Lianne Kerlin, BBC R&D, joins the NWE Product Development Series

Every week we inform our network about relevant developments around shaping profitable media products. In this week's newsletter we talk about:

⭐️ Lianne Kerlin (Foto), Senior Research Scientist, BBC R&D and Kara Chiles, Vice President Consumer Products at Gannett, USA have recently joined the programme of our Product Development Series, starting on the 2nd of November. More.

Lianne Kerlin is the leader of the BBC R&D human values team and will talk about her work that puts audiences’ core values at the heart of shaping future media services.

Kara Chiles leads the consumer product management team responsible for the largest network of national news outlets of more than 200 properties. She is esponsible for full product lifecycle, strategic development and optimization of experiences for web, video, native apps, newsletters and voice and will give us valuable insights into the product developement activities at Gannett.

⭐️ How to Make a News Brand Fantastic Digitally, Interview with Edward Roussel, Head of Digital, The Times and the Sunday Times.

Edward joined The Times and the Sunday Times in May 2021 as Head of Digital. He has unashamedly ambitious goals for The Times as a world-beating digital brand. That includes the quality of the journalism and of the consumer experience across all devices. We spoke with Edward about his plans to change the way the Times commissions stories with a focus on three trends: visual journalism, live coverage and carefully thought-through distribution.

⭐️ The challenge will be ensuring sufficient quality of content to feed all channels, Interview with Jean-Nicolas Baylet, Managing Director of the La Dépêche du Midi Group.

Jean-Nicolas Baylet, Managing Director of the La Dépêche du Midi Group, draws up an economic and advertising report and shares his strategic vision with us. After a year and a half of struggle, La Dépêche du Midi Group will see its September 2021 turnover return to September 2019 levels. Despite a complex economic context, the group is continuing its development through several axes including the purchase and integration of ViàOccitanie, the doubling of its audience, the recruitment of digital subscribers and the launch of a new format for its newspaper on 1st October 2021. 

⭐️ A new format to accelerate digital-first, Interview with Lionel Laparade, editor in chief of La Dépêche du Midi.

As the title launches a totally revamped and more accessible digital format we ask how, and what comes next for a newspaper clearly going places.Interview with Lionel Laparade, Editor-in-Chief of La Dépêche du Midi – a title that has seen its digital audience soar by 95%.

⭐️ The Joy of Six - a Roundup of the News You Need to Know... Episode 3 , by Steve Shipside

We know you’re busy. So you haven’t always got time to look around at what’s happening in your own industry. Which is why we do it for you. In today's joy of six:

1. Subscription News Services are Making News

2. The New York Times takes a look at those digital news providers who don’t give their news away and hope for ad revenues, but instead rely on digital subscriptions

3. Local Ads are Where It’s At

4. Friend? Foe? Google Continues Courting Press: News Revenue Engine

5. The High and The Mighty. The rise and fall of the biggest English language news websites in the world.

6. Pandora Papers & Scaling Data Journalism - how journalists can make sense of a data dump stretching to 2.94 terabytes  – of which only 4% was structured.

Enjoy the newsletter,

Ioana & David