4 news media companies share how they meet user needs
Conference Blog | 28 October 2024
In today's rapidly evolving media landscape, staying relevant and resonant with audiences demands not just attention but a deep, strategic understanding of their needs.
During INMA’s Newsroom Transformation Master Class, presented by the Newsroom Transformation Initiative, media leaders from Ringier Media, The Local, Legit, and Schibsted shared enlightening insights into this challenge.
Evolving the user needs model at Ringier
Dmitry Shishkin, CEO of Ringier Media International in Switzerland, traced the origins of the user needs model developed at the BBC World Service in 2016.
This revolutionary model categorised the needs of the audience into four main types: knowledge, understanding, action, and feeling.

Shishkin has further refined the user needs model by broadening the original framework from four to eight categories, thereby deepening the approach to audience engagement. This expanded model now includes Update Me, Educate Me, Inspire Me, Give Me Perspective, Help Me, Connect Me, Keep Me Engaged, and Divert Me — each tailored to meet the varied and specific desires of modern audiences.
By categorising content more granularly, this approach allows media creators to craft strategies that cater directly to distinct audience motivations. Such a model not only enhances the relevance and impact of content but also fosters greater interaction and loyalty among viewers, offering a comprehensive toolkit for media organisations striving to excel in a competitive digital environment.
Shishkin stressed the importance of understanding audience motives: “If you don't really understand why people would consume you, then it goes to the heart of your editorial strategy and content strategy. Because ultimately, your mission statement needs to represent the user needs of your audience.”
Attracting the avoiders at The Local
Emma Löfgren, senior digital news editor at Swedish publication The Local and contributing writer for The Fix, cited statistics from the Reuters Digital News Report 2024, which found that 39% of people avoid the news.
“That’s 10 percentage points higher than in 2017, so that’s a pretty big increase in just a few years,” she said, adding respondents said they avoid the news because they find it repetitive and boring.
However, when news media companies talk about news avoidance, they don’t look at it that way and don’t take responsibility for it, she said.
“We blame the news avoiders,” Löfgren said. “We talk about what schools can do to get young people to read more news. We blame algorithms.”

Then, companies fall into the trap of producing more news stories and using better technology in hopes that audiences will read it. What sometimes gets lost in the equation, she said, is remembering “it’s also our responsibility to make sure that our coverage is actually useful to people.”
Focusing on which platforms to be on to attract a young audience is futile if the information isn’t a good fit for them, she said: “Our experience suggests that if potential audiences find us useful, they will come to us. We report the news as we always have done, and there’s nothing else we have to do. Our tools may change, but the mission stays the same.”
Empowering audiences through inclusion
Olena Bohynska, co-CEO of the Ukraine-based news media organisation Legit, said the compnay actively encourages user-generated content to add to that sense of community and engages with the audience across multiple platforms, responding to comments and sparking conversations.
This approach makes readers feel seen and heard, enhancing their connection to the brand.
“People really value this,” Bohynska said. “I think they all can tell who they’re talking to in the comments. They know our social media managers and community managers already, so we’re not just delivering news.”

Legit has been engaging Gen Z audiences through X Spaces, particularly during significant events like protests. During recent protests in Kenya, Legit hosted an X Space that attracted more than 10,000 real-time listeners, Bohynska said:
“This format allowed us to provide live coverage and forced direct interactions with our audience, offering a unique space for young people to discuss present social issues with governmental representatives.”
This kind of real time interaction is vital, she said, because it gives Gen Z an authentic, immediate way to talk, be heard, and spread their opinions.
Reaching younger audiences at Schibsted
Most of the media landscape game is trying to retain and attract new and different audiences, including the younger generation.
Lena Samuelsson, senior advisor at Schibsted in Norway, said her advice is to have a presence on TikTok and “go young, but then you see this contradiction between things that young people like and things that maybe your big audience like.”
In other words, you can experiment with content or offerings that directly serve younger consumers — better still, if the product is produced by a younger audience.

“The audience is not one,” Samuelsson said. “Out of four million people every day, that’s not one target group. Young people are also very different. So you need to differentiatie and segment both your audience and your products.”
For example, you might have a story that aligns with a younger audience and instead of focusing only on the content of the story, you think about the distribution of the story. Format is just as important, if not more important for younger audiences.
Video, podcast, or TikTok are approaches for how a young reader can engage with a single story. Samulesson encourages a full ecosystem of social platforms from a Google search to YouTube to Instagram.