Week of Nov. 9th-15th: Your Media News Update

This past week, the media industry has seen a lot of new approaches in tackling the challenges of the traditional subscription business model. Companies are getting creative and investing into forming a better content experience and improving targeted distribution.

This past week, the media industry has seen a lot of new approaches in tackling the challenges of the traditional subscription business model. Companies are getting creative and investing into forming a better content experience and improving targeted distribution. Some of the highlights include:

  • A new way of positioning subscription packages with vertical-specific content
  • Numerous examples of media organizations who are developing digital series and long-form content to drive digital traffic
  • Publishers are paying close attention to online search behavior, and are creating content to address those enquiries

Continue reading to learn and stay up-to-date with the latest industry news published over the past week.

Vertical Subscriptions Are the Newest “Side Products” Being Used to Drive Revenue

For many news publishers, the main selling point of a subscription is getting access to a broad range of coverage and content. But some publishers are thinking outside of the content experience box and are starting to promote slimmed-down versions, i.e. vertical subscriptions, as a way to drive more revenue. These types of packages are targeted towards readers who continuously return to specific content categories.

Grant Belaire, VP of digital audience development at McClatchy, proposes that it’s better to retain a subscriber with a vertical than to lose them entirely. Take the publisher’s sports readers, for instance. They make up less than 20% of McClatchy’s total readership, but contribute to over 50% of page views. By promoting a sports-focused subscription called the “Sports Pass,” which gives readers access only to sports content, McClatchy was able to double their subscription conversions in a week. 

Another publisher investing into the vertical-subscription model is The New York Times. The company has a standalone crossword subscription offered for $6.95 a month. With that package alone, The New York Times has earned more than 500K subscribers. And as subscribers consume crossword content, additional content offers can be promoted to eventually expand readership revenue per user.

After seeing more than 60K people visiting articles written by politics writer Charles Pierce every day, Esquire decided to build a $17.99 annual subscription offer specifically for his content. The annual subscription grants access to all of Pierce’s stories, a weekly newsletter written by Pierce and, to top it off, a tote bag. 

Jumping on the sports-related vertical-subscription model is The Athletic, a sports news subscription site that launched in 2016. They now have over 500K subscribers and are targeting over a million by the end of the year.

Media Organizations Get Creative in Developing New Ways to Monetize the Content Experience

In this day and age, the need for more subscribers is becoming increasingly significant in order to provide sustainable revenue. As a result, many media organizations are coming up with creative ways to attract new viewers, with the intent that they will eventually convert into paying subscribers. 

Bleacher Report is a publisher who has taken steps towards appealing to a larger audience. To boost viewership on its YouTube channel, the company has debuted an interactive show called “Your Call,” where viewers play the role of an up-and-coming soccer star. As the series progresses, viewers have the opportunity to make choices that impact the future of their soccer career, such as which team to join. 

The series is part of the sports publisher’s recent shift to produce more mid- and long-form programming for video-viewing platforms like YouTube versus shorter fare made for social platforms like Instagram, which are more difficult to monetize. 

Since October 2018, Bleacher Report’s soccer-related YouTube channel has grown from 235K subscribers and 10.8 million monthly views to over 1 million subscribers and 21.5 million views.

Another publisher that’s adding new formats to the content experience is Dow Jones’ Barron’s Group. Last week, they started a 10-minute weekly digital show called Marketbrief, which covers all the latest financial news for relevant investors. With this, Barron’s Group hopes to widen its audience.

Tastemade a video network that offers food and travel-related programming for online audiences is also expanding its long-form content offering on the ad-supported streaming platform, Samsung TV Plus.

Globally, Tastemade reaches 120 million monthly viewers via its 24-hour channel that launched 16 months ago. Samsung TV Plus is the biggest platform for the publisher in terms of viewers, watch time and revenue, largely in part because audiences don’t need to pay for its content and the service comes pre-installed on newer TVs. 

In other news, by repackaging and selling content created for other channels, USA Today aims to grow revenue through its video operations. Similar to Tastemade, the publisher is focused on increasing its content on ad-supported streaming platforms. The most recently launched streaming series is a weekly half-hour show called “USA Today Sports Weekly Pulse,” which highlights the most popular clips from USA Today’s sites over the course of the week on Fubo Sports Network

The New York Times also just announced that they’ll be venturing into film with two feature-length documentaries as a way to attract new audiences. These newsroom-specific documentaries will be produced by its very own journalists. In the past, the company has produced shows for connected TV services, including Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video.

To help media organizations monetize their content faster, Brightcove, a provider of cloud services for video, released a new SaaS-based OTT platform that allows content to be released on multiple platforms simultaneously. The new technology helps publishers launch and monetize video content across mobile, web and connected TV, all from one platform. 

Read up on the state of consumers in the streaming wars (and how to win them over) to learn more.

Publishers Try Increasing Site Traffic by Optimizing for Search

While many publishers have a social-first content experience, Delish, a food publication, decided to strengthen its search optimization about two years ago. They deep dived into what people were searching for and created an editorial strategy that incorporated content specifically tailored to answer keyword searches and enquiries. 

While they used to make short-form videos suited for social media platforms like Facebook, Delish quickly learnt that users who stayed the longest were looking for simple cooking guides. So, Delish started creating content that was 3-5 minutes long, aimed at satisfying Google inquiries.

Since the change in strategy, Delish has nearly doubled its site traffic, hitting a record 41 million unique visitors in September. That same month, search contributed 49% of its referral traffic, and in October, it rose to make up 54% of traffic. 

Publishers like Delish are slowly cutting down on the advertising dollars they’re pouring into social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Instead, they’re beginning to focus on perfecting their own organic content and editorial strategies in order to grow audiences directly on their own platforms.

Week of Nov. 2-8th: Your Media News Update

As the year 2020 draws closer to us, a wide range of new content forms and topics that consumers will want to engage with are emerging.

With the month of November officially in full swing, we’ve seen a number of reports on current and predicted trends in digital media, especially related to ad spend. As the year 2020 draws closer to us, a wide range of new content forms and topics that consumers will want to engage with are emerging.

This week’s media news update highlights some of the trends that publishers and brands are finding to be most popular with audiences, including:

  • The renewed focus on building stronger brand loyalty as a way to create new revenue opportunities
  • The increase in ad spend on connected TV media as a way to reach audiences on streaming platforms
  • Creating consumer engagement strategies that attract but fail to profit off of younger audiences through social media platforms, like TikTok

Refocusing on Brand Loyalty Will Increase Consumer Engagement and Sales Partnerships

In order to succeed as a media company today, publishers need to have an extraordinary brand. And the general consensus in the industry is that a trusted brand is built on quality journalism. With this in mind, many big brands have been smart in capitalizing on the trust they’ve developed over time with their audiences. This has been achieved through high-quality, relevant content offerings. 

Rolling Stone, for example, believes so strongly in the need for quality journalists that the company has grown its editorial staff by 40% since being acquired by Penske Media

Additionally, the brand is capitalizing on the incredible amount of access it has to artists and celebrities. They’re creating monetization opportunities by offering unique products and services to their niche audiences. Take “Musicians on Musicians,” for instance, which gives readers access to intimate conversations between two artists from different genres.

Products and services need to be deemed valuable and meet the needs of consumers in order to gain their trust. Media executives at the Folio: Show agreed that building brand affinity with an audience relies heavily on engaging content that showcase value, such as solving a need or problem. In the case of Rolling Stone, its audience craves insider content that offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of the musicians and celebrities they admire. 

In addition to consumer engagement, brand power also has a significant impact on sales partnerships when it comes to advertising and renewals. For travel magazine, AFAR, licensing content has become a profitable way to develop strong partnerships and showcase its travel expertise.

For other companies like Meredith Magazines, who owns well-known lifestyle brands such as InStyle, People, and Eating Well, the company’s strategy is to partner with other strong brands, like HGTV’s Joanna and Chip Gaines. Content with those particular celebrities were featured in the Meredith-published magazine, The Magnolia Journal, and sold out in four hours on newsstands when it debuted. As long as quality content is at the heart, brand partnerships have proven to be very successful for many publishers.

Ad Spend for Connected TV Media Increases as Publishers Try to Reach Streaming Audiences

According to a new eMarketer forecast, it’s expected that ad spend on TV streaming platforms will soar this year. Analysts predict that media spend on ads for TV streaming services in the US will be more than doubled by 2023 alone

Roku is the most popular streaming device with about 44% of viewers, followed by Amazon Fire TV (33%), Google Chromecast (16%) and Apple TV (13%), taking into consideration that there is some overlap among users of multiple devices.

In response to this, media and tech companies are launching a slew of new services that aim to reach viewers who bypass cable or satellite TV subscriptions and instead, connect their TVs directly to the internet to stream content. Tech company Sabio recently launched a product called App Science TV. It’s a platform that enables brands to serve highly targeted ad units via TV and mobile formats by tracking app behavior. 

A key challenge going forward for these types of services will be developing more reliable audience metrics and ways to keep viewers engaged

Publishers Use TikTok for Long-Term Audience Engagement

TikTok, a social media video app for creating and sharing short lip-sync, comedy, and talent videos, is quickly attracting a growing group of publishers eager to increase their relationships with young audiences. Media corporations such as Vice and Buzzfeed are among those who have already started experimenting with short-form content on the app.  

Vice, which started using the platform earlier this year, is finding that TikTok followers crave exclusive content. As a result, Vice is planning to launch a “Munchies by Vice” account next month, which will feature exclusive content made specifically for the social media platform. 

BuzzFeed, which also started using TikTok earlier this year, hasn’t gone down the route of creating exclusive content for TikTok just yet. A key motivating factor for the brand to join TikTok was to create a Tasty account, as an attempt to ward off copycats.

Despite the popularity of some brands on the app, publishers have generally been reluctant to spend time and money on platforms when there is not a clear path to revenue generation. Currently, there is no mechanism for creators or publishers to directly monetize on TikTok. Many view TikTok as a long-term way to engage and grow their respective audiences until they can figure out how to extend this understanding onto their own platforms. That way, they can engage and keep audiences while generating profit.

Week of Oct. 26th-Nov. 1st: Your Media News Update

During the last week of October, we saw the release of many new technologies that will forever impact the state of content delivery and how we consume content. We now have an abundance of information at the touch of yet another app.

This week’s media news update focuses on the impact that everyone from tech companies to social advocacy organizations has in influencing how we access and engage with digital media, including:

  • Amazon’s and Apple’s foray into TV app streaming services for video news
  • Media executives’ thoughts on the value of reader habit on their owned and operated properties
  • America’s oldest and largest journalism advocacy organization slapping President Trump with cease and desist letters every time he uses the term “fake news”

For more details on the latest and greatest industry news from the past week, read on.

Amazon and Apple Have Been Busy Shaping the Future of TV

Streaming services have revolutionized how we watch TV and consume content. Watching news broadcasts used to be something that was part of your early morning routine as you prepared for work, or in the evening, before or after dinner. 

However, the internet has significantly changed our behaviors by giving us access to news content at any hour of the day. Streaming apps are now gaining speed in overtaking pay-TV services. And with an abundance of pirate sites available to consumers, competition for media streaming services is stronger than ever.

A growing number of platforms that aggregate video news from a variety of services have launched apps this year. Amazon now joins the ranks with the release of an ad-supported video news app designed for Fire TV devices. This app enables viewers to catch up on all the latest current events with both live and on-demand content from the likes of CBS, Reuters and Bloomberg. 

Simply called the News app on Fire TV, this new offering joins the previously launched news aggregator from Plex and other similar offerings from competing companies. The News app is free for Amazon’s Fire TV users. With this release, the company will be in a better position to compete with the offerings of rival services such as Apple News and Google News while at the same time strengthen relationships with publishers such as Sports Illustrated, Al Jazeera and Yahoo.

News-related content within the app will be rolled out to an expanding pool of compatible devices over the next few weeks, including tablets such as the updated Fire HD10. Amazon is focusing its efforts on creating the optimal customer experience so consumers won’t need to create separate accounts to benefit from the content. 

New ad revenue streams to diversify its revenue base are currently in progress, setting the company up to become the third-largest digital advertiser in the US after Google and Facebook.

Meanwhile, Apple is trying to get its TV app on as many devices as possible as it launches its $5-per-month video streaming service. Most recently, the company added its TV app to Amazon’s Fire TV platform. Available as of October 24 for both the Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick 4K, the Apple TV app will also be making its way to other Fire TV devices in the coming weeks. 

Media Executives Dig Into Building Profitable Consumer Habits

With print ad revenue in decline and digital ad spending heading towards its first decline in a decade, publishers are now looking to a future where readers are loyal to their own platforms.

At Digiday’s Publishing Summit Europe in Budapest, Hungary, executives shared their plans to diversify their sources of income, and the associated pain points.

One topic that was explored was how to develop loyal reader habits, keeping them on publisher sites for longer. Media executives who attended the event emphasized how the more opportunities to engage readers they offer, such as engagement tools or apps, the more likely visitors are to stick around.

One way that publishers are engaging their readers is through real-time, moderated commenting tools.

In another media news update, Publishing Executive also proposed that an upcoming trend for 2020 will involve publishers focusing on key reader metrics, on a more granular level than ever before. And it won’t just be up to data teams to analyze these metrics. 

The media company goes on to suggest that editors themselves need to understand the metrics that matter. That way, editors can create content that better engages community members, and appeals to advertisers. 

Fun Fact Friday

The Florida Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) has had enough of President Trump using the term ‘fake news’ whenever he doesn’t like something the press says about him. 

SPJ is America’s oldest and largest journalism advocacy organization. To help uphold the integrity of the industry, they decided to trademark the term ‘fake news’ in hopes of stopping the president and others from using the term haphazardly. Every time he uses it incorrectly, the organization will send him a cease and desist letter.

In addition to obtaining the trademark, a launch video has been marketed that features a journalist explaining why the term was trademarked. The video drives people to FakeNewsTM.com, which has tips on how to spot actual fake news and what journalists are doing to ensure they report the truth. 

It currently has 332,000 social media shares and has been covered by Newsweek, The Hill, New York Post, CBC, CTV and Daily News, among other publishers. The project was created in partnership with Calgary-based creative agency Wax.

If you haven’t already taken a look at it, you may find some valuable takeaways to share with your own company’s editorial team. 

Week of Oct. 12th-18th: Your Media News Update

The past seven days have seen a lot of chatter within the media and publishing industry. The many news stories and reports that have been revealed will have a significant impact on the industry moving forward, including:

  • The many creative ways publishers are using first-party data to better understand subscription behaviors, and implement initiatives to reduce churn
  • How publishers continue to compete with social media players
  • The major successes email publishers are experiencing by allocating more resources towards building and growing subscription referral programs

To learn more and stay up to date with the latest and greatest industry news from the past week, read the details below.

Media Companies Experiment to Decrease Subscription Churn

Schibsted Media Group has decreased the amount of customers who cancel subscriptions by pioneering a seemingly counterintuitive sales model. This model makes it easy for consumers to cancel subscriptions, but at the same time, convinces them why it’s worth keeping. Emphasizing the utility of the product and giving users the power to make their own choices has dramatically increased Schibsted Media Group’s subscriber engagement. In addition, the company has turned the cancellation process into an educational experience by providing users with more information on how they benefit from their subscription.

Apple is another company that recently recognized a missed opportunity to improve subscriber retention. After looking at their data to understand where subscribers were most likely to drop off, they implemented a new billing feature for subscription apps. Referred to as a billing grace period, users are given more time to address auto-payment issues before they are cut off from paid content.

Many publishers are also increasing their ad spend as a way to reach more potential subscribers. The goal is to lead users to content that requires registering through a paywall. Publishers are trying to make the best use of their subscription data by creating digital marketing campaigns that focus on targeting audiences with similar characteristics as their current subscriber base. That way, they can attract and keep new audiences.

The Battle Between Publishers and Social Media Continues

With Facebook preparing to launch a human-curated “news tab” this month, publishers are becoming increasingly threatened by social media.

The industry has long argued against not getting a cut of the revenue that social platforms make from sharing their content. Additionally, a report from the Wall Street Journal revealed that Facebook will only be paying a small handful of the publishers for content that’s shared in its human-curated news tab.

This week, Publicis’ Zenith Media published Advertising Expenditure Forecasts, revealing that social media has overtaken print in ad spend for the first time ever. That growth will expand social media’s share of global ad spend to 13%, making social media the third-biggest ad channel behind TV (29%) and paid search (17%) in 2019.

Although publishers face major challenges with the increasing popularity of social media amongst their target audiences, consumers are becoming increasingly skeptical and distrusting of the quality of news they receive through these platforms. This declining trust in social media poses a huge opportunity for publishers to focus on building civil social experiences on their own platforms. There’s still a demand for meaningful news, information and entertainment that publishers can provide as a counterbalance to the “fake news” on social media.

A new survey asked 1,200 adults about their thoughts on media, privacy and trust. The results found that 86% of people believe there’s a “fake news” problem that continues to grow in the market. Additionally, 66% of people said data-privacy concerns affected their trust in social media.

Leveraging the Power of Email Referral Programs

Since people love free stuff, some email publishers have started giving their readers free perks as a way to grow their subscription lists. Morning BrewThe Hustle and TheSkimm are prime examples of email-based publishers who have established referral programs that encourage subscribers to get their friends to sign-up to newsletters.

The programs now account for a significant chunk of year-over-year email list growth. The Morning Brew, which launched its referral program in 2017, now has 1.6 million subscribers to its daily newsletter. The publisher attributes 35% of its newsletter audience growth to the referral program.

The Hustle, which used referral programs to promote both its free daily newsletter and paid products, created its first version of the program in 2015 to sell event tickets. Because the referral program grew their email list so significantly, they launched a newsletter business the following year to capitalize on the growing audience. The referral program now accounts for about 10% of growth towards the The Hustle’s newsletter list and has over 10,000 subscribers, who have each referred at least four other sign-ups.

TheSkimm, which introduced email referrals through word-of-mouth call-to-actions in 2012, now credits 20% of its newsletter growth to the publisher’s referral program. The program is so strong that the newsletter publisher has more than 30,000 Skimm’bassadors, which are community members that have referred 10 or more people to sign up for the daily newsletter.

Results have shown that subscribers are willing to refer a publisher when offered anything from branded T-shirts and stickers, to exclusive content or contests. Although these programs can require quite a bit of budget allocation for gifts or prizes, the cost of retaining a customer or increasing loyalty significantly outweighs the short-term expenditure.

Native Push Notifications on macOS for Chrome

Browser-based push notifications, which we released as part of our new Audience Engagement suite, have proven to be an incredibly powerful new channel for directly communicating with audiences. By allowing you to push important and personalized messages to your audience’s desktops and android devices, even when they are not on your site, you can drive timely and relevant re-engagement.

As of Chrome version 59, released this month, browser-based notifications now use the native notification system in macOS. This provides users with a much more integrated experience for breaking news and other notifications deployed by the Viafoura system.

So what changed?

Prior to version 59, Chrome notifications on macOS used a proprietary format that was entirely separate from the built-in notifications system. This caused user confusion and a broken experience with Chrome notifications behaving and appearing differently from all other system notifications.

With this change, browser-based push notifications will now behave in the following ways:

1

Viafoura Desktop Notifications

The overall size of the notifications are slightly smaller and are styled as standard notifications. As such, the notifications use a smaller square thumbnail that appears to the right of the headline.

The Chrome app icon is now present in the notification and appears to the left of the content.

2

Viafoura Notifications settings

They will now be manageable from within the system settings with all other notifications including the ability for users to set the alerts as banners (that appear and then dismiss automatically) or alerts (that stay on the desktop until dismissed manually).

3

Viafoura Notifications in alerts tray

They will appear and persist in the macOS notifications tray along with all other notifications until dismissed by the user. Previously, once the notifications timed out and disappeared from the desktop, they could not be retrieved.

4

Viafoura Notifications in Nightmode

They will respect the “Do not disturb” setting at the OS level.

What doesn’t change?

The way you deploy browser-based push notifications and opt-ins stays exactly the same, and notifications for Chrome on Windows and Android devices remain unchanged. Notifications for Firefox were already using the system notification system on macOS.

What does this mean for you?

If you are a customer using the Viafoura browser-based notification system, no action is needed. As your audience updates their version of Chrome on macOS, they will automatically switch over to the new version of desktop notifications.

Something to keep in mind though, is the reduced size of the thumbnail image. We recommend using a square thumbnail image to maximize the available space and ensuring the image is one that is attention-grabbing at the small scale.

Interested in learning more about Browser-Based Notifications?

Connect with us today to learn how Viafoura can help you build, manage and monetize your audience.

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