🗞️Neal's News Audience Explainer, Part 1
Breaking News: We're All Different!: Context Collapse #302
Each week, Context Collapse on Substack offers a smart read on the worlds of PR, marketing, advertising, and journalism. Welcome.
A bit of housekeeping first…
I’ve launched a LinkedIn edition of the newsletter as well. New issues of Context Collapse publish first to Substack and are published on LinkedIn a week later. Since we have plenty of readers on LI and Substack’s corporate leaders keep steering new readers into following our newsletter in their gated app instead of email subscribing, that just made sense…
I’m planning upcoming issues for August and September and want to write about interesting PR/marketing/advertising/journalism things. Are there parts of the industry or trends you’re curious about and would like me to write about? LMK in the replies.
And with that… let’s get into talking about news audiences.
The Five News Audience Segments and Why They Matter
If you work in journalism (and if you do, I feel sorry for you and may buy you a beer or coffee to share misery stories together!), you probably know about news audience segmentation.
Basically, here’s the thing:
It’s easy to classify people who consume the news into five or so groups.
These groups overlap.
Understanding how these groups consume the news helps media outlets succeed + makes sure the general public is better informed.
Understanding how these groups consume the news also helps advertisers, marketers and public relations teams make money.
For the sake of readability, I’m going to sort the general public into five very large buckets for this article. We’re going to use the widest possible definition of news—everything from the New York Times to current events TikTok to Substack newsletters to broadcast TV local news—and are going to work with the understanding that people frequently belong to more than one of these groups at the same time.
This week, we’ll tackle groups 1-3: The direct impact consumers, news junkies, and entertainment seekers. Read on below the fold.
But First… A Message From Neal
I have limited client availability this August and autumn 2024 + would love to work with your agency or in-house team. Per-project, day, or hourly rates available.
Group 1: Direct Impact Consumers
Direct Impact Consumers are the skin in the game crowd. These are people who are directly impacted by the news they consume in a visceral way.
To give one example, the C-suite at a major corporation better know what is going on in the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times (even if their employees read it for them).
Immigrants and people with cultural ties to a country at war or in revolution have very good reasons to keep track of both the overseas press and reporting from US outlets about the home situation.
An advertising creative director has very good reasons to stay on top of Ad Age and AdWeek; local residents curious about construction of a new mall or highway repairs have very good reasons to read their local newspaper or follow their local Facebook group.
This group serves up the most dedicated news consumers and follow the news with a specific industry or set of stories on the mind. They are the Google Alert and niche YouTube channel-following crowd.
News outlets cater to them with specific beat reporters and/or steady creation of relevant content, while advertisers can cater to them via targeted social media advertising and narrowcasted branded content.
Group 2: News Junkies
Most of us have a family member who constantly watches CNN or Fox News or a coworker who spends all their time on Twitter/X when they should be working.
These are the news junkies.
News junkies use current events as a way to stay connected to the wider world and to be part of a wider group. There is a Daily Show cinematic universe and a group identity among Barstool Sports readers and whole backchannel communities taking place around certain Substacks on Discord and TikTok. For these audiences, news scratches a communitarian and informational itch.
They are also an audience that’s large and easy to engage. News junkies will subscribe to your email newsletters and turn on notifications from your mobile app. They will serve as evangelists and the steady paid subscribers who won’t churn out and unsubscribe six months later.
For news publishers, catering to news junkies centers around timely and comprehensive news coverage that is easily shareable. For advertisers and PR firms, content that engages this audience and gets reactions from them is crucial.
Group 3: Entertainment Seekers
Some people aren’t paid up New York Times subscribers and love their local basketball team but don’t really follow Sportscenter or the ESPN app. But if someone sends them a link on Whatsapp or email, they will watch the hell out of it. And let’s not even talk about turning on TikTok or YouTube when they are bored.
These are the entertainment seekers.
For this group, the news is more something to consume during downtime than an ever-present portion of their lives. Content like celebrity gossip, strange news, sports clip, reality TV clips and <45 second video resonate strongly with this audience.
News publishers can target this group with shorter articles, shorter video, and value-oriented subscription opportunities. Advertisers can benefit with engagement-centered ad products for them and “sticky” content with viewers offering their email addresses or SMS mobile numbers in exchange for promotional material.
And next week, part 2…
About the author: Neal Ungerleider runs Chicago-based boutique comms strategy firm Ungerleider Works, which has developed strategy and content for clients including Google, SAP, and T-Mobile.