Wednesday 7th September: The Future playbook for sustainable publishing

September 07, 2022

Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Peter from beautiful Cape Town.

Media is about attention, but it's also about access and my hat is firmly doffed to Brian Morrissey for landing this interview with Zillah Byng-Thorne, CEO of Future. We've been trying to get her onto the podcast for ages and if I'm being honest, I'm a wee bit jealous.

The green-eyed monster aside, this is well worth a listen. It cuts to the heart of Future's recent success - a focus on niche areas, both consumer and business-oriented, diversified business models and operational excellence.

I also love that the present success story isn't allowed to obscure Future's recent struggles, with Zillah recounting her first year at Future. In 2014, when the business was close to the bottom of a decade-long decline, her big question was: “What’s our right to exist?” Winning or losing, that's a great question to ask.

Liveblogs have been around forever, but this piece explains how the format has evolved to help publishers benefit. Tools that support graphs and diagrams, the integration of tweets, videos and audio and the inclusion of interactive options like polls or live comment blocks, make modern liveblogs feel like social media. But they can now live on the publisher's own real estate making engagement and monetisation easier.

According to Axios, Yahoo has acquired The Factual, a company that uses algorithms to rate the credibility of news sources. The deal could provide Yahoo News' 200 million+ monthly visitors with ratings for the thousands of news sources Yahoo aggregates on its site. "We think that'll build engagement and build a better business for Yahoo News," said Yahoo president and general manager Matt Sanchez.

I've seen a lot of stories recently looking at the power of sports for digital publishers. This article focuses on operators partnering with sports betting businesses, with relationships opening up new revenue opportunities and bringing exposure to a fast-growing industry. Of course nothing is really a no-brainer and publishers need to weigh up the revenue opportunity with the sensibilities of audiences who might not be OK with gambling.

Announcement:

Media Moments 2022 - sponsored by membership & subscription suite Poool - will bring together the key events which have shaped the media and publishing industry this year. We'll be launching it at a virtual event on November 30th. Pre-register here to get sent the report as soon as it lands.

In this teaser episode, we discuss our plans for the day, and which sessions we’re most looking forward to. The Publisher Podcast Summit is designed for publishers of all shapes and sizes, whether you’re contemplating launching your first podcast, or have a whole stable and want to know how to take your strategy to the next level.