Consent or pay: why publishers are getting tough on data | Mill Media to depart Substack
Plus Ofcom finds online overtakes TV as the top source of news for Brits
Good morning and welcome to your Press Gazette Future of Media newsletter on Thursday 12 September.
Consent, pay or maybe just go away. This is the question UK news website readers are increasingly being asked by publishers who are getting tough over obtaining the personal data they need to sell advertising at a premium.
Following new guidance from the Information Commissioner several leading UK news publishers are now inviting readers to pay for the privilege of not sharing any personal information with advertisers.
We also today exclusively reveal that the darling of UK independent local news Mill Media is parting company with Substack ahead of its expansion into London.
It turns out that Substack, which provides a complete publication and monetisation platform in exchange for a 10% slice of revenue, has its limitations. And that 10% revenue split adds up when you start making serious money.
Mill Media - which has publications in Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Liverpool and soon Glasgow and London - is to launch websites on a dedicated content management system and switch its newsletters over to Ghost, which operates on a flat fee.
Founder Joshi Herrmann explains his reasoning behind the move.
Earlier this week we reported the findings of Ofcom's annual survey on news consumption. Read our data-rich analysis from the report for a handy primer on where Britons are getting their news and how they are informing their voting decisions.
Today the Press Gazette team are at the London Hilton Bankside for our Future of Media Technoogy Conference and Awards. Check out Press Gazette on X for live updates and our website for details of the awards winners from around 9pm.
And we'll bring you highlights from the conference over the coming week.
On Press Gazette
‘Consent or pay’: Why UK news websites are getting tough with readers over data
“So when you’re looking at your business model, your traffic is kind of struggling, your monetisable pages are declining. You need to bridge that gap. A really obvious thing to do is to consider making it much harder for people to reject.”
Mill Media says goodbye to Substack and moves onto competitor Ghost
Herrmann said the Mill also wanted “to have a direct relationship with our users rather than being mediated by a platform”, particularly because Substack is currently promoting its app and introducing features more commonly associated with social media, for example followers.
Online overtakes TV as biggest source of news in UK for first time
Social media specifically has tipped over into being used by the majority (52%) of people for news for the first time, up from 47% last year.
Twice as many Brits got 2024 election news from TV as from social media, Ofcom finds
Among Ofcom’s 8,000 respondents, who were surveyed in four waves of 2,000 across the general election campaign period (23 May to 4 July), 49% reported using television to follow election news this summer.
Press Gazette highlights
Former Emap pair hit £1m+ revenue for second year with free construction B2B title
Paul Marshall pledges to fix ‘underinvestment’ in Spectator as sale goes through
Google ad tech practices harming ‘thousands of UK publishers and advertisers’, watchdog believes
Guardian moves into e-commerce amid revenue shortfall for 2023/2024