Monday 18th January: Subscription icebergs in a sea of free

January 18, 2021

Good morning! Have a great week. Today's newsletter is brought to you by the letter C and the number 9.

A fool and his money may be easily parted - but not necessarily as easily as publishers would like. New research from What If has demonstrated that 84.1% of consumers are unwilling to pay for newsletters, even if it is their chosen medium for news consumption. Instead, nearly 4 in 5 would rather access ad-supported content for free than pay for premium, ad-free newsletter experiences.

That's not necessarily the end of the world - that 15.9% of people who'll pay still represents an awful lot of potential subscribers - but it does speak to the challenge that comes with monetising a medium that has traditionally been free to access.

That's a challenge Apple is likely to face with its mooted paid-for podcast subscription service. Though there have been experiments with paid-for podcasts, or podcasts as part of larger subscription bundles, it's vanishingly unlikely that many consumers will pay for an audio product in a vast sea of free alternatives. If this sounds familiar, it is. It's the digital publishing challenge all over again.

In a shocking turn of events, that thing that everyone said would work turns out to have worked - years after it would have been useful. More proof that deplatforming works - and a handy precedent to cite next time the platforms defer responsibility.

Relevance pays. We've seen that the cost-cutting efforts from local publishers was ultimately self-defeating - and this case study from NorthJersey.com demonstrated that relevance is ultimately the biggest driver of subscriptions.

This, the first in a series from Styli Charalambous, examines the (many) issues facing the journalism industry. From endemic issues of expertise loss as jobs disappear to the need for new means of funding, it's a great introduction to the walls we need to break this year and beyond.

This week's podcast:

Ian McAuliffe, founder and CEO of Think Publishing, talks about the evolving landscape of contract publishing. He tells us about the ideal employee or a contract publisher, the ideal client and how the pandemic has accelerated digital adoption amongst traditionally conservative clients, but still not killed off print.

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