Media Moments 2020

MEDIA MOMENTS
2020
Sponsored by Written by
MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 I

CONTENTS
III Introduction from What’s New in Publishing
IV Introduction from Permutive
VI Foreword from the writers
Media Moments 2020

1 PRINT
There may be silver linings, but print’s long-term future
still looks distinctly cloudy
5 AUDIO
Hear ye, hear ye: 2020 was the year of the audio
renaissance, proving resilient to the pandemic
9 DATA & ADVERTISING
Publishers prepare for triple threat to ad revenues from
platforms, keyword blocking, and Covid-19
13 READER REVENUE
Covid-19 has boosted reader revenues and reminded us
why they matter
17 TRUST
The enemy of my enemy… Trust in the media has had a
rollercoaster ride of a year
21 EVENTS
Sink or swim for events strategies as the ‘pivot to virtual’
divides publishers into two camps
25 DIVERSITY
Global protests force media to think harder about
diversity and inclusion
29 PLATFORMS
2020 saw showdowns between platforms and
governments, with publishers set to benefit
33 OPPORTUNITIES FOR 2021
From tiny acorns: a moment to reflect and reset on long-
held strategies and beliefs
37 APPENDIX
MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 II

INTRODUCTION
W
hat a year. If WNIP receives one more press release Jeremy Walters
with the words ‘unprecedented’, ‘crazy times’ or ‘stay @wnip
safe’ we’ll start ‘circling back’ with the delete button.
You’d think that all these months at home would boost creative
ingenuity, not murder it.
On a more serious note, this year has taken its toll on everyone,
not just in publishing, and the uncertainty and disruption look
set to continue well into the future.
But if 2020 has taught publishers just one thing, it’s this: diver-
sified revenue streams are paramount. Those publishers that
branched into at least four main revenue streams prior to 2020
were far better shielded from cratering ad rates, cancelled
events and the other Covid-19 curve balls that no one could have
possibly foreseen.
Intertwined with this is the importance of putting audiences

first. In fact, broader revenue streams can only exist if a publish-
er truly puts its focus on its audience, and those publishers that
have served their audience well are now reaping the rewards.
Perhaps the most important lesson this year is a reminder that

publishers play a hugely important role in society at large, and
our content is a key part of the fabric that binds our world to-
gether. We need to honour that by taking our responsibilities
more seriously than ever, and making objectivity and facts our
priority, not agendas, prejudices or biases. Our world needs this
now more than ever.
Finally, everyone at What’s New in Publishing would like to

extend their thanks to Permutive, the report’s sponsor, and the
team at Media Voices who have written an excellent overview of
the key events in publishing during 2020. If you haven’t already
subscribed to Media Voices’ weekly podcasts on publishing, we
recommend you do!
Jeremy Walters
Editor, What’s New in Publishing
MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 III

FROM PERMUTIVE
F
irstly, thank you to WNIP and the Media Voices team for the Aly Nurmohamed
opportunity to be part of this report. It has been an unusual
year and one that I personally have learned a lot from. Run-
ning our business remotely was not something we would have
ever chosen to do but we’ve managed to make it work through
the magic of hard work and determination. I am extremely grate-
ful to the team that we have built but also to all of our customers
who have worked with us to continue to make things possible
even while we are all at home.
As a company, we have spent the last three years building tech-

nology for publishers to build successful walled gardens where
cookies no longer exist. This has enabled them to build closer is proud to sponsor
relationships with their customers and allowed them to take Media Moments 2020
back control (from third parties) through monetizing their first
party data by coupling it with media. We continue to build prod- @permutive
ucts and services that help publishers prepare for a decentralized
open internet, which no longer has a common identifier and one
which will make 97% of the open web anonymous to buyers.
Over the past few years, ad tech has lacked innovation, however,
this year has seen a new raft of ideas come to the table especially
around identity. For publishers, this is really difficult to navigate,
with some trying to recreate the cookie, some trying to build
against authentication. Our belief is that identity is fragmented
and is about to get worse. As a guiding principle, it is only the
companies that have a direct relationship with a user that will
have the ability to understand and target users moving forward.
Ultimately with the loss of third-party cookies, and more gen-

erally privacy means, publishers are becoming walled gardens,
where data can go in, but data can’t come out. Relying on tech-
nology to keep things working the way they do today is not going
to work. Advertising technology should enable publishers to
transact and build closer relationships to advertisers not dis-
tance them.
Publishers have the control now. They make the decisions about
their data, they now have to capitalise on it.
Aly Nurmohamed
General Manager, Permutive
MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 IV

The Data
Management
Platform built
for publishers
First-party data
In-session targeting
Privacy by design
Book a demo via hello@permutive.com,

or visit www.permutive.com
MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 V

FROM THE WRITERS
H
ow do you write an introduction in a year like this? What Esther Kezia
words can we use to capture the events of the past 12 Thorpe
months, and how it has upended every aspect of our lives? @EstherKeziaT
When deciding on the areas we would focus on for the chapters

in this report, we debated dedicating a whole one to Covid-19.
But then we realised the effects of the pandemic have been felt
across everything we were planning to write about, from the ad
market to print magazines, subscriptions and even podcasts. Chris Sutcliffe
@chrismsutcliffe
The pandemic has pushed publishers that were struggling over
the edge, but it has also provided opportunities for others. With
audiences stuck at home and desperate for entertainment and
information, publishers have stepped up, and many are now
reaping the rewards.
As hope for a return to normal life grows, the conversation

Peter Houston
among publishers next year will doubtless turn to retention
strategies for subscribers. But there will also be conversations @flipping_pages
between ourselves about what changes we want to keep with our
own working practices. An industry which is more flexible will
benefit from more diverse talent from a much broader geograph-
ical base, bringing with them perspectives and experiences that
will challenge and change us for the better.
This year, as with all the years we’ve written Media Moments, voices.media
there have been a huge range of topics we could have chosen. @mediavoicespod
But we have finite time (and pages), so have chosen to focus on
the ones which have a direct impact on publisher’s businesses
and strategic directions.
We also have an additional chapter this year dedicated to diver-

sity. Following the BLM protests over the summer, diversity has
(rightly) risen to the top of the agenda at organisations. But rath-
er than dwell on the avalance of controversies and high profile
media exits, we’ve chosen instead to focus on the constructive
aspects; what people and publishers are doing to try and drive
lasting, meaningful change.
If you’re interested in keeping up with the latest updates

throughout 2021, we release a new episode of our podcast every
Monday. There is a news round-up - including a discussion on
what these events mean practically for publishers - as well as an
interview with a leading industry figure. Just search for ‘Media
Voices’ wherever you listen to podcasts.
Until next year, where we genuinely hope we’ll have far less to
write about!
The Media Voices team

Esther Kezia Thorpe, Chris Sutcliffe and Peter Houston
MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 VI

PRINT
There may be silver linings, but

print’s long-term future still looks
distinctly cloudy
Certain corners of the print market have had a better pandemic than
anyone would have predicted, but for every story of screen-weary readers
picking up a print subscription, there’s at least one more of a print closure.
P
rint, the publishing platform that will not die. Not even Peter Houston
a global pandemic can finish it off. Covid-19 restrictions @flipping_pages
chased more than a few titles out of print in 2020, some
into a digital only future, others into history. But the monotony
of a screen-heavy work-life imbalance pushed real-world print
back into the spotlight and people have been subscribing to
(some) print publications in record numbers. That doesn’t mean
it’s been easy.
Publishers kept going with WFH workflows cobbled together

from Zoom, Slack and Dropbox, but when the lockdowns hit,
print faced the perfect storm. It’s hard to make a publication if
your printing press is locked down; to deliver a publication if
your distribution network is locked down; to sell a publication if
your retail outlets are locked down. And if your advertisers have Newspaper sales dropped
locked down their budgets, you’re in for some challenging times.
40%
Where are we now?
The media industry coverage from this year has been focused
heavily on ‘trend acceleration’. “In recent weeks, several decades’
worth of disruption and, frankly, obliteration has come to the
UK’s newspapers and magazines,” wrote the BBC’s media editor
Amol Rajan in April1. “Covid-19 is accelerating innovation that was at the worst point of lockdown
long overdue and likely to happen anyway”.
In the first quarter of 2020, magazine newsstand sales were

down 8% on 2019; bad but not catastrophic. Then lockdown
pushed the year-on-year shortfall to 20-25%2. In newspapers,
downward circulation trends were amped up by the cancellation
of the commute. Again, starting the year down by 8%, newspaper
sales dropped by up to 40% at their worst3. HYMAG
London-based HYMAG has
Retail closures, reduced footfall, fears of appearing next to neg-
been officially designated
ative stories, it wasn’t hard for advertisers to find an excuse not
to spend in print through the first half of 2020. Ad spend across
the largest magazine archive
the press in the UK was down 42%, with over $1 billion wiped off in the world. They have also
total UK advertising expenditure during lockdown4. started crowdfunding for the
maintenance, conservation,
Subtract advertising revenues from car-crash newsstand returns storage and digitization of the
and several magazines that were already teetering on the brink archive. Learn more about
slipped over the edge. At the beginning of September, Press the campaign and HYMAG on
Gazette was reporting more than 40 magazine closures5 from their website.
Immediate Media, Future Publishing, Bauer and DC Thomson.
MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 1

PRINT
The subject matter of the titles shuttered covered the broadest The US has lost
range imaginable - from rock music to golf, weddings to comput-
1800
ers, cross stitch to boxing - but the messaging around the clo-
sures carried a stark similarity that went something like this:
“The magazine market has been challenged for a number

of years. The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated declines.
Magazines that were marginal six months ago have become
commercially unsustainable5.”
Even previously healthy magazine operations suffered from the newspapers since 2005
shock of lockdown. Based in Edinburgh, The Skinny is a free
monthly arts and entertainment magazine covering Scotland and
the North of England that woke up one morning to a world with-
out entertainment. There were no venues open to advertise and
nowhere for readers to pick up the publication. The pandemic
poleaxed their business model.
Other titles faced with overnight collapse include the quarterly “It’s frustrating
Family Traveller magazine that, despite posting record months
in January and February, was forced to close in April, with the because we were
company going into liquidation in September6. profitable and
A reeling US newspaper industry has also been hit hard. Nation-
growing – in
al newspaper circulation in the US is down 30%7 since 2016, the January and February
local news market has lost 1,800 papers since 2005 and Covid-19 we had two of our record
alone brought the closure of 60 newsrooms8. months and then March
There have been no high-profile Covid-19 casualties in the UK and April fell to zero…
newspaper market, but then again it would be hard to spot them £100,000 plus per
in a local news sector that has been declining for years; the UK
month to zero. No media
has lost 265 regional titles since 20059. The UK’s fourth largest
newspaper publisher Archant was bought in a private equity business can absorb that.”
deal10. JPI Media, back on the block after posting a £34.5 million Andrew Dent, Founder, Family
operating loss is a likely target for the newly funded Archant11. Traveller Magazine
Freesheets were hit hard by the shutdown. The Evening Stand-

ard, delivering to people’s homes for the first time ever, cut
its print run in half and Metro dropped its circulation to just
300,000 from 1.4 million at the height of the lockdown. Morning
business paper City AM simply stopped printing and as of No-
vember was still not back on the streets12.
But it would be a truly ill wind that blew no good whatsoever and Newsstand
among the Covid-19 carnage there have been stories of survival sales of Vanity
and even of thriving. The Skinny, like Simon Brew’s Film Stories, Fair Italy rose
survived to fight another day thanks to successful crowdfunding
campaigns. 78.5%
Magazine publishers worldwide reported clear subscription in April
growth, especially in the childrens, home, food, garden and despite 30%
health & wellbeing sectors. of newsstands
being closed.
Other magazine publishers completely rejigged their business
models. With vendors kept off the streets, The Big Issue and
Stylist both reinvented their distribution models, The Big Issue
selling through retail outlets for the first time13 and Stylist dis-
tributing through online supermarket Ocado14.

PRINT
Even newspapers saw some readers, tired of “doomscrolling”

take up a subscription. “I had to find a way to cut back on my
screentime and get the information that I needed to feel satiated,
informed and on top of what was happening in the world,” wrote
first-time subscriber Katy Byron15.
And in one of the absolute best print stories of 2020, UK tabloid

The Daily Star reinvented itself as the leading critic of the UK
government’s Covid-19 response. It’s cut-out-and-keep masks
of controversial government advisor Dominic Cummings were a
triumph and a stunt made for print16.
Where are we now?

Hopefully, we’ve seen the worst of the closures and layoffs and
some semblance of a recovery is appearing late in the year. Many
of the big print players in the magazine market have paid back
the government funding they received during lockdown and
although print launches are at a hen’s-teeth level of frequency,
they are there.
More broadly, it’s about survival. Jim Bilton of Wessenden Mar-

keting told us that being a good publisher might not be enough.
“Who is left standing in 12 months time is actually going to be
fairly random,” he said. “It won’t actually be dependent on how
good an operator that publisher actually is but their finances…
have they got the cash in the bank17?”
Hearst UK illustrates the point. The business has managed to

avoid closures and has seen a subscriptions uptick, but it’s events
“I want to use
and advertising receipts have taken a hammering and the com- this platform
pany expects Covid-19 losses to eat up a “large proportion” of its to make these
cash resources18. amazing black
What can we expect in the future? role models that are
Trend acceleration is on the agenda for next year. More marginal not seen a lot. So that
magazines and newspapers will go to the wall. More information children can actually look
providers that don’t need a real-world substrate will switch to at what they can achieve
digital-only.
in life.”
Print publishers that can spin a ‘differentiation’ angle will dou- Serlina Boyd, Founder, Cocoa Girl
ble-down on their specific niches and the tangibility of their and Cocoa Boy magazines
products. That could mean lux production or banging the
‘screentime-break’ drum really hard, but establishing a ‘different
from digital’ position will be crucial.
And pretty much everyone that survives 2020 with some form
of print offering will need to go into 2021 with one eye firmly on
revenue diversification. From ecommerce to virtual events and
a complimentary digital content package - news, newsletters,
podcasts, video - cash from digital will matter.
For all the talk around our rediscovery of real world pleasures,
the new normal won’t be that different from the old normal and
print will continue to be under intense pressure.

PRINT
CASE STUDY
First Black children’s magazine launches
In a year shaped by a stay-at-home health crisis and Black
Lives Matter protests, it is fitting that the UK’s first magazine
for Black children has launched. Frustrated during lockdown
at the lack of a magazine that could both entertain and rep-
resent her daughter, Serlina Boyd decided to launch Cocoa
Girl. And in a world finally taking a serious look at its attitude
to race in the wake of the George Floyd killing, the magazine
found enthusiastic support across the UK and beyond.
June’s launch issue sold 11,000 copies online and the first-time
publisher has recently struck distribution deals for Cocoa Girl
with the UKs biggest magazine retailers including WH Smith.
Out of home advertising provider Clear Channel is also pro-
viding Cocoa Girl space across its sites as part of their sup-
port for Black History Month, putting the title on billboards
throughout the UK19.
CASE STUDY
160-year old regional paper back in black
Buying the Cumberland and Westmorland Herald out of ad-
ministration early in 2020, saving 22 jobs, local businessman
Andy Barr has turned a profit within six months20. The secret
of his success however appears to be a smart digital appoint-
ment; former Bloomberg head of digital and newsgathering
John Holliday took on the role of MD.
Holliday challenged staff to ‘try new things’, bringing in a
head of digital content, reporter, advertising director and two
business development managers. With a cover price hike of
50%, he has also developed a focus on hyperlocal news saying,
“Readers want to believe in their community, read quality par-
ish pump content… I believe that we could go back to a time
where every town has its own local newspaper.”
CASE STUDY
Innovation in distribution models
In the good old days Stylist magazine was picked up for free
on the street. Covid-19 put a stop to that.
Stylist, abandoned print in March, looking to keep readers
engaged with a recently launched digital edition. The publish-
er returned to a print run of 400,000 at the end of September
after putting a home delivery deal in place with online super-
market Ocado.
Stylist has also introduced a print subscription for the first
time, charging £4 a quarter for the formerly free magazine
after seeing the success of a paid digital edition. CEO Ella
Dolphin has since said that Stylist will not go back to being a
free title.

AUDIO
Hear ye, hear ye: 2020 was the year

of the audio renaissance, proving
resilient to the pandemic
Huge investments, mergers and experiments prove that getting into audio
content is a lucrative move for publishers - but 2021 could be the year the
dream of the open podcast economy dies an ignominious death
M
any, many deals have stalled or been delayed this past Chris Sutcliffe
year, as the foundations of media businesses have been @chrismsutcliffe
shaken by disruption. Notably some of the largest acqui-
sitions have been made in the audio and podcasting space, which
has proven to be resilient despite an initial hit to listener num-
bers at the start of the pandemic.
Without the commute - which provided a captive audience for

creators looking to reach an audience through the secondary
activity of listening to a podcast or radio app - the worry was
that podcasting would be a leaky ship, just as impacted as metro
freesheets have been.
Over the course of the past few months, though, podcasting has
133,171
new shows were added to
proven to be hardy enough to weather the storm1. In fact, there
were 133,171 new shows in Apple Podcasts in June, the highest Apple Podcasts in June, the
amount of new shows ever to be added in just one month2. Now, highest ever in one month
with eyes turning to the opportunities around engaged listeners
over the next decade or more, everyone’s trying to cash in on
that stable and growing audience.
What happened in 2020?

By the start of 2020 we knew that media businesses were aiming
to develop their podcasting businesses. Vox, for one, was already
generating over $10m in revenue from podcasts alone, and head
of Vox Media Studio Marty Moe’s stated aim was to double that
over the course of the year3. It helped that Vox already had a
raft of over 200 established podcasts at its disposal, including
Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway and The Ezra Klein
Show. But other publishers, without that historic investment in
the medium, had to consider acquiring their way to the top table
instead.
Starting a podcast
Appropriately, 2020 began with some news about the podcast
that is seen as having proved the viability of the format. In Janu-
Thinking of getting started
ary, it was reported that Serial Productions was shopping around in podcasting? What’s New
for a buyer4 - though the sale to the New York Times wouldn’t in Publishing have written
come until July5, for somewhere in the region of $50m. It was an a dedicated guide just for
early sign that the larger media companies considered it prudent publishers on how to plan,
to start building up their podcast production capabilities, and produce and launch your
made sense even then for The NYT, which has set the standard own podcast: The Publisher’s
for daily news podcasts with The Daily. Guide to Podcasting

AUDIO
Also in January, it was reported that Apple was looking to com- Audio articles helped
mission original podcasts based around its suite of Apple TV+ Danish publisher
content. Whether that was originally to take the form of com- Zetland gain
mentary on individual episodes, as AMC has done, or was to be
fiction as with Marvel’s experimentation, is unclear. It was an
early proof point that podcasts are seen as having the potential
to be integrated into wider editorial strategies, even outside of
2,000
new subscribers
the hard news industry.
during lockdown
Outside of podcasting by the strictest definition, June saw the
launch of Times Radio, the new DAB station from News UK.
Launched with some fanfare with an ‘exclusive’ interview with
the prime minister, the launch was somewhat marred by the fact
that people asking their smart speakers for Times Radio were
directed to Times Radio Malawi6, a music and talk station based
in east Africa. A few months down the line, Times Radio has yet
to really establish itself as a big player in the audio space.
“What we’ve
Furthering the delineation of audio content, July saw The Wash- learned from
ington Post launch audio versions of its print articles7. While this
users is that
wasn’t an entirely new endeavour for a newspaper, WaPo later
reported that it has been surprised by the number of listeners they listen
who chose to engage while at home, rather than commuting. In to the news while doing
the same month, Apple added more audio options to its Apple other things, and are
News+ offering8.
consuming far more
One interesting corollary of the huge growth in podcasting this content than they would
year has been the rise of content about podcasting. In much the normally. We plan to
same way that film criticism sprang up and become a viable ver-
tical in its own right, so too has podcast criticism. continue iterating on the
feature to provide the best
In August Vulture announced it was set to double the amount of
podcast coverage it produces9, with its star podcast critic Nick
quality experience.”
Quah launching a podcast recommendations newsletter that Leila Siddique, Senior Product
seems to ameliorate the issue of discovery that still plagues pod- Manager at The Washington Post
casting. The Observer’s podcast critic Miranda Sawyer has also
been especially busy over the past few months, as information
about new podcasts comes at a premium.
Undoubtedly, the biggest player in podcasting this year has been

Spotify. In February it completed its fourth major acquisition in
twelve months by buying The Ringer and its production capabil- Spotify is
ities10. A few weeks later, in March, it cemented its position as a estimated
major acquirer of talent by hiring former editor-in-chief of the to have
Huffington Post Lydia Polgrave as head of content for its subsidi- spent
ary Gimlet Media11.
And then, in May, the biggie. Spotify announced they had signed
The Joe Rogan Podcast as an exclusive12. The news launched
a thousand thinkpieces - and just as many arguments about
whether audio content distributed without an RSS feed even
$1
counts as a ‘podcast’ any more. Crucially, it brought the back
catalogue of his episodes in-house, with a few notable excisions
related to the most controversial episodes.
billion
on podcast-
Deals with Kim Kardashian-West for a series about criminal jus- related
tice reform13 and the first results of its partnership with Michelle acquisitions

AUDIO
Obama14 soon followed. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that fully “It’s been pretty
half of the news around podcasting this year came from Spotify.
wild to see pod-
Where are we now? casting grow to
Podcasting’s better-than-expected showing over the first half of the extent that
the year has led to it being a safer bet than most mediums. While it has, and I’m excited to
advertising revenue across the board has been hit by Covid-19,
podcasting has weathered the storm better than most. PwC’s have a new space where I
amended predictions see the amount of advertising revenue can more regularly draw
entering the space rising to $814M - just only 6% less than what attention to the shows
PwC and the IAB predicted for 2020 last year at this time.
that I love, that I find the
That, combined with a general increase in confidence around the most interesting, and that
viability of the medium, means that we’re probably in a position I think say something
where media buyers increasingly regard podcasting as a prima-
ry channel, particularly at the larger organisations. The same is
about where the medium
true for sponsorship opportunities and branded content, both of is going.”
which are having a bit of a moment. Nick Quah, Founder, Hot Pod
At the same time, podcasting is having a bit of an identity crisis.
If the audio content on Spotify isn’t a true podcast, does that
mean we need a new term? If radio shows are later released
as podcasts, should we be describing them as ‘audio’ instead?
What does it say that Audible appears to be labelling much of its
catalogue as podcasts15? Expect this discussion - and a wider one
about available metrics around audio - to become much more
widespread in the near future.
What can we expect in the future?

If you’ve read this section and felt uneasy about the sheer
amount of audio content that is now appearing exclusively on U.S. podcast advertising
Spotify, congratulations! That is the correct response. revenue is expected to grow
As the huge media networks and publishers hoover up the mid-
sized and large podcast networks, we’re in danger of the open
podcasting ecosystem becoming a thing of the past. That’s espe-
cially problematic when, as those who read the fine print around
14.7%
Amazon’s new podcast service discovered, those platforms have
final say on what they deem acceptable to distribute16.
We’re also likely to see more teething problems, such as Spotify

employees demanding editorial oversight over Joe Rogan’s pod-
cast, as those platforms take on editorial positions. One thing’s
for certain - the spate of acquisitions is far from over. Expect
many more exclusive signings and publishers courting celebrities
for new podcasts - and more projects based on podcasts17. And, of
course, more confusion about rights18.
this year, despite the
pandemic

AUDIO
CASE STUDY
Amazon Music
While Spotify is the undoubted king of acquisitions when it
comes to podcasts this year, Amazon is no slouch either. In
September the company announced it was adding 70,000
shows to the platform. That includes some major existing ti-
tles, like Serial and Pod Save America, as well as new exclusive
deals. Given that it’s Amazon, it won’t surprise you to learn
that these shows are primarily ad-funded, though the exact
form of those ads doesn’t appear to be set in stone at time of
writing. More importantly, though, its escalation in terms of
commissioning exclusive shows sets it up for a conflict with
Spotify, from which the consumer will (hopefully) benefit.
CASE STUDY
Times Radio
In a lot of ways, Times Radio is the apotheosis of many of
Rupert Murdoch’s stated aims for his News UK media empire.
It is a commercial rival to the BBC with laxer controls over
impartiality and a vigorously right-leaning libertarian energy
to its presenters. Ahead of its launch, the DAB radio station
poached the BBC’s deputy political editor John Pienaar, and
all signs are that the station isn’t done with its spree of acqui-
sitions. What is not clear is the extent to which Times Radio
is financially viable or successful among audiences in its own
right. While commercial radio advertising spend is increasing
at a national level, the initial outlay and salaries of its ‘star’
presenters mean it has had little money to spend on content
creation. That has resulted in much of its early output being
closer to traditional talk radio than its competition in Radio 4,
and that’s not necessarily attractive to audiences19.
CASE STUDY
Consider This
NPR wasn’t the first publisher to launch a Covid-19-focused
podcast. It is, however, one of the few that have found a way
to pivot that audience towards other topics once the podcast
had run its course. It rapidly launched Coronavirus Daily in
mid-March following a six-day pitch and production process,
on the understanding that its audience had a vested interest
in regular updates on the pandemic. Its audience would go on
to grow by 56% in six weeks. NPR then took the decision to
rebrand the show as Consider This, an afternoon counterpart
to its morning news podcast Up First. Considering this was
essentially a pivot away from a specific topic to a more gener-
al news show, this was a gamble - but one that has paid off. It
now fits neatly into NPR’s suite of podcasts and appears to be
additive to the rest of its programming, rather than siphoning
listeners away from its other shows.

DATA & ADVERTISING
Publishers prepare for triple threat

to ad revenues from platforms,
keyword blocking, and Covid-19
Covid-19’s impact on advertising was swift and merciless. But many
publishers were in a strong position to weather the storm, having reduced
reliance on ads as a primary revenue stream.
T
he conversation around data and advertising has grown Esther Kezia
even more complex this year, intertwined with wider issues Thorpe
of governance, regulation, and platforms. Some of these @EstherKeziaT
key events are addressed in our dedicated ‘Platforms’ chapter,
but this chapter will deal specifically with the changes in data
and advertising in 2020 where they have affected publishers.
Many in the industry have pointed out that Covid-19 has brought
five year’s worth of transformation to publishing businesses in
the space of just a few months. Advertising revenue - already in
decline for most publishers - went into freefall in spring, mean-
ing that those who had hoped for a slow weaning off it as a reve-
nue stream had to make fast and painful decisions.
BROWSER
But it’s not just Covid-19 pushing transformation through. Goog-
MARKET SHARE
le, Facebook and Apple are just a few of the tech giants making
waves by taking matters into their own hands regarding privacy,
tracking and cookies.
66% Chrome*
What happened in 2020 17% Safari*
At the start of the year, Google made a dramatic announcement,
that it was working towards “making third party cookies obso- 4% Firefox*
lete” and phasing out support for them in its Chrome browser
within two years1. This was not an entirely unexpected move;
Firefox and Apple’s Safari browser announced similar third party 3% Samsung Internet
cookie-blocking measures in 2019, and Google had been seen
testing their own version within Chrome towards the end of the 2.8% Edge
year.
Those three browsers between them have a share of over 87% of *Plans to or has already blocked third-party
cookies and trackers
the combined mobile and desktop browser market2, meaning that
third party cookies have no viable future on the internet.
However, unlike Apple and Firefox, Google has also said it is

The Privacy Sandbox
committed to finding alternatives3. The company announced an You can keep up with Goog-
initiative called the Privacy Sandbox in late 2019 in order to de- le’s work on The Privacy
velop a set of open standards to “fundamentally enhance privacy Sandbox and participate in
on the web”. the web standards communi-
ty proposals via its Chromium
A number of options have shown promise, among them a propos- Projects blog. The changes
al for a ‘Federated Learning of Cohorts’ (FLoC) which allows com-
are scheduled for full rollout
panies to observe the behaviour of a cohort (or ‘flock’) of similar
in early 2021.
people, rather than sharing personally identifiable information4.

DATA & ADVERTISING
In the meantime, publishers have been hard at work this year “Coronavirus
strengthening their own positions in the absence of a concrete
alternative to third party cookies. As we noted last year, many
has accelerated
have used this as an opportunity to establish or grow first party us moving into
data strategies, which play much better to the strengths of pub- the ad business
lishing companies; namely a loyal audience with whom they have that we want
a trusted relationship.
to be in. There is some-
The New York Times saw its ad sales plunge 44% in Q2 of this thing that happens when
year. But they saw this as an opportunity to plan ahead for the
future, investing in better ad experiences and developing con-
you can’t do a lot about
textual targeting as a substitute for third party cookies5. This your quarterly results
contextual targeting involves classifying content including the and it requires that you
emotional tenor of a story, topic targeting, and motivations, in focus on a year or two
order to better understand where people respond to ads. That
doesn’t mean clients aren’t still coming with unrealistic targeting from now. For us it has
goals, but it allows the NYT to have a more solutions-focused ripped the Band-Aid on
conversation with them. some hard decisions.”
Other publishers are building their own tools. Vox Media Allison Murphy, SVP of Ad
launched Concert Ad Manager, a self-service tool to give brands Innovation, New York Times
- especially small and medium businesses - the ability to build
and deploy advertising campaigns at scale across the Concert
marketplace, which includes publishers like NBC Universal,
Penske Media, Quartz and more6. This is a particularly important
step in making advertising on publisher sites accessible to small-
er brands.
But it’s not just browsers which proved a challenge to advertis-

ing this year. Apple announced in June that it would be making a
change in its upcoming iOS 14 update that would require users to
give explicit permission before letting apps track them for adver-
tising purposes.
The vast majority of people are expected to choose the ‘Do Not Dutch publisher NPO found
Track’ option. This in turn will reduce the amount that adver- that ad click-through rates
tisers know about the people they’re trying to reach, and will increased by
70%
reduce the price of ads sold. In 2017, Apple rolled out a similar
restriction on behaviour tracking for its Safari web browser7, and
publishers saw ad rates plummet for these users.
One estimate from Weather Co estimates that the price adver-

tisers are willing to pay within iPhone apps could decline by as
much as 40% as a result of the change8.
when using
DMG Media - owner of the Daily Mail - is just one of a number contextual rather
of publishers to express concerns at the move. Their MailOn- than individual
line iOS app is used by 1.2 million people per day. “It makes it ad targeting
much harder for us to monetise our Apple app users, who are an
incredibly loyal readership. And quite frankly, it puts at risk our
ability to provide an Apple app,” Publisher Martin Clarke said9.
“When every publisher is fighting for every last advertising cent,
this couldn’t come at a worse time.”
However, in September, Apple said that they would delay imple-

mentation of the tracking permissions until early 2021 in order to
give developers time to make the necessary changes. This brief
reprieve doesn’t mean the impact will be lessened next year.

DATA & ADVERTISING
“Many news publishers will struggle to adapt; few have the sort
of robust data systems that would allow them to create some-
thing like the ad targeting Apple would be limiting,” Joshua
Benton wrote in Nieman Lab10. “Publishers who sell most of their
advertising directly will have an edge over those who rely on pro-
Global ad
grammatic ad networks. In the long run, that’s probably a healthy
tradeoff for publishers - but there’ll be pain in the meantime.”
spend is set
Then of course, we have the dramatic impact of the pandemic. to fall 8.1%
Marketing budgets across all sectors have seen record declines,
with ad spend set to fall 8.1% globally this year11. As for the impact this year
on publishers, PwC have estimated that global newspaper adver-
tising - both print and online - will fall more than a quarter from
$49.2bn in 2019 to $36bn in 2024 as a result12.
The effects of declining ad spend on publishers has been exacer-

bated by keyword blocking. Blocklists are used by advertisers as
part of brand safety efforts to stop ads appearing next to inap-
propriate content. This often adversely affects news publishers,
as these blocklists ban terms relating to topics such as terror-
ism, disasters, or even LBGT+ content, with titles like PinkNews
“The Chrome
having as much as 73% of their stories flagged as ‘brand unsafe’ announcement
earlier in the year13. was definitely
As the pandemic started to take hold, advertisers rushed to ‘Oh shit!’ for
include keywords related to Covid-19 on their blocklists. But this many, but a
meant that publishers of all shapes and sizes suffered. sense of relief for us too.
In February, ‘coronavirus’ became the second-most common Now at least we know
word on block lists for news publishers (with the most common what to expect, have a
being Trump’)15. By March, Integral Ad Science, a digital ad veri- time frame, and are able
fication company, had over 3,000 advertisers blocking the term16.
Its software automatically blocked 36% of ads it attempted to to plan for it together.”
place on the New York Times’ website due to Covid-19 content, Karen Eccles, Senior Director
up from 6% in February. It also blocked 45% of ads from appear- of Commercial Innovation, The
ing on the Washington Post, and 29% on CNN. Telegraph14
Between April and July, Covid-19 related keyword blocking was

estimated to have cost publishers alone £50m in lost ad revenue17
in the UK alone.

It’s a low bar to bounce back from, but there have been green
shoots of recovery in the ad market towards the second half of Covid-19
the year, despite the pandemic dragging on around the world. related keyword
Digital ad spend is expected to increase by 6% in 2020, with paid blocking is estimated
search, social and CTV seeing strongest growth18.
to have cost publishers
£50m
However, the outlook for publishers is still very much in flux.
The triple-whammy of keyword blocking, reduced ad spend and
action from the tech giants makes the outlook for advertising
revenue very grim indeed for 2021.
in lost ad revenue
Those who have prepared in advance by strengthening their in the UK
first-party data strategies and tools are going to be in a much alone
stronger position going into the year than those who are still
heavily reliant on traditional display.

DATA & ADVERTISING
CASE STUDY
Buzzfeed’s two-pronged data strategy
The biggest shift for Buzzfeed this year has been in struc-
turing bi-directional data partnerships with clients. This is a
two-pronged approach, which involves both enhancing their
first party data collection, and also building on that to talk to
advertisers about using BuzzFeed data to enrich their own.
“We can actually tell you how we built [our first party data].
We should try this, instead of this random third party au-
dience that we want to use that we have no idea about the
quality,” BuzzFeed’s Director of Data Partnerships Josh Peters
told us.
Because BuzzFeed’s first party data is CCPA and GDPR com-
pliant, it can be used in a compliant way to strike larger deals
with advertisers where BuzzFeed ingest client data, and can
then tell the advertiser more about that audience on Buzz-
Feed, as well as tailor better campaigns.
CASE STUDY
Vice partners with Experian and Infosum
Vice Media Group has re-architectured its entire ads process
to bolster its first party data offering. It is using a new tool
from Experian and Infosum in order to glean insights about its
audiences without needing them to log in.
Vice provide a first party ID, IP address and timestamp data,
which is matched with Experian’s own IP address and house-
hold-level socio-demographic data in order to create the
Experian Match mapping file. This file is stored in a decentral-
ised data bunker, where matching then takes place using Info-
Sum. Publishers create their own private and secure bunkers,
as do advertisers, meaning that individual personal customer
data is never shared between publishers and advertisers19.
CASE STUDY
Contextual targeting pays off for NPO
Dutch public broadcaster Nederlandse Publieke Omroep
stopped using third party cookies and switched to contextual
targeting at the start of 2020. It has since seen revenue grow
each month, even during the pandemic.
Contextual advertising works by focusing on tagging content,
rather than targeting a certain type of consumer. It’s not new,
and is a method much more beneficial to publishers as they
attract audiences interested in certain types of content. NPO
found that a travel brand’s click-through rate increased by
70% when using context as opposed to individual targeting.
“NPO is far more lucrative now than in 2019,” said Dr. John-
ny Ryan, Chief Policy & Industry Relations Officer at Brave20.
“Year-over-year revenue growth continued even as Covid-19
decimated the advertising market.”

READER REVENUE
Covid-19 has boosted reader

revenues and reminded us why
they matter
Already trending upwards for many publishers, reader revenue growth has
been spurred on by lockdown audiences desperate for news and with lots
of time on their hands.
T
he pivot to reader revenue began way before 2020’s pan- Peter Houston
demic, but Covid-19 lockdowns have proved to be a signif- @flipping_pages
icant boost to subscriber-based business models. And the
collapse of almost every other publishing income stream - news-
stand, advertising, events - has guaranteed the reader’s place in
future business planning.
Digital subscriptions are the headline act, with more than one
news brand posting record gains in this otherwise awful year. But
the surprise guest on 2020 balance sheets will be print subscrip-
tions. In May, BuzzFeed was reporting:
“Subscriptions to glossy magazines are up, sales of publications

focusing on puzzles or content for children are soaring, and The Atlantic
websites capitalising on hundreds of millions of amateur cooks,
bakers and gardeners stuck at home are seeing record traffic.”1 gained a record
36,000
The challenge for 2021 will be retention. How will publishers
keep hold of subscribers brought in by a crazy-fast news cycle,
the challenges of home schooling and the claustrophobic bore-
dom of being made to stay home?
Where are we now?

new subscribers
The media industry coverage from this year has focused heavily in March
on ‘trend acceleration’. It’s no different in reader revenue, and
publishers that had already gone big on digital subscriptions
reaped the rewards in 2020.
As the rapidly developing global health crisis unfolded, peo-

ple were desperate for information that they could trust. And, The Membership Guide
confined to their own homes with time to kill, many turned to
The Membership Puzzle
established media brands.
Project, in partnership with
All the usual suspects, from the New York Times to The Guardi- The Lenfest Institute and the
an, The Washington Post, The Financial Times and The Telegraph Google News Initiative, has
posted significant reader revenue gains this year. released The Membership
Guide. It’s the culmination
Interestingly, most of the leading publishers brought their Cov- of three years’ study in the
id-19 coverage in front of their paywalls. This may seem coun-
space, and is worth a read for
terintuitive, and some argued that it was the wrong thing to do2.
anyone looking to establish
But the move, as well as being socially responsible, paid off in
or improve their membership
additional subscriptions; The Atlantic gained record traffic and
36,000 new paying customers in just four weeks3.
model.

READER REVENUE
“It’s the content that drives subscriptions,” Marc Isler, CRO for
Swiss media group Tamedia, told FIPP4. Tamedia reported 37.5% The Athletic hit
growth in subscriptions with Isler citing deep-dive Covid-19 con-
tent as a key driver.
In the UK, digital publishers’ subscription revenues were up by

1 million
almost 20% in the first three months of 2020, according to a subscribers this year,
study by the AOP and Deloitte5. This is despite some publishers despite sports shutdowns
offering heavy discounts to take advantage of record traffic num-
bers and record numbers of visitors hitting paywall thresholds.
However, the big plot twist in the 2020 subscriptions blockbuster

is that print has done better than anyone could have expected.
In the first couple of months of the crisis, Conde Nast reported

that subscriptions to publications like the New Yorker, Vanity “It seems
Fair and Architectural Digest had hit record levels. New US sub- obvious in
scribers in March and April were twice what they were for the retrospect
same period in 2019. And the company recorded print subscrip-
tion growth globally; new subscription orders for Conde Nast’s
that parents
UK titles were up an incredible 420% year-on-year. were looking
for something to keep
Magnetic, a marketing agency for consumer magazine media, re-
ported a slew of success stories mid lockdown6. The Week Junior their children occupied
from Dennis posted 7,250 new subs in April; Hearst’s new sub- and engaged. So The
scriber acquisitions doubled year-on-year; and TI Media and Im- Week Junior became, for
mediate Media both reported subscription increases of between
200% and 300%. At the end of April, Bauer saw the number of
all those kids who were
new subscriptions purchased online up over 160% compared suddenly not at school
with the same period in 2019. anymore...something a
Previous market research has shown that 66% of people claim lot of parents felt that
their passions help them through difficult times. That certain- children would enjoy.”
ly ties in with the reported interest in specialist hobby content Anna Bassi, Editor in Chief, The
during lockdowns and may be a sign that future subscription Week Junior
marketing efforts will hit the passion play hard. Talking to the Media Voices Podcast
Beyond digital and print subscriptions that swap content for

cash, publishers took the opportunity, in ‘unprecedented times’,
to ask their audiences to contribute in other ways. Virtual events
were almost exclusively free-to-air prior to 2020. But cash-
strapped publishers began charging as the year went on and
many have met with some success7. Ticket prices are lower than
in the real-world, but costs are lower too and reach is greater.
Ecommerce has also given publishers the opportunity to mon-

etize their audience base. From Cosmo’s wine launch8 to Buzz-
Feed’s new sex toy9, media brands have partnered with man-
ufacturers to put their name on products that they can then In April, Bauer
recommend to readers. saw online
subscription
For smaller publishers, newspapers and magazines hit hard by purchases rise
Covid-19, the generosity of their readers has been a lifeline. Some
sold branded merchandise, some asked for donations.
Where are we now?

160%
Coming to the end of 2020, reader revenue has been firmly
re-established as a major revenue line by publishers that once

READER REVENUE
eschewed subscriptions for ad revenue sold off the back of free, “Readers
controlled circulation.
simply have
Equally, quality content is back. No publisher would ever admit more time
that they put content second, but now there is evidence that
now. They
publishing organisations are actually investing in content again
to support their subscription development efforts. can’t go out
on weekends or in the
Media leaders from the FT’s John Ridding to The Telegraph’s Nick
Hugh have placed the secret of their subscription success at the
evenings, so instead they
feet of their journalism. None has put it more simply than Mark opt for ‘high-quality
Thomson at the New York Times10: magazines.’”
“The single biggest thing we did… was to invest in our news- Wolfgang Blau, former Chief
room and invest in our journalism. And I still think the reason Operating Officer and President,
we have had more luck than many other news organisations is International, Condé Nast
because we’ve invested in journalism; rather than firing journal-
ists”.
If we’ve learned one thing from 2020, it has to be that people

search for quality content in times of trouble, and when they find
it, they’ll pay11.

The quest to discover exactly what media mix readers will pay for
will continue apace. Major players will fight to secure their share
of the subscription revenue pie. Having just achieved 7 million
subscribers, The New York Times will push on toward its 10
million subscriber target12. Others will chase smaller, but no less
ambitious goals.
The challenge for all will be to retain the new names acquired The New York
this year off the back of unusually high levels of anxiety, down- Times has a goal
time and discounting. Developing reader routines will be central
to the efforts of many; making ‘reading your content’ a habit13.
to reach
10
To this end, many publishers will look to newsletters and pod-
casts. Alternative paid-content plays like one-to-one messaging
services between journalists and readers will be more common
in 2021, although just how much money publishers can expect
to make from either is a matter of debate. Others are examining million
subscriptions versus membership, deciding if the introduction of digital-only
a strong community element will keep people paying.
subscribers
On the downside the hoped for disappearance of anxiety induc- by 2025
ing elements like Trump, Brexit and Covid-19 may remove some
of the public’s motivation to pay for trusted news. And if sub-
scription fatigue kicks in, subscriptions signed in the midst of the
pandemic could be the first to go.
But realistically, even if Trump actually takes himself off to play

golf and we get an effective vaccine, there’s more than enough
uncertainty and misinformation in these turbulent times to keep
discerning audiences paying for quality content.

READER REVENUE
CASE STUDY
Film Stories Crowdfunding 2.0
Movie magazine Film Stories was launched by Simon Brew
in 2018 off the back of a successful crowdfunding campaign.
Set to break even this year, things were looking good for the
indie print title. Then the shutdown halted movie releases and
killed Film Stories’ advertising and retail income.
Brew was forced to return to crowdfunding and, second time
around, more than 500 readers put their hands in their pock-
ets to raise over £30,000 to keep the title afloat. The Kick-
starter campaign has provided stability; the money raised is
enough to run the publication through 2021 alongside sister
title Film Stories Junior. Brew has also welcomed the oppor-
tunity to keep paying his freelance contributors hit hard by
Covid-19-reduced workloads.
CASE STUDY
Inc. gets up close and personal
Publishers are now turning to one-to-one texting to add
income directly to the reader revenue line. Inc. the 40-year
old magazine for entrepreneurs, is charging its readers $5 a
month for short-form texts from its leading columnists and
the chance to respond. While the journalists are not expected
to respond to every reader text, they will reply to a selection.
Editor in chief Scott Omelianiuk doesn’t expect texting to
replace any of the magazine’s current business lines but told
us he hopes there is a revenue opportunity from a small,
passionate sub section of the audience. However, he also sees
the text service as a valuable two-way opportunity that allows
the audience to get closer to the brand and for the brand to
understand audience needs better14.
CASE STUDY
The Athletic survives sports shutdown
Subscriber-only sports site The Athletic was lucky to survive
the months-long shutdown of global sports. “It should have
been the end for us,” co-founder Adam Hansmann said. Sig-
nups fell from thousands to just 100 a day in March as lock-
downs began. But just a few months later, The Athletic was
back adding more subscribers than ever, reaching 1 million in
the late summer just as sports started to return.
The site’s founders say their survival is down to their sub-
scriber-only business model making them immune to the
ad downturn. The VC-backed site, valued at $500 million, is
still not profitable, but the $60 million brought in from subs
is enough to cover costs. Future growth is expected to come
from a continued overseas expansion, and bundling deals like
those done with Bloomberg and T-mobile15.

TRUST
The enemy of my enemy… Trust in

the media has had a rollercoaster
ride of a year
Fewer people than ever trust the national titles - but the pandemic has
also provided newspapers with an opportunity to prove they’re on the
public’s side.
W
e include a section on trust in the media every year. It’s Chris Sutcliffe
as much a financial consideration as a moral one: as a @chrismsutcliffe
rising tide floats all boats, falling trust in the media as a
whole has the potential to sink some of our longest-running or-
ganisations permanently. There are other sources of information
(or misinformation as the case may be) available for free online,
and if previously loyal readers decamp to those free sources then
the financial support for legacy titles is kicked away.
2020 has been a year of political campaigning in the UK, Europe

and the US. That’s brought intense scrutiny of the press, with
accusations of bias being especially ferocious. In turn, segments News avoidance has risen
of the industry have leaned into the factional nature of the due to the pandemic, with
discourse, making their opposition to other parties the central
column of their marketing strategies. 25% of women
The result? The public is being explicitly told to distrust most
of the press, and only believe in the outlets they happen to be
and 18% of men
aligned with. But there is also considerable impetus to use the ‘always’ or ‘often’ actively
pandemic as an opportunity to bring readers back into the fold. avoiding the news.
What happened in 2020?

At the beginning of 2020 the public were sandwiched between
the end of the 2019 UK election and the beginning of the cam-
paigning season for the 2020 US election, in addition to many
other political flashpoints worldwide. Consequently there was
more than the average amount of assertions, counter-assertions
and counter-counter-assertions appearing in the press. Trust -
here meaning ‘who you choose to believe’ - was at a premium.
That was the case in scattered pockets globally as well. People

chose to support and ‘trust’ the outlets that happened to publish
content in line with their preconceived notions. A fascinating Digital News Report
case study from Finland demonstrated that the objective facts Every year, the Reuters In-
of the matter were barely material; identity politics dictated the stitute publishes a compre-
levels of ‘trust’ in specific outlets1. Consequently at the beginning hensive Digital News Report,
of the pandemic, the Reuters Digital News Report said overall looking at trust and other in-
levels of trust in the news across 40 countries were at the lowest sights about news consump-
point since it had begun to track the data2. Horrifically, only 38%
tion in key markets across
of respondents said they trust news overall.
the world. See 2020’s Digital
The pandemic offered media reporters a fascinating opportunity News Report here.
to study the epidemiology of viral misinformation in real time.

TRUST
Countless articles have been written about the parallel pandem-

ic of false information, with thousands of words given over to Only
examining the role of social media in spreading it3.
The BBC’s specialist disinformation reporter Marianna Spring 38%

told us4: of people
trust news
“With what we’ve been doing in the BBC’s anti-disinformation
team, that’s involved a combination of exposing and investigat-
ing disinformation, humanising it so that people are interested
in the stories we have to tell and want to read them. But it’s
also about social media literacy, trying to reach as many people
as we can to inform them about how they can stop and spot
misinformation, and stop its spread.”
At the beginning of October, Queen Elizabeth II stressed a need

for trusted local news sources, stating5: “having trusted, reliable “As our world
sources of information, particularly at a time when there are so has changed
many sources competing for our attention, is vital.” The speech dramatically,
opened the News Media Association’s ‘Journalism Matters’ cam-
paign, and was immediately followed by the NMA chairman
having trusted,
Henry Faure Walker placing the blame for the misinformation reliable sources of
pandemic squarely at the feet of social media. information, particularly
As a corollary, it also offered media twitchers the ability to ex- at a time when there
amine the role of traditional media during a time of crisis, and are so many sources
the public’s fluctuating trust in those outlets. At the beginning competing for our
of the pandemic, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journal-
ism found there was evidence of a ‘rally round’ effect, both for
attention, is vital.”
government and journalism, in which trust in both estates was Elizabeth II, Queen of the United
relatively high6. However, a subsequent study a scant few months Kingdom
down the line found that trust had eroded again, reverting to the
mean. Less than half (45%) of respondents rated news organisa-
tions as “relatively trustworthy sources of information” about the
virus, down from 57% in April.
Despite that, there were some valiant ongoing efforts over the
course of the year to re-establish that trust. Outlets including
The Atlantic and The Financial Times put significant chunks of
their Covid-19 coverage outside of their paywalls, with the FT still
publishing its data journalism for free at the time of writing.
This was both an effort to deliver on the promise of journalism

to inform the public, and an effort to convert those readers to
paying subscribers. The FT’s Roula Kahalaf used the announce-
ment of free Covid-19 content to appeal to fly-by-night readers
to support the paper7. The Atlantic, despite having dropped its
paywall, leveraged that free content to convert 36,000 survivors
over a four week period8. Cynical as it sounds there is probably
no way to gauge a person’s trust in something better than to see Journalists are the 4th
if they hand money over for it. least trusted profession,
Where are we now? above just Government
The journalism industry is now grappling with fundamen- Ministers, Politicians, and
tal changes in how it presents information to maximise trust. Advertising Executives
Whether that’s Byline Times’ aggressive campaign about the
undue influence of other papers’ owners9 or the relabelling of

TRUST
Opinion columns to make it clear they are separate from the “From March,
reliable news10, the process is underway11. As with previous years,
trust is still an invaluable commodity for newspapers looking to
we saw our
build membership schemes. traffic go
through the
At the same time social networks like Facebook are also (again)
pledging to tackle misinformation published on them12. Per the roof because everything
Digital News Report, less than a quarter of people trust news was changing, and nobody
they’ve spotted on social media, suggesting there is still a role knew what was going on,
for the traditional gatekeepers - newspapers and broadcasters -
to play a role in informing the public. What is less clear is if the
and so the public was just
return of the pandemic in winter will lead to another ‘rally round’ really hungry to have
effect, or another dip in trust more generally. News avoidance experts not only explain
in particular has risen since the pandemic began dominating the the current moment, but
news agenda.
to put it in context.”
After the flashpoint of the US election, publishers can at least Chris Waiting, Chief Executive,
take solace from the fact that the most-engaged members of The Conversation UK
their audiences believed news sources did a good job explaining Talking to the Media Voices Podcast
the election as it happened13. Furthermore, 77% of respondents to
the Pew Research Center survey believed that news sources did
very or somewhat well at covering the results. Unsurprisingly for
such a partisan election, Republicans were far less likely to be-
lieve their news sources did a good job, which the Pew research
notes are in line with previous results. That all suggests that an
anti-media sentiment is a popular strategy on the Right - and
unlikely to go away any time soon.
3 in 4
Partisanship and aggressively factional marketing strategies for
outlets isn’t going away any time soon. Veteran BBC broadcast-
er Andrew Neil has left to set up GB News14, which he has both
claimed will and will not be like Fox News. In doing so he is feed-
ing the perception that the BBC is biased; a perception that both
sides of the political spectrum hold.
Next year will also see more collaboration between fact-checkers

and networks to curb misinformation15. That’s going to be espe-
cially necessary as bad actors begin to fill the void left by local
news cuts; partisan campaigning masquerading as fact-based
reporting is on the rise and is likely to become acute in the very
people say the media did
near future16. As a result we expect to see some of the larger tra- very or somewhat well at
ditional publishers sign up to those efforts by fact-checkers. covering the US election
Finally, Ipsos Mori released its latest roundup of overall trust in
professions in late November16. Journalists ranked fourth-lowest,
marginally above politicians and advertising executives. How-
ever, the really depressing statistics are that while people aged
24-39 trust journalists more than older generations, that still only
amounts to 28%. That figure has been very, very low as far as I
can remember - but for an industry that prides itself on being
trusted, that is a shockingly low number. Worse still, 77% of peo-
ple under 25 said they did not trust journalists to tell the truth.
Make no mistake, this is a slow, ongoing crisis.

TRUST
CASE STUDY
The Financial Times
The Financial Times won major plaudits for having made its
Covid-19 coverage free to access. As its editor Roula Khalaf
explained: “It is precisely in times of crisis and grave uncer-
tainty that readers turn to sources they can trust — sources
without a political agenda, sources that strive at all times to
report the news accurately and fairly.”
The FT’s data journalist John Burn-Murdoch and other staff
members have been extremely active on social media daily,
drawing attention to the free coverage. That ‘antenna’ effec-
tively acts as both a draw for potential subscribers and as
a regular thesis statement similar to Khalaf’s. It is a regular
reminder to the public that The FT is on the side of the public.
CASE STUDY
The Atlantic
The Atlantic added 36,000 paying members in a four-week
period after having dropped the paywall around its content.
Much of the coverage at the time was sheer disbelief - not just
because that number of subscribers is one that many titles
would be happy to have in total - but because the received
wisdom was that putting the valuable content outside the
paywall is always A Bad Idea17.
That might well be true if you look at monetisation in iso-
lation. However, as this section hopefully makes plain, the
public’s relationship with newsbrands is emotional, irrational
and based largely on trust. At a time like this The Atlantic’s
prioritisation on gaining trust by providing a haven for pan-
icked, info-starved readers is a winning strategy, one that will
convert into future success.
CASE STUDY
The Conversation
The Conversation is an unusual publication in a lot of ways.
Its content consists primarily of journalistic rewrites of expert
comment, it is distributed via Creative Commons and it is a
charity. However, the public’s hunger for expert knowledge
during a time of crisis has benefited The Conversation signifi-
cantly: at the beginning of the pandemic its stories were read
100 million times globally, and is now stabilised at 70 million.
Its chief executive Chris Waiting is hopeful that the halo
effect around its expert content will have a positive impact
on its new endeavours, stating: “I hope that we’ve been en-
gaging with them – trying to encourage them to subscribe to
our newsletter, our podcasts and so on – that we’ll be able to
retain some of those, that they’ll have recognised that we’re a
place that they they enjoy visiting regularly18.”

EVENTS
Sink or swim for events strategies

as the ‘pivot to virtual’ divides
publishers into two camps
Covid-19 decimated events revenues overnight, but many have taken the
opportunity to innovate. As publishers look towards an uncertain future,
we can be sure that the events industry will never look the same again.
N
o revenue stream was hit as swiftly and severely by Cov- Esther Kezia
id-19 as events. Multi-million pound businesses were Thorpe
reduced to almost nothing overnight, and as lockdown @EstherKeziaT
measures and restrictions have dragged on in many countries, a
full recovery is still a distant hope.
But for a number of publishers, 2020 has provided an opportu-

nity to get smarter about their events strategy and expand their
horizons, with global audiences and technology affording oppor-
tunities for innovative virtual events.
What happened in 2020

Events have become an established part of publisher’s revenue
streams as a way to bring brands to life. The strategy going into Pre Covid-19, some
2020 for the majority of organisations was to continue devel- publisher’s events
opment and growth1, with calendars jam-packed with festivals, were driving up to
award ceremonies, summits and exhibitions.
Although some could see the impending threat as Covid-19 gath-

ered pace throughout February, lockdowns around the world
were often implemented suddenly and with little expectation
20%
of total revenue
about when they would be released. As the weeks went on and
it became apparent that Covid-19 was here to stay, publishers
with spring and summer events were faced with the prospect of
either cancelling, or figuring out a way to go virtual.
At this point, publishers ended up falling into two camps. Many

postponed, rearranging events for later in the year or shifting
them entirely to 2021. Events teams were made redundant or
placed on various furlough schemes; The Atlantic announced 68 Standout virtual events
layoffs2 - 17% of its staff - just weeks after pulling in tens of thou-
sands of new digital subscribers.
Digital Content Next Editori-
al Director Michelle Manafy
But other publishers reacted very quickly to restrictions, ‘pivot- has co-authored a book with
ing’ to virtual events and taking an early experimental approach. David Meerman Scott on how
Hearst UK was hit almost immediately by lockdown, with its flag- to create an experience that
ship Women’s Health Live scheduled for the first week in April. your audience will love, and
The event had 8,000 ticket holders, and the team had just two how events could be impact-
weeks to convert it to an online virtual event. ed in the long term.
Their quick thinking saw Women’s Health Live Virtual go ahead Find Standout Virtual Events
with a Facebook group of 10,500 women3, including virtual on Amazon.
appearances from many of the global health and fitness names

EVENTS
that were booked to do the live event. Attendance was free, but it
provided the Hearst Live team an opportunity to experiment and The New York Times’ first
see what would translate to a virtual setting. digital event attracted
Hearst weren’t the only publisher with a rapid response. The New
York Times launched its first digital event in April focused on
climate change4. Crucially, this was delivered through its interna-
tional events team, with the aim of attracting a global audience
10,000
people from 65 countries
to the NYT’s work. Over the course of 5-part series “The Green-
house”, 10,000 people tuned in from 65 countries, with 16% then
going on to sign up for a dedicated climate newsletter.
Restrictions may have made it impossible to hold in-person

events, but it has thrown the door wide open to global audienc-
es. Publishers have suddenly found that they can attract almost
unlimited numbers of attendees from anywhere in the world. Not
only has this helped them serve their current international audi-
ences better, but it has provided an opportunity to expose whole
new markets to their events.
This has helped retain commercial partners. Early on in lock- “I think long
down, a number of publishers reported a reluctance from spon-
sors to transfer money and support to virtual events. However, as term actually
audiences proved willing to tune in from almost anywhere in the we’ll have a
world, and in far greater numbers than in-person, sponsors have much better
come to realise the commercial potential in these fresh eyes.
business, a more diverse
Finally on another financial note, there has also been a significant business, and a more
evolution this year in audience revenue. As publishers tentatively sustainable business
experimented with virtual events in the spring, most were of-
fered for free, with the aim of testing technology, demand and going forward.”
engagement. As publishers have grown in confidence, so too are Simone Broadhurst, Managing
more now asking attendees to pay for tickets to virtual events. Director of Events, Incisive Media15
Where are we now?

Pricing for virtual events is still an area that many events teams
are nervous about. It feels strange to ask someone for money to
sit in front of their computer and watch a virtual event. But those
who have the confidence to charge are reaping the rewards, and
have come up with a number of innovative ticketing deals.
New Scientist initially aired their virtual events for free, but de-
cided to test out tickets for their virtual lecture series. An in-per-
son lecture would be priced between £25-£30, and the team have
found that the virtual lectures still sell well at between £12-£15.
They have also been looking at value-adds to recoup lost revenue

elsewhere. “One of the revenue streams that we missed from our
physical events is things like book sales and sub sales,” Events Di-
3 in 4
rector Adrian Newton told WNIP. “[For the virtual events,] we’ve
been able to do some partnerships with publishers to do a book
offer, where we can get ticket prices with the book included of the 52,000 attendees of the
closer to the £35/£40 point5.”
FT’s virtual Global Boardroom
The Financial Times has taken a freemium approach to virtual were previously unknown to
events. Its Global Boardroom has three tiers of ticketing; a free the publisher
pass which gives live access to talks, Q&As and polls; a $65 pass

EVENTS
which gives on-demand access and summary reports; and finally “We are
a $385 professional pass which adds 1-1 networking, exclusive
access to extra sessions, and a business community area.
constantly
thinking about
Beyond ticket sales, the FT can see long-term opportunities for
how this can be
the data. “Of the 52,000 people we had attending The Global
Boardroom, about 75% were completely new to us,” said FT Live’s a driver of subscription
MD Orson Francescone6. These attendees can be monetized be- growth. The benefit of
yond the event as part of the FT’s core subscription strategy. virtual events is that
However, not everything translates well over Zoom. Despite see- it’s an opportunity
ing success with their virtual events pivot, the New York Times to convene both the
have had to abandon their Food Festival for 20207. superfans, but also to
Even among publishers who are making money with their virtual introduce The Atlantic to
events, there is an acknowledgement that they are far less lucra- new audiences.”
tive. B2B publisher Euromoney saw event cancellations lead to a
Aretae Wyler, COO, The Atlantic
£9.2 million revenue hit in the first half of 2020 alone, and re-
vealed8 that even the virtual events that were running were mak-
ing under 30% of the revenue of their face-to-face counterparts.
Trade shows and exhibitions have also struggled to reinvent

themselves in the virtual space, with many simply postponing
rather than trying to force an online experience9. Such events are
built entirely around the in-person experience, and unplanned
interactions with exhibitors and other attendees.
In the UK, Informa Plc plunged to a loss of £25m, compared with

trade show profits of £610m in 2019. Events Intelligence esti-
mates that the global industry lost $15bn of revenue in the first
nine months of 2020, and cautioned that a further $11.6bn would
be lost if no ‘material’ events could be held until April 202110.

With multiple options for vaccines on the horizon, some publish- ‘BOUNCE BACK’ FORECAST
ers are tentatively planning physical events again, although most
are looking at the second half of 2021 at the very earliest. AMR’s FOR EVENTS IN 2022:
Globex is predicting 70-80% of 2019 revenues expected in 2022 • 84-86%: China, Turkey
across the US, UK, Mexico, Germany and South East Asia11. • 79-80%: UK, US, Mexico,
It is likely that B2C events will bounce back far faster than B2B. Germany, South East Asia
After the best part of a year in lockdown, consumers will be • 72-76%: Brazil, Russia,
eager to get back out. But businesses have been changed forever. India, Indonesia
Certainly pre-vaccine, we won’t see companies sending employ- • 66%: France
ees on trips. That willingness may return as staff get back to the • 58%: Italy, Gulf
office, or we may see a new reluctance emerge towards costly
business trips when a virtual event will do just as well.
One theme has emerged consistently from the many case studies
and stories of publishers and their virtual events; the pandemic
has taught some useful lessons. The majority are now planning
for a hybrid future; where even if the world gets back to ‘nor-
mal’, there will still be virtual elements to events in order to keep
global audiences involved and engaged.
Amidst all the uncertainty, we can be sure of one thing. Events

will never look the same again.

EVENTS
CASE STUDY
SCMP sees success in early virtual pivot
South China Morning Post has had more than the pandemic
to contend with. Protests and a harsh national security law
pressured the publisher to drastically change how they ap-
proach events towards the end of 2019. To work out what they
needed, SCMP conducted over 30 demos of multiple solutions
for their virtual events, which include marketplace-style festi-
vals and special projects. Their flagship China Conference was
conducted online for the first time using a green room and
masks, attracting 10x the audience of the physical equivalent.
Now, the team has found a pace and have managed to in-
crease the number of the events they put on four-fold, despite
the pandemic. It is paying off with doubled revenue, and a 15%
decrease in costs12.
CASE STUDY
‘Hub and spoke’ plans at Reuters
After acquiring FC Business Intelligence at the end of 2019,
Reuters were gearing up for a calendar of over 70 in-person
industry conferences this year with a renamed Reuters Events
division. But as restrictions kicked in, the team had to pivot
quickly to virtual formats. Now, the news publisher has host-
ed 62 virtual events that have had attendees from 93% of the
world’s countries, as well as a 1,400 increase in attendance13.
In 2021, Reuters plans to roll out a ‘hub and spoke’ hybrid
events model. This could look like a 5,000-person event that
is broken up over 500 venues that are hyper-regional for
global audiences. Attendees still get the benefit of in-person
networking, and can consume content from the global event
in their own time.
CASE STUDY
Virtual exhibition experiments from Bauer
Bauer Media’s B2B Events business hosted its first virtual
exhibition in November. Fleet & Mobility Live, which usually
takes place at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham,
was instead translated to an interactive platform.
The virtual event came with a wide range of features to reflect
a real trade show environment, including virtual stands, a visi-
tor networking lounge, discussion areas, and the ability to live
stream or pre-record sessions.
Exhibitors were able to showcase their products and services
on ‘enhanced interactive stands’, which came with video, live
chat, and demonstration functionality14. “Having now seen the
platform and ‘walked’ through the exhibition hall, I am really
excited for the event,” said attendee Alison Moriarty. “There
is still the interaction with colleagues and peers that make
FMLive such an important annual event.”

DIVERSITY
Global protests force media to

think harder about diversity and
inclusion
Besides reporting on the protests that erupted globally after the death
of George Floyd, the media has also had to consider its own role in
fostering positive societal change.
C
ovid-19 has dominated the media agenda globally in 2020, Peter Houston
both as the biggest story of the year and as a huge dis- @flipping_pages
ruption across the business of media. But there has been
another global phenomenon impacting media in 2020, again as a
major story but also as a dramatic driver of change.
The Black Lives Matter movement shot to international promi-

nence in 2020, receiving headline coverage worldwide after half
a dozen years of uneven media attention. Social media footage of
the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer at the
end of May sparked more than 450 demonstrations, first in the
United States1 and then internationally2.
The upswelling of anti-racist sentiment that followed the sum-

mer’s BLM protest led to widespread calls for action to improve
diversity and inclusion across all layers of society, not least the
44
media. With, at best, a patchy record on representation, many
media organisations have responded positively to calls to do
better when it comes to race and broader issues of diversity and
inclusion. But, of course, there’s a lot of work still to be done.
What happened in 2020? of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s

Although yet another in a long list of Black people killed un- journalists of colour took a ‘sick
lawfully by the police, the death of George Floyd in May 2020 and tired’ day after the paper
seemed different. Captured in an agonising three-minute phone published a ‘Buildings Matter,
video, the incident went viral on social media, sparking protests Too’ article
first in America and then internationally.
Under the banner of the longstanding ‘Black Lives Matter’ cam-

paign, a global social justice movement spread from the pages of
Ad Transformation Lab
social media to the streets of major international cities and the
boardrooms of most major media organisations. Management The NNPA, NAHP and AAN
practises at several US publishers came under close scrutiny have joined forces with the
forcing high-profile resignations at organisations including The Google News Initiative to
New York Times, Conde Nast, Refinery29 and the Philadelphia launch the GNI Ad Trans-
Inquirer3. formation Lab. This will
directly support Black- and
Concern initially focused on previous bad behaviour by individ- Latino-owned news publish-
uals, but moved quickly to include organisational issues, from ers focused on serving un-
pay equality to representation and discrimination. Attempts by der-represented communities
management boards to keep criticism behind closed doors failed
in the US and Canada.
as staff took to social media to express their frustrations.

DIVERSITY
Following a very public Twitter outpouring, more than 40 staff

on the Philadelphia Enquirer took a ‘sick and tired’ day to protest
a tone-deaf frontpage headline that said ‘Buildings Matter Too’ in Despite Los
response to damage done during BLM protests4. Angeles Coun
ty’s
population be
Inside some leading publishing organisations, the result of public ing
just 26% whit
and private criticism has been a welcome focus on increased e, the
staff consultation. Conde Nast CEO Roger Lynch promised a
newsroom of
the
“diversity and inclusion report” and an internal analysis of pay LA Times18 is
61%
equity to be shared with staff by the end of the year.
In an apology to staff, long-time Editor in Chief Anna Wintour5

said she knew Vogue had not ‘found enough ways to elevate and
give space to black editors, writers, photographers, designers
and other creators’. She went on to say she was listening and
would like to hear feedback and advice ‘if you would like to share
white
either.’
Looking outwards, many publishers have been doing the work

required to improve coverage of Black issues and coverage of
Black people in their publications. From the New Yorker to Men’s
Health, Black people were featured on the covers of magazines in
greater numbers than ever before.
Mr Magazine, Samir Husni, shared an image of 106 magazine

covers at the end of September6. He wrote that Black people on
magazine covers were ‘few and far between’ but ‘in the last few
months’ he was able to buy more than 100 magazines featuring
Black people and/or BLM statements on their covers. “Magazines
are celebrating Blackness. My only hope is that one day we don’t
need to ask the question, is this the new normal?”
Beyond outward representation, efforts to feature the work and

“There is a
opinions of Black people and people of colour have been, argua-
bly, even more important. Projects like the take over of HuffPo by conversation
the team at Black women’s lifestyle website Black Ballad7, Glam- amongst black
our magazine’s long-read reporting on the work of Black women female jour-
journalists reporting BLM 20208, and the ongoing ‘State of Rac-
ism’ series in the Metro paper reporting on what it means to be a
nalists that
person of colour in the UK in 20209. publications only reach
out to them when they
In an interview for Media Voices, Garry Rayneau, former Dennis
commercial MD and co-founder of diversity and inclusion con- want a race issue. And not
sultancy Project 23, said BLM 2020 had “definitely given a greater nearly as many that need
platform for marginalised people to be heard10.” to be are in the offices.
“Coverage within the media, within mainstream channels, has It is so telling that we’re
been much more pronounced,” he said. “Because of that, it’s still having to do diver-
created a bit of a groundswell of support and understanding, it’s sity schemes to get black
meant organisations have leaned into the conversation more.”
and brown people through
Where are we now? the door of newsrooms.”
Racism has been a sad fact of life across the world for, well, prob- Tobi Oredein, Co-Founder, Black
ably for ever. From the outside, it maybe felt like our society was Ballad
progressing, but the BLM protests of 2020 pulled back the veil on Talking on the Media Voices Podcast
the sort of institutional racism that right-minded people hoped
had gone away.

DIVERSITY
The encouraging thing is that there has been a widespread “The protests
acceptance of the idea that individuals and organisations must
work to do better. Organisations have promised to make chang-
are working.
es. Medium has appointed ‘take the knee’ activist Colin Kaeper- Societal
nick to its board11 and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian has opinions of
stepped down as CEO to make room for a Black board member12. Black Lives
The worry for campaigners and regular human beings alike is Matter have flipped to
that the flurry of promises to improve diversity and inclusion majority-positive for the
that followed the summer’s protests come to nothing. Charges
that commitments made mid-2020 are not being carried out
first time.”
have already surfaced, with staff at media companies asking if the Chi Ossé, Warriors in the Garden
pledges made were just paying lip service13.

Hiring freezes instituted in response to the commercial challeng-
es of Covid-19 provide cover for a lack of action on bringing Black
staff in at senior levels. “We still have no Black VPs,” an employee
at a large media company told Digiday in September. It can be ar-
gued that it’s still early days, but if the same holds true 12 months
in, staff will become increasingly frustrated.
That said, Gary Rayneau is optimistic that positive change will Ethnic diversity is the highest
come. His business exploded because of the ‘jolt’ BLM 2020 gave diversity priority for
4 in 10
our society. He says focusing on diversity and inclusion is not just
the right thing to do, it should be a business priority. “It should
be treated with the same business rigour as you treat your prod-
uct or commercial strategy.”
Companies that don’t accept that fact will disappear: “The world newsroom employees in 202119
is becoming more diverse and the world is becoming more edu-
cated on these matters. If you don’t move with the times, eventu-
ally you’ll just ebb away and not be relevant,” Rayneau cautioned.

DIVERSITY
CASE STUDY
Change makes its way to the top
“Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being
asked to dance. Equity is being on the planning team,” said
broadcaster Genelle Aldred15.
Medium brought Colin Kaepernick on to its all-male, all-white
board in June. In a statement, Medium said, “Colin’s voice and
actions have led the discussion on racial justice, and the world
is finally catching up to him.”
Also in June, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian resigned his
position as CEO, calling on the company he founded to re-
place him with a Black board member. A bold move for a busi-
ness that’s had to deal with more than its fair share of contro-
versy. Ohanian said: “I believe resignation can actually be an
act of leadership from people in power right now.”
CASE STUDY
Black Ballad’s HuffPost takeover
Black Ballad is a lifestyle website for Black women. The site’s
founder and head of editorial - Tobi Oredein and Jendella
Benson - say it exists because the stories of Black women
were not being told anywhere else in British lifestyle media.
Against that background Black Ballad’s week-long takeover of
HuffPost UK was all the more impressive. “We took over their
homepage, their parenting page, their HuffPost UK social
channels, their parenting newsletter,” Tobi told us16.
The HuffPost team truly took a back seat and that this was
important. “The media landscape is tough right now and Black
stories are currently lucrative. Under the guise of allyship we
have seen other writers and platforms co-opt and retell our
stories, often quite badly!”
CASE STUDY
Morally and commercially right
Acknowledging the need for diversity in media isn’t just a
2020 phenomenon. Dorothy Byrne, Head of News and Current
Affairs of Channel Four, spoke about why a diverse newsroom
is a better newsroom in October 2019. She said that, for much
of her life, people from ethnic minorities had been represent-
ed as problems. “Not only is this wrong, it is also commercially
short-sighted17.”
Dorothy said it is important to represent society truthfully
because that is the job of journalism, but also that it makes
commercial sense. “Don’t alienate the people who you want
to buy your product – or all their friends and relatives. When
a newspaper has just carried out some particularly egregious
attack on some minority group, who wants to be the person in
the pub being seen to read it?”

PLATFORMS
2020 saw showdowns between

platforms and governments, with
publishers set to benefit
Legislative pressures around the world are set to force the platforms to play
nice with publishers. Some are taking pre-emptive steps, with licensing
deals putting money back in publisher’s pockets...for now.
W
e will remember 2020 as the year of Covid-19, but for Esther Kezia
platforms, it will be the year legislative pressures finally Thorpe
boiled over. In the US, multiple Congressional hearings @EstherKeziaT
have focused on antitrust and censorship1, while moves to force
the tech giants to pay their fair share for content have stirred
trouble abroad.
Google
This year has been a remarkable one for Google’s relationship
with the wider media ecosystem. We deal with their phasing out
of third party cookies in the ‘Data and Advertising chapter’, but Google has promised
there have been plenty of other key moments. The stage was set to pay more than
for Google to go head to head with governments last year fol-
lowing a row with France over implementation of the European
Copyright Directive. But France weren’t the only one keeping up
the pressure on Google throughout 2020.
Australia’s plans for a News Media Bargaining Code provoked a

spat over the summer, with Google and the government each
publishing a series of open letters2. The former has legitimate
$1 billion
concerns about the arbitration process and safeguards on data
sharing, the latter wants to empower publishers to bargain for
fair payment. At the time of writing, there has been no resolu-
tion, with both Google and Facebook threatening to pull or limit
in licensing content from
services in the region.
publishers over the next 3 years
In June, Google announced that they would create a licens-
ing program to pay publishers for high quality content as part
of a new news product3. Google News Showcase will see more
than $1 billion paid out to publishers over the next three years4.
Content in the Showcase will appear at first within Google News, Keep up with Tow
and also eventually in Discover and Search, with the aim to help The Tow Center for Digital
guide readers to higher-quality information. Journalism has produced a
definitive timeline of all the
As part of the pledge, Google has also offered to pay for free key developments on tech
access for users to read paywalled articles on publisher’s sites, to
platforms used by journalism
help those publishers grow their audiences. The Showcase has
publishers going back as far
launched in Brazil and Germany, with other countries to fol-
as 2000. It’s being constantly
low. However, plans for Australia have been dropped, due to the
aforementioned draft code5.
updated, so for an overview,
visit ‘Platforms and Publish-
But like Facebook’s licensing deals, each title has negotiated with ers: A Definitive Timeline’
Google separately, meaning that there is no obligation to pay

PLATFORMS
everyone on equal terms. This is set to benefit primarily the big

publishers who have more leverage6, and has already reduced
Google says it sent more than
regulatory pressure in France - where 6 publishers have signed
copyright agreements7 - that would have otherwise given smaller 3 billion clicks to Australian
organisations a negotiating voice news publishers in 2018 ‘for
no charge’, resulting in
Facebook
After tests in the US, Facebook’s News tab has started a wider
rollout, and Facebook is working out deals to license content
$218 million
of value for those publishers
from publishers in several countries to include their content. Its
US product now also includes local news and video8.
At the moment there is no hard data to say whether a separate

News tab is helping or hindering publishers. Referrals from the
platform grew 44% month on month from February to March,
and by April, were up 80% year over year9. But this is likely to
have been driven primarily by Covid-19, with people spending
more time on social media and seeking trustworthy information.
However, one notable absence from the list of countries due for
rollout is Australia. Facebook is in the firing line alongside Goog-
le, and has raised its own concerns about the impact the ACCC’s
payout framework could have. In September, the company
threatened to ban Australian users from sharing local or interna-
tional news content on Facebook or Instagram if the government
went ahead with the legislation10.
The threat did not go down well with Australian publishers. “It is
highly disturbing to hear Google and Facebook describe ‘news’
“Core to a
as nothing more than a line item on a balance sheet,” said Chris healthy model
Cooper of Responsible Technology Australia11. “Both platforms between The
are dangerously casual about the prospect of operating platforms Times and the
in which real news has been abandoned or de-prioritised, leaving
misinformation to fill the void.”
platforms is a
direct path for sending
The battle with Australia is still ongoing, and will undoubtedly be those readers back into
watched carefully by other governments as 2021 unfolds.
our environments, where
Finally, Instagram has said it is ‘cautiously considering’ paying we control the presenta-
publishers on its platform12, as it grows in prominence as a news
and information source. While it plans to include selected pub-
tion of our report, the
lishers in its next tests for paying creators, scheduled monetisa- relationships with our
tion talks directly with publishers have been postponed for now. readers and the nature of
Apple our business rules. Our
Like Google and Facebook, there are still a number of Apple-re- relationship with Apple
lated cases which are developing quickly. You can read more News does not fit within
about their pending iOS 14 ad tracking changes in our ‘Data and these parameters.”
Advertising’ chapter.
Meredith Kopit Levien, CEO, New
This year saw Apple News reach 125 million monthly active users, York Times
although the company has kept tight-lipped about how paid-for
News+ is faring13. In July, Apple rolled out a big update to News,
which included audio stories, a local news section, and its own
daily news recap podcast. The audio stories - available only to
Apple News+ subscribers - are long-form articles from partner
publishers, narrated by voice actors14.

PLATFORMS
The company has upped its efforts to attract subscribers to

News+ this year. One tactic, which has rolled out with its re-
WHERE DO PEOPLE
cent iOS 14 update, is an intercept which will redirect News+ FIND NEWS CONTENT?
subscribers to the Apple News app by default if they click on a
story from a publisher enrolled in Apple News+. In short, rather
than users landing on the publisher’s site, they end up in Apple’s 46% Facebook
ecosystem instead, invisible to the publisher’s own analytics15.
They have also employed similar tactics with Smart App Banners, 27% YouTube
which now prompt users to open stories in the Apple News app
when they open a webpage hosted by a News+ publisher16.
20% WhatsApp
However, one of the headline moments for Apple News this year
was The New York Times’ high-profile exit. The Times said that
13% Instagram
Apple had given it little in the way of direct relationships with
readers and little control over the business, which clashes with
its own key business goal of adding new subscribers17. 12% Messenger
Whether Apple can grow News+ to any notable user base in 2021 11% Twitter
remains to be seen. News+ is included in its newly-launched
bundles18, but only in the top tier, which is unlikely to drive vast
numbers in itself. For now, publishers remain wary.
The other significant change came to the App Store after a

squabble with game-maker Epic. In November, Apple announced
an unprecedented change to its commission structure: a Small “This is all
Business Program. This allows any developer who earns less than heading
$1 million in annual sales per year from their apps to qualify for a towards a
reduced App Store cut of 15%; half their standard 30% fee19. This
- along with the ability to offer special subscription discounts20 -
much more
will be a welcome addition to revenues for publishers. fractured
internet, which will really
Other platforms
TikTok, which is used by 100 million people each month in the
limit the global ambitions
US, is steadily growing to become a mainstream player. But of some of our platforms...
TikTok’s main share of headlines came when Trump decided to but they might become
ban it in the US citing security concerns; a situation which is more governable as a
still ongoing. As a result, many publishers have been reluctant to
invest in creating content for the platform, especially one which
result.”
has such an uncertain future in key markets. Casey Newton, Platformer
Talking on the Media Voices Podcast
As a final note, there has been a vast increase in the number of
features the platforms have copied from each other this year21.
From Twitter’s Fleets to Linkedin’s Stories, they are slowly grow-
ing more bloated in an attempt to replicate successful features
from rival platforms. This will benefit publishers in some ways; if
content is being created for one platform, it can now more easily
be used across others. However, it does create headaches in
terms of media optimisation as each platform has slightly differ-
ent requirements. TikTok has now
been downloaded
There simply isn’t space here to dive into the complex antitrust more than
measures under consideration and their implications. Pressures
from a Democratic government on home soil and others abroad
is likely to leave the biggest platforms looking very different by 2 billion
the end of the year, and publishers should prepare for the impact times globally
a ‘Splinternet’ will have on their own strategies.

PLATFORMS
CASE STUDY
The Economist triples subscribers on
LinkedIn
The Economist has always played smart when it comes to
social media, and this year has been no exception. By exper-
imenting with broader and narrower content strategies on
LinkedIn, it’s managed to grow followers 39.5% this year to
11.4 million.
Of all the social platforms, LinkedIn is the third biggest sub-
scription driver for the publisher, and the organic referral
traffic has doubled. The team has focused on success metrics
like comments, shares and impressions in order to refine its
selective approach to which content it posts. The Economist
has also seen success on Instagram, with a maturing strategy
helping it reach a significantly engaged following between 18-
34 years old.
CASE STUDY
Zetland quits Facebook
If Facebook is turned off in your country, don’t despair! Danish
publisher Zetland stopped using Facebook and Instagram for
advertising during July, and instead moved some of that spend
to sponsoring podcasts.
“We don’t say we’re part of the boycott, that would be hypo-
critical,” said CEO Tav Klitgaard. “Facebook will not die if we
move away so we don’t want to say big words, but we can chip
in.”
On a good month, Facebook used to generate roughly a third
of new members for Zetland. But quitting and refocusing the
ad spend paid off; by July 9th, it had met 50% of its monthly
membership target.
CASE STUDY
Digital Spy launches magazine on Apple
News+
Over the summer, Digital Spy, the UK’s biggest TV and mov-
ies website, announced the launch of its very first digital
magazine (note, they don’t publish a physical magazine). The
interactive magazine was custom designed by the Digital Spy
and Apple News teams, and is available only to Apple News+
subscribers.
Limited details have been released about the partnership
between Digital Spy and Apple, although it is likely Apple are
funding at least some of the development. The magazine will
continue to be published each month on Apple News+, with
exclusive features, interviews and videos.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR 2021
From tiny acorns: a moment to

reflect and reset on long-held
strategies and beliefs
The swerves publishers take in 2021 are likely to be much sharper than
we can predict. But despite the many challenges on the horizon, there’s
reason for hope.
H
ere’s how we opened this section two years ago: “The Chris Sutcliffe
Black Swan Theory holds that certain seismic events can @chrismsutcliffe
occur without warning, have a major effect and subse-
quently be rationalised with the gift of hindsight.” Honestly, we
should have saved it for this year.
Over the course of this report you’ll have read how the pandemic
has destabilised the foundations of many media business models,
and drastically accelerated trends that we expected to play out
over the course of many years rather than months. It has, frankly,
been a terrible time for many publishers.
However, in Media Moments 2018 we also said that “tech is

creating new touch-points for bold publishers to reach audienc-
es”. That has undeniably come true, as publishers bereft of their
traditional channels have found themselves in desperate need of
new means to communicate with their consumers. Some have
found it easier than others. But as this chapter shows, there are
still new opportunities emerging all the time.
This year has also provided publishers with something very rare: The UK newspaper and
an opportunity to reflect on long-held strategies and beliefs.
magazine industry will be
That makes our job much harder - the swerves publishers take
in 2021 are likely to be much sharper than anyone could have
predicted. £50 million
Where are we now? better off each year after
At the beginning of the year things looked promising. After years the government cut VAT
of it having been mooted, the UK government ditched the 20% for digital publications
VAT charge1 on the online editions of the Times and Sunday
Times. It was a sign that legislation was beginning to catch up
with the realities of digital publishing.
Google also announced its plans to ditch the third-party cookie2, Keep up with 2021
which had the dual benefits of bringing user privacy to the fore What’s New in Publishing is
and also allowing publishers to capitalise on their own first party committed to keeping you
data. Since between 10 and 25 cents on every US dollar in pro- updated with all the most
grammatic is spent on data3, that returned a tremendous amount important news and analysis
of revenue potential to publishers’ hands. in publishing. We also do a
Small wonder then that most pundits were predicting that the weekly newsletter, just visit
few digital-only media companies not to turn a profit in 2019 the site to sign up.
would do so in 20204.

By March, however, that optimism had evaporated. The reali- The pandemic
ty of national lockdowns was beginning to bite, and niche and accelerated the shift
alt-weekly titles that had barely been scraping by suddenly found
to eCommerce
themselves facing an existential crisis5.
by
Unsurprisingly given the annihilation of footfall and brands
severely trimming their marketing spend, advertising revenue
was effectively wiped out at many publishers. In Germany it was
reported that up to 80% of advertising revenue had vanished,
which was echoed across the US and much of Europe6. It was
5 years
especially bad for freesheets.
Despite all that bad news, many outlets took the opportunity to
buck conventional wisdom around the hardness of paywalls and
make their valuable Covid-19 coverage available for free. One
thing that we absolutely don’t want to get lost among the noise is
that, in April, a fast food chicken franchise paid to remove pay-
walls for a number of local newspapers7.
“Covid-19 is
provoking
It was also an opportunity for publications to prove their journal- a crisis for
istic mettle: LadBible was praised by the World Health Organisa-
tion after announcing its mission to approach pandemic cover- many players,
age objectively and without sensation8. but it also
Those like The Atlantic which broke with conventional wisdom
presents a unique oppor-
to serve their readers have done better than expected9. The FT’s tunity to accelerate the
John Burn-Murdoch told us10: internal digital transfor-
“It’s pretty much impossible to know, I think, whether we’ve mations organisations
got subscribers based purely on [our Covid-19 data] pieces. But have been implementing
anecdotally, I can absolutely point to specific examples where for nearly two decades.”
people have emailed or tweeted to say, ‘I’ve subscribed to the
Professor Lucy Kueng, Senior
FT because of this piece of work,’ or we’ve had people who’d let Research Associate, The Reuters
their subscription lapse and have re subscribed.” Institute
That has proven to be true for editorial coverage around the US
election as well, with many newspapers demonstrating that they
are on the public’s side. Even traditionally pro-Trump outlets
like Fox News proved to be capable of countering the president’s
falsehoods, calling into question how legitimate that volte-face
has been.
Despite that, almost every publishing company has had to take
50%+
advantage of furlough schemes and job cuts to mitigate the
effects of the pandemic on their bottom lines. While some have
had the good fortune to be able to pay those back, not all have -
and it is likely there will be ongoing reductions for some time yet.
Beyond subscriptions and advertising, ecommerce trends have

perhaps accelerated the fastest of all. It has been reported that in
the first three months of lockdown, ecommerce leaped five years
in terms of consumer spending and adoption11. That was espe-
cially true for fast-moving consumer goods, with groceries and
alcohol being among the biggest beneficiaries.
of Axios’ revenue is
At time of writing, we are still in the midst of the pandemic. In
many European countries, hard lockdowns have returned, which coming from newsletter
have continued to impact the freesheets and advertising revenue. sponsorships

Many publishers are therefore hedging their bets, favouring a “The

bearish approach to the next few months.
pandemic
At Media Voices we’ve always been suspicious of the term ‘right- has tested
sizing’. To us it feels like a euphemistic way of cutting jobs with-
long-held
out having to admit to a strategic misstep. However, this moment
has proven to be a time for publishers to step back and reflect on assumptions
their own cost bases. Some media companies have proven they about how business is
can produce print editions entirely remotely, while others have conducted and challenged
cut back in previously lucrative areas they don’t see as driving
significant revenue over the next few years12.
companies, including
our own, to take a long-
It is, effectively, a time for publishers to write off any invest- term view in the face of
ments or outdated structures. That’s far easier said that done - a
recent report from Lucy Kueng on behalf of the Reuters Insti- acute financial pressure.
tute demonstrates that cultural change is hard to force through It’s a put-up-or-shut-up
newsrooms at the best of times. Despite that, it is demonstrable moment. At Quartz, we
that just as the pandemic has accelerated trends, it’s also forced
publishers to be stricter with themselves in terms of which areas
are ready to put up.”
that should and should not be focusing on. That is especially true Zach Seward, CEO, Quartz
for organisations like Quartz, which bought itself back from Uza-
base late in 202013.

We’d be lying if we said that publishers will come out of the pan-
demic as leaner, more specialised organisms better suited to the
new digital-first environment. Some will, but just as the Creta-
ceous–Paleogene extinction gave rise to birds and smaller mam-
mals, it also killed a lot of dinosaurs along the way.
Not all media companies - especially the local newspapers - are

coming out of this, or at least not in the same shape. We expect
that, unfortunately, there will be many closures of local titles.
The news deserts will grow more vast. We also expect that there
will be far more titles going from a daily to a weekly model.
We’re also expecting a downturn in the rapid rise of subscrip- Buzzfeed saw
150
tions that 2020 birthed. The combination of a lack of flag-waving
subscription purchases and the first raft of renewals leading to
increased churn will almost certainly lead to a wobble. Despite
that, the outlets that proved themselves to be of value to the
public with their pandemic and election coverage will outper- million views
form the rest. ...to content related to sex
toys as a result of lockdown,
Despite those challenges, however, we believe that publishers
are set to invest more heavily than ever in alternative reve- promoting them to launch a
nue streams. That might take the form of paid-for newsletters, new sexual wellness vertical
investment in verticals conducive to ecommerce, or a flurry of
membership-focused events once we can all safely interact in
person again. To go back to our K-T extinction metaphor - in the
aftermath of major extinction events you typically find an explo-
sion in the diversification of lifeforms.
We expect that, in 2021, more publishers will be experimental

and carve out even wilder, more valuable niches than we’ve seen
for many decades.

CASE STUDY
Reuters Professional
With 2020 giving rise to a number of questions about the
future of the office, it’s unsurprising that we’ve seen some
publishers launch products based specifically around that
space. Reuters Professional, for example, is a business vertical
aimed at individuals rather than corporate clients, which uses
the future of the office as a hook.
Beyond that, the new subscription service looks to provide
news, analysis and eventually events for “decision-makers”,
who Reuters believe comprise a $36bn industry. It is part of an
ongoing trend for information publishers to focus on the in-
dividual again, with other sites like The Information and Skift
launching subscription products priced to appeal to people,
rather than companies.
CASE STUDY
Sex & Love at BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed’s partnership with sex toy manufacturer and fe-
male-focused porn company Bellesa hit headlines in Novem-
ber. The site had been experimenting with launching a sexual
wellness vertical throughout the year, but was galvanised by
having received over 150 million views to content specifically
related to sex toys as a result of lockdown.
It was the latest effort from BuzzFeed to reclaim the ecom-
merce space from Amazon. Earlier in the year it had also
launched its own DTC shop using Shop Bonsai Inc. Over 2021
we expect to see more publishers partnering with smaller
sales platforms to try to reclaim the power in the ecommerce
relationship.
CASE STUDY
Platformer
Individual journalists are making a go of it on their own. We’ve
seen individuals monetising their expertise for some time,
but 2020 was the first year we saw that trend collide with the
growth of paid-for newsletters. The Verge’s Casey Newton
took his own newsletter The Interface and relaunched it using
Substack, reasoning that he only needed “1,000 of those peo-
ple to become paying subscribers in order for it to become a
pretty good journalism job.”
While we expect many more journalists to fly solo next year,
we don’t necessarily expect that they’ll all have as much sup-
port from their previous employer as Newton received from
The Verge. Instead, look for a sudden gold rush as journalists
who are closely associated with a beat try to own that space
in paid-for newsletters.

APPENDIX
PRINT
1. How coronavirus infected publishing, BBC
2. UK magazines in crisis, Flashes and Flames
3. UK national newspaper print sales plunge amid coronavirus lockdown, The Guardian
4. UK advertisers pulled more than £1.1bn spend during Covid lockdown, The Guardian
5. Sweet, This Is and No.1 among five DC Thomson magazines to close with loss of almost 20 jobs, Press Gazette
6. Travel mag liquidated after revenue went from £100k a month to zero, Press Gazette
7. Top ten US newspaper circulations: Biggest print titles have lost 30% of sales since 2016 election, Press Gazette
8. The coronavirus has closed more than 60 local newsrooms across America. And counting., Poynter
9. UK local newspaper closures: At least 265 titles gone since 2005, but pace of decline has slowed, Press Gazette
10. Archant bought by private equity firm, InPublishing
11. JPI Media 2019 results: Regional press group reports pre-tax loss of £47.7m, Press Gazette
12. City AM delays print return as commuter audience slow to get back into office, Press Gazette
13. Morrisons and Waitrose the latest stores to stock The Big Issue magazine, The Big Issue
14. Stylist strikes deal with Ocado for return to print, Campaign
15. How the pandemic made me rediscover my love of print newspapers, Poynter
16. How the Daily Star became Boris Johnson’s biggest critic, The New European
17. Transcript: Jim Bilton, Wessenden Marketing, Media Voices
18. Hearst UK prepares for Covid-19 to eat ‘large proportion’ of cash resources after losses of £2m in 2019, Press
Gazette
19. Marketforce helps UK’s first black girls’ magazine launch on newsstand, InPublishing
20. How 160-year-old regional newspaper returned to profit six months after closure threat, Press Gazette
AUDIO
1. ‘The downloads are back’: Podcasting finishes the first half of 2020 strong, Digiday
2. A record number of new shows: but new releases now in decline, Podnews
3. Vox Media aims for $20m-plus podcast business in 2020, Digiday
4. Maker of Hit Podcast ‘Serial’ Explores Sale, The Wall Street Journal
5. Holy S-, The New York Times Just Acquired Podcast Powerhouse Serial Productions, Vulture
6. Times Radio launches with Boris Johnson and Malawi mix-up, The Guardian
7. Readers can now listen to stories on The Washington Post’s Android and iOS apps, The Washington Post
8. Apple News adds audio news stories, daily news podcast and local news, CNBC
9. Vulture to Double Podcast Coverage, New York Magazine
10. Spotify is buying Bill Simmons’s The Ringer to boost its podcast business, Vox
11. HuffPost Editor-in-Chief Lydia Polgreen Leaving for Gimlet Media, Daily Beast
12. Joe Rogan’s podcast is becoming a Spotify exclusive, The Verge
13. Kim Kardashian West is the next superstar celebrity to snag an exclusive podcast deal with Spotify, The Verge
14. Higher Ground and Spotify Announce ‘The Michelle Obama Podcast’ Debuting July 29, Spotify
15. What’s the deal with New Audible?, Hot Pod
16. Amazon Completely Messed Up Its New Service Launch. Don’t Make the Same Mistake, Inc
17. Demi Moore to Star in Amazon Drama Based on ‘Dirty Diana’ Podcast, The Hollywood Reporter
18. Long absent, This American Life is now available on Spotify, Hot Pod
19. Times Radio tries to lure listeners to the paper, The Economist
DATA & ADVERTISING

1. Building a more private web: A path towards making third party cookies obsolete, Chromium Blog
2. Browser market share worldwide, Statcounter
3. Building a more private web: A path towards making third party cookies obsolete, Chromium Blog
4. ‘Very pleasantly surprised’ Google shares results of Privacy Sandbox experiments, Digiday
5. ‘Ripped the Band-Aid on some hard decisions’: How The New York Times is reshaping its ad business for a
cookie-less world, Digiday
6. Vox Media introduces self serve ad tool for businesses, to run campaigns across premium publishers, What’s
New in Publishing
7. Apple’s Ad-Targeting Crackdown Shakes Up Ad Market, The Information
8. Publishers Brace for Impact From Apple’s New Privacy Controls, The Wall Street Journal
9. Apple wants to stop advertisers from following you around the web. Facebook has other ideas., Vox

APPENDIX
10. Publishers are getting a (brief) reprieve from Apple’s coming ad-pocalypse, Nieman Lab
11. Global Ad Trends: Global adspend outlook, WARC
12. Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2020–2024, PWC
13. Tackling LGBT+ blocklists: publishers and agencies rally against digital censorship, The Drum
14. How publisher data can define the “next web”, What’s New in Publishing
15. Coronavirus climbs up keyword block lists, squeezing news publishers’ programmatic revenues, Digiday
16. Coronavirus Ad Blocking Is Starving Some News Sites Of Revenue, BuzzFeed News
17. ‘Coronavirus’ keyword blocking projected to lose UK news publishers £50m ad revenue, The Drum
18. COVID Ad Spend Impact 2020 & 2021: Light at the End of the Tunnel, IAB
19. ‘Re-architecting the entire process’: How Vice is preparing for life after the third-party cookie, Digiday
20. “Contextual is the future”: Extinction of the third-party cookie opens up new revenue opportunities for
publishers, What’s New in Publishing
READER REVENUE
1. The Coronavirus Is A Disaster For The Media Industry, But Some Websites And Magazines Are Thriving,
BuzzFeed News
2. Removing paywalls on coronavirus coverage is noble. It also makes no sense., Poynter
3. For its must-read coronavirus coverage, The Atlantic is rewarded with a huge surge of digital subscriptions,
Nieman Lab
4. “There is not a country on Earth where this model is not working”: How digital subscriptions are helping
publishers build a stronger future, What’s New in Publishing
5. ‘A good job of retaining’: Publishers see subscription resilience as evidence of sticky coronavirus-cohorts grows,
Digiday
6. Publishing positives and pandemic passions, Magnetic
7. Paid virtual events are the new golden ticket for publishers, Digiday
8. Cosmo Launches New Wine Brand Uncorked by Cosmopolitan in Licensing Partnership with Guarachi Wine
Partners, Advisor
9. BuzzFeed launches vibrator in bid to become ‘internet authority’ on sex and wellness, The Independent
10. The (Not Failing) New York Times, Mine Safety Disclosures
11. “The appetite for news seems greater than ever”: As traffic surges, publishers see a spike in subscriptions,
What’s New in Publishing
12. The New York Times is thriving in chaos, Vox
13. Subscriber retention and habits go hand in hand, WAN-IFRA
14. ‘This conversation is personal’: Inc.’s columnists are now available through text for readers willing to pay,
Digiday
15. The Athletic says it hits 1 million subscribers after surviving sports shutdown, CNBC
TRUST
1. A Finnish case study: declining trust in media in a traditionally consensual and stable society, Reuters Institute
2. Covid-19 has prompted boom for TV news, dip in media trust worldwide and surge in misinformation - 2020
Digital News Report, Press Gazette
3. Fake news in the time of coronavirus: how big is the threat?, The Guardian
4. Transcript: Marianna Spring, Specialist Disinformation Reporter, BBC, Media Voices
5. The Queen praises the work of the ‘trusted reliable and vital’ journalism industry, Royal Central
6. Information inequality in the UK coronavirus communications crisis, Reuters Institute
7. Letter from the FT’s editor on the impact of coronavirus, Financial Times
Nieman Lab
9. Byline Times, Twitter
10. Journalists believe news and opinion are separate, but readers can’t tell the difference, The Conversation
11. Letter from WSJ News staff to publisher Almar Latour
12. Zuckerberg: Facebook to ‘take down’ coronavirus misinformation, BBC
13. Americans Paid Close Attention as Election Returns Came In, Pew Research Centre
14. Andrew Neil launches 24-hour news channel to rival BBC and Sky, The Guardian
15. Fact-checkers need to work together to create better models for distributing our fact-checks online, Poynter
16. Research: Millennials generation most likely to trust journalists, trust in TV newsreaders plummets, Press
Gazette

APPENDIX
17. As Local News Dies, a Pay-for-Play Network Rises in Its Place, The New York Times
18. Why is it important that we do not give news away for free during a crisis?, Baekdal Plus
19. The Conversation UK’s Chief Executive Chris Waiting on building community around expertise, Media Voices
EVENTS
1. Events are becoming a substantial source of new revenue, Innovation Media
2. The Atlantic’s layoffs may sound the death knell for two media revenue hopes: Video and in-person events,
Nieman Lab
3. 8 lessons from Hearst Live and New Scientist on running successful virtual events, What’s New in Publishing
4. Engagement over revenue: How The New York Times has reoriented its events internationally, Digiday
5. 8 lessons from Hearst Live and New Scientist on running successful virtual events, What’s New in Publishing
6. How three media companies are approaching virtual events and monetization, Digital Content Next#
7. How the New York Times Live is adapting its events plans, Digiday
8. Business publisher Euromoney proposes 240 job cuts after Covid-19 hit to events, Press Gazette
9. Why Trade Shows Haven’t Had a Smooth Transition to Virtual, Event Manager
10. Why exhibitions are only part of the answer, Flashes and Flames
11. Trade shows look to 2022, Flashes and Flames
12. What SCMP learned from pivoting its entire events business online, Splice Beta
13. ‘The format is secondary’: How Reuters Events will drive global and local engagement on- and off-line, Digiday
14. Bauer’s B2B Events Business launches First Virtual Exhibition, InPublishing
15. The future of the events industry, FIPP
DIVERSITY
1. George Floyd Protests: A Timeline, The New York Times
2. George Floyd: protests take place in cities around the world, The Guardian
3. Condé Nast joins media companies under scrutiny on race, Financial Times
4. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s journalists of color are taking a “sick and tired day” after “Buildings Matter, Too”
headline, Nieman Lab
5. Anna Wintour apologises for not giving space to black people at Vogue, The Guardian
6. Magazines Celebrate Blackness. Is This The New Normal? A Mr. Magazine™ Musing, Mr Magazine
7. Why Black Ballad Is Taking Over HuffPost UK, HuffPost UK
8. 8 Journalists on Reporting While Black, With the Weight of History on Their Shoulders, Glamour
9. The state of racism, Metro
10. Project 23 co-founder Gary Rayneau on building diverse and inclusive media, Media Voices
11. Colin Kaepernick is joining Medium’s board to write about racism, CNN Business
12. Alexis Ohanian steps down from Reddit board, asks for his seat to go to a black board member, TechCrunch
13. ‘Feels very much lip service’: Media employees agitate over companies’ inaction following diversity and
inclusion pledges, Digiday
14. It’s not enough for Black Lives Matter to protest. We must run for office too, The Guardian
15. Genelle Aldred, Twitter
16. Transcript: Tobi Oredein, Co-Founder and CEO, Black Ballad, Media Voices
17. “If your newsroom is not diverse, you will get the news wrong”, Reuters Institute
18. The Los Angeles Times newsroom is roiling over race, representation, and missing “a golden opportunity” to
diversify, Nieman Lab
19. Changing newsrooms 2020: addressing diversity and nurturing talent at a time of unprecedented change,
Reuters Institute
PLATFORMS
1. Justice Department Hits Google With Antitrust Lawsuit, The Wall Street Journal
2. Google hits back at the Australian government’s plans for a News Media Bargaining Code, Spiny Trends
3. Google will start paying publishers to license content, Axios
4. Google will spend $1 billion to pay publishers for news showcase, Axios
5. Google drops curated news plans in Australia over ‘unworkable’ policy, Engaget
6. Google is giving $1 billion to news publishers — to help convince governments not to take a whole lot more than
that, Nieman Lab
7. Google signs copyright agreements with six French newspapers, Reuters

APPENDIX
8. Facebook News launches to all in US with addition of local news and video, TechCrunch
9. Six months in, Facebook News remains a question mark to publishers, Digiday
10. Facebook threat to ban news content in Aust, InnovationAus
11. Regional publishers hit back at Facebook’s ‘inflammatory’ threat to ban news sharing in Australia, The Guardian
12. Instagram cautiously considers paying publishers, Axios
13. Apple News hits 125 million monthly active users, TechCrunch
14. Apple News adds audio news stories, daily news podcast and local news, CNBC
15. Apple News+ to intercept publisher traffic, with iOS 14 update, What’s New in Publishing
16. Smart Banners point to Apple News instead of publisher apps in iOS 14, Apple Insider
17. The New York Times Pulls Out of Apple News, The New York Times
18. Apple confirms Apple One subscription bundle, bringing together Music, TV Plus, Arcade, and more, The Verge
19. Apple is reducing the cut it takes from most news publishers’ subscriptions, Nieman Lab
20. Another bit of good news from Apple: Publishers can now offer targeted discounts in the App Store, Nieman Lab
21. Social media companies all starting to look the same, Axios
22. How The Economist has tripled the number of subscribers driven by LinkedIn, Digiday
23. How Instagram helps The Economist to reach a new generation, Medium
24. Danish publisher Zetland is driving more new members since quitting Facebook, Digiday
25. Hearst UK’s Digital Spy launches its very first digital magazine, exclusively available on Apple News+, What’s
New in Publishing

1. VAT ruling on Times digital edition could save News UK millions, The Guardian
2. RIP third-party cookies: What Google’s ‘pivot to privacy’ means for publishers, What’s New in Publishing
3. Conversations transcript: Privacy, Publishers, and Rebuilding Ad Tech, Media Voices
4. 1 big thing: Digital media breakthrough, Axios
5. “Total annihilation”: Coronavirus may just be the end for many alt-weeklies, Nieman Lab
6. Newsonomics: What was once unthinkable is quickly becoming reality in the destruction of local news, Nieman
Lab
7. No paywall in the chicken coop: A fast-food chain is paying to take down 16 Canadian newspapers’ paywalls
this month, Nieman Lab
8. Through responsible coronavirus coverage, LadBible aims to show its growing maturity, The Drum
Nieman Lab
10. Transcript: John Burn-Murdoch, Senior Data-Visualisation Journalist, The Financial Times, Media Voices
11. COVID-19 pandemic accelerated shift to e-commerce by 5 years, new report says, TechCrunch
12. ESPN Shutters Esports Editorial Division, Hollywood Reporter
13. Join our mission to make business better as Quartz becomes an independent media company, Quartz

Also from What's New in Publishing:
INSIGHT REPORT
DEEP DIVE
REPORT
THE PUBLISHER'S GUIDE TO
ECOMMERCE
Sponsored by:
Written by: THE PUBLISHER'
S GUIDE TO ECO
CASE STUDIES
Damian Radcliffe MMERCE
CE I
THE PUBLISHE R'S GUIDE TO ECOMMER
New: Written by:

Damian Radclif
fe Sponsored by:
ECO MME RCE

CAS E STU DIES
I

Sponsored by
Credits
Authors: Chris Sutcliffe, Peter Houston, Esther Kezia Thorpe
Sponsor: Permutive
Design: Esther Kezia Thorpe
Copyright © 2020 What’s New in Publishing. All rights reserved.
Images via Pixabay and Unsplash

Media Moments 2020

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Media Moments 2020

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

MEDIA MOMENTS

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 I

Media Moments 2020

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 II

Intertwined with this is the importance of putting audiences

Perhaps the most important lesson this year is a reminder that

Finally, everyone at What’s New in Publishing would like to

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 III

As a company, we have spent the last three years building tech-

Ultimately with the loss of third-party cookies, and more gen-

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 IV

Book a demo via hello@permutive.com,

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 V

When deciding on the areas we would focus on for the chapters

As hope for a return to normal life grows, the conversation

We also have an additional chapter this year dedicated to diver-

If you’re interested in keeping up with the latest updates

The Media Voices team

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 VI

There may be silver linings, but

Publishers kept going with WFH workflows cobbled together

In the first quarter of 2020, magazine newsstand sales were

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 1

“The magazine market has been challenged for a number

Freesheets were hit hard by the shutdown. The Evening Stand-

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 2

Even newspapers saw some readers, tired of “doomscrolling”

And in one of the absolute best print stories of 2020, UK tabloid

Where are we now?

More broadly, it’s about survival. Jim Bilton of Wessenden Mar-

Hearst UK illustrates the point. The business has managed to

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 3

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 4

Hear ye, hear ye: 2020 was the year

Without the commute - which provided a captive audience for

What happened in 2020?

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 5

Undoubtedly, the biggest player in podcasting this year has been

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 6

What can we expect in the future?

We’re also likely to see more teething problems, such as Spotify

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 7

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 8

Publishers prepare for triple threat

However, unlike Apple and Firefox, Google has also said it is

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 9

But it’s not just browsers which proved a challenge to advertis-

One estimate from Weather Co estimates that the price adver-

However, in September, Apple said that they would delay imple-

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 10

The effects of declining ad spend on publishers has been exacer-

Between April and July, Covid-19 related keyword blocking was

What can we expect in the future?

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 11

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 12

Covid-19 has boosted reader

“Subscriptions to glossy magazines are up, sales of publications

Where are we now?

As the rapidly developing global health crisis unfolded, peo-

MEDIA MOMENTS 2020 13

In the UK, digital publishers’ subscription revenues were up by

However, the big plot twist in the 2020 subscriptions blockbuster

In the first couple of months of the crisis, Conde Nast reported

Beyond digital and print subscriptions that swap content for

“The magazine market has been challenged for a number