Tuesday 29th March: How Skift survived COVID

March 29, 2022

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This is your chance to listen to two of the smartest people in media on one podcast: Brian Morrissey interviewing Skift's Rafat Ali for The Rebooting podcast. On Skift's 10th anniversary, Rafat talks about how his travel media business weathered the COVID storm and how some tough decisions have made the business stronger.

Skift is more profitable now than it’s ever been, with more employees now than it had pre-pandemic. Rafat explains how COVID expanded the talent pool, with Skift becoming a permanently distributed company. Of the 20 people brought on recently, only one has been based in New York City.

Skift's advertising client base also shifted as a result of the pandemic. With most travel vendors mothballed for much of the pandemic, Skift pivoted to an alternative revenue base in cash-rich tech companies keen to reach the travel industry ready for when things started to open up again. Altogether, a great discussion on surviving and thriving through tough times.

The Financial Times has launched FT Edit, an app designed to attract an audience beyond its 1 million professional readers. Free for a month, then just 99p a month for six months, the FT is looking to hook its 26 million social followers. The app - the FT's first major new product in a decade - delivers a curated, daily selection of eight articles at 8am every weekday.

Morning Brew’s main newsletter just passed 4 million subscribers after reporting that it had hit the 3 million milestone just eight months ago. The company generated about $50 million in sales in 2021, more than doubling 2020′s $20-million turnover. The newsletter company's acquisition by Insider was described as a springboard for its recent growth, with 180 of its 230 employees hired since the 2020 investment.

The Guardian is reporting that Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s last remaining independent news outlets, will cease operations until the end of the Kremlin's 'special operation' in Ukraine. The editorial board at the paper said they had received a second warning from the state censor for allegedly violating the country’s “foreign agent” law and risked losing its license.

This week's episode:

This week we hear from The Hustle’s Principle Reporter and Sunday Editor Zachary Crockett. He talks about his career path working across radio, newsletters, journalism and data, how he makes must-read long-form Sunday issues for The Hustle’s business audience, and launching a daily podcast.

Immediate Media have featured numerous times on the shortlists and as winners of categories both for 2020 and 2021’s Publisher Podcast Awards. We spoke to Immediate Media’s Head of Podcasts Ben Youatt about scaling up the podcast team, facilitating audio operations, and getting to be the ‘engine’ that enables editorial teams to implement their ideas.