The Publisher Becomes The Platform

Michael Hedges July 27, 2020 Follow on Twitter

Digital transformation is taking yet another leap. Skeptics have been sent out to pasture, mostly. Masters of the consulting universe, always making fortunes on change, have been pushing all industries to embrace technology. And so they are.

The New York Times Company last week (July 22) named Meredith Kopit Levien president and chief executive officer, replacing the retiring Mark Thompson. The appointment is effective September 8th. Ms Levien was hired in 2013 by Mr. Thompson as advertising director. She is a native New Yorker, which helps.

Ms Levien introduced her plan to "reimagine the way we do our work to look and feel and operate the way transformational tech companies do,” quoted by Axios (July 22). "There are more engineers at The Times than any other department other than journalists.” Among her first innovations as advertising director was introducing native advertising to the NYT in 2014. She was elevated to chief operating officer in 2017.

"Audio has been a very big area of focus and investment for us,” she added. Obviously that was top of mind as later that day the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) (July 22) reported the NYT had acquired podcast producer Serial Productions, known for the 'Serial' and 'S-town' podcasts. True-crime drama 'Serial' drove tens of millions of listeners to podcasts. The late NYT media critic David Carr called it “podcasting’s first breakout hit” (March 30, 2015).

Serial Productions was formed in 2017 Sarah Koenig, producer of the original series, company executive editor Julie Snyder and Ira Glass, owner of This American Life, a production company that sprang out of the euphonious public radio program, which he has hosted since 2007. The NYT and This American Life have separately struck a collaboration agreement for future productions. The first joint NYT / Serial Productions podcast series is 'Nice White Parents', which debuts this week.

The NYT already has its own podcast - 'The Daily' - launched in 2017. “It’s so impressive, how the Times jumped into audio journalism, and made a show that uses the medium so well,” said Mr. Glass in a statement, quoted by Variety (July 22 ), which suggested the NYT paid US$25 million. “I can’t imagine a better partner for the journalism we and 'Serial' do than the Times, and look forward to continuing to invent this still-young world of podcasting with them at our side.” The Daily is downloaded about 3 million times a day.

Podcasts have been around since the early years of the 21st century. Financial reward for podcasting first came, not from acclaimed series like 'Serial', but native content, the audio sales pitch. Given time and the ubiquity of personal mobile devices around the world podcasts have become important for publishers. And, too, advertisers view podcasts as reasonably brand safe.

Recently giant publisher/broadcaster Bertelsmann reorganized the disparate podcasting ventures within the company into a single entity Storyglass. Satellite broadcaster SiriusXM, part of Liberty Media, recently acquired podcast producer Stitcher from publisher Scripps. Spotify has added podcast charts. And, too, podcast producers are increasingly challenged by rising talent costs. Music licensing organizations are reminding podcast producers about fees required for using their tunes and backgrounds.

Aside from the podcasting, still tiny on the spreadsheet, Ms Levien spoke volumes about the maturity - or post-maturity - of the media business. To “look and feel and operate” like tech companies means, simply, to become tech companies. (If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…) And that means more than competing with the tech titans.

The NYT - and this was Ms Levein’s decision - backed out of its “partnership” with the Apple News platform last month. “Core to a healthy model between The Times and the platforms is a direct path for sending those readers back into our environments, where we control the presentation of our report, the relationships with our readers, and the nature of our business rules,” she said in a memo to staff (June 29). “Our relationship with Apple News does not fit within these parameters.”

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