Interview: Carolyn McCall, CEO, Guardian Media Group: Coming To America
By Robert Andrews - Mon 17 Sep 2007 09:34 PM PST
The Guardian is planning a “stealthy” launch for its forthcoming U.S. online edition. In an in-depth interview with paidContent:UK, Guardian Media Group (GMG) CEO Carolyn McCall said GuardianAmerica.com, launching this month or next, would roll out gradually to target frustrated readers of domestic American news media.
- Transatlanticism: McCall said GuardianAmerica.com (which redirects to the UK site for now) is an effort to increase the loyalty of U.S. visitors, many of whom come to Guardian Unlimited via search: “We’ve got nearly six million users in the States without any effort ... If you’ve been exposed to the American media in the last five years, particularly since Iraq, you are getting a very one-dimensional perspective of the news. And I think that is why we’ve had so much success.”
- Redevelopment: McCall revealed The Guardian is half-way through a £15 million, 18-month web redesign project: “There are a lot of revenue streams behind video and audio. Even when you are investing, you can see there’s revenue attached to that everywhere you look.”
- Acquisitions: With a £675 million warchest from selling 49 percent of its Trader Media Group: “In The Guardian, we will look at things that we can acquire that will either escalate what they’re doing digitally or augment, improve what they do ... We will look at digital as well as other acquisition opportunities.” Though McCall is speaking with several unnamed potential targets, the group will cautiously seek “low-risk” buys that complement existing activities.
- Ownership: Thanks to The Guardian’s unique ownership by a trust, “we didn’t have to knee-jerk to please the city (during the dot.com crash) to say ‘yeah, okay, we’re cutting back’ ... We were able to take a long-term view and say ‘we believe in this ... we will keep investing in it’ although the short-term return was not visible.”
- Newsrooms: It is becoming “completely inappropriate” to consider the newspaper and website separately: “It’s going to be far more difficult to split the budgets out editorially”. But Guardian’s move to 24/7 rolling news next year will be conservative: “There is no point having lots and lots of different desks ... doing the same thing ... Our integration will be about how we get the most out of our resources.”
Much more in the edited transcript. Also, you can download the interview audio here (31 mins, 12.5 MB).
Posted in: Companies, Guardian Media Group, Media, Newspapers
