Business Insider looks beyond website for revenue growth

Good morning from the team at Press Gazette on Monday, 10 August.

🌐 Who would have thought that the website itself would start to a look a bit passé?

But Press Gazette’s monthly website readership league tables are starting to resemble the old print edition ABC figures we published for years (until nearly all UK national newspapers withdrew from publishing them publicly).

Axel Springer has responded to this challenge by bringing in a CEO for Business Insider with a background in social-first publishing aimed at the yoof at Complex (which produced Youtube show Hot Ones) and then Buzzfeed where he was COO.

Christian Baesler told Press Gazette how Business Insider is responding to website traffic halving in the space of two years by developing multimedia niches that include website content, newsletters and a video podcast anchored by a big-name correspondent. The first of these is CMO Insider led by Lara O’Reilly.

These will enable Business Insider to offer advertisers more sophisticated multi-platform deals and pave the way for a new premium website subscription tier.

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🌏 The BBC World Service is launching a new app that combines seven foreign language audiences in one place for the first time.

It features content from BBC News Arabic, Hindi, Mundo and Russian. It follows a move to bring all 45 language services onto one website platform.

Given the fact 90% of the World Service’s 355 million-strong weekly audience (wow! by the way) read it on mobile, the app move is a major development.

Centralisation of its key digital platforms will make them easier to maintain and develop.

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🗒️ So much has changed in journalism over the last 20 years - but thankfully the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) endures. It supports gold standard training in the basics of newswriting, media law and public affairs (how the world works) as well as honing new digital skills for more than 1,000 students every year.

Its continued success, and refusal to compromise on standards, is down in no small part to CEO of nearly 20 years Joanne Forbes.

If you get a name or a fact wrong on your journalism degree exam paper, you might lose a mark. Do that in your NCTJ newswriting exam and it’s a fail.

Joanne is the latest industry figure to answer Press Gazette’s questions for our ‘What I’ve Learned’ feature. Asked who, or what, inspires her, she name checked Kim Fletcher.

“He combines sharp insight with humility, generosity and wisdom, and has an exceptional ability to bring out the best in the people around him. Just as importantly, he’s great fun and a joy to work with. Quite simply, he’s one of the finest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.”

Take a bow Kim - and thank you Joanne for helping to keep the talent flowing into newsrooms around the UK.