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.

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For a long time, donations were presented as a nice little extra source of income, reserved for radically committed media outlets, cannibalizing subscriptions, and condemned by the sociology of age. However, in France, as in several European countries, donations are experiencing unprecedented growth. They’re increasing turnover for both established and emerging publications, as well as attracting younger audiences.

So why is the media industry struggling to take donations seriously? Well, because of stubborn preconceptions and a lack of concrete examples…

From The Guardian to Vert, La Croix, StreetPress, and Kometa, here’s what the facts show when we lift the veil – a model that appeals to publishers, mobilizes new readers, and finances open, accountable journalism in the public interest.

At The Audiencers Festival in Paris, we explored the donation model with Médianes, a studio that helps media outlets strengthen their editorial, economic, and technical independence with a 360° approach. The round table brought The Guardian, La Croix, and Kometa together to discuss acquisition and conversion, followed by a workshop where Médianes shared best practices for campaigns, with use cases from Vert and StreetPress.

To share our insights beyond the Festival, here are eight common misconceptions about donations, debunked.

Misconception #1: “There’s no framework, nor advantage to a donation model.”

This is, of course, false. While donations have long been seen as a source of revenue that only works in countries with a strong philanthropic culture, this is no longer true today, and the French legal framework has contributed greatly to this change.

Since 2015, the “Charb amendment,” a provision adopted after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, has allowed political and general news media companies to receive tax-exempt donations through associations dedicated to press pluralism. In concrete terms, individuals can deduct 66% of their donation (up to a limit of 20% of taxable income); the organizations Presse & Pluralisme and J’aime l’info are responsible for collecting and tracking donations. This is a strong argument that puts France in an advantageous position compared to its European counterparts.

Misconception #2: “In France, donations are limited.”

This is no longer the case. As documented by La Revue des médias de l’INA, the J’aime l’info platform raised more than €7 million in 2024, compared to €5.1 million in 2023 and €1.8 million in 2020, with a trajectory that could exceed €10 million in 2025 or 2026.

In practice, donations can finance an entire model: for example, Reporterre, a pioneering media outlet in France, claims to be 98% donation-funded in 2024, up 30%. As detailed in their impact report, this represents €3.5 million, the result of donations from 45,821 donors, with 2 million unique visitors to its website and more than 180,000 subscribers to its newsletters. Another example is Vert, a new environmental media outlet launched in 2020, which announced that 90% of its revenue in 2024 would be funded by donations, with more than 12,000 financial supporters, more than 120,000 newsletter subscribers, and 340,000 followers on Instagram.

And they aren’t alone: on the investigative side, StreetPress, a media outlet specializing in the far right, reports 36% of its revenue coming from donations in 2023 and 77% growth in 2024. Disclose is approaching 60%, while Brittany-based Splann! has reached 75%.

Misconception #3: “Only activists are interested in donation models.”

The Guardian has been building its counterexample for the past decade. Without restricting access to its content, the publication is based on a clear vision: “Open to all, funded by many, beholden to no one.” The audience that supports it is not a self-perpetuating circle of activists, but a broad group of readers who defend the common good because they see its value. The nuance is essential: support does not come from a sense of belonging to a particular camp, but from a promise of public interest and a contract of trust.

The motivations put forward are consistent: protecting press freedom, preserving editorial independence, supporting investigation, recognizing the reliability and quality of the work, and holding the powerful to account.

The results speak for themselves: in ten years, revenue from digital readers has grown from around £5 million to £107 million. Now, 72% of the publication’s total revenue comes from digital sources (readers, advertisers, and other sources)—proof that a civic contract can become an economic pillar.

The base of regular supporters has reached approximately 1.3 million people, including more than 182,000 in Europe, with growth of around 20% over one year.

> Read about The Guardian’s reader revenue growth and proposition development

Misconception #4: “Donations cannibalize subscriptions.”

La Croix proves the opposite. The daily newspaper has opened a tax-exempt donation channel via Presse & Pluralisme, alongside its subscription offer.

• Subscriptions sell a service—convenience, apps, frictionless reading.
• Donations fund a mission—pluralism, solidarity formats, tool improvements, investigations.

At La Croix, 90% of donors are also subscribers: donations do not cancel out subscriptions, they add to them. Presented in this way, coexistence becomes natural and editorial balance clearer.

Since 2022, the Catholic daily newspaper has internalized fundraising and reworked its campaigns (targeting, media, messages). The model is gaining momentum and becoming established with a philanthropic approach, leading to the creation of a Philanthropy Manager position in 2024.

As a result, donations now account for 2% of revenue, with around 3,400 donors, most of whom give less than €500.

Misconception #5: “Donations only concern older audiences.”

This is changing thanks to the internet. While the median age of donors in France is 62, a growing number of young people aged 15 to 35 are now contributing financially to the media. Supporting content is part of their habits: online tips, support subscriptions, live fundraising. In other words, the gesture of “I support because it has social value” already exists; the media are getting better and better at activating it.

StreetPress, a free-access investigative media outlet celebrating its fifteenth anniversary, now derives more than a third of its revenue from donations. In its best months, its content reaches around six million people on social media and through newsletters, and nearly three-quarters of this audience is under 35. This requires campaigns to be designed differently: embodying faces and stories, linking donations to a specific format or project, and showing the impact in concrete terms.

The result? After an initial campaign in 2021 that raised €75,000 to launch a newsletter dedicated to the far right, followed by €185,000 in 2023 to develop a collaborative platform on the same subject, StreetPress had gathered more than 6,000 regular donors within a club by 2025.

Misconception #6: “It’s just another source of funding.”

That would be a lot, but if donations work, it’s not just about money. It requires a clear editorial model, a coherent marketing strategy, and rigorous governance.

Vert is proof of this. The media outlet has turned donations into a clear editorial contract, funding open-access environmental journalism, and has translated this into a controlled conversion and loyalty process. The inserts are easy to understand, recurring donations are offered by default, and tax exemptions are explained without jargon. Conversion and follow-up messages are tailored to profiles and synchronized with current events. The relationship is maintained over time through concrete expressions of gratitude, behind-the-scenes insights, and impact reports.

This rigor pays off. In 2024, Vert finances 90% of its budget through donations, with more than 12,000 supporters. On the governance side, transparency is not just for show: reports are public and objectives are clearly stated. In other words, at Vert, donations do not simply add to the revenue stream: they guide the way we produce, explain, and report.

Misconception #7: “Donations are only small amounts.”

Editorial philanthropy exists, and it mainly finances time, which is the lifeblood of production.

Kometa, a media outlet dedicated to literary journalism, photo essays, and debates, is a prime example of this: beyond the fundraising that enabled the media outlet to launch in 2023, raising €760,000 from six investors, grants of €12,000 finance a year of work by authors in difficult fields, with a net cost to the patron of around €4,000 after tax relief. The mechanism is straightforward: a clear offer, symbolic rewards, follow-up, and often a round-table approach where one donor leads to others. It is therefore not just a matter of scattered micro-contributions, but also of major donations that can structure ambitious projects.

Result: in less than two years, the company collected €300,000 in donations, including individual donations, support from foundations, and a crowdfunding campaign.

Transparency note: Médianes, the studio, supported Kometa in its fundraising campaign in 2023.

Misconception #8: “Donations are a one-time thing.”

Recurring donations are becoming commonplace on both sides of the Channel, and even across the Atlantic. At Vert, the club requires a monthly donation for membership; most of its budget now comes from these recurring donations, which give the editorial team visibility.

At The Guardian, transforming one-off donators into regular supporters has become a discipline – “We thank donors, we explain, we give them a behind-the-scenes look, we follow up with substantive reasons, and we build a relationship.” This shift changes everything: cash flow is smoothed out, editorial planning becomes possible, and independence is better protected than it would be with sporadic donations.

Now what?

These cases prove it: donations work when you honestly say what they fund, when you show what they change, and when you agree to be accountable for them. They don’t replace subscriptions, they don’t conflict with advertising: they balance the whole by making it more readable. Guardian, La Croix, Vert, StreetPress, Kometa: they all tell the same story—a contract of trust forged with an audience that chooses to support a common good.

One requirement remains: consistency over time. A clear mission, genuine transparency, regular recurrence, and regular proof of public utility. This is the price that must be paid for donations to definitively move from prejudice to model.

Would you like to learn more about Médianes’ expertise in fundraising campaigns? Visit our website.

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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 first chapter covers obsession number one: exhausting ourselves by criticizing platforms.

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 symptoms of this disconnect are measured each year by the Digital News Report and the figures for France are damning:

• Trust in free fall: Only 29% of French people still trust the media, compared to 39% 10 years ago. This score places us among the lowest in Europe, just ahead of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary
• An audience that shuns the news: More than a third of the population (36%) actively avoids the news, exhausted by information overload and paralyzed by information anxiety
• A value that is no longer perceived: Barely 11% of readers are willing to pay for online news

In any other industry, such a verdict would be final: the loss of product-market fit. The absolute priority would then be to stop everything and go back to talking to our users, understanding their pain points and needs, and reinventing our value proposition.

How did we get to the point where our product no longer meets an essential need of its audience?

Yet where do our eyes and conversations among media professionals turn? To the evolution of algorithms and the experiences of Google, Meta, X, and OpenAI, which are drying up our traffic sources. Or to the adoption of ad blockers and the end of third-party cookies, which are jeopardizing our advertising revenue… We are obsessed with other people’s products, those that impact our distribution. Meanwhile, a new generation of content creators is exploding, forging direct and authentic bonds of trust with their audience, something we no longer know how to do with ours.

Of course, the risks posed by platforms are real, and the political, legal, and economic battle to defend our value is necessary. But it must not become an excuse to paralyze what is essential: the work of our editorial, product, and marketing teams to urgently regain that product-market fit. We must focus our efforts on what we can control and accept the rest. Fear does not prevent danger.

Let’s dare to use a metaphor that’s not so far from reality. Imagine for a moment that traditional media are like historic car manufacturers, spending their days complaining about gas prices, CO2 emissions regulations, low-emission zones, or the end of combustion engines in 2035. Meanwhile, in a decade, electric cars have become more accessible and cycling in cities has made a strong comeback. Users have moved on: you don’t fight product-market fit, you pursue it.

It’s time to radically shift our obsessions. We need to abandon toxic topics over which we have limited influence and refocus on our main lever for action: our relationship with our current and potential audiences. In this series for The Audiencers, I invite you to explore five of these toxic obsessions that paralyze our teams. The hope is to replace them with five obsessions centered on the needs of our audiences and thus find our way back to product-market fit.

Toxic obsession 1/5 : Criticizing platforms

Our first toxic obsession is to waste time and energy denouncing platforms. We criticize their products, algorithms, and decisions, but let’s be clear: these companies are empires that write their own laws and have the means to listen to (almost) no one except Donald Trump, who supports them. Some executives even display a visceral, personal contempt for the press. Why, then, would they negotiate sincerely with us, when our dependence gives them all the leverage?

The fight for neighboring rights or against uncontrolled crawling is legitimate. But to wage it from a position of quasi-absolute digital vassalage is to condemn oneself to reaping only crumbs. The real leverage for negotiation lies neither in Brussels nor in the forums we sign, but in our direct relationship with our audience. To start a serious conversation with Google, it would be wise not to depend on its services (Search, News, Discover). For many media outlets in France, Google accounts for more than 50% of traffic, and in some cases more than 85%.

Faced with changes to their products—AI Overviews in particular—our instinct is to want to slow things down and demand guarantees. This ignores the reality of their market. Google is not on a crusade against the press; Google is fighting for its own survival in the face of the massive adoption of LLM chatbots as response engines by users. Google’s goal is to stay in the game by responding to this new need. In this battle of titans, we are neither their ally nor their enemy; we are simply the battlefield.

To replace this trait: Grow our audiences through short supply chains

Our obsession with platforms keeps us in a reactive, sterile, and exhausting position. Since the balance of power is stacked against us on their turf, the only viable strategic response is to change the playing field.

Rather than fighting to optimize increasingly precarious traffic, we must devote our resources to building short circuits with our audiences. It’s up to us to transform volatile, algorithm-dependent readers into a loyal and engaged audience that we can activate ourselves. This approach makes our newsletters, apps, events, and communities the main tools of our resilience strategy to resume negotiations from a better position.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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At The Audiencers’ Festival in London this June 24th, Panos Sarlanis, Co-founder of IamExpat Media, invited by kind invitation by code.store, the media tech and low-code experts, shared their journey of empowering expats navigate every aspect of life in a new country. 

The secret? Understanding their audience’s needs, building revenue streams around this and continuously innovating to serve evolving needs. 

From personal need to pioneering platform

Panos’s own expat journey began in 2007 when he moved to Rotterdam with one of his co-founders for his studies and met the rest of the founding team there. A year later, after moving to Amsterdam, the idea for a comprehensive platform for internationals moving to the Netherlands was born. 

“When you move to a new country, there are so many challenges you have to deal with. You may have no network, you may not speak the language, you don’t know who to trust for the main services you need.” This sense of insecurity sparked the creation of IamExpat.

The platform’s core mission is to empower the expatriate community by providing essential resources, tools, and a community to more confidently navigate life in a new country. This includes a wealth of content: news focused on expat life and local culture, crucial guides on topics like taxes and healthcare, articles from experts and even a dedicated job board and a housing platform. 

Today, IamExpat is active in the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, welcoming a million users monthly and collaborating with over 800 companies annually, ranging from banks to real estate agencies and healthcare providers.

Evolving beyond traditional revenue streams to consider user needs

In its early days, IamExpat focused on building the brand through “evergreen content,” such as guides on applying for work permits. This foundational content continues to perform, and has provided an important advertising space for monetization.

But as the platform grew, the team began exploring other revenue streams based on their user’s needs. The question they kept asking: “What essential needs can we solve with new products or services?”

This led to the launch of directories, helping users find trusted professionals, from tax advisors and language schools to English-speaking dentists, lawyers and career coaches. These have become a significant part of IamExpat’s business model.

Recognizing the challenges of finding accommodation and employment in new countries, IamExpat also launched a housing platform (aggregating rental properties from partners) and a job board specifically tailored for their international and multilingual audience. 

These “classifieds”—directories, housing, and job boards—now account for a considerable part of their revenue. Directories contribute the most, and this highlights the high value and conversion rate of these specialized services that focus on user needs.

From online to offline, to online again

IamExpat’s journey didn’t stop at online services. “What if users and clients could actually meet in person?”, leading to the creation of the IamExpat Fair in 2015. These events bring readers and advertisers together under one roof, fostering direct connections. 

Since their inception, the fairs have attracted over 40,000 visitors and 600 exhibitors across four locations in the Netherlands and Germany.

The COVID-19 pandemic, while initially impacting revenue, spurred further innovation. The need for personal advice remained, prompting IamExpat to shift from offline to online with webinars. What started as a temporary solution has become a permanent and successful part of their business model, with events and webinars (primarily the fairs) now being important revenue contributors. This diversified approach not only serves their existing advertiser base but also attracts new clients who may not have considered online advertising.

Today, IamExpat boasts a remarkably balanced revenue model in the following areas:

• Online Marketing (banner ads, content marketing, email marketing)
• Classifieds (directories, job ads)
• Events (fairs, webinars)
• Affiliates

However, Panos emphasized the need for constant vigilance in the rapidly changing media industry, citing concerns like platform shifts, cookie deprecation, the rise of content creators, and the uncertainty surrounding AI.

A crucial first step in further diversifying IamExpat’s portfolio was a significant technological upgrade. Recognizing their outdated website was a “big pain point,” they decided to rebuild everything from scratch. Partnering with Code.Store, they adopted a modern tech stack, including a headless CMS (Directus), Vercel for front-end hosting, Cloudflare for caching and CDN, Algolia for powering search, and n8n to import jobs and properties.

With the close support of the team at Code.Store, this overhaul dramatically improved performance and user experience, while maintaining an SEO-first approach.

Vertical expansion and community spaces

Looking to the future, IamExpat is considering different expansion plans. Ideas for diversification include:

• Vertical expansion: Identifying opportunities from popular products and services for expatriates
• Membership programs: Offering packages with special discounts and offers from existing clients, potentially as a company benefit for international employees.
• Merchandise: While not expected to be a major revenue driver, it could enhance offline branding.
• Physical IamExpat spaces: A bold vision for a blended short-stay, co-working, café, and restaurant space where expats can live, work, learn, and connect. This concept draws inspiration from media companies like Time Out, which have successfully integrated online and offline experiences.
• Geographic expansion: Bringing their proven model to new international destinations in Europe and globally.

What can you take away from IamExpat’s diversification strategy?

• Diversification is crucial to reduce exposure to industry volatility – new products and services are no longer optional
• New products must be aligned with the core mission and users to expand reach and influence.
• Build products with cross-functional teams that unlock synergies
• Be open-minded for opportunities to emerge
• Offline experiences will become even more vital for building connections and trust – direct client contact is invaluable for distributing and selling new products.
• The right technology and partners are essential for scaling – keep the tech fresh to unlock speed, scale and innovation.

IamExpat is open to strategic partnerships to support its growth plans. Interested? Contact their team via https://www.iamexpat.com or connect with Panos.

"IamExpat shows what we do at code.store: help clients pick the right stack and make the move without pain. We retired their costly Drupal 7 system and migrated to Directus Cloud + Vercel. Our team handled the migration end-to-end—data, content, SEO, editor workflows, and deployment—without downtime. For media and publishers, we provide practical, full-scope IT outsourcing, from CMS, Data, Mobile apps to subscriptions. The relaunch of IAmExpat is a good example: with the right stack and a focused team, you get a faster site, lower costs, and room to grow."
- Maxime Topolov, Founder & CEO at code.store

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Khalil is an advocate for audiences-driven approaches in the media industry. He consults, advises, and mentors teams and individuals at media organisations worldwide, helping them shape stronger, more connected societies, focusing mainly on user needs, product work and AI. 

In this article, Khalil summarises his session at The Audiencers' Festival London 2025 where he interviewed Oliver Kemp on his work on user needs at TBIJ.

The media industry is struggling. Digital and print audiences are shrinking, layoffs are mounting, and trust in journalists is plummeting worldwide. You’ve seen this story unfold.

But look closer and you’ll find rays of hope – rays that are growing brighter. Because, beyond the industry malaise, a subset of media operations is thriving.

I’ve studied some of these successful operations for several years and found one fundamental factor that unites them: their ability to connect (or reconnect) with people … with their audiences. They serve people’s needs with quality, trustworthy journalism that is genuinely valuable. And because they consistently provide value, people forge real connections with them.

The key insight here is: serving people’s needs. Today’s successful media operations understand that addressing the needs of audiences underpins everything. And many achieve this by integrating the user needs model into their operations.

One media operation that has implemented the user needs model successfully is The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) in the UK. For TBIJ, it’s not about clicks – it has no shareholder to please – it’s about depth and transparency. Its mission is to hold power to account.

Oliver Kemp, TBIJ’s Audience Editor, led the model’s newsroom implementation. When I interviewed him at The Audiencers’ Festival in London, he shared valuable insights about the journey and critical factors for successfully rolling out user needs in a newsroom.

> Here’s a step-by-step guide to implementing user needs in a newsroom of any size.

TBIJ’s unique set of user needs

Integrating user needs opened new pathways for TBIJ to provide value to people. While its core journalism seeks to show abuses of power, talking directly to its audiences convinced Oliver and team that there are opportunities to provide more value by serving more needs.

This led them to create their own user needs model – one deeply representative of their audiences’ needs and fully aligned with TBIJ’s mission.

Creating a unique model helps bring a newsroom closer to its audiences. Beyond exposing abuses of power, TBIJ now aims to help people discover and learn about complex topics (often related to their investigations); involve people by being transparent about their journalistic process; and spark people into realising the good journalism can do by showing the real-world impact of their work.

A unique model can also win over more ambivalent colleagues for two reasons:

• Collectivity: creating the unique model offers an opportunity to bring colleagues along in the process. Oliver highlighted how he addressed scepticism and fostered stronger ownership of the final model.
• Relatability: the unique user needs tend to align closely with the operation’s mission, making them more relatable to colleagues and improving acceptance.

“The first step is to talk directly to your audience … These conversations can take many forms – surveys, interviews, focus groups, or even informal chats – but the goal is the same: to hear in their own words what they value, what they struggle to find elsewhere, and how your journalism can serve them better. This insight becomes the foundation for tailoring the model to fit your unique context.”

Creating a unique model requires considerable work and initial good faith from decision-makers, as results don’t typically appear in the short-term. This is why most media operations aren’t best-placed to create a unique model when beginning to implement user needs. For most operations, allocating resources is a constant battle, and the need to show results quickly is essential for future investment.

Using the plug-and-play user needs model is a perfect starting point for most operations, with creating a unique model more feasible when they are ready to double down on user needs.

Acting on the user needs

With the model in place, it’s time to identify how well (or not!) the newsroom is currently serving the user needs. The aims are to create a reference for gauging the impact of user needs-informed journalism, and to understand which user needs to prioritise (and deprioritise).

For most media operations, TBIJ included, the content audit forms the bulk of this work. The audit involves tagging hundreds of recently-published content with the user need each serves. 

Once the tagging is completed, the charts that change everything can be generated. These charts are the artefacts that will convince colleagues to take action. They showcase:

• The reference: how a media operation’s content currently serves user needs.
• The actions to take: where mismatches exist between content production and serving user needs.

Note: the chart is for illustrative purposes only, but it mirrors findings from many media operations that conduct content audits.

As you can see, doing the content audit, and subsequent analysis, can be a painstaking process. But it is of utmost importance. The insights from the audit forms the basis of every downstream decision.

User needs at the basis of strategy

Oliver shared how user needs now informs TBIJ’s content and engagement strategies, leading to even better journalism and growing audiences.

• More needs, better served: TBIJ tracks the volume of content it produces for each user need and identifies those that may be under-served. This informs content strategy, enabling them to act strategically to rebalance content production with user needs.
• Increase exposure of their investigations: certain themes and user needs are more accessible to specific target audiences than others. Reframing some investigative work around these creates more accessible entry points for more people.
• Increase engagement with their journalism: while certain user needs make good entry points, others suit deeper engagement or conversions. Understanding the user funnel through user needs, using tools like Poool’s Engage element, opens up possibilities for better-optimised user experiences.

User needs also became the basis for identifying both missed and new opportunities at TBIJ.

The “spark” user need has untapped potential, according to Oliver. To better inspire audiences about the impact good journalism can have, reframing this need so it more clearly guides TBIJ’s work may be on the cards.

This illustrates the evolving nature of user needs. It’s necessary to frequently revisit the model and iterate to remain close to audiences and aligned with the media operation’s purpose. Audiences’ needs, interests, behaviours, and the problems they face all change over time. And sometimes, it may be worth adjusting certain user needs to make them more actionable within newsrooms. The point is we must continually adapt to remain valuable.

Oliver also revealed that a fifth user need may be in the works at TBIJ – one that would be explicitly action-oriented. This speaks to extensive research showing that people seek information that helps them do something about what’s happening. There may well be an opportunity to serve this need by engaging people more directly with investigations, whether through participation or advocacy.

When user needs leads to culture change

Culture change can seem impossible – it’s hard and takes time. But at some point, it becomes inevitable.

Oliver knew TBIJ had reached this point when reporters started pitching ideas with user needs already in mind. No longer was user needs something they ticked off at the end of the process. Now, user needs directly shaped their journalism. Reporters were thinking about the “why” (need to serve) and “who” (target audience) of a story from conception.

“[Reporters] identified whether [their stories] would meet a need to inform, explain, inspire, or provoke action, and tailoring their approach accordingly. This not only produced stronger, more focused ideas, but also fostered a more collaborative editorial culture, where conversations about audience and impact became part of the creative process rather than an afterthought.”

This is the culmination of a user needs-first newsroom – where the virtuous cycle of value, quality, trust, and connection is fully activated to provide journalism that is genuinely valuable to people.

> Download all slides from Khalil & Oliver’s session here

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200 attendees joined us at The Tabernacle Theatre in London on June 24th 2025 for arguably our best Festival yet, with a brilliant line up of speakers who skipped the “what”, going straight into the “how”.

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We’re back for our third (can you believe it?!) Festival in London on June 24th, this time taking over Notting Hill’s Tabernacle Theatre for a day of inspiring case studies, expert recommendations from around the world and plenty of time to network with fellow publishing pros.

> Find the full agenda and reserve your spot here

We may say this every year, but the program really isn’t one to miss! With speakers from Mediahuis, BBC, Business Insider, Toronto Star, BILD and more, the line up really speaks for itself…

What’s changed this year?

• More time for networking! 2 whole coffee breaks, 1h15 for lunch and of course ‘Apéro’ to round the day off
• Reinvented panels. In the interest of being as concrete as possible, our panel sessions will involve a 10 minute presentation from each speaker, allowing them to share their use case with key learnings for you to take back to your colleagues
• Guaranteed quality. This year, for the first time, we’re asking for a small fee for tickets. This is to help cover costs (food, drink, space hire, staff), reduce the number of no-shows on the day (a pet hate of any event organiser!) and ultimately fund the quality work we hope is valuable to you! 

The program

Doors will open at 9:30am, with the program starting at 10am sharp where our co-founder and session curator Madeleine will introduce the day, sharing 3 key trends to keep an eye on in 2025.

Making it impossible to leave without making it impossible to leave (i.e. retention)

• Dean Attil, Product Manager (Growth and Retention), The Telegraph
• Sabrina Cesar Tolomei, Senior Product Manager, Subscriber Retention, Business Insider

Focus on the “happy middle” of the audience funnel

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• Sarah Marshall, VP of Audience Strategy at Conde Nast

Launching a youth subscription: Mediahuis’ mission to convince young readers to subscribe

• Katia Debusschere, Manager Acquisition and Conversion, Mediahuis nv

Getting the most out of each reader: strategies for increasing ARPU

• Sacha Cayre, CMO, Contexte
• Martin Seidel, Head of Business/Product Management, BILD (Axel Springer)
• Louis Faure, Head of Strategic Marketing, L’Équipe

Where can should AI come in when you’re on the quest for subscribers?

• Robin Booth, Managing Director, EMAP
• Aliya Itzkowitz, FT Strategies

Revenue diversification: Building a balanced revenue model for sustainable growth

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• Panos Sarlanis, Co-founder, IamExpat Media

Using newsletters in the fight for sustainability – uplifting news, personalization, subscription & more

• Elaine Piniat, Thomson Reuters
• Zoé Tabary, Senior News Editor (newsletters), BBC News
• David Topping, Newsletters Director, Toronto Star

Getting the most out of each article: how publishers are capitalizing on User Needs in reader revenue models

• Oliver Kemp, Audience Editor, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
• Khalil A. Cassimally, Independent

> It’s here if you want to reserve your spot!

Thank you so much to our sponsors who help make our events possible!

But that’s not all… The Audiencers’ Workshop is also back, and happening on June 23rd

This time with a focus on retention, in particular the first and last moments in the subscriber lifetime – onboarding and cancellation.

As usual, we’ll share our benchmarks and recommendations with the help of a special guest, followed by subscription speed dating to discuss the topic with fellow publishing pros.

As this is a smaller group (20-25 attendees) it’s the perfect opportunity to network and learn from other media brands with different perspectives, subscription maturity, audiences, etc.

If you’re involved in subscriber retention, this one’s for you!

> Request a spot here

(We’ll work through the list of requests in the coming weeks, selecting participants based on how relevant the workshop will be for them and the date they applied.)

See you there?

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