In research that the Media Insight Project produced in 2015, we innovated a concept that we think has become an important one in trying to understand the future of news. We asked people whether, on balance, they were more likely to actively seek out news or whether they were more likely to bump into it […]

Overall, 58 percent of subscribers describe themselves as primarily print-oriented, and 28 percent say they are primarily digital. Among just newspaper subscribers, even more (75 percent) describe themselves as print-oriented. But these numbers look very different when we break people down by demographic groups. Among those who pay, Hispanics are particularly likely to use primarily […]

If subscriptions are going to play a bigger role in the future of journalism, then another area of growing importance is pricing. How sensitive are people to the price of the news? If the price were lower, or structured differently, might more people pay? Or are those who pay for news a relatively smaller group […]

In the end, the future of the news industry hangs on whether younger audiences engage with news strongly and if the group often called Millennials is willing to pay for the news directly. What does the survey indicate about that? To know, we need to take a deeper look at the attitudes of the youngest […]

This research was conducted by the Media Insight Project — an initiative of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research Introduction The future of journalism will increasingly depend on consumers paying for the news directly, as content distributors like Facebook and Google take up the lion’s share of digital […]

In a column two weeks ago, Frederic Filloux argued that publishers should work with tech platforms like Facebook and Google to use their data to boost subscription models. This week, Filloux responds to criticism of that point, refining the idea to include an opt-in model to help with privacy issues. “In many cases, readers maintain […]

You might have heard: In June 2016, Mother Jones published a major exposé on private prisons (Mother Jones) But did you know: The success of Mother Jones’ prison exposé can be measured in awards, but Benjamin Mullin writes there’s another way to look at the success of the exposé: “It helped Mother Jones bring in a […]

Amedia, Norway’s largest media company, has developed a common log-in system to use across its 62 titles — and that system is encouraging subscribers build digital habits. The system is part of a three-step plan for Amedia: The first stage is converting print subscribers to digital subscribers, the second stage is encouraging non-subscribers to register […]

“Paywalls rely on publishers assuming that an individual will only have one or two subscriptions, and therefore that theirs is the only content worth paying for. Yes, on a publisher-by-publisher basis, it is critical that the content they produce is valued and paid for. But on an industry level, it isn’t sustainable,” Esther Kezia Harding […]

You might have heard: After the presidential election, news organizations from The Wall Street Journal to The Atlantic are seeing significant upticks in digital subscriptions (Huffington Post) But did you know: Since last week’s presidential election, The New York Times says it has added 41,000 paid print or digital subscriptions — the largest subscription increase […]