Cecilia Campbell is a Swedish media journalist with more than 20 years experience reporting on the news publishing industry internationally. Her work at United Robots includes advising publishers on how to free up reporter time and drive revenue through newsroom automation. Previously she worked for WAN-IFRA, co-leading the reader revenue group and authoring the 2018 report “Engaged Readers Don’t Churn – Retention Lessons for Digital Subscriptions.”

2. How automation helped turn Mittmedia’s
sports journalism into a reader revenue engine

3. Extended workshop Tuesday July 7 @ 3–4pm BST
Newsroom Automation: Lessons from Scandinavia
Learn how Swedish publishers have used robots to gain readers & revenue
Newsroom Automation: Lessons from Scandinavia
Learn how Swedish publishers have used robots to gain readers & revenue
Learn how Swedish publishers use robots to gain readers, revenue
and reach. And what you can do to get started.
Learn how Swedish publishers have used robots to gain readers & revenue

4. > Journalism is in our DNA
> Started out as project at Mittmedia
> We are all journalists, developers
or linguists
WHO WE ARE

5. > We turn structured data into texts
using Natural Language Generation
> Content as a Service
> We’re work in partnership with publishers
WHAT WE DO

6. > 5 years of consistent
delivery to news
publishers
> 1 million articles
generated + delivered by
June 2019
> The robot is another
newsroom resource
WHAT WE DO

7. OUTPUT – EDITORIAL QUALITY

8. OUTPUT – PRODUCTS
> Property Sales
> BT.no went live last week
> Strategy: Distribute with
hyper local targeting =
relevance for readers =
driver of subscription
sales

9. How automation helped turn Mittmedia’s
sports journalism into a reader revenue engine

10. MITTMEDIA: REIMAGINING SPORTS JOURNALISM
> 2015 – Before automation / sports re-org
– 10 local sports newsdesks with little
collaboration
– Coverage limited, often arbitrary
– Repetitive and stressful reporting tasks
– Top division football/ice hockey: beaten by
national news sites
> Sports content had limited effect on reader
revenues
Mittmedia:
8 regions
21 sites + apps
400 journalists

11. > People pay for sports
MITTMEDIA: REIMAGINING SPORTS JOURNALISM

12. > Main objectives of sports automation & re-org:
> Drive subscription sales and logged-in pageviews
> Provide extensive hyper-local coverage of
matches
> Cut €300,000–400,000 of freelance costs
> Give readers better and more predictable
experience
MITTMEDIA: REIMAGINING SPORTS JOURNALISM

13. Analysis of the 1000 most read
sports articles in one year.
THE TRANSFORMATION

14. THE ANALYSIS TOLD THEM…
WELL READ
> Texts with no real story
> Sports with low popularity
> Bad headlines
> Match texts (excluding top
league games)
> Breaking news sport
> Top league teams
> Live streaming games
> Good stories (no matter
what sports)
NOT REALLY

15. ACTIONS: INCREASE ENGAGEMENT
> Focus on the stuff that engages
readers
> Central sports breaking news desk
> Measurable goals
> #1 on covering top leagues,
at least 1 story/day
> Live streaming
> Finding stories that matter to people

16. > Automate all match reporting
> Robots in play @ Mittmedia
– Sports: pre and post match texts with
hyper-local coverage in 10 sports (bandy,
basketball, badminton, bowling, football,
futsal, handball, ice hockey, speedway, table
tennis, volleyball).
– Q&A – coaches send match comments by
SMS which are inserted into robot texts.
ACTIONS: AUTOMATE WHERE POSSIBLE

17. ACTIONS: AUTOMATE WHERE POSSIBLE
> Output

18. INSIGHTS 1
> Total results, robots and reporters
In one year, sports became engine for reader revenues:
– Drove 30–40% of digital conversions
– Drove 25–30% of logged-in pageviews
– Generated 10,000+ new digital subscribers in first year.
– 25–50% increase in number of local match texts
– Elimination of significant part of freelance costs
MITTMEDIA: REIMAGINING SPORTS JOURNALISM

19. INSIGHTS 2
> Robot/reporter combo gives two-
fold effect
> MORE: Robots cover high number of
low-division leagues, matches, teams,
players – driving engagement in local
communities (+ social media )
> BETTER: Which frees up reporter
time to write engaging, in-depth
sports stories (= conversions)
MITTMEDIA: REIMAGINING SPORTS JOURNALISM

20. > Investigative reporting
> Interviews/human touch
> Documentary reporting
> Featured reporting
> Blogs, columns, reviews, op-eds
> Customer relationship content
Essential for brand & mission
EMPOWERING JOURNALISM
> Basic volume reporting
> Cost-effective engaging content
> Reliability relative to data
> Split second delivery/updates
> Linear scaling 1–1000
> Consistency 24/7
Essential for breadth & service

21. TAKE AWAYS – NEWSROOM AUTOMATION
> Identify a content
opportunity
> Set an objective:
reach, engagement,
revenue, new site…
> Start small, test & iterate
> Focus on the content
– not the tech

22. EMPOWERING JOURNALISM
Extended workshop Tuesday July 7 @ 3–4pm BST
Newsroom Automation: Lessons from Scandinavia
Learn how Swedish publishers use robots to gain readers, revenue
and reach. And what you can do to get started.

23. EMPOWERING JOURNALISM
> Questions?
cecilia.campbell@unitedrobots.ai
+46 70 8800 384