Dominic Young
Writings and more
Category: Uncategorized
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Opinion The Telegraph looks on course to hit its bold ‘one-million subscriber’ target, but at what cost? And what will happen next? In moving to a subscription-first strategy in 2018, The Telegraph set a target to boost the ailing newspaper’s commercial fortunes with a target of reaching ‘one million subscribers’ by 2023. With DMGT now confirming…
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With subscription growth stalling for many publishers, offering a pay-as-you-go option should be a no-brainer for digital publishers. Some, though, are worried about disturbing their so-called “zombie” subscribers and prompting them to cancel. Here, I explain why worrying about the zombies can blind publishers to bigger opportunities. Every subscription business has zombie subscribers. They’re customers…
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It took a long time for the news industry to really embrace the reality that they need consumer revenues to survive and thrive. Having reached it, though, a new pessimism seems to be growing. The initiatives that have been widely implemented aren’t working well enough. If we look at the language we’re using to describe…
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The news industry is facing a crisis, and it has hit local and regional newspapers particularly hard. Print numbers are dropping, and online content isn’t making up the difference with digital advertising revenue. The figures look bleak: in the U.K, 198 local U.K. newspapers closed down between 2005 and 2016, with 40 going under in…
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Lord Hall of the BBC observed at the Royal Television Society convention in Cambridge recently that the already crowded TV streaming market is about to get a lot busier with the entrance of Disney and others — like the BBC itself. His optimistic belief is that this will rebalance the market in favour of the new entrants…
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I started Axate from a very simple realisation, formed when I was working as head of Strategy for Newscorp towards the end of the noughties. It was clear that any business model based solely on advertising couldn’t work; in the past, a big chunk of ad spend was guaranteed to newspapers, but the internet offered…
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Syndication deals are making a comeback. The New York Times, i newspaper and the Financial Times are among those striking deals, and more are expected. The move comes as news publishers look to take advantage of the big platforms standing back from steering the user journey through content and brand. Back in the nineties, my…
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It wasn’t long ago that an announcement of Apple’s ‘events’ would trigger a flood of media commentary on what the next wave of devices would look like. This time it’s slightly different, with the focus almost entirely on what services it may or may not launch. Most of the attention has been on TV, and…
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If social media challenged the traditional advertising revenue of media organisations, artificial intelligence threatens to annihilate it, writes Dominic Young. Government’s of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace”, said cyber campaigner John Perry Barlow in his Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace back in 1996. “On behalf…
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The INMA World Congress, a couple of weeks ago in New York, was really lovely. Great to be back in New York for the first time since before the pandemic, great to catch up with old friends, fascinating to hear the presentations and insights and, of course, an opportunity to meet people for the first…
Dominic Young 