LAST CHANCE:

Nine passes left to attend the Digiday Publishing Summit

SECURE YOUR SEAT

The Economist’s Paul Rossi: Trump is driving subscriptions

Paul Ross, president of The Economist, joined Digiday editor-in-chief Brian Morrissey for a discussion at Digiday Publishing Summit Japan in February. Some highlights:

For The Economist, the election of Donald Trump has been good for its subscription business. The Economist saw its daily subscription rate go up five times.

“We might not agree with the content coming out of Washington, but it’s a fantastic time to be writing.”

Rossi is a staunch believer in being clear-eyed with it comes to platforms like Facebook. For the Economist, Facebook and Google are a way to drive subscriptions, often through providing samples of their content to a new audience.

“If [platforms] are an extension of your advertising business, then beware because that’s not in my mind a long-term, viable position.”

“These platforms have no moral obligation to support good media. They don’t care.”

Reality check for content studios. Publishers are getting into content studios, but they’re finding that the margins for the agency business are not as good as media.

“What we’re seeing is media businesses are winning business based on the quality of their idea, not on their audience. Ultimately with programmatic and data, you can find audiences wherever they are.”

More in Media

Substack creators attribute their boost in subscribers to the platform’s community tools

Substack’s ongoing efforts to win over creators by becoming a community platform are winning over writers who value being part of a vibrant creative community.

Media Briefing: Here are the hurdles to Perplexity’s pitch as the publisher-friendly LLM

Publishers are cautiously optimistic about Perplexity’s new revenue share model, but remain concerned about issues of adoption, payment terms and transparency.

How Gabriella Gomez built a six-figure career on TikTok Live without signing sponsorship deals

Top U.S. TikTok Live star Gabriella Gomez has made livestreaming on TikTok into a lucrative career — without relying on brand partnerships.