the next week, will still likely meet its overall revenue growth projections for 2021—but because of faster than expected growth in advertising, not commerce. www.theinformation.com
These Are The Most Active Investors In Decacorn Startups This year has seen the number of new companies valued as decacorns double already, compared to 2020, marking the highest year on record for new startups valued at $10 billion or more. news.crunchbase.com
The Power of Data
5 publications on AI and journalism publishers need to check out AI has the potential to reshape the media landscape. Here are 5 studies that will help newsrooms define their AI strategies. thefix.media
How Data Collaboration Opens a World of Possibilities for Marketers As the technology landscape is evolving, collaboration is as well. Next-generation technology can eliminate many of these historical concerns and allow for greater scale across partnerships. www.adweek.com
Global & U.S. Artificial Intelligence Market to Reach USD 175.63 Billion by 2028 at a CAGR of 40.1% Vantage Market Research has published a global report by solutions, technologies, regions, and end-uses including Advertising & Media. finance.yahoo.com
Google Commits To More Oversight Of Its Privacy Sandbox By The UK’s Competition Watchdog Google has shared updated commitments with the CMA, the UK’s antitrust watchdog, and agreed to more regulatory scrutiny over the Privacy Sandbox. www.adexchanger.com
Why Subscription Brands Should Leverage a Customer Data Platform How do you optimize the retention of you e-commerce offers? How do you measure success? How do you promote loyalty and create meaningful, long-term engagement with your customers medium.com
The Big Data Bundle (Tech Republic) 64.5 Hours of Hadoop, MapReduce, Spark & More to Prepare For One of Today’s Fastest-Growing IT Career. academy.techrepublic.com
Univision adopts consumer behavior data to prove TV drives business results The Spanish-language media giant struck a deal with Interpublic Group-owned agency Mediahub to use consumer behavior data and predict engagement performance for advertisers’ campaigns. This comes as the ad world seeks new metrics to measure the success of TV ad campaigns and network groups work to prove commercials can drive actual consumer actions like visiting a website or, ultimately, leading to a sale. adage.com
Why Zero-Party Data Is the Future Of Privacy-First Advertising Zero-party data is a form of data that describes an even more direct relationship between brand and consumer, writes Jun Group CEO Corey Weiner. www.adexchanger.com
The Craft of News
Trends in Newsrooms 2021: Tools in the Battle for Trust The report features expert interviews, research summaries and strategies on how newsrooms can build trust with their audiences and the public. wan-ifra.org
Canada’s news industry expects up to $150m annual windfall from Australia-style big tech crackdown Prime minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to introduce a news media bargaining code for Canada within the next two months. And senior industry sources spoken to by Press Gazette expect the legislation to come into force by the summer or early autumn. pressgazette.co.uk
‘Exclusive is illusive’: U.K. publishers launch plan to mitigate loss of traffic when sources aren’t properly cited In the absence of links to original sources, the significant impact on publishers’ traffic, and the associated revenues, are irrefutable. That’s the view of publishers in the U.K. who have come together via trade body the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) to back a standardized way to cite sources. digiday.com
Despite 80 journalists covering climate, New York Times won’t ban fossil fuel advertisers The New York Times’ (NYT) international president Stephen Dunbar-Johnson tells The Drum: “We are not an activist organization.” www.thedrum.com
Information Disorder and Who Profits From It The problem of mis- and disinformation and the degradation of information ecosystems with Vivian Schiller, Executive Director of Aspen Digital. The Aspen Institute just released the final report of the Commission on Information Disorder. techpolicy.press
How Journalists and Academics are Tackling the 'Misinformation' Wars Journalists and academics are developing a new language for truth. The results are not always clearer. www.nytimes.com