Tuesday 10th January: A plague on all of their houses!

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A plague on all of their houses!

Apologies for adding to the flurry of Royal Rumble news you're likely seeing today, publication day for that much-awaited book (yawn). But that 'life's work' headline on this Press Gazette piece about Tom Bradby's pre-publication teaser interview made me mad and if I get to rant a bit... well, that's one of the joys of doing this newsletter.

There should be no question in any right-thinking person's mind that aspects of the UK media need to change, or that celebs like Harry have been subjected to their very worst excesses. But the man has media deals worth as much as $250 million between Penguin Random House, Spotify and Netflix and the last thing anyone involved wants is for there to be a media no-fly zone established around his life, least of all him.

The idea that the self-exiled Prince is going to make changing the UK media his life's work is absolute utter nonsense. Fleet Street, The House of Windsor and Harry are engaged in an age-old, never-ending dance that has nothing to do with making Britain a better place and everything to do with making money and protecting privilege. A plague on all of their houses.

2023 could be rough for podcasters

Nicholas Quah, Vulture's podcast critic, has been asking podcasting pros what they think is likely to be coming down the pike in 2023. He says dozens of insiders, creators, and executives responded to that prompt, and according to them, one thing is for sure: 2023 is going to hurt with recession concerns running 'very high'.

Or podcasts could be the year's biggest opportunity

A healthy 13% of UK respondents to a YouGov survey said said they would increase their use of podcasts in 2023. The rise in podcast listening is in stark contrast with the 58% of respondents who said they expected their level of consumption of newspapers and magazines to remain unchanged in the coming 12 months.

Meta might, finally, be killing off Crowdtangle

A tool that tracks popular social media posts - and that has caused some embarrassment for Meta management - is reported to be set for shutdown. Researchers have used CrowdTangle to track the spread of viral stories on Facebook, including misinformation, but Facebook has said it's reach figures are a better measure of engagement. Problem is, they don't typically release that data.

Throwback podcast

We'll be back mid-Jan with a new season of the podcast. If you haven't had chance to listen to our end-of-year review featuring BuzzFeed's Caroline Fenner, AdWeek's Stephen Lepitak and Poool's Ludivine Paquet then here's your last chance! Not really, it's going to be up forever. It'll be the last thing left on the internet.