This one takes a while to digest, so grab a cup of tea and settle in. WAN-IFRA sits on a treasure trove of publisher insight, and it’s unearthed some of that here for a report into how newspapers are growing their overall audience by focusing on the desires of subsets. The report, “Understanding your audiences in a deeper way”, is yet another antidote to the idea that chasing scale for its own sake is a viable and stable business model.

The report is particularly explicit about the need for clever targeting of user interests in local news publishing: “All news enterprises – especially local ones – battle for the scarce time and attention of the people they hope to serve. Success comes only when the news and information provided makes a difference to people’s lives where they live. Publishers can’t do that by serving ‘general content for the general public.’”

This WNIP write-up pulls out some insight from individual publishers contained within the report, so it’s well worth your time. The most important thing for publisher business models, however, is that a spray-and-pray approach to growing audiences simply doesn’t work - and that revenue is grown through focusing on smaller audiences’ needs.

I mentioned in this week’s episode (see below) that I was worried publishers’ need for new audiences would cause them to overextend into the metaverse without tangible ROI. In this longer-form article for DCN I elaborate on that - but also explain why there’s an early-mover advantage to being in the metaverse space for publishers.

Not long after German publishers launched an official complaint to the EU about Google retiring cookies, the search giant unveils a new plan. Based on FLoC trials, the new solution allows advertisers to target users online based on select topics - Fischer flags “fitness” or “travel” - that a user is likely to be interested in.

Sooner or later Spotify is going to have to face up to the fact that it is a publisher, and just as responsible for the comments made by its podcasters as newspapers are for the remarks of their columnists. Fines, regulation, or opprobrium from singer-songwriters will come for us all one day.

This week’s guest is Rob John, MD of the Content Marketing Association. He discusses what the CMA does and who its members are, how content marketing might fit within a publisher’s revenue mix, and the panel they’re running at The Publishing Show in London in March.

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