Full comment in response to The Cut's article on The Skimm

I was asked to respond to a New York Magazine article and while my comment was cut down for print/digital (fair!) I wanted to put the full text somewhere:

As your Oct. 28th article discussed, The Skimm is an innovative product that addresses a mostly untapped market extremely well. But, why does this market exist? We must do more as an industry to include women, not just as the target audience of specialized products and verticals, but at the heart of journalism. Our conception of news has been shaped and developed in predominantly white and male newsrooms. This has influenced how the news is covered. For instance, newsrooms with more women tend to cover news in a more positive light, use more female sources, and have a greater audience share of women. Research to understand the implications of newsroom makeup is only beginning and should be prioritized. How do other newsroom demographics (race, age, wealth) influence how the news is covered? We must change journalism pedagogy and practice: evidence suggests that encouraging diversity in the newsroom increases engagement with more diverse audiences. Incorporating, rather than marginalizing women and minority practitioners and readers, will have positive knock-on effects for audience size and revenues of media companies, with further implications for public policy and political engagement. Let’s celebrate The Skimm’s success, both as a business founded and led by women and as a media company that seeks to engage with female millennials, but also remember that we can, should, and must do more to diversify the media.

Introducing Podcasts by Barron's

 

At the beginning of October, Barron’s launched two new audio offerings, a daily news briefing Numbers By Barron’s and an audio-rich weekly show named The Readback.

We made these shows not only an effort to be on the forefront of the changing media landscape—26 Percent of Americans Listen to Podcasts Monthly, up from 24 percent in 2017—but also as a service our readers. Our goal is to create a seamless experience across platforms and devices, enabling readers to choose the right mode of consumption for their context. We also incorporated our audience at several points during developed (should we even create podcasts? What type of content do you need in this format? How often?) to ensure we created products that meet our audience’s needs.

A bit more about that…

Numbers by Barron’s is a two minute briefing consisting of three numbers that tell the listener the important stories of the day. This briefing especially targets audiences on smart speakers such as Amazon’s Alexa, but is available on all podcast channels and Barrons.com.

We chose this approach because smart speaker use “is growing at a faster rate than the early days of smartphones” and the existing user profile is a good match to our own (affluent, slightly older, educated, and predominantly male).

During development, we tested a demo on an audience panel to help us shape approach and tone. For instance, we found that brevity was the most valued aspects of the show, and that users preferred a version with music intro/outros.

Our second show is a 15-minute show called The Readback—essentially a highly produced interview between a host and rotating writers from Barron’s. In each episode we take look behind either the cover story or a prominent feature: what’s the big idea at play and what is the writer’s own fascination with this topic?

We worked with Barron’s customer intelligence team to survey Barron’s prospects on podcast listenership, and found that 55% of this group currently consume podcasts. Shows like TED, The Daily (NYT), and the Dave Ramsey Show—all podcasts that explain difficult topics in compelling ways—were frequently cited, which helped shape our development of The Readback.

We’re not done yet. We are continuing to test a few more shows. For instance, in July, we published a pilot for an in-depth, long-form interview podcast Unexpected Returns, which we plan to return to. We’re also going to be surveying our listeners regularly to make sure we keep adapting to their needs.

We’re really excited about these shows. Please take a listen and let us know what you think.



Video

in ,

Facebook wants Live Video to be the future, paying close to $50mn to celebrities and publishers to create live video and prioritizing it in their newsfeed algorithm. While Facebook may be making the most headlines right now, it’s not the only company putting the spotlight  on live video. In the last year Meerkat (now pivoted), Periscope (now owned by Twitter), YouNow and most recently YouTube and tumblr launched live streaming.

So, why is Facebook prioritizing streaming video? Because it “is looking to compete for television advertising... [and] is anxious about the future. People are sharing less about themselves, which slows Facebook’s growth and cuts at the heart of its most profitable product, the News Feed…[this] is one attempt to solve that problem.” 

Live streaming may very well be a Facebook driven play for revenue and relevance, and not necessarily a question of demand. For instance, this recent Reuters study reports that over 3/4ths of people rely on text for their news, finding it faster and more convenient than video. What’s more, these findings apply to video at large -- not just live video; a majority of people prefer text to any type of video when getting their news.

Here, we look at different video formats: