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

El País hits 143,000 digital subscribers — elpais.com

Not quite two years since launching its digital payments - and in the midst of the pandemic, as the release notes - El País has come out swinging with its latest results. Most of its subscribers are to its digital edition, a cohort of just over 143,000. The rest - up to a total of 182,000 - come from subscribers to the printed edition and from Kiosko y Más, the digital replica of the paper edition.

What's interesting is how the paper sees that success in relation to that of titles in other papers, particular European newspapers vs those in the US. It notes that the average subscription total of large newspapers on the continent at the end of their first two years is just 70,000 subscribers, a figure that rises to 150,000 in the case of Americans.

And, as ever, it provides an excuse for the newspaper staff to proselytize about its quality: "Our subscription management model, together with high-quality content, is allowing us to accelerate the acquisition and retention of subscribers, beating all existing records in other titles in less than two years since the launch of the paywall," says Carlos Núñez, executive president of PRISA Media.

Wordle and the crazy world of subscription marketing — thefix.media

And speaking of how you actually create the perception of value in your subscriptions... Jakub Parusinski uses the NYT’s decision to buy Wordle as an opportunity to take a look at the cost-benefit analysis that goes into subscription marketing.

Disney+, HBO Max and other streamers get waves of subscribers from must-see content. Keeping them is hard. — www.wsj.com

As we mention in this week's episode, every company exists in the attention economy - journalism-based outlet or not. So the lessons in here from the biggest names in entertainment in creating new and sticky content to retain subscribers are relevant.

Channel 4 presenting team for Winter Paralympics will all be disabled people — www.theguardian.com

The broadcaster has exclusive UK rights and claims its coverage is a ‘global first’ for a major international event. More importantly, though, it is actually putting its money where its mouth is and promoting diversity and representation. More, please.

This week's podcast:

Editor and Founder of Paranting Magazine Sophia Waterfield on creating a new type of lifestyle magazine — voices.media

In this episode we hear from Sophia Waterfield, editor and founder of Paranting Magazine. It’s a magazine for parents, but for parents that don’t have time for some of the aspirational BS that a lot of lifestyle magazines cover. We spoke about the name, funding a start-up with the aim of actually paying freelancers – oh, and accents.

Sean and Sally bought the Media Voices team a virtual coffee last week. — ko-fi.com

Big thanks to all our supporters, but especially Sean and Sally who chipped in last week. You can be a supporter too. Just head over to our KO-FI page and make a one-off contribution or sign up to support us every month. Every contribution help us to keep doing what we do and plan for more in the future. Thanks again Sean and Sally ❤️