The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices

In the last episode of this season of The Publisher Podcast from Media Voices, we're bringing you a panel from our last Publisher Summit, all about strategies for converting newsletter readers into paying subscribers. This panel featured Henry Seltzer, Director of Newsletter Operations at Bloomberg, Joshi Herrmann, Founder at Mill Media, and Rosie Percy, Newsletter Strategy Director at Hearst UK, moderated by Chris Sutcliffe. Henry, Joshi and Rosie explored tips and tools used to convert free newsletter subscribers to a paying product, from testing and optimisation to campaigns and messaging. Early Bird booking for this year’s Publisher Summit is now open. We’ll be holding the Summit on July 8th at a really cool venue near Paddington in London, with a single main stage focused on direct-to-audience product strategies. If you’re specifically interested in newsletters or podcasts though, we’re shaping the agenda so you can sit on a relevant main stage session, then step out for dedicated workshops, so there will always be something valuable to get involved with. The Summit will take place before the Publisher Podcast and Newsletter Awards in the evening, both of which are now open for entries. More details about tickets, entering the Awards, and all this at voices.media/events.

Welcome to this special season of The Publisher Podcast, bringing you the best sessions from the Definitive AI Forum for Media, Information and Events, which we held with Flashes & Flames in London. This week’s episode features Alex Roth, Strategy Director for Informa Plc the second biggest B2B company based in the UK, and the biggest B2B events business in the world. Alex spoke about how Informa is focussing on how AI can improve ways of working, product development, especially around data insights, and how it supports discovery, helping Informa’s audiences find and access content. He spoke about redesigning processes to incorporate AI has driven progress, the development of an internal app store and an app builder agent to avoid overloading the company’s central AI team, and how focus is the key to taking on AI. Read the key takeaways from this session, find our weekly newsletter and more on voices.media

Welcome back to our special season bringing you the best sessions from the Definitive AI Forum for Media, Information and Events, which we held with Flashes & Flames in London. This week we’re featuring a panel looking at whether AI is a golden opportunity for exhibitions and events organisers. This featured Greg Hitchen, CEO of Terrapinn, Alison Jackson, Group MD at Nineteen Group, Robin Booth, Managing Director at EMAP, and Robin Tapp, CIO at RX, interviewed by Flashes & Flames’ Colin Morrison. The panel discussed AI’s role in enhancing face-to-face interactions and improving efficiency, as well as its use in revenue generation, leveraging metadata, and matching buyers and sellers. Read the key takeaways from this session, find our weekly newsletter, AI Masterclasses and more on voices.media

Welcome to this special season of The Publisher Podcast, bringing you the best sessions from the Definitive AI Forum for Media, Information and Events, which we held with Flashes & Flames in London. This week features an interview with Mumsnet CEO Sue Macmillan speaking about how the 25-year old parenting forum is harnessing AI to power stronger pitches, deliver more actionable insights to brand partners and tighten internal management procedures. Sue described how she has made her own custom GPTs, why she feels that for managers to understand AI they have to use it themselves, and how we need to see it more as an electric bike than a self-driving car. Read the key takeaways from this session, find our weekly newsletter and more on voices.media

Welcome back to this special season of The Publisher Podcast, bringing you the best sessions from the Definitive AI Forum for Media, Information and Events, which we held with Flashes & Flames in London. This week features an interview with Danny Groom, CEO of DMG Media, talking to Flashes & Flames’ Colin Morrison. Danny talks about the opportunities he sees with AI and personalisation, the importance of codes and communication, and what they’ve learned with their AI innovation team when it comes to connecting their work and ideas up with the rest of the business. Read the key takeaways from this session, find our weekly newsletter and more on voices.media

Welcome back to our special season bringing you the best sessions from the Definitive AI Forum for Media, Information and Events, which we held with Flashes & Flames in London. This week we’re featuring a panel discussion moderated by media consultant Paul Hood and featuring Tami Hoffman, Director of Public Policy at The Guardian; Amir Malik, AI & Digital transformation lead at consultants Alvarez & Marsal; and Sajeeda Merali, CEO, PPA. The panel was tasked with discussing how publishers should respond to AI models using copyrighted content and what regulatory, commercial, and strategic options exist. Paul began the session by laying out the topics under discussion - LLM’s taking content without permission or payment, whether content licensing marketplaces offer a solution, what action publishers should be taking to protect themselves and the impact of agentic AI and bot traffic on publishers who need human audiences. Read the key takeaways from this session, find our weekly newsletter, AI Masterclasses and more on voices.media

Welcome back to this special season of The Publisher Podcast, bringing you the best sessions from the Definitive AI Forum for Media, Information and Events, which we held with Flashes & Flames in London. This week features Jon Slade, CEO at the Financial Times, speaking with Seedelta’s Chris Duncan, about how the business information publisher is taking on the AI challenge. Jon talked about how he sees AI as part of a larger disruption that will force publishers back to the fundamentals of strong journalism and strong brands along with the development of new products. He spoke about the FT’s approach to licensing and the brands long-term focus on direct corporate deals rather than licensing to LLMs and the role of the FT’s archive in creating predictive intelligence products. Read the key takeaways from this session, find our weekly newsletter and more on voices.media

Welcome back to our special season bringing you the best sessions from the Definitive AI Forum for Media, Information and Events, which we held with Flashes & Flames in London at the end of last year. This week we’re featuring a panel discussion on how AI is changing - and will change - newsrooms and media content. On the panel - moderated by Esther Thorpe - was Tom Jackson, EVP/ CTO, News UK, Carola York, Managing Director, FT Specialist Europe, and Stuart Forrest, Global Audience Director, Bauer Media Group. We discussed how each of these newsrooms is using AI, and how these tools are helping editorial teams solve their own pain points, both pre and post publishing, as well as in other departments like sales, subscriptions and marketing. A common theme was that AI is being approached as a way to help journalists make the most of their talents and the content they produce, not replace it. We also explored what success looks like for newsroom AI projects, and how they’re feeling about the future. Read the key takeaways from this session, find our weekly newsletter, AI Masterclasses and more on voices.media

Welcome back to this special season of The Publisher Podcast, bringing you the best sessions from the Definitive AI Forum for Media, Information and Events, which we held with Flashes & Flames in London at the end of last year. This week features Toby Wiseman, MF for Content at Hearst UK, speaking with Flashes & Flames’ Colin Morrison, about what AI means to the magazine publisher. Toby talked about Hearst’s efforts to get staff on the same page with AI, making them more comfortable with the technology through an AI amnesty, regular training sessions and an AI policy. He said AI should be invisible and was clear that there was no place for publishing AI-generated content. He did however see a powerful role for AI in optimising content discovery and audience engagement, restoring the link between content and communities. Read the key takeaways from this session, find our weekly newsletter and more on voices.media

Welcome back to our special season bringing you the best sessions from the Definitive AI Forum for Media, Information and Events, which we held with Flashes & Flames in London at the end of last year. This week we’re featuring a panel discussion on how AI is reshaping B2B data and information companies. On the panel - moderated by Chris Duncan of Seedelta - were Piers North, CEO at Reach Plc, Henry Faure Walker, CEO at Newsquest, Emily Shelley, CEO, PA Media Group and Joanna Levesque, Managing Director at FT Strategies. On the panel - moderated by Natasha Christie-Miller - were Dean Curtis, CEO at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Nicola Tillin, EVP of Lions Intelligence, Christopher Gasson, founder at Global Water Intelligence, and John Barnes, Chief Digital Officer at William Reed. The panel discussed a variety of approaches to partnering and licensing content to AI companies, balancing this with protecting IP and value, and ways AI is being used to enhance products for both small and large B2B players. The panel also shared how they’re using AI internally, and where others can get started. Read the key takeaways from this session, find our weekly newsletter and more on voices.media

Welcome back to this special season of The Publisher Podcast, bringing you the best sessions from the Definitive AI Forum for Media, Information and Events, which we held with Flashes & Flames in London at the end of last year. This week features Christian Broughton, CEO at the Independent, speaking with Flashes & Flames’ Colin Morrison, about what AI means to the digital-only newsbrand. The Independent left behind its 30-year print history almost 10 years ago and seeing growth in revenue and profitability for the last eight years of its digital-only decade. Christian spoke about The Independent’s enthusiastic embrace of AI, and how it has used the development of its AI-powered news summary service Bulletin as a sandbox to experiment and ultimately bring AI into other areas of the business. Christian spoke about how more AI was allowing The Independent to be more human, do more with a relatively small team, free up reporters to extend its mission as a dogma-free platform for trusted information, and drive talent-led audience engagement. Read the key takeaways from this session, find our weekly newsletter and more on voices.media