Checking in on Commerce Content
Good morning. Apologies for skipping last week’s edition. It’s been a busy time for me at work and I’ve also fallen behind on making revisions to my novel manuscript so I needed to concentrate on that for a week.
But I’m back, and there’s plenty to cover, so let’s get to this week’s newsletter.
Your Weekly Roundup
We start this week with the fallout from Facebook’s decision to ban content from Australian news publishers from being shared on the platform. The Australian government and Facebook reached an agreement on February 22nd and Facebook removed the ban. Then, on February 25th, the Australian government passed the much-discussed News Media Bargaining Code into law, which will require tech platforms to negotiate with publishers to pay them for using content and, if there is no agreement, the government will oversee arbitration. Joshua Benton of NiemanLab wrote a nice breakdown of what this all means (with maybe a bit of a tortured metaphor), as does Brian Stelter in his newsletter from last week.
Meanwhile, Twitter made news with their announcement of an upcoming feature called Super Follows, which will allow users to charge for access to additional content. At Platformer, Casey Newton predicted what this could mean for the media industry: Mainly, an acceleration of writers and editors with a monetizable following going out on their own to make a living. I’m going to come back to this story next week and how it relates to the idea of media organizations as record labels, which the Washington Post’s Jarrod Dicker has proposed.
On Wednesday, the New York Times released the company’s report on its workplace. The report is worth reading and full and there are a lot of key statistics (9% of staff is Black or African-American; 7% of the staff is Hispanic or Latino; overall employees who identified as People of Color increased from 17% in 2015 to 23% in 2020). One of the interesting points for me was the fact that the Times’s leadership said that one of their next steps was to, “to address what’s not working about our culture today, we will be more explicit about the behavioral norms and expectations that determine success at The Times, as well as those that don’t.”
There was also a ton of Spotify news last week after the company’s “Stream On” event on February 22. But I want to look at two items that emerged from that event:
First, as Axios’s Sara Fischer covered, Spotify will be partnering with Wordpress to enable creators to turn written content directly into podcasts via its platform Anchor. This is a huge opportunity for independent writers to try and reach new audiences who may not have the time to read their work. You could see it as another “top of funnel” entry-point to convert people into paying subscribers.
That’s because, as TechCrunch noted, Spotify will also be testing a new subscription tool for creators to use to monetize their work. After Spotify acquired The Ringer last year, I speculated on how they could potentially look into future media acquisitions. But maybe I had that wrong—perhaps it’s always been about a long term creator model all along with a few impactful acquisitions to help them get there.
Moving back to tech platform news, on Monday, Digiday’s Kate Kaye ran a story about how U.S publishers are observing how Google has been handling its negotiations with Australian media companies and the Australian government in the face of News Media Bargaining Code, as well as how they are rolling out Google News Showcase in other countries. Specifically, Kate covers how U.S. publishers are “looking to what’s happening in Australia as an indication of what might be possible to level the playing field here in the U.S.”
Following up on my newsletter from February 11th that took a look at how publishers are using text messages to engage with audiences, NiemanLab wrote another story on that beat. This time, covering how Texas publications used the Subtext platform to reach readers during the winter storm crisis in Texas. So perhaps there is a distinct place for this kind of user engagement for media organizations moving forward: real-time, news and updates from a local source you can trust.
This is a story I missed earlier in February, but Margaret Sullivan at the Washington Post took a look at Defector Media and how their subscription model has been a success so far. Though, staff quoted in the piece do point out that as their first round of year-long subscriptions come up for renewal in the summer, it will be a real test for how far they can push and sustain their organization.
Speaking of the Washington Post, there were a pair of stories about the newspaper over the last week:
First, Joe Pompeo of Vanity Fair interviewed the legendary Marty Baron as he prepares for retirement. Baron gives his thoughts on a lot of major topics, so this interview is definitely worth reading in full.
And Marc Tracy at the New York Times wrote a piece covering how the Washington Post has changed to become one of (at least in terms of business structure and approach to its products) one of the most forward-looking media organizations today during Baron’s tenure.
At Axios, Sarah Fischer ran a story covering TheSkimm’s launch of TheSkimmU, a series of online courses “designed to help women take control of their finances.” Fischer notes how this decision is one example of how media organizations are starting to reach new audiences and further engage existing ones with online education or “lesson” offerings.
Also over at Digiday, Sarah Guaglione wrote a piece about the ways that media companies adapted their events programming to digital offerings in 2020.
And we end with some good news. Last Thursday, Sarah Fischer (who else?!) had a scoop that Insider Inc. would be increasing the minimum salary for its U.S. employees to $60,000 as well as offering a minimum severance package of eight weeks. This news comes as the New Yorker continues its very public standoff with the New Yorker Union where there are accounts of long-tenured employees who are still making less than $60,000.
What I’m Engaged With
Back in September I covered what was happening with affiliate or commerce content across a few publishers. It’s been about six months since that newsletter and last week Kayleigh Barber at Digiday published a story on “how publishers are thinking about affiliate content in 2021,” so I figured it was a good time to revisit that part of the media world.
The gist of the piece is that affiliate content was a bit of a safety net for publishers in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and more publishers reported to Digiday that they made some kind of revenue from affiliate content. But in 2021, though more publishers are getting some kind of revenue from affiliate content, fewer of them see it as an area of true focus.
Barber gets some good quotes in the piece. Like this one from Colin McMahon who is the chief content officer at Tribune Publishing: “When we’re scrambling for everything we can get, it’s meaningful. As a percentage compared to advertising or subscriptions, it’s dwarfed by those. But it’s worth doing because it funds our journalism.” And this from Nilla Ali, the senior vice president of commerce at BuzzFeed: “It’s not an easy business for publishers to optimize towards. You have to think like a retailer and not every media company can wake up and start doing that.”
That last quote is especially poignant for me and the work we do at Artsy creating content attached to a marketplace. But so is one of the trends that Barber points out in her piece, which is that “publishers want to become a one-stop shop for online retail with their own editorially driven marketplaces.” She uses BuzzFeed’s targeted relaunch of its Shopping Tab by the summer as an example of this. But this kind of move from media organizations can also be seen at Complex, The Infatuation, and GQ.
Barber’s piece gives a pretty good sense of the current landscape. But as you read all the quotes from execs who are responsible for their organizations' commerce content a theme emerges: “Affiliate content isn’t really the answer, but it can be good for some things, except it depends on what kind of publisher you are.”
So it’s a classic no one really knows anything situation. But there is something interesting in the ability, and desire, for publishers to serve as marketplaces or creators of merchandise. And it ties to something I want to touch on next week.
How’s that for my first ever cliffhanger ending?!
A Little Bit of Culture
This Week: Dave (1993)
“Let me tell you a little story about a movie called Dave.”
That’s how I started most conversations at parties before the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m kidding. (Or am I?). Either way, what I want to do today is tell you about the wonderful 1993 romantic comedy Dave. For those of you that already know about Dave, I am sure you’ll be happy to be reminded of how great it is.
During President’s Week, my girlfriend and I scheduled a “Presidents” movie theme week. We watched Dave and then barely finished The American President before bailing on the theme. Let me tell you, after Donald Trump’s presidency it is hard to watch a movie about a president that aims for a certain level of realism without feeling a sense of—I don’t know what. Exhaustion? We’ve had too much of the president for the past four years, so even watching a work of fiction attempt to approximate a real president feels like a chore in some way.
But not Dave. That’s because the premise of Dave is that there is a man who is identical in appearance to the actual President of the United States of America and through a twist of fate has to become the President of the United States. I could go on for thousands of words about what a genius and hugely risky move it is to hinge an entire movie on that concept, but I’ll spare you. The movie mainly works because the performances are amazing and the film is cast perfectly. Kevin Kline as the winning everyman and the prickly and prickish President of the United States; Sigourney Weaver as the embittered but honorable First Lady; Ben Kingsley as the “boy scout” Vice President that the conniving politicians make fun of behind his back; Frank Langella as the scheming Chief of Staff; Kevin Dunn as the slimy but ultimately redeemable Communications Director; Ving Rhames as the stony secret service member that delivers the movie’s big tear-jerking line; and Charles Grodin as Dave’s best friend, just doing that unique Charles Grodin thing only he can do.
Dave also works because it’s got just enough realism. One of the movie’s main plot points is Dave (when he is President) finding a way to cut the U.S. budget in order to pay for a bill to support the homeless. There’s a whole montage dedicated to Dave having a meeting where he and his Cabinet (I think?) cut the budget in a marathon meeting. And at the end they are all jubilant! It’s a kind of mundane thing to have a montage for, and it's something that seems like it could happen. But it’s also, in its own way, just as unbelievable as a man becoming President of the United States because he looks exactly like the actual president and has to fill in for him in an emergency.
But Dave is really a success because it is a Kevin Kline tour-de-force, and it reminds you just how much of a talent he always was, and how generous his screen presence is. You always want to see Kevin Kline in a movie, even when he’s playing a smarmy asshole. I mean, I think this clip speaks for itself.
That is some truly inspired acting! That is some truly truly inspired shower singing! If you looked exactly like the President of the United States and had to cover as the president that is how you would sing in the shower.
Dave is a joy of a movie. And after the last four years, it might actually be the only truly watchable movie about the President of the United States for the next few years.