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Cost-of-living crisis hits digital magazine subscriptions — www.betterretailing.com

All-you-can-read digital magazine platform Readly is experiencing a slowdown in subscriptions as shoppers scale back their spending during the cost-of-living crisis. There are some interesting observations included in the piece from our friend Jim Bilton of Wessenden Briefing, but I'm cautious about extrapolating Readly's figures to apply it to the whole industry.

It's likely other publishers are seeing slowdowns, and possibly even contractions in subscriber numbers. But it's also possible consumers will choose just one or two brands to subscribe to individually rather than paying a higher price for an all-you-can-read platform.

One particular point to note is the growing attractiveness of digital magazine offerings (once again) to publishers as soaring print and paper costs put pressure on margins.

The magic of magazines — theaddition.substack.com

Talking of magazines, our own magazine evangelist Peter Houston has joined Charlotte Henry on The Addition podcast to talk about some of the exciting things happening in the magazine industry. It's on my to-listen list for nap time (my toddler's nap, not mine sadly).

Apple, Spotify podcast feeds pose challenges for growing subscriptions — digiday.com

Podcasters are waiting for Apple and Spotify to offer more flexibility and features to grow listenership and discovery for show subscriptions. A good reminder that despite the progress with these tools, we still have a way to go.

Doreen Lawrence, Prince Harry and Elton John allege criminal privacy breaches by Mail group — pressgazette.co.uk

Prince Harry, Sir Elton John and the mother of Stephen Lawrence are among a group suing the publisher of the Mail titles for alleged “gross breaches of privacy”. I've seen people comparing this to the phone hacking scandals, with the accusations potentially just the tip of the iceberg. Associated Newspapers, who publish the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Mail Online "utterly and unambiguously" refute the claims.

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New episode:

Has local news justified its own survival? The state of local news in 2022 — voices.media

For this next season of the Media Voices Podcast, kindly sponsored by Poool, we’ll be publishing ten episodes exploring the biggest trends of 2022 and how they affect publishers. For this episode, we're joined by by Chris Jansen, Head of Local News, Global Partnerships at Google to talk about the state of local news in 2022 and beyond.

Media Moments 2022 — voices.media

Our annual Media Moments report 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. Media Moments 2022 will be launching on November 30th, but you can pre-register here to get it sent straight to you as soon as it goes live.