On Thursday afternoon, people from every corner of the industry descended on Linseed House at The Grounds of Alexandria for the 2023 Independents Day Upfront. The event highlighted how independent publishers are important platforms for brands, and drove home how none of it could be done without the trust of the audience.
Opening the session was Tim Duggan, chairman of the Digital Publishers Alliance (DPA). Duggan welcomed the guests, gave a brief history of the DPA, and rounded out by encouraging the room to vote for the future, not fear at the upcoming referendum.
Tim Duggan
Then joining Duggan on stage was Roya Lines, studio and strategy director at Broadsheet Media. The pair unveiled some of the findings of the recent Independents Say research, which surveyed 1300 people across 20 DPA publishers.
This year, the Edelman Trust Barometer showed that in Australian businesses is down to 54%, trust in the Australian Government is down to 45%, and trust in Australian media is down to 38% – the sixth lowest trust score in the world. When replicating the study as a baseline, the Independents Say research found nearly identical results.
What Independents Say also found was that independent publishers were trusted by 76% of people, leading to a 58% trust gap between major media outlets and independents.
The final opening speaker for the afternoon was Will Hayward, CEO of Private Media. After giving the room a rundown of what life had been like during Lachlan Murdoch’s defamation case against Crikey, Hayward made sure to point out that the experience of fighting a major company in court was more than an “amusing tale.”
See Also: Crikey! Lachlan Murdoch pays $1.3 million to Private Media
Will Hayward
“It matters because Australia’s media is heavily controlled by a small group of people. Only two countries, Egypt and China, have more concentrated ownership of media. It matters because 259 media outlets, mostly in regional Australia, closed down between 2019 and last year. It matters because two companies own 72% of the market in print media in Australia,” said Hayward.
The theme of trust set the scene for the rest of the afternoon, with a series of publishers making their way to the stage to tell the room a bit about their masthead and why it’s so vital that their readers have faith in them
Each session had a tight six minutes to speak, before music wrapping up their presentation – Duggan joked that “We’re like the Oscars of publishing”.
Taking to the stage were representatives from titles like ausbiz, Avid, Broadsheet, Business News Australia, Concrete Playground, Executive Traveller, Kiindred, Limelight Arts, Man of Many, Pinstripe Media, Private Media, Region Media, Scout Publishing, Star Observer, The Daily Aus, The New Daily, The Sporting News, The Squiz, Time Out, Urban List, We Are Explorers, and Women’s Agenda.
Some used their time to make exclusive announcements, such as The Squiz launching the the News Club podcast and newsletter to be hosted by Kate Watson and Claire Kimball.
Concrete Playground’s Kristen Lazaric also announced Tastings Around Town, “coming to your city this Summer.”
Wrapping up the day was Luke Spano, managing director of Avid Collective, who spoke about the benefits of native content – going so far as to say that he believes it will one day be the world’s leading advertising channel.
The final announcement was the upcoming launch of 2.0, Avid’s new platform that works to make native content simpler, more scalable and more effective.
Luke Spano