Thursday 18th August: Managing costs in an economic downturn

August 18, 2022

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This is an interesting piece in Digiday about how media companies are identifying areas of their businesses to cut as advertising revenue slows. It highlights areas where costs are being cut and, surprise, surprise, hiring freezes and layoffs feature prominently.

So far so predictable. However, I was interested in the New York Times's take on the slow down. The Times is cutting back on marketing spend as ad sales costs go up, but Times president and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said that, putting aside “market uncertainty,” it has “long been our plan” to “get the product itself to do more of the work to engage and convert.”

In line with that focus product value, the company does not expect to “slow cost growth” in journalism or engineering. So, unlike so many other digital media outfits, the NYT isn't planning to sacrifice it's core product - content creation and delivery. Imagine if other media organisations followed its lead.

Survey after survey tell us that people continue to discover podcasting every year. But is podcasting growth really a case of three steps forward, two steps back? If 40% of podcast listeners have started listening reasonably recently, shouldn't overall listener growth numbers be higher? This piece from Sounds Profitable looks at the problem of podcast churn.

We've mentioned the ups and downs of Medium a few times recently. We even spoke with the platform's VP of content Scott Lamb about it all. If, even after all of that, you're still looking for a good reason to visit the site, here's a recent update of a list of 30 Medium publications about journalism that are still publishing and that journalism.co.uk thinks are still worth following.

The latest PageFair Adblock report highlights the return to growth in adblocking among web users on the desktop. With revenue from advertising on the mobile web still relatively low, the report suggests this is a trend reversal publishers should monitor closely. Or just sort your ads out.

Podcast throwback:

I've started recording the interviews for the next season of our 'Lessons' podcasts and thought I'd go back to this episode with producer Ben Youatt for multiple award winners Immediate Media. He talked about scaling up the podcast team, facilitating audio operations, and getting to be the ‘engine’ that enables editorial teams to implement their ideas.

Our third Insiders session will be a mini masterclass by YouTube's Stephanie Chan on the basics of getting your podcast onto YouTube, why it's worth exploring video podcasts, and how to set up your channel for success. Please note spaces for this session are capped - it's for publishers only and spaces are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.