Book your place for News on The Move III, 16 October – at The News Building

First came the internet, then came broadband and now the latest threat and challenge to the news industry is near universal use of smartphones.

Like it or not, mobile is where the readers are going. But if display advertising is tough to sell on computer screens – it is even harder to to do so on phones.

To discuss how the journalism industry can adopt to this latest phase of technological disruption Press Gazette is holding a half-day conference on 16 October in Association with News UK – News on the Move III: Going mobile (buy tickets).

It builds on the success of News on the Move I (held at Thomson Reuters) and News on the Move II (at Google, video below). And it will be held at News UK's brand new headquarters opposite London Bridge station.

By the end of this year it is estimated that around 75 per cent of Britons will own a smartphone – up from 1.6 per cent a decade ago.

This has fuelled an explosion in consumption of digital news.

For example, since Metro redesigned and relaunched its website as “mobile first” in December 2012 its growth has been off the scale – running at more than 200 per cent year on year in recent months according to ABC.

The challenge this presents is illustrated by the fact that earlier this year Metro announced it was going “print first” and merging its website with that of Mail Online. Executives decided that they wanted to encourage readers of the free daily to stick with print where advertising attracts the biggest premium.

Metro’s dilemma neatly illustrates the challenge for the wider industry. Readers are flooding from desktop to mobile creating the same problem that we faced when they started fleeing print for online.

Guardian Media Group chief executive Andrew Miller told Press Gazette earlier this month: “The change that we can see coming over the horizon is, if anything, faster than it has been before in the mobile space and in the social space and the speed of consumption is rapidly changing into digital.”

Data from the Reuters Digital News Report 2014 illustrates the speed of this new digital revolution.

Its survey found that of those who use an electronic device to access news in the UK:

57 per cent said that a computer was their main device (down 23 per cent on a year earlier)
24 per cent said mobile (up 11 per cent)
16 per cent said tablet (up 11 per cent).

Also according to to the Reuters Digital News Report:

33 per cent of Britons used their smartphones to access news each week in 2014 (up from 29 per cent a year earlier)
23 per cent use tablet computers to access news on a weekly basis (up from 16 per cent).

Those attending News on the Move will find out:

How important a slice of the news market mobiles and tablets now are and what the future holds
How to make journalism work on mobiles and tablets
And how to make journalism pay on mobiles and tablets.

News on the Move takes place at The News Building, News UK, 1 London Bridge Street, SE1 9GF from 2-5.30pm on Thursday 16 October.

Registration over lunch from 1-2pm. Networking drinks from 5.30-7pm.

Tickets are £50 plus VAT and available now.

Those wishing to attend from companies who provide commercial services to the publishing industry should speak to Rahul Nair about sponsorship opportunities: rahul.nair@pressgazette.co.uk – 0203 096 2261.

Timetable for News on the Move:

1-2pm – Registration over lunch

2pm – Welcome and opening comments from Press Gazette editor Dominic Ponsford

2.05pm – Keynote talk from Mike Darcey, chief executive of News UK (publisher of The Times, Sunday Times and The Sun)

Mike Darcey has been chief executive of News UK since January 2013 and is a former chief operating officer of BSkyB.

2.30pm – Successful mobile and tablet editorial strategies for print news publishers

Martin Ashplant: Former head of digital at Metro.co.uk (consistently the UK’s fastest growing newspaper website) now director of digital and social media at City AM

Alan Hunter – Head of digital for The Times and Sunday Times
Subhajit Banerjee – Guardian News and Media mobile editor

3.20pm – Tea break

3.35pm – Successful mobile and tablet editorial strategies for digital-only publishers

Push (Christopher Dawes): Editor of sucessful tablet-only subscription magazine Electronic Sound
Nathalie Malinarich: Mobile editor for BBC News Online
Luke Lewis – Editor of Buzzfeed UK

4.25pm – Show me the money: Insight into how to make journalism pay on tablet and mobile devices

Abba Newbery – News UK director of advertising strategy
Alex Kozloff – Head of mobile for the Internet Advertising Bureau
Nic Newman – Editor of Reuters Institute Digital Report, research fellow at City University, former Controller Future Media at the BBC.

5.20pm – Closing remarks from Press Gazette editor Dominic Ponsford.

5.30-7pm – Networking drinks.

News on the Move III is presented in association with News UK:

Topics in this article : News on the Move

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Dominic Ponsford

@DomPonsford

Dominic Ponsford is the editor in chief of Press Gazette and has more than 20 years experience in journalism. Former Paul Foot Awards finalist and PPA editor of the year nominee 2022.