The Audience Development Issue: How the FT and newsletter publisher 6AM City grew to 1m subscribers PLUS BBC forecasts 500m global news audience on its platforms

March 18, 2022

What's New in Publishing has a great look at 6AM City's growth with the business not only growing subscribers to 1 m but also growing its revenues to $10 m. Their success looks like a textbook product management process with a lot of time invested upfront in creating a playbook of a replicable process that they could use as they expanded to new markets.

The FT has been such a consistent digital performer. Digiday has an interview with commercial chief Jon Slade. He credits their recent success on their focus on reader revenue rather than the 'mercurial' ad business. One thing that is interesting is how disruptive events, some of which can exert downward pressure on ad revenue, actually fuel subscriber growth such as the chaos of the Trump presidency with respect to global markets or the economic turmoil caused by COVID. The other thing that is fascinating and everyone should copy is how they used a synthetic engagement metric to create organisational alignment and break down silos or boundaries in the organisation. Very smart interview from a company that has enjoyed an enviable success.

There are a couple of pieces that provide more than a hint at the growing discontent in compensation inequities in media shops. There has always been a bit of an executive and star-driven Pareto distribution when it comes to remuneration in media shops, but a greater push for transparency is highlighting how this is with a leak at Insider about the EIC's pay and other senior editors.

The other piece about discontent around compensation relates to a lawsuit by Buzzfeed employees who say that they were shortchanged millions of dollars from the IPO.

PLUS A retrospective of HuffPo Canada. A look by the European Journalism Observatory about new methods being used to cover Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And a look as two newsrooms come together in Detroit as they consider promoting journalism as a public utility.

After expanding to an extra 16 cities last summer, 6-year-old hyper-local newsletter publisher 6AM City has seen exponential subscriber growth, this week reaching one million newsletter subscribers. They are also on track to exceed $10 million in revenue in 2022. So what’s behind this vast growth? Co-Founder and COO Ryan Heafy spoke to us about …

Press Gazette has been reporting on British journalism without fear or favour since 1965. Our mission is to provide a news and information service which helps the UK journalism.

Jon Slade, chief commercial officer at Financial Times, shares how they built up their subscription base by prioritizing readers and how it can "power" their ad business.

The EJO network provides snapshots of effective and creative media projects across Europe that are reporting the war in Ukraine.

HuffPost Canada was abruptly shut down on March 9, 2020, by Buzzfeed as part of a broad restructuring plan for the company. This closure came two weeks after two dozen workers filed for union certificationRead More Continue Reading Bottom-up, audience-driven and shut down: How HuffPost Canada left its mark on Canadian media

A spreadsheet leaked to Gawker listed the salaries of its entire editorial staff

The group is asking for compensatory damages estimated at more than $8.7 million.

"We're going past the idea of thinking 'How can we get someone to give $5 a month?' and thinking, 'How do we inspire people to action?’"