In this bonus episode of Media Voices, we hear from Nicholas Thompson, CEO at The Atlantic. We first had Nicholas as a guest on the podcast back in 2019 when he was WIRED's Editor in Chief, about what he'd learned a year after introducing a paywall to the brand.  Nicholas has since been credited with being a driving force behind The Atlantic's recent return to profitability and subscriber strategy success. So we were keen to invite him back on for a wide-ranging conversation about how he...

Focusing on key digital advertising accounts makes sense for publishers, but there is huge revenue potential in the small and medium sized businesses that publishers once served as a matter of course in their print publications. This is the latest in our Media Briefs series of short, sharp sponsored episodes – just 10 to 15 minutes – with a senior executive from a vendor working with publishers to make their businesses better. In this episode, Peter speaks with Christian Scherbel, CEO of...

On this week's episode - the last of the season - we hear from James Cridland, Podnews editor and radio futurologist. Podnews is a daily email newsletter about everything podcasting, and is one of the smartest setups we’ve seen in terms of its supporter structure, monetisation and automations.  James tells us how he’s found the sweet spot between his technical, editorial and audio skills, why classifieds were a surprising success story for him, and the balance between newsletter growth and...

On this week's episode Edward Hyatt, Director of Newsroom SEO at The Wall Street Journal takes us through staying abreast and ahead of changes to the SEO landscape. From personal experience he outlines the differences in SEO strategies between subscription and non-subscription publishers, the changes in the SEO landscape over the past decade, and the potential impact of AI on SEO for publishers. In the news roundup the team discusses the news that Forbes has been using a made for advertising...

This week we hear from Chris Minasians, Director and Editor at TotallyEV, an independent site dedicated to articles, reviews and interviews about electric vehicles. TotallyEV has recently hit 5 million views on YouTube, so he discusses building an audience through video reviews, and what it takes to run your own reviews site - including getting access to vehicles - as a solo publisher. Minasians also explores the differences he's noticed between his electric vehicle coverage on TotallyEV, and...

This week we speak to The Telegraph’s Head of Newsletters Maire Bonheim, and Deputy Head of Newsletters David Alexander, about the publisher's newsletter portfolio. We talk about why The Telegraph and others are prioritising newsletters, how newsletters can be used at different stages of the subscriber funnel, and what they’ve learned from a community-focused approach to their Politics newsletter. Marie and David also discuss building a live event from a newsletter brand, and the value of...

On this week's episode we hear from Jane Ferguson, an award-winning journalist with a huge amount of experience covering wars and conflicts the world over. She tells us about how wars often bring the issues around modern journalism – mistrust, disinformation, lack of resources – into the starkest focus, and how the democratisation of tech is making the job of journalists covering war both easier and more difficult. In the news roundup the team discusses the news that French authorities have...

This week we hear from Ridhi Radia, Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Immediate Media, about where media sits on the change spectrum for diversity and inclusion. She tells us why she is encouraged by the fact that she hears people from a wide range of backgrounds talking about ED&I, embedding values of inclusion in the workplace and within organisational leadership, and the work that she is doing inside Immediate helping networks of underrepresented groups come together to...

On this week's episode of Media Voices we hear from Tshepo Tshabalala, project manager & team lead at the LSE’s JournalismAI project. Rather than focusing on the negative coverage and speculation we so often hear about AI replacing journalism jobs, Tshepo tells us about uses cases and the benefits of AI in smaller newsrooms and how collaboration is helping journalists get on board the AI rocket ship. Tshepo joined the JournalismAI project just three months after ChatGPT went public. Some...

For the 95% of publishers who haven't yet adopted AI, identifying a use case they can start with is usually the biggest roadblock. But the tools also need to be available for publishers to be able to support their unique revenue streams. This is the latest in our Media Briefs series of short, sharp sponsored episodes - just 10 to 15 minutes - with a senior executive from a vendor working with publishers to make their businesses better. In this episode, Peter speaks with Maanas Mediratta, CEO...

On this week's episode of Media Voices we hear from The Economist's Executive Vice President of Marketing Nada Arnot. Marketing isn't something we talk about a lot on the podcast, but as Arnot makes clear it's an integral part of media companies' ability to address, convert and retain audiences. The Economist has just launched its largest brand campaign since the early 2000s, so Arnot tells us about how the news-focused magazine is seeking to attract younger readers, why she believes...

This week we hear from Lauren Kleinman and Lee Joselowitz, co-founders of The Quality Edit. The Quality Edit was founded in 2021 when Lauren, Lee and their co-founder Scott Silver felt there was no digital publisher providing high-quality recommendations around fashion, travel, and beauty products, so they decided to launch their own. They tell us about a technique they are terming ‘performance publishing’, about how they persevered through the early years, and how the digital publishing...

This week we hear from two of the three editors of The Paper, an intimidatingly-sized Welsh indie magazine. Oliver Gabe and Owen Davies take us through the annual publishing plan, why they launched the title with a live variety show, and what makes the title feel truly distinctive in a saturated marketplace. In the news roundup Esther, Peter and Chris discuss some items of relatively good media news, before segueing into the bad. We ask whether generalist media titles are one end of a seesaw...

As part of a special four-part podcast series, supported by the Google News Initiative, we’ve been talking to publishers and experts across Europe who are working to find resilient business models. We spoke to them about the state of the local news market in their regions, how they’ve evolved company culture and practice, and what tools and trends they’re working with to prepare for the next decade. What metrics should local news publishers be focusing on, and what new tech is out there to...

As part of a special four-part podcast series, supported by the Google News Initiative, we’ve been talking to publishers and experts across Europe who are working to find resilient business models. We spoke to them about the state of the local news market in their regions, how they’ve evolved company culture and practice, and what tools and trends they’re working with to prepare for the next decade. To build a sustainable – and successful – publishing business requires staff to be on board...

As part of a special four-part podcast series, supported by the Google News Initiative, we’ve been talking to publishers and experts across Europe who are working to find resilient business models. We spoke to them about the state of the local news market in their regions, how they’ve evolved company culture and practice, and what tools and trends they’re working with to prepare for the next decade. In part two, we explore the challenges and opportunities that local news organisations are...

As part of a special four-part podcast series, supported by the Google News Initiative, we’ve been talking to publishers and experts across Europe who are working to find resilient business models. We spoke to them about the state of the local news market in their regions, how they’ve evolved company culture and practice, and what tools and trends they’re working with to prepare for the next decade. In this first episode, we look at some of the historical context around the state of local...

In the second episode of this two-part series from Mx3 AI, a new pop-up conference we collaborated on with Media Makers Meet, we look at why, how and when publishers are integrating AI into their newsrooms. AI is not a pie-in-the-sky dream for media companies: it hasn’t been for years. For close to a decade questions about whether AI will replace or empower journalists have been raised at conferences and in newsrooms. Over the past few years the conversation has changed. It is now no longer a...

In this last episode of Media Voices in 2023 we take a big picture look at AI, based off our recent collaboration with Media Makers Meet on their Mx3 AI conference. We hear from experts from Immediate Media, Ipsos, the News Media Association and more, about where they are placing their chips to take advantage of the fastest-moving area of media. This holistic look at AI in the newsroom has been split into two parts. In this first part we set the scene for AI and its use in publishing, as...

On this week's episode of the podcast Elaine dela Cruz, co-founder of DE&I consultancy firm Project 23, tells us about what is creating positive change for diversity and inclusion in the industry. We're also joined by guest co-host Joanna Cummings, Editorial Director of The Grub Street Journal and author of the DE&I chapter of this year's Media Moments report. Elaine takes us through why she co-founded the organisation, how the DE&I landscape has changed over the past five years,...

On this week’s podcast (which is also this week’s edition of The Addition) we hear from author, journalist and broadcaster Charlotte Henry. She creates and runs The Addition newsletter and podcast; an award-winning publication looking at the crossover between media and technology. Charlotte has written the Broadcast chapter of our upcoming Media Moments 2023 report, so it was only right and proper that we got her on to discuss all the broadcast trends of the past year. It’s been a big old...

This week, to help us dissect the year in trust, we're joined by Dr Amy Ross Arguedas, a Postdoctoral Researcher Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Between 2020 and September 2023, she worked on the Trust in News Project, and she’s currently a part of the team working on the Reuters Institute's annual Digital News Report. Amy tells us about the work of the Trust in News Project, and how to go about measuring trust in a way which is useful. She explains how trust is...

What’s top of mind for today’s news leaders? Evolving at pace, finding your USP - but not burning out in the process. Last week, we were at the Newsrewired conference in London for a day of panels and workshops about the future of digital publishing. In a world of increasing possibilities and pressures, the central question of the day was this: how can we be selective and effective at innovating?  How do you get readers to pay for news? Will AI take our jobs? Where are the new business model...

This week we hear from Jillian MacMath, Audience Editor at WalesOnline. She was chosen by the judges as the winner of the first ever Hero of the Year at the Publisher Newsletter Awards, so what better person to come and discuss everything newsletters with us. Jillian talks about the opportunities she saw to get more strategic about the newsletter portfolio when she joined WalesOnline, what metrics should matter to anyone with a newsletter, and what dedicated newsletters like football and food...