City AM and Reach sign content deal | Plus City AM rehires Christian May
Plus: a look inside top broadcasters on election night, this week's news diary and a subscriber-funded website in the North East stops publishing
Welcome to your daily newsletter from Press Gazette on Monday 22 July, 2024.
It is the time of year when news editors normally start running with shark sightings off the Cornwall coast, images of Jesus on slices of toast and maltreated Spanish donkeys.
But this summer silly season is delayed. With Parliament still sitting, a US presidential race that just got even more interesting and the Olympics starting on Friday, there is still plenty of real news around.
Our news diary for the week ahead (compiled before Joe Biden pulled out of the US presidential race) rounds up the stories we already know are coming for the week ahead.
As the Evening Standard begins to wind down its daily print edition we caught up with City AM, London's free financial paper. Christian May is returning as editor of the title, which has signed a deal to provide financial news for Reach titles in print and online including the Express, Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo.
Sadly the move means cutbacks at the Express titles including the exit of hero business editor Geoff Ho. Martial arts expert Ho was enjoying a few after-work drinks in London Bridge when three terrorists came into the Black and Blue restaurant armed with machetes and apparently wearing suicide belts.
He confronted the men to stop them from entering the packed restaurant and received a knife wound to the neck for his trouble.
Recalling his stand, he told Press Gazette at the time: “There was nobody else to do it. I thought ‘if you don’t do something they are just going to have a field day’... I said ‘no it’s not happening’.”
We report on how UK broadcasters prepared for the surprise UK general election. Channel 4 pulled off its much-admired coverage despite having "no office, no team and no plan". The BBC's director of media operations has revealed how they managed to get a camera to all 650 UK constituencies.
And this week we should all spare a thought for the Wall Street Journal's Evan Gershkovich who begins a 16-year sentence after a sham trial for espionage. No evidence was offered to support the claim that the fully-accredited 32-year-old was anything other than a bona fide journalist.
New from Press Gazette
City AM signs content sharing deal with Reach and brings back familiar face as editor
The two-year deal between City AM and Reach will see the business newspaper’s content appear online in the Express, Business Live (which will continue its existing regional coverage) and sites in its Live network, plus in print in the Express, Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo.
‘The hardest thing to put together’: Inside election night at the UK’s biggest broadcasters
Broadcasters faced glitching cameras, an early election and, in one case, not having a studio.
Weekly subscriber-based website for North East ceases publication after five months
“With greater devolution on the agenda and a new government showing its commitment to change, I would also argue that an influential regional voice like ours is more important than ever. The trouble is I can’t argue with a balance sheet.”
News diary 22 – 28 July: Olympic opening ceremony, Netanyahu US Congress speech
A look ahead at the key events leading the news agenda this week, from the team at Foresight News.
News in brief
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been sentenced to 16 years in prison by a Russian court. WSJ editor in chief Emma Tucker and Dow Jones publisher Alma Latour said in a statement: “This disgraceful, sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist.” (Wall Street Journal)
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy appears to have confirmed that Leveson 2 will not go ahead, saying: “Well, it’s not something that we committed to in the manifesto.” (The i)
AFP photographer Christina Assi, who was severely injured on assignment by a tank shell during clashes between Israel and Lebanon in October, carried the Olympic torch on Sunday "to pay tribute to those who have fallen" while working as journalists. (AFP)
Press Gazette contributor and former editor of Business Insider UK Jim Edwards is joining Fortune as global news director. Read Jim's archive of reports and investigations for Press Gazette here. (Talking Business News)
Dame Laura Kenny, retired Olympic cyclist, will be a new columnist for The Guardian covering the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Laura Kenny is the most successful British female Olympian ever.
Google appears to have begun rolling out AI overviews more widely again for UK users. The summaries are appearing instead of links for many niche queries presenting a threat to publisher traffic. You can Press Gazette's previous research on AI overviews here.
The Daily Mail says its podcasts have together crossed 30 million downloads - even as head of podcasts Jamie East says "we feel we haven’t even begun to tap into our potential". It will launch new history and health shows in the next few weeks. In March, when Mail publisher DMG Media had 19 podcasts in pre-production and several out in the world, East told us: "I don’t know what everyone else is up to but… I doubt very much there’s any other company in the UK making that many podcasts.”
Our latest podcast
Bonnier News CEO on power of bundles and personalisation
Sweden’s biggest news publisher Bonnier News has more than tripled profits in the past eight years and doubled revenue.
It now believes a subscription bundle, putting together all of its Swedish brands and harnessing AI to better personalise what users see, will be the way forward for continued revenue growth.
Bonnier News chief executive Anders Eriksson told Press Gazette UK editor Charlotte Tobitt about the business transformation he has overseen and the internal culture change needed to do so, why Nordic countries are ahead on subscriptions, and the thinking behind the bundle subscription strategy.
Previously on Press Gazette
Toronto Star launches pay-per-article and daily passes for website access
NUJ to take part in tribunal over claims of covert surveillance of journalists
(Sponsored) Slow online ads cost UK publishers £50m a year: Here’s how to fix them
Disappointment for publishers as Artificial Intelligence Bill missing from King’s Speech
‘The first podcast election’: Political podcasts explode in run-up to polling day
Press Gazette live
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Full agenda and booking details here.