Join us Oct. 26-28 in Newport Beach for the Digiday Media Buying Summit
The Economist is going on 170 years old. You don’t survive the vicissitudes of the publishing world that long by latching onto every trend. One The Economist is waiting out is the “everything is free” ethos that took root online. That’s “suicide,” in the words of The Economist’s managing director for the Americas Paul Rossi.
“It makes no sense in my mind if you think a mag on a news has a val to a reader of $4.99 that you sell that to a reader digitally for 99 cents or $1.99,” he said. “I don’t understand the logic.”
Rossi spoke at The Digiday Publishing Summit last week in Deer Valley, Utah. He discussed the need to charge and the core problem of digital advertising not coming close to replacing print revenue — and the challenge that presents to publishers.
“Our readers are giving up paper,” he said. “When you ask a subscriber today how you expect to be reading The Economist in two years time, 50 percent say digitally. If you have a business where half of your customers are giving up the product where you make the majority of your revenues today, you better start changing.”
More in Media
As creators increasingly move into Hollywood, deal terms can put their IP at risk
Advertising Week New York explored the business of creator-led programming across entertainment, and the problems arising within it
Apple’s Safari ad tech blocklist sends publishers back to IAB Tech Lab’s Trusted Server
What publishers once filed under someday now has a deadline, and Apple set it.
Media Briefing: As AI search shifts referrals, publishers revisit registration walls
As referral traffic declines, publishers are rethinking registration walls as a way to turn anonymous visitors into valuable known users.