Predictions for journalism 2025: revenue, subscriptions and registrations

Credit: image generated by Magic Media, a generative AI tool by Canva

How do newsrooms keep their doors open and their journalism funded in 2025? In short, newsrooms are increasingly realising chasing scale no longer works and they need to adopt new tactics. Support is also on the horizon, but media companies would be wise to focus on what they can control: building deeper relationships with audiences and getting to a first name basis with them.

Jonathan Heawood, executive director, Public Interest News Foundation (PINF): help is on the way for local news, but do not hold your breath

Mousetrap Media / Frank Noon

What does the coming year have in store for us? We should expect to see major action on local news from three sources: government, big tech and philanthropy.

The Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, has promised to launch a local media strategy in the New Year. I hope this will focus not on saving the local news of old, but on ensuring that local communities are truly informed and empowered by great journalism – whatever form that takes. This means supporting news providers to experiment with new models of local news – even if most of these experiments fail. It is only by embracing failure that we will find the successful innovations.

Meanwhile, the new Digital Markets Unit will begin work on 1 January with the power to compel big tech firms to pay news providers for the value they create. Rather than wait for the regulator to step in, the platforms should see this as an opportunity to find a fairer and more sustainable relationship with the news industry, in the interests of consumers and citizens. They have treated independent news providers poorly in the past. I hope this will change in 2025.

UK philanthropists should be inspired by the example of their counterparts in the US, who launched the Press Forward initiative to rebuild local news, and Europe, who launched the Media Forward initiative to support journalism in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Over the last few months, I have spoken to many UK philanthropists who understand the challenges facing local news, but are not yet ready to step in. We need a few brave funders to buck this trend in 2025.

If we can get the government, big tech firms and philanthropists to take local news seriously, then 2025 could be the year in which we turn the corner and start regenerating local news in the UK.

• Read more: Building a better future for public interest news

Lexie Kirkconnel-Kawana, CEO, IMPRESS: short-terminism will continue to plague the industry

In 2025, there will be no easing off of the combined challenges of diminishing philanthropic, government and tech-sector support for journalism – AI deals will create more time-limited dependencies we have seen in other tech programmes and sandboxes over the last 5 years; media businesses will continue to address shortfalls through cuts to expenditure, relying on automation to address efficiencies, and by investing in tangential products and services that cross-subsidise the editorial costs over and above investment in editorial integrity (and staffing). This short-termism is likely to steer journalism on a course of becoming a compromised and de-prioritised commodity in a swollen content market.

At IMPRESS, we view the lack of resources for editorial oversight, fact-checking, and ethical training and support, as key contributors to broader issues of misinformation and declining public trust. That’s why we champion recentring norms and ethics in journalism to build affinity, relevance and value with audiences. Therefore, IMPRESS, in partnership with Innovate UK and the University of Huddersfield, is launching an Ethical Journalism Programme to address gaps in oversight and professional development caused by systemic disinvestment.

This initiative will empower practitioners to tackle ethical challenges through peer support networks and innovative learning methods. This is not just about safeguarding journalism — it is a safeguard for the public. Ethical journalism is more than an internal code of conduct; it is the practise by which societies maintain informed citizenry and protect democratic ideals, and this year (and into next) we will see the democratic consequences of people not using reliable and trusted sources of information play out.

• Read more: How journalism must adapt to survive

Joshi Hermann, founder, Mill Media: traditional media jumps on the bandwagon

Mousetrap Media / Mark Hakansson

In 2025, I think we are going to see traditional media outlets - newspapers, linear TV stations - starting to ape the things that have made new media channels so successful this year. The huge success of podcasts and newsletters this year is not just about the formats they publish in, it is about the kind of relationship they offer their audiences: more intimate, more connected, more informal.

Readers and listeners want to feel a part of something rather than just being passive consumers of news, and they prefer outlets that conduct what sound like normal conversations as opposed to hyper-aggressive political interviews in which no one has time to express a point before they get jumped on by the interviewer. Expect TV shows that look a bit more like podcasts, newspaper stories that feel a bit more like newsletter intros and perhaps even some corporate acquisitions that bring that kind of new media expertise into the legacy players.

• Read more: How The Mill is swimming against the tide of journalism hardships

Corinne Podger, media development consultant: 2025 will be the year of the inbox

In 2025, you need to do what retailers, hotels, your bank, and everyone else competing not just for your attention but your wallet already does: get into your audience's inbox, and – more importantly - stay there.

Producing a regular newsletter can seem like a thankless chore. But every single email puts you in direct contact with a current or potential customer. So you need to sensitively tailor purchasing messages to that customer's need for reliable, trustworthy, affordable information, and for products they will value and pay for. If they ever click 'unsubscribe', you have to start over to get back into their inbox.

In the lead up to Christmas, I received "support our work" emails from two newspapers I pay a subscription to, asking me to consider increasing my financial contribution.

One asked me to make an additional donation to its work. The email included examples of coverage – with links to original stories – that demonstrated how holding power to account had led to shifts in government or business practices. It also provided testimonies from people like me who have a paid subscription. It was a strong and persuasive argument for paying more for the product.

The other newspaper pitched its product as a "buy 6 months, get 6 months free" Christmas gift idea. There was nothing at all in the call-to-action about why this would make a better gift for a friend or relative than socks or a scarf. Worse, pitching it to me as a half-price bargain made me question whether I should continue paying full price myself.

In 2025, media outlets that plan their email content in a way that demonstrates clear and immediate value for customers will reap the benefits - and media outlets that do not will lose out.

• Read more: Six tips to save a failing newsletter

Adriana Lacy, media consultant: news adopts personalised subscriptions à la Netflix and Spotify (thanks to AI)

In 2025, artificial intelligence will redefine how newsrooms personalise subscription models, reshaping audience engagement and retention. As a consultant, I am actively pushing media organisations to embrace this shift, which I believe will be critical for success in the digital age.

AI's power lies in its ability to analyse user data — such as reading habits, time spent on content, and preferred formats — to deliver highly personalised experiences. Subscribers could receive newsletters tailored to their interests, content recommendations aligned with their engagement patterns, or even dynamic pricing options based on their preferences. These hyper-targeted experiences are essential for retaining readers and fostering loyalty.

Top-tier news organisations like The New York Times could refine recommendation engines and experiment with dynamic subscription pricing, while smaller outlets could develop targeted micro-subscriptions that cater to niche audiences. This democratises access to advanced technologies, enabling newsrooms of all sizes to thrive.

This trend is about more than technology; it is about meeting rising audience expectations for tailored experiences, similar to those offered by platforms like Netflix or Spotify. Newsrooms that fail to adapt risk losing readers, while those that embrace personalisation can position themselves as indispensable.

By focusing on individual needs rather than one-size-fits-all approaches, media companies can foster deeper trust and engagement. In 2025, personalisation will shift from a "nice-to-have" to a "must-have".

• Read more: NYT's Hannah Yang on subscription ceilings, international markets and news bundles

Lisa MacLeod, director and head of EMEA, FT Strategies: registration becomes the name of the game

Mark Hakansson / Mousetrap Media

My predictions for journalism last year centred around making tough choices: a year when executives would be having to decide what to start doing for the sustainability of their businesses and more importantly, what to stop doing. For 2025, I believe there will be a laser focus on audiences and users: user needs, user behaviours and user identification. 

While we all understand the theory of user-centricity, in practice there are often gaps between what we say in the news industry and what we do. Saying we are focused on the user, and then providing an awful user experience is one example. Saying we care about younger audiences, and then eschewing all experimentation with newer formats and storytelling is another. 

One way to focus on users and provide a better experience for them, is to "unmask" them. I loved this piece from Sarah Marshall, VP, audience strategy, Condé Nast, in which she emphasises the importance of the "flabby middle" - a perfect term for this time of the year. What she is referencing is the middle of the marketing funnel: the place where you have engaged users who are not fly-by's but also not yet subscribers or highly engaged fans either. 

One strategy to make the most of these valuable users is to focus on account creation or registration tactics. As soon as users create an account, their value increases exponentially. Is the presentation of a barrier at odds with user experience? Perhaps so, but the benefits to the user need to outweigh the temporary friction. 

Once they have created an account, a registered user can be asked for added first-party data which can help to hike CPMs in the longer term. At the FT, we have seen that the ARPU on a user moving from anonymous to registered almost triples, and the ARPU value rises exponentially with each added data point. 

A registered user is easier to track - and this opens up the opportunity for a better user experience with improved ads, useful content recommendations and better intelligence on their actions. We could reward users with some of the pioneering AI formats we have seen launch this year, such as interactive chatbots.

Of course, registered users also show higher engagement, and are more likely to subscribe or renew their subscriptions. There is solid data to support the subs conversion rates - registered users are 36x more likely to subscribe and generate 1.3x more ad revenue. The New York Times claims its registered users are around 40x more likely to subscribe. It is a win-win for everybody. 

Publishers are notoriously reluctant to apply registration or data walls, yet these days it is almost impossible to do anything on the web without creating an account first and accepting the terms and conditions presented. Whether it is fear of jeopardising ad impressions, or just a fear of irritating our customers, we feel less able to ask for something in exchange for our journalism, although the value to users is not in doubt. 

2025 is going to be the year when all our strategies should centre on the best possible experience for users. As Meera Patni, global head of communications and live journalism at Semafor, said in a LinkedIn post: "We're witnessing a reversal of a 20-year trend that prioritised the illusion of scale. Today, successful media publishers and advertisers are sharply focused on cultivating high-value audiences."

• Read more: Balancing audience frustration and engagement to drive conversions

Thomas Baekdal, media consultant: people need a better reason to pay for news - and neither AI nor TikTok is the answer

Another area that is going to impact our focus in 2025 is advertising. This, of course, is nothing new. The shift to first-party advertising is becoming even more important, despite the fact that Google is not ending third-party cookies. But we all know where this is heading, and if you do not get serious about this in 2025, you are going to have a bad year.

We need to focus less on random news for random people at scale and more on meaningful, useful, and relevant news for our returning audience. By doing this, we can strengthen our subscription and membership efforts, as well as improve the performance metrics for our first-party advertising.

To achieve this, however, we need to change the journalistic focus. We have to make the news better — a lot better. And not just better in general, but much better in the eyes of the individual reader.

This is particularly important in the UK, where only 8 per cent of people pay for news, which is just a crazily small number. And so, the challenges we face with external sources and getting more people to come directly to us and pay are, by far, the single most important focus publishers need to have in 2025.

You cannot fix this by focusing more on TikTok. You also cannot fix this by using AI to mass-produce low-quality “slob” in an effort to make up for the lack of scale.

• Read more: Reinventing digital advertising (now that cookiepocalypse is not happening)

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).