The Huffington Post Pulls Back On Streaming Video; Traditional Pubs See Subscriber Growth

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Scaling Video Ambition

Vice may have spun a young reporting and video operation into broadcast gold, but the transition for other digital newsrooms into streaming or TV(ish) production has come up short. Yahoo and Time Inc. recently announced they would scrap their digital video hubs, and Mike Shields writes for The Wall Street Journal that the Huffington Post is pulling back on its streaming business, which has been live eight hours a day since 2012. According to Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington, “HuffPost will look to hire more people whose skills are geared toward producing social media-friendly video content.” More.

Legacy Value

A stable of digital news sites (Business Insider, Mashable, BuzzFeed and Gawker, for example) saw readership numbers stall in 2015. But the same isn’t true for all news media, as traditional publishers (like WaPo, Hearst, Condé Nast, Forbes and the WSJ) are seeing hand-over-fist online growth, Digiday reports. This is partly a simple law of numbers (sustaining a high rate of growth is hard when you’ve been growing fast), but there’s also been “a mindset change” within the print establishment, according to WaPo publisher Fred Ryan, “both toward having higher metabolism and a more digital DNA.” More.

Bell Tolls For Yahoo

There are still no on-the-record changes at Yahoo beyond Chairman Maynard Webb’s pronouncement that, “There is no determination by the board to sell the company or any part of it.” However, a Bloomberg reporting trio claims that rebellious investors and public pressure are undermining the internal consensus to spin off the company as much as one year in the future, which “could hasten a significant shift in the company’s thinking as it faces pressure from activist shareholders.” More.

Renewed Pinterest

In 2015 Pinterest surprised the ad industry by retrenching its sales force to focus exclusively on retail and CPG clients, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. In new comments to Business Insider, GM of monetization Tim Kendall explains the company’s reasoning. “Part of the logic was: Look, let’s go deep with the customers who we know are going to be successful on our platform because their content is so native on the platform, as opposed to spreading ourselves so thin that all of our customers feel like they’re not getting adequate service.” Now he says the company is ready to expand, carefully, into entertainment and financial services. Read it.

Vrooom

The usual frustration felt by auto dealers during election years is notably absent this year, Bloomberg reports. “There has always been tension in the past, especially in markets where the political contests are the hottest,” said Borrell Associates analyst Kip Cassino regarding auto advertisers, among the largest local TV advertisers who must contend every four years with higher rates and a shortage of inventory. But one dealership chain owner tells Bloomberg he doesn’t expect an issue because “[w]e have completed almost a complete transition to digital and only spend a very small part of our budget on TV.” More.

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