What I've Been Reading: Three email newsletter reasons to be cheerful for local publishing and Meta's messy Australian news divorce
Plus LinkedIn becoming a place of focus as it continues to roll out new features for news and publishers
Good afternoon,
And we roll into March. Those lighter mornings and evenings are making things feel that bit better eh? Even if things remain tough for publishers and elsewhere, just that bit of sunshine we’ve been having in the UK for the past few days has helped.
Here’s a few pieces which have caught my eye in recent days, starting with the continued blossoming of email newsletters on a local level for publishing.
Newsquest take the Edinburgh Minute format into Glasgow, a new weekly digest for Stoke and Staffordshire and encouraging signs from Wales' political editor's digest newsletter - despite being a very internet original delivery and distribution method, email as a content platform is going nowhere. Three reasons to be cheerful in the last week from across the UK publishing world I've spotted.
First up, in Glasgow, there's the launch of The Glasgow Wrap, on Substack, by Newsquest. Callumn Baird, editor-in-chief, wrote on LinkedIn: "Edited every morning by Marissa MacWhirter, The Glasgow Wrap curates the top stories from around the city and delivers them in an easy-to-read, ad & clickbait free format that you can read in less than 5 minutes." with a hat-tip to Michael MacLeod and his work in Edinburgh. Interesting to see a major publisher picking up on a format which is working well elsewhere. And how it is anchored around an individual journalist as well in Marissa.
While in England, The Knot has launched in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire, with local entrepreneur James Routledge behind it. Coming out each Monday - it started this week - there's a mix of what's on and a community noticeboard feel to it. He’s also going offline with his marketing…
And in Wales, Will Hayward's political newsletter for WalesOnline has gone through the 850 subscribers mark. If that's all paid with an average revenue of £5, minus some fees and discounts, then it's likely about £3k a month hitting the revenue line there. Great to see in all three cases, the continued evolution and adaptation of email newsletters.
What do all three have in common?
A clear pitch
A personality-driven approach behind the brand
Consistency
And it feels like we’re at a similar point to where Wordpress blogs for hyperlocal titles springing up circa 2009-2011 but with Substack and other email platforms as the content engine this time.
Australia's world-first deal between Meta and news collapses, so what's next? - Ricky Sutton - it’s on his patch so the end of the Meta paying for news down under is something Ricky can give great insight into. He dis-sects the news over Meta pulling out of what have essentially been content licensing deals with lots of publishers there. It’s going to hurt, whatever way you look at it. And while the Facebook News tab never got as much traction in the UK it’s still likely a revenue line which is drying up if it hasn’t already (given Meta already pulled the support for the Community Reporters scheme in the UK). Let’s hope that the Google Showcase deal, active in the UK for both major publishers and independent titles, is more secure and robust. But it’s a stark reminder that building a direct relationship with audiences, not under-pinned by third-party audience tools or revenue deals, is still crucial to protect against the whims of corporate giants. There’s also a really good backgrounder piece on what this could mean for UK publishers by David Buttle.
LinkedIn doubles down on news as social rivals retreat - Sara Fischer, Axios - the social platform, previously famous for recruitment and jobs, is now a much stronger social network in its own right. There's proper conversations, value and it feels as though 'professional social media' is migrating to LinkedIn from X and other platforms. The features around newsletters, podcasts and more mean LinkedIn is setting itself up as a publishing platform too as well as a social network. And it appears to want news, and not just business press release type news. There's really strong engagement on LinkedIn. This breakdown from Axios is a great summary of what's happening there for publishers.
Some interesting bits there for digesting, and side note - this Substack has hit 100 subscribers. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to subscribe and hopefully you’re enjoying getting this round-up in your inbox.
Have a great rest of the week, good luck and keep going.
Ed