Tuesday 11th May: Premium news bundles still a distant dream

May 11, 2021

Good morning! Today's Media Roundup is brought to you by Esther.

It feels like pretty much everyone now has a subscription product, and inevitably, discussion has started to turn once again to bundling.

Enter Subscribd, a service which offered customers the ability to read up to 50 stories per month from premium news publishers including the New York Times, the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal for $35 per month. This sounds like the sort of independent alternative to Apple News+ that could actually work...right?

Except it turns out Subscribd didn't have business relationships with any of the publications listed in its bundle, and as a result, has had some strongly worded letters from the legal representatives of aforementioned premium publishers.

It's a great idea, in theory. But with most of those publishers aggressively pursuing their own subscription goals, they are unlikely to come together to offer any sort of bundle, however well-received the product might be.

A new one from me: the WSJ's Live Journalism team had to swiftly adapt when the pandemic struck. Kim Last, Editor of Live Journalism and Special Content talks about what it was like, and how the WSJ are planning their events going forward.

...or potentially as early as mid-2024, according to Mather Economics. The firm recommends newspapers develop a strategy to raise prices on digital subscriptions to make up for print losses. Just don't time a price rise with the post-pandemic renewals.

An ambitious project is underway in Nigeria to archive 18,627 days of newspapers. The Tracking Archive project aims to capture not only a snapshot of Nigeria’s political, social and cultural history, but also to create an open resource for the public, researchers and journalists.

This week's episode:

This week Mental Floss Editor in Chief Erin McCarthy tells us about how it's celebrating its 20th anniversary, how the magazine started in a university dorm room, its mission to help people feel smarter, and how the team decides what to cover.

We're looking to establish a regular meetup (virtual at first, but hopefully face-to-face in the future) for people working on podcasting in publishing companies to come together and share tips, learnings, and help each other with challenges. Our first group call is on Wednesday 26th May at 16.00 BST - learn more and RSVP on this link!