My Weekly Digest - #5 2022

Market Trends

The Rundown: Google, Meta and Amazon are on track to absorb more than 50% of all ad money in 2022 Together they accounted for more than seven in $10 (74%) of global digital ad spending last year, which is 47% of all money spent on advertising over that period. It’s a marked jump on the influence these companies have over advertising at the onset of the pandemic. In 2020 the triopoly’s share of all global ad spend was 39% and of digital it was 67%, said Ebiquity, which crunched the numbers. digiday.com?????

Here’s Why the Media Industry Needs to Embrace a Multi-Currency Strategy If advertisers are not able to measure campaigns’ performance to the extent they are now — Google’s Privacy Sandbox will limit the data made available for measurement and attribution — then that could put publishers at a disadvantage against companies, like the big tech platforms. Publishers are becoming increasingly aware of the situation. There is an ultimate incentive for TV network owners and web publishers to work together on building the new measurement landscape: Advertisers want it.

• The ultimate opportunity is to create a true?cross-screen measurement?landscape that could help media companies compete with tech platforms.
• For its part, the IAB plans to kick off a?cross-channel measurement council?“in the next few weeks” to identify what are the standard KPIs and standard measurement metrics that we need for cross-channel measurement www.adweek.com????

Stig ?rskov: Drop the narrative of news media decline None of the futurists who years ago preached about the death of the newspapers were right.?The newspapers are experiencing progress in these years, and confidence in the media in Denmark has never been higher, writes Stig ?rskov, CEO JP/Politikens Hus and Vice President WAN-IFRA. www.altinget.dk?????

German Newspapers Trend report 2021 BDZV and SCHICKLER present their annual market trend report for the German press. Paid content continues to be central for companies in the digital publisher and newspaper industry.?Eighty-five per cent assess the importance of paid content as strategically high or even existential.?Publishers expect that the share of the digital core business in total sales will double within three years.?At the same time, confidence is growing that digital revenues can compensate for declines in the print sector in five years. www.bdzv.de?????

Why green energy is not enough to make your digital advertising climate-friendly Within the marketing communications ecosystem, there has been a surge in the availability of green energy solutions and products. While the implementation of these products is imperative for the industry to make a climate-friendly transition, Jesper Benon, co-founder of SeenThis, argues for the need to also reduce the amount of energy consumed by digital advertising. www.thedrum.com?????

100 emerging trends across 10 sectors, spanning culture, tech, and more Wunderman Thompson Intelligence presents “The Future 100: Trends and Change to Watch in 2022,” a snapshot of the year ahead and the most compelling trends to keep on the radar. www.wundermanthompson.com?????

Report: Minority-Owned Media and the Digital Duopoly The American Economic Liberties Project, MediaJustice and the News Media Alliance jointly published a new report, “Minority-Owned Media and the Digital Duopoly,” which examines the history of minority-owned media and the impact of the ascendance of big tech platforms, such as Facebook and Google, on minority-owned outlets and those targeting underrepresented communities. www.newsmediaalliance.org?????

Past issues

Business News

Mediahuis CEO: "We want to become a European media player"

After acquisitions in the Netherlands, Ireland and Luxembourg, the Belgian Mediahuis added two German newspapers to its portfolio this year.?The global competition from Big Tech makes it necessary to join forces, says the CEO, Gert Ysebaert. www.nrc.nl?????

In 2021, La Presse (Canada) expects to post a net profit of $14 million With a 33% increase in revenues, excluding government advertising investments related to COVID, the 2021 balance sheet is impressive for a business model that relies on free quality information funded by advertising. A model that stands out in the era of all-paying media. www.lapresse.ca?????

Amazon finally reveals the size of its massive ad business Amazon on Thursday said it made more than $31 billion in advertising last year, a huge feat for the tech giant, which for years kept the size of its budding ad empire under wraps. www.axios.com?????

Apple News launches its first daily local newsletter, targeting Bay Area readers Apple News is introducing its first daily local newsletter for the Bay Area and is actively exploring expanding the offering to other cities. The Bay Area daily local newsletter, which is reminiscent of a daily local paper, includes top stories across local news, sports, politics, dining and more. The stories are compiled from numerous publications, like the SF Chronicle and KQED. techcrunch.com?????

News Corp agrees ‘extended and expanded’ Apple News deal Announcing the company’s latest quarterly results on Thursday, chief executive Robert Thomson said Apple News is “expected to be an important source of subscriptions and of advertising revenue for our news sites around the world”. pressgazette.co.uk?????

Spanish-Language Media Titans Univision and Televisa Complete Merger Univision and Mexico’s Televisa—two of the biggest Spanish-language media companies in North America—announced the completion of their landmark $4.8 billion merger on Monday.. www.adweek.com?????

Tortoise raises ￡10m from investors to expand audio, events and membership “Slow news” start-up Tortoise has secured ￡10m of new funding to invest in audio journalism, events and growing its membership revenue. pressgazette.co.uk?????

Le Parisien’s Buying Power newsletter resonates with readers France’s Le Parisien offers its readers an array of newsletters focused on a variety of topics from the day’s top stories to ones that focus on politics, entertainment, sports and so on. But it’s one called “?a me rapporte” (Purchasing Power) that has particularly resonated with its audience. wan-ifra.org?????

Telegraph's combined app helped drive new subscriptions despite Apple rules The Telegraph’s director of product explains how combining the publication’s Live and Edition apps helped it reach its 2021 goal of 720K subscribers. pressgazette.co.uk?????

How the Seattle Times hit 81,000 digital subscribers while avoiding ‘deep discounting’ and the ‘volume chase’ The Seattle Times now has 81,000 digital-only subscribers, establishing its position as one of America’s leading metropolitan news titles for paid online readers. pressgazette.co.uk?????

The New York Times Company Reports 2021 Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Results The NYT reports 375K net new digital subscriptions in Q4, $2B annual revenue in 2021 for the first time since 2012, and targets 15M+ subscribers by end of 2027 www.businesswire.com?????

Facebook: Daily active users fall for first time in 18-year history Facebook has always been a platform that grows. For every quarter in its existence the global numbers have been in one direction. Yet in the last few years, growth has stalled in Europe and US. That was masked by rises in users from the rest of the world. Facebook just isn’t as popular with younger people as it was. But there are other reasons too that investors are worried about Meta. Meta changed its name because it wanted to focus on the Metaverse. But Meta is nowhere near building a Metaverse yet, it’s a pipedream at the moment. www.bbc.com?????

Snapchat Rises to 319 Million Daily Users, Posts Strong Revenue Result for Q4 Snapchat added more users, while it also posted a strong revenue result for Q4, as it continues to establish its role as a key connective platform for younger audiences, in alternative to the larger social media players. www.socialmediatoday.com?????

The Power of Data

What does Google’s new ‘page experience’ metric mean for publishers? From February, pages that load quicker will be ranked higher on search engines. This will impact content-dense news websites www.journalism.co.uk?????

Building a collaborative data culture at News UK News UK is home to some of the UK’s best-known content — The Times, The Sun, Virgin Radio and Talk Sport. There is much variation with respect to the data feeds and the needs of users across the organisation, and this can present some challenges, be it technical, contextual or temporal. To help address these challenges, News UK has developed a collaborative way of working, which they have used successfully across a number of their projects large and small; and whilst each project is different, all have adopted the same three interlinking principles of Culture, Collaboration and Coherence. medium.com?????

How to Treat Your Data Like a Product For the past few decades, most companies have kept data in an organizational silo. Analytics teams served business units, and even as data became more crucial to decision-making and product roadmaps, the teams in charge of data pipelines were treated more like plumbers and less like partners. In the 2020s, however, data is no longer a second-class citizen. With better tooling, more diverse roles, and a clearer understanding of data’s full potential, many businesses have come to view the entire ecosystem as a fully formed element of the company tech stack. towardsdatascience.com?????

Meta and Google get grace period The new German Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) comes into force on Tuesday. It states that Internet services such as Google and the Facebook group Meta will in future have to deliver user data from authors of illegal content to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). However, the two platforms are fighting back - as are Twitter and TikTok - and seem to be having some success with it for the time being. According to the Federal Ministry of Justice, sanctions should initially be avoided. (German content). www.horizont.net?????

Opinions about AI vary depending on countries’ level of economic development Ipsos survey for the World Economic Forum unveils mix of positive feelings and concerns about AI’s impact on people’s lives. www.ipsos.com?????

The data-driven enterprise of 2025 By 2025, smart workflows and seamless interactions among humans and machines will likely be as standard as the corporate balance sheet, and most employees will use data to optimize nearly every aspect of their work. Seven characteristics will define this new data-driven enterprise, and we’ve already seen many companies exhibit at least some of them, with many more beginning the journey to do so. www.mckinsey.com?????

The Craft of News

Russia shuts DW′s Moscow bureau, withdraws staff credentials Russia has withdrawn the press credentials of all Deutsche Welle staff and is shutting the organization’s studio in Moscow. Calling the move a “total overreaction,” DW said it would take legal steps against the decision. www.dw.com?????

Medill survey respondents say their news organizations are increasing diversity efforts: Changes accelerating since social justice protests in 2020 More than a year after social-justice protests called attention to the lack of diversity in newsrooms, journalists report notable changes at their media organizations, including new training programs, hiring procedures and policies related to language used about communities of colour, according to a survey from the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University. www.editorandpublisher.com?????

Hungarian journalists targeted with Pegasus spyware to sue state Legal action planned against Hungary and NSO, the spyware’s maker, in what could become a template for other cases. www.theguardian.com?????

Foreign journalists in China subject to rising intimidation, survey finds Report says heightened dangers have prompted at least six to leave and many others to develop emergency exit plans www.theguardian.com?????

40% of world’s countries and territories had blasphemy laws in 2019 | Pew Research Center 79 countries and territories out of the 198 studied around the world (40%) had laws or policies in 2019 banning blasphemy. www.pewresearch.org?????

The 21 best science podcasts if you're keen to learn how things work Whether you want the latest space news, expert commentary on what’s making headlines, a thorough debunk of scientific theories, want to know what it’s like to live on Mars, or just want to listen to something smart, these are the best science podcasts worth your time mashable.com?????

Reporters face 'unprecedented hurdles' in China as foreign correspondents targeted The Chinese government is using its power to shut down foreign reporting and targeting specific journalists with abuse, censure, physical assault and even expulsion, according to a new report into foreign press freedom in China. pressgazette.co.uk?????

WAN-IFRA Press Corner

Change Management Our new online resource is packed with use cases of former?Table Stakes Europe?participants, detailing their?digital transformation?with primacy for audience-focused culture and workflows. In partnership with Google News Initiative?https://wan-ifra.org/cases/

WAN-IFRA’s 2022 Product Portfolio Now Available The WAN-IFRA Connect team is available to media partners to make the most of the opportunities offered through an extensive portfolio of Events, Conferences, Awards, Technology Directory, Research Reports, Newsletters, Dedicated Webinars, and Targeted Mailings. wan-ifra.org?????

Journalism and the Climate Crisis Global Summit Storytelling, formats and trust are in the spotlight at our virtual summit on Journalism and the Climate Crisis. Pre-register now?https://t.co/maPahnDjGH?

European Green Deal and the printing industry in 2022 and beyond - WAN-IFRA How will the European Green Deal impact the printing industry in 2022 and beyond? The World Printers Forum welcomes Laetitia Reynaud Policy Advisor for Intergraf?as our speaker. The European Green Deal addresses areas that go from the sourcing of raw materials to the placing of the end product on the market. The webinar takes place on February 10th at 15-16 CET. wan-ifra.org?????