MEDIA MOMENTS 2019 Sponsored by Written by MEDIA MOMENTS 2019 I CONTENTS III Introduction from What’s New in Publishing IV Sovrn: Helping publishers thrive V Foreword from the writers Media Moments 2019 1 M&A Mergers and acquisitions are shaping the media landscape of the future 5 READER REVENUE Publishers are joining the race for reader revenues, but there’s no silver bullet 9 DATA & ADVERTISING First-party data empowers publishers to experiment with personalisation and better ads 13 TRUST Publishers begin the hard climb to earn back widespread public trust 17 PRINT Print publishing remains relevant but continues its search for a long-term rationale 21 MULTIMEDIA Welcoming the calm after the storm in multimedia investment from publishers 25 PLATFORM Platforms offer olive branches with subscription initiatives and news payments to tempt publishers back 29 OPPORTUNITIES FOR 2020 Beyond news: new opportunities for publishers to connect with audiences 33 APPENDIX MEDIA MOMENTS 2019 II INTRODUCTION as 2019 the year publishers finally got their mojo back? Jeremy Walters It would seem so – M&As are on a tear, digital subs @wnip Wshow no signs of hitting ‘paywall fatigue’, and new reve- nue channels are emerging with potent force. As if to illustrate the point, BuzzFeed’s CEO Jonah Peretti re- marked at SXSW that the company generated over $100 million in revenue last year “from business lines that didn’t even exist in 2017.” Peretti added that he expects to see a similar revenue pattern in 2019. But perhaps the biggest change is that publishers are looking after their own interests first. A new report from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism confirms this, describing 2018 as the “end of an era”, adding, “many publishers openly regretted focusing on brand-diluting social content during the scale era, and have subsequently recommitted to serving their most loyal readers.” Publishers are returning to their core competencies instead of looking to platforms to deliver substantive revenue increases, and the change in business sentiment is palpable. As publishing luminary Bo Sacks remarked last month, “I have attended seven publishing conferences this year, and the over- whelming consensus is that all is well in our various media com- munities, and what has been a long lingering fear is now gone.” Indeed, Sacks believes this is the new golden age of publishing - a view shared by all the team here at WNIP, including his line that “the only time to panic is when people stop reading.” Jeremy Walters Editor, What’s New in Publishing MEDIA MOMENTS 2019 III HELPING PUBLISHERS THRIVE 019 has been an exciting year for publishers of all sizes. New revenue opportunities abound and publishers have been 2quick to grasp them. This strategy of ‘move fast, succeed fast’ has paid off, and 2019 has seen many publishers achieve suc- is proud to sponsor cess in areas they might not have considered a year or two ago. Media Moments 2019 What’s been equally exciting is that, alongside new revenue @sovrnholdings channels, publishers are once again doubling down on premi- um content for their loyal readers rather than chasing scale and temporary traffic from large tech platforms. By owning the read- er journey, and creating a slew of additional benefits, publishers are entering the new decade in formidable shape. We’d like to think we are playing our own part in this success. In 2019, Sovrn launched a number of publisher tools all with one aim in mind: helping publishers increase their revenue. Whether it’s our //Signal product, which has seen sites grow ad revenue by over 25%; or our //Commerce solution, which seamlessly connects audience, content, and product; Sovrn is dedicated to helping publishers not only survive, but thrive. We’re proud to sponsor Media Moments 2019. This is a compre- hensive overview of the key developments in publishing over the past year. It also offers an exciting glimpse into what we might expect in 2020. Here’s to a new decade—we can’t wait to grow together. Earn more from every link. Turn clicks into cash with intelligent link monetization. Automatically monetize existing product links, create new links, and earn commissions from 70,000+ affiliate merchants. — 100% free to use — Share links anywhere: web, email, — Earn from every click or sale even social — Access CPC deals with top — Collect valuable user data advertisers — View strategic performance metrics MEDIA MOMENTS 2019 IV FROM THE WRITERS 019 is over, and I’m sure we’re not the only ones breathing a Esther Kezia sigh of relief. The past twelve months has once again moved Thorpe 2at breakneck speed, with politics, platforms and legislation @EstherKeziaT impacting the way media businesses survive and thrive. We could have easily filled a whole book about these media moments. Whether it’s Twitter and Facebook squaring up over political advertising, gambling brands launching magazines or watching companies get taken over in ever-larger deals, this year Chris Sutcliffe has not been short of things to discuss. @chrismsutcliffe Alas, we have a word count! So once again, this report focuses on the media moments that impact the publishing industry. We’re proud to write it alongside industry site What’s New in Publish- ing, who do a sterling job of analysing what many of these mo- ments mean to publishers, and have provided copious amounts of source material. Peter Houston But writing this is also becoming a stark reminder of how rapidly @flipping_pages things can change in just twelve months. On the podcast, we’re privileged to be able to speak to industry leaders from a range of publishing and media businesses each year. But our backlist of episodes can also be a sobering reminder of how quickly things can go wrong. Just a year ago, both The Pool and Mic were going strong, and they aren’t the only brands to have fallen by the way- voices.media side in 2019. @mediavoicespod Despite this, as we go into 2020 there’s a tentative feeling of optimism, even from us cynics. Many of the guests we’ve had on have been inspiring and uplifting, from the Guardian meeting an impressive milestone to WIRED’s reader revenue success. It’s been a privilege to include some of their quotes and case studies in these pages. As much as we hope you enjoy the report, we also want it to be useful to you, whether you’re navigating these choppy waters as an independent publisher or a media giant. There’s plenty of inspiration in these pages, both of things to try and trends to watch, as well as some examples of what not to do! If you’re interested in keeping up with the latest updates throughout 2020, we release a new episode of our podcast every Monday. There is a news round-up - including a discussion on what these events mean practically for publishers - as well as an interview with a leading industry figure. Just search for ‘Media Voices’ wherever you listen to podcasts. Until next year, The Media Voices Podcast team Esther Kezia Thorpe, Chris Sutcliffe and Peter Houston MEDIA MOMENTS 2019 V M&A Mergers and acquisitions are shaping the media landscape of the future 2019 has seen an unprecedented number of companies acquiring or merging with other businesses. Is this a sign of inevitable decline, or will these businesses be powerhouses for decades to come? hen we were writing last year’s Media Moments report, Chris Sutcliffe we decided not to include a chapter dedicated to the @chrismsutcliffe Wmedia mergers and acquisitions of 2018. It wasn’t that the mergers that year were unimportant - Meredith’s acquisition of Time Inc. in the January before last has had ramifications far beyond that twelve month span - but that it seemed to be busi- ness as usual for a beleaguered media industry. Jonah Peretti of BuzzFeed, which for so long was held up as being the model for digital publishing success, made the stark pronouncement in November of last year1 that further mergers were not just inevitable but desirable, in order that publishers act as a unified bloc against the power of the duopoly, stating: “If BuzzFeed and five of the other biggest companies were com- bined into a bigger digital media company, you would probably be able to get paid more money.” 25,000 Heading into 2019, the wider consensus was that media M&A jobs are at risk in the would continue apace, but that the overall price paid for some Gannett-GateHouse media companies would decrease in line with a weaker econo- merger; almost 10% my2. In fact, the M&A mania ramped up over the course of the year, at both the regional and international levels, but that pre- of their combined diction has been widely borne out. workforce The reason we’ve decided to include this chapter this time around is that some of the media-specific acquisitions speak vol- umes about the priorities of the companies involved, and provide a bellwether for the industry as a whole. Where are we now? Much of the significant M&A activity in 2019 was in service of Up in flames bolstering and broadening publisher’ existing offerings. Vice’s ac- If you’re interested in diving quisition of Refinery29, which closed in November for a reported deeper into the latest media $400 million3, is undoubtedly an example of this. Even when the two publishers’ unduplicated audiences are combined to reach M&As, Flashes & Flames is 53 million monthly unique users4, that still lags behind competi- the place to go. The blog is a tors like BuzzFeed and G/O Media, so while that extra reach will collaboration between Colin certainly be welcome, the real value of the acquisition comes Morrison, Kieran Delaney, Ian from elsewhere.