The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices

In this bonus episode of The Publisher Podcast, sponsored by Memberful, we hear from Jen Matichuk, Strategic Partnerships Manager at Memberful.

Jen spoke about how membership is a powerful way to diversify revenue, whether you need to introduce membership tiers (spoiler: you don't), and how to deliver value that converts.

She also explores the value of community, and why evolution and iteration are key for retention.

This episode o...

On this week’s episode of The Publisher podcast we hear from Alex White, Group Managing Director for Immediate Media’s Knowledge portfolio which includes BBC Gardeners' World, BBC History and Immediate’s parenting business, MadeForMums.

We spoke about the benefits that come from the company’s focus on publishing verticals, how the magazine publisher is bringing a culture of innovation into the business by giving staff the space to ...

In this episode of The Publisher Podcast we hear from Sam Baker, Senior Producer of Deutsche Welle's award-winning podcast Don't Drink The Milk. She takes us through the appeal of documentary and narrative podcasts, how the team is experimenting with video and AI, and how overlapping interests allows DW to find new audiences for its audio.

And, of course, we discuss where the title 'Don't Drink The Milk' originates from. It's a fas...

On this week’s episode of The Publisher Podcast we hear from Marissa Zanetti-Crume,  Bloomberg Media’s Global Head of Product. Marissa talks about how her product team are collaborators, integrating content, technology, and commercial considerations.

We also spoke about Bloomberg Media’s newsletter strategy and how its 70-strong newsletter portfolio is a mix of subscriber exclusives and free newsletters positioned to deliver both r...

This week on The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices, we're joined by Tav Klitgaard, Group CEO of Zetland Media. As well as news publication Zetland, the Danish company also has a book publishing business, an AI transcription startup, and has recently launched a Finnish publication called Uusi Juttu, which has attracted 15,000 paying members within the first two months.

Tav discusses the importance of designing products to address us...

In this week’s episode of The Publisher Podcast, Metro.co.uk’s Newsletter Editor Sophie Laughton takes us through… everything newsletter.

From how the Metro’s redesign allowed the newsletter team to break silos, through how they’re solving discovery issues, to what newsletters offer that no other medium can, Laughton provides an A-Z on newsletters for publishers.

This is both a newsletter strategy 101 and a rallying cry for what ne...

On this week’s episode of The Publisher Podcast we hear from Esther Newman, Senior Editor and Podcast Host at Women’s Running. Esther explains that a recent exercise to create a persona for the typical Women's Running reader led to the realisation that there were a range of audiences accessing the brand in a variety of ways.

While running is the banner that attracts readers to the brand, a whole host of women’s interests are what d...

On this week's episode of The Publisher Podcast we hear from Dan Russell, Reach Plc's Engagement Director (for short). Reach Plc achieved its best ever month for traffic in January, based in no small part on a social strategy that is tailored to each platform - and doesn't rely on chasing huge hits.

The teams across Reach's titles have also seen success in building communities on WhatsApp where, as Russell explains, the limited nat...

This week on The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices, we're joined by Press Gazette's Chief Commercial Officer Richard Jamieson. He takes us for a behind-the-scenes look at how the industry publication makes money, and the huge changes he's overseen in its commercial strategy over the past few years.

Richard outlines the opportunities he saw coming onto a well-respected B2B brand which previously had limited commercialisation but a r...

Live content is a crucial tool for publishers for attracting and retaining readers, especially younger audiences used to finding real-time information from social media. Publishers have an opportunity to add vital context and expertise compared to alternative sources.

This is the latest in our Media Briefs series of short, sharp sponsored episodes with senior executives from a vendor working with publishers to make their businesses...

This week on The Publisher Podcast we speak to Katie Vanneck Smith, CEO at Hearst UK. Katie's career spans The Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Telegraph, as well as co-founding Tortoise. In the two years since joining Hearst, the company has launched and revamped membership programmes for Elle, Good Housekeeping, Men's Health and Women's Health, and soon Prima and Runner's World.

Katie talks about subscriptions versus member...

In this bonus episode of The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices, Chris Sutcliffe, Esther Thorpe and Peter Houston take a look at what’s happened in the world of media in January. A bonus monthly wrap-up of key news is something new we’re trialling following feedback which said you missed the three of us together and our take on what’s going on.

Here we discuss the boost to publisher coffers from post-inauguration donations, the capi...

In this week's episode of The Publisher Podcast, we speak to Hannah Ballantyne, Senior Social Media Manager at Which?, a not-for-profit consumer-focused publication. Hannah contributed to a fascinating article in InPublishing late last year about steering the brand's debut on TikTok; a strategy which has won the team awards.

With the ongoing saga between platforms, publishers and politicians showing no signs of cooling, we had a ti...

This week on The Publisher Podcast we hear from Tim Huelskamp, CEO and co-founder of 1440, a daily curated newsletter that now reaches over 4 million daily readers. He tells us about finding white space in the newsletter market, the forecast for newsletter advertising, whether the claim to be ‘unbiased’ is a selling point for audiences, and what it means to be an employee-owned media organisation.

Tim was involved in the private eq...

We’re kicking off 2025’s first season of The Publisher Podcast by talking to Jim Bilton, Managing Director at Wessenden Marketing and Brandlab Research. Jim produces bimonthly research and updates on the business of content distribution through WessendenBriefing, and has decades of experience consulting for media businesses.

In this episode, we explore the standout publisher product trends from 2024, what publishers are investing i...

This episode of The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices – our last for this season – was recorded at the White Swan in Aldgate, London on November 27th in front of a live audience.

In the absence of our usual annual Media Moments report*, we took a fun look back at some of the pivotal publishing moments of the year, and what 2025 might have in store. The audience were invited to participate so we’re able to include contributions from...

In this week's episode of The Publisher Podcast, we hear from Emma O’Brian, SVP Strategy for Dow Jones. Everyone knows Dow Jones – or at least a few parts of its portfolio, even if they don’t know it as part of the greater organisation. But as the company moves from a portfolio-based business to a vertical-oriented publishing and information one, how is that impacting its back room strategy, and how it seeks new acquisitions?

The c...

This week on The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices, we're joined by Will Hayward, journalist, author and columnist specialising in Welsh politics. He also writes The Will Hayward Newsletter, which he relaunched in September after running it for nearly a year as one of Reach plc's Substack experiments, where it won Best Politics Newsletter at this year's Publisher Newsletter Awards.

Since going it alone, he's built up more than 3,00...

Third-party cookies aren’t going away any time soon, but many publishers have already reduced dependency on them as a revenue stream. As the landscape continues to shift, what should publishers looking towards the longer term be thinking of when it comes to their own data strategies, and how can various types of first-party data play a part?

This is the latest in our Media Briefs series of short, sharp sponsored episodes with a sen...