At the INMA Media Subscriptions Summit in Toronto, Hannah Poferl, chief data officer at Universal Music Group and former chief data officer and head of audience at The New York Times, urged news executives to rethink audience strategies for a fragmented media landscape where discovery increasingly happens off-platform and through individuals rather than institutions.

Drawing on experience across both news and music, Poferl outlined how publishers can rebuild audience funnels by balancing reach, engagement, and direct relationships with readers.

Audience growth is about impact as well as revenue

“Audience growth is more than a business imperative,” Poferl said. “Audience amplifies impact.”

Poferl said audience teams sit at the intersection of mission and demand — translating what audiences want into actionable insight for editorial teams. That role remains constant even as the environment around them changes dramatically.

Fragmented distribution is reshaping how audiences discover news

The biggest shift, she said, is fragmentation in how audiences discover and consume content: “Audiences are getting smaller.”

But that does not mean fewer people are consuming news. Instead, distribution has splintered across platforms, social media, podcasts, and community spaces publishers do not control.

“What you’ll see is that people are consuming more as they have access to more media as they’re using their phones more,” she said.

The challenge for publishers is that much of this consumption now happens in environments where audience behaviour is difficult to observe or measure.

Highly engaged readers drive the most value

At the same time, Poferl warned that platform-driven distribution has “flattened” how content appears to users. Stories and songs alike are presented in standardised formats and pricing models that make it harder for distinctive work to stand out.

Yet within this environment lies a major opportunity: The most engaged audiences remain underserved. Across news, music, and sports, Poferl said a small group of highly engaged users drives disproportionate value.

“It's really always been a small cohort of highly engaged consumers in news or super fans in music that have driven the bulk of value out there,” she said.

Publishers must convert reach into relationships

For publishers, the strategic challenge is building funnels that convert reach into deeper relationships with these audiences.

Poferl emphasised that focusing on engaged audiences should not come at the expense of reach. Instead, news companies must create multiple entry points that allow audiences to discover content in different formats and platforms.

At The New York Times, she cited an example from the Popcast podcast, where episodes were broken into dozens of shorter pieces that could circulate across TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram.

“Creating multiple entry points to that story matters a lot,” she said.

Access models must balance sampling and subscriptions

The key is intentionally designing ways to convert off-platform discovery into direct relationships. Poferl described how artists — and increasingly publishers — guide audiences from social platforms back to owned channels such as newsletters, Web sites, or membership programmes.

Another crucial factor is how publishers balance free access and paid models.

“It is easier to grow audience when you are free, but then you don't grow your subscription business,” she said. “But if you are completely locked down, don't expect to grow audience.”

At The New York Times, Poferl said teams carefully studied how access models affected audience growth and subscription conversion over time.

That work reinforced the importance of registered users — audiences who have created accounts and established direct relationships with the publisher.

“A small percentage of your current audience drives the bulk of your subscriptions,” she said.

The most valuable audience members are those who share

However, Poferl argued the true bottom of the funnel goes even deeper: “The bottom of your funnel is the evangelist. It’s the person who’s sharing and bringing other people in.”

At The New York Times, initiatives such as subscriber gift links allowed loyal readers to share articles with friends, generating some of the publication’s highest-quality traffic.

When the company analysed that behaviour, Poferl said the results were striking: “The audience that came in that was referred from another reader, that was the best audience.”

For that reason, Poferl said the most valuable engagement metric may not be page views or even frequency of visits, Poferal said: “It's definitely shares.”

Her closing message to news executives was to adopt a full-funnel approach to audience strategy.

Publishers must continue investing in reach, she said, but they must also intentionally design products, editorial coverage, and audience experiences that encourage engagement, sharing, and community-driven growth.

“Everyone’s talking about serving the deeply engaged, and that is the right priority,” Poferl said. “But don’t overcorrect away from reach.”

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

Photos by Robert Downs Photography.

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