CEO of News Media Holding spoke about the transformation of the fast news market

Telegram has become the central platform for news consumption in Russia, and the tabloid segment is one of the most stable in the media market. This was stated by the CEO of News Media Holding (Mash, SHOT, LIFE, newspaper "Life") Maxim Iksanov spoke on Business FM radio.

According to him, it's not subscribers that are crucial in the Telegram ecosystem, but views. So, Mash publications collect about 1.2 million views on average. "Sudden spikes in traffic after a week are a sign of fraud. The organics work on the first day," he said. That is why high-quality traffic remains the main argument for advertisers.

Iksanov stressed that the holding adheres to the tabloid model based on the British model. He called the tabloid "normal journalism" with a focus on a mass audience, exclusives and emotional content: "You can call us a tabloid, but definitely not the yellow press. It's like calling McDonald's a diner: technically, it's possible, but this "eatery" earns more than expensive restaurants." The main value lies in the ability to package a story. It is "news marketing," as Iksanov calls it, that generates high coverage: news has ceased to be a linear product and the emotional angle of presentation has become part of production.

According to the media manager, most of the exclusive materials are created not by buying footage from subscribers, but through reporter work: field trips, surveillance, and long-term filming. The holding cites examples when journalists spent days filming from a crane or spent months tracking heroes abroad. User—generated content is more often "gamified" in nature - people do not send materials for the sake of money.

According to the head of the holding, the emotional "bar" of news has grown significantly in recent years.: what was shocking in 2017 is not causing a reaction now. "Attention has become the new currency of the media. We don't just inform, we sell the story, just like a trailer sells a movie," Iksanov emphasizes. This "adrenaline effect" makes the audience's attention the main capital of the media. For advertisers, this is a direct marker of effectiveness, and for editorial offices, it is a key growth point.

Iksanov called the growth of fakes and the difficulty of verifying visual content one of the key challenges of the market. According to him, fact-checking is based on the editors' observation and experience of correlating events with the chronicle.

So, in terms of economics, large investigations and field trips rarely pay off directly, but they affect audience trust — and this is the main criterion for advertisers. "Interesting work is always monetized. Weak media does not work in advertising," the media manager added.

Following the interview, he stressed that Telegram has already become a full-fledged infrastructure for fast news, and the tabloid format has turned into a comprehensive production system that combines journalism, marketing and attention management.