Time and Axios turn AI visibility into revenue | The Lever goes slow under Trump Two

Welcome to the Press Gazette Future of Media US newsletter on Friday, 26 June.

☀️ First, a report from editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford who captained the first Press Gazette News Yacht in Cannes this week:

The tech takeover of the global advertising industry was even more apparent at this year’s opulent week-long bender for marketing folk - the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

A short walk from the massive beachfront jamborees run by the likes of Amazon, Meta, Tiktok and Google, Press Gazette hosted a meeting of la resistance - the publishers fighting a rearguard action to make sure news remains part of the marketing mix.

The discussions on board our “News Yacht” event included some encouraging signs that publishers remain massively important to brands when it comes to the way they are portrayed in AI answers - and that publishers themselves are making actual money from this.

Time chief operating officer Mark Howard told me they are now working on a “pure data product that doesn’t even get published to the web… it’s just marketing to the bots” because, he said, “bots not only are increasingly able to purchase, but they are informing purchases much more, and that’s only going to increase”.

Axios were hosting a week of events and meetings at their own (slightly bigger) yacht next door to the yacht Equativ kindly shared with Press Gazette for the afternoon.

Axios chief revenue officer Jacquelyn L. Cameron said: "We’re here in Cannes, talking to partners about what we know about why we’re currently popping in the LLMs."

Dom shared more on what publishers are doing to monetise AI visibility in his full report here.

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🐌 Slow journalism outlet The Lever is gearing up to have the biggest headcount in its six-year history at 21 people.

I spoke to managing editor Joel Warner in 2024 about their Guardian-style model in which people chose to pay to support the journalism even though there was no paywall, albeit they could receive some perks.

A lot has changed in the past two years, however. The Lever now has a metered paywall to formalise that relationship - although Warner said the jury is still out on this change.

The other major change has been a slowing down of how often The Lever puts out content.

Although it was never exactly flooding the internet with content, previously putting out one highly-reported story a day, that cadence has gone down to two or three per week.

This approach has apparently worked well for Trump’s second administration, with Warner feeling the bar is now set higher for stories to capture attention.

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📧 And finally: did you know that the average price paid for a newsletter is $10 per month or $100 per year?

And that sports and economy publications have the highest subscriber conversion rates, but food/drink and news titles are best at keeping churn down?

These were some of my favourite insights from new analysis shared by Beehiiv of around 2,500 newsletters hosted on their platform.

Some caveats apply, most obviously that Beehiiv creators may not be representative of the whole newsletter market. But I think there’s a lot to learn in there about a market that’s not generally the most transparent with data.

I got some additional insights from CEO Tyler Denk on why the average price has settled where it has and the secret sauce for building a sustainable newsletter business.

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• Court forces reporter to pay $800 a day for refusing to identify source - Freedom of the Press Foundation

• New York Times Investigates Its Own, Reveals $800K Salary for NFL Reporter at Center of Mike Vrabel Scandal - The Wrap

• Daily Wire, under pressure, seeks strategic investors, targets IPO - Semafor

• People Inc. CEO accuses Google of abusing its market power - Axios

• Forbes tests a creator-led audience play to grow off-platform reach - Digiday

• BBC To Test Streaming News Channel Live On YouTube Outside Of UK - Deadline

• The Onion says it won’t wait for the courts, will launch Infowars to pay Sandy Hook families - MS Now

Investment set to help Uncensored become ‘truly global media platform’.

Follows New York state bid to stop deceptive bots which fuel ‘$1bn’ content trading market.

Reputable online football brands have been taken over by ‘parasite SEO’ firm Clickout Media.

Consultation to examine how ‘trustworthy’ news publishers should be categorised.

Connection between greenhouse emissions and extreme heat in UK ‘indisputable’.

Candr Media CEO Chris Dicker has seen its flagship website - Trusted Reviews - be pillaged by AI bots over the last 18 months.

He spoke to Press Gazette about a new legal tactic which uses a branch of law dating back to the Romans to secure justice and perhaps force big tech to the negotiating table.

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