How news publishers navigate the unpredictable surge in traffic and subscription starts during the COVID-19 crisis is the focus of a new report released today by the International News Media Association (INMA).

The 39-page “News Subscriptions In the Age of Coronavirus,” part of INMA’s Readers First Initiative, seeks to identify key trends at work in the subscriptions space, examine the mechanisms behind both the growth in traffic and reader revenue, and highlight successful strategies from publishers worldwide.

Who should read the report?

Editors, journalists, media company CEOs, senior management, digital executives

Author

Grzegorz (Greg) Piechota is an academic researcher, digital transformation consultant, and writer. As a researcher-in-residence at INMA and an ex-fellow at Oxford and Harvard universities, he has studied technology-enabled disruption patterns across industries with a focus on business model innovation in news media. Greg is a former media executive with 20+ years of industry experience, beginning at Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza in 1996 where he worked his way up from local reporter to news editor and vice president of Agora Foundation. Piechota leads the INMA Readers First Initiative.

About the Readers First Initiative

The INMA Readers First Initiative aims to surface global best practices in the art and science behind digital subscriptions for news media companies and create a road map toward the next generation of consumer monetisation. The initiative produces newsletters, Slack channel interactions, video meet-ups, reports, Webinars, and workshops for INMA members worldwide.

Detailed overview: How news publishers navigate the unpredictable surge in traffic and subscription starts during the COVID-19 crisis is the focus of a new report released today by the International News Media Association (INMA).

“News Subscriptions In the Age of Coronavirus,” part of INMA’s Readers First Initiative, seeks to identify key trends at work in the subscriptions space, examine the mechanisms behind both the growth in traffic and reader revenue, and highlight successful strategies from publishers worldwide.

Key findings from the report include:

• Subscriptions from loyal readers: While there has been an unprecedented surge in news demand and digital subscription starts, those new subscriptions are coming from an existing loyal audience – not new COVID readers.
• Audiences not homogenous, need different approaches: News audiences during COVID are not homogenous, displaying a range of behaviours depending on their psychological response to the crisis. Therefore, different content strategies will be needed to move different audiences down the conversion funnel.
• Quality journalism demand up: Audiences are demonstrating an appreciation for quality journalism during uncertain times and are willing to pay for it.
• Explanatory journalism: Publishers are getting back to the core of what they do best: good, clear, explanatory journalism is what matters.

The 46-page report aims to understand the surge in audience demand for COVID-19 news, looking at emerging strategies and tactics: what content is compelling, pop-up newsletters, community content strategies, news avoidance, and more. The report also looks at the demand for subscriptions from the perspective of non-users, anonymous users, known users, and subscribed users. Publishers, meanwhile, are looking to extend the subscription bump, tackling issues like varying subscriber pricing.