Slate: ‘Apple News Is Giving the Media Everything It Wants — Except Money’

Will Oremus, writing for Slate:

Launched to rather tepid fanfare three years ago, Apple’s mobile news app has recently surged in popularity and influence, if publishers’ traffic figures are any indication. Sources at several news outlets say they’ve seen their audience on Apple News multiply in 2018 alone. Some now say it has become one of their top traffic sources, alongside Facebook and Google. At Slate, which disclosed its data for this story, page views on Apple News have roughly tripled since September 2017, and the app recently surpassed Facebook as a driver of readership. […]

The Information reported in February that there were days when Vox got half of its daily traffic from Apple News. Business Insider reported in May that Vice’s Apple News traffic had more than doubled in the past year. Digiday reported in January that ABC News had more than 400,000 people signed up for its alerts on Apple News.

Mother Jones, meanwhile, has seen a 400 percent leap in Apple News audience since last September, said Ben Dreyfuss, its editorial director for growth and strategy. The spike began in the first few months of 2018, he added, when readership doubled in consecutive months.

The catch: no one seems to be making any money from this traffic.

★ Wednesday, 26 September 2018