Today is an interesting day for homepages. Sorta.
I went to bed last night not knowing who won Time’s Person of the Year; it was a choice between Dr. Anthony Fauci and frontline workers, President Donald Trump, President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, and the movement for racial justice. If I were a betting man, I would have gone with the people trying to save lives. I would have lost.
Biden and Harris were bestowed the honor. Though it took a moment to learn after I went to Time’s homepage, because you see, I was greeted with a curious house ad:
(Of course, I could have just gone to my own personal homepage of the internet, Twitter, to see who was named POY but I deleted my social apps from my phone this week as an experiment to see how addicted to them I truly am; turns out, a lot!)
NBC News today is devoting its homepage to the only story that matters: the coronavirus. It’s a dark reminder of how, as NBC News puts it, “America gave up.”
There aren’t any ads, or stories that take you all over the place (you can get to the NBC News standard homepage that is basically a portal by clicking through at the bottom).
Instead, it’s 10 pieces that, according to sources, balanced what people would want to know and what could break through. So we get an explainer piece on the vaccine to an opinion piece by Alyssa Milano.
The result of a multi-team collaboration, the homepage went through different iterations before ending up as it is today, according to a source with knowledge of how this project came to be.
As someone who once worked on the business-side of NBC News, I’m surprised that ad sales didn’t get an ad unit on the page. As a reader, I’m glad there isn’t one there. But knowing how NBC News sales team values its homepage, I imagine it was a pretty good fight.
I reached out to NBC News to learn more about this, but haven’t heard back.
There used to be a time when a publication’s homepage was the most influential, and expensive real estate. But as time marched forward, and social platforms gave rise to various pathways to a website, the homepage lost its cultural cache. The pricing, however, remains high.
Which makes the Time homepage house ad even more notable for me, as the outlet has done what very few (if any) big time publishers have done: eliminated ads from its homepage. It’s a clean scroll with nary a display unit or banner ad, nor link to sponsored content.
It serves the reader, which is something publishers have typically not done with the homepage, at the expense of revenue. It’s a bold decision in a media climate where publishers scrape and claw for any advertising dollar.
(We talked in August about the powerful role of the circulation department of legacy magazine at the turn of the digital era, and how the homepage was a battleground between edit, sales and circ.)
The homepage is also good for showing people how different outlets cover an event.
Take today, for example, where major news about the FDA ‘clears a path’ for approving Pfizer’s Covid vaccine is splashed across the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal homepages.
However, Fox News is running, yet again, a conspiracy theory.
The Washington Post:
The New York Times:
The Wall Street Journal:
Fox News:
As subscriptions start to take hold of publisher models, I’m interested in learning how outlets address their homepages, but also curious if buyers still value them. I’m guessing yes, as this industry is run with a ‘mediocrity by necessity’ approach, and we’re basically this chicken, pushing buttons, day-in, day-out, without thinking what we’re doing.
Otherwise, publisher websites wouldn’t look the way they do, too-often an eye sore.
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Weezer, “Beverly Hills”
Some interesting links:
For inside dark media:
Who funds The Federalist? Finally, we know. (Exposed by CMD)
For in-housing:
P&G is taking more programmatic advertising buying in-house (Business Insider)
For streaming vs theatrical release:
WarnerMedia won’t cause an industry shake-up: Other studios unlikely to end theatrical window in 2021 (CNBC)
Disney’s jaw-dropping investor day (The Hollywood Reporter)
For lessons in publishing:
The Correspondent, De Correspondent’s English-language site, is shutting down on Dec. 31 (Nieman Lab)
Forget BuzzFeed and the Times, Vox Media chief Jim Bankoff wants to follow in Disney’s footsteps (Vanity Fair)
Trump’s Ruthless Band of Democracy Killers Deserve No Cushy Gigs (Daily Beast)
For platforms: