Abba Newbery, News UK’s Commercial Director of Strategy discusses the future of news brands and the scale of transformation since the start of the century.

In 2000 news brands were very much defined by their medium – it was paper versus pixels.  Too many people believed internet upstarts would never challenge the might of the print incumbents and, as a result, too little planning and too little innovation took place. The result: the industry suffered as it rushed to adapt to the new realities.

That said, it’s hard to remember now but, at the time, the ascendancy of the internet wasn’t a given.  The irrational exuberance of the first DotCom boom encouraged many to believe that it was just a flash in the pan and, if they could just sit it out, everything would go back to normal. We know now and, as an industry we’ve changed to recognise the new world in which we live.

Our brands today are many things – they’re still print, and will remain so for some time yet, but they’re also web, they’re video, they’re social, they’re membership organisations, they’re free and they’re paid for. Ultimately though, the core concept of a strong news brand remains constant.

The first is the unique relationship that readers have with a news brand. The length of the relationship lasts longer than the average length of a marriage in the UK (12 years apparently).

Secondly, its great content - in our case that’s content worth paying for, because if it isn’t then it’s not a business.

Finally, we believe that it is curation.  It’s not an unending stream of unedited information, it’s a curated collection of the things you need to know, presented in a tone and a format that helps you to understand it in your terms.

I wish I could predict what our news brands will look like in 2020, but I do think it’s vital that, in order to remain relevant, we understand what it is that’s unique about our brands and focus on that to maintain and build on their position. That understanding will allow us to continue to innovate and extend in any number of directions.  The core might be about news, but it can also support exclusive video content, membership clubs, digital communities, special offers – and any number of consumer interactions.