|
 |
AI driving Daily Beast profitability | Brutal traffic month for top US publishers
But breaking news sees Google Discover boost and Press Gazette's 100k Club demonstrates widespread digital subscriptions growth
|
| |||||||||||||||
Welcome to the Press Gazette Future of Media US newsletter on Friday, 20 March.
Sorry for missing last week’s newsletter but the Press Gazette team was in New York meeting lots of you in person at our Media Strategy Network USA event. I’ve got a bumper edition for you today to make up for it.
🗽I was honoured to host a discussion with some brilliant speakers about everyone’s favourite topic: AI.
The Daily Beast’s president and COO Keith Bonnici confessed he originally hoped they would “heavily” use AI in the newsroom but that the journalists showed him why this was a bad idea. And he spoke about how AI is driving both direct licensing revenue and indirect revenue by letting them do a lot more with a small number of people.
Anne Marie O’Keefe, COO of Mansueto Ventures, explained why the Fast Company and Inc publisher hasn’t yet done any AI deals of its own. They haven’t been offered what they believe they’re worth yet.
And Business Insider chief news editor Steve Russolillo explained the brand’s recent move towards subscriptions and the type of reporting that people will pay for.
I’ve got the highlights of that panel here.
 |
🍎 The event was off the record (aside from those quotes kindly cleared by the speakers) but Press Gazette editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford has summarised our takeaways from the day.
Some of the common themes were: publishers should block the bots - at least the training ones - as AI companies are realising they need verified publisher content to make their models work.
There was a lot of debate about Google Zero and whether it’s an overblown fear or a very real threat that some publishers are already plummeting towards.
The need for exclusive and original reporting in the AI age was a recurring topic, as were the ways people are nurturing direct relationships with readers.
And there was a lot of therapy and reassurance that what we as news publishers do day in, day out is more important than ever.
 |
📉These challenges were emphasised by our latest traffic data for the 50 biggest news websites in the US: 30 of them saw double-digit year-on-year decline in February.
ABC News, Newsweek and The Independent were the hardest hit.
 |