At the same time, a few powerful technology platforms are eroding journalism’s foundations both economically and ethically. Google has been found guilty of illegally monopolizing search and ad tech, inflicting measurable harm on publishers. And a Meta whistleblower recently testified that CEO Mark Zuckerberg not only sought to crush the news industry, but also personally led efforts to build censorship tools for the Chinese government—actions fundamentally at odds with a free press.
These threats, whether overt, covert or systemic, make it difficult for the free press to flourish. And, in a world where journalism cannot thrive, truth fades, power operates without scrutiny, and people are left without the information they need to understand and shape the forces that affect their lives.
We stand with our members—premium publishers rooted in integrity, trust, and journalistic excellence—and with journalists around the globe who uphold truth in the face of adversity. A healthy media ecosystem depends on a vibrant press that is protected, sustainable, and supported by its communities. We urge publishers, policymakers, advertisers, and the public to actively support its future.
Here are several ways to engage and show support:
Subscribe to trusted news organizations: Direct support from audiences strengthens the ability of newsrooms to produce independent, high-quality journalism.
Support public media: Visit Protect My Public Media today to learn more and to contact your elected representatives about the importance of public media.
Champion clean, brand-safe advertising environments: Advertisers and agencies can take action by aligning budgets with trusted, high-quality publishers.
Support and amplify trusted journalism: Share credible reporting widely to counter the spread of misinformation, just as bad actors amplify disinformation.
Push back on platform dominance: Advocate for policies that ensure fair competition and protect the original work of news organizations to support diverse, local, and independent journalism.
Foster media literacy: Encourage educational initiatives that help audiences identify credible sources and value factual reporting.
Press freedom is not a guarantee; it is a shared responsibility. It is a right that we must steadfastly defend.
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.”
It’s no surprise that investment in AI tools and platforms is a major priority for media companies. Recent research from the Reuters Institute found that investing in platforms such as OpenAI and Perplexity is the leading priority for industry leaders in the year ahead. Meanwhile, WAN-IFRA’s annual World Press Trends study highlighted this as an area of both improving relationships and continued investment.
These moves are driven by a combination of factors such as fear of missing out and falling behind as Generative AI continues to evolve. Companies also want to have the ability to use these technologies for a range of benefits including efficiencies and the development of new products.
The opening months of 2025 have witnessed the continued integration of AI into workflows and further developments that promise to yield a range of benefits for content creators.
Here are four noteworthy AI trends and how media executives should be thinking about the emerging opportunities they present.
1. Conversational AI enhances connections
Both audio and text-based conversational AI are gaining traction. According to the Reuters Institute, harnessing AI to turn text into audio is the top audience-facing AI application for media leaders in the year ahead. These moves are driven by “advances in voice technologies [that] have made it possible to transform text articles into audio (in multiple languages or tones).”
Moreover, as noted by ElevenLabs, an AI Audio research and deployment company that works with publishers such as Time, “the shift to AI-driven audio isn’t just about convenience — it’s about survival in a landscape where audiences increasingly prefer to listen rather than read.” (NB: their italics.) This trend is evidenced at outlets such as The Washington Post which saw daily audio listens double in the first six months of last year.
And as these AI tools get cheaper, more accessible, and sound increasingly more human, AI-powered consumer experiences will become more mainstream across the media landscape. That includes local – as well as national and international – media outlets.
Alongside these audio formats, AI-driven chatbots are also becoming more prominent.
Although there are legitimate concerns about the accuracy of news summaries provided by these tools, the way in which they access content from sites that have blocked their crawlers, coupled with a frequent inability to cite sources or provide referral traffic, these products are becoming more prevalent. This week, for example, saw The Straits Times in Singapore launch a chatbot that answers questions from readers on career-related topics, drawing on an archive of 5,000 stories published on this topic since 2020.
Sensing the opportunity, businesses like Tars offer a chatbot specifically designed for news organizations. Its functionality allows audiences to interact with news stories in a conversational format, ask follow-up questions, rate articles, and access related visual content.
Meanwhile, several major media providers have signed deals to provide content for AI chatbots owned by some of Silicon Valley’s biggest players. Late last year, Meta revealed it would use content from Reuters to answer user questions in its chatbot about the news and current events. More recently, AP inked a similar deal with Google, which will see news from the Associated Press featured in the tech company’s Gemini app.
Takeaway
As user needs and preferences continue to evolve, media companies must respond accordingly. Delivery of content via voice and chatbots, may become more mainstream, given the growing demand for more informal and conversational interactions with content. Catering for these audiences will become further engrained in media distribution strategies.
2. The return of content at scale
AI-assisted content creation is not a new phenomenon. However, it is creating an opportunity for some media outlets to turn back the clock to the era when scale was seen as king.
Patch, the local news provider that was acquired by AOL in 2009 (and offloaded in 2014) has used AI newsletters to expand Patch’s reach over the past few months from 1,100 U.S. communities to 30,000. As Axios explains, these newsletters feature five stories from Patch sites along with material aggregated from other online sources.
Despite its use of AI to scale, Patch purportedly has 85 full time newsroom employees. However, Nieman Lab reported in January how a company producing AI-generated newsletters in 47 states and 355 towns and cities across the U.S. appeared to be operated by a single person.
These examples demonstrate the ease with which AI can help curate content at scale.
Although these efforts can curate content to consolidate coverage, they don’t deliver original journalism. Moreover, it can be difficult to check the veracity and accuracy of content produced at this volume.
Questions around accuracy and the absence of fresh reporting were similarly leveled at the Italian conservative newspaper Il Foglio, which recently published a four-page edition produced entirely by AI. “The articles were structured, straightforward and clear, with no obvious grammatical errors,” the Guardian notes. “However, none of the articles published in the news pages directly quote any human beings.”
These examples may make some media leaders, and audiences, uncomfortable. Nevertheless, they can be viewed as an extension of some of the ways AI technologies are already being used.
AP has been using AI to produce stories based on earning reports for over a decade, dramatically increasing the number of stories it produces in this arena as a result. At the same time, Gannett publications in the Boston area have begun harnessing a generative AI tool called Espresso to draft articles from community announcements and press releases.
Similarly, Semafor has revealed how The New York Times is exploring using AI tools to assist with SEO, research, headline writing, content for social media and other purposes. This can speed up the production process, potentially creating time for employees to produce more in-depth and creative content, as well as increasing the volume of output.
Takeaway
The use of AI to automate routine tasks has long been cited as a benefit of these tools. Advocates argue AI will enable staff to focus on original and deeper work. However, there is a risk that these technologies will have the opposite effect, encouraging creators to publish more content, much of it low quality “AI slop.” The need for originality and distinctiveness will be the differentiator for most players in an AI-driven world. While some providers can use AI to scale their output, doing so while maintaining quality, distinctiveness and value isn’t always easy or an approach that will work for everyone.
3. Beyond efficiency: AI as a tool for accessibility
Discussions around AI often focus on efficiencies, the ability to streamline workflows, or harness these tools to create new products. This can certainly be true. Last month, political news outlet Politico launched their Policy Intelligence Assistant — a new AI-powered tool enabling Politico Pro subscribers to generate in-depth policy reports using the company’s proprietary reporting and analysis.
However, at the same time, AI can also be used to ensure that content is able to reach wider, more diverse, audiences.
Publishers are already using AI to help with translation. But the benefits can go well beyond that. Speech-to-Text tools can generate captions for live broadcasts, webinars, and events, making the information more accessible. Similarly, these technologies – augmented by human input – can aid with audio description, the creation of ALT text, and personalization. This can represent a business opportunity that expands reach and potentially fosters greater audience loyalty.
Chitranshu Tewari, the Director of Product and Revenue at Newslaundry in India, argues that “AI-driven accessibility isn’t only better product design but also good business.” Reflecting on their own experiences, he comments that “our accessibility efforts didn’t just make our platform more inclusive — they also attracted new paying subscribers.”
Takeaway
AI can do more than help media companies tick compliance boxes. By making content more user-friendly there are opportunities to better serve all audiences, especially those that have historically been underserved or overlooked. AI can help to embed inclusive design principles, while at the same time making access to your products more equitable and valuable.
4. Trust and transparency in media’s AI age
As AI becomes more deeply integrated into content production and consumption, media leaders must continue to understand – and address – attitudes towards these technologies among consumers.
Research demonstrates that public sentiment towards AI in the production of content, such as journalism, varies widely. “On the whole, people are generally positive about journalists’ ability to use technology for professional purposes,” says the Center for News, Technology & Innovation. Nevertheless, attitudes are often shaped by users’ personal experiences and knowledge of these technologies.
This divergence in public opinion reaffirms the need for transparency about the usage of AI technologies. That can be particularly true in the creation of news content.
Takeaway
In an age of low levels of trust in mainstream media, disclosure and the presence of clear – publicly available – guidelines around how AI is being deployed, is important. Media companies should be upfront about when and how AI is involved in content creation, as well as the potential limitations inherent within these technologies. For example, do audiences understand how answers generated by your AI chatbot are produced? If they don’t, arguably they should.
Putting the AI pieces together
AI is already a transformative force that is reshaping the media industry. It is redefining workflows, as well as how content is produced, distributed, and consumed.
As we’ve seen, some of the trends in this space have only accelerated in the first part of 2025, although they are often underpinned by core principles which have always made good, strategic, sense. These changes touch on the core of what great content looks like: how those stories are made, where – and how – they are consumed, and what trust looks like in an increasingly AI-driven world.
Chief among these, media companies must continue to meet audiences where they are. In 2025, this is increasingly in conversational online environments. Whether it is via voice or chat, AI can be used to create experiences that feel more informal, responsive, and interactive.
At the same time, even though AI enables publishers to automate routine tasks, freeing up some staff time in the process, outlets should avoid the temptation to flood platforms with more material. In an era of abundance, content isn’t a numbers game. Originalityanddistinctiveness will determine which providers survive and thrive.
AI’s role in the origination of creative work also needs to be effectively communicated. Audiences want, and deserve, transparency, ethical clarity, and the knowledge that there is still human and editorial oversight of the content they consume.
And lastly, in doing all of this, it is incumbent on media players to integrate inclusive design into everything they do. This approach isn’t just important from an ethical or compliance standpoint, it can also be commercially beneficial, with AI potentially making this easier to do than ever before.
The strategic use of AI tools and technologies offers media companies considerable opportunities, but leaders also have to recognize that there are also inherent risks too. This includes resisting the urge to use AI simply to do more. Rather, the focus for folks in the C-Suite must be to do better: creating enhanced opportunities for engagement and doing so in a way that is transparent and where accuracy and quality remain paramount.
The next chapter of AI in the media business is being written now. It’s up to all of us to ensure it’s one worth consuming.
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.
England Women’s National Team soccer player Lucy Bronze is sitting in an armchair, in front of the camera, being interviewed for the BBC by her former teammate turned TV presenter Alex Scott. She explains that she was diagnosed with autism and ADHD four years ago and outlines how the conditions have impacted her hugely successful career.
It’s a significant conversation, but it didn’t go straight to a BBC channel. Instead, the final six-minute edit appeared on the BBC iPlayer last week and then YouTube. It was a perfect demonstration of an increasingly popular and important video format – and length.
Standing out from the video crowd
Videos that are a few, even 15, minutes long might not seem on trend in our scroll-happy world. However, in genres such as news and explainers this content length has proved to be powerful and increasingly popular.
There is an overwhelming amount of video available now and certain formats and lengths of duration are starting to stand out. Most noticeable are very long podcast episodes (think three-hour Joe Rogan episodes) and tightly edited, punchy social media clips lasting 60 to 90 seconds.
However, structured, often scripted, work lasting in the region of six to 15 minutes, is becoming a crucial part of some publishers’ strategies. Adam Tinworth, a lecturer at City St George’s in London and a commentator on audience strategy, said that “seven to 15 minutes is a kind of nice slot,” because publishers can “get a decent amount of depth without boring people.”
One outlet that produces this kind of content as part of a wide range of output is The News Movement. It publishes an eight-to-15-minute video on YouTube each month. Editor-in-Chief Rebecca Hutson told Digital Content Next that the work is “a kind of reinvented or slightly deconstructed documentary”. She explained that her team strips out b-roll and lots of the other quirks we are accustomed to seeing on television because “it just doesn’t quite suit the medium”. The objective is to balance pace as well as depth. “The sequences are tight,” said Hutson.
Again, YouTube is the destination. Quite simply, the media companies want to go where they already know there is an audience, instead of trying to drag them to their own website.
“All our content appears quite differently on different platforms,” Hutson added, and this impacts the kind of work published there. “On Instagram, it’s a little bit more of a kind of leaning in experience, people are in a slightly different headspace…that content is appearing next to people’s friends and family.”
It’s a point Tinworth echoes. He noted that TikTok is “not an environment where people are hunting for news-based stuff. They will encounter it, and they might consume it, but it’s not where they’re looking for it.”
Longer, perhaps more serious videos are viewed in a whole different context. Videos of longer lengths will be much more palatable on somewhere like YouTube. Viewers are increasingly comfortable with longer formats as they watch more YouTube on big TVs. Data from Tubular Labs published in July 2024 found that the number of videos over 20 minutes long being uploaded to YouTube each month rose from 1.3 million in July 2022 to 8.5 million in June 2024.
Specialist shows optimized for video length
Indeed, there are companies that are built around making highly produced videos in the six-to-15-minute-length sweet spot. Complexly, for instance make a range of shows, including science education content for children. Underknown also do this kind of work. (I particularly enjoyed learning what would happen if I fell into Jupiter as part of their “What If” series”.)
Explainers, in which a specific topic is unpacked in depth, work well “because those videos have an inherent longer life,” said Tinworth. “You can build up this sort of body of explainer videos, which then drive traffic over long periods of time.”
Complexly is, at least in part, supported by Patreon. However, in general monetization of this kind of content seems to be based on the familiar pillars of advertising and brand sponsorships, sticking with the consensus where it is published.
Traditional broadcasters are experimenting with this format too. In addition to the Lucy Bronze interview, the BBC has previously created Ranked, a game show where groups compete for cash by guessing the correct ranking of things related to their shared passion or profession. It went out on both YouTube and the iPlayer CNN has created the more documentary-style Great Big Story on YouTube too. Nigel Dacre, a former editor of ITV news who now works as a media and digital executive said:
“In TV News, there’s an ongoing debate about how much TV news organizations should cut up their normal TV programs into short form reports. It’s not just for social media (which they all do), but also for their new streaming apps. ITV News really focuses on short form videos on ITVX, for example… a lot more than BBC News does on the iPlayer.”
Keeping control of your work
Giving work over to third parties who have… changeable… algorithmic and monetization criteria is something Jane Ferguson is trying to push back against. The eminent former foreign correspondent spent much of her career at PBS and has now founded Noospere, a subscription-based service that lets journalists own their own work instead of giving it to giant tech platforms. Think of it as a mix between Substack and a social media feed.
Yes, it’s another platform but “we’ve taken control of the distribution and put it in the hands of the journalists so effectively, you know, disintermediating the news business,” Ferguson explained.
Furthermore, “many of our colleagues and our contributors come from a Vice background where they really leaned into longer form filmmaking, but also that magazine length. I think that many field reporters have felt has been something that audiences, for years, have responded so well to. They want these more substantive pieces, but they don’t want to give you 45 minutes of their day,” said the Noosphere boss.
Ferguson also refutes the idea that not posting on giant tech platforms means you’re not going where consumers are. “We’ve gone to where the eyeballs are by going on our phones app first,” she said. For her, the hardware platform seemingly matters more than the software one.
As media executives strive to engage younger audiences, finding the sweet spot for digital video will be critical. Certainly, it’s not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Like the vast breadth of content that appeals to people, different lengths will suit different individuals.
As ever with creative work, this as much an art to finding the right length for video as there is a science. Testing with your audience will always be crucial. However, the success of companies like Complexly and Underknown, and the successful individual pieces of content like the Lucy Bronze interview demonstrates that seven to 15-minute-long videos are a powerful way to get in-depth information to viewers in an accessible format, particularly in the news and explainer genres.
In terms of public policy debates, Artificial Intelligence continues to be the belle of the ball with nearly every major government courting the industry to locate their investments and jobs within their jurisdictions. Europe, China, Korea, and the U.S. (among others) have laid out competing tax and government spending plans to entice and encourage AI companies. Against this backdrop of AI frenzy, President Donald Trump, via the Office of Science Technology and Policy, has solicited input on the formation of an “AI Action Plan” in order to “define the priority policy actions needed to sustain and enhance America’s AI dominance.”
Unsurprisingly and unabashedly, tech companies advocate that the U.S. government allow their content-generating AI models to train on copyrighted material without consent or compensation. However, as DCN noted in our comments regarding the action plan, a key component to achieving the stated goal of enhancing America’s AI dominance – and the broader success of American businesses – is the robust protection and enforcement of U.S. intellectual property law including the Copyright Act.
Copyright protection makes legal, and financial, sense
The longstanding legal rights for copyright holders are derived from the U.S. Constitution (Article I, section 8, clause 8), which affords them the opportunity to monetize the results of their hard work and investment in a variety of ways and incentivizes them to reinvest in the creation of additional content and new innovative delivery mechanisms to potential consumers. As a result of these longstanding rights, American content creators, including news organizations and other publishers, are able to contribute significantly to U.S. economic growth, including through employment, exports and important trade surplus, and digital services and goods.
According to a recent study, copyright-based industries accounted for 12.31% of the U.S. economy and 63.13% of the U.S. digital economy. From 2020 to 2023, these industries outpaced U.S. economic growth almost threefold. In the digital sector alone, copyright-based industries employ 56.6% of all employees in the digital sector. The annual compensation paid to core copyright workers is approximately 50% higher than the average U.S. annual wage. As for the global impact, the sales of select U.S. copyrighted products in overseas markets amounted to $272.6 billion, which exceeded the sales of other IP industries including pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and aerospace.
Copyright, competition and a fair market
Unfortunately, the manner in which many AI developers have exploited original content without consent or compensation – to build and operationalize their commercial products – has unjustifiably violated the rights of copyright holders. It has upended the existing balance which has historically sustained and promoted innovation.
AI developers use copyright protected content not only to “teach” their models to predict and mimic language skills, but also as a means to create compelling outputs which have the compounding harm of substituting for the original works on which the models were trained. This activity unfairly competes with those who invested in the creation of the original material and undermines their ability to seek a fair economic return. In fact, U.S. Senior District Judge Beryl Howell noted earlier this week in a copyright case attempting to argue fair use that the publisher’s content is “so valuable they put a copyright on it.” Exactly.
By “reaping that which they do not sow” AI companies cause harm to creators, publishers and the ecosystem as a whole. It is important that this form of destructive misappropriation be deterred, whether by copyright law or other appropriate means. In the U.S, there are 39 related lawsuits and counting. The outcome of these suits will provide much-needed clarity regarding the application of existing copyright law, including the fact-specific defense of fair use, to the infringement of the rights of copyright holders to develop generative AI technology.
However, one U.S. District Court recently confirmed that licensing is required for the use of copyrighted content to train an AI system. In Thomson Reuters Enter. Ctr. GmBH v. Ross Intel. Inc., the court, applying clear and recent precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court, held that the defendant’s unauthorized use of the plaintiff’s works to train the defendant’s AI system was direct infringement and did not constitute fair use. The Court reaffirmed that the impact of the use on existing and potential markets is the single most important element of a fair use analysis, and that there was clearly a potential market to use the materials at issue in the case to train AI.
Innovation flourishes within the copyright framework
Lest the VC crowd be dismayed, a licensing framework is emerging as many deals have been struck by publishers, record labels, motion picture industries, and others. OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity have all made efforts to pay for the right to use protected content to power their models and tools. This is a clear acknowledgment that this model is not only necessary, but eminently feasible.
While publishers’ rights are coming into clearer focus in the U.S., AI companies are beginning to feel a shared pain as evidenced recently by DeepSeek’s R1 model. OpenAI accused the company of IP theft, claiming that DeepSeek may have used OpenAI’s IP and violated its terms of service to develop its AI model.
“We know PRC (China) based companies – and others – are constantly trying to distill the models of leading US AI companies,” OpenAI said in a statement to Bloomberg. “As the leading builder of AI, we engage in countermeasures to protect our IP, including a careful process for which frontier capabilities to include in released models, and believe as we go forward that it is critically important that we are working closely with the US government to best protect the most capable models from efforts by adversaries and competitors to take US technology.”
A rising tide can lift all boats. Only maintaining existing copyright protections will lead to a robust, free market where creators are incentivized to make high quality works and AI companies are incentivized to license them. Importantly, in this robust market, AI companies would continue to have access to quality content which is critical for training and outputs. The American values of IP protection have been a cornerstone in our country’s innovative spirit and competitive edge over foreign adversaries. Protecting IP is a matter of preserving the core principles that distinguish American businesses in the global market. For the history of the U.S., copyright and innovation have gone hand in hand and there is no reason to deviate from that successful combination as we build the next chapter.
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.
The publishing industry has been of two minds on AI’s rapid advancements – optimistic and cautious – sometimes within the same company walls. Business development teams explore much-needed new revenue opportunities while legal teams work to protect their art and existing rights. However, two major legal developments, the Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence ruling and shocking new revelations in Kadrey v. Meta, expose the fault lines in AI’s unchecked expansion and set the stage for publishers to negotiate fair value for their investments.
One case confirms that publishers have a right to license their content for AI training and that tech advocates’ tortured analysis of fair use doesn’t throw out rights engrained in the U.S. Constitution or require publishers to opt-in to attain them. The other case suggests that Meta may have knowingly pirated books in its high-stakes race to keep up with OpenAI and that Meta’s notorious growth-at-all-cost playbook is more exposed than ever.
AI companies can no longer operate in a legal gray zone, scraping content as if laws don’t apply to them. Courts, lawmakers, researchers and the public are taking notice. For publishers, the priority is clear: AI must respect copyright from the beginning including for training purposes, and the media industry must ensure it plays an active role in shaping AI’s future rather than being exploited by it.
Thomson Reuters v. Ross: A win for AI licensing, a loss for those who intentionally avoid it
In a landmark decision, a federal judge ruled this month in favor of Thomson Reuters against Ross Intelligence, a startup that trained its AI model without rights or permission using the Reuters’ Westlaw legal database.
Judge Stephanos Bibas’ ruling in the Delaware district court is notable because he explicitly recognized the emerging market for licensing AI training data. This undercuts the argument that AI developers can freely use copyrighted works under “fair use” factors. And, consistent with DCN’s policy team, it also highlights the significant importance of the fourth factor of fair use, which publishers have been demonstrating with the signing of each new licensing deal.
For publishers, this is a crucial precedent for two reasons:
AI training is not automatically fair use. Content owners have the right to be paid when their work is being used to train AI.
A market for AI licensing is forming – this is the fourth factor. Publishers should define and monetize it before platforms dictate the terms.
This decision marks a turning point, ensuring that AI development doesn’t come at the expense of the people and companies producing high-quality content. Sam Altman of OpenAI, and other leadership across the powerful AI industry, have attempted to invent a “right to learn” for their machines. That’s an absurd argument on its face but regularly repeated in high-profile interviews, as if the technocrats might will it into reality.
Kadrey v. Meta: Pirated Books, torrenting, and a familiar playbook
While the Reuters ruling validates AI licensing, Kadrey v. Meta reveals how some AI developers have worked to avoid it.
Recently unsealed court documents suggest that Meta employees knowingly pirated books to train LLaMA AI models used as their first commercial version (LLaMA2). Significantly, their fair use analysis shifted from “research” to making bank – a lot of it.
Evidence revealed that demonstrates this knowing strategic shift:
Meta employees downloaded pirated book datasets from a massive, pirated dataset, LibGen, with employees even using torrenting technology to pull it down.
They may have “seeded” and distributed this pirated content to others. That’s a potential violation of criminal code that their own employees sharedthis, “What is the probability of getting arrested for using torrents in the USA?”.
Meta worried that licensing even one book would weaken its fair use argument, so it didn’t license any at all.
Some employees explicitly avoided normal approval processes to keep leadership from having to formally sign off.
Some documents suggest Mark Zuckerberg himself may have been aware of these tactics with documents referencing escalations to “MZ.”
Meta appears to have stopped using this material ahead of LLaMA3, possibly signaling awareness that their actions were legally indefensible.
Making matters worse, Meta’s case is being overseen by Judge Vincent Chhabria in the Northern District of California. This is the same judge who sanctioned Facebook’s lawyers in its massive privacy settlement that led to record-breaking settlements approaching $6 billion with the FTC, SEC and private plaintiffs. In that case, Facebook was accused of stalling, misleading regulators, and withholding evidence related to its user data practices. In other words, Judge Chhabria knows Meta’s playbook: delay, deny, deflect.
Now, Meta faces a crime-fraud doctrine claim. This means that some currently sealed legal advice could be unsealed if it was in furtherance of a crime. If proven, this would not be a simple copyright dispute; it could potentially lead to criminal liability and further regulatory scrutiny. The Court is ordering Meta to unseal more documents this week.
Move fast, break things… again: Meta’s AI strategy mirrors its past scandals
The Kadrey case’s revelations closely resemble Meta’s past data controversies, particularly those that were all put into the basket of Cambridge Analytica. The many ongoing details of the cover up of the scandal are still emerging today. Unfortunately, they were mostly overlooked by the tech press corp who have not been tuned in to these issues for far too long.
For years, Facebook pursued a strategy of aggressive data harvesting to accelerate its growth in mobile where it had risk of being supplanted by new platforms. The company:
Scraped vast amounts of publisher and user data without clear consent.
Shared this data widely with developers in exchange for reciprocal access to their user data – fueling Facebook’s mobile market share grab.
Ultimately settled with regulators for billions after repeated privacy violations.
Now, in Kadrey v. Meta, history appears to be repeating itself. Internal documents show that Meta feared OpenAI and needed to accelerate its AI development. Thus, Meta felt pressured to take outsized risks. Meta’s approach to AI training follows a similar pattern:
Acquire the best data – legally or not.
Use it to gain an edge over AI competitors.
Deal with legal and regulatory fallout later, if necessary.
Recently unsealed documents even expose a documented mitigation strategy.
Remove data clearly marked as pirated (but only if it’s in the filename despite letting the coders strip out copyright info in the actual content)
Don’t let anyone know what data sets they’re using (including illegal datasets)
Do whatever possible to suppress prompts that spit out IP violations
Key takeaways for publishers and media companies
The Thomson Reuters and Kadrey cases demonstrate both the risks and the opportunities for publishers in the AI era. Courts are starting to push back on AI’s unlicensed use of copyrighted content. But it’s up to the publishing industry to define what comes next.
Here are the big issues we must address:
AI models need high-quality data. And publishers must ensure they’re compensated for it. The Reuters ruling proves that a growing licensing market for AI exists.
Litigation is working. The unsealed evidence in the Kadrey case suggests that even AI giants like Meta know they’ve crossed legal lines. Facebook isn’t dumb, evidence from other peer companies may be even more damaging. The plural press needs to be shining the light on these wrongs as national security isn’t an excuse for AI companies to break copyright law.
Publishers must be proactive in shaping AI policy. Big Tech will push its own narrative. Meta and Google pay front groups like Chamber of Progress to stretch the meaning of fair use both in the U.S. and across the pond. Media companies must work together to establish AI licensing frameworks and legal protections and reinforce existing copyright law.
Regulatory scrutiny on AI will intensify. If Meta is found to have used pirated data, it will accelerate AI regulations. This will not likely be confined to copyright but could extend across tech policy as it did in 2018, when one scandal exposed larger problems leading to Facebook being dragged before parliaments around the globe.
The future of AI depends on trust, ethics and media leadership
The past year has shown that AI is both a disruptor and an opportunity. The Reuters ruling confirmed publishers can and should demand licensing deals. The Meta revelations prove why that’s so necessary.
AI is reshaping media, but it must be built ethically. The publishing industry has both the legal and ethical high ground. And media companies must use it to define the next phase of AI’s evolution. The future of AI isn’t just about innovation. It’s about who controls the data and the IP – and whether the people who create it are respected or exploited.
Subscriptions remain a vital revenue stream for most media companies, but the landscape is rapidly shifting. In response, publisher strategies also need to adapt and evolve.
The days of easy subscriber growth are over. To drive subscription growth, media companies must double-down on addressing core challenges such as churn, consumer fatigue, declining social referrals, and opportunities afforded by AI to sharpen their engagement strategies.
This will mean focusing on retention and maximizing lifetime value. Media organizations will also need to refine paywall strategies and offer flexible, engaging, experiences to ensure audiences keep coming back – and, ideally, keep paying for your content.
To better understand these trends, I reached out to four leading industry experts: Kevin Anderson, Peter Houston, Greg Piechota, and Madeleine White, and examined the latest insights from WAN-IFRA and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
Here’s what you need to know.
Trend 1: Retention is king
“Publishers long ago converted the low-hanging fruit of their most engaged audiences to subscribers,” notes Kevin Anderson, Director Consulting Services at Pugpig. This is one reason why, as the latest Digital News report revealed, subscription growth has largely flattened.
Moreover, in an era of news avoidance and on-going declines in social media referrals, “the flow into the top of the conversion funnels is drying up,” Anderson adds. “Growth is getting harder to find.”
As a result, a focus on retention will a key priority for publishers in 2025. Afterall, as Greg Piechota, Researcher-In-Residence at the International News Media Association (INMA), reminds us, “you make more money with higher retention than with higher price.”
An emphasis on reducing churn and developing long-term customer relationships can be seen across the subscription economy. Recurly’s 2025 State of Subscriptions report found that return acquisitions account for 20% of new subscribers, underlining the value of retaining your audience.
Tactics to successfully do this include payment flexibility (e.g. weekly, monthly and annual plans), and the ability for users to pause a subscription, rather than cancel it.
Local newspapers like the Bangor Daily News in Maine, enable you to pause your print subscription when going on vacation. The New York Times offers something similar. Applying this principle to digital products may reduce cancellations and keep more consumers engaged long-term.
This matters because, as The Daily Beast discovered, subscribers are worth 18 times more than unknown users. And that figure grows to 169% when revenue from first-party data and advertising is taken into account across channels such as newsletters and apps.
Retention strategies therefore need to encompass your whole product stack. Newsletters, apps, podcasts and push notifications aren’t just pathways to conversion. They are a means to drive revenue and deepen audience loyalty across multiple touchpoints.
Trend 2: Harness AI to become truly audience-first
Media companies have talked about being “audience-first” for years, says Madeleine White. But a lot of this potential is unfulfilled, she contends. White, VP Marketing at Poool, and Editor In Chief and co-founder of The Audiencers, believes advancement in AI offers a means to finally deliver on this promise.
AI allows us to segment readers based on interests, engagement levels, and traffic sources. This means that media companies can move away from generic offerings to more personalized experiences that support subscription growth.
White points to TIME’s Person of the Year experience as a case in point. Through the use of Generative AI, audiences could consume the cover story through a range of formats. This included an audio version, a concise summary, an in-depth analysis, and the ability chat with an AI assistant about the winner, President Donald Trump.
“Instead of simply kind of creating this single form, the article becomes shapeless,” White says. “It can be transformed and controlled by each reader, which is basically what audience first, is all about.”
Through the use of Generative AI, audiences could consume the cover story through a range of formats.
Trend 3: AI-powered paywalls become commonplace
Dynamic AI-driven paywalls are nothing new. But they are growing in adoption and sophistication. And this evolution offers subscription growth.
As INMA’s Piechota explains, “publishers are using data and AI to tailor paywalls more precisely. This boosts conversion by predicting both each user’s and each article’s propensity to subscribe.”
Hearst USA is one such publisher adopting this more sophisticated approach. They worked with Mather Economics to create a machine learning model that uses 75 different variables to trigger actions designed to mitigate churn and engender long-term customer loyalty.
“The biggest challenges lie around putting this into practice,” White contends. Many “publishers are kind of trying to jump the gun and go straight to a very machine learned AI based model,” she says. She recommends a more incremental approach. Articles that provide unique value should sit behind a paywall, White suggests. More “commodity content” can be open to all, in order to get as much advertising revenue as possible.
Argentina’s Clarín, the Spanish-language newspaper with the largest number of digital subscribers in the world, is already adopting this approach. As outlined by Spanish journalist and consultant Ismael Nafría, hindering access to what Clarin calls “decisive articles” is essential to persuading audiences to subscribe. The publication seeks to publish 10 to 12 of these kinds of articles per day.
Trend 4: Bundling 2.0
I wrote about bundling strategies back in May 2023. Since then, a growing number of publishers have sought to innovate and expand their efforts in this space to fuel subscription growth. Piechota observes how companies aren’t just bundling their own products. They’re “increasingly partnering with other publishers, even competitors, to engage broader audiences.”
One such business, The New York Times, “is obviously the Queen of the bundle,” says Peter Houston, co-founder of Media Voices and the author of The Magazine Diaries.
The Gray Lady recently announced it has more than 11.4 million total subscribers. However, that hasn’t stopped it looking for subscription-rooted partnerships, at home and abroad.
Meanwhile, both Anderson and Piechota point to the success of the Norwegian publisher Amedia as a leader in this space. “Amedia is a super bundler,” says Piechota, “selling readers access to more than 100 brands with one price and app.” He notes that 75% of digital subscribers at Amedia upgraded to such a bundle; compared to 50% at the Times.
Trend 5: An emphasis on pricing and value
Media companies are increasingly vying for our time, as well as our wallets. “If Netflix puts its prices up, do you cancel Netflix, which you watch for hours every week, or the hobbyist magazine which you love but only read once a month?” asks Houston. Against this backdrop, the perceived value of your offer will define a consumer’s propensity to subscribe or keep a subscription.
The breadth and depth of content you offer is part of this equation. However, specialist content, which allows you to dig deeper, can also be a major draw. As Houston explains, “super-niche coverage will also become attractive to consumers who want less distraction and more of what they really care about.”
Tortoise Media’s Daily Sensemaker podcast Is a case in point. It hits multiple consumer needs via a daily 10-minute show exploring a single topic, designed “to make sense of the world.”
“Value adds” can also be part of this mix. Membership models have long leaned into this, with a mix of exclusives, events and discounts. Last week the podcast The Rest Is Politics US announced that founding members would be able to join recordings of new episodes live on YouTube. Everyone else gets to see (or hear) the show a day later.
Print might also be part of the equation. In October, The Atlantic revealed it would return to monthly editions of its print publication due to subscription growth and a return to profitability. The title had been published 10 times a year for 22 years running.
And after a four-year hiatus, Saveur magazine, a 30-year-old gourmet, food, wine, and travel publication, resumed print editions last spring. “We see our print product as the couture of our brand,” Editor in Chief and CEO Kat Craddocktold The Publisher Podcast. “It’s for the superfans.”
In short, subscribers want to feel they are getting their money’s worth, both in terms of content and experience. Delivering on both of these fronts is the sweet spot publishers will increasingly need to hit to drive subscription growth.
Assembling strategic pieces for subscription growth
The subscription landscape is beginning to undergo a major transformation, driven by the need to innovate, and the ability to harness AI and audience data to create more tailored and media-rich offerings. These factors combine to create opportunities for subscription growth.
INMA’s Greg Piechota highlights the key takeaway. “The common thread,” he says, “is a blend of differentiated journalism and engagement-driving products.” And this must be underpinned by “mastery in data analytics, and a willingness to experiment.”
Success in this arena is vital for the financial health of most media companies. A survey of 326 media leaders in 51 countries, as the Reuters Institute’s annual predictions report, found that 77% of respondents said subscriptions were “likely to be important or very important” for their company in 2025.
To succeed publishers must move “beyond long and discounted trials, and targeted price increases at renewal,” Piechota contends. Moreover, as Pugpig’s Anderson points out, although many publishers have been trying to increase the average revenue per user (often through premium bundles), that’s not an option that’s open to everyone.
As a result, in the coming year, expect to see a refinement of subscription tactics, with an emphasis on retention, personalization, and flexibility. These principles will cut across price structures, bundling strategies and wider engagement strategies.
“The bottom line for subscriptions is that people don’t want to waste money or time on them,” argues Media Voices’ Houston. “So many people have a bloated subscription stack and the reckoning is coming.”
With many outlets continuing to see a decline in monies from advertising and print, an emphasis on reader revenue will remain a strategic priority.
As Poool’s White emphasizes, that means it’s more important than ever to deploy user-focused, audience-first approaches. These models value loyalty and long-term relationships more than short-term conversions.
Continued subscription growth is possible for media companies that understand and incorporate these factors. By evolving their subscription growth strategies, they will be most likely to prosper in the year ahead and beyond.
A few weeks ago, a colleague and mentor said something in passing that has stayed with me. To paraphrase, he mentioned that in journalism, we often assume others know as much as we do. It strikes me that this assumption can create a gap between the information we provide and the audience’s ability to connect with it. And let’s be real: that disconnect blocks impact.
Journalism drives action when it delivers clear, relevant, and accessible reporting that meets people where they are. Strong reporting builds trust, deepens engagement, and empowers communities to make informed decisions. It shapes public opinion, sparks movements, and creates change that leads to accountability, policy shifts, and meaningful progress.
Having led audience development initiatives for some time, I’ve seen firsthand the tangible benefits that can come when journalism makes complex topics accessible. Meeting people where they are means delivering information in clear, relatable ways that demonstrate its real-life impact, which fosters trust, engagement, and community connection.
This does not just apply to journalism. This approach is also relevant to conversations with editorial leaders about balancing journalistic integrity and audience engagement. Again, we cannot assume they know as much as we do and must make our expectations and the tools and strategies available to execute on these expectations clear.
Editorial leaders face the dual challenge of maintaining its responsibility to inform while engaging audiences who demand greater transparency, accessibility, and relevance. Addressing this requires rethinking how stories are communicated to bridge divides by focusing on shared values rather than exacerbating polarization. Strong storytelling drives dialogue, encourage discussion, and help rebuild trust with audiences who feel divided or doubtful.
Get to know (and grow) your audience
To grow audiences and increase engagement, editorial leaders need to adapt strategies to match how people consume and trust information today. No, this doesn’t simply mean on mobile and social. “Finding audiences where they are” is not enough. You need to actually get to know your audience before you can effectively serve their needs. Getting to know them is an essential piece of figuring out where information-gaps exist and how to fill them, for example.
Start by surveying audiences, conducting listening sessions, analyzing traffic patterns across onsite, organic, and social channels, and reviewing subscriber feedback to assess brand perception and visual identity. Use those insights to refine tone and language, showcase endorsements or visible metrics, update the “About Us” section, highlight journalist profiles, segment audiences for targeted communication, incorporate verifiable callouts, and maintain consistency in published content.
Reflect your audience to build trust
Growing audiences also requires addressing the structural causes behind audience disconnection. Ideological divides and algorithm-driven echo chambers make it harder to build trust and keep audiences engaged. To counter this, clearly communicate the value of your content by showing how your organization challenges the status quo, reinforces its mission, and provides direct solutions. Frame your message in a way that naturally encourages advocacy from like-minded audiences. Ensure representation reflects audience diversity, and tailor content delivery to match how people prefer to engage with information.
Trust grows when actions align with the audience you serve, but first you must understand who they are and meet them where they are. Consistency builds credibility and strengthens brand identity, turning one-time visitors into loyal audiences. For news organizations, especially in their early years, this means committing to a clear identity shaped by audience insights and reflective of their needs. Affirm your strategy’s success through sustained engagement by measuring retention, conversion, and repeat traffic. Use these insights to determine whether your strategy is deepening loyalty, increasing audience investment, and driving long term growth.
Data-informed insights & digital delivery
Balancing data-informed strategies such as tracking which topics attract first-time readers versus repeat visitors, adjusting publishing cadence based on audience activity peaks, analyzing reader pathways to identify engagement drop-offs, and testing different story formats to improve retention drives audience growth. Understanding audience motivations through behavioral data matters as much as recognizing local societal dynamics and adapting to shifts in engagement patterns. These factors aren’t always consistent or easy to pinpoint, and responding to them requires time, testing, and iteration.
No single strategy will engage everyone in your audience, and content will not always resonate with everyone all the time. Audience development is not an exact formula and some critical stories may miss the mark when they fail to reflect the priorities or lived experiences of the people they’re trying to serve. Sustainable audience growth depends on continuously improving approaches that attract, retain, and strengthen connections over time.
A key question in growing audiences is whether to focus on serving your current audience or to tap into new demographics with new content opportunities. Expanding reach and strengthening existing relationships are both viable paths. Start by identifying your total addressable market and assessing how its behaviors, interests, and demographics compare to your current audience. Determine what percentage of that market is realistically interested in your coverage. Evaluating whether potential audiences already have media sources that meet their needs helps avoid targeting oversaturated spaces.
It is equally important to understand conversion rates based on industry benchmarks. If a new audience segment fits a specific niche, analyzing how they consume content, their engagement habits, digital preferences, and preferred formats helps shape outreach strategies. In many cases, the available market is smaller than expected but also more precisely defined, making growth efforts more focused and effective.
Mind the gaps and make connections
At the same time, content gaps or overlooked opportunities may exist that were not initially on your radar but align with your existing approach. Identifying these unmet needs allows you to serve an audience that lacks a dedicated media outlet, providing coverage that fills an information gap.
Bridging the gap for practical and effective audience growth is a distinct challenge and a responsibility that requires breaking from outdated assumptions. It means rejecting the idea that audiences share the same knowledge and context as those working in journalism. Industry insiders often take their expertise for granted, leading to content that fails to connect. Audiences bring different experiences, perspectives, and levels of understanding. Trust and engagement grow when news organizations listen, adapt, and present information in ways that reflect the realities of the people they serve.
Audience development is about making journalism accessible through collaboration, research, a deep understanding of the reader base, and a thoughtful storytelling approach. Strong reporting bridges divides, challenges misinformation, and gives people something worth investing in.
If we assume that others already know what we know in journalism, we fail to recognize the gaps in understanding that weaken trust and engagement. Our job is not just to inform but to bridge those gaps and meet audiences where they are – to help get them where they want to be.
