Business Insider and Time pose new visions for AI news
Plus, big changes at the GNI, Apple's Great Wall of China, the Aussie selling Google, bros take over regulation, YouTube hikes prices, and more...
Welcome back to Scotch and Watch - a round-up of the headlines that subscribers and I are sharing around what’s shaking and shaping the news industry as we head into 2025.
This year’s agenda has been set by AI, antitrust, and a new and emerging regulatory landscape. A verdict on Google’s ad tech antitrust trial is due any day.
Will the search giant be “once, twice, three times a monopoly” as the Department of Justice sang out in the final day in court? We’ll soon find out.
Then, in four months, Meta will be hauled into court in a blockbuster trial that aims to force it to sell Instagram and WhatsApp to create competition in ads and social.
Interestingly, I asked two AIs to debate the pros and cons of the case… 🤔
With so much going on, today is more of a round-up. That means Scotch and Watch.
For the thousands of subs who’ve joined in recent months, Scotch and Watch shares and analyses the headlines that my network of news and tech nerds are talking about.
It got its name because friends loved to call me late at night to share their thoughts while I was watching TV with a single malt in hand.
One night, a mate’s call interrupted a critical moment in Bridgerton, and my long-suffering wife said: Just get on with it, Ricky, and create a media company…
The next day, I started this newsletter to jot down thoughts for my five most-interruptive friends, only they shared it with their networks, and it grew...
Future Media is now six newsletters and a podcast and reaches ~4,000 executives at 1,000 leading companies across 79 countries.
My wife was right. She always is. So, welcome back Scotch and Watch, where I am about to tuck into a Lark Rebellion. It’s “hand seasoned with bittersweet chinotto citrus” and “born from mischief and mastery”…
Not unlike this newsletter. Let’s get to it.
Today, I’ll be reporting on:
The innovative new AI tools being rolled out in Business Insider, and Time.
Explaining Apple’s China crisis that has Tim Cook at the White House.
The Aussie marketing mandarin tasked with defending Google breaks cover.
What’s coming next as the head of the Google News Initiative quits.
Shifting genders among the world’s Big Tech regulators, and
A sneaky trick YouTube’s using to try to charge publishers more.
But before we kick off, welcome to new subs over the weekend from NASA (I loved Fly Me To The Moon on AppleTV), TikTok, The Guardian, The Trade Desk, Amazon-owned Audible, Warner Bros, Bauer Media, Harvard University, Clemenger BBDO, OMD, Taboola, The Sydney Morning Herald, The International News Media Association, The Toronto Tech Fest (call me, I’m there), The US AI Safety Institute, broadcasters CTV in Canada and Channel 4 in London, podcasters Acast, News Australia, and industry watchdogs World Press Freedom, European AI and Society Fund and The Coalition for Independent Tech Research, among others.
I’ve also joined BlueSky to see if the buzz is worth the hype. Join me here.
Let’s dive in…
Business Insider and Time have rolled out integrations in the past few days revealing some of the latest thinking in how publishers are integrating AI into articles.
I’ve been tortured for years how publishers have failed to use video and AI to transform and optimise article pages for user experience, discovery and monetisation.
Kudos then to Business Insider which has targeted all three.
CTO Harry Hope said it was built in-house, by its own engineers, with no help from an AI company, as a skunk works project with no additional budget.
The three-pronged strategy starts with the Axel Springer title rolling out its own version of AI Overviews to reduce reliance on Google. Watch 👇
For me, it heralds an on-coming revolution in the way successful publishers will reduce search reliance and become more self-sustaining around news discovery.
But it’s just part one. Soon, I’d expect to see voice added, and the ability for readers to interact audibly with the results. Literally, talk and debate with the headlines.
This is where cross-town rival Time has chosen to make its first AI forays.
It’s optimised its showcase Person of the Year with an interactive AI for readers to ask questions, have the article read in multiple languages, and provide precis.
This is the future where AI is not used to do what we do today more cheaply but used to build better and more valuable consumer products free from Big Tech’s grip.
Business Insider’s approach changes the way news is discovered. Search without Google.
Time’s interactivity and voice capability changes the way news is delivered and discussed. Social without Meta.
Combined, they’re gamechangers.
Let’s stop for a sec.
On stage at the Country Press Association earlier this month, I retold the forgotten history of how the news industry willingly handed its fate to Big Tech.
First, in the late 1990s, it voluntarily gave its content and its audiences to Google and Meta for free in return for traffic, which meant it was compliant.
Then when Google monopolised advertising by buying DoubleClick on Friday 13, 2007, it repeated the error by passing over its data and ad inventory to become reliant.
If you haven’t read this step-by-step guide to how they did it, then you should.
Any media org that sacrifices its most valuable assets, and its distribution and monetisation, isn’t a company, it’s a serf. Just a cog in its rivals’ monopoly wheel.
AI and antitrust though are the trigger for publishers who still have enough fight left to break the siege with Google and Meta to reset the economics of subs and ads.
Business Insider’s chief subscriptions officer Kate Friedman still has some fight left. Here she reveals how AI changes have boosted sub conversions by 75 per cent.
Using AI to build direct relationships with readers… Bravo.
And as a third leg on its AI stool, Business Insider has copied Google, Meta and Amazon by building an AI-powered ad trading tool based on context and emotion.
This isn’t new. I did it with an entertainment site called The Fix back in 2007, when we gave readers the ability to react to articles using positive and negative emojis.
We then set the ad server to raise CPMs on articles that hit positive response benchmarks. Within a year, it was generating $6 million.
Microsoft’s search engine Bing, The New York Times and ESPN all copied it years later. Now Business Insider is in on the act too.
Business Insider’s Erin Hennessy told AdExchanger: “Emotional resonance is much more accessible with advancements in artificial intelligence, and it performs.”
At The Fix, we used real time data. Business Insider has elected to poll reader panels.
It said one panel found 74 per cent of people felt stories told from a real person’s POV helped them relate. Quick tip: Proper journos are born knowing this…
Business Insider’s approach is then to automate AI prompts to create ad targeting groups for teams to sell via direct deals and private marketplaces (PMPs).
It shared that empathetic articles resulted in 10 per cent higher ad click-throughs. At The Fix, I can share that positive emoji counts led to a 60 per cent CPM lift.
What’s happening here might not be new, but it’s very cool and shows that AI is forcing energetic publishers into a new and very-long-overdue wave of innovation.
CTO Harry Hope added: “A lot of publishers, ourselves included, have not put a prioritisation on search over the past 15 years because of Google, but that’s changing.
“Google is rolling out things like AI Overviews and that’s disrupting the symbiotic relationship with publishers. Now is the time.”
Hope gives me hope, so f*** Google and Meta, let’s build our own future.
Here’s what else the Future Media community is sharing…
Billionaire Apple CEO Tim Cook (or maybe not) has not had his best year. My kids would call it: “A shocker.”
Sales are down. Stock’s taken a kicking. The iPhone is stalling. Its AI efforts have been blah at best…
But Tin Man Tim’s biggest problem is only just emerging, and that’s why he was hotfooting it to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago last Friday night.
It takes a bit of digging to get a true picture, but this is what you’ll find.
Apple publishes an official list of suppliers.
A total of 187 companies provide 98 per cent of Apple’s parts.
Chinese suppliers are the largest group, and it’s rising.
In 2023, Apple relied on 52 Chinese companies. It was 48 the year before.
Apple replies on dozens more in Vietnam.
And a third of those are also owned by Chinese and Hong Kong companies.
America and China look headed for a trade war. No supply route means no iPhones, AirPods, or iPads. Or Vision Pro but no-one will notice that.
Apple has $383 billion at risk if the Great Wall of China goes up, so headlines in the New York Times about supply chain warfare spell sleepless nights ahead.
Google abused publishers for years but now they’re catching on. That’s put a little-known Aussie in the crossfire.
Long-time Googler Rob Shilkin stepped up as its marketing mandarin in November 2023. He’s an antitrust lawyer so must have known what was coming.
After years rising in the shadows, he’s just broken cover on stage at Axios Communicators Live.
“Literally every big tech company in America is facing their own lawsuit. Our focus is on trying to tell our positive story,” he told the crowd. Tough gig.
How do you think he did?
Meanwhile, the head of the Google News Initiative has resigned putting the future of millions in publisher payouts at risk.
Shailesh Prakash quit his tech job at the Washington Post to head GNI two years ago. He’s been the friendly face to translate what’s become a fractious relationship.
No reason was given for his decision to leave, but Google’s future is less reliant on publishers as it focuses on an impending break-up and expanding AI Overviews.
My expectation is that the GNI is on its way out, and this is why.
The primary responsibility of Alphabet’s board is to its shareholders, and the DoJ-enforced break-up means Google’s future is unclear.
It means committing to payouts that it doesn’t have to, at a time when the board can’t know the financial outlook, fails the test of being a responsible fiduciary.
That’s what AI Overviews and the Reddit deal are for. To suck up the web to teach Gemini’s AI, and to remove costs to mine margins for an uncertain future.
Publishers are a cost in this paradigm.
Google’s PR is still to play nice. It’s due to pay Canadian publishers $100 million in 10 days, but I predict this will be just for Christmas, and not forever.
Women have led the charge to regulate Big Tech.
Lina Khan, Margrethe Vestager and Sarah Cardell among them, but there’s a gender flip underway with bros taking over.
The Washington Post reports: “The Republican sweep is poised to usher many out of power - with men set to step in.”
Andrew Ferguson will replace Khan at the FTC, which is leading the antitrust prosecutions against Meta (see here), Apple (see here), Amazon, and Microsoft.
The Post said: “The changes represent a setback for women’s representation in top tech roles in government after it had reached unprecedented heights.”
An exception is Gail Slater, an aide to VP-elect JD Vance (this guy), who will succeed DoJ antitrust warrior Jonathan Kanter.
She’ll now take the tiller on the blockbuster suits seeking the break-up of Google and Apple.
The big question is whether the new administration will buckle.
Ferguson just published a memo pledging he’ll be tough on Big Tech “especially those engaged in unlawful censorship”. That’s a warning to left-leaning Google and Meta.
The penalty will be “structural and behavioural remedies to prevent them using market power to box out entrants and stymie innovation.” That’s code for break-up.
Slater too is a sceptic of corporate power, but did, for a time, lead a tech lobby group.
Here’s where the cases stand:
Google: It’s been found to be an illegal monopolist in search and its app store and judges are weighing demands to break it up. A verdict on its ad tech is due in days.
Meta: In four months, the FTC and 48 US states will demand it sells Instagram and WhatsApp to break its $134 billion monopoly on social and social ads.
Amazon: It’s accused of manipulating prices through an illegal monopoly in online retail, and its billion-dollar investments in AI may be unwound. Trial is set for 2026.
Microsoft: The FTC has just announced an investigation into its fast-growing cloud business and its AI dominance through its deal with OpenAI. No date has yet been set.
Finally, who remembers Google’s YouTube turning up in our offices and promising it would provide its player for free? I was running a rival video start-up, so I do.
Then, it wrapped this little con up as something called YouTube for Publishers, and FOMO led many to naively jump in, handing over their most valuable ad inventory.
Then, at an industry event in San Francisco in 2019, I was in a group with a senior Google exec who revealed it was being quietly shelved.
I warned publishers, but when they asked Google, the PRs denied it. Of course they did. Then Google did it, as per the Playbook.
Now, YT’s at it again, making changes with no warning to increase its pricing for publishers. Hat tip to The Verge for spotting this one.
Google’s also hiking the price of YouTube TV for consumers. It needs to protect that shareprice no matter what.
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Re: BI search overviews - I think the bulletpoints in the example are too short and vague, in the Murdoch case they didn’t bring anything new. To be a useful overview they need to be a little bit more meaty.
Re: Time length reformat - I’d like that to include reading time instead, and maybe the short version could be bulletpoints, for at a glance reading. Perhaps with a user account and considering age, it could also adjust for tone.