Without advertisers, news media will fall short on much-needed evolution [Video]

With advertisers hesitant to invest in the news in the name of brand safety, these titles will be starved if the capital needed to get ahead of the AI innovation curve. The Drum’s Gordon Young issues an industry-wide warning.

Last night (Tuesday, October 8) in New York, Stagwell’s Future of News event provided a sobering yet hopeful snapshot of the media landscape.

It featured input from leading news organizations, all rallying behind the importance of funding quality journalism. But the data shared in a joint report was clear: overly cautious media buying is starving the news industry of the ad revenue it desperately needs, and this poses a threat not just to journalism, but to civil society itself.

A key takeaway from Stagwell’s study, which surveyed nearly 50,000 US adults, is that brand safety concerns are largely misplaced. The research found that ads placed next to politically sensitive stories, including topics like inflation or crime, perform as well as those next to traditionally “safe” content like sports or …

Tags Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Innovation Culture, Innovation Leadership