BBC licence fee deal, NYT’s new gen AI product – weekly news digest

The New York Times is working on a generative AI advertising tool it plans to debut next quarter, Axios reports.

“The new technology, which is being created internally at the Times, will deliver a recommendation for where an ad campaign could perform best based on its message or objectives”, Axios’ Sara Fischer writes. It will be able to target niche audiences based on the readers’ interests.

NYT has over 100 million registered users. Despite relying on subscriptions as the primary revenue stream, it also has robust advertising operations and has invested in growing first-party data for audience targeting. 

Existing ad-targeting solutions NYT offers “require advertisers to explicitly choose targeting criteria before their campaigns run, making it harder to optimize them instantaneously”, Fischer notes – something that the new tool would be able to improve.

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Director general of the BBC Tim Davie told a parliamentary committee that he is pleased with the new licence fee deal with the government, The Guardian reports.

The licence fee, a de-facto annual tax for UK citizens that forms the main source of the broadcaster’s funding, will rise by £10 from £159. That’s a lower increase than previously planned – a decision made by the government amid inflation and cost of living concerns – thus forcing the BBC to make cuts.

At the same time, the deal offers the BBC stability in the wake of the advertising market downturn. “Tim Davie has said he ‘welcomes’ the six-year deal as it insulates the corporation from the ongoing volatility in the market and guarantees four years of budget increases, as rivals tackle a severe downturn in the TV industry”, The Guardian writes.

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A new investigation by The Washington Post uncovered a large-scale disinformation campaign against Ukraine by the Kremlin. 

Based on a trove of over 100 internal Kremlin documents obtained by a European intelligence service, the investigation details how the Kremlin has been running a covert disinformation campaign to undermine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian society. 

The goals of the disinformation campaign, likely one of many such operations, ways to lower approval ratings of Zelensky’s government and military command, sow public conflicts, and increase fear and anxiety amongst Ukrainians.

While this campaign in particular and Russian disinformation efforts more broadly have largely failed in achieving their aims so far, “with [commander-in-chief] Gen. Zaluzhny now out, the front lines frozen and further military and financial support from the United States uncertain, some in Kyiv are concerned that Russia’s covert propaganda efforts could begin to erode national cohesion and morale”, The Washington Post writes.

Source of the cover photo: Stéphan Valentin for Unsplash

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