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Douglas McCabe was quoted in the Financial Times on Premier League picks Guardian’s David Pemsel as new chief. Douglas credited Mr Pemsel with leading the Guardian’s move to charge its readers, something that its journalists had been heavily against. “He said it is not enough to say that we are writing great journalism, we need to run a business and break even or better — and that is more or less what he achieved."
The UK TV advertising market, in decline since mid-2016, could benefit from a liberalisation of advertising minutage if Ofcom reviews COSTA and decides to make changes
Broadcasters could gain from the flexibility to devote up to 20% of peaktime minutes to advertising under the EU’s revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD)
Ofcom could also level the playing field between PSB and non-PSB channels, although more minutes of advertising on TV is unlikely to inverse the medium’s decline
Douglas McCabe was quoted in The Times on Why glossy magazines need to turn over a new leaf. Douglas said “Circulations have fallen away quite dramatically, and yet the vast majority of magazines have stayed in print. Publishers have been able to take out substantial costs and maintain a profitable business. Those magazines won’t survive in the long-term. The survivors will be the ones where their publisher has bravely stuck to their guns and invested in journalism despite the heavy downturn in circulation and advertising. Readers recognise when a magazine has been invested in.”
Market revenue growth bounced back to all of 1% in Q2 after near zero in the previous quarter, with broadband volumes at a near standstill
Operators appear resigned to this however, with new customer pricing appearing to recover, and wholesale price cuts not to be repeated
On the downside, further regulatory and commercial pressure on existing customer pricing is likely, and pricing détentes are often short lived
Joseph Evans was quoted in the FT on Google's move to adjust its search algorithms to promote news articles it considers “significant original reporting”, its latest move to support journalism following years of criticism of its role in the industry’s decline. Joseph Evans said: “Search is the engine of Google’s revenue, which means the team behind it has a lot of power and can stop internal attempts to fiddle with the algorithms.”
“This move is to address the longstanding complaint that instant online publishing removes the incentive for publishers to invest in original reporting as everyone can have the story straight away,” he said, adding that Google was trying to address concerns about the economics of online news.
“Of course, Google deciding who should get rewarded for what kind of reporting is going to be controversial, so it will have to proceed in careful dialogue with news providers,” Mr Evans added
Apple’s iPhone launch event was relatively light on iPhone, which shared the stage with games, TV, Watch, iPad and retail announcements
This reflects Apple’s developing priorities: as iPhone sales soften, it needs to find new ways to extract value from the wealthy user base it has spent a decade nurturing
Apple has embraced this new strategy, offering a range of cheaper points of entry into its ecosystem, making the lost profits back on accessories or content subscriptions
Amazon, the gatekeeper to 100 million Prime members, is increasingly reliant for growth on Marketplace, where third-party sellers compete with first-party products
Amazon’s multi-channel platform strategy delivers choice and low prices to customers, but third-party sellers have increasingly complained that their playing field is not level
After Amazon’s seller agreements were modified in August to implement a competition ruling in Germany, the European Commission is now investigating the data layer
European mobile revenue trends are not yet improving. Italy is still flat-lining at almost -10%, Spain worsened again, and the UK deteriorated sharply. France is the only good news story
5G rollouts seem somewhat tentative. Indications from the UK that it is leading to a more competitive environment may discourage European operators from exacerbating already challenging markets
Prior year comparables for Southern Europe will be more flattering in the second half of this year although a doubling in the drag from intra EU calls will dampen any recovery
Spotify is investing heavily in podcasting through acquisitions, original content and product innovation
It is under pressure to reduce dependence on record labels, whose power makes generating large profit margins difficult. Podcasts promise a non-music content genre where Spotify can capture more value
Secondary benefits abound: Spotify can take an active and lucrative role in modernising online audio advertising, it can solve the podcast discovery problem, and engagement across more forms of audio will improve retention