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This is why you always wait for the post-credits scene: Ozy changes its mind and claims it’s still alive
It’s not often our news round-ups date this quickly, but yesterday added another twist to the Ozy Media story. After telling employees on Friday that the board had voted to shut down the troubled company, Carlos Watson has now given an interview saying that the announcement was “premature”. “We have lots of things we have to do to improve, but I very genuinely feel like we have a meaningful, transformational voice,” Watson told CNBC. “At our best, this will be our Lazarus moment.”
It’s unclear if the company’s 75-strong staff will return, or how Ozy will be continuing operations. It’s likely that this is more big talk from a founder renowned for vastly inflating the truth, and that reviving the brand will take more than wishful thinking. But there’s a definite possibility that this could have all been one massive publicity stunt. After all, now we’ve all heard of Ozy Media…
The key takeaways from Frances Haugen’s Facebook allegations
As we write this, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are suffering an hours-long global outage. A cynic might wonder if Zuckerberg has pulled the plug himself to distract from yet another wave of allegations from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. This isn’t a pretty read, but is vital in understanding how so many of the issues we’re seeing with the platform(s) today have been bubbling under the surface for years.
Profit boost for Spectator as subscriptions growth cures pandemic ills for title
The Spectator more than doubled its pre-tax profits in 2020 as a 40% boost to subscriber numbers balanced out challenges to other parts of the business from the pandemic. The publisher saw newsstand sales fall by 23%, advertising sales fall by 17% and physical events impacted, but sponsorship was made up through podcasts, virtual events and their new online TV show.
Subscriber acquisition: Inside The Indy’s award-winning propensity model
The Independent won the ‘Best Use of Data’ award at last month’s AOP Awards for its subscriber acquisition strategy. The judges noted that The Independent is “constantly evolving, using data really effectively to evolve the brand in its business model.” WNIP talks to its Chief Data and Marketing Officer Jo Holdaway about her implementation of the programme.
This week’s podcast:
The Information Reporter Kaya Yurieff on covering the sprawling creator economy
This week we hear from Kaya Yurieff, The Information’s Creator Economy Reporter. We talked about how she covers an industry that is so new and sprawling, some of the challenges of being a creator, and how it fits with The Information’s other coverage.
The Publisher Podcast Awards 2022 are now open for entries!
We’ve just opened entries for the third year of the Publisher Podcast Awards. The awards are designed to celebrate the podcasting success of publishers and media organisations, whether they’ve been in the podcasting space a while or have just launched their first one. Entry is free, so have a look at our categories and see if you’ve got anything that could be award-winning!
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