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Fighting for journalism and profitable news media
Facebook algorithm ‘crushed’ Digitalbox reach | BBC and Guardian on riding creator wave
And science writer Deborah Cohen on why ‘arseholes’ keep her motivated
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👋 Hello from the team at Press Gazette on Thursday, 24 September.
This newsletter is brought to you in association with Pathos Publishing (part of Pathos Communications plc LON: NEWS). Newsroom revenue doesn’t have to mean more ad inventory or another paywall. Find out how top-tier publishers are already unlocking a new, guaranteed revenue stream with zero added burden on their editorial teams.
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🚨 Has your journalism made a difference over the last year? Press Gazette’s British Journalism Awards for public interest journalism close for entries tonight. Find out more here.
📺 In early April this year someone at Meta pushed a button that switched off huge amounts of publisher website traffic in an instant.
It’s a change that helps explain why Reach has announced that 220 journalists are going to lose their jobs.
The backdrop is Meta’s fight with Tiktok for original creator-made video content and the advertising revenue that goes with it. This has led to Meta boosting creator video on its platforms whilst putting old-school publisher posts linking to articles on life support.
Digitalbox CEO James Carter explained this morning that his company has responded to the change by building a network of 200 video creators who work with it on a revenue-share model.
While Digitalbox is a pretty small publisher (revenue of £1.7m in the first half of the year) it’s also a bellwether for the challenges facing all ad-funded newsbrands. And its experience helps explain the current rush towards more video production as publishers seek revenue share from the platforms and direct-sold native marketing cash from brands.
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🌊 So how can publishers ride the creator video wave and not get swamped by it?
Look no further than this report from our recent Future of Media Technology conference where a panel featuring leaders from The Guardian and BBC Studios sought to answer this question.
There’s a lot of good advice in our write-up but my big takeaway was from BBC Studios SVP of digital Jasmine Dawson. She said don’t rely purely on revenue share from the likes of Youtube and Tiktok and noted they had built up a dedicated sales team working on selling branded content, sponsorships and campaigns.
The days when digital cash would just fly in through the window if you could create a bit of viral content are gone. You need actual salespeople picking up the phone and making the case.
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