Media Voices Podcast

This week we hear from President and GM of Consumer at Yahoo Joanna Lambert. She talks about the changes at Yahoo over the last few years - including how Covid forced them to adapt - its 900 million users including a growing GenZ audience, and Yahoo's revenue strategies outside of advertising. In the news roundup we discuss the FT launching its new bite-size app, YouTube's plans for podcasting, and yet more bad behaviour from Facebook.

The winner of the incredibly competitive Best Limited Series award in 2021's Publisher Podcast Awards was Floodlines from The Atlantic. Judges praised the captivating characters, richly textured sound design and clever storytelling. Peter spoke to The Atlantic's Vann Newkirk, host of the series. He talked about how the idea for a podcast focused on Hurricane Katrina came about, what their process was for collecting the interviews and going deep into the topic, and the role of music in enhancing the narration. He also gave his advice for publishers looking to create their own narrative podcasts. This year’s Publisher Podcast Award winners will be revealed on April 27th at a live event in London, as well as streamed online. See our tickets page for more details. Entries for next year’s Publisher Podcast Awards will open in September. Think you’ve got what it takes to win an award? Sign up to our mailing list at www.publisherpodcastawards.com

This week we hear from The Hustle's Principle Reporter and Sunday Editor Zachary Crockett. He talks about his career path working across radio, newsletters, journalism and data, how he makes must-read long-form Sunday issues for The Hustle's business audience, and launching a daily podcast. He also discusses the skills young writers need today, and whether he thinks we've reached peak newsletter. In the news roundup the team discusses the news that BuzzFeed investors are pushing Jonah Peretti to shutter the award-winning but loss-making BuzzFeed News. We ask if the investors are missing the appeal to advertisers, lament the loss of longform investigative work, and ask if this is the nail in the coffin for digital news pureplays (no). In the news roundup we look at why journalists should aim to be their own brands, why Future PLC has acquired two social media companies, and discuss the news that Michael Grade is set to be the new chair of Ofcom. Peter couldn't get his mic to work for 20 minutes before we start

Immediate Media have featured numerous times on the shortlists and as winners of categories both for 2020 and 2021's Publisher Podcast Awards. Olive magazine podcast was the winner of 2021's Best Sponsored Podcast. We spoke to Immediate Media's Head of Podcasts Ben Youatt. He works across the publisher's whole portfolio of podcasts, including the olive magazine podcast and 2020 winner History Extra. He talked about scaling up the podcast team, facilitating audio operations, and getting to be the 'engine' that enables editorial teams to implement their ideas. This year's Publisher Podcast Award winners will be revealed on April 27th at a live event in London, as well as streamed online. See our tickets page for more details. Entries for next year’s Publisher Podcast Awards will open in September. Think you’ve got what it takes to win an award? Sign up to our mailing list at www.publisherpodcastawards.com

In this week's episode we hear from Hannah Storm, founder and director of the Headlines network, an organisation working to improve the mental health of people working in the media. She tells us about why mental health can be bad among media professionals, what organisations and individuals can do to make things better and about Headlines’ new podcast and their incredible first episode featuring Lyse Doucet and Lyndsey Hilsum talking about mitigating the risks involved in frontline journalism. In the news roundup the team asks if The Times is right to keep its Ukraine war coverage paywalled and if we are in a constant state of Trump Bump. In the news in brief we discuss Australian indies being cut out of the news media bargaining code, Substack's anti-internet changes, and the FT's latest milestone. Donate to aid journalists at the Kyiv Independent here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/kyivindependent-launch

Over the past few years, we've seen the renaissance of email as publishers and brands have rediscovered the benefits of a direct relationship with audiences. The power of email can be seen from sky-high valuations of newsletter platforms, in addition to the amount of time that has been spent iterating on existing email strategies. But at the same time, the format has yet to truly deliver on its potential. A lack of investment and understanding of the technology that underpins the most sophisticated strategies still holds it back. There is also a delicate balance to be struck between monetising inventory and protecting user data that presents ongoing challenges to publishers. In this special Conversations episode, Chris Sutcliffe is joined by Passendo CEO and co-founder Andreas Jürgensen, CCO and co-founder Anders Rantzau Rasmussen, and Access Intelligence's VP of Digital for the Media and Marketing division Michael Ring. They discuss how publishers are growing their bottom line by optimising and automating in

The winner of the Publisher Podcast Hero of the Year award in 2021's Publisher Podcast Awards was Theodora Louloudis, Podcast Editor at The Telegraph. She was praised for the exceptional work produced with limited resources, including spearheading the launch of five new podcasts over a particularly challenging year, as well as her leadership in shaping strategy at the publisher. We caught up with her to explore how Covid changed The Telegraph's audio strategy, what it's like working with columnists and journalists, and how they decide which podcasts to make. Theo also tells us what attributes she'd look for in a podcasting hero.

This week we hear from Stephanie Mehta, CEO & Chief Content Officer of Manseuto Ventures, parent of Inc. and Fast Company. She talked about going from an editorial career to the CEO role, the changes in leadership attitudes to publishing over the last decade, and what the revenue models for Inc. and Fast Company look like post-pandemic. She also explains why print is still important in bringing prestige to the titles. In the news roundup the team discuss Reach Plc's latest results and ask why, since it delivered solid profits, did its share price fall by 25%? In the NIBs we ask whether Twitter's community-focused moderation rollout will be successful, note the hypocrisy of the British government lauding a service it is undercutting at every turn, and ask why we weren't that impressed with The Financial Times' 1m paying subscribers. Please do get in touch if you can solve the Reach question!

In this week's episode we hear from founder of local newsletter network 6AM City Ryan Heafy. He tells us why the network is very close to having a million subscribers across its 24 daily newsletters, about his unconventional route into media - he used to fix Black Hawk helicopters - and how it helped 6AM launch in 16 cities in a year (spoiler: it's all about operations and scale). If you care about the nuts and bolts of hyper-local newsletter economics this is the interview for you. In the news roundup the team discuss the bizarre saga of Hollywood Unlocked's "exclusive" on the death of HRM Queen Elizabeth II (and what that means for online disinformation), Global's push for European radio pre-eminence, and why LinkedIn is launching its own podcast network.

This week we hear from Abbianca Makoni, a 22-year old journalist who, after completing a four-year apprenticeship at the the Evening Standard, decided to go it alone with own online publication Awallprintss. It shares the voices and stories of under-reported communities around the world, as well as platforming the creative work of different groups across culture, news, arts, music and more.  In the news roundup we discuss whether publishers need an exit strategy from social media as a whole, Nick Clegg's appointment to the inner circle of Meta, and Condé Nast posting its first profit in years.

On this week's episode we hear from Jakub Parusinski, founding editor at The Fix, a trade magazine for media professionals. He and Peter spoke about Jakub’s background across journalism and management consulting, and how that has informed the nuts and bolts approach the Fix takes to ‘cracking the media management puzzle’. In the news roundup the team discuss crypto's incursions into legacy media. We talk about the BBC pulling a documentary hours before it aired after the Guardian raised some concerns about the validity of its subject's claims, and Forbes' bizarre association with both a crypto scammer named Razzlekhan and its subsequent receipt of a $200m investment from crypto exchange Binance. In the news in brief we discuss Twitter's results, the closure of Entertainment Weekly as a print title, and the laudable success of Industry Dive's newsletter network. They said a sub-40 minute episode of Media Voices was impossible, but we dared to dream.

In this episode we hear from Sophia Waterfield, editor and founder of Paranting Magazine. It’s a magazine for parents, but for parents that don’t have time for some of the aspirational BS that a lot of lifestyle magazines cover. We spoke about the name, funding a start-up with the aim of actually paying freelancers - oh, and accents. In the news roundup the team discuss the collateral damage of the New York Times' success, a busy week for News Corp, and Facebook's first ever loss of active daily users. Peter and Esther mistakenly think they are arguing, are in fact loudly agreeing with one another. Wordle 232 3/6* ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛

This week's guest is Alastair Brian, fact-checking lead at The Ferret. He spoke about out the realities of modern fact-checking (it’s like Sisyphus on steroids), how to win over new readers who don’t have a pre-existing trusted relationship, and how community is at the heart of any sustainable revenue stream In the news roundup the team discusses the battle for Spotify's soul, Google's latest plan to replace the third-party cookie, a Tortoise, and local newspaper group Archant being back up for sale after only 18 months. As of the time this episode goes live, we have lost our bet about Taylor Swift.

This week’s guest is Rob John, MD of the Content Marketing Association. He discusses what the CMA does and who its members are, how content marketing might fit within a publisher’s revenue mix, and the panel they’re running at The Publishing Show in London in March. In the news roundup the team discusses the realities and unrealities of the metaverse for publishers, German publishers' latest attempt to curtail Google's powers, and paid subscriptions for creators on TikTok and Instagram.

The narrative that local news is dead is widely accepted in the media industry. The rise of digital advertising has cut off local news organisation's main source of revenue, leading to decades of cuts and managed decline at once-lucrative publications who have struggled to adapt. But over the last few years, there have been glimmers of hope. Although there are still vast news deserts with no coverage, start-ups are springing up to fill gaps in some areas. Publications like Axios get a lot of publicity for their pledges to save local news via their bullet-pointed newsletters. However, there are many smaller publishers which get far less attention, but which are well on the way to making the business side of local news work for them. In this special podumentary episode of Media Voices, Esther Thorpe talks to four of the participants of the most recent Google News Initiative Startups Lab: Borderless, Santa Cruz Local, the San Jose Spotlight, and The Mendocino Voice. They discuss what drove them to start their pu

This week UK Editor of The Big Issue Paul McNamee tells us about the Big Issue’s Breakthrough scheme, paying disadvantaged young people to get into journalism. He also talks about why the magazine needed a redesign to make everything important and necessary, working with designer Matt Willey, their relationship with subscribers, digital-first news and balancing campaigning with making a properly entertaining magazine. Ahead of the interview the team discuss their outrageous predictions for 2022 in media, from the necessity for strike teams to shut down live audio, through the Pivot to the Metaverse, to the rise and rise of micropayments for news (finally). Merry Christmas, all, and a happy New Year!

This special episode of Media Voices includes the audio of our launch presentation for the Media Moments 2021 report. Chris, Peter and Esther each outline which media moment of the year they found interesting, before being joined by an expert panel of media analysts to dissect the year. The team are then joined by The Rebooting's Brian Morrissey, Press Gazette's Charlotte Tobitt, The Reuters Institute's Professor Lucy Kueng, and Sovrn's Dominic Perkins. The panel talks about some of the key media trends that have affected publishers this year, and what they're all keeping an eye on in 2022. Visit voices.media to learn more about our sponsors, partners and to download the report itself for free.

Noema is a magazine looking at some of the biggest issues of the 21st century - AI, the climate crisis, the future of democracy and capitalism. Its Executive Editor Kathleen Miles tells us about the challenges of publishing in what seems like a very high-brow niche, commissioning and editing writers like Yuval Harari and Francis Fukuyama - and how interests outside of publishing feed back into her work. In the news roundup Peter and Chris discuss whether taking fossil fuel ad money makes publications complicit in greenwashing, the BBC's audience figures ahead of its centenary, and whether US media companies should be enviously looking at UK publications. 

This week we hear from Tara Lajumoke, Managing Director of FT Strategies, the Financial Times' consulting firm. We discussed how FT Strategies fits into the FT's wider goals, what her role involves as MD, and how they're building a robust playbook for other subscription businesses. We also talk about how publishers' subscription strategies are holding up after the pandemic. In the news round up, Peter and Esther discuss Spotify's paid podcast tools, Axios' early expansion of its local newsletters into 11 new locations, and why we still care about magazine covers. 

This week, we hear from Blair Tapper, Senior Vice President at The Independent US. She talks about what her priorities have been since the brand's US launch, what an Independent reader looks like across the pond, and why their new commercial offerings are more mission-based. She also explains why block lists create huge missed opportunities for advertisers as well as publishers.   In the news roundup the team discuss whether altruism is the key driver of subscriptions (and which publishers can make the most of it), ask if micro news in audio is a losing bet for everyone, and chat about why women in publishing have been so poorly served during the pandemic.