News publishers are real winners of technological changes taking place in the publishing industry in the last years. The variety of digital distribution platforms allows them to reach every corner of the world with the content in live mode, as well as monetize successfully, for example, thanks to subscriptions. The strategy based on restricting access to the content allows increasing digital publications revenue and managing the offer of print and digital issues in the most profitable way.
The subscription business model is far from being a new invention. It was used by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century. It has been functioning in print for years, bringing publishers profits from selling regular access to the product. With the development of digital platforms, it has also appeared in the online sphere and has been adapted by many businesses and websites successively.
The year of the rise of subscriptions in digital news was 2020. This way of monetization became a top revenue strategy for publishers of all sizes and everything indicates that this trend will be continued.
Let’s take a look at five interesting subscription models that were implemented by well-known publishers. How do they monetize their content?
