SODP Dispatch - 9 October 2025

13 Editorial Calendar Software for Efficient Content Planning

By Dakshita

13 Editorial Calendar Software for Efficient Content Planning | Featured

By Dakshita

Publishers require editorial content calendars to stay organized, plan content in advance, and ensure consistent delivery across channels.

Editorial calendar software provides a central hub for managing all aspects of content production, from brainstorming to publication, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. The right tools help brainstorm topics, assign tasks, manage deadlines, and streamline workflows while maintaining consistent content flow.

Key features to prioritize include intuitive interfaces with drag-and-drop functionality, multi-user access with permissions, customizable workflow stages, and integration with CMS platforms and collaboration tools.

Publishers should also evaluate content scheduling capabilities, performance tracking, cross-channel publishing support, and mobile access for remote teams. Security features like GDPR compliance and automatic backups are essential for protecting content and data.

Top-rated platforms include Narrato (4.2/5) for AI-powered content creation and publishing, Asana (4.2/5) for customizable workflows and Fortune 100 adoption, StoryChief (4.2/5) for multi-channel distribution, and Monday.com (4.2/5) for visual project management.

Mid-tier options like Airtable (3.9/5) offer flexible database views, while Google Docs and Sheets (3.9/5) provide strong collaboration with integrated AI assistance. Specialized tools include Lytho Planner for content strategy documentation, Bynder's Content Workflow for standardized operations, and PublishPress for WordPress-specific publishing.

📊 IAB MENA Publisher Summit 2025

IAB MENA and Altman Solon are hosting the inaugural MENA Publisher Summit on October 14 in Dubai, bringing together publishers, agencies, and brands to discuss actionable steps for a sustainable publisher ecosystem. The summit features sessions on current publisher challenges, the role of agencies and brands in the evolving ecosystem, and strategies to enhance revenue. Speakers include representatives from Altman Solon, Radix Media, Rotana, UM, Augustus, MBC, RTL Ad Alliance, and SRMG. The event runs from 9am-2pm GST at Arjaan by Rotana Dubai and includes networking lunch.

Register here ▸

By Vahe Arabian

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Audience-first publishing is a system, not a slogan.

Audiences are harder to hold, trust is low, and subscriptions are flat in many markets, so intuition alone won’t cut it. The publishers winning now treat audience signals as the brief, not the afterthought. [Reuters Institute]

What It looks like in practice:

• Commission by attention
  The Guardian reorients resources around engaged time (active seconds, not just clicks). This approach identifies which beats and formats earn loyalty. If you’re still optimising for pageviews, you’re optimising for churn.
  [Nieman Lab]

• “Next best read,” refreshed constantly
  The New York Times trains its recommendation models on live behaviour, sometimes every 15 minutes, to surface the right article at the right time. This increases depth and session time without abandoning editorial judgement.
  [DSS Blog]

• First-party data + smarter asks
  Público adjusted its registration funnel by loosening friction upfront (more free pages, easier sign-in). Readers were guided step by step from registrant to subscriber, which improved conversion rates.
  [Google Ad Manager]

• Habit over discounts
  The Atlantic’s retention (>70%) relies on product engagement—newsletters, consistent cadence, and annual-first plans, rather than constant discounts. Loyalty is earned through daily habits.
  [WAN-IFRA]

• AI for anonymous users
  Schibsted’s machine learning model recommends relevant content even to non-logged-in readers. This increased subscription sales and demonstrated that personalisation works before identity, if tuned to intent and recency.
  [WAN-IFRA]

How to Operationalise (Fast):

1. Re-baseline success: Make engaged time/unique and read-through visible on every desk’s dashboard; review daily.
   [Chartbeat Help Center]

2. Route the second click: Structure related-content rules = 50% topic match, 25% recency, 25% popularity. A/B test placement of modules.
   [DSS Blog]

3. Build habit with email: Segment readers into grazers, regulars, and loyals. Track cohort retention, not just open rates.
   [WAN-IFRA]

4. Reduce conversion friction: Earn registration with clear value, then meter content once habits form.
   [Google Ad Manager]
   
   Audience-first publishing isn’t just a tagline; it’s a system that captures attention, intelligently routes readers, and builds habits on owned channels. The publishers who operationalise this consistently will see loyalty, retention, and revenue align.
   
   How are you measuring and acting on engaged time in your newsroom or content operation? Share with me in the comment section.

Poynter launches AI Innovation Lab to house its growing AI portfolio | Poynter

The Poynter Institute has launched an AI Innovation Lab consolidating its AI literacy, ethics and training programs for journalists and news consumers. In the past year, Poynter trained over 1,000 journalists worldwide on responsible AI use, partnered with Microsoft and AP to create the Talking About AI Newsroom Toolkit, and released updated AI ethics guidelines for newsrooms. The lab includes cross-departmental teams working on fact-checking, media literacy, and AI tools training, signaling broader institutional ambitions as AI reshapes information discovery and audience trust.

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Media product executives discuss what's working now – generative AI impacts everything | Digital Content Next

Product leaders from The Economist, WSJ, and The Atlantic cited generative AI as the most disruptive technology shaping 2025 strategy in recent Digital Content Next interviews. The WSJ now uses AI summaries at the top of articles after A/B testing confirmed reader benefit, while The Economist's CPO notes that as discovery habits shift, products must stand out even more. The Atlantic focuses on mobile experiences and direct reader relationships, with executives identifying multi-generational audiences with different consumption preferences, attention scarcity, and balancing speed with brand quality as chief challenges. Product leaders consistently emphasized that user needs drive commercial value rather than compete with it.

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People are using ChatGPT twice as much as they were last year – they're still just as skeptical of AI in news | Nieman Lab

Weekly AI usage surged from 18% to 34% globally, with information-seeking now the primary use case, doubling from 11% to 24%. A majority of Americans (61%) report seeing AI-generated search answers weekly, though only a third click through to source links. The public shows a clear "comfort gap" for AI in journalism: 12% are comfortable with AI-made news, rising to 21% with human oversight, compared to 43% comfortable with human-led news using AI assistance. While 55% accept AI for back-end tasks like editing, comfort drops to 26% for creating realistic images and 19% for artificial presenters. Americans are split on AI's societal impact, with 42% expecting it will make society worse compared to 30% who anticipate improvements.

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Google is destroying independent websites – and WikiHow sees no choice but to defend it anyway | The Verge

WikiHow CEO Elizabeth Douglas testified in Google's ad tech remedies trial that the company is both "tormentor and savior." While WikiHow suffers from the "AI apocalypse" with declining click-throughs due to AI Overviews, its Google-powered ad setup remains "the stable part of my business right now." Douglas warned that a forced divestiture of Google's publisher ad tools could disrupt the one revenue source keeping lights on amid generational shifts. She wasn't aware of several ways the court found Google harmed publishers, including charging higher take rates through AdX than would exist in competitive markets, or that Google's unique demand advantage came from illegal tying between its products.

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Microsoft explains how to optimize content for AI search visibility | Search Engine Journal

Microsoft has released guidance on structuring content for AI-generated answers across Bing-powered surfaces, emphasizing that traditional search ranked entire pages while AI search evaluates which content pieces earn placement in final answers. Best practices include aligning titles, headings, and schema with self-contained Q&A blocks and concise paragraphs that can be independently quoted. Common errors that harm visibility include long text blocks that blur ideas together, hiding content in tabs or accordions, relying on PDFs for core information, and placing key details only in images without alt text. Microsoft states there's "no secret sauce" guaranteeing selection, but structure, clarity, and "snippability" improve eligibility.

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