Some 85% of Swedish local news sites now on board with robot journalism
Swedish local media group Gota Media is the latest of a growing fleet of Scandinavian publishing houses who see the value of automating as much of their routine reporting as possible. Since we launched in 2015, with Mittmedia (now in Bonnier News Local) as our first partner publisher, newsroom automation has become standard practice in Sweden, freeing up editorial resources and driving business effects, including reader revenues.
We’re thrilled that Gota Media have signed a group-wide contract for most of our robot produced content services: sport match write-ups and pre-match texts, real estate sales articles, texts about company registrations and bankruptcies, traffic incident updates as well as the Breaking Desk newsdesk alerts solution.
The partnership with Gota Media means we now provide automated content to about 85% of Sweden’s local news sites, in media groups like Bonnier News Local, NTM, VK and Stampen Local.
Peter Sigfridsson, Head of Production Development tells us that for Gota Media, investing in newsroom automation is a strategic decision geared to driving value in its local journalism and for its readers. “Gota Media want to leverage current industry developments. By automating routine reporting, we free up editorial time and resources to create more qualified journalism which adds value for our readers and support our reader revenue business.”
Gota Media have published automated texts about home sales for the past two years, which has contributed to driving the digital reader revenue business, according to Sigfridsson. “By expanding the number of published articles through automation, we’ll open a wide entrance for even more readers to become paying subscribers.”
The volume and geographical granularity of articles generated that we generate mean Gota Media will be able to provide comprehensive coverage of all local areas.
“While we have razor sharp focus on local content, we still have white spots on the reporting map. With automated texts we ensure readers in these areas too, receive regular updates about local events,” says Sigfridsson. He adds that with Q&A, a function by which the robot interviews team coaches via text message after each game, “even automatically written texts come to life.”
According to our CEO Sören Karlsson, it’s notable how local media groups like Gota Media increasingly consider automated content an question of strategic importance. “They clearly see the opportunity to free up valuable reporter time from routine reporting, while at the same time the robot written content in itself contributes to driving reader revenues.”
