Here is a seminar that could prove fascinating: “The future for monetising digital content: trends, payment models and new avenues for growth.”
Fascinating in what sense, you ask. Well, fascinating because it’s the problem no newspaper has successfully cracked. Some do charge for access, but it doesn’t produce enough income to fund large editorial staffs.
That said, news is not the only material available on the net, of course. So some of the speakers due to attend the Westminster eForum event come from outside the news industry.
For example, one of the leading speakers will be Mimi Turner, marketing director of the Lad Bible group. It’s the social media site that has used the lads’ mags formula to build a large net audience. Turner, incidentally, was formerly PR for Express Newspapers.
The other main speaker will be Trevor Kaufman, chief executive of the Slovakian-based Piano Media, which organises paywalls, usually of the metered variety, for about 1,200 news providers across the world.
Others expected to attend are Chris Duncan, News UK’s chief customer officer; Greg Beitchman of CNN International; David Gilbey of Bauer UK; and Matthew Guest of Deloitte (the company that helped the Telegraph Media Group to cut staff... sorry, I mean, to restructure its newsroom).
The seminar will take place on the morning of 28 June, from 8.30 onwards, at the Royal Over-Seas League in London’s St James’s Street. The draft agenda can be found here.
If you want to go - and there is a hefty charge by Westminster eForum to do so - you can book here.
