At the INMA Media Subscriptions Summit in Toronto, a clear shift emerged in how publishers are approaching growth: When audience expansion slows, revenue must come from increasing value.

Executives from The Washington Post, Bloomberg Media, and Mediahuis outlined how they are building portfolios with premium subscriptions products centered around the idea that some customers will pay more: institutional subscribers, bundle subscribers, or audiences who will pay more for an intelligence product. 

The takeaway for news executives was consistent: The next phase of growth will be driven less by scale and more by value.

Washington Post builds a premium intelligence business

At The Washington Post, the launch of WP Intelligence represents a deliberate pivot away from the industry’s long-standing focus on audience scale.

“For the last 20 years, really, the media has optimised for scale,” said Martin Kady, general manager of WP Intelligence. “WP Intelligence is about optimising for value.”

The initiative was created to address a structural vulnerability in the company’s business model, which had relied heavily on a single consumer subscription product alongside advertising.

“The Washington Post had a single consumer subscription and advertising. That’s a revenue risk. It’s diversification risk.”

Rather than extending its core offer, the company built a separate B2B product focused on professional audiences — delivering specialised journalism, briefings, and intelligence services.

The approach reflects a broader lesson emerging from the summit: premium products require distinct strategies, not incremental extensions of consumer offerings.

Bloomberg targets professionals with a new premium layer

At Bloomberg Media, the opportunity lay between two extremes — a consumer subscription on one end and the high-cost Bloomberg Terminal on the other.

Instead of adapting existing products, the company redefined the category.

“What would it look like to treat this B2B subscription as a premium utility layer? Not a bolt-on,” said Nick Pimm, managing director/global subscription sales at Bloomberg.

This “middle layer” is designed specifically for professional users, with a focus on integrating journalism into workflows rather than simply providing access.

“Professionals are not starved of information; they’re drowning in it.”

That insight has shaped product development, pricing, and distribution — positioning Bloomberg’s B2B offering as a tool for decision-making rather than a traditional media product.

The broader implication for publishers is clear: Institutional customers are not looking for more content but for more usable, actionable intelligence.

Mediahuis expands value through bundling

While The Washington Post and Bloomberg focused on B2B opportunities, Jop Starmans, lead/engagement and retention at Mediahuis, demonstrated how value can also be unlocked within consumer subscriptions through bundling.

The company has rapidly experimented with combining its core news products with a range of additional services and content.

“We’ve tried six different ones. [The] first one familiar to everyone is bundling,” Starmans said.

These bundles include combinations of national and regional news brands, entertainment magazines, e-books, exclusive newsletters, and partnerships with external platforms such as streaming services and lifestyle products.

The results show clear variation in performance — but a consistent overall impact.

“Bundling works really nicely … it’s the most successful one.”

Early indicators also suggest bundling improves retention, reinforcing the idea that increasing engagement — rather than simply raising prices — is key to long-term revenue growth.

From single subscriptions to product portfolios

Across all three companies, a consistent model is emerging: The transition from a single subscription product to a portfolio of offerings with distinct value propositions.

These portfolios include:

• Premium B2B intelligence products targeting professionals.

• Institutional subscriptions designed for enterprise use.

• Consumer bundles combining news with lifestyle and utility features.

This approach reflects a deeper shift in strategy — from serving a broad, undifferentiated audience to targeting specific high-value segments with tailored products.

Why this shift matters now

The move toward premium products and institutional revenue is being driven by structural changes across the industry:

• Slower audience growth in mature markets.

• Increased competition for attention and time.

• Platform disruption affecting discovery and traffic.

In this environment, publishers are focusing on:

• Increasing average revenue per user.

• Reducing churn through deeper engagement.

• Diversifying revenue streams beyond core subscriptions.

Premium and bundled products address all three.

What INMA members should take away

For news executives, the lessons from these sessions are clear:

• Shift from scale to value: Growth will increasingly come from high-value segments, not mass audiences

• Build distinct products: Premium and B2B offerings require separate strategies, teams, and business models

• Target institutional customers: Professional audiences are willing to pay for specialised, actionable content

• Use bundles to drive retention: Additional products and services increase engagement and reduce churn

• Experiment and iterate: Not all premium features succeed, but testing is essential

Ultimately, the subscription model is not weakening — it is evolving.

As demonstrated in Toronto, the future lies in building portfolios of premium products that serve different audiences in different ways.

In a market where adding more subscribers is increasingly difficult, the publishers that succeed will be those that deliver more value to the audiences willing to pay for it.

Photos by Robert Downs Photography.

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