Thursday 26th October: If you love subscribers, let them go

Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Chris.

There’s just 6 weeks to go until Mx3 AI; a collaboration between Media Voices and Media Makers Meet. We’ll be featuring sessions on AI in local, national, consumer and B2B media, as well as discussions on innovation, developments and regulation.

The old adage goes that if you love something, you should let it go. If you force that something to stay it will ruin the relationship and leave you both trapped together in a sour situation. Well, as this report from Toolkits demonstrates, the same is true for news subscribers. We all know how difficult publishers make it to actually cancel subscriptions but Jack Marshall argues it’s better for business to make it easy:

“A study of 1,007 U.S. consumers who have subscribed to digital publications found that 67% would more readily purchase new subscriptions if they thought those subscriptions could be canceled easily. 77% of consumers also said they would support a law mandating ‘one-click cancelation’ mechanisms.”

This is one of those situations where I think people working at media businesses need to take a step back and approach the situation as a consumer. How, for instance, would we feel if we had to physically call a number and deal with a salesperson to cancel a Netflix subscription — and what would that do for our perception of that brand?

Speaking of cancelling subscriptions, friend of Media Voices Thomas Baekdal has published a free-to-access version of his newsletter. He asks at what point in a publication’s life cycle it should consider raising its subscription price, but also notes that in doing so you’re effectively gambling on being able to hang onto enough subscribers who’ll stay despite being charged more.

This is seriously disappointing and worrying. We’re advocates for transparency wherever feasibly possible, so the fact that so much of the Google vs. US trial is taking place behind closed doors makes me seethe. Given the huge potential ramifications of the trial for media companies and the public, this is just a bad look for everyone involved.

And speaking of a lack of transparency… “According to [The Messenger]'s president, Richard ‘Mad Dog’ Beckman, the site is ‘out of money,’ though the specific details of its traffic numbers and financials are shrouded in secrecy by upper management, further frustrating employees.” Well, then.

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