Press Gazette has asked a range of editor/publishers for deep and meaningful thoughts ahead of 2024, and amongst them is Jennie Baird. She's providing the strategy for the BBC's digital drive in the USA, so I make no apologies for re-printing her contribution....
As if our industry hasn’t seen enough disruption already, I think 2024 is going to be perhaps the most disrupted ever. The pace of GenAI development and integration within the platforms where consumers bump into news will hasten. As such, volume of content on those platforms will increase, while the quality of information in those places will continue to decline – but most consumers who have been raised on a steady diet info bites, misinformation, and disinformation, won’t even notice. While this is a scary prospect for society and democracy, it’s also an opportunity for news publishers to double down on serving – and expanding — our core audiences with content that is high quality, trustworthy, and valuable.
So, my forecast is:
A difficult transition year for publishers as they grow their owned user base and lean into what differentiates them
A year of deep and sustained creativity: The major anticipated news events of the year ahead – particularly elections in the U.S. and UK, will drive some of the most exciting innovations in the engaging presentation of news and information ever
More coordination and collaboration among publishing industry peers to solve key business problems at scale, be that scaled advertising solutions, sustainable business models vis a vis LLMs, or endeavors that increase consumer trust in the very institution of journalism.
Note: I think an LLM is a 'large language model', and in the UK we spell endeavors as 'endeavours'.
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