Writers Tricks of the Trade Issue 3 Volume 9 | Page 46

NEWS
MOST PUBLISHERS ARE NOT SUCCEEDING
WITH SUBSCRIPTIONS
Research suggests they may not be trying (hard enough)
Reuters’ Digital News Report 2019 states, “News organizations are increasingly looking to
subscription and membership or other forms of reader contribution to pay the bills in a so-
called ‘pivot to paid’.”
E
ven though early 2019 reports predict-
ed over 50% of news publishers pro-
jected subscriptions as their main rev-
enue focus for the year ahead, it doesn’t
F ALL 2019
seem that optimism went exactly according
to plan.
Digiday Research conducted a survey
that indicated publishers are running into a
number of obstacles in their subscription
efforts. A whopping 63% of publishers sur-
veyed faced a huge challenge in converting
free audiences to paid subscribers.
It certainly isn’t easy to convince read-
ers who previously read content free to pay
for it. The concept of paying for news on
the web literally turns it into a commodity.
FIPP’s 2019 Global Digital Subscription
Snapshot Report gives an overview of pub-
lishers who have tackled the challenge and
been successful in growing their digital
subscriptions into a significant revenue
P AGE 42
W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE