What lies ahead for the news media industry in 2025? From our perspective, the year holds exciting opportunities. With insights drawn from more than 700 global brands, this outlook highlights seven key trends shaping the future of monetisation, operations, and technology.

A key evolution is how publishers approach Artificial Intelligence (AI). Instead of treating it as a standalone strategy, publishers are asking, “Where can we integrate AI into our broader strategies for success?” AI has become a foundational tool for driving growth, streamlining workflows, and enhancing audience engagement.

These trends demonstrate how innovation and audience-focused strategies are transforming the way publishers deliver impactful journalism, grow revenue, and navigate an evolving landscape.

1. Shifting to more balanced revenue strategies

The era of prioritising volume growth at all costs is over. Publishers are moving away from traditional one-size-fits-all approaches, adopting more precise targeting to maximise value across diverse revenue streams, including direct-to-consumer-revenue, premium advertising, and programmatic ads.

AI and predictive analytics are set to play a pivotal role in this evolution, enabling publishers to identify high-value segments and adjust strategies in real time to optimise for total revenue. This shift reflects a growing emphasis on capturing digital revenue potential and achieving a balanced mix for long-term sustainability.

To meet these demands, publishers must restructure teams to foster collaboration between advertising and subscription revenue streams, modernise their tech stacks for seamless data access, and implement tools that allow for dynamic, audience-specific decisions across the entire lifecycle.

2. Unifying teams around a shared revenue strategy

Balancing revenue strategies will require a transformation of legacy organisational structures. Consolidating revenue teams under roles like a chief revenue officer (CRO) is becoming increasingly common, fostering collaboration between subscription and advertising teams and paving the way for unified strategies to optimise overall revenue.

Publishers need to focus on modernising workflows through flexible staffing models. This must take advantage of fractional leadership to rapidly advance key initiatives, create an analytics/AI team to enable timely decision-making, and provide key insights for the newsroom that should be investing in the modernisation of content. These steps will immediately address skill gaps, strengthen team direction, and improve outcomes rapidly without the commitment of full-time hires.

3. Transforming the tech stack from barrier to asset

For many news publishers, the tech stack has historically been more of a hurdle than a catalyst for growth. Legacy systems, fragmented tools, and incomplete integrations have led to missed revenue opportunities, operational inefficiencies, and growing “tech debt.” Simplifying and integrating technology infrastructure is set to become a top priority heading into 2025.

Publishers are expected to transition from isolated point solutions to integrated platforms that harness AI to deliver seamless, practical workflows addressing both consumer and advertising revenue goals. However, this evolution will take time. Foundational investments — such as improving site speeds, stream-lining subscription processes, and unifying reporting — are likely to come first.

Technology decisions will increasingly be shaped by frameworks such as build/partner/ buy or best-of-breed vs. all-in-one, as publishers work to balance innovation with resource constraints. Regular audits and incremental upgrades will be critical for transforming the tech stack into a genuine growth driver.

4. Refining analytics to amplify business impact

In the age of AI, tools like ChatGPT and advanced analytics platforms offer promising solutions to even the most complex data challenges. Yet the reality is often more nuanced. Dashboards are often flooded with reports and KPIs from systems that are either being phased out or newly implemented.

In response to this overwhelming sea of metrics, we find many publishers are stepping back to streamline their KPIs. They are prioritising reliable, actionable metrics directly aligned with business objectives like revenue growth and retention. Achieving these goals rests on foundational elements such as a stable tech stack, seamless data access, and robust data governance.

With greater focus on data maturity, teams will be empowered to move beyond the basics, unlocking advanced use cases such as first-party data activation and AI-driven workflows that deliver insights with exceptional speed and precision. True success, however, lies in bridging the “last mile” between insights and action, highlighting the critical need for strong team alignment around a shared North Star goal.

5. Dynamic, audience-first approaches to yield management

Recent benchmarks from more than 200 publishers suggest the crossover point between print and digital revenue has been extended to 2028, maintaining print as a key source of revenue for many publishers. Extending print profitability will be essential for investing in and sustaining digital transformation. Efforts will likely focus on targeted retention strategies, such as identifying high-risk subscribers and offering tailored incentives to maintain stability.

To reach younger audiences, publishers are expected to invest in audio-first platforms like podcasts, bundling them with subscriptions to offer added value and connect with this demographic.

On the acquisition side, dynamic paywalls are poised for continued growth, as highlighted by the latest INMA Townhall Survey. This survey found the proportion of news brands adopting a hybrid/dynamic strategy has increased four-fold in just four years.

Dynamic pricing, based on subscription characteristics and engagement, is expected to remain a cornerstone strategy. By aligning pricing with audience willingness to pay, publishers can leverage subscriber data to optimise their renewal strategies, driving revenue growth while reducing churn.

6. Marketing teams to supercharge operations with AI

Marketers will continue to play a central role in crafting strategies, developing campaigns, and ensuring a seamless customer experience.

However, a significant transformation is expected, driven by AI and automation. This is prompting a reevaluation of how marketing tasks are performed and who (or what) is best suited to execute them.

For example, the era of marketers manually managing complex customer journeys will give way to a more streamlined, data-driven approach. AI will increasingly automate key decisions, such as paywall/reg-wall settings, e-mail optimisation, and pricing adjustments. While business teams will continue to set revenue goals and KPIs, day-to-day decision-making will likely be handled by AI systems, helping publishers remain lean and efficient.

Furthermore, the line between newsrooms and marketing teams is expected to blur, as automation takes over tasks like newsletter strategy, social media management, and headline generation. This shift will allow newsrooms to focus on producing high-quality journalism, while marketing and AI drive audience engagement, growth, and monetisation.

7. Collaboration and AI power next-gen newsrooms

Evolving analytics tools and increased collaboration between audience, newsroom, and analytics teams are set to redefine the content lifecycle in 2025, empowering publishers to align more seamlessly with audience needs. At the creation stage, the responsible integration of generative AI with newsroom tools will accelerate productivity. It will, for example, assist with automating routine tasks and enabling journalists to focus on high-value, impactful stories that deepen engagement and drive sustainable business growth.

In distribution, we anticipate short-form native content on social platforms to gain continued traction as a key strategy for audience expansion and brand visibility. Publishers will need to refine platform-specific storytelling approaches to create authentic connections, unlocking new opportunities to engage emerging audience segments.

After a period of volatility in search and social traffic, publishers are expected to focus on building stronger direct relationships with their audiences. Newsrooms will play a pivotal role in this shift, driving retention through high-quality, engaging journalism that fosters meaningful connections. Investments in newsletters, mobile apps, and personalised content experiences will further empower newsrooms to deliver stories that resonate deeply, strengthening audience loyalty and trust.

Conclusion

The news media industry is set for significant transformation in 2025, presenting publishers with unparalleled opportunities to innovate and thrive. Success will hinge on more than adopting new tools or strategies; it requires a unified approach integrating organisational structures, technology, and audience-focused initiatives under a clear, shared vision.

Publishers that balance forward-thinking innovation with actionable execution will not only navigate the changing landscape but define the future of publishing.

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About the Authors

Dustin Tetley is vice president of operations and data science at Mather in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Dustin can be reached at dustin@mathereconomics.com.

Peter Doucette is senior managing director at Mather in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Peter can be reached at pdoucette@mathereconomics.com or @pmdoucette.

Katherine Ruane is director of strategic marketing at Mather in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Katherine can be reached at katherine@mathereconomics.com.

Madelin Zwingelberg is a director of consulting at Mather in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. Madelin can be reached at madelin@mathereconomics.com.

Luke Magerko is a director of consulting at Mather in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. Luke can be reached at lmagerko@mathereconomics.com.

Dan Kirchberger is a director of consulting at Mather in Buffalo, New York, USA. Dan can be reached at dkirchberger@mathereconomics.com.

Arvid Tchivzhel is senior vice president of technology at Mather in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He can be reached at arvid@mathereconomics.com.

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