James Harding’s slow news outlet Tortoise Media reported a loss of £3.8 million for 2023, down a bit from a loss of £4.6 million the year before. It looks like things might be getting worse…
Analysis of internet traffic on SimilarWeb shows a massive drop in Tortoise readership from 465,560 in January to 242,328 in March. A 48% decline…
A newsroom insider tells Guido that senior staff are taking their “eye off the ball” and internal numbers also show a circa 50% reduction in podcast listenership. Observer staff who haven’t resigned will have thoughts on that…
20% of the site’s traffic already comes from Guardian URLs. Once the takeover is complete The Observer will no doubt be aggressively plugging Tortoise articles. Not just slow news, low traffic news…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”
