I always feel excited once we have completed our budget planning and can focus on actually doing what we say we are going to do. I find the process as important for improving our thinking and understanding as setting a benchmark to measure our performance.
Our themes for 2026?
How can we…
- Balance the promise of AI-driven efficiency with the threat to our content revenues posed by big tech?
- Maximise the value of our content partnerships whilst at the same time continuing to gather customer data?
- Build the right culture in our business so that our team members are excited by change and thrive in the challenges it brings?
We already use AI to help us in ideation, transcription, translation, subbing, scheduling and data management and we will continue to do so more effectively as we learn how best to use the models out there. But we also know this same technology can be used by big tech platforms to consolidate user attention and ad spend, threatening our relevance and revenues.
One way we are approaching this threat is to strengthen our capability to work effectively with others. We continue to exploit traditional channels (the newsstand is still a profitable revenue stream for us) and collaborate with platforms like Apple and YouTube. By working in partnership with these giants, we can compete on reach and scale in ways we have never before been able to imagine.
But, of course, in return for this tremendous reach, we face new challenges in knowing our customers – always a strength of trusted media owners. And so we will be exploring how we can collect direct, voluntary customer data in different ways and use it profitably.
And in a world where change is constant, instilling confidence in our people is key and we will continue to work hard on supporting our teams to be the best they can be (one of our core values – the others are ‘Be Kind’, and ‘Always Curious’). This means being transparent about what is going on, sharing our triumphs and celebrating when things don’t go how we expected at regular feedback sessions (at Our Media, we hold get togethers every month).
One final thought, our purpose is to create brilliant trusted content to enhance people’s lives. It feels there is a growing cohort of potential customers craving for content they can trust in this world of mis and disinformation. If we continue to invest in trusted content, continue to be known for doing that and, crucially, enable all our customers to recognise our content is from us when they engage with it, we have a winning strategy for 2026 and beyond.
This article was first published in the Publishing Partners Guide 2026, which was distributed with the January / February 2026 issue of InPublishing magazine. You can register to receive InPublishing magazine here.
