Monday 4th April: Building sustainable media brands takes time

April 04, 2022

Welcome to your week! This morning's newsletter is brought to you by Esther.

Brian Morrissey has a rather annoying knack of delivering exactly the right newsletter just when I need it. Growing Media Voices is frustratingly slow. Our newsletter subscribers and podcast listeners go up bit by bit, but I feel like I'm constantly waiting for that 'big moment' of hockey-stick growth.

In this week's edition of The Rebooting, Morrissey puts out a good reminder that actually, slow growth is good. "Building sustainable media brands takes time," he says. "The pageview era gave us many brands that racked up big numbers but were hollow. Nobody needed them."

"My experience is that growth takes twice as long as you think and is twice as hard. The biggest advantage you can give yourself is to devote as much of your energy, resources and focus to the actual content itself rather than the sugar high of piling up big follower and subscriber numbers that are likely more quantity than quality."

Duly noted, Mr Morrissey. And with that, I'd like to start Monday with a sincere thank-you to those of you who are reading.

The New Yorker has come to the same realisation many other outlets have recently which is that an editorial voice (i.e. a newsletter coming from an actual person not a brand) can be really powerful. "It always was edited and curated by a human, but my sense was that you wouldn't necessarily know that by looking at it," Jesanne Collins, the New Yorker's director of newsletters commented. They're hoping that the new tone helps convert subscribers and build a closer relationship.

Indie titles often have innovative approaches and high impact journalism, but reap the lowest revenue because the digital economy favours the big players. Jacob Granger rounds up the findings from talking to several news leaders about what support they need to survive and thrive.

Gustavo Bruno is President of the Argentinian Association of Magazine Publishers and Circulation Director for Editorial Perfil S.A. After two years of pandemic accompanied by a strong recession in the country, the publishing industry has managed to overcome a difficult period. He talks to FIPP about shifting trends, new technologies, and a national infrastructure that’s prefect for physical distribution.

This week's episode:

This week we hear from President and GM of Consumer at Yahoo Joanna Lambert. She talks about the changes at Yahoo over the last few years and how Covid forced them to adapt, its 900 million users including a growing Gen Z audience, and Yahoo’s revenue strategies outside of advertising.

In the third of our mini-series on Lessons from award-winning podcasts, Peter speaks to The Atlantic’s Vann Newkirk, host of the Floodlines podcast. In just 20 minutes he talks about how the idea for the series came about, the process for collecting the interviews, and the role of music in enhancing the narration.

Every time someone shares this newsletter, we see a little lift in subscribers, which makes us very happy (and helps us keep going). If you can take two minutes to recommend The Media Roundup to a colleague or on social media, it really does make a difference. Thank you.