The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices

On this week's episode of The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices, we speak to John Shields, Director of Podcasts at The Economist. They made the bold move last year to put almost all their podcasts behind a paywall, creating a separate Economist Podcasts+ subscription option. A year on from the launch of Economist Podcasts+, John discusses what drove the decision, some of the risks and opportunitie...

On this week's episode of The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices, we hear from Paul Ostwald, co-founder of Morningcrunch , a German-language media brand aimed at young professionals. Since launching in summer 2023, they've grown to the point that their newsletters now go out to over 50,000 young professionals every morning. Morningcrunch is ad-funded, and Paul explains how he's working with a Germa...

On this week's episode of The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices, we speak to Eric Ulken, Vice President of Product at The Baltimore Banner. The Baltimore Banner is a nonprofit news organisation launched in 2022 which serves the Baltimore region, and the larger Maryland state.  Eric talks about what makes the Banner's business model unique, why it was so important to get an app up and running early...

In the fast-paced world of digital publishing, a robust content management system (CMS) plays a pivotal role in shaping success. It can empower publishers not only to streamline workflows and distribute content effectively, but also to engage with and deliver on consumer needs.  With an intuitive interface, seamless integration with digital channels and robust analytics, the right CMS can become t...

On this week's episode of The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices, we hear from Rhiannon J Davies, Founder and Editor at Greater Govanhill, a community magazine and media project. Launched in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic, it now has a website, radio show, award-winning podcast and community newsroom space, as well as doing events, training, workshops and outreach with marginalised communities....

On this week's episode - the first of The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices - we speak to Simon Kurs, Commercial Editor at the Evening Standard. The publisher won Best Commercial Strategy at this year's Publisher Podcast Awards for The Standard's Sustainable Travel campaign with Iberostar, a podcast-led multimedia series exploring how to travel the world without wrecking it. We discussed the Eveni...

Newsletters and podcasts have a lot in common. As well as being low-cost, they can be intimate and personal; perfect for building lasting relationships with readers and listeners. Neither format is new, but as it becomes increasingly more challenging to reach and engage people online, publishers are seeing the opportunities they offer for more sustainable audience-building. That's one of the reaso...

Digital transformation is not a one-and-done process, as anyone who has ever worked in the publishing industry can attest. For Hamburger Morgenpost the digital journey has been made in a series of steps and investments - all with an eye on transforming a once print-centric newspaper business into a digital pioneer. Now, with AI on the horizon, it is set to take another leap into the future of digi...

This summer sees a packed sports calendar with the Euros in Germany and the Olympics and Paralympics in France. Adding these global events to the regular sports schedule amps up the demands on social media teams and it’s hard to imagine how they would cope without the help of automation. For this special Conversations episode, we’re joined by Symran Cashyap, Vice President of Product at social med...

Time magazine has called 2024 the ultimate election year, with people going to the polls from India to the UK and America. Rolling election coverage gives publishers the opportunity to keep audiences updated, but also include their opinions in reporting. This is the latest in our Media Briefs series of short, sharp sponsored episodes – just 10 to 15 minutes – with a senior executive from a vendor...

While the podcast is on a break we've been hard at work assembling the industry's best and brightest publishers to share the strategies and learnings behind their successful podcasts and newsletters, from top newsbrands launching paid podcasts to indie newsletters nailing their commercial strategies. The Publisher Podcast and Newsletter Summit - held on June 12th in London - will focus on sharing...

In this bonus episode of Media Voices, we hear from Nicholas Thompson, CEO at The Atlantic. We first had Nicholas as a guest on the podcast back in 2019 when he was WIRED's Editor in Chief, about what he'd learned a year after introducing a paywall to the brand.  Nicholas has since been credited with being a driving force behind The Atlantic's recent return to profitability and subscriber strategy...

Focusing on key digital advertising accounts makes sense for publishers, but there is huge revenue potential in the small and medium sized businesses that publishers once served as a matter of course in their print publications. This is the latest in our Media Briefs series of short, sharp sponsored episodes – just 10 to 15 minutes – with a senior executive from a vendor working with publishers to...

On this week's episode - the last of the season - we hear from James Cridland, Podnews editor and radio futurologist. Podnews is a daily email newsletter about everything podcasting, and is one of the smartest setups we’ve seen in terms of its supporter structure, monetisation and automations.  James tells us how he’s found the sweet spot between his technical, editorial and audio skills, why clas...

On this week's episode Edward Hyatt, Director of Newsroom SEO at The Wall Street Journal takes us through staying abreast and ahead of changes to the SEO landscape. From personal experience he outlines the differences in SEO strategies between subscription and non-subscription publishers, the changes in the SEO landscape over the past decade, and the potential impact of AI on SEO for publishers. I...

This week we hear from Chris Minasians, Director and Editor at TotallyEV , an independent site dedicated to articles, reviews and interviews about electric vehicles. TotallyEV has recently hit 5 million views on YouTube , so he discusses building an audience through video reviews, and what it takes to run your own reviews site - including getting access to vehicles - as a solo publisher. Minasians...

This week we speak to The Telegraph’s Head of Newsletters Maire Bonheim, and Deputy Head of Newsletters David Alexander, about the publisher's newsletter portfolio. We talk about why The Telegraph and others are prioritising newsletters, how newsletters can be used at different stages of the subscriber funnel, and what they’ve learned from a community-focused approach to their Politics newsletter....

On this week's episode we hear from Jane Ferguson, an award-winning journalist with a huge amount of experience covering wars and conflicts the world over. She tells us about how wars often bring the issues around modern journalism – mistrust, disinformation, lack of resources – into the starkest focus, and how the democratisation of tech is making the job of journalists covering war both easier a...

This week we hear from Ridhi Radia, Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Immediate Media, about where media sits on the change spectrum for diversity and inclusion. She tells us why she is encouraged by the fact that she hears people from a wide range of backgrounds talking about ED&I, embedding values of inclusion in the workplace and within organisational leadership, and the work tha...

On this week's episode of Media Voices we hear from Tshepo Tshabalala, project manager & team lead at the LSE’s JournalismAI project . Rather than focusing on the negative coverage and speculation we so often hear about AI replacing journalism jobs, Tshepo tells us about uses cases and the benefits of AI in smaller newsrooms and how collaboration is helping journalists get on board the AI rock...

For the 95% of publishers who haven't yet adopted AI, identifying a use case they can start with is usually the biggest roadblock. But the tools also need to be available for publishers to be able to support their unique revenue streams. This is the latest in our Media Briefs series of short, sharp sponsored episodes - just 10 to 15 minutes - with a senior executive from a vendor working with publ...

On this week's episode of Media Voices we hear from The Economist's Executive Vice President of Marketing Nada Arnot. Marketing isn't something we talk about a lot on the podcast, but as Arnot makes clear it's an integral part of media companies' ability to address, convert and retain audiences. The Economist has just launched its largest brand campaign since the early 2000s, so Arnot tells us abo...

This week we hear from Lauren Kleinman and Lee Joselowitz, co-founders of The Quality Edit. The Quality Edit was founded in 2021 when Lauren, Lee and their co-founder Scott Silver felt there was no digital publisher providing high-quality recommendations around fashion, travel, and beauty products, so they decided to launch their own. They tell us about a technique they are terming ‘performance pu...

This week we hear from two of the three editors of The Paper, an intimidatingly-sized Welsh indie magazine. Oliver Gabe and Owen Davies take us through the annual publishing plan, why they launched the title with a live variety show, and what makes the title feel truly distinctive in a saturated marketplace. In the news roundup Esther, Peter and Chris discuss some items of relatively good media ne...

As part of a special four-part podcast series, supported by the  Google News Initiative , we’ve been talking to publishers and experts across Europe who are working to find resilient business models. We spoke to them about the state of the local news market in their regions, how they’ve evolved company culture and practice, and what tools and trends they’re working with to prepare for the next dec...