Month: December 2022

Digiday spoke to eight creators, some of whom are represented by X1 Talent.

So if Santa (or the platform dev teams) are listening, here’s what presents they’d love for Christmas from the platforms.

Better discoverability

Given that creators heavily rely on being found through their social profiles to build their cult followers, it’s understandable why they’d want the best possible algorithms to make that discoverability easier. 

Twitch streamers in particular have called the platform’s discoverability algorithm less than desirable compared to YouTube and TikTok.

Stephanie Diaz (@SakiSakura), who currently has 5.4K followers on Twitch, said she wants to see the platform have a discoverability algorithm similar to YouTube where “it’s easier for people to be seen”, while creator Brandon Stennis (@IAmBrandon), who has 41.9K Twitch followers, noted TikTok is one platform that has actually made this possible.

“If streamers don’t have a big following on Twitch but they go on TikTok and make funny videos, they can gain a ton of followers pretty quickly and start their creator career much faster,” Stennis said.

Improved safety & moderation

Safety and moderation are perennial issues for creators and users. But this year, they’re arguably more topical following the furore over the infamous Twitter takeover by self-described “free-speech absolutist” Elon Musk. So much so that a number of advertisers have pulled their ad spend in response. But this isn’t just a Twitter problem. Big question marks remain over moderation and how data is stored and handled on TikTok. That said, it’s still one of the top platforms of choice for creators and advertisers.

With this in mind, creator Nikki Stout (@Camillapanda), who has 3.4K followers on Twitch, advocates for creators to protect their peace and remove followers who make them feel uncomfortable. So for Christmas this year, she’d like the platforms to finally create a shared ban list. “If I ban/block someone on one website, I want it to be universal,” she explained. “I know it wouldn’t be a perfect system, but knowing it would be harder for someone to follow me on a different platform would be great.”

Similarly, Stennis noted issues with Twitch streamers moving onto TikTok. “There’s a lot of things creators need to protect themselves which aren’t available,” he said. “We can’t get rid of comments if we don’t want something to be seen, for example. And the people who moderate our chats can’t really do much, so it’s difficult for us to keep our community safe from trolls.”

Bring back community!

Back when social platforms first emerged, they were far more focused on building solid communities of like-minded people, before they became places where individuals sought fame and fortune.

Stennis openly admitted to missing that aspect. “The raw community element really made you value the viewers who watched you and the networks of people you’d be around,” he said. “You really got to make friends and connect with people on a different level from all over the world, which you may not have been able to do in real life.”

More money, more oversight

Creators want platforms to stop being the grinch. After all, they earn a living from creating content.

But Twitch streamer Stephanie Austin (@Imfamousx1x), with 3.7K Twitch followers, has suggested a jolly solution for the scrooges. 

“I’d like to see a mid tier partner program on Twitch and even YouTube,” she said. “It would help to build morale and stop this grind culture, a better system that could be incorporated into the funding models. Advertising rev share deals are the new hype, but there has to be a better way to not only incorporate them, but better ways to apply and be involved in promotional events rather than the current random selection processes.”

But what about other platforms?

Another creator, Nikki Stout (@CamillaPanda), who has 3.4K, 1,389 and 1,558 followers across Twitch, Twitter and TikTok respectively, would like to see a larger sub-split on Twitch and more cash added to TikTok’s Creator Fund.

“Having something similar to Instagram’s Bonus program on top of TikTok’s Creator Fund would be incredible because then we’d know how much money to expect each month,” she noted.

A big part of being a creator isn’t what their audiences see. It’s the behind-the-scenes business element which enables them to continue to hone their crafts and deliver the goods to their followers.

Twitch streamer Scott Freear, (@TCFreer), who has 17.8K Twitch followers, believes social platforms could learn from what Facebook’s business suite provides. “Although Meta isn’t particularly described as a nice company, it is far more responsible when it comes to what creators can earn from various content they produce.”

That said, Stout wishes Meta would enable more freedom and separation between its platforms. “I’d love to not need to use the Facebook business suite of tools to connect my Instagram account to various things,” she said. “To use any third-party analytic websites or content schedulers, you have to swap your account to a business account, link it to a business Facebook page, and ensure it is all set up correctly in Meta’s business suite. I would love not to have to do all of that just to give API access to other websites. I understand Instagram is owned by Meta but I would love to not have to jump through hoops to do a few simple things.”

And then there’s LinkedIn. 

According to Amelia Sordell, who is a top LinkedIn figure with more than 130K followers on the platform, LinkedIn’s analytics are poor compared to other social apps because creators have to pay for a separate plug-in to track their analytics.

“I’d love to see LinkedIn take charge of incorporating granular analytics of posts, overall impact — like who is looking at your content, where they come from and what their job title is,” she commented. “Imagine if you could view all of that data and specifically target people with the content you’ve tracked they relate to all in the platform? Amazing.”

Better back-end

Of course, no platform can work effectively without the collective effort of little helpers on the back-end, where the magic happens. Freear believes the perfect streaming platform would incorporate the ease of navigation of YouTube, and the constant saving, archiving and user friendliness of YouTube when it comes to post-broadcast.

“YouTube has a phenomenal upload capability in terms of the bandwidth it accepts whereas Twitch is very limited,” he explained. “When you’ve finished a broadcast on YouTube, you can chop and change it, all on the platform which is good, but it takes a lot of time for the platform to process each video.”

Sordell would also like to see YouTube remove ads from the beginning of videos because in-video ads work much better for both creators and users as well as from a watch time perspective. “People are more likely to bounce immediately because they can’t be bothered to watch the ad first,” she noted.

Stocking filler functions

And for those that wish it could be Christmas every day, these creators have come up with a number of sparkly stocking fillers by way of cherry picking the best parts of each platform’s model to create the ultimate app.

Influencer Danielle Gilbert (@danigmakeup), who has 574.5K and 187K followers across TikTok and Instagram respectively, said she wishes TikTok’s own Stories function was more like Instagram’s. “With Instagram Stories, you can get a lot more personal with your followers through your stories and have a proper chat there. But TikTok’s version hasn’t really taken off in the same way.”

While Sordell predominantly uses LinkedIn, she does wish she could search specifically for stitches of a certain video on TikTok, where she currently has 5,647 followers. “One of the beauties of TikTok is the virality of audio and video trends — being able to easily search the replies to those trends would be awesome,” she commented.

Similarly, influencer Sophie Hughes (@sophwithlove), who has 31.8K Instagram followers, would love the platform to incorporate a writing element. “I’ve always loved that you could go in depth with a caption on Instagram and really engage your audience,” she said. 

But of course, that’s lost its sparkle over the last six months or so as content has become much faster paced and video based, especially with the rise of Reels.

“I’d love Instagram to have more of a focus on the messaging and words, not just imagery,” added Hughes. “There are some really powerful words on Instagram that I think are starting to get missed. So it would be really cool if you could almost have a blog feature in Instagram so the messaging could be shared in a more poignant way.”

Amazon Prime is far from the only streaming service to lean on video game IP in recent years. Netflix’s League-of-Legends-inspired “Arcane” was one of the platform’s most popular shows of 2021. Paramount+ greenlit a second season for its “Halo” series before it even premiered in March 2022. HBO’s highly anticipated “The Last of Us” series is slated for a release in 2023. And there are numerous other examples.

As the gamer population grows, making inroads among this expanding audience by adapting its favorite stories into streaming media is just good business sense. Streaming services and linear television companies alike have realized that they are competing for the same eyeballs as game developers and online livestreamers, and they have started to adjust their offerings accordingly.

“At the end of the day, whether it’s on the streaming service, it’s on cable, or it’s in a gaming environment, the core principle is that audience affinity ultimately translates to fandom,” said Tyler Hissey, svp of franchise social media for MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks. “So where there is an audience opportunity connected to IP, that can be leveraged across platforms, whether it’s a streaming series or a streaming movie.”

The convergence of gaming and streaming media doesn’t just benefit traditional entertainment companies — it is also an attractive revenue source for esports organizations whose investors are increasingly clamoring for profitability under difficult market conditions. Esports orgs such as FaZe Clan are pivoting to becoming content production studios in an effort to create their own original IPs that can then be sold to streaming services. 

“There’s two streams here that we as a company are certainly extremely focused on moving forward,” said Justin Kenna, CEO of esports company GameSquare Esports, who previously served as FaZe Clan’s CFO. “One is content — packaging and telling the story of this space through medium- and long-form content. But the second piece is around creating and owning IP with these personalities and creators and influencers.”

One recent shift in streaming services’ strategies has been to take advantage of how intellectual properties can flow in both directions between gaming and streaming video. In addition to adapting gaming IP into TV shows, for example, Paramount+ is using in-game activations inside platforms such as Minecraft and Roblox to promote its own original series such as “Wild ‘n Out” and “Wolf Pack.” As streaming services continue to borrow from gaming properties for original series, this type of in-game tie-in is likely to become more widespread as well.

“We’ve done stuff with the guys at Netflix, we’ve done activations with Disney+, and we’ve found that most of those folks are really looking at things from a distribution, promotion and engagement side of things,” said Mike Wann, Chief Strategy Officer of Super League, a metaverse production company that has designed in-game experiences inside Minecraft and Roblox for Paramount+. “But nobody has done the job of really strategizing in a fashion to drive ongoing engagement like the folks at Paramount+.”

Like many modern digital content businesses, much of Jomboy Media’s revenue comes from sponsorships signed by both individual creators and the company as a whole with non-endemic brands such as SeatGeek, Casper and Manscaped. The company also operates a burgeoning merchandise business. (Jomboy Media representatives declined to provide specific figures regarding the company’s revenues in recent years.)

To see how Jomboy’s studio space took shape after its first year of operation, Digiday visited the location — a former carpet warehouse in Jersey City — and discovered an environment that highlighted the ways content creators are increasingly pairing high-production-level broadcasting technology and expertise with a freeform digital-creator ethos. 

“It’s professional technology with an amateur feel,” Storiale said. “We’ve got a bunch of guys in here playing Blitzball and it’s ridiculous, it’s summer camp — but the final product will be ESPN-level quality.”

To turn this vision into a reality, Storiale and O’Brien have accrued a staff largely pulled from the ranks of traditional broadcasting and sports media. One of their first hires for the studio was Dan Meyer, who led production operations for Vice Media Group for years before joining Jomboy Media. The Jomboy founders were after Meyer’s technical broadcasting expertise — not his level of familiarity with their specific brand of zany sports and gaming content, which was almost nil before he joined the company in April 2022.

“It was really mind blowing, because it showed me how many internets there are out there for different people,” Meyer said. “This thing did not exist on my radar at all, and then I show up and I’m like, ‘look at the view counts on the videos they make — this is a thing that millions of people know about.’”

By creating sports content palatable to a younger digital audience, Jomboy Media has also blazed new potential career paths for other types of professionals from the traditional sports space. Chris Rose, the prominent television sportscaster, has been a podcast cost and content creator for the company since 2021; administrative staff such as Jomboy content operations manager Samantha Taskey have also previously worked for traditional sports teams like the New York Yankees.

“They’ll sometimes randomly say my name on air, and I got my uncle and cousin to listen to the podcast,” Taskey said. “They’ll text me all the time and say, ‘Sam, I hear this is going on.’”

Indeed, one perhaps unintentional, but useful aspect of Jomboy Media’s studio space is that it has created natural opportunities for the entertainment company’s non-front-facing staff to become content creators in their own right. Through behind-the-scenes videos and other tangential content, Jomboy’s rank-and-file staff have become part of the narrative as well. Even Tom Piccolo, Jomboy’s director of communications, hosts his own Jomboy-associated podcast, Talkin’ Knicks.

“We’ve done office blogs from the warehouse; everyone’s here, and we just pick up a camera and shoot when something happens,” said Jomboy content editor Robert Moretti, who cut his teeth in local broadcast sports media before joining the company. “It’s actually cool, sometimes, to watch it and be like, ‘oh, I was out that day. I missed something.’”

Of course, being part of a collective owned and managed by creators is helpful for the bona fide content creators in Jomboy’s employ, too. The warehouse space acts as both a filming and networking location; when Digiday visited, Jomboy members including the baseball YouTubers We Got Ice were in the middle of filming a collaboration with Major League Wiffle Ball. 

For We Got Ice founders Lorenzo DeMalia and Jack Doyle, joining Jomboy Media meant they could upgrade from grinding out footage in their backyards to filming in a well-lit, 12-camera studio — and enlist the experienced content-creation brains of O’Brien and Storiale to continue to expand their audience. 

“It’s much better than bouncing ideas off your mom at dinner,” Doyle said.

Earlier this year, Zoom launched a global campaign to convince users, new, old and across the globe, of its capabilities beyond video conferencing, highlighting products such as intelligent conversational artificial intelligence and chatbot solution Zoom virtual agent, Zoom team chats and more.

In September, Zoom partnered with Oracle Red Bull Racing for an activation around Formula 1 Heineken Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort, Netherlands, in hopes of tapping into that fan base. (Financial agreements for this partnership were not disclosed.) The company also partnered with fashion brand Good American for Zoom Events and hybrid/remote casting for its upcoming 2023 spring campaign.

It’s not like Zoom hasn’t run international campaigns in the past. But this recent push is part of the communication company’s global expansion, building a customer base expanding from here in North America to Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Australia. 

“[It’s about] making sure that we’re staying in front of and on top of those changes in the environment and what our [customers] are interested in,” Pelosi said. 

It’s unclear how much Zoom spends on these efforts, as Pelosi did not disclose specifics. So far this year, Zoom has shelled out more than $1.3 million on advertising, according to Kantar. That figure is significantly higher than last year’s spend, which Kantar reported to be just over $630,000. (Those numbers do not include social media spend as Kantar does not track those figures.)

Coming out of the pandemic, Zoom was in a position where it needed a way to stay relevant, especially as people ventured back outdoors and competitors challenged Zoom’s industry dominance. By leveraging a brand partnership, that relevance is easier to maintain, said Andrew Fox, svp of partnerships, account management, research and planning at media and entertainment company QYou Media.

“If audience is built in and organically you’re able to spread that word and that messaging based upon your fans, it’s a no brainer,” Fox said. The Formula 1 partnership, for example, makes it possible for Zoom to tap into that brand’s audience without having to spend the dollars to acquire that audience themselves, he said — especially as brands are looking for more cost-effective marketing strategies as talk of possible economic downturn continues. 

As technology companies like Zoom look to go mainstream, brand partnerships with lifestyle brands is a trend that’s expected to continue, according to Steve Rutherford, managing director of client services and strategy at marketing agency CMD.

“Beyond the typical CPG and financial services brands for example, technology companies — both established and start-up — are looking to gain access to high-profile sponsorship opportunities that provide a level of credibility and/or mass market appeal,” Rutherford said in an emailed comment. 

Next year, Pelosi said Zoom has plans to continue maintaining top of mind awareness with its customer base. “Making sure that as we evolve and we bring new products to market, we’re doing so because we think that they’re bringing incredible value to our customers,” she said. 

Since then, Twitter HQ has seen more chaos than the average soap opera. Within seven weeks Musk announced he would form a content moderation council in a bid to create Twitter as a free-speech platform, introduced “Twitter Blue” charging $8 per month to verify accounts with a blue tick, removed a policy which aimed to combat Covid-19 disinformation, reinstated banned accounts including former President Donald Trump — and then suspended (then reinstated) journalists’ accounts on the platform.

And let’s not forget, Musk came to this incredibly difficult decision via a Twitter poll in which he asked his 122.4 million followers if he should step down as head of Twitter, and stated he would abide by the results.

Of the 17.5 million votes, 57.5% of respondents said yes, Musk should step down, while 42.5% said he should continue.

Since floating the idea, there has been a barrage of hot takes about who should take on the somewhat sinking ship and bring it back to the Twitter the industry once knew and loved.

So here’s our hot take on who that individual should be, along with some informed opinions on the breadth and depth of challenges they will undoubtedly face, while acknowledging the crossroads the business finds itself at.

Internal or external candidate?

Twitter’s new CEO should be hired externally. Though that’s probably down to a lack of viable options internally. Arguably the top internal candidates for the job swiftly resigned shortly after Musk arrived. (Let that sink in!)

So an external candidate seems to be the obvious choice. But whoever lands the role will likely be someone Musk hand-picks — which will be an interesting elimination process to watch. Or as Kaela Green, VP paid social at Basis Technologies suggested, we might witness a mini election where Musk polls Twitter’s users to aid his decision.

But will he promote someone from within his own portfolio of companies, or look to the tech aristocracy for an industry veteran?

Skills and talent

Twitter’s new top dog needs to be a proven financial commercial professional with international relationships, who can lead the company’s sale, according to Jack Myers, founder of Media Village. 

Moreover, they need to be willing to challenge Musk, and not simply be a lackey. It’s important for them to make difficult decisions and stand up for what they believe are the company’s best interests, noted Omri Hurwitz, CEO of Omri Hurwitz Media, even if that means disagreeing with Musk or other Twitter execs.

There have already been a bunch of names bandied about. Think Sheryl Sandberg, Jason Calacanis and Alexis Ohanian to name a few. But ultimately Twitter’s next CEO will be someone Musk trusts to lead the business. And so far, the smart money seems to be on the billionaire staying close to home with whoever he picks as CEO.

Another name that springs to mind is Oracle co-founder, Larry Ellison, who committed $1 billion to help Musk fund his $44 billion Twitter takeover. “Ellison’s involvement with Twitter should be highlighted more, as I think he will impact who Musk hires,” Hurwitz added.

If Musk chooses one of the usual suspects from within the big tech community, he may end up with more of the same old Twitter he vowed to evolve past.

As Molly Lopez, owner-partner of Hyte Digital commented, Musk will still very much remain at the helm of Twitter — regardless if he has the title of CEO — as the company’s owner. After all, the last thing he’ll want to do is “bring in a legacy tech veteran who will re-impose the types of restrictions and governance of the platform that has become the industry norm (some would argue, myself included) a necessary norm,” she added.

And she’s not wrong. Musk did state that once a CEO is in place, he will “just run the software & servers teams.” 

In other words, he’ll still be “Chief Twit” in all but name.

Twitter’s new CEO needs to balance the forward thinking challenges Musk promised as part of his takeover, said Lopez, while maintaining the necessary levels of security and decency that make Twitter an acceptable “Town Square” of the internet.

Similarly, Green believes someone with solid media training would be a start, as the job requires someone who is incredibly transparent, methodical and consistent with limited interest in full executive reign over what happens next.

“We don’t need a single visionary leading a brand to what it could be and forgetting about what it needs now,” Green said.

Challenges ahead for Twitter’s new boss

Let’s consider the challenges, or rather where to begin?

For starters, Twitter’s new CEO will have to make decisions about how to prioritize and allocate resources to address the most pressing needs of the business, said Hurwitz. 

Which is crucial since Twitter barely has a skeleton staff following the numerous rounds of layoffs and resignations. While no official figure has been reported about how many staff members still remain at Twitter HQ, the first round of layoffs saw 50% of the total 7,500 employees sacked via email or lack of access to internal accounts. Additional employee resignations have trickled in ever since Musk ended Twitter’s remote working policy and expected staff to work at least 40 hours per week in the office (unless arrangements had been agreed by Musk himself). Not to mention, Platformer’s Casey Newton tweeted that 4,400 out of 5,000 Twitter contractors were cut with little to no notice.  

Other challenges include improving user experience and engagement on the platform, addressing any ongoing security or privacy concerns as well as developing a clear roadmap for future product and business development, added Hurwitz.

All in all, it’s not a job for the faint hearted.

And that’s before the exec considers one of the most pressing issues with Twitter: the exodus of ad dollars. 

Given that marketers tend to steer clear of any form of controversy, they’ll undoubtedly want reassurance of a less turbulent future on the platform, no more massive decisions being made on a whim and brand safety and security to be at the top of the priority list.

“Brands are going to need to feel like they can trust Twitter to keep them abreast of incoming changes with enough time for them to react: slower rollouts, product roadmaps, official public announcements and releases, newsletters, etc,” said Green. “Marketers are used to being the ‘first to know’ and will need that transparency to rebuild trust with the platform.”

Damage control

Given the amount of chaos that has ensued over the last 55 days, Twitter’s new top dog will have to do significant damage control — for the platform and Musk. 

For this to happen, the new CEO needs Musk to stand aside and stop using the platform he purchased as a personal podium, said Doron Gerstel, CEO of Perion, a global advertising technology company.

“Twitter wasn’t a financial investment for Musk — the fact he tried to back out shows he realized it was an economic quicksand — it was a “Three P” investment — personal, political, and philosophical,” Gerstel added. “If someone from the outside — or even an internal candidate — takes over, they will need to rationalize the business strategy with that reality.”

The key hits: 

• The economic downturn made the final months of 2022 less fruitful for publishers’ advertising businesses than anticipated.
• Revenue diversification through other business lines might only get publishers in line with this year’s revenue goals, versus exceeding them.
• Publishers under pressure means more pressure on newsrooms, but unions are demanding fair pay more loudly than in years past. 
• And if things get too bad, publishers are willing to pull the necessary levers to right the ship, including cutting costs via layoffs. 

Publishers used 2021 as the launch pad for new businesses and growth opportunities, ranging from big shifts like merging with or acquiring competitors to smaller experiments with emerging technology like Web3 and NFTs. But that period of expansion and devil-may-care spending seemed to come to a halt by the second quarter of 2022 when the economy began to refreeze after the false spring. 

“This year we saw the slowdown really happen in Q2. [Then] in Q4 this year, we didn’t have that influx like we normally do. [Those budgets are] getting pushed into Q1,” said Sherry Phillips, CRO of Forbes.

Reports are showing that this year didn’t seem to live up to the expectations publishers set for themselves after a successful 2021. Vice Media Group, for example, is pacing to be on par with 2021’s total revenue (around $600 million), missing its goal of $700 million by over $100 million, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. 

Not alone in needing to shift expectations, other publishers were caught off guard by how hard hit their advertising businesses were in the fourth quarter this year. “It’s one of the most challenging Q4’s I’ve ever experienced,” a media executive told Digiday in November.

Here’s a look at the top 2022 takeaways from Digiday’s media team.

Advertising takes continuous hits 

Publishers have grappled with decreasing advertising revenue since the early months of 2022. News publishers began feeling the blows from brand safety concerns as early as February surrounding news of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the subsequent supply chain issues. China’s Covid lockdown impacted other advertising budgets. And all the while, rising interest rates and an ever-looming potential recession, have led the advertising industry unable to catch its breath to finally have a good quarter this year.

“Advertising was very difficult. A lot of our normal, big partners pulled back in the back half. So we did fine this year, but I feel much more optimistic about what’s to come [in 2023] than what we’re coming out of,” said Riva Syrop, president of Apartment Therapy Media on a November episode of the Digiday Podcast.  

Even the fourth quarter — historically the bellwether of the year — was lackluster as advertisers favored quick-hit programmatic campaigns and social media spots over branded content and custom offerings that typically come at a higher price.

“For the first half of the year, we were trending up on RFPs and proactive RFPs and the dollar amounts were up. Then in December, we were seeing smaller, more tactical buys. So those numbers were coming down a little bit. People really are planning month-to-month [or] week-to-week. It’s not quarter-by-quarter,” said Phillips.

As a result, publishers’ sales teams have needed to be as flexible — if not more — than they were during the pandemic to secure the limited advertising dollars available while ensuring these campaigns are executed in tight timelines.

“Execution really is everything. We have expedited timelines, our deals are much more complex, the sales cycle is much shorter than it’s ever been and competition is more fierce. If we’re not executing as well as we are able to for our clients, we’re not going to win business,” said Jason Wagenheim, CRO and president of BDG. “Clients are doubling down on partners that can execute and through tough times, that’s just more pronounced than ever.”

Setting stakes in non-advertising revenue 

Events and commerce were two business areas that publishers invested in when digital advertising was floundering. And some media CROs were given oversight of non-advertising businesses this year as a way to find cross-functional revenue opportunities.

After the surge of publisher owned and operated commerce businesses built during the e-commerce boom of the pandemic came to a quiet end this year, other publishers, like Hearst, reemphasized creating new marketplaces and shopping platforms, seeing an opportunity from its Gen Z audience to make these businesses work. 

Affiliate commerce revenue also seemed to net out OK, especially in the fourth quarter, despite worries that the economy would affect consumers’ propensity for shopping, therefore, that part of the business.

Despite the success of Apartment Therapy Media’s commerce and events strategy in 2022, next year’s outlook isn’t so pretty, Syrop said, adding that the organization is delaying the company’s tentpole events franchise Small/Cool to the second half of 2023 as a precaution for consumers and advertisers.

“My gut says, until we get into Q1 and really see how the year is going to shake out, I don’t know that brands are going to release budgets for things like experiential,” said Syrop. 

Meanwhile, Forbes saw double-digit growth in its events business year-over-year, after holding more than 100 events in-person and hybrid, according to Phillips, who did not provide exact figures.

Newsroom shifts

The days of mandated return to office plans and deadlines are behind us. Most publishers have already moved to requiring employees to come into the office a few days a week or are offering flexible work options to let people come in when they choose. Others are staying fully remote.

“RTO mandates? I think they’re dead,” said Peter Miscovich, an executive management consultant who focuses on the future of work at commercial real estate firm JLL.

While newsroom unions were active in pushing back on mandated RTO plans earlier this year, those actions have mostly quieted down. Employees have yet to experience widespread consequences for choosing to continue to work remotely.

But unions also shifted their focus to push their companies’ management to reach deals on union contracts. And to push for higher wages and better benefits, unions at The New York Times, Reuters, Hearst and Gannett have organized work stoppage strikes, protests and rallies.

The makeup of newsrooms looks different compared to last year as well. Media companies have improved the diversity of their workforces in 2022. Ten publishers that publicly share the demographics of their workforces have kept to their commitments in 2020 to reduce the ratio of white employees at their companies. – Sara Guaglione

Cutting costs when facing revenue loss 

The hiring boom that the media industry underwent earlier this year has subsided in favor of cost management efforts in the back half of 2022, as publishers face a potential recession.

The least abrasive way publishers are cutting costs is by reducing their real estate footprint as they further embrace a hybrid work model. Warner Bros Discovery, BuzzFeed, Dotdash Meredith and iHeartMedia have all subleased or sold off unused space, moving into smaller offices more conducive to the new way of work. The Economist is moving to smaller offices in London and New York City.

“The old places were too big. They were built [for] a pre-hybrid environment. It’s to reflect the new office culture,” said Economist U.S. president Bob Cohn.

Others have taken more drastic measures. The Washington Post is preparing for layoffs, after shutting down its Sunday magazine as well as its Spanish-language podcast and opinion section. CNN and Morning Brew are planning layoffs as well. Last month, Outside, Vice Media Group and BDG let go of employees. Protocol shut down entirely and The Recount is reportedly near its end. Gannett has been eliminating hundreds of jobs since August.

Along with layoffs comes hiring freezes. Like many other publishers, The Economist is slowing down hiring.

“We’re being cost conscious across the business but we are not stopping anything we do. We are not closing down divisions. We are just managing costs because we know we are heading into difficult times,” Cohn said. – Sara Guaglione

What we’ve heard

“I do think that we’re going to see a really robust second half but we’re trying to keep those tentpole events spread out through the year because … that will help ensure revenue when we’re predicting a potentially softer market.” 

– Sherry Phillips, CRO of Forbes

Numbers to know

$1.6 million: The amount of funds nonprofit investigative news outlet ProPublica received from Sam Bankman-Fried’s family foundation that it intends on returning. This was the first part of a $5 million grant.

24: The number of work stoppages across newsrooms in the U.S. this year.

58%: The percentage of 63 publisher pros who said their 2022 revenues are up compared with their revenues in 2021, per Digiday+ Research. This number is significantly lower than the 86% of publishers who predicted their revenues would grow in 2022. 

What we’ve covered

Group Black’s Travis Montaque outlines company’s media M&A ambitions:

• Group Black has further indicated its ambitions with multiple reports this year that it’s looking to buy either BDG, Vice Media Group or Vox Media.
• During the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Montaque laid out how acquiring a scaled media company would fit into Group Black’s strategy.

Listen to the conversation with Montaque here.

Digiday+ Research: News Publisher Subscription Index:

• The challenge of constructing the best digital offering to entice readers to open their wallets is now a near-universal one for many media execs previously unfamiliar with subscription revenue. 
• This report is the first piece to come out of our Digiday Subscription Index, a research framework that analyzes and ranks a set of publications across digital threshold experience, member benefits and pricing and plans dimensions.

Learn more about how different publishers are approaching their subscription businesses here.

Confessions of a holiday gift guide writer:

• Publishers’ fourth quarter commerce plans usually kick off as early as August, but that doesn’t make holiday weeks any less stressful. 
• A commerce writer talks about their experience writing gift guides and holiday shopping stories while dealing with longer hours and fending off product pitches from eager publicists.

Learn more about the role of a commerce writer here.

Journalist Aaron Rupar on the ‘chilling effect’ of being suspended by Twitter:

• Aaron Rupar, a former Vox journalist who now works independently, was one of the journalists who had their Twitter accounts suspended last week.
• Digiday spoke with Rupar to hear his thoughts on his Twitter suspension and what it means for his work and business.

Learn about how Rupar handled this ban here.

What we’re reading

Vice Media is on track to miss its revenue projection by $100 million this year: 

Vice Media is expected to earn $600 million in revenue this year, flat with 2021’s total revenue, versus the $700 million target it set earlier this year, reported The Wall Street Journal. This is a blow for the company as it pursues sale talks with Greek broadcaster Antenna Group at a valuation of about $1.5 billion.

The duopoly is dead, long live Google and Meta:

Google and Meta will bring in less than half of all U.S. digital advertising revenue — 48.4% to be exact —this year for the first time since 2014, according to Axios.

Digital media runs on nepotism: 

In the ’90s and aughts, three outlets — Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Vogue — were more notorious than others for hiring the kids of top editors and publishers, according to Vulture.