GB News Radio overtakes Times Radio | Perplexity to share ad revenue with publishers | 'Consent or pay' cookie walls launch
Reach sees first digital revenue growth since 2022 in Q2, tributes paid to Independent's war correspondent Kim Sengupta, and prominent Guardian departures revealed
Good morning and welcome to your Press Gazette newsletter on Thursday, 1 August. We haven’t been putting out a daily newsletter this week so I’ve got a round-up for you today.
I can’t not mention the horrific news this week that Huw Edwards has admitted having what amounts to images of child abuse. The BBC, knowing it has questions to answer about what it knew and when, has explained that it was told when he was arrested in November and would have dismissed him if he were charged. But as it happened, Edwards had already resigned by the time of that decision.
Coming so close to the news that Edwards was the highest-paid journalist at the BBC last year even though he was off-air for most of it, this is yet another reputational minefield for the BBC. But it was between a rock and a hard place - his mental health was reportedly poor and what if the arrest didn’t lead to a charge? Expect to hear more on this, with Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy questioning Tim Davie about it today.
Moving on, we have an interesting development in the turbulent relationship between AI companies and publishers. Perplexity, while less known than ChatGPT, has more than 15 million monthly active users and has managed to upset at least a few publishers with Forbes and Conde Nast both sending legal letters over the use of their copyrighted content.
Hoping to improve that relationship, Perplexity has announced that when it introduces advertising, it will share the revenue with publishers whose content is surfaced when sponsored results are shown (as long as they are signed up to its programme). Major publishers like Time, Fortune and Der Spiegel are among the launch partners.
I spoke to chief business officer Dmitry Shevelenko who said all the right things: that Perplexity won’t succeed if there isn’t a “vibrant, thriving business model for journalism”. But, as Press Gazette contributor David Buttle put it, there is “limited goodwill for Perplexity left from media”. We’ll keep watching this space.
Meanwhile have you spotted the new “consent or pay” cookie walls on the Mirror, Express, Independent or Mail websites yet? It’s a major new step for UK publishers. I’ve seen criticism from the public on both Twitter and Reddit but as long as most people choose one of the two options, rather than leaving the site altogether to try to find the story elsewhere, then it could well pay off.
Today we published our quarterly look at the RAJAR radio listening figures for talk-based and newsy stations and this time there’s a major headline: GB News Radio has overtaken Times Radio for weekly reach.
However Times Radio remains bullish with high engagement from its “hard-to-reach affluent listeners” shown by its hours per listener and total listening hours.
Yesterday Reach published its latest results, which show revenue decline across the board for the half-year but a glimmer of hope in Q2 with its first digital growth since 2022. Profits are also up, helped by cost savings from large-scale redundancies in the past year.
Speaking of redundancies - we’ve confirmed several high-profile journalists at The Guardian who have agreed to take voluntary redundancy amid a target of 4-5% cost savings at the publisher this year.
And we heard from Channel 4 News’ head of digital and managing editor about why it is now only really focusing on Youtube for its flagship political podcast (or vodcast, if you will).
Youtube has positives for discoverability and reaching new audiences - but does have its drawbacks too.
Scroll down for a full round-up of what else we’ve published this week.
New from Press Gazette
Perplexity to share ad revenue with signed-up publishers after flurry of criticism
Perplexity chief business officer tells Press Gazette publishers have "nothing to lose" if they sign up to the programme.
RAJARs Q2 2024: GB News Radio weekly reach overtakes Times Radio
It was also a good quarter for 5 Live and Talksport, likely thanks to the Euros and other footballing moments.
Mail, Mirror, Express and Independent roll out ‘consent or pay’ walls
The publishers are charging between £1.99 and £4 monthly for cookie-less access to their sites.
Reach reports first digital revenue growth since 2022
On digital programmatic ad revenue it is "too early to call this a recovery, but the early indicators are positive".
Guardian voluntary redundancy round ends with some prominent departures
Guardian had been targeting cost savings of 4-5% this year.
Channel 4 News bets Youtube is ‘where podcast market growth really lies’
The Political Fourcast averaged more than 100,000 views an episode over the UK general election.
Also on Press Gazette this week
Death of war correspondent Kim Sengupta at 68 is ‘devastating loss’ for Independent
Top 50 UK news websites in June: Mirror narrowly overtakes Mail Online into third place
TalkTV hits 1m Youtube subscribers and grows revenue after linear TV closure
Ex-Emap CEO joins FT-backed news site for start-ups Sifted as chair
PA Media and German news agency boost investment in financial news provider
Patrick Stoddart, who had ‘journalism in the blood’, dies aged 79
News in brief
National World has reported revenue growth of 17% in the first half of the year, with digital up 12%, as it integrates numerous acquisitions. It says a transition away from page view metrics to "higher value content" has resulted in this growth despite a 4% drop in PVs as well as a 25% increase in video revenue despite a 14% decrease in video views (National World)
The Met is reportedly reviewing allegations by Gordon Brown that now-Washington Post publisher Will Lewis led the destruction/concealment of emails in the wake of the hacking scandal at the News of the World. Lewis has always denied wrongdoing. (The Guardian)
GB News host Martin Daubney was briefly handcuffed by police while filming protests in Westminster last night. He said he was released when he said he was a journalist. "I work at GB News and a senior officer came up and said, yeah, we know who Martin is.. (GB News)
Al Jazeera has said its journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Refee were killed in an Israeli air attack on the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. (Al Jazeera)
An application by PA, ITN, News Corp and Mail publisher Associated Newspapers was unsuccessful in persuading a judge that two 12-year-old boys guilty of a machete murder should be named. The judge said their welfare outweighed public interest/open justice principles. (The Guardian)
Global's podcast The News Agents has reached 100 million downloads, it revealed yesterday, ahead of its second anniversary next month. In our recent snapshot of news/political podcast charts it was fourth on Apple/Spotify and sixth on Youtube in the election.
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority is investigating Google parent Alphabet's partnership with AI start-up Anthropic and its potential impact on competition. In October Google agreed to invest $2bn in Anthropic (of which $500m was upfront). (Reuters)
Ofcom has discontinued a fairness and privacy complaint into the episode of Dan Wootton Tonight on GB News in July last year in which he first spoke about a "smear campaign" against him. Wootton has since left the broadcaster. (BBC News)
Monday’s edition of the Evening Standard was its last on that day of the week, and last week was its final edition on a Friday. It is phasing out its daily print edition - soon it will drop two more days and go weekly.
Ofcom has ruled James Whale Unleashed on TalkTV breached the Broadcasting Code after a guest said "he’s been shushing me all fucking interview" in a heated debate about the Israel-Gaza war. Whale quickly went to a break but no apology was broadcast. (Ofcom)
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.
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