News publishers may need to rethink some of their core assumptions about subscriptions, revenue, and audience growth, INMA Researcher-in-Residence Greg Piechota told industry executives Wednesday during a presentation at the INMA Media Subscriptions Summit in Toronto.

Drawing on benchmarking data from hundreds of news organisations, Piechota said the strongest subscription growth in 2025 came from expanding reach and engagement rather than raising prices.

“What if I told you that last year, based on the data from more than 100 news brands with more than 20,000 subscriptions, actually those who grew the volume of subscriptions the fastest also grew their revenue the fastest,” said Piechota, who heads the INMA Readers First Initiative. “It wasn’t the ones that increased prices to extract more money.”

Instead, the biggest differentiator among high-growth publishers was maintaining audience reach — even amid disruption from artificial intelligence tools and platform changes.

Reach drives the subscription funnel

Publishers that maintained or grew their audience last year generated stronger subscription demand throughout the conversion funnel.

“What differentiated them was reach, because reach feeds loyalty and conversions,” Piechota said.

Higher reach translated into more readers encountering articles, hitting paywalls, starting checkout flows, and completing subscriptions. Changes to paywall efficiency, by comparison, were less significant in explaining differences in growth.

Retention matters more than price

Piechota also argued retention — driven by engagement — is a more powerful driver of subscription revenue than pricing alone.

Using public financial data from The New York Times, he modelled the economics of bundled subscriptions. At the end of the last quarter, 53% of Times subscribers were on bundles, generating roughly 71% of subscription revenue.

Although bundle subscribers often pay lower average prices, they stay longer, he said: “Because people who have a bundle have more reasons to use the product, they churn much less, they stay much longer customers, and their lifetime value is sixty percent higher.”

The key factor behind this improved retention is habit-building product usage.

Habits, not just content

Research consistently shows subscriber churn closely correlates with the number of days users actively engage with a product.

“It is habits and not just news,” Piechota said.

For example, analysis of time spent within New York Times apps suggests nearly 90% of engagement occurs in two areas: news and games. Features that encourage regular usage can therefore strengthen retention and long-term subscriber value.

The impact of “super users”

Another major finding in INMA benchmarking data is the disproportionate influence of highly engaged readers.

Across 317 publishers studied by INMA, just 1% of subscribers at the median publisher generate 25% of all pageviews. Among the top-performing publishers, that share rises to 41%.

“If you think about that, you need a pageview to actually have advertising inventory, and you also need to have a subscriber to get money from subscribers,” Piechota said.

Research from Argentine publisher Clarín showed the top 1% of subscribers generated 72% of total revenue from both subscriptions and advertising.

“So when we talk about these big trade-offs between subscriptions and advertising, I don’t know what we are talking about. It’s the same people generate both.”

Not all audience attention is equal

Piechota also urged publishers to look beyond traffic volume when evaluating audience value.

Direct audiences show the strongest willingness to subscribe, followed by search users, while some platform traffic delivers far lower conversion rates.

“Not all attention is worth the same,” he said.

Research he cited also found politically polarising content may attract clicks but reduce subscription demand because readers may perceive it as propaganda.

Growth continues despite disruption

Despite widespread concern about AI-driven discovery and creator competition, Piechota said industry data still shows steady subscription growth.

Among publishers in INMA’s dataset, the median brand saw online audiences decline 10% last year while digital-only subscriptions increased by 8% and revenue grew by 13%.

“So slow year in news, scary year in stories about disruption,” Piechota said. “At the same time, as the Brits say, not too bad.”

Preparing for the next phase

Piechota encouraged publishers to strengthen direct audience relationships while improving collaboration between editorial and commercial teams.

As subscription revenue becomes more central to news businesses, he said traditional organisational barriers may need to evolve: “And last but not least, time for drilling holes in internal walls is likely now if it wasn’t yesterday.”

Drawing on benchmarking data from hundreds of publishers, Piechota said the strongest subscription growth in 2025 came not from price increases but from expanding reach and engagement.

The summit continues through the week, ending with topic-specific seminars on Friday.

Photos by Robert Downs Photography.

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