The big expansions, closures and acquisitions of 2024 tell us one thing: you cannot afford not to listen to your audience in the year to come
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In our final episode of 2024, we reflect on some of the moments that defined the media business this year with fellow media industry journalist Simon Owens. He runs his own Substack newsletter and is the host of The Business of Content podcast. Owens is also an all-round specialist on the creator economy, the publishing world and traditional media.
2024 has thrown up many big expansions, closures and acquisitions in the UK and the US media industry. There was the expansion of Mill Media into Glasgow and London, after significant investment and migration from Substack to Ghost. There was the closure of the UK independent local news organisation The Lincolnite, despite its innovation and investment, in contrast to the rapid flameout of The Messenger in the US, which bet large on a business model of the past.
And more recently in the UK, five-year-old startup Tortoise Media acquired one of the world's oldest newspapers, The Observer, in a drawn-out and controversial saga. It is a fascinating statement of the times we are living in.
What can we learn from all this? The short answer is that news organisations cannot afford to be tone-deaf. Never has it mattered more for you to be led, or at least informed, by your audience. New players - from solo creators to media startups - understand this shift better than most traditional media.
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