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DCN’s Digital Subscription Tracking Report for Q2 2025 data shows that the overall U.S. digital subscription market is in a stable, mature phase, with 92% of households subscribed to at least one service across the seven digital categories measured. However, shifting consumer preferences and pricing strategies continue to shape the competitive landscape across digital subscriptions, streaming, publishing (newspapers and magazines) and audio.
The average number of subscriptions per household dipped to 7.4 (from 7.8 a year ago), driven largely by a decrease in ad-free SVOD services. Still, total monthly household spending increased, reaching $149.64, up more than $5 year-over-year, driven by price hikes, particularly in vMVPD segment.
Key highlights:
SVOD still leads the subscription market, with 92% of households subscribed to at least one service, though ad-free options lost share to ad-supported alternatives, now making up 46% of all SVOD subscriptions.
Bundling continues to rise, especially in SVOD, digital news, magazines, and audio—57% of consumers now subscribe to at least one bundle.
Digital newspapers declined slightly, reaching 22 million households, while digital magazines held steady, with 28% of households subscribing. Among digital magazine subscribers, 27% accessed content through a bundle.
vMVPD subscriptions held steady at 39 million, even as monthly fees jumped from $75.50 to $84.30.
Digital audio subscriptions dipped to 54%, down from 57% a year ago.
These shifts signal a more intentional approach to digital media consumption, with consumers actively managing costs while still prioritizing content access. In a competitive market, value-driven choices, like bundling and ad-supported options, are redefining how households engage with subscription services.
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Between changes to Google search, the evolution of AI queries and algorithmically-driven social feeds, finding new audiences is harder than ever for publishers.
Apple News offers something many of the other tech and social platforms don’t: a highly-engaged, quality audience keen to read. But publishers have been burned badly by platforms in the past. Many are cautious about crafting strategies specifically for yet another channel.
The dilemma is more acute for publishers with membership and subscription strategies. Balancing free and paywalled content can be challenging enough, before considering Apple’s own paid News+ offering.
Here’s how Scientific American, STAT News and Outside Inc. approach Apple News, from which content to publish to the next steps they encourage readers to take.
Reaching new audiences
“The big challenge for us, and for every publisher right now, is finding your audience and reaching people,” said David Ewalt, Editor in Chief of Springer Nature title Scientific American. He specifically pointed to Google’s increasing ‘zero click’ searches and AI summaries as causing a drop-off in new audiences. The primary advantage of publishing to Apple News, as compared with prioritizing discovery on other platforms, is the high intent of users who come to the app. “Aggregators like Apple News are incredibly useful in reaching new people, especially people who are passionate about reading,” says Ewalt.
Apple News is also seen primarily as a top-of-funnel acquisition source by Outside Inc., which publishes outdoor brands covering everything from climbing and skiing to backpacking and mountain biking. Chief Media Officer Heather Dietrick explained that the platform offers a more generalist audience than those who find them via Google search, and one more willing to spend time. “They’re definitely willing to stick around and read our long-form pieces, they have a big hunger for those,” she noted.
Health and medical publication STAT News, produced by Boston Globe Media, also sees Apple News as an exposure opportunity. “The way we envision Apple News from a STAT lens is that it is very much top-of-funnel brand awareness,” explained Engagement Editor Alexander Spinelli. “But I like to think that any person could end up being a paid subscriber.”
The paywall debate…on platform
For each of these publishers, deciding what to offer across Apple News for free and their own sites is a careful balancing act. To complicate the strategy further, publishers can also put content behind Apple’s own premium offering, Apple News+. While publishers are circumspect on the subject, it can be a direct revenue generator as Apple shares revenue based on a reader’s engaged minutes with a publisher.
For Outside Inc., this is an opportunity to showcase longform content. “We’re constantly looking at the data, seeing what the audience is responsive to, seeing what is more scarce on the platform,” Dietrick said. She explained that they are very flexible when it comes to what they publish across News and News+, depending on demand.
Despite having a registration wall and metered paywall on the website, Scientific American publishes the majority of its stories to Apple News. Ewalt said that this was because the priority for the platform is to get people exposed to SciAm’s stories, rather than as a conversion tool in itself.
STAT has clearer dividing lines. As a B2P – business-to-professional – publication, they keep more specialized content to the website. “We’re really succinct about what we choose to be free versus [paywalled],” Spinelli outlined. “A lot of [articles] that are public health related…which we feel the masses need to know will be free. That’s what ends up going to Apple.”
This suits STAT well as the Apple News audience is more generalized. But this also means they don’t publish to Apple News+. Spinelli said that they would prefer to nurture paying subscribers themselves than manage that relationship through a platform. “Our [premium] Plus model is so specific to our subscribers that we didn’t want to offer it anywhere else,” he explained. “We really nurture our Plus subscribers…it’s a really robust offering.”
An edition-based approach
One strategy which has proved successful for Outside Inc. is publishing “mini magazines” to Apple News+. The publication puts out a print magazine, Outside Magazine, which comes out four times a year. But they keep an eye on traffic and trends for the Apple audience.
“Often, we’ll package up content when we see that a particular topic is really drawing interest,” Dietrick shared. “We’ll surround that topic in a 360 way, package up content and make a mini magazine from it.”
This content can come from across any of Outside’s brands. It’s then pulled together into a bundle, and repackaged for Apple News+. “Readers get deep into a category,” said Dietrick. “They spend longer with it and consume more stories per session.”
As well as mini magazines, Outside also promotes guides created for other channels to Apple News+ as a magazine. Their Summer 2025 Gear Guide brings together reviews of over 800 products across their brands. This also allows the publisher to drive additional revenue with affiliate links.
“Apple has recently been prioritizing affiliate stories…so we’re giving them more affiliate content,” Dietrick said, explaining that reviews are already a key pillar for Outside Inc. “It’s already content that we’re creating for other referral sources and our sites, so we’re not creating anything extra for them … its great that Apple’s strategy aligns with ours.”
Encouraging further engagement
All three publishers make use of call-to-action [CTA] boxes in Apple News articles. Scientific American prioritize directing readers to content on their own site. “I’s a good way to get users back into our ecosystem and start showing them some subscription notices,” Ewalt noted.
By contrast, STAT are heavily focused on driving newsletter sign-ups. “We have a great offering of free newsletters, and if people are enjoying our free content, they’re more than likely going to enjoy our flagship newsletter,” Spinelli outlined.
STAT reappraised their CTA strategy at the end of last year, bringing in technology partners such as FlatPlan to manage more flexible and UX-friendly boxes. This has proved fruitful, with the team now able to experiment, track and measure what is working. “Any time we have a story now, we’re getting new [newsletter] subscribers, whether that’s five, or fifteen, or 20. Every new subscriber helps,” said Spinelli.
They chose to focus on newsletter sign-ups because they didn’t want to overwhelm users, as Spinelli explained: “We pick and choose where we focus our efforts [in Apple News], and then the second they get back to our site, they’ll get to see all the offerings and other things that we do.”
Outside Inc have a variety of strategies for Apple News CTAs depending on whether a user is known or new. “We’re always thinking about the signals that readers give us to say where they are in their own activity journey so we can figure out what we should put in front of them,” said Dietrick. She explained that new users are encouraged to read more from Outside’s channels. Known users are encouraged to sign up for newsletters or read more tailored recommended content.
Opportunities and limitations
For publishers who have a clear understanding of Apple News’ place and potential in a subscriber funnel, it can be a powerful tool. Scientific American’s Ewalt emphasised the high-quality nature of the users. “The Apple audience is a great audience for us. It tends to be the kind of consumers who are going to read our content and subscribe to the magazine,” he said.
Outside’s Dietrick emphasised that a successful Apple News strategy ultimately comes down to a partnership between audience development and editorial teams. “You need to have people who are looking at the data, seeing what’s working, being willing to make tweaks to it, and not have it drive any editorial decisions, but just shape what content you want to put in front of this audience,” she added.
All three acknowledged the limitations of longer-term Apple News strategies. Ultimately, if Apple’s priorities change, these traffic and revenue sources could easily fall away.
STAT’s Spinelli has a more pragmatic take. “The majority of mobile users in the world have this device that prompts them with this immediate access to information,” he said. “I realized that if I get a million page views on a story on Apple but only get one paid subscriber, a million people just saw STAT’s reporting and STAT’s journalism.”
“[Hopefully] you’re going to want to come back to us, maybe it’s not the first, or second, or the fourth or the 10th time, but that’s the funnel process. I’m happy to play the long game,” he concluded.
Live events can be a vital pillar of a media business’ revenue strategy. They provide unparalleled sponsorship opportunities, direct revenue through ticket sales, and the content can often be repackaged and repurposed elsewhere after the fact. As an example, Atlantic Media’s events wing now accounts for over 20% of the business’ overall revenue.
However live events are often an expression of the “soft power” of a media brand. They act as a statement of the company’s influence, whether through big name sponsors and celebrities that attend, or by effectively setting the agenda for the industry through insight and expertise. They are a demonstration of the media company’s relevance for both its audience and potential commercial partners, whether B2C or B2B.
It is no surprise, then, that events remain a priority for many media businesses. However, while they are a source of revenue unto themselves, they are also being employed to support other revenue streams, including subscriptions.
Events and subscription marketing
Live events – especially the flagship conferences and exhibitions held by consumer titles – are exclusive by nature. While their content is often repackaged in article or video form, there is a cachet in attending them in-person and rubbing shoulders with celebrities and peers.
That exclusive nature is therefore being used by savvy subscription- or membership-focused media businesses. Access to those events is desirable, and is being used in subscription marketing material throughout the funnel. The Guardian, for example, offers its members discounted tickets to events at its owned-and-operated live events space in London, a physical benefit in addition to its central message of supporting its journalism.
However, events can support subscription growth as well. Anna Bross, SVP Communications for The Atlantic explains that, “Access to our events is a selling point from the first welcome and onboarding for our subscribers. We also market subscriptions in tandem with our events: ‘become a subscriber to unlock the full breadth of our journalism’.”
“The Atlantic has focused on exclusive events benefits for subscribers, particularly for our flagship event The Atlantic Festival: things like early access to ticket sales; subscriber-only event moments; and discounts. We have also produced subscriber-only virtual events.”
Brad Greenawalt, Vice President of Subscriptions at Hearst Magazines, notes that the appeal of live events can be used throughout the funnel when it comes to converting readers. “We view live events as an opportunity across the funnel. It can be a great audience expansion opportunity, getting new audiences closer to the brand and experience, as well as a lower funnel strategy for more niche premium subscription events.
“Live events are a key selling point for our premium memberships and help drive subscriber conversion and retention.” He cites the UK’s ELLE Collective’s Beauty Masterclasses and GoodHousekeeping’s VIP membership Book Club conversations with authors as some of the events that work especially well for its subscription-oriented publications.
In line with the ongoing trend towards making access to journalists a selling point for subscriptions, live events are also being used and marketed as a way to speak to those journalists in-person. Every organization spoken to for this article mentioned that live events are being used to deepen engagement by way of connecting subscribers with the journalists whose content they consume.
Dow Jones’ VP, Leadership and Event Marketing Laura Verklin said that “Audiences used to be dependent on news organizations for access to information. Now that information is somewhat of a commodity but reliability is the differentiator. Our events allow us to foster a deep sense of trust and transparency with our audience by allowing them to engage and interact directly with reporters and editors while they’re on stage with global decision makers. It underscores the Journal’s editorial integrity and access to global leaders shaping our future.”
Superfans and creating touchpoints
The rule of thumb is that it is far easier (and, crucially, cheaper) to prevent a subscriber from churning than it is to convert a new reader to a subscriber. As a result, events are being considered as a major means of developing the relationship between publication and their readers to a degree where they will pay to support its mission.
More than half (63%) of audience members who complete post-event surveys for the Guardian, for example, say they are more likely to financially support the Guardian after attending one of its events.
A Guardian spokesperson explained that is due in part to using the live events to showcase the Guardian’s unique selling points during the event, which in turn supports those same messages in its membership marketing materials: “Our audiences appreciate the opportunity to ask their questions to our journalists and guests to feel closer to our journalism. It is also a great opportunity to showcase the human element of Guardian journalism in contrast to the rise of AI-generated content.”
Greenawalt also cites post-event feedback as being a significant source of audience information. The team uses the insights provided to tinker with and inform future events and other marketing strategies.
Bross explains that “Hyper-engaged subscribers are more likely to attend events. But those who attend events, whether hyper-engaged or not, are less likely to churn than those who do not attend events. Ultimately, we utilize our experiences to strengthen the perceived value of a subscription, deepen brand affinity with The Atlantic and give our subscribers unique access to our journalists and journalism.”
Creating events for new subscribers
However, that isn’t to say that events are aimed at or even solely marketed towards “superfans.” While these highly-engaged audience members are often the most lucrative for consumer brands, they are also touchpoints for new potential members. Publications are creating events with those new members in mind. The Guardian spokesperson explains that “It depends on the event. It is true that many of our supporters who frequently read the Guardian attend our events. Different speakers and topics also attract different audiences.”
That considered, curated approach is as important for information-based publications, which are predicated on appealing to very specific audiences. Verklin explains that “Exclusive access to our live events is a key differentiator when we market a subscription or membership to one of our C-Suite communities. These moments of in-person connection help deepen trust in the brand and create tangible value that differentiates a premium subscription from more transactional options.”
So as with trial memberships or limited access to some content on a timed basis, events are being created as a ‘lure’ for potential subscribers. Greenawalt says: “Although events draw in highly engaged members, we’ve also found success using it for our new audiences as well. Our newest membership, Veranda Gold Design Society, offered members the opportunity to go on an exclusive tour at the Kips Bay Decorator Show House in Palm Beach with Editor-in-Chief Steele Marcoux earlier this year.“
Event strategy and subscription marketing strategies, then, are becoming more intertwined. Each is being used to support the other, with discounted tickets or exclusive access being used to demonstrate the value of a subscription throughout the funnel.
Hulu and Netflix’s streaming services turn 18 this year. This marks a symbolic coming of age for two pioneers that took two very different paths but nevertheless freed us from appointment TV and — let’s not hold back — reinvented television in the process.
The coming of age is not only symbolic. If you’ve been in the TV business for a while, like I have, you must have felt a wind of change over the past year with the rapid rise and adoption of ad-supported streaming. In meetings with advertisers, agencies and media companies leading up to the TV upfronts this year, I’ve been struck by how much streaming was now on everyone’s minds. Not as a distraction, or even an add-on, but as a central component in upfront negotiations. Streaming has matured into a strong, accountable media channel old enough to vote, get married, and bring its own fireworks to the negotiating table.
The numbers back it up. At MediaRadar, we’re monitoring ad spend and campaign creatives across all major media channels 24/7. We’re seeing three big signs of streaming’s coming of age: in how growth is spread across most platforms, not just one or two; in the number of industries embracing it; and in the diversity of companies signing on as advertisers.
We just released The 2025 MediaWatch® Streaming TV Report to quantify recent US trends and help advertisers make data-informed decisions about their streaming plans. Let me sum up what we found in those three key growth areas.
Streaming advertising spend is growing across virtually all platforms
It’s going to take some time to see this year’s upfront deals reflected in the data. However, a full-year analysis of streaming budgets over the past couple of years shows clearly what trendline we’re on. We measured ad revenue for nine top streaming platforms over that period and found that it increased 17% in 2024 to reach $12.9 billion.
Hulu led the way with close to $4.5 billion in ad revenue last year, nearly 3X as much as second-place Peacock TV — a clear reflection of its first-mover advantage and experience in ad sales. With a growth of 15% year-over-year, the OG ad-supported platform isn’t resting on its laurels either, but Peacock TV and Max are growing a clip faster (+19% and +20% respectively), while Tubi TV (+27%) and Paramount+ (+31%) are racing to close the gap.
As for Netflix, its comparatively low growth rate in 2024 (+8%) had more to do with the company’s cautious rollout so far. (It has more to lose by cannibalizing its considerable SVOD base) than its full potential as an advertising platform. But it’s turning up the heat in 2025: Despite a challenging economic outlook, Netflix is aiming to double its ad revenue this year.
A wide cross-section of industries are embracing streaming
Advertising on streaming platforms has gotten a lot more polished in the past 12 months. Targeting, creativity, and frequency control have improved dramatically — even though I’m seeing a lot of State Farm ads featuring Jason Bateman these days. But then again, I like Jason Bateman and I’m due for an insurance quote, so they might be onto something.
Speaking of insurance, finance & insurance firms topped the advertisers list on streaming TV last year with nearly $1.7 billion in media spend, followed by retail ($1.2 billion) and pharma ($1.1 billion). Among the leading industries, pharma, restaurants, professional services, and non-prescription remedies are all growing at a YOY rate of at least 20%.
Can you guess what brand spent the most on streaming TV in 2024? That was Pfizer, with a budget of $140 million (+11%) and at a time the company was slashing costs. But even more telling is the fact that 29 brands spent more than $50 million on streaming last year, and they came from eight different industries. Streaming already represents 25% of total TV spend for auto manufacturers, 26% for retailers, and 31% for travel companies. It’s definitely not a niche channel anymore.
Streaming appeals to brands of all sizes
The third and final sign of maturity I want to point out is how much streaming has become an appealing option not just for big brands, but for smaller brands too.
While the number of big spenders—those with streaming budgets of at least $50 million—rose 16% last year, the total number of streaming advertisers, both large and small, jumped 29% to nearly 14,000 individual companies. The vast majority of these advertisers—81%—didn’t spend a dime on traditional TV.
To gauge the health of a new medium, we often focus on big news coming from big-name brands signing nine-figure deals. But it’s good to remember how crucial it can be to appeal to the long tail. While the leading brands are using streaming to expand their existing TV strategy, SMBs without the same marketing resources are taking advantage of self-service programmatic tools to experiment with TV advertising, many of them for the first time. Thanks to streaming, thousands of new advertisers are adding TV to their media mix.
Can streaming fend off tariffs and economic uncertainty?
Will streaming continue to grow at the same rate in 2025? Probably not. From consumer confidence to supply chains, pricing, and budgeting pressures, the current economic environment is too uncertain to invite confidence. In fact, most industry analysts have already revised their advertising estimates for the year. Jerome Powell’s remarks at the most recent Fed meeting — “I don’t think we can say which way this will shake out” — weren’t exactly encouraging.
But the fundamentals are finally in place for streaming: strong platforms, near-universal industry support, and high relevance to brands of all sizes. In fact, if advertisers are going to bet on one channel this year, they need to bet on streaming TV, says eMarketer. That’s because CPMs are coming down, streaming ads are successfully threading the needle between digital and traditional advertising, and yes, they’re measurable too.
The hype cycle is over for Podcasting. Now that reality has set in, it is exciting to see examples of publishers pushing the podcasting envelope – experimenting to drive innovation in the maturing market. Whether it’s using AI to expand to new audiences, or smart show bundling, there’s a lot of inspiration for those with their own podcasts or looking to launch.
Here are some impressive experiments and innovations in the podcast space:
AI translations
UK news publisher The Telegraph has been producing a podcast called Ukraine: The Latest daily since the start of the war. It has been downloaded over 100 million times since 2022, with episodes exploring military strategy, history, weaponry, economics, and more.
In February, to coincide with the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine, The Telegraph launched translated versions of the podcast in Ukrainian and Russian. This was made possible using an AI-powered voice cloning and translation model. This creates a “digital likeness” of the presenters, closely mimicking the rhythm and nuance of their voices.
“To be clear, this is AI helping to present our journalism, not produce it,” said Associate Editor and presenter Dominic Nicholls in an introductory video demonstrating the technology. The translations help reach those with restricted access to news on the war, as well as expats around the world.
The AI model was adapted by The Telegraph team in-house, before being refined by a native Ukrainian speaker fluent in Russian and English. The Telegraph emphasises that all episodes will be checked to ensure translation accuracy, as well as fine-tune speed and pacing.
Although there have been experiments with AI hosts and translation, this is the first example of a media company deploying it on this scale. For a daily podcast, especially one where the information need is so critical, this is a worthwhile investment that will help it reach the people it needs to.
High quality AI translations like this will be beyond the budgets of many publishers. But as the translational tools improve and become more accessible, using AI translation to reach new audiences is worth considering. Editorial oversight, however, is vital to maintain trust and quality.
One that stood out was the DMG Media’s launch of The Crime Desk. The publisher had seen success with true crime podcasts like The Trial of Lucy Letby. Now, it has brought all podcasts under ‘The Trial’ brand into one subscription bundle.
The Crime Desk offers subscribers ad-free bonus episodes on global trial cases. It also includes access to the archive of more than 200 episodes covering everything from the Holly Willoughby kidnap plot to the Diddy trial. Subscribers will also get new series released in their entirety. However, free listeners will only be able to access one episode a week. The launch offer is £1.99 a month, or £19.99 annually.
“There will always be a free trial to air – we’ve got to have a shop window. It’s arguably a public service as well,” the Daily Mail’s head of podcasts Jamie East told Press Gazette. A soft launch phase “had seen subscriptions well into the thousands, and at a similar conversion rate to the podcast industry standard of 5%.”
Building a paid bundle around groups of podcast topics is viable for publishers that produce a wide range of podcasts or with strengths in specific subject areas. However, East noted that although they’ve had success elsewhere, that doesn’t necessarily mean a paywall is viable. “You can only really launch a subscription model around a hit. There’s no point otherwise,” he told Press Gazette. “It needs to be pretty bedded in before you can do it, or achieve such huge scale that it’s a no-brainer. We’ve not quite reached that with any of the other verticals.”
Reusing popular print content
One unusual podcast launched last year is Your History, from The Times. The newspaper has published daily obituaries for over a century, many of famous people. The team realized that there was an opportunity to highlight some of the Times’ best writing, which happens here, as well as capitalize on audience curiosity in historical figures.
The twice-weekly podcast brings out”‘remarkable tales of lives well lived,” from musicians to politicians, scientists, and sporting legends across episodes averaging 10-15 minutes. Anna Temkin, deputy obituaries editor, presents the podcast.
This is an excellent example of taking existing content and transforming it into another medium. The obituaries pages of newspapers contain a wealth of fascinating life stories, especially when someone well-known dies. By simply reading out the obituary – a low tech and low cost solution – The Times makes this content accessible and relevant to a new audience who aren’t necessarily newspaper subscribers.
Podcasting has room for innovation
Reader revenue is an important strand for each of these publications. The Telegraph and The Times both have hard paywalls, and use podcasts as a top-of-funnel strategy to introduce listeners to their journalism. In these cases, applying strategies that help widen listenership through translation or opening up paywalled content is key.
Although the Daily Mail has some paywalled content, the majority is accessible to read for free. This allows the podcasts to build up a large audience.In this case, The Daily Mail has created a paid bundle around popular shows to monetize a smaller but more dedicated fan base.
The extent to which other publishers can use these tactics will depend on where podcasts sit strategically. If they’re a “shop window” to showcase journalism, it is worth exploring options to leverage podcasts to expand audiences. However, podcasts also have great power as a retention tool superserving a publisher’s most loyal readers. With continued experimentation and innovation, podcasts offer the potential to grow audiences and support, or even build, direct revenue. That’s not hype; that’s just smart strategy.
Founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801, The New York Post prides itself on being America’s oldest newspaper. These days, it boasts 871k daily print readers. However, in its more than two centuries of existence, the outlet has grown to be far more than a scrappy New York tabloid. It has developed into a true multi-format media brand by respecting audience needs across the networks where it operates and by making full use of its IP. It has also deployed other techniques worth exploring.
Warren Cohen, Vice-President and Head of Video and Audio at New York Post Digital Network, jokes that despite the age of the publication, his team is the “youngest video department” in the country. This underscores how relatively-new the brand’s cross-platform approach is. (Cohen has had his role for just under a decade.) Yet, The Post’s multi-platform strategy is a mature one that seeks to maximize the various tools at the team’s disposal.
A video strategy means YouTube (and more)
Central to any brand’s video approach is, of course, YouTube, where The Post has 1.86 million subscribers. Its content focuses on news, entertainment and sports and the channel features both timely clips and original series. There is plenty of video at NYPost.com too. However, Cohen explains that “we want to offer our audience things that they can’t get anywhere else on site.” He adds that the brand also wants “engagement throughout our owned and operated platforms, our open web product, our mobile app.”
This neatly sums up how Cohen and his team are doing things. Respecting the platforms they use is central to the strategy. Not everything is intended to be part of a funnel leading people to the outlet’s website or the print product. While doing so would be possible in an ideal world, Cohen is realistic. “I just don’t think that’s user behavior,” he says.
Cohen also notes that the audience on places like YouTube “tends to, in general, be younger. They also “spend most of their lives in the social networks and not necessarily websites.” This all means “we are trying to tweak the way we approach the off-platform audience” The takeaway is that trials and testing is crucial.
Beyond YouTube, The New York Post has built up a significant presence on the video-based social platforms. It has 2.2 million followers on TikTok and 1.6 million on Instagram. The Post also has a separate NY Post Sports Instagram account with over 41,000 followers. Cohen believes that “social really excels with short duration views… It’s the joke, the quick hit, the reaction.” Meanwhile, he observes that YouTube videos are increasing in length.
Cross-platform monetization strategy
As the video work is not primarily a funnel to subscriptions, it has to be monetized separately. This is done through a mix of programmatic advertising and sponsorships. For instance, a tri-state Cadillac dealership sponsors “24 Hours”, as series the publication makes with reality stars. Cohen is looking to develop more such deals in the future.
The determination to fully cash-in on IP goes beyond sponsorship. Cohen reveals that “we’ve had a good upsell to kind of the television and broadcast markets, and that’s always been really organic.”
He has a word of warning for others in the industry: “I think a lot of rivals might have been overly invested in studio and development operations.” While The Postwants to use the best technology and infrastructure it can, and its infamous Page Six column launched a video studio in January 2024 “we really try to let the content speak for itself, and then see where can use it to adapt.”
He also says that others “have added a lot of staff and infrastructure, hoping for big payoff.” In part he notes that this is impart because of consolidation the TV markets, and because “selling the networks is not as lucrative as it once was.”
Success stories from The Post’s approach include “Bronx Zoo ‘90”, a show about the 1990 New York Yankees which was turned from a newspaper series into a TV series by Peacock. There is also “Smothered”, a digital video series that was upsold to TLC and ran for several years. Of the strategy, Cohen says, “we’re really trying to leverage and ‘video-ify’ the best of the newsroom.”
Despite being a New York institution, The Post has been sure to have connections in Los Angeles. Troy Searer, president of New York Post Entertainment, serves as the company’s ambassador to Tinseltown and Cohen works closely with him “to make sure that no IP is left behind”.
An adaptable audio strategy
On the audio side, The Post’s podcast strategy is to offer deeper context for its audience. “They’re the number one product for engagement,” says Cohen. Sports is a particularly important player in the company’s podcasting roster. It has separate shows for almost every New York-based team. Turns out, Giants fans don’t want to listen to podcasts that are discussing the Jets, or, as Cohen puts it: “It would be hard to have a football podcast overseas and have it feature Manchester United and Manchester City, right?”. Quite so!
“Podcasting is a giant area for us to … use our expertise in a different way,” he adds.
There is more to come on the podcasting front. The New York Post has struck a deal with Red Seat Ventures, an independent podcast production firm that was bought by Fox, to develop a flagship podcast. Cohen describes the creation of such a show as “long overdue.”
He and his team try and maximize the value they get from every piece of podcast content. “We get a lot of breakout clips,” from a 30 to 45-minute podcast, reveals Cohen. “We get a lot of moments.” He says that The New York Post wants to “micro chunk the content in a way that the audience can consume it however they want.”
Don’t fear cannibalization
The big worry many publishers have when they start making content on platforms outside of their own website is cannibalization. While they might be helping YouTube get an audience, they may not necessarily be doing so for their own outlet. This is not a concern for Cohen. “We don’t see any cannibalization of audience” he says. “We see audience that we might not have otherwise reached.”
During the recent New York Knicks NBA playoff game against the Detroit Pistons, The Post held a watch party from which it shared clips. “We’re creating content that we do distribute through all our platforms,” says Cohen.
Ultimately, Cohen says that the work he and his team is doing is “a meaningful contributor [to] revenues for the company at this point.” It shows that investing in a dedicated multi-format approach that adapts each piece of content specifically for the it is on can pay off.
The 2025 DCN Next Summit kicked off in Miami April 22 with an energizing atmosphere as senior media executives from DCN’s member companies came together to discuss the biggest issues and opportunities impacting the future of media.
In his welcome, DCN CEO Jason Kint highlighted the challenging environment the media finds itself in. “Let’s be honest, the last 12 months have been volatile,” Kint said, “And the volatility isn’t just economic, it’s institutional. The forces testing our economy are also now testing our democratic norms, including a free and plural press itself. [We face] a direct challenge to the independence of the press and the principle that journalists, not governments, get to determine the language of truth.”
This, Kint said, is the new normal: accelerated pressure, relentless power grabs and heightened scrutiny all at once. “It’s messy, it’s uncomfortable, and it’s redefining the rules that we all play by.”
In the midst of this, Kint highlighted premium content still matters but what defines it is changing. “Growth is harder, but it is possible, especially as you strengthen your direct relationships with your audience and customers. Trust… is everything. It’s foundational and it must be defended. And, in times of vulnerability is when you build on it.”
While the topics of discussion both on stage and off were wide-ranging, three significant themes emerged: the importance and evolution of trust, the value of direct audience relationships, and new influencer dynamics impacting media brands.
Trust in a fragmented world
In an era where audience attention is fragmented across numerous platforms, trust is the core value exchange between a media brand and its audience. Katherine Maher, president and CEO of NPR, emphasized the importance of maintaining editorial independence and impartiality as essential components of trust.
Katherine Maher, president and CEO of NPR
She said, “Our editorial independence is paramount. People listen to NPR and they care about public media because they trust it and they know that it is independent. To my mind, if we cannot maintain that editorial integrity, we cannot serve our audiences the way we need to be served.”
This foundational trust faces new challenges. New research from DCN and Magid on Gen Z’s video consumption reveals a significant difference in trust levels between individual creators and brands, with individual creators generally being perceived as more trustworthy. The study, called “Decoding Video Content Engagement,” talked to 1,000 young people aged 13-40, to understand how they saw media brands. The results (available to DCN members) suggests that Gen Z’s understanding of what is trustworthy is evolving based on where they spend their time and energy.
“When you talk to Gen Z, it’s the individual that’s most valued. It’s the influencers, it’s the streamers,” Andrew Hare, SVP, head of quantitative research at Frank N. Magid Associates explained to attendees. Media companies face a significant challenge in building trust with Gen Z and Gen Y, and being seen as trustworthy, authentic and interesting, compared to individual creators, who are overwhelmingly trusted more by these generations.
Hare mentioned an opportunity for digital media companies to “collaborate and co-create with creators themselves to maybe even add some trust back to the brands.” He noted that digital media companies must focus on humanizing their brands, fostering direct relationships with audiences, and finding ways to be real and relatable while upholding their journalistic standards.
The evolving role of creators
Discussions at the summit frequently touched upon the evolving role of journalists in today’s media landscape and the rise of individual creators/influencers as a force in news. According to a November 2024 study by the Pew Research Center, 21% of U.S. adults now regularly get news from influencers. This figure rises to 37% among those under 30—an age group that is increasingly difficult for traditional outlets to reach.
Tiffany Sam Chow, SVP, strategy and business development at NBCU News
Tiffany Sam Chow, SVP, strategy and business development at NBCU News Group, pointed out that news anchors are becoming personalities on platforms like TikTok, which allows them to build individual connections with audiences. This shift changes the role of anchors from authoritative figures to relatable personalities, she explained.
Chow cites the example of Savannah Sellers on TikTok. “She does these behind the scenes where people can understand her as a person,” Chow explained. “People start following her on social as a person and then start following her on social as a news anchor.” As people engage with the on-air talent on a personal level, they begin following them as journalists, and in turn, engage with the NBC News and Today Show handles, Chow said.
Sam Felix, SVP, Strategic Partnerships & Business Development, at CNN echoed this shift. She noted CNN has also been thinking about how to drive that relationship between their on-air talent and audiences. “Part of our superpower is our ability to produce video at scale and this amazing talent. We have the right ingredients to engage with this audience. But we have to figure out (how) to pull back the curtain, get them sort of like closer, one-on-one, with this audience in a way that they seek us.”
In addition to their shows, CNN personalities produce multiple vertical videos per day, published on social channels and on CNN’s platform, Felix said. “Over the next several months, as you see the kind of next phase of CNN come out into the world, you’ll see that same type of production format be at the center of the content and our products, because it is resonating.”
MLB’s VP, Social Media and Innovation Cameron Gidari noted that some baseball creators are as popular, if not more so, than baseball players “kids are recognizing them!” Thus, their strategy involves empowering these creators. “We have a really robust crop of up and coming baseball creators,” Cameron. “They’re non-traditional media for a new age.”
MLB’s creator strategy involves helping empower creators, to help them grow, giving them access to events and sharing their content. “We went to help them grow because we know that they’re Baseball Tonight for the next generation, right?”
Building deeper connections with direct relationships
Publishers have long held direct relationships with audiences, built on trust and high-quality content. These relationships allow media companies to understand and anticipate audience needs. Strategic insights also inform monetization strategies like subscriptions, events and advertising.
In 2025, strengthening direct relationships with audiences has never been more critical. As media companies expand beyond traditional advertising into licensing and other D2C strategies, deepening audience connections is essential for sustainable growth.
Daniel Alegre, CEO, TelevisaUnivision
CEO Daniel Alegre credits his company’s success to TelevisaUnivision’s vast Spanish-language content catalog, built over 80 years, which helps nurture a direct, multi-platform relationship with audiences. TelevisaUnivision integrated its operations and created a single content strategy that serves linear TV in both the U.S. and Mexico and ViX, its streaming platform.
Alegre noted that the company continues to innovate in video content to engage new audiences. They are developing one-minute “micro telenovelas” specifically designed for mobile consumption. “These are essentially made for the phone, and can create new commercialization opportunities for subscription and advertising … We can also work on microtransactions,” he said.
At the Athletic, Publisher David Perpich explained that the company is exploring partnerships to leverage its content and audience, including a partnership with MGM which integrated betting coverage, and Stubhub which allowed users to purchase tickets within The Athletic’s content.
And in a move that is certain to be a fan favorite, MLB formed a “partnership with eBay where we have a collectibles vertical and you can buy on eBay,” he said. The focus of these initiatives is on “how do we create content that consumers would love but then let’s figure out the right business model on the other side to take advantage of it.”
Relationships are also changing between media companies, brands and advertisers, with a greater emphasis on direct relationships and mission alignment.
Shannon Watkins, CMO, Fiserv
Shannon Watkins, chief marketing officer at Fiserv, explained that Fiserv increasingly bypasses media agencies, instead partnering directly with media companies, viewing them as extensions of their own marketing team. This direct model allows Fiserv to keep strategy development in-house while collaborating with media partners to execute.
“It’s less about the dollars and cents and more about that symbiosis that you can have with your partner media or otherwise, where it is a true mission alignment because then the conversation moves beyond placements and dollars, but how can we grow together? And that’s what we’re looking for,” she said.
Persevering and pushing forward
As digital media companies grapple with the challenge of maintaining trust amid increased scrutiny and competition from more personalized, often more relatable creators, the importance of direct, authentic relationships with audiences has never been clearer. Media are learning to adapt to this shifting landscape, where collaboration with creators can help rebuild trust while still maintaining journalistic integrity.
Media companies must evolve to stay relevant. However, they must also safeguard the foundational values that have long underpinned their role in society, including press freedom. This Summit highlighted how they are persisting through challenges. As Kint pointed out, “We must keep pushing for fair value, for IP protection, for a level playing field, in equal competition. And above all we must defend the role of a free and plural press at a moment when institutions are being tested from every angle, even at the highest office in the land.”
By now, we are all painfully familiar with the way AI systems are reshaping how audiences discover and consume information—often at publishers’ expense. These powerful technologies reuse publishers’ content, usually without permission or fair compensation, placing growing pressure on publisher revenue and content control. Premium content creators of all sizes face identical risks as AI companies increasingly set the rules.
However, media companies are far from powerless. By taking collective action, the media industry can assert control over how our content is used and ensure our voices are central to shaping AI policies. Several practical pathways exist, including regulatory advocacy, strategic litigation, licensing agreements, and technological measures. The key is that we must work together.
Regulation/policy: defining the rules for AI
Enforceable policy regulations represent a clear line of defense against unauthorized use of content. Currently, ambiguity around “fair use” allows AI companies significant leeway. OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, recently acknowledged this plainly, admitting that restrictions on AI scraping copyrighted material would threaten his company’s existence.
Altman’s candid admission underscores exactly why publishers must engage policymakers immediately. President Donald Trump’s recent executive order, “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” explicitly seeks to minimize regulations that might hinder AI companies from pursuing their current path. OpenAI and Google have seized this opportunity to advocate aggressively for fewer copyright restrictions, claiming tight regulations threaten American AI dominance in a geopolitical race with China. Help will not come at the federal level anytime soon.
Several state legislatures are actively addressing AI’s impact on copyright, notably California’s AI Copyright Transparency Act (AB 412) and New York’s Artificial Intelligence Training Data Transparency Act (S6955), both of which mandate transparency from AI developers about copyrighted materials used in training models. These initiatives indicate state-level momentum and promise to set precedents that other states will follow. That said, the most immediate forum for action is likely in the courts.
Courts: establishing clear legal precedent
Legal action is the most promising line of defense and has already proven effective. Recent cases, notably Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence, represent critical opportunities to establish binding precedents around copyright and AI that can level the playing field.
In February 2025, the U.S. District Court for Delaware ruled decisively in favor of Thomson Reuters, determining that ROSS’s unauthorized use of copyrighted content to train its competing AI product was not protected by fair use. This is a big win for every publisher because it clarifies what has historically been a vague and uncertain doctrine. Making it stick will require a broader chorus of legal wins, but it’s a start.
Recognizing these stakes, publishers are increasingly acting together in the courts. One example is a joint lawsuit from 14 major media organizations—including Condé Nast, Forbes, and The Atlantic—against AI startup Cohere. Similarly, litigation initiated by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft has been consolidated with cases from the Daily News and the Center for Investigative Reporting, forming the beginnings of a unified front of defense.
The outcomes of these collective efforts matter profoundly. While individual settlements might resolve immediate conflicts, only definitive court rulings can deliver lasting protections. Publishers at every scale share a vital common interest in supporting cases that reinforce strong, enforceable copyright standards for everyone. Everyone.
AI licensing negotiations: balancing opportunity and equity
Licensing agreements offer publishers another critical tool to monetize their content and control AI usage. These deals can deliver revenue and clearly define permissible AI applications, and we’ve seen a string of them recently. Yet licensing strategies carry risks: agreements negotiated by major publishers could inadvertently create a market divided between haves and have-nots. It’s also unclear if any of these deals will have long-term value, as the damage done to publishers will likely be much higher than any small payments from these deals.
Smaller publishers risk marginalization if AI licensing standards and terms are set exclusively by larger publishers. Collective approaches that define fair, equitable standards can help ensure licensing agreements work for the entire publishing ecosystem rather than fragmenting it.
Technological barriers: limitations of blocking AI crawlers
Technological measures, such as blocking AI crawlers from publisher sites, are another avenue. It’s worth pursuing, but we should not look at this as a long-term strategy. AI companies regularly evolve their technologies, circumventing technical barriers almost as quickly as they emerge.
While publishers can (and should) employ these measures strategically, lasting protection depends more heavily on clear regulatory policies, decisive court precedents, and equitable licensing agreements.
Making collaboration count
General calls for industry collaboration frequently fall short, offering little beyond vague ideals. Yet the AI challenge distinctly highlights how all publishers, regardless of size, share identical interests. Whether an independent blogger, a small-town newspaper, or a global publisher, AI-driven content reuse affects everyone similarly. AI does not care how big you are.
We’ve already observed direct negative impacts on publisher traffic from AI-powered overview summaries in search results. These early signs are merely the beginning. The entire digital landscape—search behaviors, traffic patterns, and monetization structures—is changing fundamentally with AI, and fast.
Publishers need support to run a sustainable business. This has compelled Raptive to advocate on the AI issue precisely because we recognize it is existential to the viability of independent publishing–and the power of strength in numbers. We have invited publishers with whom we work to sign a new agreement that lets us represent their interests in conversations with tech platforms around AI negotiations.
All premium content creators—those supplying the original, authentic content powering the internet—share a truly common interest. Now is the moment to advocate for it; we’ll be stronger if we do it together.
Lately, I’ve found myself frequently saying variations of the same concept: “I like to see all the marbles fall at the same time,” or maybe “I like to see all the marbles moving in the same direction.” It’s a simple image, but it captures something critical that media leaders are grappling with.
Right now, both for-profit and nonprofit news organizations are pulled in multiple directions, sometimes in ways that feel conflicting. There’s the urgent pressure to meet short-term revenue and development goals. There’s also the equally critical responsibility to build a scalable, high-quality content product that earns long-term trust and engagement. On the surface, separating those efforts can seem logical, even principled. Many media organizations intentionally silo revenue from editorial to protect independence, maintain credibility and avoid the perception of influence.
But here’s the problem: That separation, while well-intentioned, often leads to organizational disconnect, inefficiency, and even burnout. Editorial teams operate without a clear understanding of audience needs or funding realities. Revenue teams chase dollars without being fully connected to the mission or the product value that fuels those relationships. When these efforts are misaligned, the result isn’t integrity. It is inertia.
The most resilient and forward-moving organizations are the ones that challenge that separation. These media companies don’t treat building an audience and driving revenue as separate (or even competing) goals. Instead, they invest in infrastructure and culture that make it possible for product-led and sales-led strategies to operate in sync. They build systems that allow each side to inform and strengthen the other without compromising editorial independence. It is a deliberate tactical shift and a shift in mindset reset that has become essential in today’s climate.
Leading with product or sales
While coaching organizations through infrastructure strategies, I repeatedly run into a familiar question: In an early startup environment, how do you appeal to potential sponsors when your audience is incredibly valuable but statistically small?
It’s not quite a paradox, but it does expose a frustrating contradiction at the heart of early-stage media revenue and audience growth. It strikes a nerve and speaks directly to the false binary of whether an organization should be focused on building or selling. The truth is, you can–and should–do both. When the entire team is grounded in the heart of your mission and has a clear understanding of who you are and what you offer, it actually becomes easier to move forward confidently on both fronts.
A product-led approach focuses on the quality of the news product, including its content, features and the consistent delivery of value to the audience. It helps media companies drive growth and can convert into revenue through subscriptions, memberships or recurring giving. This strategy emphasizes seamless content design, audience segmentation and member benefits, using clear calls to action to increase engagement and improve retention. Success requires research, surveying, behavioral analysis and continuous assessment. While typically slower and more intentional, product-led growth is essential for long-term sustainability.
What I’ve learned and often emphasize is that sales is not a mad scramble. It is a system. It is an opportunity to design and execute a strategy where effort, decision-making and influence come together to create real value for partners. Strong sales strategies lead to stronger sponsorships, better partnerships and long-term retention. Just like product development, this requires time, intention and strategic alignment.
Understanding the nuances of both models and how product-led and sales-led growth can operate independently as well as together is critical. A dual-engine model that integrates both allows organizations to be nimble and intentional at the same time while building something sustainable, scalable and mission-aligned.
Leading with product and sales
We see this logic applied in the tech world. Companies known for product-led growth, especially in the startup space, don’t shy away from integrating a sales function. A product-led approach drives user acquisition and early traction, much like how a news organization might use free content or limited-access models to grow engagement. According to McKinsey research from 2023, companies that pair product-led strategies with traditional enterprise sales often outperform peers in both revenue growth and company valuation. That hybrid model, often referred to as product-led sales, allows organizations to serve both individual users and high-value institutional clients at the same time.
This shows something very clear. Building and selling are not competing forces. In reality, they are most effective when aligned through shared infrastructure. They are like marbles in a well-designed marble run. Each follows its own track with different curves, drops and timing. But when the system is aligned, all the marbles arrive at their destination together. That kind of coordination, guided by clarity and discipline, allows organizations, especially in news media, to grow with intention instead of remaining stuck in cycles of reactive decision-making.
When a newsroom builds systems that allow both models to operate in sync, everything becomes more intentional, more measurable and more resilient. A robust CRM connects audience data with donor and sponsor relationships. Strong analytics make it possible to track which content is performing and which audience segments are most engaged. Brand development provides both editorial and revenue teams with a shared language and a clear point of alignment.
When this kind of integrated infrastructure is in place, product-led strategies such as newsletter personalization and loyalty programs help surface warm leads. At the same time, sales-led efforts like sponsorship pitches and donor stewardship can be guided by real user behavior and remain connected to the overall product experience.
The landing point
Too many for-profit and nonprofit mission-driven media organizations are being forced to choose between building a content product that earns trust or hustling for revenue that keeps the lights on. That false choice is costing more than just money; it is costing momentum. When product-led and sales-led strategies operate in silos, teams burn out, missions stall and infrastructure cracks under the weight of missed expectations.
A hybrid growth strategy, anchored in infrastructure, is sustainable, scalable and adaptive. It helps organizations become more responsive to opportunity and less reactive to disruption. By definition, marble runs help us explore how forces interact to influence motion, momentum and timing. They offer a powerful visual for how systems can be designed to create coordinated outcomes. That is exactly the kind of growth news media needs right now. This is not just about generating revenue or building an audience. It is about creating alignment so that every team, every strategy and every mission-driven decision moves with purpose and arrives exactly where it is meant to, together.
For subscription-driven publishers, newsletters can be a valuable way of building relationships with potential paying readers. But it can be a challenge to effectively promote newsletters and justify the extra work required to create them. However, MIT Technology review has seen success with a portfolio of editorially-driven newsletters published across the week. Key to their growth strategy is effectively reusing the newsletter content online to drive sign-ups, and maximizing opportunities to promote the newsletters across all MIT activity.
“Once someone has signed up to our newsletters, they’re two or three times more likely to become a subscriber,” said Niall Firth, executive editor, newsroom at MIT Technology Review.
With newsletters forming a key part of the publication’s subscriber funnel, promotion and growth of these products is a priority. Here’s how MIT Technology review structures its newsletter portfolio and promotes sign-ups to begin building those vital reader relationships.
Using the editorial to go deeper
MIT Technology Review has a variety of editorial newsletters in their portfolio. The Download is a daily weekday newsletter that features short, snappy summaries of key stories. It also includes a quote of the day, links from around the internet, and a throwback to a feature story that was published during the last year.
MIT also offers a selection of weekly “beat” newsletters. AI newsletter The Algorithm publishes every Monday, led by AI and hardware reporter James O’Donnell. Energy and climate newsletter The Spark comes out every Wednesday, and The Checkup, focused on health and biotech news, is released on Thursdays. Editor in Chief Mat Honan then publishes The Debrief, an analysis of the biggest tech news story, every Friday.
In terms of editorial strategy, these newsletters begin with a full editorial piece of around 700 words, which can be used for scoops, analysis, or context around bigger stories. “These are written from scratch every week,” Firth explained. “[The writing] that goes in there is in there first, so if you sign up to a newsletter, you’ll get to read it before it appears anywhere else.”
The second half of these beat newsletters is used for other relevant links, news and bite-sized updates, as well as subscription upsells and event promotions.
Each beat newsletter is led by a named editor, as they find readers connect better with a person or expert. Editors are encouraged to be conversational. “They’re like your smart friend guiding you through [topics]. So, if something is complicated in the world of your beat, your reader can rely on them. They’re going to lay it all out to you and tell you what’s important, which bits you can ignore, what you should be aware of,” said Firth.
It also offers the opportunity to go behind the scenes in a way web-first articles don’t. Casey Crownhart, MIT Technology Review’s senior climate reporter and writer for The Spark newsletter was at the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit recently, a conference dedicated to energy technology. For the newsletter, she wrote about what it was like to be there, and the undercurrents around emerging technology and climate change. “The vibes were weird,” she reported, using a more explanatory and informal tone than would normally be used for an article.
Publishing newsletters as stories
One of the key drivers of MIT Technology’s newsletter growth strategy is effective use (and reuse) of the content. Although newsletter articles are written first and foremost for the inbox, they are then republished the following day as a story on MIT Technology’s website, with a note pointing out that newsletter subscribers saw the story first.
This achieves an often tricky balance between offering newsletter readers exclusive content. It offers an exclusive window to subscribers, yet allows MIT to promote articles to as wide a readership as possible.
“Once they’re on the site, they get treated and promoted like every other story,” Firth said. He also pointed out that sometimes these newsletter-first stories do as well as, or even better than, standard web-first pieces.
When newsletter articles are published online, they appear with multiple notes about originally being published as newsletters, with sign-up boxes to capture interested readers. This also provokes a bit of FOMO (fear of missing out), and highlights that the value of the newsletter is in being the first to get relevant news.
MIT’s newsletter-first strategy lets the editors go deeper on stories that have already been published, as well as smaller or more timely scoops. Firth explained that there may be a big story from earlier in the week with off-cuts or reporting that didn’t fit into the story, but can be used as a whole new story for the newsletter. “That does double-duty: It’s cool to read an interview with a researcher on a topic that only got a line in the main story but is worthy of a whole separate interview. But then it calls back to the main story, and all fits together,” he said.
Although newsletter stories contain multiple calls-to-action (CTAs) for the relevant newsletter, Firth also noted that contextual newsletter sign-up boxes are promoted on relevant stories throughout MIT Technology’s site. Energy stories will have a promotion for The Spark, AI stories for The Algorithm, and so on. This means site visitors are given visible and frequent opportunities to sign up to newsletters, even on a first visit.
Linking newsletter strategy with events
Another tactic which has seen success in driving audience growth is visible promotion of newsletters at MIT events. The publisher has a stable of large-scale conferences and focused gatherings, from their flagship EmTech emerging technologies summit to digital leadership “classroom,” Future Compute.
“At all of our events, we have these massive boards in the lobby of the event. They have QR codes for all the different newsletters, with a specific UTM so we know it came from that event for that newsletter,” Firth outlined.
He explained that both new event registrants or new subscribers to the brand get a dedicated email about the newsletters they can sign up to. For example, a registrant for their EmTech AI conference would also get an email from James O’Donnell, newsletter writer for The Algorithm, showcasing their weekly AI deep dive.
Relevant newsletters are also promoted at online events, including webinars and live streams.
Other growth tactics
Firth outlined a number of other strategies used to grow their newsletter audiences. MIT Technology Review has a hard paywall for around a third of the stories on the site. But for stories promoted on social media platforms, the team will offer access in return for signing up to a related newsletter.
“On Instagram, if we have a new big feature around AI, we do Instagram Stories where the ‘front page’ of the story would be the article, and the second page is a sign-up box to The Algorithm to get access to it,” said Firth.
The team has seen success using this tactic with some more surprising platforms like Reddit, too. Firth noted that Reddit attracts people who want to go particularly deep into various topics, rather than surface-level technology coverage; an audience their newsletters suit well.
Last year, the publisher experimented with exit intent popups – banners that appear when a user looks like they’re about to click off the page. Firth shared that these drove 4,000 new sign-ups over the test period last year. They are hoping to roll out a wider test of exit intent popups this year.
In October last year MIT launched a free six-week limited series newsletter, Intro to AI. Newsletter courses like this can be a good way of letting potential readers sample work without committing to a more regular newsletter. Each newsletter in the course takes the opportunity to promote the Algorithm.
Chief Executive Officer and publisher Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau told A Media Operator that since launching, the course had attracted 17,000 subscribers with an average open rate of 57%. Now, the publisher is looking at other complementary areas to its regular beat newsletters, like healthcare.
MIT Technology review has also been experimenting with newsletter promotion swaps as part of its growth strategy. Axios and Semafor have been early partners for this, with newsletters exchanging ads for the other publication to attract interested audiences who are already engaged with newsletters.
Crucially, all newsletter promotions make it as simple as possible to sign up, with readers being asked for just their email address.
There’s no silver bullet or one tactic that will result in sustainable newsletter growth. MIT Technology Review’s approach is to ensure that beat newsletters are consistently promoted across relevant pieces online. Every opportunity is taken – from events to social stories – to funnel audiences into topical newsletters. It is this combined, holistic approach that fuels MIT’s success.
Gen Z gets a bad rap from the news industry. Whether it’s news avoidance, the refusal to pay, or the rise in following news influencers rather than media organizations, myriad issues make it challenging for publishers to build relationships with younger audiences. Yet young audiences will pay for products that add value to their lives.
The belief that younger audiences will engage – and even pay – for media products drove the foundation of Youthquake. Danuta Breguła, MD for Paid Products at Ringier Axel Springer Polska and Liesbeth Nizet, Head of Future Audiences Monetization at Mediahuis nv are the people behind the Substack publication that focuses on how publishers can connect with young people.
Crucially, it’s no longer the case that young people will simply “grow into” paying for news as they get older and have more disposable income. Nizet explained that this is a change that she’s seen over the 15 years she’s worked in journalism. “News is not a destination any more,” she observed. “[Young people] consume news between all the other cool things. That’s why platforms are really interesting for them, because they give you news, but also all the other stuff.”
Although the push to go directly to a news app or site may be lower, Nizet believes that younger audiences can be persuaded to pay for news. That belief drives her work every day at Mediahuis.
“You see that young people want to pay for a new skin in Fortnite, or something on Roblox, or a nice feature on Airbnb for example, because it inspires them, or triggers them,” she explained. “Why aren’t we able to find what triggers them [to pay] for something as important as independent journalism?”
Thinking beyond the article
One issue Nizet highlighted is that many news organizations still think in text and image. Even video on news sites is usually landscape with a clumsy play experience. “It’s not the experience that they have on other platforms, and there is really some space for us,” she emphasized.
Short-form video — in portrait for mobile viewing – is the preferred consumption format for 61% of Gen Z and young millennial consumers surveyed by the Reuters Institute. Short-form text was the next most popular (40%), with long-form text ranking third in young audiences’ preferences (32%).
One example is looking at explainer videos which perform well for creators and influencers. News brands are ideally placed to do well from these, but Nizet said that this requires journalists showing their faces. To engage young news audiences, “we need to show our vulnerability,” she outlined. “We need to show how much effort it is to create a really good article, that it’s not just some piece of content like an influencer unboxing something.”
Nizet pointed to Danish news publisher Zetland as an example of offering alternative formats. Zetland identified that many of its readers wanted to get an update on their commute, and didn’t necessarily want to be looking into their screens. They invested in building an audio app with journalists reading out their stories. Now, 80% of their audience consume the news that way, and 45% of their subscribers are in their 20s and 30s.
Building trust off-platform
As well as innovating around publishers’ own platform experiences, there is value in investing in a presence wherever younger people are, in order to build those relationships. French daily newsbrand Le Monde told Press Gazette that investing in content for primarily Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube had helped initiate relationships with new audiences, who they then saw become paying subscribers after two or three years.
Nizet noted that although the end goal of being visible on social media should be to tease audiences back to publishers’ own work, there is a bigger role at play. “We can show them [on social] what our journalism looks like, how trustworthy it is, how we show different perspectives, and how we make content that is relatable to their world,” she said. “That is what will make them pay for it.”
“They don’t want to pay for some instance that is preaching to them how they need to live their lives. That is often what we still have in traditional media: we are going to tell you how the world is, and how you should think. It worked for other generations, but it doesn’t work for [young people].”
Although younger audiences are more likely to turn to social media for news, they are also very distrustful of the information they find on it. A Gen Z Report from Oliver Wyman Forum & TNM found that Gen Z are almost twice as likely to fact-check news, but also that they trust people like them 2x as much as “mainstream” news outlets.
Another opportunity social platforms present publishers is the ability to engage and interact with young news audiences. This isn’t a new phenomenon, of course. Nizet noted that older generations also comment and read what others are saying with as much interest as the original content.
“We are not just senders, but we act like senders,” Nizet explained. “We see platforms as traffic drivers. But a platform can do so much more than just traffic building. It’s about building trust and engagement, and letting people get to know your journalism.”
Crucially, this requires a re-adjustment of who publishers assess as their competitors. “We’re not competing against [traditional] media any more,” Nizet pointed out. “We are competing against cat movies, and influencer drama… that is the real competition.”
There is a balance to be struck between investing in building audiences on platforms publishers have little control over, and showcasing work to build trust. Nizet draws a clear distinction in her work at Mediahuis. Off-platform is the hook, where the question should be how journalism can be showcased and trust can be build. On-platform is about the reward, the value, the exclusivity and the community.
Looking outside publishing for inspiration
However successful individual publishers might be at attracting younger audiences, Nizet believes that real change will come from looking outside the industry at what works in other areas. This is the focus of her and Breguła’s Youthquake newsletter, and a report on How publishers can grow with today’s youth.
“We really want to go beyond the obvious things. So for example how Taylor Swift or Red Bull can help us understand and monetize younger people,” Nizet said. “There’s also a link between content creators, influencers and news brands…which could offer you a totally different perspective as a journalist than what you are used to, and it can be so enriching.”
It’s a sentiment that Zetland CEO Tav Klitgaard echoed to The Publisher Podcast this week. “The product has to be much better,” he said, referring to news sites and apps. “You have to compete with Spotify and Instagram. You shouldn’t compete with a legacy print paper, and it seems like a lot of people in the media industry are still believing that’s [who] you need to compete with, which is just totally wrong. You need to compete with YouTube.”
A shift in thinking to engage young news audiences
Nizet is optimistic that publishers can build a relationship with younger audiences, even a paying one. She pointed out that there will always be a need for news, and that there is a lot of opportunity for those who can think outside the box.
Crucially, the answer to these challenges won’t come from the way publishers are used to doing things right now. “We need to shift how we think,” Nizet emphasized. “We don’t control the internet… but we can see how we can adapt to it in formats that [young people] like, and stories that they like and feel relatable.
“At some point, they will pay for it. I don’t mean when they are 30 or 35, I mean at the moment that they are feeling the value that we can offer them.”
Building a relationship where that value becomes evident to Gen Z is not a quick task. Strategies put in place now will take years to pay off, as with the example of Le Monde on social media. But it is a vital job that news publishers need to actively be planning for, if they want young audiences to pay for news in the future.
Content licensing has long been an important revenue stream for digital media companies. For decades, it allowed publishers to monetize their content by granting rights for others to republish or repurpose their material, evolving from licensing to aggregators, databases, social platforms, to streaming video services. Now, content licensing faces another evolution: artificial intelligence (AI).
Digital media publishers are finding themselves in a unique position in that they possess decades worth of quality content AI companies crave. “Over the next few years, content creators and AI companies will deepen their relationships,” predicts Yulia Petrossian Boyle, founder and principal of YPB Global LLC and FIPP chair. “However, as AI players try to secure more original content, those relationships will need to transition from one-off deals to well-structured, ethical partnerships with strict IP protection and meaningful ongoing revenue for publishers.”
TIME’s COO Mark Howard believes that publishers currently have three ways they can approach the AI dilemma: “You can do nothing. That’s just not something we would consider, to sit on the sidelines and just let everybody else figure it out. The other two options are to litigate and negotiate. Litigation is a very, very large commitment… So, that leaves negotiation.”
For some media companies, AI licensing agreements offer an alluring mix of copyright protection and monetization opportunities as DCN contributor Damian Radcliffe points out. And, as they negotiate these deals, publishers are discovering they must balance the potential for monetization with the need to protect intellectual property rights, navigate complex legal challenges, and ensure responsible AI usage.
Fair value in AI content licensing
According to a recent INMA report, executives considering licensing deals need to understand the value of their content in an AI-driven market. Then they have to negotiate attribution and compensation models that align with business goals. The report recommends collaborating with industry peers to create standardized agreements. It emphasizes the importance of advocating for responsible AI practices, including transparency in data usage.
Image credit: Ezra Eeman, Strategy & Innovation Director – NPO
The report also highlights emerging licensing models, which include direct licensing, value-in-kind partnerships, training fees, bundled partnerships, and per-use compensation. Boyle notes promising approaches, like “data-as-currency” deals, where AI companies offer analytics in exchange for access to their platforms and services (in some cases in addition to some smaller flat fees).
“Revenue-sharing is on the rise, where publishers earn a portion of subscription revenue or performance-based compensation (based on lead-gen, or engagement analytics),” she says. “For example, Perplexity AI’s Publishing Program launched in July 2024 offers revenue share based on the number of a publisher’s web pages cited in AI-generated responses to user queries. Those in the program earn a variable percentage of ad revenue generated per cited page.”
Boyle says that, while compensation models are improving, she worries that AI companies do not adequately compensate for content that has higher production costs, such as investigative journalism. She points to pushback from publishers like Forbes, who rejected the Perplexity proposal.
Negotiating with AI companies on behalf of her consultancy, Boyle has observed that offers by some AI companies for training datasets are insufficient. “Since agreements are not indefinite, it is unclear to me how publishers will be compensated in future when AI companies may no longer need training data for their data sets.”
In her opinion, current compensation models between major AI companies and publishers do not adequately reflect the significant investments that publishers make in creating original content. She believes compared to the substantial amounts AI companies invest in technology, such as chips, their expenditure on content seems disproportionately low. This disparity highlights a need for a more balanced financial recognition of the value that original content creators bring to these partnerships, she says.
However, striking these deals isn’t simple. Howard notes that each one is different, each has different monetization models and philosophies on revenue sharing.
“Some of them are flat fee for training, some of them are variable based on user adoption of their own products, and some of them are based on future ad models that haven’t even launched yet,” Howard says. “Many of them have some form of value-in-kind around technology or technology resources, which makes me very excited. I think that that may end up being where most of the value is derived in the long term.”
A few of TIME’s AI partnerships are infrastructure-based, like Fox Verify, which uses their blockchain-based technology to verify all of the content TIME publishes in the CMS. This provides them with a ledger of all of their intellectual property going forward. After that, according to Howard, they worked with Tollbit and Scalepost to track and monitor all of the AI bots on TIME’s site any given day and see what they’re doing.
Access to technology is a key benefit of TIME’s AI partnerships for Howard. “We’re partners of theirs. I have direct access to their CTO and their senior leadership team. We get to hear what… they’re thinking about the market, that’s a really valuable conversation for us to have.”
“We brought money in as a result of these deals,” he says. “I’m happy about what we brought in. Some of it is fixed, a lot of it is variable and a lot of it is access to product resources and technology.”
Factiva puts trust first in its AI licensing
Dow Jones launched Factiva Smart Summary in November, a groundbreaking feature in its business intelligence platform engineered with Google’s Gemini models on Google Cloud. Smart Summary leverages generative AI technology to create concise summaries for Factiva users that are fully transparent and traceable, utilizing licensed content from each of their publishing partners.
To do so, Factiva approached every one of its nearly 4,000 sources in 160 countries with licensing agreements. “We did this because we are a publisher first and arbiter for publishers… We won’t ask any of our publishing partners to do anything that we’re not prepared to do ourselves,” explains Traci Mabrey, general manager of Factiva. “As such, we have elected and will continue to elect, to reach out to publishing entities and request additional licensing permissions and actual rights for generative AI use.” Today, its marketplace includes nearly 5,000 partners.
Dow Jones emphasizes the importance of respecting and compensating intellectual property and content creation. Mabrey outlines four key criteria guiding their AI partnerships: trust, transparency, segmentation, and compliance.
“We believe that trust is imperative. We believe there needs to be transparency in terms of content being created, used, surfaced and attributed,” Mabrey says. “There also needs to be relative segmentation in terms of use cases across different solutions. And there needs to be compliance and governance to adherence to the first three, of trust, transparency and segmentation.”
Deal points when licensing content for AI training
There’s no one-size-fits-all model for licensing deals, and the best approach depends on a publisher’s specific goals, content, and resources. Some determine how easily an LLM can integrate into their existing systems and CMS. Some choose LLMs based on those they already deal with.
But, data privacy and security are central concerns in these agreements. Vadim Supitskiy, chief digital and information officer at Forbes, told Digiday that ensuring interactions with AI products remain safe and protected is a key priority.
Mabrey echoes this sentiment, emphasizing that privacy and security are integral components to negotiations with AI partners. “As we’re looking at responsible delivery of AI, responsible usage of content and privacy and security in terms of technical infrastructure, that is our leading indicator.”
Publishers must have review rights over AI-generated outputs, ability to see proof of usage logs, and be able to enforce brand guidelines, according to Boyle. “All those things have to be clearly defined in the licensing agreements. Tracking metrics of engagement, attribution, and demographic insights is also important for publishers to receive, to be able to see how valuable their licensed content is,” she says.
Essential safeguards in the agreements themselves ought to include strong, sophisticated clauses to protect publishers’ IP, says Boyle, “including mechanisms to prevent unauthorized reproduction, clear ownership definitions, restrictions on data usage, well defined termination provisions, attribution and fair compensation.”
Howard emphasizes that no two content licensing deals with AI companies are the same, and each comes with significant legal and technical hurdles. “First, there’s the legal aspect and every company needs to come up with their own legal terms and what is acceptable to them and what is not. What do they have the rights to? What do they not have the rights to?” he says.
“Once you’ve determined all of that, you need a technology solution to be able to deliver the content to them… All of the delivery mechanisms are quite different and require some form of customization.”
These complexities point to why AI companies have slowed the pace of new licensing agreements after an initial rush. Negotiating unique terms and building tailored tech solutions for each partner has proven difficult to scale, Howard notes.
Where AI licensing is headed
AI is reshaping how content is distributed, discovered, and monetized. For media companies, the choice is clear: engage in legal battles or proactively negotiate terms that ensure fair compensation. The market is rapidly evolving with new players, technologies and partnership models.
For companies currently negotiating content licensing deals with AI, Howard says to move forward. He points out that, while there are benchmarks based on what other companies have secured, the initial rush of deals has likely passed. He doesn’t expect future deals to improve; in fact, he thinks they’ll probably get worse.
Mabrey believes that the industry has reached a unique inflection point, where generative AI gives it the chance to assert that content is intellectual property and requires compensation. “We, as a media community around the world, should be coming together to assure that all of us are asserting our rights in the same manner.”
In light of these shifts, there’s a clear message for media executives: the future of content licensing is in their hands. Instead of letting the industry define them, publishers can shape the future of the industry by hammering out a windfall through litigation and the courts, negotiating partnerships, and advocating for fair treatment.
