Article Gifting Pays Itself Forward For Hearst Newspapers
In the past couple of years, several newspaper publications with paywalls have given subscribers a new benefit: They allowed them to share articles with friends and family for free. At Hearst Newspapers, we added a second wrinkle: requiring anonymous gift recipients to register an e-mail address to redeem the article view.
Our hope was that this would result in a “two-fer,” creating an uplift to both our retention and acquisition efforts. While we’re still studying this for the long term, the preliminary results were so positive that we moved from just a test on HoustonChronicle.com to rolling this out to all subscribers on our biggest sites: SFChronicle.com in San Francisco; ExpressNews.com in San Antonio, Texas; and TimesUnion.com in Albany, New York, with more publications to come.
Subscribers are encouraged to share articles with people they think would be interested in the content. Subscribers are encouraged to share articles with people they think would be interested in the content. First, there was a 9% stop reduction during the period of our test among the group of subscribers that saw the article gifting benefit versus those who didn’t. While it’s not totally clear whether the mechanics of using the benefit helped or simply knowing of its existence did, that alone was an eye-popping number. Ask any retention executive at your companies if they would like to reduce churn by 9% and I think you will get an enthusiastic response.
Publishers’ Q1 Ad Revenue Was Better Than Forecasts, But Not By Much
For most of January, many publishers shared the very bleak experience of being behind 10-25% in their ad forecasts for the quarter. Now that March is over, publishers are surveying their wounds and finding that while ad revenue was indeed down, the numbers aren’t as bad as once predicted.
One publisher who spoke on the condition of anonymity said they ended the quarter down by a mid- to high-singledigit percentage, though they wouldn’t disclose an exact number. Another publisher told Digiday anonymously that they too saw a decrease in ad revenue year-over-year, but wouldn’t disclose the official drop. However, they added that “the last three months have been better than the preceding three months. And so, in aggregate, we’re moving, albeit somewhat slowly, in the right direction overall.”
The first quarter ended up being pretty on par with expectations, and didn’t end up being “catastrophic by any stretch of the imagination,” according to Sean Griffey, CEO and co-founder of Industry Dive, though he declined to disclose hard revenue numbers or what his initial prediction was. He did say, however, that it was during the last couple weeks of the quarter that several “material” deals ended up being finalized, though he wouldn’t define this term from a dollar standpoint.
Newspaper Tax Break Bill Passes Washington Senate
“Local journalists play an essential role to inform the public, hold politicians and government accountable, and make our communities stronger,” said Sen. Mark Mullet (D-Issaquah), sponsor of the bill. “That role is particularly important at the local level, where incredibly important decisions are made that CNN or Fox News will never cover. We need to make sure our small local newspapers can stay afloat and keep serving the public, and this bill will help.”
Senate Bill 5199, by request of the Attorney General, was prefiled on Jan. 6 and referred to the Senate Committee on Business, Financial Services, Gaming and Trade on Jan. 9. A public hearing was held on Jan. 12 before it passed committee and was passed to Ways and Means. After passing Ways and Means as well as the Rules Committee, it finally passed the Senate floor on March 31, 47-1. Sen. Phil Fortunato (R-Auburn) was the only legislator to vote nay and Sen. Yasmin Trudeau (D-Tacoma) was excused.
A release by Washington State Senate Democrats stated that newspapers currently pay a lower business and occupation tax rate than most businesses, but that preferential tax rate expires in July of 2024. SB 5199 fully eliminates the business and occupation tax for newspaper publishers and printers and also eliminates the tax for digital and online news outlets if they had a printed publication as recently as Jan. 1, 2008. “I’ve seen local newspapers and media in my district struggle over the past decade, and too many have already had to shut down,” Mullet said.
Between 2005 and 2020, Washington state newspapers lost 67% of newsroom employees, according to a report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, the release stated.
