How a group of Scottish regional daily newspapers returned to growth PLUS

October 07, 2022

DC Thomson's path to growth included not only paywalling their content but rethinking how they made it. It's really smart, and there is growing evidence that you need to rethink your product and how you position it so that it communicates value to readers so that they will pay for it. It's a great, uplifting review.

Plus, What's New in Publishing looks more broadly at the subscription economy, and a point that they make is that people are willing to pay for niche, exclusive information, and that information can be about where they live. As some of the large chains close local titles, I think that there are opportunities to serve these communities that don't make financial sense to large chains with large overheads.

Plus, how the Washington Post has grown it's Instagram following by a million each year for the past several years. Podcasters are bemoaning the challenges that large platforms like Apple and Spotify present when it comes to offering podcast subscriptions.

This article is an excerpt from our special insight report, Paywalls for Publishers. This free-to-download report aims to help you formulate an effective paywall strategy via insights and examples that have worked well for other publishers. The guide also examines how you can leverage your first-party data and build a supportive organizational culture to boost …

"Overall, the subscription economy has grown nearly 6x (more than 435%) in the last 9 years. Subscription-based publishing companies grew revenue by 16% in 2020 (globally). "

As someone who started his career in local journalism and only just left a position in local journalism, it's important to remember that people are willing to pay for unique information, including exclusive local coverage. And in many places, the competition is receding.

WARC analysis has found that Generation Z is the most digital generation to date, spending two-thirds (67.7 per cent) of total media time with digital channels,

An excellent overview of the media mix that young audiences have.

Featuring an interview with Travis Lyles, Deputy Director, Social, Off-Platform Curation at The Washington Post.

This feels like a story of focus, but it also speaks to what you can do if you can do with a focus on constant iteration. They have looked at what worked and built on that.

Podcasters are waiting for Apple and Spotify to offer more flexibility and features to grow listenership and discovery for show subscriptions.

While the platforms have been helping to drive subscriptions, especially for well-known subscribers. It has been much more difficult for podcasters who offer single-show offers or tiered content.

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.

"(Press & Journal editor-in-chief Frank) O’Donnell said his previous employer, JPI Media (since bought by National World), “flirted” with a paywall introduced under his editorship – but without changing the content in a way that showed people why it was worth paying for."

I think that this says volumes. When you shift to a business model focused on reader revenue, it cannot just be a revenue model shift but needs to be shift in product and marketing that communicates to audiences the unique value that you deliver.

"It’s a bold move: Reporting the news is expensive...But we know it’s the right thing to do."

A major move for the Chicago newspaper after it was acquired by the local public media group.

How to: Text and data viz and SEO for video

How to make your data visualizations easier to read (and more interesting to look at!) with the right use of text.

One of data journalists' favourite tools offers up advice on when to consider text to bolster your viz.

In this article, I explain how videos can help organic visibility and dispel common myths.

This looks at how embedded videos can support your SEO, but it also is a good look at discovery on YouTube and TikTok.

Industry news: Fast Company back online and TikTok's bad bottom line

Thank you for your patience and understanding during our darkest week.

Ouch, that was a tough week for Fast Company. It took them more than a week to get their site back online. It's definitely a cautionary tale.

Social-media giant saw its operating losses more than triple last year to above $7 billion

Revenue was up but so were losses as they chased growth.

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.

Ouch. This is a scathing story. Apart from writing about the drudgery of working for Facebook news, it also highlights how the offering has bewildered publishers.

Blockchain seems an ideal payment method for surfing the web. Why won't publishers adopt it?

I'm scratching my head as to what problem blockchain solves here. The issue that I think they are trying to solve is payment friction. But a near religious belief in blockchain and crypto is blinding them from fully understanding the problem that they are trying to solve.