Le Nouvel Obs is one of France’s most iconic media brands, with a unique editorial legacy. But for years, its digital strategy was largely driven by audience volume. When Sandro Martin arrived as CEO in September 2024, traffic had already been declining for nearly two years. Rather than chasing more content and more clicks, the team chose a different path: fewer articles, stronger editorial choices, and a renewed focus on reader value.

In this interview, Sandro Martin explains how Le Nouvel Obs reshaped its editorial production, data culture, newsroom organization, newsletters, and reader relationship strategy to build a more differentiated and sustainable digital model.

Le Nouvel Obs is a prestigious publication with a unique place in French history, but for a long time digital strategy was based solely on audience numbers. When you arrived, those numbers had been declining for nearly two years. How did you respond?

In 2024, our digital strategy was based primarily on two metrics: overall audience and subscriber growth, with no real prioritization. However, our audience had indeed been in steady decline for nearly 24 months, and our ability to recruit new subscribers had plateaued at levels lower than those of our direct competitors.

In recent years, Le Nouvel Obs had undertaken a major overhaul of its platforms, which is already a positive step, but without completely rethinking how they align with the editorial and marketing strategy.

So, when I arrived, Editor-in-Chief Cécile Prieur and I sought to realign these three dimensions—editorial, marketing, and user experience—around shared priorities. My arrival as the new CEO allowed us to revisit issues with the editorial team and make it a central pillar of our transformation. This initiative was launched in late 2024, following a study trip to the United States, which served as the catalyst.

To get started, you brought in an outside consultant. What was the idea behind that. To get an outside perspective, or to speed things up?

We did indeed decide to work with Max Leroy, an Audience and Product Strategist. Having spent the early part of his career in the US—notably at CNN and The New York Times—and later at POLITICO Europe, Max brought a wealth of international experience. Our goal wasn’t to outsource the strategic thinking, but rather to save time, structure our approach, and objectively validate our intuitions through macro-level data analysis and international benchmarks.

This collaboration allowed us to quickly identify our true priorities and rule out several false leads. Four central objectives emerged:

• Showcase our editorial value-add more effectively in the digital space, where the flood of breaking news often diluted our core offering
• Support the evolution of editorial production to better meet our readers’ changing needs
• Strengthen reader relationships by moving beyond the mere logic of traffic and pageviews
• Evolve our organization to focus more energy, expertise, and decision-making power on digital platforms

We opted for a highly pragmatic approach that combined data analysis, team feedback, and strategic planning workshops. The goal was to arrive at actionable outcomes and shared decisions in order to begin implementation.

The post Fewer articles, more value: Le Nouvel Obs’ transformation to reconnect with its readers appeared first on Audiencers.

You're reading The Audiencers' newsletter #80 sent out on January 7th, 2026. To receive future newsletters straight to your inbox every two weeks, sign up here.

Marion here, I’m the (French) Publisher and CEO of Audiencers – Madeleine, currently enjoying the thousand wonders of Nicaragua (ie: beaches and sunset beers), has left me the keys to this newsletter so that we don’t let you wander alone in the audience engagement world for the first half of January.

Happy New Year! I wish you, and those you love, countless small joys and immense happiness.

In today’s edition: French jokes and a selection of last year’s articles  gifted  to celebrate the New Year (you can click on all of them, none will be paywalled if you come from this newsletter – yes, it’s a little Poool trick that works quite well):

• Value proposition: Being able to say why people should buy your product is the first step before any other
• KPIs: Your most valuable newsroom indicator is no longer reach but belonging
• Editorial: What other format than articles could work for what you have to say?
• Retention: What a fitness app has to teach us about habits building
• How do the others do it? The ultimate case study list to inspire your reader revenue model, sorted by type of strategy

“Why should I subscribe?”

Before optimizing your paywall, pricing or conversion funnels, there’s a more fundamental question to answer : why should anyone pay you?

This article walks you through a rigorous, battle-tested method to define a clear, compelling value proposition – one that aligns editorial, product and marketing teams, and actually resonates with your audiences.

From the Value Proposition Canvas to the Golden Circle, with concrete media examples throughout, it gives you the tools to write sharper conversion messages, stronger offer pages and more convincing campaigns.

> If you’re launching (or relaunching) a premium strategy, this is the unavoidable starting point, just right here.

Why the most valuable newsroom KPI is no longer reach but belonging

Pageviews and reach still look good in dashboards, but they no longer explain what really drives loyalty, retention and revenue.

This article makes a clear case for shifting newsroom KPIs from visibility and interaction to belonging – the signal that readers return, build habits and truly care.

Drawing on concrete examples from the Financial Times, Der Spiegel and community-driven publishers, it shows why engagement alone is not enough and how belonging becomes a stronger predictor of long-term value.

> If you’re rethinking success in a subscription-led world, this piece helps redefine what actually matters.

When the article is no longer enough: formats that outperform the article on news apps

For mobile audiences, the article is no longer the obvious entry point – and often not the place where attention actually lands.

This piece challenges the article-centric mindset and shows how formats have become the real interface between journalism and product. Through 10 concrete, mobile-first formats used by leading publishers (from threads to live feeds, polls and timelines), it explains how to capture attention earlier, reduce friction and guide readers more gently toward depth.

> If your journalism is strong but your product assumes too much from users, this article will change how you design stories.

Retention: what a fitness app has to teach us about habits building

What can a fitness app teach newsrooms about engagement, retention and habit-building? Quite a lot, it turns out.

This deep dive breaks down how Freeletics keeps users coming back every day – through emotional motivation, smart onboarding, streaks, community challenges and radical personalization. Each lesson is easy to translate to media or SaaS products, from reducing conversion friction to designing rituals that stick.

> If you’re trying to move from occasional use to real habit, this article is packed with concrete, transferable ideas.

How do others do it? Our ultimate case study list

Looking for concrete inspiration, proven tactics or solid benchmarks – without starting from scratch every time? This curated index brings together every Audiencers article that breaks down a winning strategy from publishers around the world. Organised by topic (engagement, paywalls, subscriptions, onboarding, AI, apps, retention and more), it’s designed to be bookmarked and reused whenever you need ideas, comparisons or ammunition for internal discussions.

> A practical map of what’s actually working in reader revenue today.

See you in 2 weeks for the next newsletter,

Marion

The post #80. Your most valuable newsroom indicator is no longer reach but belonging appeared first on Audiencers.

This article summarizes the session presented by Maxime Moné (CEO of Poool) and Virginie Clève (founder of Largow, a consulting agency) at the Audiencers Festival Paris on September 16, 2025. Together, they explored the question of “SEO & Paywalls: how can you combine audience and subscriptions in the age of AI?”

This presentation summarized in 5 points: 

- Choosing the paywall type (super hard/hard/soft) should be a strategic decision, not a technical one: each option has a different impact on visibility, content protection, and subscription conversion.

- Anticipate AI: allowing Google to read your content also means opening the door to ChatGPT or Perplexity; blocking Google risks a drop in SEO.

- Secure markup, and calibrate text before the paywall to prevent content leakage and find the balance between SEO (≥ 800 characters) and conversion.

- Adopt a hybrid blocking model: adjust the level of openness according to the value, lifespan, and type of content, rather than a single rule.

- Don't confuse protection with growth: blocking AI protects your content, but only a strong brand and a clear offering will create subscribers.

A lively presentation, Maxime and Virginie gave a candid overview of the current situation. SEO, paywalls, and now artificial intelligence are intertwined in a complex balancing act, where every decision influences visibility, conversion, and content protection.

1) Three types of paywalls… from an SEO perspective

Virginie pointed out that in SEO, paywalls fall into three main categories:

• Super hard: Google is treated as a non-subscriber, with no access to paid content. Examples: Les Échos, L’Équipe.
• Hard: Google is considered a subscriber, so it can crawl all content (e.g., Ouest-France and Le Canard Enchaîné).
• Soft: the majority of the market (~80% of sites)—paid content is visually hidden but remains present in the code, accessible to robots… and to any resourceful user.

Problem: in most newsrooms, this choice is not made by marketing management but by developers or SEO specialists, despite this being a highly strategic decision. “We can no longer treat the type of paywall as a technical parameter,” insists Virginie.

2) Why AI is changing everything

Before the advent of generative AI, a bypassable paywall was no big deal: crafty users were in the minority and subscriber growth continued. Today, it’s a different story. AI such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Meta AI can query Google via SERP API and reconstruct all or part of the paid content, without compensation for publishers.

The result: if you consider Google as a subscriber (hard or soft paywall), you are indirectly leaving your content open to AI. But if you close the door completely (super hard), you penalize your SEO. This is an unprecedented dilemma that requires careful consideration and discussion among teams.

Another new development: since August 28, 2025, Google has officially recommended that soft paywalls no longer be used. The search engine wants to avoid indexing paid content by mistake, particularly due to new AI features such as AI Overviews and Gemini. In short: a clear line must now be drawn between free and paid content.

3) Hidden SEO risks in your pages

Structured markup: in the NewsArticle or ArticleBody format, you should never insert the entire paid text in plain text. Otherwise, any AI tool or scraper can extract it and republish it elsewhere.

The same problem applies to machine translations: Google Translate can host media pages that are translated and laid out identically, but without tracking or advertising. This is simply a case of value capture.

The text before the paywall: Google considers that below 800 characters, a page is “thin content,” and below 1,200 characters, it is of average quality. On the other hand, the more you give, the less you convert. Each media outlet must therefore find its balance between SEO and conversion—ideally through A/B testing.

4) Hybridization, the future standard for paywalls

However, the solution is not to close everything off. Max and Virginie advocate a hybrid blocking strategy: adjusting the level of protection according to the value and lifespan of the content. For example, temporarily opening a news article, then closing it once its peak visibility has passed. Some publishers, such as Ouest-France, are already experimenting with engines capable of automatically arbitrating between free and paid content.

At the same time, other avenues are emerging: technical solutions such as Cloudflare or Akamai (access control, pay-per-crawl), or collective approaches (via GESTE, the Alliance, or joint legal action). But they all rely on one principle: this issue must be addressed across the board—product, SEO, subscriptions, and tech all around the same table.

5) Blocking is not enough to convert

Maxime Moné reminded us: “Users don’t subscribe just to access content. They subscribe for a brand, an experience, a promise.” Work on paywalls and AI is vital for the sovereignty and value of the media, but it will never replace editorial content, trust, and product quality.

The post Paywalls & SEO in the AI era appeared first on Audiencers.

This article summarizes the session given by Max Leroy, Audience & Product Strategist, formerly of The New York Times, CNN, and POLITICO, at The Audiencers’ Festival in Paris on September 16th, 2025.

This session in 5 bullet points:

• The real danger to the media? Not AI or Google, but our disconnect from readers’ needs.
• Plummeting trust, dwindling audiences, refusal to pay: in any other industry, we would be talking about the collapse of product-market fit.
• Urgent action is needed: we must stop pointless obsessions and return to users’ needs.
• This series of articles presents five toxic obsessions and offers five useful obsessions for the sustainability of the media: short circuits, communities, respect for audience needs, experimentation, and advertising/UX balance.
• This second chapter covers obsession number two: refusing to interact with audiences

What if the greatest threat to the media were neither AI, nor the “big bad wolf” Google, nor the decline in social traffic, not even the crisis in publishers’ business model? What if the real problem were us? Us and our persistent inability to take an interest in those we are supposed to serve: our readers.

The post The media industry’s 5 toxic obsessions: no.2 refusing to interact with audiences appeared first on Audiencers.

This article summarizes the session given by Fabien Mulot, Marketing Director at L’Équipe, at The Audiencers’ Festival in Paris on September 16, 2025.

TL;DR

• After the peak in acquisitions during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, L’Équipe identified four key moments to drive retention: onboarding, usage stimulation, retention, and re-subscription.
• A new web and app onboarding process encourages users to read two paid articles within the first three days, as each additional article reduces M+1 churn by five points.
• Newsletters have become a key lever, from “Rendez-vous du mois” to newsletters written by journalists, as well as a new “Games” vertical.
• The cancellation form has been redesigned with a series of A/B tests: adding a summary screen and displaying personalized discounts has improved retention.
• An RFV engagement score adapted to L’Équipe’s style guides all actions: two-thirds of subscribers exceed the strategic threshold of 100.

How can subscribers be retained once the Olympic Games are over? For L’Équipe, the challenge is immense: transforming the momentum of a global event into lasting loyalty. Fabien Mulot shared the methods implemented in 2025, which he summarized as “12 projects” organized around four stages in subscribers lifecycle: onboarding, stimulating usage, retention, and re-subscription:

Each stage has been assigned its own performance indicator:

1. Onboarding: the crucial first 3 days

Data analysis showed a strong correlation between immediate consumption and retention. Reading at least two paid articles within the first three days significantly reduces churn M+1.

This is the core of L’Équipe’s new onboarding strategy: a web and app loop that showcases the benefits of subscription, encourages users to personalize their experience (alerts, newsletters, favorites), and then prompts them to immediately read paid content tailored to their interests.

The post L’Équipe: 12 projects to retain subscribers following the Paris Olympics appeared first on Audiencers.

This article summarises the session given by Mathias Douchet, Chief Product Officer at The Telegraph, during the Audiencers' Festival in Paris on 16th September 2025. The slides from his presentation can be downloaded at the end of the article.

TL;DR

• At The Telegraph, the mobile app has become the most engaging platform and the best predictor of subscriber retention.
• The ‘light freemium’ access model, with a 14-day trial in exchange for a simple email address, activates non-subscribers without disrupting the reading experience.
• The app out performs the website by far: +15% usage, +8% sessions per week, +6 points retention at 30 days vs. website.
• Resources follow strategy: approximately 90% of resources are dedicated to the app, and teams have been built around the app product.
• The Telegraph is aiming for 100% of digital subscribers to use the app, with aggressive promotional campaigns from day one and better-integrated web-to-app pathways.

Founded in 1855, The Telegraph is one of the UK’s leading news outlets, with 30 million monthly readers across its website, app and print editions, and over a million subscribers.

The product culture is long-standing and well-established, with the ability to make clear and decisive decisions about subscriptions and the reader experience.

The mobile app: a flagship product

In 2022, The Telegraph merged its two apps: the first was a digital version of the newspaper – highly regarded but little used; the second was a live feed version – more widely distributed but not very popular.

The current app is the result of 3-4 years of work, with engaging additional features such as games, news feeds, discoveries and newsletters.

The Telegraph app in a few words: 
-> Freemium model: a selection of free articles, the rest is reserved for subscribers
-> A 14-day free trial is offered to new app users
-> App usage has increased by 15% in a year
-> 8 more sessions each week vs web
-> 6 percentage points higher 30-day retention vs web

Of all the projects tested in recent years, not everything has worked, and that’s key to the approach: test quickly, keep what works, and discard the rest.

The access model is simple: light freemium. The home screen and a few articles are visible to everyone, while the rest is reserved for subscribers. To compensate for the significant amount of closed content, new app users are offered a 14-day trial, available via email. This allows for data collection and has proved more valuable to conversion rates than a standard paywall. The downside however is that users may drop out after 14 days if the follow-up is not well orchestrated, hence the ongoing work on activation and retention after the trial.

The app significantly out-performs web

Mobile app users have eight more sessions per week than web users and show six more subscription retention points at 30 days.

App usage is becoming the most predictive indicator of retention, ahead of other signals that were previously considered priorities, such as multi-channel engagement and newsletter subscriptions. This justifies the strategic refocusing and budget shift.

The post The Telegraph: retaining subscribers with a killer mobile strategy appeared first on Audiencers.

This article summarizes Télérama’s session at the Audiencers’ Festival in Paris on September 16th, 2025. On stage: Fleur Lavedan, Chair of the Executive Board, Annabelle Bizard, Digital Marketing Director, and Tom Alexandre, Product Director.

TL;DR

• With its new “Platform” product, Télérama aims to extend its longstanding mission: to guide those curious about culture, this time through the vast ocean of streaming platforms.
• Editorial strength: 20,000 reviews and 145 journalists, showcased in a hybrid editorial + service product.
• Four months of discovery, two scenarios tested, a final product that is automated but editorially embodied.
• Powerful launch: +3,360 subscribers in one month, a conversion rate 20 times higher than usual, +6% monthly visits, and prestigious advertisers.
• Next steps: advanced filters, more integrated platforms, SEO, personalization, and regular communications to win over new audiences.

At Télérama, product innovation only makes sense if it serves the magazine’s founding ambition: to inspire a love of culture and guide curious minds through a world that has become increasingly rich and diverse.

Faced with the explosion of streaming platforms, the editorial team wanted to address a universal frustration: spending evenings searching for something to watch rather than actually watching. Their response: a “Platform” guide, designed as a digital extension of the TV schedule.

Télérama has a rare asset: more than 20,000 reviews of films, series, and documentaries produced by 145 journalists, the largest cultural editorial team in France. But to transform this heritage into a digital format, it was necessary to go beyond a simple editorial reorganization.

The Platform project was born out of the conviction that without a service dimension, it would be impossible to create a daily reflex among readers.

So it all started with… a drawing:

The product team tested several approaches, including a “hot-lukewarm-cold” system based on the logic of editorial lists…

….and a minimalist version focused on a single daily recommendation:

The end result combines both: a mix of edited content and automation, enriched by service data provided by Plurimedia and JustWatch, with a systematic link to a Télérama review:

The launch was treated as a genuine digital statement. Massive app installation campaigns, open days, support from Le Monde Group publications, synchronization with the brand campaign… everything was aligned.

The post 3,360 new subscribers in a month: Télérama’s new streaming guide product pays off appeared first on Audiencers.

How can you set a price that reflects the value of your product AND is acceptable to your readers? This was the topic of a brilliant panel at the World News Media Congress 2025 organized by WAN-IFRA in Krakow. Three experts shared their very concrete strategies for increasing revenue while maintaining subscriber satisfaction: Flavia Barbosa Ferreira (Head of Retention at Le Monde), Mariah Craddick (Executive Director, Product at The Atlantic), and Danuta Bregula (Director of Paid Products at Axel Springer Poland).

Le Monde: increase price but with ‘finesse’

With 665,000 paying subscribers, Le Monde is the leading French-language daily. Half of its revenue comes from subscriptions (35% digital, 15% print), making pricing optimization a direct lever for profitability.

Flavia Barbosa Ferreira is Director of Retention at Le Monde. Last year, her team conducted a series of experiments to increase prices without harming profitability or reader trust.

The situation before 2020

At the start of the project, Le Monde’s digital subscription offer was €1 for the first month, then €9.90/month for the first year.

This offer made it possible to acquire a significant number of subscribers…

…but failed to retain them in the long term as the price rose to €13 per month in the second year, then to €17.90 in the third.

A new set of offers (after 2020)

Thanks to the development of an internal fraud detection system called “Capping” — which blocks users who are simultaneously trying to access to articles from multiple devices using the same account, i.e. account sharing — Le Monde was able to confidently promote multi-account subscriptions (B2C and B2B)….

This has led to an increase in “duo” and “family” subscriptions, which are sold at higher prices.

Next step: price increase

The Le Monde team conducted an A/B test of a price increase on 10,000 subscribers, who were divided into two groups: +$1/month and +$2/month. An informational email was sent in December for an increase to be applied in January.

The results were analyzed the following March:

“Following this test, we observed slightly better retention with the €1 per month increase compared to the €2 increase. Out of caution, and given that this was the first price adjustment under the new pricing structure, we chose to start with the €1 monthly increase, which was considered less risky—while still generating a significant increase in revenue. For certain cohorts with lower initial prices, we opted for increases greater than $1, based on the findings of this initial test.”

What Le Monde took away from it

Their ARPU has been growing steadily since 2020, and the presentation of subscription offers has been optimized for greater clarity and conversion.

Rather than starting with price, Le Monde begins by improving the offering, perceived value, user experience, and fraud prevention. Only then do they adjust the price. This is a deliberate “price-last” approach.

The Atlantic: make the value tangible for subscribers

With prices set at $79.99/year (digital), $89.99/year (print + digital), and $120/year (premium ad-free), The Atlantic is below its competitors in terms of price, but above average in terms of retention and growth: +15% subscribers YoY, and a retention rate of over 70%.

Mariah Craddick divides subscriber benefits into three categories:

• Essentials: unlimited access, newsletters, mobile app, narrated articles, digital issues.
• Utilities: article saving, sharing, reading mode, app customization.
• Bonuses: subscriber-only podcasts, games, live events, merchandise.

They measure value through:

• the percentage of new subscribers who performed a key action within the first seven days.
• the proportion of subscribers with “engaged” or “core” status.
• a retention rate that is four points higher among those who completed on-site onboarding.
• Articles narrated via 11 Labs, the article sharing feature, and the premium mobile experience (particularly on iPad) are key differentiators.

One of the secrets of their success? On-site onboarding.

Subscribers who complete the onboarding process on The Atlantic website retain 4 points more than those who do not!

Onet Premium: the most daring bundle in Europe

In Poland, Ringier Axel Springer launched Onet Premium, a bundled subscription giving access to more than 15 major brands (Onet, Poland’s leading news site, Newsweek, Forbes, Politico, Business Insider, National Geographic, and others). Together, these brands reach 22 million Polish users every month.

The offer includes:

• exclusive items from several brands.
• 150 episodes of exclusive podcasts per month.
• 30,000 audio articles per month.
• an average listening time of 67 minutes and 10 hours per month per user in the audio app.
• cross-promotional newsletters, subscriber events, and editorial formats shared between brands.

To achieve this, they created a unified identity driven by editorial consistency and cross-brand storytelling, proving the value of the bundle through its impact beyond each individual brand and building a community around the power of critical thinking.

As a result, between 2019 and 2024, they achieved rapid growth:

• +91% average annual revenue growth;

• -32% churn rate;
• +15% share of highly engaged subscribers;
• +58% revenue growth between 2023 and 2024.

Key takeaway: To prove the value of the bundle and move from a “price-first” to a “price-last” model, the value proposition must be consistent, clear, accessible, and obvious to the user.

The post Pricing strategies from The Atlantic, Le Monde and Onet appeared first on Audiencers.

Since taking over as CEO of Groupe Le Monde in 2010, Louis Dreyfus has pursued a clear ambition: proving that high-quality journalism can be economically sustainable — primarily through digital subscriptions. At the World News Media Congress 2025 hosted by WAN-IFRA, he shared a series of concrete editorial, tech and marketing decisions that have powered the group’s consistent growth.

1. Expanding editorial mission to broaden audience

Over the past 15 years, Le Monde has significantly widened its editorial scope to cover underreported topics and attract new readerships — without lowering its standards.

Key developments include:

• Thematic supplements on feminism, sexuality, climate, and the launch of public events (Le Festival du Monde)
• The launch of weekly magazine M 14 years ago, modeled after the New York Times Magazine, leading to an immediate +30% boost in traffic at launch, now accountiung for 25% of advertising revenue

Le Monde also developed new editorial verticals:

• The “Intimités” section, created in 2023, exploring intimacy, housing, parenting — highly popular with readers

• A major investment in African coverage, now with 36 dedicated journalists

2. Heavily investing in the newsroom

One of the group’s key moves: hiring.

From 310 journalists in 2010 to 560 today — a +80% increase in just over a decade.

“You can’t produce great journalism without journalists.”

The ambition: offer exclusive, in-depth, international content that justifies subscription value.

3. Winning over young audiences on social platforms

Le Monde made a clear bet: meet under-18s where they already are — Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube.

The result: native video formats led by young, identifiable journalists, with a clear, educational tone.

→ These short formats act as a gateway to subscriptions

→ Young audiences later return via desktop or the app, with strong retention potential

4. Investing in 3 distinct app products

Le Monde now offers:

• A PDF replica app (faithful to the print edition)
• A “Le Monde” app publishing more than 100 articles per day, 7 days a week
• A Tinder-like news discovery product (“La Matinale”) that delivers a curated daily briefing, with a selection of 21 articles

The goal: match mobile-first habits and improve retention through tailored experiences.

5. Subscriptions: growth, profitability and the end of the deficit

Key 2024 metrics:

• +10% digital subscription growth, +8% all kind of subs
• Average ARPU (monthly revenue per subscriber): €11.84

• Within 2 years, digital revenues alone will cover the entire newsroom costs

“We’ve entered a virtuous cycle where more subscribers = more resources to produce journalism.”

6. Fighting password sharing — and turning it into revenue

When the team found that some accounts were being used by over 5,000 people (!), Le Monde launched an upsell strategy inspired by Netflix — using an in-house tech tool called Capping:

• Pop-ups triggered by suspicious simultaneous usage
• Automated upsell to duo or family plans

→ Thousands of subscribers upgraded to more profitable plans

→ Le Monde is now offering Capping to other publishers

7. A fast-growing international edition

Two years ago, Le Monde launched Le Monde in English:

• 40 articles translated daily by native English-speaking editors and journalists
• A dedicated newsletter
• 7 full-time staff members

Results:

• 50% of new international subscribers now come from this edition
• Top countries: US, UK, Canada

→ Translations are now handled by OpenAI instead of DeepL or human translators, with only light editing by in-house journalists — lowering costs significantly.

Key numbers to remember

• In 2010, Le Monde was losing €10M per year
• In 2024, it will generate €25M in EBITDA

The post From €10M in losses to €25M in EBITDA: How Le Monde built a sustainable model appeared first on Audiencers.

At the World News Media Congress (WAN-IFRA), four media CEOs — from Poland, Canada, India and South Africa — laid out their top strategic priorities for the next 24 months. From editorial expansion and platform play to public policy lobbying and smart monetisation, their responses differ — but their ambitions echo the same challenge: building long-term sustainability in a structurally broken market.

Agora (Poland): Between legacy, platforms and bold digital bets

Bartosz Hojka, CEO of Agora, described a market that’s both modest and tough: Poland has 38 million people, but just €3 billion in total ad revenue, most of which is absorbed by global tech players. Local media remain largely stagnant.

Agora, born in 1989 with the post-communist daily Gazeta Wyborcza, is now a diversified group reaching:

• 300,000 digital subscribers
• 25 digital brands, 17M unique users/month
• 19 radio stations, 8M daily listeners
• 54 cinemas, 12M visitors/year
• 50,000 audio subscribers
• 18 million people reached daily
• 2,500 employees
• €350M in annual revenue, €35M operating profit
  

The group also operates 17,000 outdoor ad spaces — but refuses billboards and intrusive formats. Its digital audio segment grew by 70% last year, and its main growth drivers are now:

1. Digital subscriptions
2. Building direct relationships with readers but also listeners, through paid audio
3. Digital out-of-home (DOOH)
   

“Our strategy is built on resilience, specialisation, and constant adaptation — but always rooted in our founding values.”

The post Strategic priorities for the next two years: a world tour of media CEOs appeared first on Audiencers.