LRR weekly PR & social scoop

Evening Standard set to go from daily to weekly?print edition

The Evening Standard intends to go from a daily?print schedule to weekly, its directors have told staff.

Chairman Paul Kanareck wrote to employees on Wednesday morning saying the “substantial losses” Evgeny Lebedev-owned?Evening Standard Limited has accrued in recent years require it to “reshape the business”.

Alongside the creation of a “new weekly newspaper” to replace the daily Evening Standard, Kanareck told staff the?proposal “and any impact on staffing” will be subject to a consultation?process.

The Standard’s most recent Companies House accounts, published in August, showed it suffered its sixth year straight of losses, recording a ￡16.4m?pre-tax loss.?

The Standard shifted from a paid to a free model in 2009, nine months after it was acquired by the Lebedev family.?

As a freesheet, the Evening Standard's business model is built on attracting advertisers with the?promise of reaching masses of readers, many of them commuters. The Covid lockdowns and persistently lower commuter traffic ever since have significantly damaged this model.

Fellow freesheet City AM?was forced to end its Friday print edition in Jan 2023, before going into administration in July of the same year - before it was subsequently bought.

The Standard reported an average distribution per issue of 274,538 to ABC in April,?down 12% year-on-year and 1% month-on-month. Ten years ago, in April 2014, it had an average distribution of 897,610.

The new?proposed weekly Evening Standard, Kanareck wrote, will feature "more in-depth analysis of the issues that matter to Londoners, and serve them in a new and relevant way by celebrating the best London has to offer, from entertainment guides to lifestyle, sports, culture and news and the drumbeat of life in the world’s greatest city".

These changes, he said, will "reinforce the relationship between our 24/7 digital platforms?and our weekly publication", adding that the forthcoming consultations will also "consider options for retaining ES Magazine?with reduced frequency".

Thursday will mark one year since Evening Standard editor Dylan Jones?was announced as the new leader of the free paper.Jones, the former editor-in-chief of British GQ,?has brought more of a magazine style to the Standard;?for example, replacing its traditional news-led front page with single photographs or editorial cartoons.

Immediate Media CEO: Talent and brands will win out in world of infinite content

The boss of Immediate Media has said he believes publishers with fewer but larger brands will fare better in the age of generative AI and “infinite content”.

Sean Cornwell told?Press Gazette it is a “really hard” time “to be in the long tail”.

Immediate Media, which has been part of German magazine giant Hubert Burda Media since 2017, has pivoted away from special interest titles to a “focus on big category leading brands that our audiences love”.

Immediate’s former specialist brands based in Bristol include Cycling Plus, Mountain Biking UK, Simply Sewing, Simply Knitting, Simply Crochet, Homes and Antiques, Gardens Illustrated, BBC Wildlife, BBC Countryfile Magazine and BBC Music Magazine.

Radio Times and Good Food are the two biggest businesses within Immediate Media. Now in third place is calorie tracking app Nutracheck (pictured), which has been integrated with Good Food in a “light touch” way since its 2022 acquisition and has grown by more than 50% in terms of both revenue and subscribers in that time.

The focus of Immediate’s strategy, Cornwell said, is around “three mega verticals, so food and nutrition, entertainment, and knowledge. And we’re very much very deliberately focused around having a smaller number of large category brands”.

Immediate’s business is based on the two “core commercial pillars” of subscriptions and advertising.

The business now has 1.1 million subscribers. Digital subscriptions recently overtook?print to make up more than half that number, down partly to organic growth and partly through M&A.

Good Food now has “more subscribers than it’s ever done in its whole history”, Cornwell said, adding that it is about 50/50?print and digital.

X introduces hidden likes feature

X has announced a major profile update, designed to give users more freedom to like any content, without ramifications from others.?

No longer can users see who has liked someone else’s post, nor will?users be able to see other’s 'liked' tab on their profile.??

This in turn has made liking posts a more private activity and will counter potential negative connotations of your interests.??

X engineer, Haofei Wang, explained: “Many people feel discouraged from liking content that might be “edgy” in fear of retaliation from trolls, or to protect their public image. Soon you’ll be able to like without worrying who might see it.”?

Without the fear of someone looking up a profile’s likes, X hopes that users will like content to suit them, thereby improving and refining each user’s algorithm.?

X clarified earlier this week that users will be able to see who liked your own posts, and that users can see the total like count for all posts and replies – so you’ll still get a feel for which content is popular and which isn’t.??

Not being able to see a user’s ‘liked’ tab may affect how we can research potential partnerships, or how one can?get an overview on a user’s X activity.?

However, hopefully this will encourage X users to like content that is more authentic to their interests, helping brands clearly identify who is engaging with their content.

When are the peak times for social scrolling??

The peak times for social media engagement have been released, allowing brands to better plan and ensure content achieves maximum exposure.?

Firstly, data found by Sprout Social shows that the best time to post on Facebook are weekdays between 9am and midday.? Sundays are reportedly the worst days to post. This data suggests the Facebook demographic is on the app during working hours, rather than partaking in evening scrolling.??

Interestingly, Instagram shows a similar trend to Facebook. The most engagement on Instagram on weekdays is between 9am and 2pm, with less engagement on a Friday and weekends. To optimise engagement, stories and grid posts should be scheduled earlier in the day to gain the highest levels of engagement.??

TikTok is a different story in itself. Due to the age demographic and the nature of the app, content on TikTok performs better in the afternoon. The peak time of engagement is between 2pm-6pm on weekdays and 9am-3pm on weekends.??

Finally, X follows a similar trend to TikTok, with most users logging in between 9am-3pm, primarily on weekdays.??

The above information?can all be complemented by data presented to individual brands, tailored to their specific audiences, to help brands achieve optimum exposure.??