During the month of June, Upgrade Media had the privilege of speaking with several leading figures in the news industry: executives, strategists, innovators. Each shared their unfiltered concerns about the threats facing our sector and the paths they have chosen to respond to them.
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Survive, thrive, or melt away
Conversations with the media pioneers from sources as varied as The Times, and Mediapart, Le Monde and Mediahuis exposed a wide range of concerns, and strategies to adapt to them. On the face of it the themes covered a wide range, with AI and audience retention recurring. On closer inspection, however, there was a huge amount of common ground, with industry leaders recognising the threat of AI, but also its potential as a tool to deliver quality content, and in so doing encourage loyalty and work to higher ARPU.
It means nothing less than redefining our role, and with it the KPIs we use to define success. The chase for clicks is over. Harvesting eyeballs is for the AI slop suppliers. Advertising models have been turned on their heads. Attention, retention, and loyalty are the absolute goals, and AI is to be understood and exploited so that it best contributes to those goals. Upgrade Media will be publishing a range of themed videos from those interviews on the website, and announcing when they are available, but in the meantime here, in a nutshell, are some of the key take-outs.
We will be publishing the video highlights from each of the speakers in our Media Pioneers series, but in the meantime here are a few of the highlights:
- Edward Roussel (Head of Digital, The Times & Sunday Times) tells us the whole ecosystem has to be rethought to maximise engagement. Subscribers who visit more than ten times a month stick with you. Full stop.
- Cécile Sourd, Mediapart’s DG, also declared engagement to be the be-all and end-all, with some proven advice on how to make exchanges matter.
- Liesbeth Nizet, Strategic Business Leader at Mediahuis explained why developing a younger audience is a tactic for survival, but one that will only work if the entire organisation is committed to it.
- Lou Grasser, Chief Digital Operations Officer at Le Monde pointed to ARPU as the strategic compass for a publication, not just a revenue metric.
- Jean-Nicolas Baylet, Directeur General of group La Dépêche du Midi talked of shaking off the nostalgia for old-style news and focussing on recontextualising.
- Journalists/commentators including Emmanuel Parody, Philippe Laloux, Fabrice Frossard, and Benoit Raphael were frank and up-front about their experiences of AI and its concrete implications in journalism.
Which adds up to a wide range of talking points, and yet ultimately often very closely aligned conclusions about the essential next steps for news publishers if they are going to survive and thrive in tough times ahead.
We will be going into detail with their learnings, predictions, and conclusions, available in video, audio, and a series of upcoming newsletters, all from the new site at Upgrademedia.fr
About Upgrade Media: Upgrade Media is a creative agency, strategy consultancy, training center and media transformation think tank, through its brand New World Encounters.
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