Digital News Report 2022 - Subscription Management View Point
Writer : Rashmi Singh
News organizations immerse themselves so much in the nitty-gritty of publishing news that they often lose the bigger picture. To use the cliche, they can not see the forest for trees. This is precisely where the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2022 comes for help.
Considered as one of the most reliable sources of information about the news industry, the Reuters Institute has finally published this year’s Digital News Report. It covers important topics such as trust issues of people with news sources, a decline in news consumption, access ways, and digital subscriptions.
The report is based on a survey conducted by a British market research and data analysis firm called YouGov. Along with many other crucial topics, the report reveals some interesting findings about the growth in digital subscriptions. Let’s have a look at the report from a subscription management viewpoint.
Key Findings
From News avoidance to newsletters, here are 5 key findings about digital subscriptions from the 164-pages long report:
News Avoidance
More people have started to avoid the news for various reasons. The number one reason why people avoid news is they think that news is filled with too much politics and COVID-19 news. News publishers should address this problem as they can not sustain their business if a majority of people start to avoid the news.
Some other common reasons mentioned by people are that they feel a negative effect on their mood, they think the news gets them into arguments that are otherwise avoidable, they feel worn out by the news, and they can not do anything with the information.
Competition By Entertainment
Digital news publishers are not just competing with each other, but also with entertainment, music, and sports sources. The largest chunk of people’s digital subscription spending goes to entertainment sources like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+.
The second highest spending is done on music subscriptions like Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, and Deezer. Music is followed by sports subscriptions and news subscriptions come at last. But the good news is - people who pay for any digital subscription like Music or Sports or more likely to pay for a news subscription than people who consume media from traditional sources like television cable.
Nothing Beats Text
It’s true that TikTok videos, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts are more popular than ever, but people still prefer to read text when it comes to consuming news. The report revealed that not only older age groups like to consume news in the text form but even a majority of the 18-24 age group prefer text over video.
Invest In Newsletters
Probably one of the most interesting findings of the Digital News Report 2022 is that email news or newsletters are preferred by more educated, older, and relatively richer readers. A significant number of people over 55 prefer to discover news through emails. Not surprisingly, the younger age group depends less on emails and more on social media for new discoveries.
This information might help news publishers in selecting their media platforms according to their target groups. If a news publisher wants to target only a younger audience, it might not be worthy to start a newsletter. However, starting a newsletter might be a high ROI proposition for a financial news organization.
If you run a news organization and are interested in increasing your subscription revenue, we can help you. At Quintype, we have built an intelligent subscription management platform called Accesstype. The platform taps into the hidden strength of your digital subscription and helps you generate predictable reader revenue. Click here to know more about the Accesstype platform.