Wednesday 29th July: Want to win like the NYT? Hire journalists and engineers.

July 29, 2020

Good Morning! Welcome to today's Media Roundup, hosted by Peter.

Newsonomic's Ken Doctor has been interviewing Meredith Levien, The New York Times’ CEO-in-waiting, set to take over the role from Mark Thomson in September. While Thomson cemented the paper's digital subscription, Levien is credited with transforming the Times’ ad operation, “turning over” three quarters of the staff in a move to target fewer, larger accounts.

We talk a lot about the New York Times on the podcast, mostly because they get far more right than they get wrong. As a precursor to the interview, which is fascinating, this piece does a brilliant job of summarising the seven years Thomson and Levien worked together to transform the New York Times operation: a newsroom of 1,700 journalists and an engineering department of 700.

As she replaces Thomson, the digital advertising strategy Levien developed has created a sustainable secondary revenue stream to reader payment. With world-class journalism as its foundation, the NYT's digital business infrastructure has propelled its success. The bottom line? A share price of $45, up from less that $11 just four years ago.

Hearst UK has unveiled The Hearst Institute, a testing facility to bolster product testing and accreditation capabilities across its brands. The move supports the publisher's e-commerce business and deepens relationships with commercial partners.

Visit frequency to the MyFT onsite feed was increased by 40% with the creation of 'habit-forming' features that focused on the 'experience not the page', creating the feeling of change and listening and acting on user feedback.

  • Trusted publishers seen as new storefront for advertisers

  • The long game of multi-year, multi-media deals

  • Virtual engagements here to stay

  • The more first-party data the better

  • Diverse teams and content will attract budgets

This week's episode:

This week Chris Waiting, chief executive of The Conversation UK, tells us about the lessons his team is taking forward from its record-breaking corona coverage, why newsletters and live events are its focus for the near future, and what other news publishers can learn from its policy of marrying journalistic flair with scholarly insight.

Help us make it to the end of the week by getting us a virtual coffee.