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- Thursday 12th October: Three companies control 90% of the UK's newspaper market
Thursday 12th October: Three companies control 90% of the UK's newspaper market
Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Peter. I’m at the Audiencer’s Festival in London this afternoon. Say hello if you’re there.
We’re excited to have an initial list of confirmed speakers for Mx3 AI: the event we’re collaborating with Media Makers Meet to put on. Come and hear from Bauer’s Global SEO Director, GenAI Con’s Founder, The Journalism AI Project’s Director and more on how publishers can make the most of the opportunities AI provides.
It won’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the UK’s media landscape, but just three companies hold an overwhelming share of the market. The “Who Owns the UK Media?” 2023 report, published by the Media Reform Coalition at Goldsmiths University, shows that DMG Media, News UK and Reach control 90% of the UK’s national newspaper market.
The same three publishers control over 40% of the audience reach of the UK’s top 50 online newsbrands according to the Media Reform Coalition's analysis of Ipsos iris data in Press Gazette’s monthly round-up.
Report author Tom Chivers said: "A free, independent and plural media is essential to the functioning of a healthy democracy. Across our newspapers, TV channels, radio stations and online platforms, these companies hold a dangerous level of power to dictate our national conversation and influence the political agenda to favour their own interests." Amen Tom.
Do you think it matters who owns the news? Is this kind of concentration of media control a problem for our societies? Would regulation solve the problem? Tell us what you think in our community forum.
Rest of World analysed 3,000 AI images to see how image generators visualize different countries and cultures. Their analysis shows that generative AI systems have tendencies toward ‘bias, stereotypes, and reductionism’ when it comes to national identities. An Indian person is almost always an old man with a beard, a Mexican person is usually a man in a sombrero and in Indonesia, it seems food is served almost exclusively on banana leaves. Oh dear!
Esther is on Charlotte Henry’s The Addition podcast talking about why Media Voices launched a community. She explains how the legendary Singletrackworld forum inspired us, how community isn’t the same as audience, the importance of the niche and how it has already led to a nice little bump in our newsletter subscriptions (hello 👋).
Netflix’s UK business grew 12% to £1.54 billion last year. The streaming giant increased operating profit in the UK to £31.6 million in 2022, up from £28.6 million in 2021. Growth in the average number of paid memberships was positive at 4%, but revenue growth came from a 14% increase in average monthly revenue per paying membership.
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