Mail ramping up podcast output | Economist brings in younger readers
And why publishers should be more worried about AI companies scooping up their current output, not their archives
Welcome to this week’s Future of Media newsletter from Press Gazette on Thursday 14 March 2024.
With just over one million paying weekly readers, The Economist continues to be the newsbrand that somehow makes geopolitics and macroeconomics sexy.
This week we spoke to the title's executive vice president for marketing Nada Arnot about how it achieved circulation lift-off for cut-price daily app Espresso in 2023 and why headline circulation growth will return for the mothership in election-rich 2024.
We also caught up with a publisher that is in a hurry to shake up the world of podcasting, with five shows currently on air and 19 in production. The breathlessly ambitious innovator is none other than Daily Mail owner DMG Media.
And the FT’s outgoing head of platform partnerships David Buttle writes for us about why publishers should fight generative AI companies to stop large language models taking their current news coverage. He says the ongoing disputes over use of archive content as training data miss the biggest threat AI faces to the news industry.
New from Press Gazette
Daily Mail podcast chief Jamie East on publisher’s rapidly expanding audio empire
In less than a year DMG Media has gone from having just one podcast, its journalist-led hit The Trial of Lucy Letby, to having several audio products in production and 19 in pre-production.
The Economist is attracting younger readers with cut-price Espresso digital edition
"It's a snack-size version if you will, but it's not in any way a diluted version. It's not a substitute to the core product. It targets a more female audience, a younger audience and a student audience, so it is fitting nicely into the audience spectrum and fulfils a different need to our core product."
Why defending current news coverage is publishers’ most important battle versus AI
“Whilst these disputes about historic training matter on principle and for natural justice, commercially they are largely a distraction. Instead in the news sector we should be focusing our attention on the secondary use of our data.”
Must-reads this week from Press Gazette you might have missed
Partisan publishers: Why Keir Starmer will have an easier election than Neil Kinnock
Secunder Kermani: ‘Let us go into Gaza, we’re not beholden to anyone’
Dan Wootton: Daily Mirror follows Guardian with privacy payout and apology
Regional ABCs: Print decline for UK dailies averaged 19% in second half of 2023
National press ABCs: FT sees biggest month-on-month print fall in February
Foreign govts to be banned from owning UK newspapers and magazines
Our latest podcast
Podcast 67: Magazine ABCs winners and losers with Nada Arnot of The Economist
Press Gazette editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford discusses the latest UK magazine industry circulation figures with reporter Bron Maher.
They pick out the winners and losers from the latest crop of results and also hear from Economist executive vice president Nada Arnot about how the title’s cut-price daily edition Expresso achieved lift-off in 2023. She also explained why she is bullish about The Economist’s headline (print and digital) circulation figures returning to growth in this election year.