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 News From You
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Week ending May 21, 2016
Ad blocking has caught the attention of news publishers the world over, serving as a wakeup call about how to improve the overall online user experience. That is just one of the key findings in a just-published WAN-IFRA research report on the contentious topic, and that will be presented at the World News Media Congress next month in Cartagena.
The 76-page report, “Ad Blocking: The implications and strategies for news publishers”, is the industry’s most comprehensive research to date on ad blocking, and is the culmination of WAN-IFRA’s broad initiative on the topic that began last summer when the global association brought together some of the leading publishers, associations, tech companies and more to address this growing threat.
“There was a clear agreement then among everybody ‘around the table’ that this was an increasingly critical matter to address collectively,” said Vincent Peyrègne, CEO of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. “This eventual global task force helped us to guide the work we needed to carry out, with the report being one natural and very necessary outcome of this effort.”
In December WAN-IFRA announced a Global Ad Blocking Task Force, comprised of publishers in Europe, North America and Asia, and supported by WAN-IFRA, which will operate as a knowledge center for publishers to share best practices, and facilitate discussion among other international trade bodies, stakeholders. It will act as a unifying voice, with the task of supporting the industry on both global and local levels.
That type of high-level discussion will take place as well at WAN-IFRA’s annual World News Media Congress from 12 to 14 June in Cartagena, Colombia. On the final day of the event, Ben Shaw, WAN-IFRA’s Director of Global Advisory who is the association’s topic champion on ad blocking, will answer some of the hard questions that publishers have regarding this complex issue.
“We didn’t set out to provide one clear solution to this growing problem, but to identify, examine and share best-practice among global publishers, to raise awareness, to offer some guiding principles, and to continue to engage with all parties involved and closely monitor the issue,” said Shaw of the task force. “The report offers excellent insights to the numerous issues surrounding ad blocking, and some common recommendations about how publishers should tackle the topic.”
With AdBlock Plus announcing just this week that it now has 100 million active installations (double what it claimed in January 2016), ad blocking is clearly an ongoing and growing threat for news publishers.
“The majority of ad blockers are truly engaged, and they want to improve the site. They don’t want to block the site, but they are trying to make us understand why they are doing it,” says Elnaz Esmailzadeh, Head of Commercial for VG TV in Norway, one case study featured in the report.
Through nearly a dozen case studies, the report examines how some publishers are already taking action on ad blocking. This includes a variety of publisher approaches, from individual titles taking action, including London-based City A.M., to groups, such as Axel Springer, as well as national approaches, such as an initiative by Swedish publishers, as well as one in the Netherlands, both of which are working with their national chapters of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).
Here are just five key learnings from the report:
Ad blocking use continues to grow, so publishers must take action
The most effective solution is likely to include a variety of actions, such as to improve the overall ad experience for your users who are not using ad blockers
Publishers should focus on mobile-ready advertising opportunities that diversify online
Many publishers have already started experimenting with a variety of approaches to ad blocking users.
For all the talk of data, readers are actual people. If publishers are going to stop more people from resorting to ad blocking, everything must flow from this – trust.
In line with this last learning, the report also addresses the vital issue of users' rights and privacy, which could legally limit what publishers in some countries are allowed to do, even in determining whether a visitor to their website has ad blocking software installed.
The Public Commission for Media Complaints found a program broadcast by Russian national television network NTV, one of the main vehicles of state propaganda, attacking MDIF and Russian independent media as “unsubstantiated and false”.
“Debtors of the State Department” triggered outrage in the Russian media community when it was broadcast on 4 March. It described MDIF as an agent of the U.S. State Department and accused independent media of being mouthpieces of U.S. foreign policy.
The Russian Union of Journalists and other major professional associations protested the program’s distortion of the truth. In a joint statement, the Alliance of Independent Regional Publishers (ANRI), the Guild of Press Publishers (GIPP), the Association of Printed Press Distributors (ARPP) and the Alliance of the Managers of the Regional Media (ARS-PRESS) said: “We are outraged by the fact that the program ‘Debtors of the State Department’ masquerades false facts as investigative journalism. We believe that such manipulation of information discredits our profession.”
MDIF clients whose reputation was damaged by the program applied to the Public Commission for Media Complaints, requesting it to provide a professional assessment of NTV’s conduct. After a hearing on April 28, the Commission concluded (read the findings here in Russian) that: “This unsubstantiated and false NTV program causes reputational damage not only to specific media companies, but also to the Russian media community as a whole, presenting reputable regional media companies, which have operated in the market for many years, as a tool of manipulation from abroad. This program is detrimental to Russian society and the state, and worsens the already heated atmosphere in society, pushing its television audience to look for mythical internal enemies.”
Ukraine has won the 61st Eurovision Song Contest with the song "1944" performed by Jamala.
26 countries took part in the Grand Final of the world s longest running annual television music competition, hosted by EBU Member Sveriges Television (SVT) on Saturday 14 May in Stockholm, Sweden
Jamala also wrote her haunting song "1944" . She finished the night with 534 points, 23 points ahead of 2nd placed Australia represented by Dami Im singing "Sound of Silence". Russia finished in third place.
A new voting system was introduced for the 2016 competition which saw each country award two sets of points. The results of 42 national juries who voted on Friday s dress rehearsal were given first.
This was followed by an exciting sequence where viewers televotes for each competing country were combined and added to the scoreboard resulting in a thrilling finale that saw Ukraine jump to the top of the scoreboard to be declared the winner.
It is the second time that Ukraine has won the event which has been staged annually since 1956. Ruslana took the title for the country in 2004. An estimated audience of 200 million viewers watched the Grand Final which was broadcast live in the 42 participating countries and in China, Portugal, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and New Zealand.
Viewers in the United States also saw the Grand Final live for the very first time on LogoTV.
The 26 finalists performed live in front of an audience of 10,000 inside the Globe Arena in the Swedish capital. In total, 42 EBU Members competed in this year s Eurovision Song Contest. 16 nations were knocked out in two Semi-Finals held on 10 and 12 May.
9-times Grammy award winning singer Justin Timberlake performed his new single "Can t Stop The Feeling" during the interval between performances and voting.
The Director General of the EBU Ingrid Deltenre said, "We congratulate Jamala and Ukraine on their win. Tonight we have seen 26 artists who have celebrated their diversity... this event is a signal for openness and tolerance and we are very proud of that."
EBU Media Director Jean Philip De Tender said about the event: "You forget about politics at the Eurovision Song Contest. It's about fun; it's about uniting countries with a single live television event."
Around 15,000 people, across the whole city of Stockholm, were accredited to work on the event at on the day of the Grand Final. In total 150 tonnes of technical equipment and over 30 cameras were used inside the Arena to bring the show to the millions watching around the world.
Over 1,500 journalists from 80 countries were also in the host city Stockholm to cover the event.
The 61th Eurovision Song Contest was broadcast live in the 42 participating countries by EBU Members: ORF (Austria), PTV (Armenia), RTSH (Albania), ICTIMAI (Azerbaijan), BTRC (Belarus), VRT (Belgium), RTBF (Belgium), BHRT (Bosnia-Herzegovina), BNT (Bulgaria), HRT (Croatia), CyBC (Cyprus),
T (Czech Republic), DR (Denmark), ERR (Estonia), YLE (Finland), GPB (Georgia), ARD (Germany), ERT (Greece), MTV (Hungary), R⁄V (Iceland), RT… (Ireland), IBA (Israel), RAI (Italy), LTV (Latvia), LRT (Lithuania), RTCG (Montenegro), MRT (FYR Macedonia), PBS (Malta), TRM (Moldova), RTCG (Montenegro), AVROTROS (The Netherlands), NRK (Norway), TVP (Poland), RTR (Russia), SMRTV (San Marino), RTS (Serbia), RTVSLO (Slovenia), RTVE (Spain), SVT (Sweden), SRG SSR (Switzerland), NTU (Ukraine), BBC (United Kingdom) and Associate Member SBS (Australia).
19 EBU radio members broadcast the Grand Final live: PRA (Armenia), BNR (Bulgaria), HRTR (Croatia), ERR (Estonia), BR, NDR, RB, SR (Germany), RT… (Ireland), RAI (Italy), LR (Latvia), LRT (Lithuania), TRM (Moldova), RTVS (Slovakia), COPE (Spain), RTVSLO (Slovenia), SR (Sweden), NTU (Ukraine), and the BBC (United Kingdom). RFM radio in France also broadcast the Grand Final live.
The 2016 Eurovision Song Contest was a co-production between the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and Sveriges Television (SVT).
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