BOTW: The slow death of BuzzFeed News (and RN); Murdoch’s double defeat; why outdoor wants TV’s spend; a verified Tweeter no more
Welcome to Best of the Week, mostly written on Friday in Kirribilli.
Happy National Jelly Bean Day.
Today’s writing soundtrack: SBS Chill. You can safely assume that if no other soundtrack is listed, every newsletter is being written to SBS Chill. If Wednesday’s announcement of SBS joining the Listnr stack means ads, then I will exude zero chill. (Hopefully the deal is merely about adding reach for SBS via the Listnr platform, while giving Listnr more numbers to take on ARN’s iHeartMedia for bragging rights on the Podcast Ranker. More on that in a tick.)
Today: The slow decline of BuzzFeed, the rapid decline of Radio National; Netflix stagnates; the Murdochs take a couple of Ls; outdoor targets TV money; Twitter verification ends; and another wild week in AI.
Unmade Substack
It’ll be interesting to see where that Netflix graph goes when they further clamp down on password sharing. They’re claiming it’s increased subscribers in Canada, one of the test markets. If that’s true then we should be seeing an upward trajectory on that graph in the next few months, as it rolls out worldwide.
Why are TV audiences referred to as ”linear” audiences? Is it because they can’t talk back? What are radio audiences? Are these people different from ”digital” audiences? They can talk back, and often do. I guess I know the answer, but there’s no need for it anymore. I’m sure people in the comms business get that.