Newspaper publishers' lay out their investment priorities by @damianradcliffe from @NewspaperWorld PLUS Which products are hot and which products are not amongst publishers

November 04, 2022

Damian Radcliffe has published another chapter of the WAN-IFRA World Press Trends report on Medium, and it clearly lays out investment priorities that publishers are setting for the next year, and it also has some excellent background on the shift to product-led growth or at least product development at major news publishers. The investments in technology are very focused with a focus on analytics and better CRM systems. CRM is a lot like CMS, there is no such thing as a system that makes everyone happy. But companies are getting much better with them.

Speaking of technology, Nieman Lab looks at how the Toronto Star is determining which stories should be automated, and we have pieces about forays into the metaverse by Forbes and Asian publishers. While INMA says that in terms of products, the metaverse is losing traction with publishers. So what products are they interested in? Audio.

Programming note: I'm taking next week off for the first break that didn't involve moving this year. I'll see you in a week after some much-needed R&R. See you soon!

In the case of break-and-enter stories, "everybody recognized that a poor execution of the idea would be a problem."

An interesting look at TorStar's automation of basic crime stories and health department reports about restaurants with a review of other automated efforts such as the LATimes' QuakeBot. As I have said before, I would much rather have a robot write a basic, formulaic report than treat a reporter like a robot.

In this chapter we look at costs and the strategic investments being made by news publishers, as well as the areas where they are looking to divest and reduce their outgoings.

With economies around the world facing economic headwinds due to the inflation unleashed first by the pandemic and now Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the priorities that publishers are setting for the next year are all the more interesting. Damian found that the top three priorities were:

1) Data Analytics

2) Product Development

3) Customer Management Systems

I think the focus on product-led growth is also interesting, and as he highlights, this shift is both a business but an organisational and cultural shift as well.

Damian's comment that competition for attention is greater than ever resonates with me. He has some excellent data on the topics that people are showing increased interest in based on data from Readly.

Alabama newspapers go all digital

As Aron says, it will be interesting to see how this shift to digital plays out. The Alabama Media Group is part of Advance Local, the Newhouse's newspaper group. They have tried an all-digital strategy before with the Ann Arbor News in Michigan. They might have moved too quickly at that time, but with rising print costs and much more deeper smartphone adoption

News apps and aggregators are rolling out new features ahead of the midterm elections to improve the way content is packaged.

As I have said, personalisation will be one of the major themes of Pugpig's upcoming State of the Digital Publishing Market report, and in this overview of things that news providers are planning for the US midterms next week, it is interesting to see SmartNews get a mention of their personalised news delivery. Personalisation means so many different things to different companies, and with personalisation also being a part of calls-to-action and conversion strategies, we'll see much more of this in the next year or two as publishers have already converted most of the low-hanging fruit in their audiences.

The metaverse, NFTs, blockchain and product priorities

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The magazine has set up an exclusive members-only space in the metaverse complete with a wearable NFT ticket to enter. This piece is one to bookmark because it not only covers Forbes' efforts but has a good glossary of terms relating to virtual worlds plus a review of virtual spaces that have gone before.

Blockchain, metaverse, NFTs and other terms related to the decentralised web are becoming part of the mainstream discourse, and many media outlets have started experimenting with their own Web3 solutions.

WAN-IFRA looked at projects that Asian publishers have launched using Web3 technologies using NFTs and other blockchain technologies. WAN-IFRA has also launched a project with major news organisations including Reuters, Mediahuis, Groupe Les Echos and Condé Nast to foster Web3 projects that grow revenue and foster trust.

On the first day of the INMA Product and Data for Media Summit, INMA Product Initiative Lead Jodie Hopperton took attendees through the biggest trends in media product at the moment. The summit continues through November 17.

Meanwhile, INMA says that metaverse has lost favour in terms of product priorities for publishers, while audio, video, AI and machine learning are top priorities.

Despite all the early scepticism, Apple News is now the most used UK news app. Time to stop ignoring it.

Apple News is now more popular than BBC News in the UK. Adam Tinworth highlights what publishers need to do about that.

20% of micro-payers, who have made three to four micropayments, ultimately purchase yearly memberships The end goal of the news subscription business is to increase the lifetime value of each customer and acquire more subscribers. The big question, though, is when does the journey of a paying user begin? Publishers have explored everything to acquire more subscribers, …

I'm deeply sceptical of micropayments for news, but we'll see if there is a new wrinkle that will finally make them attractive to audiences.

Despite a third-quarter loss of $54 million, the company points to gains in digital subscriptions and success with cost-saving measures.

I think the emphasis here is slow. They are still losing millions despite job cuts and forced furloughs. They are heading into choppy economic times, and they have a lot of debt to clear.

David Montgomery says the publisher is in the early stages of a potential offer

Meanwhile in the UK, this looks a lot like the move that created the new Gannett in the US, when a smaller scale-player gobbled up a larger one. If this goes forward, it will most likely leave whatever is left with the same kind of ugly debt load that the new Gannett has. If this happens, it will mean a very high level of concentration of ownership in the UK newspaper market.