🎄Fri-Yay 18th December: Digital subscriptions up 60% at The Guardian

December 18, 2020

Good Morning! This very last Media Roundup of 2020 is brought to you by all three of us... Esther, Chris and Peter. Thanks so much for being with us through this strangest of years. We look forward to a more settled media landscape in 2021 and wish you all a restful festive break.

We're off now for the Holidays, but we're back with the Media Roundup every day from Wednesday January the 6th. Until then, stay safe 💛💛💛

Throughout this most rubbish of years, the good news stories have almost all been about growth in subscriptions. And the latest numbers from The Guardian tell a cracking story.

The newspaper group is reporting that subscriptions to the Guardian’s premium apps or tablet editions were up 60% year on year to 352,000 and the total number of paying supporters rose 43% to reach 900,000, up from 632,000 in November 2019.

Breaking down sources of recurring payments, support for the Guardian includes:

  • 352,000 digital subscriptions

  • 548,000 recurring contributions

  • 119,000 print subscriptions across (The Guardian, The Observer and Guardian Weekly)

Given The Guardian's story was all about survival just a few of years ago, and initial skepticism to its 'Donor' payment model, this is an incredible turnaround tale. Of course there are still huge pressures around advertising sales, but all the more reason that their success in converting the scale delivered by their 'open access' principles into paying readers has to be applauded.

Staying with subscriptions, Press Gazette has put together a fascinating list of the world's most popular subscription sites. The list of 24 titles is, of course, topped by the New York Times, but there are a few surprises further down the list. Can you guess where the Telegraph is relative to the LA Times? Or The Atlantic vs The Economist?

Who better to remind us how weird the media world has been in 2020 than the Drum's Media reporter John McCarthy. In a list of media highs and lows that spans news, ad-tech, out-of-home, podcasts, TV and Baby Yoda, John's big takeaway from 2020 is 'Be helpful or prepare for the worst'. Truly words to live by.

Vice will be the first verified media publisher to launch on OnlyFans - best known for hosting subscriber-only sexy-times content. Vice will be charging fans $4.99 a month for exclusive videos from its Munchies channel. They'll give viewers 'a very intimate look at the sounds and transformations of different foods as they're being mixed, cooked and prepared.'

Thank you 2020! Thank you and goodnight!!!

This week's podcast:

As well as its flagship paper, The Economist also publishes future-gazing issues looking at what to expect the next year and even further into the future. This week Tom Standage, its Deputy Editor and Head of Digital Strategy tells us about the reason why it believes doing so is central its mission, what needs to happen to prevent journalists revisiting familiar mistakes in the near future, and why blaming the Duopoly for revenue doldrums is unhelpful.

We've more or less made it to the end of 2020 and we're very grateful to be here, thinking ahead to 2021. We'd love you to be there with us and, if you fancy supporting our work, maybe chipping in to keep us going.

Once you've got us a coffee, why not download our Media Moments 2020 report, get yourself a brew and join us in reviewing the year and imagining a much better 2021 for everyone.