When attendees of the INMA Media Subscriptions Summit study tour visited The Globe and Mail on Monday, they saw a news organisation built around a single principle: aligning journalism, product, marketing, and data around reader revenue.

The Canadian national newspaper has become one of the industry’s most closely watched subscription businesses, with roughly two-thirds of revenue coming from reader revenue and most of that from digital subscriptions.

Speakers across editorial, product, marketing, and data teams described how a deeply integrated, data-driven culture — combined with a strong journalism mission — underpins that growth.

“Our mission really is to make Canada a better place through our journalism,” Andrew Kendall, managing director of reader revenue, told study tour attendees.

The visit took place on the first day of INMA’s Media Subscriptions Week in Toronto, where 25 news executives from around the world are participating in a two-day study tour of leading Canadian publishers before the two-day summit begins.

Audience-first newsroom drives subscription strategy

Editor-in-Chief David Walmsley said the newsroom’s transformation began more than a decade ago when The Globe and Mail reorganised editorial teams around the audience.

“We created a group of people called audience,” Walmsley said. “The idea was creating an environment that allowed for the audience to be put first.”

That shift embedded audience thinking into everyday newsroom workflows. Today, editorial operations are split between two main groups: teams focused on gathering journalism and teams focused on experience and presentation.

The model helped journalists move beyond inward-looking newsroom habits, Walmsley said: “There’s the old saying, why do newsrooms have windows? Because no one ever looks outside.”

Understanding what readers value has also shaped editorial priorities. Business coverage, for example, is the publication’s strongest subscription driver.

“Business is the No. 1 converter to subscriptions of the work that we do,” Walmsley said.

Data science at the centre of reader revenue

At The Globe and Mail, data is not treated as a separate analytics function but embedded throughout the organisation.

Vice President of Enterprise Analytics Nafid Ahmed described data as foundational to the company’s operations: “It’s basically our DNA at The Globe. We have embedded this data and intelligence directly into our editorial, our product experience, and our revenue practices.”

The company measures nearly every aspect of the subscriber journey, from acquisition channels and engagement patterns to churn signals.

“We track the entire subscriber journey from acquisition channel by platform … engagement patterns, tenures of our subscribers, churn signals,” Ahmed said.

That data foundation helped the organisation adopt AI early. The Globe launched the Sophi paywall system in 2015, using machine learning to determine when to show a paywall based on both the value of the content and a reader’s likelihood to subscribe.

Personalisation and AI support — but journalism stays human

AI tools now support newsroom and product workflows in multiple ways, including transcription, topic extraction, automated curation, and reader insights.

Ahmed stressed that AI is designed to support journalists rather than replace editorial judgment.

“Editorial judgment always remains 100% human,” he said. “AI buys our journalists time so they can do what they do best, which is verify facts and tell incredible stories.”

The company is also experimenting with new formats, including AI-generated article summaries and conversational discovery tools to help readers navigate coverage more easily.

Product innovation expands subscriber value

Product teams are also experimenting with features designed to deepen reader engagement and strengthen the subscription proposition.

Maryam Sanati, managing director of product growth and innovation, described efforts to build a “super app” experience that encourages readers to interact with journalism in multiple formats.

“We’re evolving from a publication people visit into kind of a multimodal companion that they live with,” she said.

Examples include narrated articles powered by AI voice technology, expanded video formats, and a growing portfolio of digital games designed to increase habitual use of the app.

A cross-functional approach to growth

Executives repeatedly emphasised that success depends on collaboration across departments.

Teams responsible for editorial, product, marketing, UX, data science, and reader revenue share common metrics and work together to improve conversion, engagement, and retention.

For news publishers looking to grow reader revenue, the lesson from The Globe and Mail is clear: Building a subscription business requires the entire organisation to work toward the same goal.

As Kendall put it, “Growing our digital subscription business is really our top priority.”

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