Rapid Response: The Guardian’s secret weapon against media’s collapse, with CEO Anna Bateson

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**Anna Bateson** (1:37)
One of the most helpful things I was told by a rather informed board member was that even the most sophisticated engineers working in the most extraordinarily frontier level kind of AI don't really know what's going to happen in the next sort of 12 weeks, let alone in the next 12 months.
You could spend weeks doing plans for the next five years, which will become irrelevant and sort of redundant and actually not trying to do longer sort of kind of forecasting or planning, but actually thinking how do we set ourselves up to be ready to kind of adapt and adjust. That's what I try and focus on.

**Bob Safian** (2:17)
That's Anna Bateson, CEO of Guardian Media Group, publisher of The Guardian. The Guardian has had remarkable success as a news brand, growing globally when other aspirers like The Washington Post have struggled. That's in part because of The Guardian's unusual ownership structure under the umbrella of a 90 year old trust that groups provide stability, but Anna has also embraced the exceedingly modern realities of speed, flexibility and focus. I wanted to learn how The Guardian is tapping into multiple business models and into the emotional aspects of a brand to differentiate itself. And Anna did not disappoint. So let's get into it. I'm Bob Safian and this is Rapid Response.
I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Anna Bateson, CEO of Guardian Media Group. Anna, thanks for joining us.

**Anna Bateson** (3:14)
Well, thank you for having me.

**Bob Safian** (3:15)
Today, The Guardian is the fifth most traffic news site in the world. More than 1.4 million subscribers provide regular financial support. It's an impressive feat for a legacy British newspaper to turn into a global brand, especially when other news outlets are struggling.
I'm eager to learn your secret. Is there a single secret that underlies all of this?

**Anna Bateson** (3:43)
No, there's never a single secret. I think there are a number of things that really contributed. The first is that we were very early to embrace digital and to see the opportunities of digital. And that decision, which is, I think, 30 years ago or something, took us from being the ninth biggest national newspaper in the UK. So, inherently parochial to a degree, to really build audiences all around the world. The uniqueness of our ownership model, the independence that's endowed by the Scott Trust, also allows us to think long term. And that did allow us the opportunity to grow. It didn't feel as though we were in a good position 10 years ago, when you began to realize that crucially digital advertising wasn't going to sort of substitute for print advertising.
But actually, that was the basis then of us being able to build the reader revenue model.

**Bob Safian** (4:35)
The first important thing was embracing digital. Does that make you more aggressive about embracing AI? Because that's maybe the next turn in the business?

**Anna Bateson** (4:47)
No, I don't think it makes us more aggressive about embracing AI.
I think it means that we are genuinely a deeply digital organization. We look at AI through a particularly informed lens, quite a curious lens. We have aimed to try and be really cautious and thoughtful actually in how we endeavor to understand AI, in how we think about its application within our organization across all aspects of the organization. The changes it's going to make to our audience's behaviors. It's incumbent on all of us to truly understand it as a technology, and I think you can only understand it by applying it and by using it.