Reaching the next generation of news consumers in the online spaces they occupy has been the holy grail of media since I was one of that generation they were chasing all the way back when social media was new in the 2000s.
One of the latest attempts had its official launch party in December after a year in beta. The News Movement was founded by former BBC Head of News Kamal Ahmed and former Dow Jones CEO Will Lewis, the latter of whom has brought along a number of former colleagues.
Neither are the sort of ‘spring chickens’ their startup is setting out to reach, but their staff are. Across the 40-odd staff in New York and London, the average age is 24.
The News Movement (TNM) has raised $15m, and has partnerships with US newswire Associated Press (which is also providing office space) and also UK local news group National World which has invested $1.25m. In January, it acquired The Recount, which focuses mainly on political coverage conveyed through quick clips and sharp edits. What it paid was undisclosed, but The Recount had supposedly burnt through $31m in funding in just three years.
TNM’s rather grand mission is, according to its own website, to “provide the world with information people can trust – in the places they find the content they love.
It continues: “We are a pioneer of a new system of content creation and storytelling for the good of journalism, media partners, brands and the next generation of citizens and consumers”.
I have to admit I had largely forgotten about TNM since it first announced its intentions back in 2021. But then, despite being Very Online, I am far outside the 18-25 demographic it is targeting. So, I asked a millennial colleague to illuminate me.
The approach, according to this Gen Zer, has some key characteristics. It’s focussed predominantly on social media and video platforms as opposed to written media, and presents information in a simple, visual way. Its output also often includes more context for younger news consumers who might not have the broader knowledge of older audiences when it comes, for example, to the location and border countries of Ukraine.
Video and visuals are increasingly accepted as key to reaching younger audiences, but that isn’t so much an innovation as increasingly established best practice. TNM should be applauded for applying that, but it’s not quite as groundbreaking as some of the PR hype suggests.
The company says: “It’s not old media versus new media. The things that make us different are the way in which we focus our attention on trying to understand how people are consuming information today, where they’re doing it, and what that means. And that means that we’re on social platforms, which is why we’re social-first, and we try to take a look at the behaviours and the habits, and at the way in which things are consumed. That’s what really sets us apart. In terms of what we cover, we make sure that listening is first and foremost. So – rather than saying here’s a news agenda that we’re going to share with you – it’s thinking, what do these audiences actually care about? What do they want to be? What are they already actively talking about? What do we know that they will be interested in engaging with? So inviting them in.”
But just saying something is new and revolutionary doesn’t make it so. Social-first outlets such as Now This have been around since 2012 and, while there are certainly differences to what TNM is doing, it’s nowhere near as radical as the PR messaging suggests. But none of that means it’s not a sensible approach to reaching a Gen Z audience.
The focus on video and social is a no-brainer. Gen Z’s top online platforms are YouTube and TikTok, followed relatively closely by Instagram. And, along with millennials, about half of them in the US make purchases directly from social media.
Kamal Ahmed has acknowledged the dangers of becoming beholden to platforms you have little control over, and it’s easy to see a US ban on TikTok, for instance, causing a lot of problems. But he’s also right when he says that that’s where his audience currently are.
The question, of course, is whether they can make any money. There appear to be no plans to run display ads. Instead, opportunities for brands are listed as sponsorship of verticals, newsletters and other output, custom content, events and “data and insights”. The latter looks like it will leverage both what the company learns from publishing to its audience and surveys.
In interviews, Ahmed has declined to speculate on profitability timelines, saying only that they need to “build the business” first.
All this does have some not entirely reassuring similarities to the efforts of BuzzFeed and Vice over the last decade. Vice, for instance, pitched itself as the true understander of the millennial generation, and built sponsored content verticals and an ironically-named advertising studio, Virtue. BuzzFeed for years hyped its data expertise, claiming that its skill at making editorial content go viral could do the same for branded content.
Though both burned quite brightly, generating hundreds of millions in revenue and plenty of high-quality journalism in the process, neither have panned out as planned. Following a pretty calamitous attempt to go public, BuzzFeed is worth a fraction of the $1.7bn of its onetime value. Vice’s own $5.7bn valuation seems an age ago and the company is reportedly having difficulty paying its bills.
A key difference, for TNM, however, is the broader media context. The desperate hunt for The Next Big Thing in media, the secret sauce that would unlock younger generations for brands, had led to unrealistic expectations and valuations that hindered the performance of the organisations that hovered up cash. Vice and BuzzFeed were treated almost like tech companies (and the latter often encouraged that perception). That willingness to support the hype, ultimately, made it even more difficult to meet investor expectations. The Fustian pact has proved to be err expensive.
The News Movement may be well-funded and talk a big game but, in the current climate both for media and the digital economy, the expectations are a lot lower and the appetite for investment is a lot smaller. That may just make it easier to build a business that succeeds at getting Gen Z to engage with news while helping advertisers talk to the next big hard-to- reach demographic.
With its $15m funding and 46 people, TNM – and its influential feel-good backing – might be able to fund a 2-3 year cash burn, even if early revenue disappoints. Just as long as Ahmed and Lewis have learned the painful lessons of Buzzfeed, Vice et al: forecast cautiously, keep staffing sensible, and conserve the cash. Wait and see.
