Wednesday 29th June: Some brutal honesty about the state of Media Voices

June 29, 2022

Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Chris. No new podcast episode this week as we released three last week: a Digital News Report 2022 Special, and a two-part Media Voices at Cannes series, kindly sponsored by Sovrn.

We at Media Voices – Chris, Peter and Esther – have made 2022 our make or break year. Now we’re halfway through that year, we want to share with you our progress and what we really need your help with.

The Media Voices podcast began in late 2016. The three of us saw not just a chance to keep in contact with one another, but to try to launch a media business with one another.

We've seen some encouraging success. But Media Voices is now at an awkward inflection point. It increasingly needs more hours in a day than we can afford to give it, but until we give that time, we won’t make enough or grow enough to be able to pay for additional hours on it. It’s a familiar circle to many creators.

Here's how you can help - so we can be here throughout 2023 and beyond.

Well here's a worrying development. We've known advertising is been hard to come by for local titles, but this article explicitly describes it as 'dying'. Like a smaller tree starved of light by the giants around it, local newspaper advertising is in a tough spot.

This is one of those pieces of information that is both entirely logical and totally crazy at the same time. For local newspapers, print circulation has collapsed for every audience except retirees. That's why the daily paper in The Villages, Florida (metro population 129,752) prints as many copies as the one in Atlanta (metro population 6,930,423).

Channel 4 is preparing to sign a deal to keep its news programme on air for the next five years, meaning any new private sector owner could be locked into producing a show that has repeatedly angered Conservative ministers. Idris Elba (pictured) makes an unexpected but welcome appearance in this story.

Extra! Extra!

Announcing the inaugural Publisher Podcast Summit! Join fellow industry professionals for a day of networking, sharing expertise, and practical workshops that will help shape and refine your podcasting strategy and set you up to take advantage of growing opportunities.

Peter went to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France and caught up with attendees to find out what publishers and agencies are talking about this summer(clean rooms, cookies and diversity), and how optimistic they are about the next few years. Featuring Brian Morrissey, Dominic Perkins, Jessica Jacobs, James Prudhomme, and more.