An uncomfortable audience success story

An uncomfortable lesson in audience strategy

The great thing about the internet is it allows communities to form. The terrible thing about the internet is that it allows communities to form.

Its greatness or terribleness depends entirely on the opinion you hold of the community.

And that brings us to GB News, which now has 10,000 paying members, contributing somewhere north of half a million to its annual revenues. Perhaps not a massive amount, but significant and growing — and a sign that they've built a loyal and engaged base. Given the state of politics in the UK, and the right-wing led riots in particular, this might make some readers uncomfortable. It does me.

But all the normal community building rules and approaches apply here: they've found a community that feels under-served by other forms of media, focused laser-like on the sorts of information — and opinion, significantly — that they want to see. And are building that into a community that is prepared to pay:

“Our members are galvanised by what we stand for,” [Emily Fox, head of GBN Membership] continued. “And we stand for the silent moderate majority who are often ignored. We aim to be the fearless champion of Britain – its voice and its values. We’re giving them a voice and that’s why people are flocking to support GB News.”

It's a model of how to build an engaged audience…

GB News marks milestone of 10,000 paying members

GB News marks milestones of 10,000 paying members and 100 million monthly page views (according to internal figures).

Press GazetteCharlotte Tobitt

Reddit wants to ca$$hit

Reddit seems to be on the path to destroying itself through greed. We've already see them start charging search engine for access, killing of independent apps and now…

“I think the existing, altruistic, free version of Reddit will continue to exist and grow and thrive just the way it has,” Huffman said. “But now we will unlock the door for new use cases, new types of subreddits that can be built that may have exclusive content or private areas, things of that nature.”

OK, there might be something there in terms of facilitating exclusive community access for paying subscribers to some things, perhaps. But it starts to create a two tier Reddit that the community might now be comfortable with. And alternatives are growing…

Some subreddits could be paywalled, hints Reddit CEO - 9to5Mac

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has hinted that in future some subreddits could be paywalled, as the company seeks to devise…

9to5MacBen Lovejoy

Useful stuff: mental health

Great compilation of mental health resources that are specific to journalists from Jacob at Journalism News:

A one-stop shop of mental health resources for journalists

Access financial support, communities, self-help tips and more when you are going through your toughest moments

Journalism.co.ukJacob Granger

Worth a (paywalled) read

Platformer continues to do some of the best in-depth reporting and analysis of the parts of the tech industry that tend to impact publishing businesses. This is a good example, exploring the fact that Musk's lawsuit is as much about harassing the advertisers into resuming paying as it is winning. The chosen judge might end up facilitating that:

"He also is overseeing X's Media Matters suit and, in an extraordinary move, allowed discovery to start BEFORE a motion to dismiss was ruled on," Allyn wrote "That allowed for vast amounts of broad and costly data collection from Media Matters, which the group compared to "harassment," leading to layoffs due to crushing litigation costs — again, before the suit's merits were even decided."

X sues the advertising industry

The case is part of a larger conservative project to weaponize the courts against content moderation — and it appears to be gaining momentum

PlatformerCasey Newton