Welcome to The Addition, where I bring together tech, media and culture. It's been a busy week this week. If you want more on what is happening in British politics, check out the House of Comments podcast I co-present with Emma Burnell. It's another way to get the paid version of this newsletter too. If you sign up via Patreon, you get this newsletter, my co-host Emma's newsletter and the extra episodes at the bargain price of £5 a month. When Netflix announced an ad-supported tier it felt like a rubicon had been crossed, like some of the fundamental contract of that service and streaming in general had been broken. And now customers don’t seem to care According to Netflix's latest earning data, it has 277 million subscribers and its ad-supported plan members now make up more than 45% of signups in markets where it offers ads. Turns out people are happy with ads if they make things cheaper. In its letter to investors, the company said: We’re making steady progress scaling our ads business. Ads tier membership grew 34% quarter on quarter, and we’re building an in-house ad tech platform that we’ll test in Canada in 2024 and launch more broadly in 2025. Read the full article with a paid subscription. From the PodcastWho Won the Euro 2024 Media Matchup? - With Rob Rea Additional Conversations: Streaming the Olympics and Rebundling |
Charlotte Henry is a journalist and broadcaster who creates and runs The Addition newsletter and podcast; an award-winning publication looking at the crossover between media and technology.
Welcome to The Addition, where I cover the crossover between culture, media and sport. We all want to work on projects we're passionate about, but sometimes compromises need to be made. This is particularly true in the current media environment. Is there a way to turn that passion into profits and, therefore, a sustainable media business? Peter Houston from Media Voices and Magazine Diaries/Grub Street Journal comes back on the podcast to discuss it all. Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on...
Welcome to The Addition, where I cover the crossover between culture, media and sport. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the need for the WSL to get more competitive if it is going to maintain media interest. This weekend was very illustrative. The managers like to emphasise how difficult the league is. Tottenham's Robert Vilahamn called the WSL "crazy competitive" in a press conference on Friday. Chelsea boss Sonia Bompastor has said similar. However, only Vilahamn's team ended up in a...
Welcome to The Addition, where I cover the crossover between culture, media and sport. What's this? A newsletter on a Thursday? Yes! I thought that you might appreciate your second dose of independent media reporting and analysis earlier in the week, so I'm now going to publish on a Thursday instead of a Friday. Not that long ago, I revealed the strain hacks at Reach are under as their bosses impose ever more demanding targets on them. It’s all in the name of traffic. Of course. Since then,...