The Future of Media, Explained - from Press Gazette

Hosted by New Statesman Media Group

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123

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Oct 2026

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About the show

Press Gazette has covered the world of news media since 1965. This podcast draws on the expertise of our award-winning team and brings in expert voices to explain one theme, idea, strategy or innovation every week. The Future of Media Explained aims to provide industry leaders with the information they need to create commercially successful businesses based on quality content. If you need to know about topics like: cookie-less targeting, data journalism, paywall strategies, content management systems, new publishing revenue strategies and audience growth tactics - then this is the podcast for you. It also aims to provide insight into the biggest challenge of all, how to lead and inspire people on the journey of technology-led change which ever major media company globally is going through. It is hosted by Press Gazette Editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford who is joined every week by a member of the team sharing insights from their area of expertise and featuring interviews with some of the leading names in media globally. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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60 recent

October 26, 202630 min

Rise of creator journalists, free newspaper woes, and demise of Quartz

Press Gazette editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford and UK editor Charlotte Tobitt discuss why major cuts are coming at Metro as it seeks to get “back on a sustainable footing”, and the rise of creator journalists like Marina Hyde who has left The Guardian for her own Substack brand. Journalist Rob Waugh also joins to discuss his reporting on tech journalism brand Quartz, where the website is now mostly filled by one hugely prolific journalist heavily aided by AI. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

October 1, 202637 min

Why The Guardian is embracing creator-led journalism

The Guardian is currently investing heavily in video and creator-led journalism. Head of Guardian Studios Leah Green explains what creator content means for The Guardian and why it is investing so much effort in developing new video formats. Head of media at Q5 Graham Page explains what all this means in the context of the wider UK journalism landscape. This episode was sponsored by Q5. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

September 25, 202636 min

Advance Local on going from zero to 250,000 online subs

US local news publisher Advance Local has gone from zero to 250,000 paid digital subscribers in the last eight years. SVP for digital consumer revenue Ann Poe explained how the group evolved from a simple premium content mode to having a dynamic paywall which makes decisions on whether to gate content based on individual users. VP for sales at Mather Ariel Burkett explained how Mather's Sophi platform ingests user data to present individuals with an offer most likely to maximise revenue for the publisher. This episode is sponsored by Mather. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

September 4, 202634 min

Everything is changing, says Wordpress VIP's Brian Alvey: Here's how publishers should react

Online entrepreneur Brian Alvey has been building publisher websites pretty much since the world wide web began in the mid 1990s. Having lived and worked through every wave of dramatic digital disruption since then, the Wordpress VIP chief technology officer knows what he is saying when he says about AI “This wave is up there with fire, steam engines, electricity and refrigeration.” He explains why the AI revolution is fundamentally different to previous changes in online publishing and shares how publishers should react. They must embrace AI, he says, to automate workflows and speed the pace of development whilst avoiding both AI and human slop. And above all publishers must cherish and promote their direct and owned relationships with their audience (via websites and email).(This episode was sponsored by Wordpress VIP) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

August 6, 202644 min

How Hello! fought back after saying goodbye to Google Discover traffic

Hello! magazine was one of many publishers that saw website referrals from Google Discover plummet last year. Chief content officer Sophie Vokes-Dudgeon talked Press Gazette UK editor Charlotte Tobitt through the "year of transformation" that has followed. Hello! has fought back by making the most out of syndication channels while building its own community for the future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

July 23, 202638 min

Mike Soutar on what today's media leaders can learn from Genghis Khan

Dominic Ponsford asks magazine industry titan Mike Soutar how to tackle modern publishing industry challenges looking at the lessons of history. The Shortlist Media founder and former IPC Media director is something of a history buff. And he has just launched a new eight-part podcast series with Immediate Media’s History Extra called History’s Greatest Leaders. How would Genghis Khan or Elizabeth I go about tackling an unequal struggle with tech titans, or deal with the decline of a magazine publishing empire? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

July 14, 202653 min

Prince Harry goes beyond the pale after his big Mail fail

In this special edition, Charlotte Tobitt and Dominic Ponsford unpick the fallout from Prince Harry and others' historic privacy action failure against Associated Newspapers. Includes interviews with media lawyer Louis Charalambous who said Prince Harry should apologise for a post-trial statement which was "beyond the pale" and which proved he is a terrible loser. We also heard from former Daily Mail showbiz editor Nicole Lampert about the "terrifying" ordeal of having her reputation put on trial on the basis of zero evidence. What happens next? Charalambous gives his view on Harry's chances of winning an appeal and explains who is likely to pick up the £50 million legal bill. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

July 3, 202633 min

Advertising goes agentic, publishers get punchy over AI and new dawn for Telegraph

In this episode Dom returns from Cannes with a severe case of yacht envy brought on by Axios, Press Gazette's AI summit reveals a publishing community getting increasingly punchy over the theft of their content and Charlotte explains why Telegraph journalists are feeling cheerful about being taken over by the Germans. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

June 18, 202637 min

Publishers versus LLMs: Trusted Reviews is leading fightback

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

June 3, 202630 min

Thai police jokester drags down UK press standards

In the latest edition, Dominic Ponsford and Charlotte Tobitt talk about the latest changes to Google search. Agentic search will probably stay niche, but forcing AI mode into conventional search queries is a new threat to publisher referral traffic. They also discuss the publishing dilemma du jour - should publishers block LLMs or do all they can to optimise content to show up in ChatGPT-style answers? And publishers in the UK and US have been caught out by another AI-generated hoax. What can we learn from the curious case of the 'LADYBOYS IN BLUE' - the Thai police officers who didn't dress as carnival dancers to carry out an undercover drug dealer arrest? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.