Publishers hit back at the AI bots | Top 50 UK news websites monthly ranking
There was big news yesterday in the fight for the future of journalism as a coalition of major online publishers backed technology intended to keep out AI bots.
Dotdash Meredith and Time in the US as well as DMGT and Sky News in the UK are among the companies backing the Cloudflare technology.
Cloudflare is an internet hosting network and online security specialist which believes it can keep out unwanted website crawlers. It also has plans to charge the AI bots for access to websites on a pay-per-crawl basis.
Dotdash Meredith is the biggest consumer publisher in the US with brands such People, Verywell and Investopedia. Chief commercial officer Jon Meredith said: "From today, AI companies can’t take our content for free.
"AI runs on chips, electricity, and information. Chips and power are table stakes. But if you have the best inputs, you’ll have the best outputs. We’re one of the biggest publishers on earth, and we believe great content is at the heart of the future of AI.
"So as a first step, no one gets to take it for free."
Without quality input, generative AI answer engines are just recycling and regurgitating worthless online sludge. Journalists and the publishers who employ them are the real value creators and they need to get paid. Full story here.
Surrey Live, with its emphasis on health content targeted at Google Discover, grew 310% year on year and is now the 34th biggest news website in the UK with a monthly UK audience of five million according to Ipsos iris (about four times the population of Surrey).
In terms of engagement, Mail Online is the leading UK commercial publisher with 1.3 billion audience minutes in May compared with 785 billion minutes for The Guardian in second place.
Overall there is quite a lot of variability in performance between different sites.
But with two-thirds of news websites seeing year-on-year growth in May there is no sign yet that worst-case scenarios discussed at recent journalism conferences about Google zero and the death of the website are coming to fruition any time soon.
Facing rising adblock rates across its major brands like CBS Sports, CBS News, 247 Sports, MaxPreps, and others, Paramount implemented Admiral’s multi-site recovery solution with Smart Engage, time-based targeting, and real-time optimisation.
Highlights:
With tailored strategies for each property, Paramount turned adblock loss into sustainable growth.
“A game-changer for publishers and sets a new standard for how content is respected online. When AI companies can no longer take anything they want for free, it opens the door to sustainable innovation built on permission and partnership.”
Four Reach websites saw their audience at least double in the past year. The biggest of these sites was Examiner Live in Huddersfield, up 200.4% to reach 9.2 million people in May.
is consulting on the conditions it should impose for local news on radio under the new Media Act. It is proposing that some local news "must be locally-gathered, which will require journalists to be physically present in the relevant areas". (Ofcom)
LexisNexis legal news service has a new policy requiring every story to pass through an AI "bias" detection tool before publication. The newsroom union wants the "unproven" tool to be voluntary to use. (Nieman Lab)
has promoted deputy Thomas Hawkins to editor. (Press Gazette)
Douglas McCabe is stepping down after 12 years as CEO of Enders Analysis to join as chief strategy and business development officer. (Linkedin)
has promoted sales partner Luke Gough to the role of betting and gaming sales director as it grows revenue and its client base in the sector. Sun Originals videos have a new deal with Unibet and Paddy Power has signed with The Sun's football content for a third year.
Former editor-in-chief Lloyd Embley is joining the management team of PR stories marketplace Synapse, where he is already a shareholder and board member, as executive director. (Synapse)
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UK national news agency PA Media has massively ramped up its video output in recent years and is able to provide live video feeds of news events across the country. Here PA head of video Joe Pickover explains how publishers can make video work for them in a podcast edition which is presented by Press Gazette in association with PA Media.
