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Sam Guzik has a warning for TV news groups that have left their websites and apps gathering dust as they’ve channeled all their digital energy into streaming and FAST: Do so at the peril of losing one-to-one relationship prospects with audiences.
“It is increasingly urgent for publishers to own the connection they have with their audience,” says Guzik, senior director of product for New York Public Radio, the umbrella organization for NPR affiliate WNYC, classical station WQXR and Gothamist, a local news digital site.
“When publishers are at the mercy of platforms, whether they’re search or social platforms, we are always an algorithm change away from not being featured, from not being able to reach the audience,” he says. He points to Facebook pulling news off its platform in Canada in 2023 as a tectonic example of such audience cleaving. “It didn’t impact Facebook usage, and it tremendously impacted distribution of news in Canada,” he notes.
Guzik, who led a major reboot of WYNC’s app earlier this year and is currently doing the same for its website, says the stakes for user experience (UX) have risen dramatically, and the fundamental relationship news organizations have with their consumers is in the balance. Apps and websites remain major platforms to keep consumers tethered, build trust, loyalty and habitual use and to convert all of that into revenue, especially as generative AI promises another step change in how we consume media and news is once again threatened with getting left behind in the revolution.