Thursday 18th March: Reflections on the road from print to digital

March 18, 2021

Good morning! Today's Media Roundup is brought to you by Esther.

Alan Hunter has just stood down as Head of Digital at the Times and Sunday Times, and has published his reflections on his seven-year journey to thinking digitally about news.

These behind-the-scenes glimpses into the processes behind publishing's biggest successes are as rare as they are refreshing. Hunter outlines the huge task he was given - to 'fix the tablet' version of the paper - and draws out the lessons he has learned in transitioning from a print editor to a digital leader.

I'll bring his main lesson straight into your inbox:

"Listen to your customers – because they really do know what they want, especially in as mature a market as news. I realise that this is not an original insight but too often internal company dynamics and the ideas of senior people get in the way. The times we have truly listened to customers is when we have succeeded."

Parse.ly has just released its report on the major content trends it’s seen over the past twelve months. WNIP rounds up the key points, from the growth in importance of search to which news aggregators to keep an eye on (this is the first I've heard of NewsBreak, but it has 12M active daily users in the States!).

Local news initiative Project Oasis has found that the number of small publishers in North America has grown by 50% over the past five years despite media outlets facing financial insecurity. Social media is working as a traffic driver, but interestingly, direct reader retention schemes such as newsletters aren't working as well.

Last year, The Telegraph grew its podcast listenership 126%, one of the reasons its podcast team has been nominated for a host of awards (including our own Publisher Podcast Awards). For a growing number of people, The Telegraph's podcasts are their first involvement with the brand. So how can the team turn that person into a subscriber?

Throwback Thursday:

Given today's lead story, it would be remiss of me not to have our interview with Alan Hunter as today's throwback. He talked about reaching a milestone 500,000 digital subscribers, why their paywall persistence has paid off, and how edition-based publishing is more important to their audience than ever.

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