Tuesday 30th June: Times Radio launches with exclusive PM interview

June 30, 2020

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

Sorry for putting that face in front of you first thing in the morning. But Times Radio launched yesterday and they came out of the gate strongly with a rare Prime Ministerial interview. That's right, they bagged media-shy Boris for a big breakfast exclusive.

That the general impression of the interview was something of an easy ride for the PM reminded me of a piece Roy Greenslade wrote for the Guardian back in February. Roy predicted the PM launch interview and warned that the new station 'can’t afford to be seen as Fox News lite'. To be a real alternative to the BBC or LBC, he said it needed to 'persuade the population that it is devoid of Murdochian influence and free from Johnsonian patronage.'

Watch this space!

The NYT has withdrawn from Apple's curated news feed. Times' Management said Apple News did not 'align with its strategy of building direct relationships with paying readers'. The paper had already reduced its input to a few stories a day and passed on Apple News+.

Preparing for the demise of the third-party cookie, Hong Kong based SCMP has collated 25 pre-built audience segments for marketers, compiling historical usage data from 50 million monthly average users.

Responding to James Ball's assertion that micropayments won't work for journalism, Axate's Dominic Young asks publishers to think about 'casual payments' instead because paying needs to be as casual as browsing.

This week's episode:

This week Ed Needham, founder, editor and sole staffer of book review magazine Strong Words, explains how tech is enabling him to do what he does, and how digital makes it a challenge to capture and keep people’s attention.

The support so far has been amazing, so thank you! It's really cheered us all up.