Nieman Foundation at Harvard
HOME
          
LATEST STORY
BREAKING: The ways people hear about big news these days; “into a million pieces,” says source
ABOUT                    SUBSCRIBE
June 24, 2014, 10 a.m.
Business Models
LINK: www.youtube.com  ➚   |   Posted by: Joshua Benton   |   June 24, 2014

Watching the United States’ down-and-up-and-down draw against Portugal Sunday night, I was surprised to see an ad for The Times of London:

(That’s actually a U.K. version of the ad — the end-of-ad trial-subscription pitch I saw was for $1 rather than £1, if I recall correctly.)

A World Cup television audience is likely to be more Anglophile and internationalist than, say, the audience of Pretty Little Liars. But I’m unaware of any other instances where a non-American newspaper has bought a television ad aimed at an American audience. (The Guardian would be the only other likely candidate, but they don’t have a paywall to sell as The Times does. And a notional Daily Mail TV ad would just be 30 seconds of screaming, I guess.)

I emailed Katie Vanneck-Smith, chief marketing officer for News UK, and she told me that the ad is part of a broader international trial the newspaper is running. (It had previously run during some other World Cup games, including England’s ignominious performances.)

A British daily winning a Pulitzer Prize; everyone launching new editions in India and Australia; American newspapers chasing growth around the world; a U.K. tabloid gaining huge audiences in America — it’s another noteworthy marker of how much more globalized the English-language news business has become.

Show tags
 
Join the 60,000 who get the freshest future-of-journalism news in our daily email.
BREAKING: The ways people hear about big news these days; “into a million pieces,” says source
The New York Times and the Washington Post compete with meme accounts for the chance to be first with a big headline.
In 1924, a magazine ran a contest: “Who is to pay for broadcasting and how?” A century later, we’re still asking the same question
Radio Broadcast received close to a thousand entries to its contest — but ultimately rejected them all.
You’re more likely to believe fake news shared by someone you barely know than by your best friend
“The strength of weak ties” applies to misinformation, too.