Wednesday 23rd June: 10 reasons small publishers should consider subscriptions

June 23, 2021

Hello! Today's Media Roundup is brought to you by Peter.

We talk so often about the New York Times in relation to digital subscriptions, it's really nice to be able to focus on SME subscription strategies for once. This piece on WNIP looks specifically at the benefits smaller publishers can get from introducing subs.

It looks at loyalty building and revenue predictability, but also the idea of monetising site visitors using ad-blockers who would otherwise deliver no value. It makes the point that most adblock users don't have a problem with publishers making money - a significant percentage of them are open to paid subscriptions.

"Paid content subscriptions offer a consent-based, mutually beneficial path for those who prefer an ad-free experience to still support their favorite site." This makes total sense, and if you can get the messaging right, could represent a rich revenue seam for smaller, niche players.

Staying with subs, The Economist is reporting a subscriber total of 1,122,000 following record growth of 9% in the year ending March 2021. The addition of 90,000 subscribers pushed print/digital subscriber revenues up 6%, although total revenues at the group were down 3% through lost ad and event income.

The European Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation into whether Google abused its market position to favour its own ad-tech. This is the EU's fourth look at Google in five years. Previous fines total more than $9 billion, but as Josh Sternberg pointed out, Google made $55 billion in Q1 this year. "These fines are a rounding error of a rounding error for this company."

Allure editor-in-chief Michelle Lee is leaving the magazine to oversee Netflix's global editorial and publishing group. She's been a leader for diversity and inclusion in media for a long time, speaking to Esther in 2018 about her work at Allure where she featured hijab-wearing Muslim model Halima Aden on the cover and banned the term anti-aging. Good luck

This week's episode:

This week we hear from Jasper Wang, VP of Revenue & Operations for Defector Media. Defector was formed after a mass staff exodus from former GO Media property Deadspin after an internal dispute about who knew its audience best. Defector is now an employee-owned and operated news site that has introduced measures specifically to ensure its staff have a say in the business, even as they write for its audience.

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