Media Briefing: Publishers put premium video behind the paywall to sell subscriptions

The Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Bloomberg are rolling out paywalled video series and livestreams designed explicitly to convert high‑intent readers into paying subscribers and give existing subscribers more reasons to stay.

As search referrals decline and younger audiences spend more time watching video, these publishers are pulling more of their premium formats back onto their own sites and apps, rather than leaving their most valuable content on YouTube and social platforms.

While publishers have experimented with gating video before, the current wave is more explicit about using video as a core subscription product, rather than a top-of-funnel tactic to draw people in and drive engagement.

And while it’s well documented that publishers are amping up video production to grow audience engagement and open up more ad inventory, some publishers are also testing video as a way to convert and retain subscribers.

It’s still early, but WSJ is seeing signs that paywalled video can move the needle. The business publisher debuted “The WSJ Money Interview” in April, a recurring series of conversations with high-profile business execs, hosted by WSJ reporter Gunjan Banerji. It marks the first video franchise series the publisher has put behind the paywall, having tested ad hoc gated videos since 2024. Those earlier tests were mostly standalone clips, whereas the WSJ Money Interview is being built as an ongoing subscriber-facing series.  

The pilot episode of the new series, featuring Flexjet chairman Kenn Ricci, generated more subscriptions than any other gated WSJ video, according to a company spokesperson, though they declined to share how many. The season’s premiere episode with Skylar Capital founder and hedge fund manager Bill Perkins was also among the WSJ’s highest subscription-driving videos and the series now accounts for three of its top four subscription-driving gated videos. Overall, WSJ has 4.3 million digital subscribers.

“Video content isn’t an add-on to the Journal experience. It’s at the core of it,” said Taneth Evans, head of digital at The Wall Street Journal. “We create journalism worth paying for, and our video is no different. So video really should increase the value of a Journal subscription and also convert high-intent audiences into subscribers. So we need to be making video that’s worth paying for.” 

Clips from each episode are shared for free on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn, to promote the show, but the full episodes can only be accessed by subscribers on WSJ’s site and app. 

While many publishers are investing in social platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook to grow audiences and ad revenue as traffic pressures hit display,  subscription-supported businesses are also refocusing on adding value on their own properties to attract and retain subscribers. Until recently, the WSJ’s video strategy was largely centered on off-platform revenue from channels like YouTube and LinkedIn.

“We are really investing in our video offering right now at the Journal. We’re audience-first, and our audiences are changing. We need to be open to that. Up until now, video has been more of a top-of-funnel play for us, and so our primary objectives were audience off-platform,” Evans said.

Social video platforms like YouTube remain central to WSJ’s video strategy, as a way to reach big audiences and sell ads. But the publisher no longer wants video to stop there. It now sees video as a subscription tool — something that should pull viewers off third-party platforms and into its own paywalled ecosystem.

WSJ redesigned its app earlier this year to give video a more prominent home. The new video series is also ad-supported and subscribers can submit a question to the guest on each episode and be notified if it makes it into the episode — a way to turn passive viewers into participants.

“We’re giving our subscribers a seat at the table with these businesspeople, and making access feel more tangible [and that is part of the] work that we’re doing on building direct relationships with our readers within the WSJ Money Interview,” Evans said.

Elsewhere, Fortune is also testing putting livestreams of main stages at large conferences behind the paywall, such as its Brainstorm Tech Summit and COO Summit this month, to make it more of a subscriber benefit, said Adam Banicki, gm of video at Fortune Media.

“When it’s for everyone, it’s for no one,” Banicki said. “We’re going to play around with: ‘what could we gate? Do we gate all of it? Do we gate the more niche panels and the ones that have broader appeal?’ We’re having those conversations right now to shape it.”

Meanwhile, Bloomberg launched a centralized video hub earlier this year to improve video discovery and the viewing experience on its own website and app. Some of those videos — including a mix of long-form and short-form news shows and weekly documentary series — are only available to paying Bloomberg subscribers, as a way to test video as added value. Bloomberg subscribers over-index on their video consumption compared to non-subscribers, according to Marissa Zanetti-Crume, Bloomberg’s global head of product, though she declined to share specific numbers.

Luke Magerko, director of strategy at publisher consulting practice Mather Economics, said video can influence how likely someone is to subscribe, and can boost engagement and loyalty, but there’s still limited data showing that specific content types directly drive subscription acquisitions.

But it can help with retention, according to Magerko. “Where video appears to have greater potential is after a subscriber has already signed up,” he said. “Readers who engage with multiple products — including articles, newsletters, podcasts and videos — often visit more frequently and spend more time with a publication.” 

These highly engaged users can be roughly 10% to 20% less likely to cancel than users who consume only a single content format, he added.

What we’ve heard

“We are looking at how we can create that [agentic] layer. There are some cost advantages there. When bots hit your human site there’s a cost associated with serving those pages, so if you’re making it easier [and] quicker [for bots], the CDN cost is advantageous for us.”

— A publishing exec on structuring site content to be read solely by AI agents.

Numbers to know

$50: The annual cost of The Washington Post’s new, ad-free digital subscription.

3 million: The number of international subscribers to The New York Times. The Times has 13.1 million total subscribers.

More than 50,000: The number of paid U.S. subscribers to Zeteo, the Substack-based news site led by former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, which is launching in the U.K. this September.

41%: The decline in LADbible owner LBG Media’s “indirect revenue” (ads on websites and social media), due to Facebook algorithm changes and declines in Google referral traffic.

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Read more here.

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