At INMA’s Media Subscriptions Summit in Toronto, one message cut across multiple sessions: Growing digital subscriptions is no longer just about optimising funnels — it requires fundamentally rethinking what a news organisation is.

From broadcasters becoming digital product companies to publishers reinventing revenue models, speakers from TVN Warner Bros. Discovery, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Guardian, and Ringier Axel Springer’s Onet showed how following audiences is forcing identity-level change.

From broadcaster to digital product company

For TVN, part of Warner Bros. Discovery, transformation began with a shift in mindset: designing the business around daily audience behaviour rather than broadcast schedules.

As Paweł Pytlakowski, senior director of digital news, and Beata Biel, head of digital premium unit, described, the company rebuilt its strategy around creating repeat engagement and habit.

This led to a move away from a television-first model toward a fully integrated digital experience spanning streaming, Web, and mobile platforms. This included launching a paywall and paid subscriptions to its news Web sites, differentiating from a traditional TV approach of video streaming and on-demand.

The shift was driven by clear changes in audience behaviour, particularly among younger users moving toward digital and social platforms. Internally, this created a pivotal moment in which the company chose to redesign its model rather than defend its legacy structure.

The result is a fundamentally different organisation — one structured around product, user experience, and continuous engagement rather than programming schedules.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s digital-only leap

For Amie Green, chief marketing officer at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, transformation meant making a decisive break from print.

The U.S. metro publisher moved toward a digital-only future, aligning its business around digital subscriptions and audience engagement.

“Our question wasn’t really whether we could move forward. It was how do we do it without breaking trust?” Green said. “The paper was more than a product… this was a daily ritual.” 

While the market context differs from the European-based publishers discussing this topic, the underlying principle is the same: Audience behaviour — not legacy operations — must determine strategy.

The Guardian’s reinvention from newspaper to global platform

At The Guardian, the transformation was driven by financial necessity and strategic ambition.

As Steve Sachs, managing director of the company’s U.S. business, explained, the organisation used a period of significant losses to rethink its entire model.

“We took advantage of that and invented a whole new business model and a whole new approach to what we’re going to do,” Sachs said.

Rather than relying on traditional subscription paywalls, The Guardian adopted a voluntary contribution approach, allowing open access to journalism while asking readers to support the organisation financially.

This shift was accompanied by a broader repositioning:

• From a UK-focused newspaper to a global digital brand.

• From print-led revenues to reader-funded digital income.

• From transactional subscriptions to ongoing audience relationships.

The transformation resulted in a new revenue mix in which digital reader revenue became the largest contributor, while overall revenues grew alongside the shift. Currently, 38% of revenue is generated from outside the United Kingdom.

Onet’s shift from portal to platform

Danuta Breguła, managing director of Onet, and Katarzyna Ostrowska, head of subscription growth at parent company Ringier Axel Springer Polska, outlined outlined a shift from an advertising-driven portal to a subscription-focused platform.

Originally built on aggregation and scale, Onet’s model was optimised for reach rather than direct audience relationships. As distribution shifted and advertising became less reliable, the company repositioned around original journalism and consumer revenue.

At the centre of this transformation is Onet Premium, designed not as a single-brand subscription but as a multi-brand content ecosystem. It aggregates high-quality journalism from across Ringier Axel Springer’s portfolio and partner publishers, offering users a broader, more flexible value proposition.

This reframes subscriptions as a discovery experience rather than access to a single title. Instead of relying on brand loyalty alone, Onet uses its scale to introduce users to premium content and move them from casual consumption into paid relationships.

In this model, aggregation — once the foundation of its advertising business — becomes a strength in building subscription growth.

A common thread: identity follows audience

Across all four organisations, the most significant change is not tactical but conceptual.

Each company has moved away from defining itself by its legacy format — whether television, print, or portal — and instead focuses on how audiences consume, engage, and build relationships with content.

Several common themes emerged:

• Reach and relationship: Broad distribution still matters but must translate into direct audience connections.

• Habit over format: Success increasingly depends on becoming part of users’ daily routines.

• Flexible monetisation: Subscriptions, contributions, and bundled products reflect different audience needs.

• Organisational alignment: Editorial, product, and commercial teams must work together around audience goals. 

No single path but the same destination

The case studies presented at the summit highlight that there is no single blueprint for transformation. Each organisation is responding to its own market conditions, audience behaviours, and legacy constraints.

Yet they are converging on a shared reality:

News organisations that succeed in the next phase of digital subscriptions will not simply optimise their existing models — they will redefine them. Different types of media — broadcasters, digital pure players, former newspaper publishers — all see their future in digital, where their audiences reside today.

For media executives, the implication is clear: Following audiences may require not just new strategies, but a new understanding of what their organisation is — and what it needs to become.

Photos by Robert Downs Photography.

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