The world of media in 2024, and beyond...
Thoughts on TV News, journalism, and digital media. Issue#4
Welcome to my latest Substack newsletter. I’m a former TV news journalist, turned digital and media executive. This edition is looking ahead to how the media world might develop in the coming year.
2024: A year of media transformation
As we move into the New Year, there’s no doubt that 2024 is going to be a particularly busy year for TV News, journalism and digital media.
I don’t want to overstate it, but in a long career in the media, I’m not sure I can recall a period of such turmoil in the media industry.
I’ve worked and lived through a lot of changes – the move from analogue to digital, the proliferation of channels and media outlets, the decline of the printed newspaper industry, and, of course, the growth of the internet.
But there’s something about the speed and scale of current developments, and the way that so many media issues are inter-connected, that makes the mid-2020s an era of significant media transformation.
Here’s my list of issues that I am focusing on as we move into 2024, and beyond.
TV newsrooms are facing three key issues: how and whether to remain impartial and objective in a time of misinformation and polarised public discourse, how to grapple with the decline in linear TV audiences and the migration to cross-platform digital viewing, and how to integrate AI into media systems and structures.
On impartiality, BBC News, of course, has been embroiled in a bitter dispute over Israel – with both sides in the conflict accusing it of biased reporting. The BBC’s new Chair Samir Shah has talked about the issue, and impartiality was a key part of this month’s government-led BBC Mid-Term Review.
Also in the UK, GB News continues to push regulatory boundaries, not least in the use of politicians as presenters. We’ll be seeing more Ofcom rulings on GB News in the coming year.
On the decline of linear channels, ITV News in the UK is doing some interesting work pushing news content and live events onto the new ITVX streaming app – and they say that during 2024 they plan to expand the ITV News offering on the app. ITV don’t release viewing numbers for the news part of the app, so it’s difficult to judge how it’s doing – but ITV executives are upbeat about the performance of the news on ITVX. One told me at a recent media conference, that news is doing well on ITVX, and ITV sees it as having a key role in attracting viewers to the new app.
2024 will also be an important one for CNN, as it battles to find a role in the digital world. Former BBC Director General, Mark Thompson, who joined CNN as CEO and chair in October last year, has already started shaking things up. He issued a staff memo this month saying that the company needs to “organise around the future, not the past”.
The world of newspapers continues to be battered by shifting media technologies and reading habits, and the industry continues to see closures and lay-offs. The British Press Gazette described 2023 as “brutal”:
“Last year was a brutal year for the journalism industry, with at least 8,000 job cuts made in the UK, US and Canada according to Press Gazette’s analysis...
But in 2024 so far the tide has yet to slow, with hundreds affected by closures and rounds of redundancies in January alone at a range of publication types in the UK, Ireland, US and Canada.
Press Gazette’s conservative calculations put the media industry’s losses at more than 650 by 26 January.”
On the broader commercial newspaper front, the new Washington Post editor Will Lewis made some interesting points in an interview with Semafor saying that the subscription model has passed its peak:
“My hunch is that the existing model is creaking. We went from an advertising model to a subscription-based model, and that subscription-based model is now waning and then will enter a more significant period of decline...
The industry is changing so rapidly that actually probably social, AI, and personalization are the next opportunities.”
And, of course, there are some other newspaper developments to keep across in the coming months – such as the takeover of the UK Telegraph.
As for AI, 2024 will be a year in which Generative AI will be further integrated into media production processes. In the UK, ITN’s Director of Technology Jon Roberts has said that ITN “wants to embrace AI wherever we possibly can”. Of course, on the flip side, ITN and other news organisations will have to cope with increasing amounts of AI-fuelled misinformation, disinformation and fake videos. Recent news, such as the New York Times legal battle with Open AI, all point to AI being centre stage in media developments in the coming year.
And in those areas where TV news and journalism inter-connect with digital media, there’s a long list to keep an eye on as we move into 2024 – how will X perform this year after a chaotic 2023, what will be the pace of the steady migration from traditional media to the likes of YouTube and TikTok, and how will podcasts and newsletters do?
All of this will be played out in a year which already has a massively busy news schedule. It’s a big election year – with elections in at least 64 countries – and it seems highly possible that there will be overlapping election campaigns in the UK and the USA, for the first time since 1964. Besides elections, there are the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, as well as the Euro 2024 soccer in June, and the Paris Olympics in July.
All in all, a lot is going on - in all corners of the rapidly changing media industry.
Worth reading…
British Press Gazette round-up of the views of 18 industry leaders on 'how news media can bounce back in 2024'. (Press Gazette)
On the record with Will Lewis (Semafor)
UK's Channel 4 confirms job cuts and move out of London HQ. (The Media Leader)
The rise of GB News has presented the head of Ofcom with “the biggest problem he’s ever faced”, according to BBC radio presenter Jim Naughtie. (The Telegraph)
Mark Zuckerberg’s new goal is creating artificial general intelligence. (The Verge)