Fairfax this week reported strong growth in digital subscriptions.
In the six months to December 31, The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age grew their total paid digital subscriber base by close to 50,000, the strongest half in four years, taking total subscribers across Fairfax’s three major titles to more than 283,000. Digital subscription revenue rose 11 per cent in the first half in the metro business.
This is an excellent result for the company, even considering the cost of obtaining and maintaining digital subs. It is a base and it reflects migration from print to digital.
Whereas print newspapers are primarily an advertising delivery medium, digital news platforms have the opportunity to be primarily news and analysis delivery platforms, driven by demonstrated reader interest.
The Fairfax boss said the company has been able to use data to better understand exactly what readers want and give it to them in ways media businesses have traditionally not been able to.
“This feeds into subscriptions. If more of your revenues are dependent upon subscriptions and less on advertising, clearly, you’re going to be saying ‘well, what do our subscribers want?’ So the focus becomes on your core audience rather than a mass audience. This all evolves, we’re always part of an endless learning process.”
Newsagents with business models that rely on print need to read the details of the Fairfax results and contemplate the results in the context of their own businesses. There is much to consider here if your business is reliant on print related revenue.
The live question is with such growth in digital subscriptions and continued declines in print, when?
Note: in case the article is now behind a paywall, click here.
Big claims on subscription numbers which are not supported by subscription revenues up just 11%.
The newspaper divisions results are dominated by cost issues and note the following comment :
“He also confirmed Fairfax and rival News Corp are in advanced discussions in seeking
industry-wide print and distribution efficiencies, appointing advisors to work on
further opportunities for co-operation”
That is management speak for … Fairfax and Newscorp have belatedly come to the conclusion the market cannot support 2 separate operating divisions and that shared printing and distribution facilities are inevitable.
Dinosaurs. Even GG and Network saw this solution years ago.
Get ready for a seismic shift.
Yes, 2018 will be an extraordinary year of change.
reminds me of a friend who used the free version of uTorrent to download the pirated paid version. 🙂