---
title: Ice warning
description: Who will survive the coming news winter?
---

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# Ice warning

[Alan Hunter](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter/author/alan-hunter)  08 August 2025

 6 min read

**Who will survive the coming news winter?**

How does the news media get to grips with the problems of ice? No, not ICE (though thoughts welcome) but the frozen water that makes almost every drink taste better, and which I hope is plinking away in the hi balls of some of you right now.

The problems of ice are something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. It started with a presentation by [Suresh Sambandam](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sureshsambandam/), a serial entrepreneur from Tamil Nadu, at Digital Media India in Chennai in June. He talked about the transformation of the ice industry in the past couple of centuries.

In the 19th century, it was all about ice-cutting, where firms would shear blocks of ice from glaciers and even icebergs. In the 20th century, with growing demand, ice factories were established and the process was automated. Now we largely get our ice from in-home fridge-freezers.

The thing that stuck with me was that Suresh pointed out that no companies had successfully transitioned along the various stages of the ice business. No ice-cutters built ice factories and no ice factory owners went on to make refrigerators.

Of course, he was speaking at a news industry conference and the example was used as a warning to those present. He believes that the spread of AI will give people more time to pursue their interests so we will move from the current knowledge economy to an entertainment economy. His prediction was that perhaps only 5% of established news brands will make it into the new era.

So I’ve been thinking about who that 5% will be and what others have to do to join that cohort.

This week there was yet more evidence about two of the leading contenders for a place in the 5%. Both the [New York Times](https://tomorrowspublisher.today/monetisation/nyt-adds-a-million-digital-subs-in-a-year/) and the [Wall Street Journal](https://tomorrowspublisher.today/editors-picks/dow-jones-boosts-news-corp-with-588m-profits/) reported incredible results. Both have annual revenues of about $2 billion and profits of respectively nearly $400m for the Times and $588m for the Journal’s parent Dow Jones. They will be okay for some years to come.

Of course, not every publisher has the benefit of the enormous and wealthy US market and being the house journals of respectively America’s biggest city and the world’s financial centre. That should insulate them from the many of the challenges facing the industry.

It seems clear, from the perspective of August 2025, that the survivors will also be charging their readers/viewers/listeners to access content. In that context, I think it’s amazing that the Daily Mail, previously the apotheosis of a free model, has now swung its might behind subscriptions (though, as I argue [here](https://tomorrowspublisher.today/editors-picks/the-trouble-with-targets-why-setting-one-is-the-easy-bit/), there will be bumps in the road).

For the rest, I have long thought that [a rethink of the way we do journalism](https://tomorrowspublisher.today/editors-picks/a-new-journalism/) is required, both to meet the evolving possibilities of formats and personalisation, but also because readers are just not that into us. I hardly need to repeat all the stats about new fatigue and news avoidance because you will know them all – but we should not kid ourselves: they point to us being ice cutters and ice factories.

So I was delighted this week to read about the work done at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in Oxford by [Jazmin Acuña](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jazm%C3%ADn-acu%C3%B1a-23813664/), the co-founder of Paraguay’s award-winning digital news outlet El Surtidor. The opening paragraph of [the report on her work](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/change-centric-journalism-reframing-value-proposition-news-ai-age) caught my attention:

“The existential crisis journalism faces today demands an answer far more substantial than the one most commonly given: that we deserve to exist because what we do is inherently valuable.”

She then goes on to espouse a “change-centred approach to journalism”, based on impact, audience centricity and a continuous feedback loop with users, in contrast to the “content-centred” reporting we see today. It’s a thought-provoking read.

Jazmin is not alone in thinking about changing the nature of journalism. Late last month Northwestern University talked about work being undertaken there on this very subject under a provocative headline: [What if news avoiders are right, and you don’t need journalism?](https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2025/07/21/jr3-workshop-recap/index.html)

Here’s a sample paragraph:

“Traditional news leaves many people overwhelmed by its volume and negativity. Reporters move from story to story in a cycle of overproduction, leaving no space for the questions that truly matter: “Why do we do what we do? What is journalism for?””

The fact that these questions are now being asked gives me hope that the 5% might swell.

Right, where’s that ice…

## Next blog post

<https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter/the-case-for-optimism>

## [The case for optimism](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter/the-case-for-optimism)

[Read more](https://www.hbmadvisory.com/media-hunter/the-case-for-optimism)

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