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Fighting for journalism and profitable news media
Why UK Goverment should wave through DMGT's Telegraph bid | More job cuts at Metro
And an interview with the former theoretical physicist who is on the front line of fighting for journalism's future in the age of AI
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Good morning from the team at Press Gazette on Monday, 24 November. Here’s our daily round-up of media news, brought to you in partnership with Wordpress VIP.
Their latest playbook, Future-Proof Your Brand for the AI-Native Web, is available to download now.
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You may already have read much about DMGT’s dramatic £500m deal to take ownership of the Telegraph (announced on Saturday morning).
But here are three hot-takes from me you won’t get elsewhere:
The £500m purchase price is high and will create pressure on Telegraph costs and increase the need to find synergies in terms of shared infrastructure with DMGT. I speculate that the £500m will include a hefty portion of debt owed to IMI Redbird (and so the United Arab Emirates).
Telegraph editor Chris Evans has won the ‘game of thrones’ and his position is secure. I suspect execs who aligned themselves closely to Redbird Capital will be heading for the exit soon if the deal goes through.
This deal gives Lord Rothermere dominance over the UK newspaper market. But most Britons get their news form the internet, a medium which is utterly dominated in the UK by two US-owned tech platforms (Meta and Alphabet) and one Chinese one (Tiktok). In my view the UK government should wave this deal through quickly.
People Inc chief innovation officer Jonathan Roberts developed a new model of cosmic ray transport across the Solar System in his previous job as a theoretical physicist.
But that was child’s play compared to his current challenge: figuring out a way to make sure journalists get paid in a world where the content they create has been taken, scrambled and reassembled by generative AI companies.
It was fascinating to catch up with him at Press Gazette’s Media Strategy Network USA event.
Jon is on the frontline of everything AI and publishing-related. But I was reassured to hear that one thing People Inc won’t get AI to do is write stories for its brands.
“As a digital publisher we embrace AI for all its benefits, but AI will never change the fact that humans make our brands what they are. Channelling human insight, expertise, inspiration and creativity for the benefit of all is what makes our brands special. We will always be distinctly human.”
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DMGT-owned free newspaper brand Metro is the latest title to announce major cutbacks in response to falling referral traffic from Google.
The move follows big cutbacks two years ago at the UK’s largest daily newspaper (in terms of distribution) and the 17th most popular news website.
Expansion is expected in Metro’s social media and video teams.
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