As expected, a series of significant global events drove the growth of digital subscriptions during 2024. During this week’s INMA Subscriptions Town Hall, INMA Researcher-in-Residence Greg Piechota shared key takeaways from the year and looked at what to expect in 2025.

“We had elections affecting 4 billion people,” Piechota said. “We had big sports events, Olympics, football, cricket; we had wars in Ukraine and the Middle East — and they all drove people to the news.”

These events led to a notable increase in online sessions and new subscription sales, with the industry reporting a median year-on-year growth of nearly 11% in digital-only subscriptions and a 16% rise in total revenue.

One of the biggest events of 2024 was the U.S. presidential election, and Piechota said that during November’s Subscription Acquisition Master Class, 69% of the participants said they had seen a traffic spike due to election coverage and 21% saw an increase in new subscription sales. That interest in the news could remain high, he said, as historically the election of a new president piques readers’ interest because of the potential for policy changes.

However, without the huge news cycles of 2024, Piechota predicts a slowdown, with volume growing only 4.2% and the revenue growing 4%. “Of course this is our prediction based on historical data,” he clarified. “We don’t know what the future brings in news cycles.”

Attracting the casual user

The biggest challenge — and missive — for the coming year, Piechota said, is for news media companies to sell more subscriptions. 

Today’s news consumers have changed, and news publishers face challenges in attracting casual news consumers. Unlike early adopters who are heavy consumers of political news, casual readers visit news sites less frequently and are often drawn by quality content, good deals, and user experience. 

This shift has necessitated a change in strategy, with publishers focusing on offering long trial periods, personalised pricing at renewal, and bundling subscriptions with other services. These tactics can help boost both subscription volume and revenue. Piechota recommended looking at what type of content beyond news can be used to draw subscribers: “What about crosswords? What about cooking? What about any other habit that we could add? Brands like the Guardian and the New York Times and others are adding this kind of additional habits to the product.”

The longer trials may help engage the casual consumers, but Piechota said another challenge is that they are increasingly using social media rather than visiting news sites directly, and social media has changed how it refers traffic to news sites. 

That means depending more heavily on search aggregators such as Google Discover to find new readers. This shift underscores the need for publishers to diversify their traffic sources and adapt to changing consumer behaviours.

Bundling and the power of the paywall

The most profitable subscription tactic, Piechota said, is bundling: “We have academic research showing that readers clearly value the idea of Spotifying news, where you pay once and you get access to multiple newspapers and magazines.” 

A study from Germany found that a comprehensive bundle has the highest value utility for consumers, with the next biggest value being a combination of a national brand and a local news brand.

The world’s biggest bundle is in Norway, where Amedia bundles more than 100 newspapers, magazines, streaming services for podcasts, and sports streaming. Of its almost 900,000 subscribers, 56% chose to pay an additional 10% to get access to everything offered, and they retained at 19% higher rate than basic subscribers. 

“So if you add those 10% increase in prices, and the company saw a 19% increase in monthly retention, this translates into increases in the customer lifetime value, for the average super bundle consumer, of 25 fold. 

“This is just an insanely profitable tactic.”

Another best practice is to place a greater emphasis on personalised paywalls and pricing strategies. Hybrid paywalls that adapt to different user segments are becoming more popular, with many publishers planning to implement such systems in the coming year. 

“Publishers tell us not all readers have created the same and neither is all content,” he said. “Publishers need to monetise each individual visitor and each piece of content differently to maximise revenue. This is a big case for personalisation.”

He said 22% of 255 publishers working with INMA already have some sort of hybrid/adaptive/dynamic paywall, and 16% said they are currently implementing them. 

“The key reasons for this change is publishers are becoming mature,” Piechota said. “They have the ambition to personalise all kinds of experiences. They want to balance reader and advertising revenue, and it seems that hybrid paywalls can help them with that.” 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .