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How The Atlantic uses audience research - and what they don't expect it to solve for them — building.theatlantic.com

The Atlantic - job cuts aside - has been a perennial favourite of the Media Voices team for years. Between its willingness to experiment and its smart approach to membership, we think it's ahead of the curve when it comes to most of the sure bets for success in publishing. That's why this post from its senior director of audience research Emily Goligoski caught our eye - because it addresses the limitations of what a publisher can do with audience research, and ways around them.

Goligoski explains that in and of itself audience research is of limited use. It's only through marrying the outputs of that research to wider knowledge within the publisher that it bears fruit: "Audience research isn’t an island. Nor is it primarily a usability testing operation. It’s a strategic partner that employs many of our organizational priorities, including publishing work of consistently high quality and getting it to more people."

The article in full explains why the one-on-one approach to audience research has led to some of The Atlantic's more unique membership products. Well worth a read - if only because few accounts like this address the limitations of their craft.

SiriusXM buys Stitcher for up to $325m from E.W. Scripps — variety.com

Stitcher was an early pioneer in the podcast distribution game, making exclusivity and early access part of its offer. Now, owner E.W. Scripps Co. has agreed a deal with SiriusXM to sell Stitcher and its other podcast-related businesses for up to $325 million. Between that and its acquisition of Pandora, it sets SiriusXM up as a major player in the podcast world.

How may Google fight an antitrust case? Look at this little-noticed paper — www.nytimes.com

Google's argument seems to be that it doesn't control enough of the digital ad market to "overcharge its customers and box out its competitors".

Sure. Oh and if you're interested, I have a bridge to sell to you.

The McClatchy auction ends not with a bang, but only more whimpers — www.niemanlab.org

After all the drama over McClatchy's sale, Ken Doctor's article puts its farcical side in perspective: "Passionate supporters of a vibrant free press [were] rooting for what they hoped would be the less damaging hedge fund to come out on top." That's likely to come to pass, but the reality is that it now puts almost 45 percent of total daily papers in the US in the hands of only four investment companies.

This week's episode:

The BBC's Specialist Disinformation Reporter Marianna Spring on proactively countering conspiracies — voices.media

Marianna takes us through the responsibilities of broadcasters to counter disinformation, whether it's a losing battle to engage with conspiracy theorists, and the role of platforms like Google and Facebook when it comes to the spread of lies, damn lies. Marianna's conspiracy investigation is out today on the BBC.

Buy us a coffee! — ko-fi.com

We know our audience - so we know how hard you all work. That's why we know you know how hard producing a weekly podcast, daily newsletter and our other products can be. If you fancy buying us a coffee to help us through it (and to cover our tech costs), you should also know that it makes our day each and every time.