Media Insider: NYT Ends Third-Party Data, Spotify Signs Joe Rogan, The Atlantic Faces Layoffs

Welcome to Media Insider, PR Newswire’s round-up of media stories from the week.

AXIOS | SARA FISCHER
Exclusive: New York Times phasing out all 3rd-party advertising data

The New York Times is working toward a privacy-friendly experience by phasing out all third-party advertising data and building out its first-party data solutions. Starting in July, The Times will offer 45 new first-party audience segments to target ads. By the second half of the year, The Times plans to introduce at least 30 more interest segments. The segments will be broken up into categories such as age, income, business, demographic, and interest. Allison Murphy, Senior Vice President of Ad Innovation, recognizes how fortunate The Times is to have the following and manpower to build out its first-party data platform: “This can only work because we have 6 million subscribers and millions more registered users that we can identify and because we have a breadth of content.”

The Washington Post also announced its plan to move away from third-party data collection.

THE VERGE | ASHLEY CARMAN
Joe Rogan’s podcast is becoming a Spotify exclusive

Joe Rogan, comedian and host of one of the most popular podcasts in the world, has signed an exclusive, multi-year licensing agreement with Spotify. Starting September 1, full audio and video for all episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience will be available on Spotify globally. With the podcast bringing in 190 million downloads a month, this is a huge win for Spotify, which has made podcasting its main focus. Spotify hasn’t disclosed how much it spent on the deal, but experts predict the deal was worth more than $100 million.

In an interview, Bill Simmons discusses the future of The Ringer after being acquired by Spotify.

THE WRAP | LINDSEY ELLEFSON
The Atlantic Lays Off 68 Employees, Cuts Executive Pay

The Atlantic informed its employees that it was laying off around 17% of its workforce, which equates to 68 people. Like most media companies, The Atlantic attributed the cuts to the undoing of in-person events and decline in ad revenue brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Those laid off, accordingly, are largely from the events, sales, and editorial teams. In a staff email sent out Thursday, David Bradley, chairman of Atlantic Media, also mentioned that the remaining 83% of staffers would face “some sacrifice” in the form of pay cuts and no pay increases for the remainder of the year. Each employee that was laid off will receive a minimum of 16 weeks’ salary, health care coverage through the end of the year, job search support, and the opportunity to keep their work-issued laptop.

Related: Fresh Newsroom Cuts At Tribune Stir Mistrust As ‘Vulture’ Investor Looms.

THE VERGE | CHAIM GARTENBERG
Instagram adding Guides for recommendations, starting with wellness and COVID-19

Instagram introduced a new way to discover recommendations with a new tab called Guides. The Guides feature allows creators to curate a collection of topic-related content in a single location. In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Guides will first focus on wellness content from respected organizations and creators. For example, the mental health group Heads Together is using Guides to collect Instagram posts reminding viewers to be kind to each other, practice self-care, and talk about how they feel. Guides can be shared between users via Instagram Stories and direct message.

Twitter is testing giving its users the ability to select who can reply to their tweet.

NBC NEWS | NICOLE ACEVEDO
Two Latinas created Rolling Stone’s historic Bad Bunny cover, a first for the magazine

This week, Bad Bunny became the first Latin urban music artist to be featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. There also were two Latinas behind the cover story, making it even more historic. Rolling Stone’s Latin music editor Suzy Exposito became the first Latina to write a cover story for the magazine and Gabriela Berlingeri, a jewelry designer and Bad Bunny’s girlfriend, became the first Latina to shoot a cover photo for Rolling Stone. Due to the coronavirus, Berlingeri was recruited by Rolling Stone to document Bad Bunny’s days in quarantine on her iPhone in order to get photos for the upcoming issue.

ICYMI: Gannett is planning a combined ad and news-side extravaganza on ‘Rebuilding America.’

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Erin Wade is a Senior Customer Content Specialist with PR Newswire. She is also an animal lover and aspiring world traveler. Tune into her insights as a social curator at @TotalCSR.