The Weekly PR & Social Scoop - 7th Mar

News UK pulls the plug on TalkTV to focus on digital content

News UK has decided to close TalkTV as a linear television channel within the next few months.

The decision comes weeks after it announced?flagship show Piers Morgan Uncensored would stop making a traditional TV show and?produce output only for Youtube. It will continue to have a schedule based on news and opinion but go out via streaming services and on Youtube rather than on traditional TV. It will also continue to air in the Talkradio slot on DAB.

News UK will instead focus investment on a new division, News Studios, which will create video content across The Sun, The Times and Sunday Times, Talksport, Virgin Radio, Piers Morgan Uncensored and Talk, to go out via their websites and apps, streaming and social platforms including Youtube and Tiktok.

Latest stats unveil top 50 biggest news websites in the world

CNN was the fastest-growing top 10 news website in the world?in January, according to?Press Gazette’s updated ranking. ?

Visits to the US cable broadcaster’s site were up seven percent?to reach 537.2 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform?Similarweb. ?It reverses last month’s pattern for?CNN,? which was the only top 10?site?in December to see visits down, falling two percent?between November and December. ?

Second fastest-growing among the biggest ten sites by number of global visits was?The Guardian ?(360.9 million, up seven percent?month-on-month), while Microsoft aggregator MSN (699.6 million, up five percent) was third. All top 10?sites saw significant growth. ?

Month-on-month, UK-based news aggregator?newsnow.co.uk was top for growth with visits up 40% compared to December (58.4 million visits). It was followed by?GB News? (53 million, up 21%), which entered the top 50 for the first time in 50th position, and Business Insider (107.7 million, up 21%). ?

The BBC remained top of the table for visits and was the only site to top the one?billion visit-threshold, followed by MSN, New York Times, CNN and Google News.?The order of the top five is unchanged from last month. ?

Threads tests out further features such as Drafts and Archives

Threads is?testing new features over the coming weeks to improve the overall experience?and further develop the platform.

The platform is testing ‘post drafts’ and ‘integrated camera’ options, allowing users to prepare posts in advance, take pictures and share directly to Threads.?

X launches new Voice and Video Calling Feature

X has released a new feature onto the platform, allowing users to make video and voice calls.

The feature was only available for paying, premium users before, but now is expanding to all users on the X platform. Customers?can access video and voice calls via DM, tapping the phone icon and choosing to call on audio or video.?

Instagram Launches new DM Updates

Instagram has announced some new DM features as it aims to work on enhancing messaging services in the app.?

The app has added the ability to edit messages after sending, but only up to 15 minutes after being sent. Users can now pin up to three chats to the top of their DM inboxes, making it easier to access important discussions.?

Instagram has also added new chat themes to customise your messages and group chats, with the option to change the background and colour of your messages on the app.?