Bonfire of US ad revenue at Future plc | Updated ranking of top paywalled news websites
And why the New European is looking forward to a profitable 2024
Good morning and welcome to your weekly Future of Media newsletter from Press Gazette on Thursday, 7 December, brought to you in collaboration with Livingdocs, the modern digital content creation and publishing system used by some of the biggest news publishing brands and digital media companies.
Check out their freshly released white paper, Making Change Easy: How to Tackle the Key Challenges of Digital Transformation in News Publishing.
If proof were needed that 2023 has been a bleak one for consumer advertising look no further than the results for Future plc released this morning.
Overall revenue is down 10% on a like-for-like basis, advertising revenue in the UK is down 7% and plunged 25% in the US.
Overall digital advertising fell 19% driven, the company said, by lower traffic. Many publishers have blamed changes at Facebook and Google for declining clicks this year.
Like Reach, Future has a mass audience (one in three adults in the UK and US apparently). But advertising revenue on the open web is in freefall for news publishers as all the money heads over to signed-in mass networks like Youtube, Facebook and Tiktok.
We spoke to Future CEO Jon Steinberg this morning about what he plans to do to reverse the decline. Encouragingly, this includes a major investment in 150 editorial roles.
Steinberg sees high-quality reviews as central to the growth of affiliate advertising revenues.
Future’s failure to build a meaningful online subscriptions business must be one reason behind its tanking share price (down 20% this morning).
Today we publish the sixth iteration of our exclusive 100k club ranking revealing the biggest paywalled online news publishers in the UK and US. Continuing growth in this segment probably reflects the fact that publishers have gone harder on subscriptions in the face of plunging ad revenue.
Welcome to Which? and Mail+ who are among the titles featuring in the ranking for the first time.
I leave you with a glimmer of good news from New European founder Matt Kelly, who said he is breaking open the champagne after the weekly politics title celebrated its first month in profit. Subscriptions growth in print and online have enabled it to survive, and look forward to a future where it could even thrive, some seven years after it was launched as a “pop-up” brand to cover the aftermath of the UK referendum on leaving the EU.
New from Press Gazette
100k Club: Exclusive ranking of world’s top paywalled news publishers
Some 37 English language news publishers now boast more than 100,000 subscribers - with Which! and Mail+ among the new entrants featuring on the Press Gazette ranking.
Future pledges £25m investment and 200 hires to reverse revenue decline
Investors take flight in the face of 10% year-on-year revenue decline at Future. But CEO Jon Steinberg tells Press Gazette investment in professionally-produced reviews will stop the rot.
New European ‘in profit’ with 33,000 paying readers seven years after Brexit vote
A tie-up with The Rest is Politics podcast has helped New European grow its paying readership.
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Our latest podcast
Podcast 61: Why bad news can be good for business publishers with Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour
Dow Jones chief executive and Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour spoke to Press Gazette about how the financial news division of News Corp just managed to achieve its most profitable quarter since 2007.
In this edited version of his interview at the Press Gazette Media Strategy Network event in New York this month, he also spoke about what publishers need to focus on as global uncertainty looks set to continue in 2024.
Must-reads this week from Press Gazette you might have missed
Former Reach audience chief heads up ten-newsletter North of England launch
BBC Nations news chief says local news expansion won’t harm existing media outlets
Barclays take back control of Telegraph and Specator, for now
Sun publisher pays out to celebs over claims of hacking, blagging and deception
Unhappy Guardian complainant launches new watchdog for unregulated media
