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Subscription fatigue? Subscription amnesia’s the problem: The Media Roundup

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Forget subscription fatigue. Subscription amnesia is the problem

Audiences dropping their subscription to your publication because they have too many other subscriptions might not be as big a problem as we thought. New research suggests consumers are forgetting what they have subscribed to.

This might sound like the ideal business model, take money from people that forget they’ve spent it and, consequently, expect nothing of you. But Mark Sternberg on Medialyte is, rightly, pointing out that companies profiting from their clients’ amnesia rubs him the wrong way. He wonders where ‘passive profit’ becomes ‘active grift’ and suggests cutting zombie subscribers off after a year. He asks if that’s too contentious. Maybe? But isn’t it better to foster goodwill among the members of the community that are actually willing to pay for journalism than gouge them until they remember to hate you?

Dynamic paywalls connect potential subscribers with the right offer at the right time

This extract from WNIP’s new Paywalls for Publishers report focuses on the benefits of personalising paywall offerings and I absolutely love this quote from Innovation Media’s John Wilpers: “It’s amazing, (mind-boggling, actually) to think that in an era of increasing personalization we ever thought a one-size-fits-all paywall would work.”

This content originally appeared in The Media Roundup, a daily newsletter from Media Voices. Subscribe here:

After pandemic layoffs, New York news company seeks subscribers on Substack

Examiner Media, publishing free weeklies in New York state has rebuilt its staff with a grant from the Substack Local fund. Launching Examiner+ on the newsletter platform it will get $75,000 from Substack in four installments, plus 15% of first-year subscriber revenue before reverting to Substack’s standard 90%.

The Daily Mail turned this guy’s tweet thread into a column without asking him

And finally… British human rights lawyer Adam Wagner wasn’t impressed when the Daily Mail Online turned his tweet threads into a column without permission. Good news though… some corners of the British media might still be devoid of any journalistic integrity, but the Mail has paid Mr Wagner for his work. They originally offered £100, but stumped up £250 when he suggested what they did was ‘probably illegal’.

This week’s podcast:

The Information Reporter Kaya Yurieff on covering the sprawling creator economy

This week we hear from Kaya Yurieff, The Information’s Creator Economy Reporter. We talked about how she covers an industry that is so new and sprawling, some of the challenges of being a creator, and how it fits with The Information’s other coverage.

The Publisher Podcast Awards 2022 are now open for entries!

We’ve just opened entries for the third year of the Publisher Podcast Awards. The awards are designed to celebrate the podcasting success of publishers and media organisations, whether they’ve been in the podcasting space a while or have just launched their first one. Entry is free, so have a look at our categories and see if you’ve got anything that could be award-winning!

This content originally appeared in The Media Roundup, a daily newsletter from Media Voices. Subscribe here: