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.”

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

Francois Godard was quoted in the Financial Times on Berlusconi and Bolloré set for latest media showdown. Francois said “I don’t buy [Mediaset’s] motives for doing this. They have been operating in Italy and Spain for a while and have not achieved significant savings in these quite similar markets. But if they achieve [the merger] it will considerably strengthen the control of Fininvest — as a shareholder it will become unassailable.”

Tom Harrington was quoted in The Times on shortform video streaming platform Quibi. The new service is aimed at mobile users, with shows filmed specifically for the format and broken into "chapters" of eight or 10 minutes each.  Tom said  “This isn’t really short-form video, it’s long-form divided up into chunks, which is different...There are some big questions around the content itself. Can you sustain a narrative over ten minutes that makes sense in a way that doesn’t feel truncated? It’s going to take a long time to find out what people actually want. They are going to burn through so much cash making stuff that doesn’t work, because what they are doing is quite new.”

Francois Godard was quoted in The Times on Mediaset plans to merge Spanish and Italian companies into Dutchco Media For Europe. Francois said “The whole concept is challenging to say the least. No-one has ever created meaningful synergies by acquiring interests in free-to-air television across Europe,”  TV and film rights and advertising are bought and sold on a country-by-country basis, he added.

James Barford was quoted in the FT on government proposals to increase height of mobile phone masts. James said  “The industry has been frustrated with the government demanding much better internet coverage, while at the same time saying ‘you can’t build [masts] here’....“A lot of rural areas get only two or three operators, but not all of them. The idea is that mast sharing will improve the offer.” James also said "Overall rollout of 5G will take another two to four years but that will not necessarily cover rural areas, some of which do not even have good 4G coverage seven years after it was first launched” 

Alice Enders was quoted in the Financial Times on Tencent plans to buy 10% of Universal Music from Vivendi. Alice said, "the stake sale would be an “equilibrium move” for Tencent, given it would have struggled to justify a 50 per cent share of Universal at such a lofty valuation". She said Vivendi had missed out on a huge windfall by selling such a small stake. “Selling 50 per cent of UMG at an inflated level would have been a really big score".

Julian Aquilina was quoted in the Financial Times on the rise of online streaming services.  Julian said "services like Netflix and Amazon were complementary to the traditional TV viewing habit of many viewers, adding that around half of UK homes still subscribe to pay-TV from companies such as Sky and Virgin Media....But the non-UK services are less regulated than the UK broadcasters — a significant factor behind their success, particularly among younger audiences. ”

Douglas McCabe was quoted in the Financial Times on US sports site The Athletic spends £10m to attract UK readers. He said “The whole model is threatening for national and local newspapers."

Alice Pickthall was quoted in The Financial Times on Staff at Radio Times owner protest over oil adverts. She said “I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the start of a lot of staff at companies beginning to speak out on climate change. Immediate’s leaders have a real opportunity to lead on this and consumers would see that in a positive light.”

She added that “You need grassroots pressure but you also need people in boardrooms listening and taking these things on as a serious issue."