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- Monday 6th March: Why publishers should be dedicating marketing teams to growing reader revenue
Monday 6th March: Why publishers should be dedicating marketing teams to growing reader revenue
Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Chris.
This is another good'n from our very own P Houston, looking at the reasons why publishers need to be investing time and resources in marketing for growing reader revenue. There are obvious commercial benefits from doing that, but what's particularly interesting here is that there are hidden challenges from doing so that might get glossed over or sublimated when publishers are looking to commit those resources.
The piece quotes Matt Broad of subscription service Piano as saying: "If there’s a single most important factor in successfully marketing a subscription program, it’s having a top leader in the newsroom and someone on the business side engaged and in agreement that subscriptions are the priority."
Now that's easier said than done when money is tight and you're looking for any and all sources of revenue you can. Luckily, as has become patently obvious over the past few years, you can make subscriptions the priority without sacrificing other revenue streams like advertising, events or - whisper it - NFTs.
We very briefly mention this in this morning's podcast in context of trust and news outlets deliberately withholding information from their audiences. A longer discussion would have taken the entire podcast, but if you want to read about the depth of panic at Fox News and among the elder Murdochs you need look no further than this article. Will Rupes soon have a new most humble day of his life?
We love dissenting voices here at Media Voices! Sometimes if we get too many people agreeing with us we start fights among ourselves just for the kick of it. So for Peter's benefit, here is a rebuttal to a discussion we have in today's new podcast about where there might actually be some danger to journalists from generative AI. Disagree? Let us know by replying!
I just feel it in my water. There's another pivot to video coming and Facebook is going to be at the forefront of it. Think about it: we've seen a lot of publishers investing in TikTok content and by all accounts that's going well. So if Meta come to those same publishers and say: "Psst, hey. There's big money in these Reels" I hope to god we have the fortitude to turn them down.
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TIME was 100 last week, and we took the chance to speak to its Editor In Chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal about how the publication made it to its centenary. He tells us about the tradition of innovation at TIME, building trust with global audiences, and how legacy is not a bad word in magazines.
In the news roundup the team discusses the fallout from The Telegraph publishing former health secretary Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages, despite journalist Isabel Oakeshott having broken an NDA to do so. We ask what that does for trust in the media, where the responsibility for putting everything in context lies, and if this is an Alien vs. Predator situation for those of us in the middle of the row.
