The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has driven a strong increase in digital news consumption, resulting in a rise in digital subscriptions and potentially offsetting at least some of the damage from the dwindling ad revenues and single-copy sales slumps that have hammered the publishing industry this month, according to a new study by business management consultancy Mather Economics.
Publishers’ digital subscription volumes accelerated over the last month, according to the study, resulting in total average circulation growth of 3.3 percent.
Total print volumes, meanwhile, were down .89 percent for the same period.
The study found the largest digital publishers (those with more than 25,000 subscribers) have witnessed the sharpest circulation percentage growth over the previous month, at 5.8 percent.
 The largest digital publishers have experienced the sharpest percentage growth in circulation over the last month. The smallest digital publishers have also grown significantly. |
Small digital publishers (those with up to 500 subscribers) also grew significantly during that period (up 3.9 percent). Publishers in the middle (between 2,501 and 10,000 subscribers) experienced the smallest gains, at 1.2 percent.
The largest digital publishers also boasted the highest average month-over-month retention (96 percent) as well as the highest average weekly subscription rates ($2.62). Interestingly, those with the smallest digital subscribers also had the the second-highest retention rates (95.9 percent) and the second-highest average subscription rates ($2.14). Publishers with digital circulation sizes between 1,000 and 2,500 had the lowest retention rates as well as the lowest average weekly subscription rates.
U.S. newspapers have increased investments in digital subscriptions by 52 percent since the same period last year, according to the study. As a result, publishers’ share of digital subscribers as a percentage of their total circulation has grown to 24.3 percent this year, compared to 9.3 percent in 2019.
Mather Economics’ study, “COVID-19: Early Subscription Insights & Considerations for Business Continuity,” analyzed the subscriber data of nearly 200 partner publishers between February 24 and March 23.
Symbolic.ai forms a partnership with News Corp to begin using the company’s AI-native publisher platform in the newsrooms of News Corp publications to augment research, writing and publishing... Mediaite launches a newsletter that promises to give readers a summary of—media newsletters... The Fund for American Studies launches the Journalism Excellence Fellowship, a program that will provide promising young journalists the opportunity to work alongside top writers, reporters, and media professionals.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which has roots going back to 1786, is going out of business, the paper’s owners, Block Communications, announced on Jan. 7... GQ editor Will Welch is stepping down to take on a new Paris-based role with the musician Pharrell, who is also men’s creative director at Louis Vuitton... Semafor says it has raised $30 million on a $330 million valuation, following its first profitable year. 
The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI reach an agreement that will make a set of more than 200 animated, masked and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars available for use by Sora, OpenAI’s short-form generative AI video platform... CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has moved Tony Dokoupil, a co-host at “CBS Mornings” since 2019, into the anchor’s chair for the “CBS Evening News,” following the departure of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois... USA Today editor-in-chief Caren Bohan has left the paper.
Michael Kaminer, who was responsible for the Observer’s “Power List” for the past 13 years, has cut ties with the publication... The New York Times Company continues the march toward its goal of 15 million subscribers by the end of 2027... The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is providing more than $6 million in funding to eight organizations working to address the challenges local news and information environments face along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Conservative outlets Fox News, Newsmax and the Daily Caller are holding back from signing Pete Hegseth’s edict restricting press access in the Pentagon... CBS News sees the first executive departure of the Bari Weiss era as head of standards and practices Claudia Milne exits... Indiana University shuts down the print version of The Indiana Daily Student.
