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Tuesday, May 31, 2016
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Hot Pod: A podcast ranking that misses a lot, new listenership data, and funny AustraliansAlso: Was there a lag in the “Serial effect” on podcast awareness? By Nicholas Quah. |
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BuzzFeed’s Another Round podcast is partnering with a social audio app to let listeners submit their storiesThe podcast is working with the app, Rolltape, to make it easier for listeners to submit their own audio. By Joseph Lichterman. |
What We’re Reading
Variety / Todd Spangler
Gawker stumbles to traffic low as political sites see user freefall →
“Gawker.com's traffic in April dropped a whopping 37% from the previous month, to 7.6 million visitors — the site's lowest mark in at least three years, per comScore. That was enough to take Nick Denton's entire empire down to a 29-month traffic low, even though most of his other brands, including Gizmodo to Deadspin, have held up.”
Columbia Journalism Review
100 years of Pulitzer Prize data reveal a race and gender disparity →
84 percent of Pulitzer winners over the last 100 years have been white. A total of 30 African Americans have ever won Pulitzers.
As Facebook focuses on video, top publishers see declining engagement →
Total monthly likes for the top 10 English-language Facebook publishers Newswhip looked at, for instance, dropped from 287 million in July 2015 to 162 million in April 2016.
POLITICO Media / Jeremy Herb
Salon’s new CEO’s turnaround plans: more acquisitions, less controversial political content, and possibly some layoffs →
“Hoffner, a former NBC News producer who has worked at NBCUniversal, Google and Youtube, was named CEO of Salon last Monday. He replaced Cindy Jeffers, who had been CEO since 2011 but was removed from the position by Salon's board of directors as the company struggled to come closer to break-even, according to people familiar with the matter.”
CNN Press Room / ekuhncnn
CNN Digital hires L.A. Times managing editor Mitra Kalita as new VP of programming →
“In her new role as VP of Programming, Mitra will lead CNN Digital's efforts to creatively share its journalism and storytelling across an ever-exploding array of platforms. She will oversee the News & Alerting, Special Projects, and Mobile & Off-Platform teams. Mitra will be based in the Big Apple and report to Editor-in-Chief Meredith Artley.”
Poynter / Alexios Mantzarlis
Can the worldwide boom in digital fact-checking make the leap to TV? →
What fact-checkers online do with hyperlinks must be done on TV with graphics. These must contain every number and source the fact-checker mentions — but nothing more. This often means losing a lot of contextual information compared to online fact checks.
The Guardian / Mark Sweney
Economist editor: “We don’t want to be the grandpa at the disco” →
“I’m completely agnostic [about whether] people read print or digital. I really want them to have a premium subscription giving them access to both.”
Digiday / Jessica Davies
One month in: What CNN has learned from Facebook Messenger bots →
“People are spending an average two minutes with the bot.”
Digiday / Lucinda Southern
A look at The Football Ramble, a UK podcast that just went paid with Acast+ →
“Listeners of the The Football Ramble can pay £1.99 ($2.90) to get the weekly show ad-free, plus a monthly bonus show. Or, people can continue to listen to it for free with ads.” Acast rolled out its premium, ad-free service last week.
Monday Note / Frederic Filloux
Want to boost your news app? Hire a gamer. →
5 lessons, including: “Allow your high-end user to spend large amounts.” (However, “I can see no example of gamification…that [has] worked in the news business.”