Friday 15th May: What Reuters Events learned from going all-in on virtual

May 15, 2020

Good morning! Today's Media Roundup is brought to you by Esther.

Turning a physical event into a virtual event is a challenge - from managing timings and expectations, realigning agendas and adjusting sponsor expectations, not to mention delivering the event from separate home offices. A great piece from John McCarthy on what Piers Latimer, MD of Reuters Events learned from launching its first virtual conference last month with just four weeks' notice.

This is a smart way to offer something extra to Apple News+ audiences, but there are also a huge number of complexities and issues with doing this FOR publishers.

From yours truly: people facing weeks at home with limited take-out options (and even limited cooking skills) have turned to food sites and networks in droves. Here's a look at how publishers are responding.

Looking past the sensationalist headline, this is actually a fascinating dive into some of the issues with the report's way of measuring subscription growth, from the Publisher of German-language trade publication pv digest. In short, people are better at paying for news than we think.

Podcast:

This week's interview with Colin Morrison explores his work heading up some of the biggest magazine publishers in the world, and who the big winners and losers will be from the coronavirus crisis. The transcript is also now live.

COMING UP: Next episode, we'll be speaking to the FT's Senior data-visualisation journalist John Burn-Murdoch, aka the guy behind their pioneering coronavirus tracker charts. Live on Monday on our website, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Some Friday fun...

Have a great weekend! (Thanks to @reddestroar for this gem)