Execs give stark warnings on AI | Reach and The Mill in Lords | Readly CEO interview
And 55 foreign correspondents call on Israel to let them into Gaza
Welcome to your daily newsletter from Press Gazette on Wednesday, 28 February.
AI could destroy the news industry.
That was the stark warning given by national news publishers to the House of Lords Communications Committee yesterday.
We report on evidence given by the FT, DMGT, News UK and Guardian to the Lords.
The Government currently appears keen to present the UK as an AI-friendly jurisdiction. The concern is that if questions over copyright are left to play out in the courts we may not have much of a commercial news industry left by the time all this is settled a decade hence.
Never mind the purchase of one right-leaning national newspaper by an Abu Dhabi-backed investment vehicle, the concern is that we are allowing the whole news industry to be annexed for free by a few US-based tech giants.
Also appearing before peers were bosses from Reach, Newsquest and the Manchester Mill, where questions were raised about the quality of local news.
The spectacle of debate between David Higgerson of Reach and Joshi Herrmann of the Manchester Mill was entertaining, but there was a serious issue at hand: namely the loss, by my reckoning, of as many as 9,000 local news journalists over the last 16 years.
Legislators have it in their power to do something about this cultural calamity by passing a version of the Digital Markets Bill that has real teeth to level the playing field between publishers and big tech and start making online journalism profitable again.
Newsquest's Henry Faure Walker at least shared a more optimistic picture of revenues broadly stable over the last two years.
We also have an interview with the CEO of magazine aggregator Readly which has moved into profit and is said to share £30m a year with the European magazine industry via subscribers to its "all you can read" service.
And 55 UK and US foreign correspondents have signed a joint plea urging Israel and Egypt to let them into Gaza to relieve local colleagues who are currently dying at a rate of around 20 per month.
New from Press Gazette
UK publishers tell Parliament: Stop AI using our content without permission
DMG Media editor emeritus Peter Wright told peers: “Make it impossible to train AI unless you have licensing arrangements and potentially you resolve the great news problem of our time by having a reliable and regular source of income for news publishers.”
Newsquest and Reach bosses respond to questions over local news quality
Reach chief digital publisher David Higgerson and Newsquest chief executive Henry Faure Walker left the Lords Communications and Digital Committee chair “a bit baffled by the picture that you’re painting about the success of your businesses, when the challenge seems to be around the quality of content”.
As subscriber growth flattens ‘all you can read’ magazine app Readly moves into profit
Readly had 464,494 full-paying subscribers at the end of 2023, 2.7% higher than a year earlier but down 2.9% from a Covid-driven peak of 478,362 at the end of 2021. Average revenue per user is higher, however, up from a peak of SEK 93 (£7.11) at the end of 2020 to SEK 119 (£9.10) in Q4 of 2023.
‘Let us into Gaza’: 55 UK and US foreign reporters urge Israel and Egypt to lift news blockade
The 55 correspondents represent all the main broadcasters with bases in the UK including BBC News, Sky News, ITV News, Channel 4 News, CNN, NBC, CBS and ABC.
News in brief
The BBC has said that complaints made to it about Huw Edwards were "not escalated quickly enough to senior management and we have apologised to the complainant for this". The corporation says it has now "enhanced" its non-editorial complaints process. (BBC)
STV News journalists in Scotland are voting on whether to take industrial action over pay. The current pay offer represents an increase of between 2.5% and 6%. The NUJ said an indicative ballot showed 84% of members were in favour of a strike. (NUJ)
The Financial Times Group has launched FT Ventures, which the publisher describes as "a new corporate venture arm to invest in high-growth innovative companies operating in the global information industry". Its first investment is in Charter, a “future-of-work media and research company”. (FT)
Google is reportedly paying a handful of publishers five-figure sums to test an unreleased generative AI platform, as long as they use it to produce three stories a day and share feedback. (Adweek)
OpenAI has filed to dismiss parts of the New York Times lawsuit against it, accusing the newspaper of paying someone to hack its products. It claims the NYT's allegations "do not meet its famously rigorous journalistic standards". (The New York Times)
Bloomberg Media has redesigned its homepage putting subscribers at the forefront, with clearer identifiers of what's important and exclusive and more customisation and personalisation. (Bloomberg)
The chief executive of commercial radio company and LBC publisher Global, Stephen Miron, will step down from his role after 16 years and become chairman in March 2025. He said it is "without doubt the greatest CEO job in media and entertainment". (Global)
Latest podcast
Podcast 65: Beyond Google? Amazon and Microsoft are future says Ricky Sutton
Former online editor of the News of the World turned tech entrepreneur turned future of news soothsayer Ricky Sutton joins Dominic Ponsford on the podcast sofa.
He explains why Google’s reign as the most important tech partner for news publishers is drawing to a close, but more lucrative partnerships around AI and advertising with Microsoft and Amazon beckon.
Last week on Press Gazette
News Media Association chairman confident UK government will act on big tech this year
Revealed: Which of the top 100 UK and US news websites are blocking AI crawlers
Centre for Journalism being sacrificed to fill University of Kent funding gap
Martha Kearney to leave BBC Radio 4 Today programme after election
News media job cuts 2024 tracked: At least 980 redundancies in January