The future will need mixed revenue models to fund quality journalism: Owen Meredith

Owen Meredith, CEO, News Media Association, UK during the e4m-DNPA Future of Digital Media Conference 2023 spoke in-depth about how the UK market is dealing with the shift from print to digital and the ways in which news publishers are driving revenues. Meredith also pointed out that the demand for journalism has increased over time but the problem with monetization is largely caused by the stranglehold of the tech platforms like Google and Facebook.

News Media Association is an umbrella body that represents local, regional, and national publishers, and it brought together two predecessor bodies in 2014- first, the Newspaper Society, which represented the local press and second, the News Publisher Association, which represented the national press. There are currently around 900 news brands published in the UK that cover local, regional and national news media titles. Together they reach 47 million people a month which is about 90% of the UK adult population.

While speaking about the UK market for publishers, Owen pointed out that the UK market base has been grappling with the shift from print to digital: "The ability to properly monetize that huge audience growth is extremely challenging and that is in large part because digital markets are not functioning properly or fairly.”

He further said, “We wrestle with a very different media landscape. We all spend far much more time on our phones with digital media that is highly targeted to our own interests or at least the interests that Google and Facebook think we have. And that adds up to a very different battle for attention. These challenges have been exacerbated over the past two or three years by the Covid Pandemic.”

Citing taxpayer-funded media organization BBC, he said, “BBC which now dominates online news is the number one news destination in the UK. BBC draws eyeballs and ad revenue away from commercial publishers. The BBC website in the UK does not carry any advertising and therefore loads much faster and provides a better UX. This of course then translates into better search results and search ranking. It has recently announced plans to expand its local news offering even more, which has caused widespread concern among UK publishers and simply just wouldn't be accepted if they were trying to do the same in the print market.”

He further said, “The challenges we are facing in the industry are not a problem with the audience. The demand for journalism has never been greater but it is the problem with monetization which is largely caused by the stranglehold of the tech platforms.” Meredith pointed out that there has been a tremendous rise in the pure play advertising post-pandemic which has largely benefitted two or three US tech companies.

Owen further described the legislatives the UK government is trying to bring in to regulate and fix a broken digital marketplace: “There are multiple studies which point out the exploitation and dominant market position of tech companies which has affected consumers the most. The current system of competition law is simply inadequate, ineffective and outdated. We expect the UK government to bring forward the legislation and we expect the bill to be published by the government next month.”

“With statutory powers to DMU, we will be able to tackle serious problems created by the tech giant stranglehold in the digital advertising of the wider ecosystem. This will be achieved by enforceable codes of conduct governing the relationship between online platforms and the businesses who rely on them, especially news publishers.”

In his concluding statement, Meredith said, “I just wanted to reflect that I don't believe this new competition regime is a silver bullet to fix all the challenges we face. Publishers are embracing new ways of working to drive new revenues which will take time to pay off but the future will likely require mixed revenue models that draw on multiple revenue sources to fund investment in quality journalism. Publishers are serving audiences in different ways with news, information and entertainment combined. I think the business model of news has to change as audience needs and behaviours have changed. We are reaching more people than ever before, but we are reaching them in new ways. Publishers continue to invest in quality journalism but the rules of the game need to change”