The Publisher Podcast by Media Voices

In the last episode of this season of The Publisher Podcast from Media Voices, we're bringing you a panel from our last Publisher Summit, all about strategies for converting newsletter readers into paying subscribers. This panel featured Henry Seltzer, Director of Newsletter Operations at Bloomberg, Joshi Herrmann, Founder at Mill Media, and Rosie Percy, Newsletter Strategy Director at Hearst UK, moderated by Chris Sutcliffe. Henry, Joshi and Rosie explored tips and tools used to convert free newsletter subscribers to a paying product, from testing and optimisation to campaigns and messaging. Early Bird booking for this year’s Publisher Summit is now open. We’ll be holding the Summit on July 8th at a really cool venue near Paddington in London, with a single main stage focused on direct-to-audience product strategies. If you’re specifically interested in newsletters or podcasts though, we’re shaping the agenda so you can sit on a relevant main stage session, then step out for dedicated workshops, so there will always be something valuable to get involved with. The Summit will take place before the Publisher Podcast and Newsletter Awards in the evening, both of which are now open for entries. More details about tickets, entering the Awards, and all this at voices.media/events.

Welcome to this special season of The Publisher Podcast, bringing you the best sessions from the Definitive AI Forum for Media, Information and Events, which we held with Flashes & Flames in London. This week’s episode features Alex Roth, Strategy Director for Informa Plc the second biggest B2B company based in the UK, and the biggest B2B events business in the world.  Alex spoke about how Informa is focussing on how AI can improve ways of working, product development, especially around data insights, and how it supports discovery, helping Informa’s audiences find and access content.     He spoke about redesigning processes to incorporate AI has driven progress, the development of an internal app store and an app builder agent to avoid overloading the company’s central AI team, and how focus is the key to taking on AI.  Read the key takeaways from this session, find our weekly newsletter and more on voices.media

Welcome back to our special season bringing you the best sessions from the Definitive AI Forum for Media, Information and Events, which we held with Flashes & Flames in London. This week we’re featuring a panel looking at whether AI is a golden opportunity for exhibitions and events organisers. This featured Greg Hitchen, CEO of Terrapinn, Alison Jackson, Group MD at Nineteen Group, Robin Booth, Managing Director at EMAP, and Robin Tapp, CIO at RX, interviewed by Flashes & Flames’ Colin Morrison. The panel discussed AI’s role in enhancing face-to-face interactions and improving efficiency, as well as its use in revenue generation, leveraging metadata, and matching buyers and sellers.  Read the key takeaways from this session, find our weekly newsletter, AI Masterclasses and more on voices.media

Sue Macmillan, CEO of Mumsnet and architect of its AI strategy, discusses how the 25-year parenting forum uses AI to extract real-time audience insight. She explains building MumsGPT, creating 100+ custom GPTs and using AI to sharpen pitches, dashboards and management practices. Sue likens AI to an electric bike and outlines future product and legal challenges.

Danny Groom, CEO of DMG Media, leads digital strategy and AI-driven product innovation. He talks about shifting fear to opportunity with AI. He describes DMG’s AI innovation team and practical experiments in personalisation and dynamic paywalls. He outlines how personalised targeting could reshape publishing, the role of print, editorial safeguards, and connecting innovation to the wider business.

Sajeeda Merali, CEO of the PPA, on publishers coordinating against bot scraping. Amir Malik, AI and digital transformation lead with media and Google experience, on marketplaces, commercial strategies and retraining risks. Tami Hoffman, Director of Public Policy at The Guardian, on regulation, copyright and balancing open access with protection. They discuss scraping, licensing frameworks, platform power and verifying human traffic.

Jon Slade, CEO of the Financial Times, steers subscriptions, licensing and AI strategy at the FT. He frames AI as part of broader disruption that reconnects publishers to strong journalism and brands. He discusses preferring direct corporate licensing, monetising archives into predictive data products, and experimenting with consumer AI features like summaries, translations and AskFT.

Stuart Forrest, Global Audience Director at Bauer Media Group, uses AI for SEO and audience growth. Tom Jackson, EVP/CTO at News UK, builds AI-enabled platforms to scale journalists. Carola York, MD of FT Specialist Europe, embeds AI across product and editorial. They discuss AI tools in workflows, boosting productivity across editorial, sales and subscriptions, platform integration, safety and measuring ROI.

Welcome back to this special season of The Publisher Podcast, bringing you the best sessions from the Definitive AI Forum for Media, Information and Events, which we held with Flashes & Flames in London at the end of last year. This week features Toby Wiseman, MF for  Content at Hearst UK,  speaking with Flashes & Flames’ Colin Morrison, about what AI means to the magazine publisher. Toby talked about Hearst’s efforts to get staff on the same page with AI, making them more comfortable with the technology through an AI amnesty, regular training sessions and an AI policy. He said AI should be invisible and was clear that there was no place for publishing AI-generated content. He did however see a powerful role for AI in optimising content discovery and audience engagement, restoring the link between content and communities. Read the key takeaways from this session, find our weekly newsletter and more on voices.media  

Welcome back to our special season bringing you the best sessions from the Definitive AI Forum for Media, Information and Events, which we held with Flashes & Flames in London at the end of last year. This week we’re featuring a panel discussion on how AI is reshaping B2B data and information companies. On the panel - moderated by Chris Duncan of Seedelta - were Piers North, CEO at Reach Plc, Henry Faure Walker, CEO at Newsquest, Emily Shelley, CEO, PA Media Group and Joanna Levesque, Managing Director at FT Strategies. On the panel - moderated by Natasha Christie-Miller - were Dean Curtis, CEO at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Nicola Tillin, EVP of Lions Intelligence, Christopher Gasson, founder at Global Water Intelligence, and John Barnes, Chief Digital Officer at William Reed. The panel discussed a variety of approaches to partnering and licensing content to AI companies, balancing this with protecting IP and value, and ways AI is being used to enhance products for both small and large B2B players. The panel also shared how they’re using AI internally, and where others can get started. Read the key takeaways from this session, find our weekly newsletter and more on voices.media