A forum for the print and
digital publishing industries

• “Print continues to thrive”: Highlights from FIPP’s The Future of Media whitepaper

FIPP, in collaboration with UPM Communication Papers, recently released a whitepaper, The Future of Media. It looks into the value print adds, and how it fits into the wider publishing ecosystem.

• 4 Ways Publisher Technology Lags & Hurts Monetization

The publishing space is one of the most rapidly evolving markets across the digital landscape. Unlike the majority of the platforms hosted online, publishers rank on top alongside ecommerce…

• 10 Digital Engagement Ideas!

Your website is the center of your digital publishing universe, promoting your brand 24/7. It’s where your devoted audience follows and engages with you, and new leads find you.

• How digital studio Collab helps video creators make money — often off old Vine clips

Digital studio Collab is best known for helping former Vine stars find their old videos on YouTube, claim them and make money off of ads that run before those videos.

• 5G is live in 3 countries, but we still need answers on health risks

Only days after Swisscom announced its first 5G phones, Switzerland’s Federal Office of Communications gave the carrier permission to start offering commercial 5G services, enabling it to officially launch the country’s first 5G network this week.

• The best E-Paper displays for secondary monitors

There are a number of E Ink powered devices that act as secondary monitors. The best ones have a dedicated HDMI port that can connect to your video card and can display content.

• Still on Shaky Ground, Publishers Seek More Stability in 2019

The layoffs that have plagued the magazine industry for a decade continued in the first quarter of this year, along with hundreds of cuts at digital media companies.

• Scottish weekly goes tabloid and full colour for first time in 176-year history

A weekly newspaper in Scotland is getting a revamp as it goes tabloid and full colour for the first time in its 176-year history.

• 10 Digital Engagement Ideas!

Your website is the center of your digital publishing universe, promoting your brand 24/7. It’s where your devoted audience follows and engages with you, and new leads find you.

• Publishing news across platforms means earning trust across platforms

Whether they like it or not, most journalists working today know two things: Trust in journalism is down, and people are getting news across many platforms.

• Google offers digital skills training to New Yorkers

Google has opened a learning centre to support people looking to use digital skills to find jobs, advance their careers and grow their businesss.

• The dark side of A/B testing

As product designers and marketers, we love the clarity that comes from A/B testing. We have an idea; we implement it; then, we let the customers decide whether it’s good or not by running a controlled experiment.

 

• Lexus is doing ad deals directly with publishers

As Lexus takes more media expertise in-house, it wants to work more directly with media owners. Whereas the advertiser’s agencies would usually broker media deals with publishers, Lexus is now taking the lead setting up the smaller ones.

• 4 Reasons to Decrease Email Frequency

As the saying goes, less is more — and nowhere is this ideology more relevant than with email marketing.

• 5 Reasons Women in Publishing Rock!

We tried something new at our 2019 Super Niche event a couple of weeks ago, and it was awesome. The inaugural Women in Publishing Summit kicked off on Monday March 18th to a sold out room of smart publishing peeps:

• Publishing in the world’s 2nd biggest market: Key trends

Publishing in India is developing in a significantly different manner compared to the West. While internet access is seeing explosive growth, it has not yet disrupted the print media. In fact, print continues to dominate.

• Cuba reduces newspaper length due to paper shortage

HAVANA (AP) — The Cuban government says a newsprint shortage is forcing at least six state-run newspapers to cut back on pages and circulation days in a potent sign of the cash shortage confronting the island

• Publishers Prove That Investing in Talent Pays Off

The Atlantic, Time and Active Interest Media illustrate that people are a publisher’s most valuable asset.

• Power of print continues to shine

In a multi-channel, multi-platform world, print continues to offer its own value.

• 2019 Video Trends to Watch

Storytelling in micro-moments. We know video is a hot trend these days but let’s pay attention to the meteoric rise. (Maybe explosion is a better word.) According to Cisco, 82% of internet traffic will be through video by 2021.

• ‘Long-term planning’: The Financial Times now has 1m paying readers

The Financial Times now has 1 million paying readers, reaching its target a year ahead of schedule, thanks to a long-term view and a data-first approach that balances building products for new audiences while retaining current readers.

• 4 Steps to Reinvigorate Sales & Radically Transform the Publishing Business

Steady decline in readership and advertising revenue are the current operating environment for local and specialty publishing..

• AI will be a blessing, not a threat, to consumer privacy

Real-world applications of artificial intelligence are skyrocketing. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), patent submissions related to AI nearly tripled between 2013 and 2017 to more than 55,000 applications.

• A Profitable Year for Trade Publishers

Profits rose in 2018 over 2017 at four of the five major trade publishers that report their financial information—and the one company at which earnings were down, Lagardère Publishing, reported an increase in profits at its U.S. subsidiary, Hachette Book Group.

• Intention, Authenticity & Value: 3 Key Commerce Strategies for Publishers

Publishers are aware of the need to diversify revenues, and increasingly, commerce is the key strategy–with 31% stating it will be an important focus in 2019.

• Driving “On Air” Digital Revenue

Ready for an amazing stat? Audiences retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, webinar or broadcast. No wonder advertisers are demanding live content. Are you ready to sell these target audience placements?

• Study Reveals What Makes Videos Go Viral

Budweiser’s “Puppy Love” is one of the most viewed video ads ever (50 million in a year) because it was virally shared. The question that has baffled advertisers and analysts is, what drives the sharing of digital content?

• Rogers Media Sells All of Its Remaining Magazines

Maclean’s and Chatelaine, among others, are headed to St. Joseph Communications as Rogers completes its exit from print media.

• Q&A: 1843 and the future of magazine publishing

The Economist recently relaunched its lifestyle magazine 1843 and The Drum Network interviewed editor Rosie Blau and publisher Mark Beard to find out the motivation for refreshing a brand first launched in 2016 and to ask about the future of magazine publishing in a digital world.

• Mobile time-spent jumps up: YouTube corners ~40% of the traffic, Facebook less than 10%

Smartphones are the big gainers in media consumption year-over-year, according to the just-released Nielsen’s Q3 2018 Total Audience Report.

 

• How automated news is helping publishers: WAN-IFRA report

“News automation is making its way to newsrooms all over the world,” says a new WAN-IFRA report exploring the potential of automated news.

• Content: King of Everything!

Content is King! Bill Gates predicted that way back in 1996. Publishers no longer focus solely on a subscription-based model. They are now developing strategies to drive revenue with their in-demand, niche content.

• How to Increase Conversions With Customer Journey Mapping

2017 was the year of customer experience. So was 2018. And 2019 looks to continue the trend as marketers have recognized that great experiences turn leads into customers.

• How 6 newsrooms in Charlotte are trying to create a local news ecosystem

On Thursday, Solutions Journalism Network announced a partnership that brings together local newsrooms and institutions in Charlotte, North Carolina.

• 8 Ways Media Sales Reps Can Increase Print’s Value in an RFP

Remember back in the good old days, say, about 2015, when ad agencies had separate media-buying teams for print and digital?

• Why brands are changing their tune about podcast advertising

Though it’s been around in some form for well over a decade, podcasting has sort of limped along in its evolution.

• How can newspapers build trust?

At a time when trust in the news is crawling out of historic lows, a new study from the Center for Media Engagement provides promising interventions to promote readers’ trust in news stories.

• Digital advertising in the US is finally bigger than print and television

It was inevitable, but it’s finally here: Digital advertising businesses like Facebook and Google will be bigger in the US this year than traditional advertising businesses like TV, radio, and newspapers.

• 3 Quick Prospecting Tips

Everyone in media sales knows this– it’s incredibly tough to get meetings with potential advertisers today. Is there some magic formula to reel them in?

• Good news: These newspapers added a print section on good news

The Philadelphia Inquirer got an idea from the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune – focus on the good stuff, too.

• 4 lessons we learnt raising money for our VR adtech startup

The past few year have been tough for adtech companies. With growth and profits squeezed by the duopoly of Google-Facebook, and disappointing IPOs such as RocketFuel, Rubicon or Tremor Video, adtech fell out of VCs’ good books.

• Publishers, you’re focusing on the wrong metric for push notifications

There are well-documented ways to improve the click-through rates of push notifications. But, what they all lack is a way to determine the actual value being added.

• 70% of digital publishers personalize content for visitors, study finds

7 out of 10 online publishers personalize the content they deliver to visitors, according to a survey of 200 publishers by Digiday this month.

• How to Sell Print to the “Digital-Only”

Print can be a tough sell to those prospects who say, “We only do digital”. But fear not! There are ways to overcome that obstacle.

• Podcasts Reap Engagement. It’s Time for B2B Media to Dive In

As members of the B2B media sector, we’re always on the hunt for new ways to engage our audience – especially the millennial generation.

• Want to fight fake news? Come intern for the International Fact-Checking Network

Fake news stories, false memes and conspiracy theories are rampant on nearly every social media platform.

• ‘Hard to back out’: Publishers grow frustrated by the lack of revenue from Apple News

Last year, Apple News brimmed with promise for publishers, offering an engaged, high-quality audience that seemed to do nothing but grow.

• Digital Publishing: When Using Social Media Photos in Your Stories, the Best Thing to Do is Ask for Permission

During a New Jersey wedding back in June 2017, Jonathan Otto snapped a picture of the new bride being congratulated by none other than the President of the United States, Donald Trump.

• Publishers are out of sync with buyer priorities, could 2019 ad revenues be at risk?

A new report by Integral Ad Science has found a significant gap between this year’s buy and sell-side priorities: most brands (83.3%) and over half of agencies (54.6%) want consistent measurement, yet only 43.8% of publishers agree.

• Million Dollar Idea: Buyers Guides!

The next installment of our Million Dollar Idea series comes from niche publisher Jeff Peterson of Peterson Publications.

• As video revenues grow, Hearst looks to capitalize with Clevver Media acquisition

As publishers maneuver through the challenges posed by digitization, many are building on their strengths and brand value to evolve in new directions.

• Stop Blaming Profit Motives for All of Journalism’s Woes

“It’s that newspapers and outlets are being decimated and dismantled by hedge funds, venture capitalists, and tech companies in search of profit. In short,

• ‘Hard to back out’: Publishers grow frustrated by the lack of revenue from Apple News

Last year, Apple News brimmed with promise for publishers, offering an engaged, high-quality audience that seemed to do nothing but grow.

• How Early Newspapers Used Extortion as a Business Model

After buying The Washington Post in 2013, Jeffrey P. Bezos visited the newsroom and answered questions from employees in a town-hall-style meeting.

• How collaboration benefits magazine media

Collaboration in the magazine and news media industries has hit a high point this year, internally and externally, across regions and borders.

• 12 Digital Revenue Ideas That Work!

At the Niche CEO Summit a few months ago, niche publishers gathered from all over the country to share best practices and new creative strategies.

• Don’t Settle for Last-Touch Attribution in Marketing Campaigns

Last month, I talked about factors marketers should consider for attribution rules.

• Tough Sell: Condé Nast Aims to Replicate Paywall Success Across Portfolio

News that Condé Nast intends to implement some form of a paywall on every brand in its digital media portfolio—which attracts more than 100 million total unique visitors each month—was quickly supplanted in the media-news cycle last week by ensuing bloodbaths at Buzzfeed and HuffPost, two of the internet’s most prolific purveyors of free content, as well as the century-old newspaper publisher Gannett, about as “legacy” as legacy media gets.

• Advertising opportunities for publishers, as CPGs come under threat

Packaged goods are typically the biggest spenders in advertising. Not only is a CPG (FMCG in the UK) company’s brand and product mix massive, but the competitive threats from e-commerce and direct-to-consumer brands are significant and growing.

• Renault board blocks payouts to Ghosn worth 10 million euros

Renault said Wednesday that its board has decided not to pay out the equivalent of two years of salary to ex-CEO Carlos Ghosn which would have been due to him under a non-compete clause in his contract.