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.

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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.

> After the acquisition spike from the Paris 2024 Olympics, L'Équipe built 12 retention projects around four lifecycle moments: onboarding, stimulating usage, retention and re-subscription, each with its own indicator

> The number that drove everything: every additional paid article read in the first three days cuts month-one churn by five points. Onboarding now pushes new subscribers to read two

> That onboarding loop shows what the subscription includes, prompts personalisation through alerts, newsletters and favourites, then serves paid content matched to those stated interests

> The cancellation form was rebuilt through A/B testing. Adding a summary screen and showing personalised discounts both improved retention

> An RFV engagement score adapted to L'Équipe guides every decision, with a strategic threshold of 100. Two-thirds of subscribers sit above it

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.

> The Telegraph puts around 90% of its product resources into the mobile app, with teams built around it. App usage is now the single most predictive indicator of subscriber retention

> That displaced what they used to prioritise. Multi-channel engagement and newsletter signups were the signals they watched before, and app usage beats both

> The numbers behind it: app users have eight more sessions a week than web users, and 30-day retention is six percentage points higher. App usage grew 15% in a year

> Access is light freemium: the home screen and a few articles open, the rest for subscribers, with a 14-day trial for new app users in exchange for an email. It converts better than a standard paywall

> The catch they are open about is that people drop off when the trial ends unless the follow-up is well orchestrated, so activation after day 14 is the live problem

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.

> Télérama built a streaming guide from an asset it already had: 20,000 reviews written by 145 journalists, France's largest cultural newsroom, repackaged around the question of what to watch tonight

> The insight driving it was that editorial alone doesn't create a daily habit. Without a service layer telling you where a film is actually streaming, readers have no reason to come back every evening

> They combined rather than chose. Two prototypes were tested, an editorially curated hot-to-cold list and a single daily recommendation, and the launched product uses both

> The archive is joined to third-party availability data from Plurimedia and JustWatch, with every entry linking back to a Télérama review, so automation carries the service and journalists carry the judgement

> One month after launch: 3,360 new subscribers, a conversion rate 20 times the usual, and monthly visits up 6%

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. 

> IamExpat serves a million monthly users across the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland, with revenue spread across four streams: advertising, classifieds, events and affiliates. No single one carries the business

> Products came from asking what readers needed rather than how to monetise content. Directories of trusted professionals, tax advisors, lawyers, English-speaking dentists, now contribute more than the job board or the housing platform

> The fairs have drawn over 40,000 visitors and 600 exhibitors since 2015, putting readers and advertisers in the same room. Direct contact turns out to be how new products get sold

> When Covid killed the fairs they moved to webinars as a stopgap. It became permanent, and pulled in advertisers who would never have bought online display

> Panos Sarlanis is candid about the fragility. Platform shifts, cookie deprecation, creators and AI are all live threats, which is the argument for spreading revenue rather than optimising one stream

From personal need to pioneering platform

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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 Bureau of Investigative Journalism built its own user needs model rather than adopting the standard one. Its four needs are expose, discover, involve and spark, each tied directly to the mission

> Building it in-house was the point. Bringing colleagues through the process turned sceptics into owners, and needs phrased in the newsroom's own language are far easier to accept than a generic framework

> Oliver Kemp is honest that most newsrooms shouldn't start here. A bespoke model takes real work and patience from decision-makers, so begin with the off-the-shelf version and go bespoke once you're ready to commit

> The unglamorous part carries everything. A content audit means tagging hundreds of recent pieces by the need each serves, and the resulting chart of mismatches is what convinces colleagues to act

> The moment they knew it had worked: reporters began pitching stories with the need and the audience already identified, rather than tagging them afterwards

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.

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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

Brought to you by code.store

• 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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