Ad headwinds, optimism, film your podcasts: highlights from our NYC conference

Plus Daily Mail US editor on its partial paywall rollout and The Independent to launch an AI-powered news summaries site

Mar 21, 2025

Apologies for our absence last week: we hope you’ll accept a bumper edition as compensation.

Many thanks to those of you who made it out to Press Gazette’s Media Strategy Network USA conference in New York last week. For those of us unlucky enough not to attend, Dominic Ponsford and Charlotte Tobitt have distilled the event’s collective wisdom into three stories.

One of the two keynote speakers, Dotdash Meredith chief executive Neil Vogel, told attendees he’s bullish on the commercial prospects for the media, pointing to the company’s cookie-less advertising solution D/Cipher as evidence of revenue-powering innovation.

Associated Press senior vice president and chief revenue officer Kristin Heitmann meanwhile spoke about “concerning trends” in advertiser sentiment since the election despite an audience bump - a particular issue for the agency as it seeks to diversify its revenue streams away from content licensing.

And Dominic has rounded up ten big takeaways from the conference, including: film your podcasts, advertisers are still worrying about brand safety and “a legal shitstorm is going to hit the generative AI industry”.

While in New York Charlotte found some time to speak with Daily Mail US editor-in-chief Katie Davies as the publisher extends its premium paywall stateside. Having now spent time helping fellow British news sites The Independent and The Times to expand in the US, Davies has returned to the Mail with a particular appreciation for its loyal homepage audience. (The Sidebar of Shame continues to reign undefeated.)

And on the topic of The Independent, the publisher revealed this week that it is about to launch an AI-powered (but human-edited) news site for “time-poor audiences”. Brevity is certainly a way to sell complex news to people - but I’ll be interested to see whether people still trust it when they know AI is involved.

Have a great weekend.

Bron

Roundtable discussion at Press Gazette Media Strategy Network USA event in New York in March 2025. Picture: Press Gazette/Blaine Pennington

Brand safety woes continue and the coming storm on AI litigation

Ten golden nuggets from Press Gazette's Media Strategy Network USA conference in New York.

Read more

Publishers seeing ‘concerning trends’ from advertisers in current political cycle

“Pre-election, we saw people waiting on the sidelines a little bit to see what was going to happen… and I’d say, unfortunately, yes, we’re seeing some concerning trends in terms of advertisers waiting on the sidelines versus supporting the news industry right now.”

Read more

Dotdash Meredith CEO Neil Vogel: ‘If you make yourself essential, you will be fine’

“Why can’t we compete with all these other guys that are hoovering up money on the SSP side? We think we can.”

Read more

Daily Mail US editor: Reader loyalty is brand’s biggest asset

“The thing that I hadn’t quite appreciated from afar was how incredibly strong the Daily Mail’s loyal readers are, and how great a position it puts the brand in, because we’re not completely reliant on social and search like other websites are.”

Read more

Independent launching AI-powered news service for ‘time-poor audiences’

The Independent told Press Gazette the summaries will be no longer than 140 words long and will rewrite content either written for The Independent or provided by news agencies.

Read more