Mather Report with David Clinch
David Clinch
#MediaRevenue Consultant at MGP. VP Partnerships - Mather Economics. #MediaRevenue
Our collection of #MediaRevenue stories this week includes some very interesting coverage of the state of the print side of the newspaper industry. This is a subject close to our hearts at Mather and we are very proud of our role in helping newspaper companies preserve significant amounts of revenue on the print side of their business throughout the last two decades.
There are still many millions of dollars in revenue wrapped up in the print side of the newspaper and magazine industries and it is very important for publishers to harness the power of user data to preserve as much of that revenue as possible while continuing to build a sustainable digital future.
Our Mather Strategies consultancy team is currently doing some very interesting work in the magazine industry in this area so let me know if you would like to hear more about those projects.
Always let me know on Twitter if you spot any #MediaRevenue stories I may have missed. If you have any questions or comments about these updates, please get in touch.
Here is this week's curated selection of #MediaRevenue news:
"The pandemic has been bad for the country’s local newspapers. But maybe not as bad as some people have feared." "The closures have perpetuated the problem of so-called news deserts — places with limited access to local news, the report said. Over one-fifth of Americans now live in such a place, or in a place that is at risk of becoming one."
"The daily paper in The Villages, Florida (a retirement community, pop. 129,752) sells as many print copies as the one in Atlanta (pop. 6,930,423)."
"Our top 25 ranking, based on figures shared by the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM), shows that The Wall Street Journal and New York Times retain the largest daily print circulations in the US. Gannett’s USA Today keeps third place, but is close to seeing its print circulation fall below Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post."
"the proprietors of two subscriber-funded local news website start-ups in the US which appear to have discovered a new sustainable business model"
"The New York Times sees multi-product subscribers as the most valuable. They pay the most, retain the best, and engage more than any single-product subscriber group."
Recommended by LinkedIn
"There are much higher levels of subscriptions for all the other kinds of digital media content (TV, music, sports, audiobooks) than for news. News is also the only kind where subscribers skew older,"
"Publishers have historically struggled to compete for audiences’ attention when they were shifting to consuming content on social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube. Now, young people are actively avoiding the news, which was a cause of consternation among a panel of executives and editors from The New York Times, Vox Media, Reuters and Google News Lab at a Reuters event held Wednesday morning in New York City."
"Group Black is in talks to buy a possible majority stake in Bustle owner BDG Media and has been eyeing Vice, all part of its ambitious plan to increase the amount of Black-owned media. Brands are under pressure to spend more of their ad budgets with minority-owned media outlets."
"8 must-read articles each weekday, free for the first month, then 99c a month for the next six months. iPhone only to start with."
"Axios Local has surpassed 1 million cumulative email subscribers across its 21 city-based outposts."
"Publishers have loosened their paywalls after witnessing both a slowdown in subscription growth and a rising demand for ads."
"Google warned Canadian officials it would pull its news service from Canada should Ottawa implement rules to force digital platforms to pay news publishers for stories on its platform. “Cannot operate under a regime that compels us to pay""
"Annual “membership” to Punchbowl costs three hundred dollars; as of late 2021, at least three thousand people had signed up; around a hundred thousand got the free version." h/t Claire Atkinson