Diversify or die? 22 media leaders reveal how to make news pay in 2025
Twenty-two media leaders representing some of the biggest names in US and UK publishing have shared their insight into the key news revenue trends for 2025.
With big names like Estates Gazette, Total Film magazine and the daily edition of the Evening Standard among the brands consigned to history in 2024, survival is not a given. Sharing insights we have execs from titles including Mail Online, the Financial Times, Reach, Ladbible Group, CNN, Politico, The Hill, Semafor, The Washington Post and Dow Jones.
They say revenue diversification is key if publishers want to not just survive but thrive in 2025.
Here we share five big news media revenue themes for 2025 before reporting all our publisher quotes in full. We asked: “What’s the biggest revenue opportunity for news in 2025 and how do you plan to maximise it?”
Scroll down or click on the links below to skip straight to each contributor’s answers:
- Deborah Arthurs, Metro editor-in-chief
- Josh Awtry, Newsweek SVP audience development
- Ben Bailey, Mail Online global editorial director
- Paul Bascobert, Reuters News president
- Jon Birchall, Ladbible Group director of editorial strategy
- Christian Broughton, The Independent chief executive
- Jacquelyn Cameron, Axios chief revenue officer
- Sean Cohan, Bell Media president
- Katie Davies, Dailymail.com US editor-in-chief
- Geoff Marsh, GB News chief digital officer
- Janice Min, The Ankler chief executive
- Piers North, Reach chief revenue officer
- Barbara Peng, Business Insider chief executive
- Amanda Rottier, CNN senior vice president and head of growth
- Taylor Scott, The Hill head of product
- Goli Sheikholeslami, Politico Media Group chief executive
- Jon Slade, Financial Times chief commercial officer
- Justin B Smith, Semafor chief executive and co-founder
- Farrah Storr, Substack head of partnerships, UK and Europe
- Krissah Thompson, Washington Post managing editor
- Kyle Vinansky, Forbes SVP global sales
- Sherry Weiss, Dow Jones chief marketing officer
News revenue trends for 2025: How to make news pay
1. Diversify
About half of the publishers taking part in our piece specifically referenced the need for diversification or the benefits branching out has already had for their business.
Josh Awtry, SVP audience development at Newsweek, said: “News publishers looking for a single huge revenue opportunity are setting themselves up for disappointment. The biggest opportunity lies in diversification—moving beyond the impression-based models that fueled the past two decades toward a mix of segmented, niche-driven revenue streams.”
He added that publishers “need the courage to diversify beyond core content offerings — investing in direct engagement, launching premium niche products and hosting events that connect users and professionals to thought leaders”.
Metro editor-in-chief Deborah Arthurs said: “Diversification has played a significant part in Metro’s growth in 2024 and will continue to do so in 2025. Now it is about deepening our relationship with the reader, working on engagement and intentionality through more specialist content, social video growth, personalisation and direct products like newsletters, along with news adjacent content like horoscopes and puzzles.”
DMG Media stablemate Ben Bailey, global editorial director of Mail Online, said: “The game has changed and 2025 will see publishers diversifying their portfolios in search of new readers and revenues. Subscription offerings and video will be at the core of this,” referring to the brand’s investment in Youtube and the launch of its Mail+ partial paywall in January which is about to expand into the US.
And Amanda Rottier, CNN’s senior vice president and head of growth, said there is no one new revenue stream “revenue stream or silver bullet that we are missing. News companies will continue to have to make money in all the ways we know that monetise audiences – ads, subscriptions, licensing, commerce, events, etc. It’s more about ensuring 1) you have a diverse set of revenue streams 2) you get creative and innovative on how you maximise those revenue streams and 3) you are smart about tradeoffs.”
But Ladbible Group director of editorial strategy Jon Birchall warned that editorial, data, tech and commercial teams need to work together for diversification to be successful as “audience and revenue growth come hand in hand”.
2. Embrace direct consumer revenue
Nonetheless one specific revenue type was a particular recurring theme: direct consumer revenue.
Rottier at CNN said: “The biggest revenue opportunity for news publishers continues to be through developing direct to consumer relationships and serving them content worth paying for,” adding that newsrooms should “build up more personalities from their stable of journalists and verticals beyond hard news and politics that audiences can identify with and will pay for access to”.
Taylor Scott, The Hill’s head of product, said the past year has shown advertising-based business models have become “very vulnerable” and recommended that “community offerings, like subscriptions, and memberships that offer direct monetisation will be best positioned to grow revenue”.
Similarly The Ankler’s CEO Janice Min said: “We will be even more mindful of our value proposition: Is everything we do good enough to pay for? The beauty of that filter is that the audience then becomes self-selecting, a premium group of subscribers that we can monetise, without CPM, to no end.”
Dow Jones chief marketing officer Sherry Weiss pointed out that reaching the right audience is now more important than having scale. “The value lies in cultivating relationships with audiences who rely on our expertise to power their decision-making. These audiences come to us not by chance but by necessity. As the digital referral ecosystem continues to evolve, this organic engagement is a powerful asset, and nurturing it will be crucial in future-proofing success in 2025 and beyond.”
And Awtry at Newsweek said: “Winning publishers will use their large-scale reach to think small. They’ll leverage audience data to craft personalised experiences that deepen first-party relationships — not just for advertising but for direct consumer revenue. This means going beyond engagement to offer subscription benefits, professional memberships, events and more.”
3. Depth is better than breadth
Having direct, deeper relationships with your audience can benefit non-subscriber revenue too.
Justin B Smith, chief executive at Semafor, said his business is doubling down on what works: “high-value audiences and high-margin live journalism”.
“In this post-social era, the key to success lies in building direct, meaningful relationships with high-value audiences… Our commercial partners don’t want scale – they want qualified, targeted audiences of leaders.”
Goli Sheikholeslami, chief executive at Politico Media Group, reassured journalists about their role in this world: “Commodity journalism simply isn’t going to cut it. If you’re a reporter with a deep understanding of your beat, someone who can uncover insights and provide reporting that others simply can’t, or who has the context to analyse and nuance reporting on the beats that readers care about – whether professionally or personally – you’re winning.”
And Dow Jones chief marketing officer Sherry Weiss said: “Ultimately, success will belong to those who prioritise depth over breadth. By removing barriers and increasing the ways professionals can interact with our ecosystem, we’re creating lasting value and driving the next era of growth.”
4. It’s time for AI to ‘show me the money’
Several publishers specifically mentioned the benefits of AI for revenue, both as a licensing opportunity and for the boosts that can come with new products and productivity gains.
Katie Davies, Dailymail.com US editor-in-chief, said: “As a publisher with a 128-year legacy, fearless experimentation and a fail fast mentality drive our vision, with a focus on emerging technologies like AI. As the first UK news publisher to invest in Prorata, we are optimistic about its role in enabling precise attribution, fostering transparency, and creating a sustainable economic model.”
The Independent’s CEO Christian Broughton said: “AI will be a huge enabler for our journalists to build out new products, all very much under the control of humans! AI licensing deals rightly get big coverage, but as we’ve seen before, big cheques from big tech can stop as quickly as they start. Our AI investments and developments from this year will empower our highly skilled teams as they build out these new verticals, launch new products, and unlock the full scale of these opportunities.”
Geoff Marsh, chief digital officer of GB News, cited the broadcaster’s addition of a newsroom tool helping with tasks like finding background for articles, building fact boxes and producing TV scripts, as well as its launch of AI-generated sport and travel updates for radio.
He said: “We expect revenue from AI to grow significantly throughout 2025, whether directly from syndication and licensing deals with LLMs or indirectly from our rapidly growing and more engaged audiences. We are increasingly platform agnostic: what matters is delivering the stories our loyal and growing GB News community wants to read, see and hear. AI is becoming ever more critical to delivering that fundamental mission.”
Reuters News president Paul Bascobert said AI will “revolutionise the product experience more profoundly than anything we’ve seen before… For me, AI transformation is like water running downhill. I can ignore it or try to stop it, but eventually it’s going to find a way. Time to grab a kayak and learn to paddle fast.”
And Sean Cohan, president of Canada’s Bell Media, said: “To maximise digital opportunity and enhance storytelling, we’re integrating our news operations through hubs in Toronto and Montreal and investing in advanced technology like AI-driven audio processing and automated studios. These initiatives help us efficiently deliver more original and hyper-relevant Canadian stories to viewers coast to coast to coast.”
Kyle Vinansky, SVP global sales at Forbes, said that although “human-created content remains central” to the brand, it is “investing in personalised experiences across platforms, incorporating AI-assisted tools to enhance reading, and developing predictive recommendations to improve content discoverability and drive deeper engagement”. This is important because, he added: “In a saturated market, the biggest revenue opportunity lies in truly understanding and serving your core audiences.”
5. Human connection will be at a premium in the AI era
The fact that doing something human, which AI cannot do, is what will provide the point of difference for news publishers in a fragmented, competitive online world was repeatedly mentioned.
Business Insider CEO Barbara Peng noted: “As AI revolutionises the way that people find and access news and information, in the year ahead, we need to continue to build deep relationships with our audience which is more important than ever.”
Min of The Ankler suggested that a publisher going deeper into their own niche could be “the antidote to AI-generated search and content, and the general ‘junk food’ environment in scaled media and social”.
Awtry of Newsweek noted: “The future lies where AI algorithms can’t follow: human connection. Real-world and virtual events, expert conversations, and community building will be key. By creating passionate reader communities based on shared interests or professions, publishers can build deeper loyalty as well as sustainable revenue streams.”
However Financial Times chief commercial officer Jon Slade warned AI could pose a threat to trust in newsbrands – which isn’t a given.
“Next year will see the arrival of a generation of AI-powered tools that surface and summarise content in new ways, creating new consumer behaviours, and which in turn will generate new challenges for the relationship news brands will have with their readers,” he said.
“It’s fundamental to that trust equation that copyright holders – those that produce journalism in all its rich and varied forms – have the option to opt-in to those tools only if they choose to, and, if so, under terms that recognise their value. The alternative is a rapid hollowing out of the already-frail economic model that supports the production of journalism, and the negative consequences for trust in news that follows cannot be overstated. Trusted journalism requires a sustainable business model.”
See each contributor’s answers in full below:
What’s the biggest revenue opportunity for news in 2025 and how do you plan to maximise it?
Deborah Arthurs, Metro
Editor-in-chief
2025 will be about harnessing the power of the brand.
At Metro, we have a powerful 360 platform in the shape of the UK’s highest circulated newspaper, digital views of 200m+ a month on site and on platforms like Apple and MSN, with an engaged social audience bringing in one million Tiktok followers and one billion views on Facebook last month.
Diversification has played a significant part in Metro’s growth in 2024 and will continue to do so in 2025. Now it is about deepening our relationship with the reader, working on engagement and intentionality through more specialist content, social video growth, personalisation and direct products like newsletters, along with news adjacent content like horoscopes and puzzles.
Our commercial offering will go hand-in-hand, with cross-platform campaigns, premium ad formats and quality, longer-term partnerships that make sense to both our readers and brands. With Tiktok on its way to becoming the world’s fastest-growing news source, we are not overlooking the revenue opportunity that platform could offer. For now, the focus there is on building a healthy, engaged audience with an eye on the future of monetisation.
The relationship between news and advertising requires trust, and we want to demonstrate that news is the right environment for brands. We know that news consumers are intelligent, curious and engaged – just the type of reader or social media user that brands want to reach – and they are spending regular, consistent time with us. In our competitive attention landscape, news remains a real draw.
As a free title with no cover price to fall back on, Metro has long represented innovation and agility within the advertising industry. Now that we are known for our innovative and first-to-market ad formats in print, extending that in a meaningful way to digital and social video, with all the data insights we have at our fingertips, will be a real opportunity. Flexibility, innovation and personalisation will be the hallmarks of our monetisation in 2025.
Josh Awtry, Newsweek
SVP Audience Development
News publishers looking for a single huge revenue opportunity are setting themselves up for disappointment. The biggest opportunity lies in diversification—moving beyond the impression-based models that fueled the past two decades toward a mix of segmented, niche-driven revenue streams.
Winning publishers will use their large-scale reach to think small. They’ll leverage audience data to craft personalised experiences that deepen first-party relationships — not just for advertising but for direct consumer revenue. This means going beyond engagement to offer subscription benefits, professional memberships, events and more.
Quality, unique content remains essential – but the notion of ‘content’ must evolve. Core news is foundational, but publishers must also provide utility, community, personalised offerings and connection with experts that AI-generated summaries can’t replicate.
The future lies where AI algorithms can’t follow: human connection. Real-world and virtual events, expert conversations, and community building will be key. By creating passionate reader communities based on shared interests or professions, publishers can build deeper loyalty as well as sustainable revenue streams.
To thrive in 2025 in the face of headwinds, publishers need the courage to diversify beyond core content offerings — investing in direct engagement, launching premium niche products and hosting events that connect users and professionals to thought leaders. This human-centered approach counterbalances automation and positions publishers for long-term success in an increasingly AI-driven world.
Ben Bailey, Mail Online
Global editorial director
The game has changed and 2025 will see publishers diversifying their portfolios in search of new readers and revenues. Subscription offerings and video will be at the core of this.
The Daily Mail is ahead of the game. In 2024 we launched our subscription service Mail+. It has been wildly popular, making us the fastest UK publisher to get to 100,000 subscribers – and we have very ambitious plans to accelerate that growth.
It is a massive global enterprise and the whole business is behind it including our newsrooms in London, Dubin, Sydney, New York, Washington DC and LA. It is a global team effort, we launched in Australia in October and Mail+ is coming to the US – one of our biggest markets – in the New Year.
Mail+ gives our readers more from the Mail and it provides the business with another valuable revenue stream that is not reliant on the vagaries of off-platform algorithms.
But we can’t lose sight of who we are and our scale is fundamental to our model. We will always produce seriously popular content and we need to offer our readers, viewers and listeners premium products wherever they are. This could be premium stories, or ad experiences or shiny new products.
To this end we have just launched a new app to give our users a world class experience and the perfect place to showcase Mail+ and host new storytelling formats.
As well as subscriptions and registrations, publishers will be diving deeper into video in 2025 to leverage revenue opportunities.
We are ahead of the curve and have built out a market-leading Tiktok account with 22 million followers – dwarfing all our rivals.
We have also launched a new Youtube shows team and have developed a fleet of award-winning podcasts.
Diversifying audiences and monetising content on short and long-form video platforms is crucial for news publishers in a new digital era where other publishers are scrambling to adapt to shrinking Facebook and volatile Google traffic.
At the Mail we never stand still. You have got to keep innovating and provide your readers with better experiences because we are in the attention economy and driving loyalty and engagement through addictive content no matter the platform is now the name of the game.
Paul Bascobert, Reuters News
President
In 2025, the media industry will see the rise of AI as the most significant product disruptor it has experienced in a few hundred years. The technology will bring a new age of innovation that could re-invigorate consumer engagement, value and ultimately, revenue.
Journalism has been periodically disrupted by technical innovation since the first printing press. Almost 600 years later, the internet democratised distribution, handing everyone a digital press and enabling the so-called ‘newsroom of one.’ Social media and search engines revolutionised content discovery, while mobile technology introduced everything, everywhere, round-the-clock consumption.
Now, AI is set to revolutionise the product experience more profoundly than anything we’ve seen before. I predict consumers may come to question whether a tightly edited article or video segment should be the default medium by which great journalism is delivered to audiences. While upholding our standards, we will empower the user to choose the format, the depth, the medium and likely the time and place best-suited to their individual needs. Change can be unsettling, but I believe, it will ultimately be liberating for journalists and profoundly engaging for users.
Another prediction. In 2025, news organisations will begin to look around the editing room floors for all the content that didn’t fit readily into the requirements of traditional publishing packages. They’ll explore who might be interested in this and how they might make it intelligently and responsibly accessible.
At the same time, our reliance on AI to improve both the creation and distribution of traditional content and the efficiency of newsroom workflows will intensify. We are already seeing the potential to shift our efforts towards the more differentiating ends of journalism: newsgathering and distinctive storytelling in depth.
At Reuters, we’re investing to be at the forefront of this transformation, bringing together editorial, product, AI scientists and engineering expertise to develop innovative AI tools. As we navigate this exciting future, we remain committed to maintaining the highest journalistic standards that have guided Reuters for 174 years. In real time and take time, Reuters will publish all the news that matters, while meeting the changing needs of our customers and audiences.
For me, AI transformation is like water running downhill. I can ignore it or try to stop it, but eventually it’s going to find a way. Time to grab a kayak and learn to paddle fast.
Jon Birchall, Ladbible Group
Director of editorial strategy
Optimism abounds as we move into the second half of the 2020s.
This will be a media decade defined by the businesses who most successfully refine, diversify and optimise the revenue opportunities that come with the audiences we spend time with every day.
And there are plenty of them for those willing to collaborate both within their businesses and beyond.
For us at Ladbible Group, that means building on rapid audience revenue growth in recent years with a holistic approach to growing our long-term sustainable earnings with all stakeholders central to that conversation.
Be it through yield optimisation on the open market, improving and increasing the contextual relevance of our content for high-buy intent audiences or innovation in data analysis, technology and client partnerships, we will continue to evolve and improve our offering and strategy.
As such, we go into the new year with clear alignment from all business areas on how we grow the lifetime value of our audience relationships. That has required editorial, data, tech and commercial colleagues spending constructive time together to understand not only audience needs and behaviours, but those of our valuable clients as well. This knowledge lives and breathes in our newsrooms.
Fundamentally, the opportunities for diversification and innovation in the media cannot be met in silo. By bringing our hugely talented team together, we recognise that audience and revenue growth come hand in hand.
It will be our people, not platforms, who propel us even further.
Christian Broughton, The Independent
Chief executive
Independent journalism is at the heart of everything we do. It’s how we earn trust, and trust creates opportunities to leverage the brand and IP.
In the year ahead, the US is a big part of the opportunity. So many news brands are perceived to be taking sides, but readers want a source of truth and trust, they seek independent journalism that’s outside of dogma and party allegiances – it’s how we attracted so many new readers in 2024, which closes with us narrowing the gap to the Washington Post.
Independence and trust go beyond core news. High-engagement lifestyle verticals for the UK, US and beyond will be a big theme of the year, attracting loyal audiences through fresh talent incentivised to drive success, and creating valuable IP – video formats, podcasts, email newsletters, events – that attract deep engagement through multiple touchpoints.
Our existing travel channel is a great example, and paved the way in 2024. Travel Smart is our weekly video series on Independent TV – on-site and on social platforms from YouTube to TikTok – attracting loyal audiences and repeat sponsorships. Next year we will be adding new talent and new destinations for the US market. Simon Calder’s podcast brings in his superfans year-round. Our three email newsletters a week are among our most popular, with outstanding open rates and click-through to offers and further advice, and the sign-ups create a growing pool of registered users. E-commerce opportunities come from trusted reviews, with readers booking hotels, hiring cars, choosing flights and more. We sponsor events and awards. The list goes on and on, creating connected sponsorship opportunities. And all of this reinforces brand values: the curiosity mindset of Independent readers, who have independent minds and want to see and explore the world for themselves.
AI will be a huge enabler for our journalists to build out new products, all very much under the control of humans! AI licensing deals rightly get big coverage, but as we’ve seen before, big cheques from big tech can stop as quickly as they start. Our AI investments and developments from this year will empower our highly skilled teams as they build out these new verticals, launch new products, and unlock the full scale of these opportunities.
We will also continue to grow our publisher partnerships, as we help other titles to achieve their goals – in spring we started our partnership with Buzzfeed, Huffpost and Tasty, and it’s already a great success.
2024 has been a record year for The Independent. Together, the US, TV, AI, e-commerce, and publisher partnerships are two-thirds of our revenue, and are growing fast into 2025.
Jacquelyn Cameron, Axios
Chief revenue officer
Companies are focused on how their message resonates with influencers in Washington with the incoming administration and Congress and with business leaders across the country. Because of this I’m bullish about 2025 for publications like Axios that reach the most critical audience profiles in Washington and across the country.
Sean Cohan, Bell Media
President
At Bell Media, the biggest revenue opportunity for news in 2025 is the continued expansion of digital platforms, including FAST channels, AVOD, and other forms of delivery. While continuing to leverage our top-performing CTV News FAST channel and industry-leading apps and sites, we’ll continue to create original news content for multiplatform distribution. It’s part of our larger strategy to meet consumers where they are and offer news on their terms through apps, websites, and streaming platforms.
In 2024, we saw strong growth in audiences, with CTV News maintaining the number one spot for digital news in Canada for nine consecutive months and Noovo Info experiencing a 71% year-over-year increase in video views. Expanding content creation and the launch of new apps and websites for CTV News, CP24, BNN Bloomberg helped us deepen audience engagement and cement our position as Canada’s number one news provider.
To maximise digital opportunity and enhance storytelling, we’re integrating our news operations through hubs in Toronto and Montreal and investing in advanced technology like AI-driven audio processing and automated studios. These initiatives help us efficiently deliver more original and hyper-relevant Canadian stories to viewers coast to coast to coast.
By transforming how and where we deliver news to audiences, Bell Media is positioning itself as a leader in the rapidly evolving news space.
Katie Davies, Dailymail.com
US editor-in-chief
We’re at a pivotal moment for our industry. There are more ways to consume news than ever before, with emerging technologies that have the potential to reshape the industry. For publishers, the key to success is diversification and that’s something we’re leaning into heavily in 2025.
As a publisher with a 128-year legacy, fearless experimentation and a fail fast mentality drive our vision, with a focus on emerging technologies like AI. As the first UK news publisher to invest in Prorata, we are optimistic about its role in enabling precise attribution, fostering transparency, and creating a sustainable economic model.
We also see significant opportunity in the US and plan to maintain our momentum stateside by doubling down on the popularity of our brand. We’ll deliver new subject areas for our readers, take on new off-platform partners and further develop our subscription-based site Mail+, which is doing incredibly well in the UK and Australia.
We see potential in video, especially on platforms like Tiktok where we’ve become the largest news publisher. We’re expanding the reach of our global video studio, which produces premium Youtube shows and provides advertisers with unique opportunities to integrate. Editorially, we’re exploring new immersive content formats like Deep Dive, which was named “Innovation of the Year” by Press Gazette’s British Journalism Awards.
As a result, we’re reaching a larger audience than ever before across several different platforms and we’re finding new ways to monetise. Through it all, we’re remaining unabashedly populist, willing to hold anyone in a position of power accountable. Our insatiable headlines get people talking and we’ll continue to bring up-to-the-minute takes on the world’s biggest news in the way that only the Daily Mail can.
Geoff Marsh, GB News
Chief digital officer
At the beginning of 2024 media companies were beginning to understand the vast potential of generative AI. A year on, the landscape is already radically different and the future far more exciting – and evolving more rapidly – than we thought possible. Many digital publishers, including GB News, are now using gen AI to dramatically improve workflows and enhance the quality of their output.
We’ve partnered with a Scandinavian tech firm, Open Mind, and helped develop their superb newsroom tool, StoryGo. Tasks which used to take journalists hours can now be done in minutes. From discovering valuable background and context for articles and building fact boxes to helping produce scripts for TV, we now have lightning fast, reliable and flexible editorial help, on tap, 24/7.
Far from homogenising content, we’re finding AI is liberating our journalism: Great ideas and originality matter more than ever. AI can’t pick up a phone, knock on a door or sit down and talk to a freezing pensioner in their living room. But it can help with the heavy lifting. And as a channel that prides itself on being authentic and connecting with people, it’s critical our reporters have time to focus on exclusive stories and the moments that really matter.
Gen AI is making us more efficient and boosting our output, but the reality is we’re finding new and inventive uses for it almost every day. From improved web and app recirculation and personalisation to AI-generated sport and travel updates for radio, AI is set to enhance every aspect of our business in the next 12 months.
We expect revenue from AI to grow significantly throughout 2025, whether directly from syndication and licensing deals with LLMs or indirectly from our rapidly growing and more engaged audiences. We are increasingly platform agnostic: what matters is delivering the stories our loyal and growing GB News community wants to read, see and hear. AI is becoming ever more critical to delivering that fundamental mission.
Janice Min, The Ankler
Chief executive
The biggest opportunity for us will be going even deeper in the areas we cover. I think of it as the antidote to AI-generated search and content, and the general “junk food” environment in scaled media and social.
We will be even more mindful of our value proposition: Is everything we do good enough to pay for? The beauty of that filter is that the audience then becomes self-selecting, a premium group of subscribers that we can monetise, without CPM, to no end.
Piers North, Reach
Chief revenue officer
If you ask AI the question of the biggest revenue opportunity, it modestly lists itself at the top of about 15 recommendations. Incredible to see how AI is learning to mimic classic LinkedIn behaviours… In truth it has one thing right, is that there is no one silver bullet for news in 2025.
There are three things, all linked. First publishers need to continue to expand their audience networks, wherever they may be. Every single day we deliver over 50 million reads or watches over different platforms in digital and there remains a huge disconnect between the audiences newsbrands reach and the reciprocal investment. It is true some of those platforms have different monetisation levels or options, but revenue will always follow eyeballs.
Second, news brands will need to continue to expand and develop data-led products and services off the back of that. For us that will mean further growth from our proprietary Mantis technology. Data led marketplaces will continue the evolution of the original ad network and publishers will continue to be at the heart of that conversation more directly with brands and agencies.
Thirdly, publishers will continue to show they can creatively and sensibly expand into newer content frontiers, sensibly working with new technologies and investing in audio and video across topics that broaden the conceptual boundaries of news. Reach Studio will continue to expand its production capabilities in terms of people and hardware to ensure the diversification that has underpinned publishers for years continues apace.
Barbara Peng, Business Insider
Chief executive
At Business Insider our goal is to become the go-to destination for business, tech, and innovation journalism. As AI revolutionises the way that people find and access news and information, in the year ahead, we need to continue to build deep relationships with our audience which is more important than ever.
We’re already well on our way: Readers are spending more time with our journalism than they did last year. Our new AI-powered paywall is driving 75% more new subscriptions than the legacy paywall, and our advertising business closed more multi-million dollar partnerships this year than ever before in our history. We also recently launched a new search experience, powered by AI, which provides our readers with a fast, efficient way to discover more of our journalism.
On top of that, I’m so excited to see what’s coming next from our talented newsroom under our new editor-in-chief Jamie Heller. Onward to 2025!
Amanda Rottier, CNN
Senior vice president and head of growth
The biggest revenue opportunity for news publishers continues to be through developing direct to consumer relationships and serving them content worth paying for. I don’t think there is any new revenue stream or silver bullet that we are missing. News companies will continue to have to make money in all the ways we know that monetise audiences – ads, subscriptions, licensing, commerce, events, etc. It’s more about ensuring 1) you have a diverse set of revenue streams 2) you get creative and innovative on how you maximise those revenue streams and 3) you are smart about tradeoffs.
More specifically, to succeed, news organisations need to get beyond solely relying on a subscribe for access strategy. Rather, newsrooms need to build up more personalities from their stable of journalists and verticals beyond hard news and politics that audiences can identify with and will pay for access to. And people expect innovative and engaging products and journalism if they are going to pay you for it. That’s why we are exploring unique formats and experiences, beefing up our digital video offerings, and exploring even more lifestyle and service journalism.
There is more content available than ever before, so you must know what you offer and that it meets the calling to be a must watch or read. Our digital north star is to become an essential part of people’s daily lives, and we are on the right path heading into 2025.
Taylor Scott, The Hill
Head of product
Audiences are craving connection and community, more than ever. 2024 showed more and more that the advertising-based business models were very vulnerable. Next year, audiences will become even more discerning in which media they consume and will continue to shift towards media that offers the deepest, most authentic connections to their audience. That means community offerings, like subscriptions, and memberships that offer direct monetisation will be best positioned to grow revenue.
For The Hill, we offer something unique, which is our non-partisan, unparalleled access to politics and policy from the heart of the government. Bringing our audience into the halls of power, in one of the most tumultuous political times of our lifetime, is an exciting position to be in 2025. To capitalise on that position, we are exploring various direct offerings, including pay-for-access bundles, memberships, with new exclusive interviews, analysis, events, or tools, which all connect readers directly to politics.
Goli Sheikholeslami, Politico Media Group
Chief executive
Politico has demonstrated that good journalism is a good business. We are a sustainable, profitable organisation because we have been able to adapt to meet the unmet needs of our subscribers and readers. Strong journalists and journalism are essential to translate nuanced political outcomes and complex policy developments – now more than ever.
There is business opportunity in delivering distinctive, high-value journalism that meets the need for clarity in an increasingly chaotic and complex world.
The past six months have brought significant change, marked by seismic shifts in global politics and Politico has immersed subscribers and readers in the conversations rippling through political villages that drive these shifts so they can find clarity in an increasingly chaotic world. We see this moment as an opportunity to double down on the expertise, deep sourcing, and distinctive reporting that sets us apart.
Commodity journalism simply isn’t going to cut it. If you’re a reporter with a deep understanding of your beat, someone who can uncover insights and provide reporting that others simply can’t, or who has the context to analyse and nuance reporting on the beats that readers care about – whether professionally or personally – you’re winning.
Jon Slade, Financial Times
Chief commercial officer
Trusted, verified, quality journalism presents the biggest overall opportunity for news in 2025.
Trust is the fundamental factor on which the news media can build and maintain a relationship with readers. That trusted relationship is what powers the FT’s entire business model. And trust is what gives our brand a licence to operate in different markets and reach new audiences.
But trust – and the ability to sustain it – isn’t a given.
Next year will see the arrival of a generation of AI-powered tools that surface and summarise content in new ways, creating new consumer behaviours, and which in turn will generate new challenges for the relationship news brands will have with their readers.
It’s fundamental to that trust equation that copyright holders – those that produce journalism in all its rich and varied forms – have the option to opt-in to those tools only if they choose to, and, if so, under terms that recognise their value. The alternative is a rapid hollowing out of the already-frail economic model that supports the production of journalism, and the negative consequences for trust in news that follows cannot be overstated. Trusted journalism requires a sustainable business model.
At the same time, it’s crucial that as consumer behaviours change and news consumption shifts – from search and social to AI – the FT maintains a presence in those environments and works nimbly to serve our readers in new and interesting ways. But only on terms that recognise the value of what we produce.
Our central focus – as always – is on bringing the same level of accuracy and ethics to our commercial operations as we do in our newsroom. We’ll experiment responsibly, ethically and transparently with AI. And we’ll have a sharp focus on our offer to the next generation of news consumers.
Amidst technological disruption and massive geopolitical shifts, next year is pivotal for the news in so many ways. Legacy news media will either become a clear part of the future, or begin to fade into the background. We believe that the former is a better outcome not just for the industry, but for society as a whole – and our key differentiator is trust.
Justin B Smith, Semafor
Chief executive and co-founder
2025 will be a defining year for the news media industry. For publishers like Semafor, the challenge—and opportunity—lies in innovating to address eroding trust in news while finding sustainable, profitable revenue streams in an increasingly fragmented global media landscape. We’re doubling down on what works—high-value audiences and high-margin live journalism.
Right now, we’re witnessing a sharp reversal of the 20-year trend that prioritised clicks, views, and the illusion of scale. My co-founder, Ben Smith, has written extensively about the pitfalls of chasing fleeting traffic on social platforms. In this post-social era, the key to success lies in building direct, meaningful relationships with high-value audiences.
Semafor has been at the forefront of this shift. Over the past two years, we’ve refined a bold, audience-centric strategy that focuses on the “global leadership class”. Nearly 30% of our newsletter subscribers today are C-suite executives, and this cohort is the fastest-growing segment of our audience. Our commercial partners don’t want scale – they want qualified, targeted audiences of leaders.
For example, in January 2025, we’ll debut The CEO Signal from Semafor Business, a multiplatform initiative designed to redefine the outdated media experience for the world’s top executives. We’ve brought in the legendary business journalist (and proud Brit!) Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson to oversee the platform, which will expand to events, audio and video products later next year.
Semafor’s aim is to be the leading convener of CEOs in the US and eventually the world. Semafor was built with an “events-first” business model – we view events as the highest margin business adjacent to quality journalism and our business generates meaningful and consistent profit contributions.
At the heart of that strategy is our flagship platform, The World Economy Summit. Taking place next April in Washington DC, with more than 100 Fortune 500 CEOs expected to take the stage, the summit is set to become the most impactful leadership convening in the United States, rivalling the scale and influence of Davos.
Farrah Storr, Substack
Head of partnerships, UK and Europe
Traditional media and Substack can grow together
We need to rethink how traditional media connects with audiences, and I hope that the powers-that-be take a fresh look at Substack. Yes, in an attention economy, everyone is competing for the audience’s time. But there are many more areas where we could all play so well together.
Take The Spinoff, one of the top news and culture sites in New Zealand, for instance. Substack has become its top traffic referrer after Facebook, thanks to a handful of free newsletters that spotlight their best stories.
While The Spinoff has its own paid membership programme that ostensibly competes for consumer spend with Substack subscriptions, its founder Duncan Greive says the investment in Substack more than pays off. “Being in an ecosystem which encourages sustainable growth, is designed for reading, and seems to have a bias toward considered thought is extremely positive.”
This is a moment for experimentation. Media outlets could use Substack not just for newsletters but to build communities, encourage writers to grow their personal audiences, and develop new revenue streams. Writers can shine on Substack, share their voices, and direct their readers back to their parent outlets. It’s good for everyone: the publisher, the writer, and the readers, who get a richer, more engaged media experience.
Krissah Thompson, Washington Post
Managing editor
We’re all focused on this question as the media environment and information consumption rapidly changes. Washington Post subscribers have a consistent habit of using our app and homepage frequently. The real challenge is: How do we monetise off-platform?
We are launching a new venture focused on growing reach, growing revenue, and growing our relevance to new audiences, and we are optimistic our efforts will help the industry solve these problems. We know audiences and platforms are more interested in individuals than brands. That is true across the board, including for sources of information. We want our journalists to be known on social platforms for their expertise and the journalistic rigor of their reporting. Our journalists are trusted sources of information for our subscribers, and we believe we can grow The Washington Post’s reach by supporting the growth of our journalists on other platforms.
We believe that by leaning into a creator-ethos — anchored by fact-based, journalistic values — we’ll help our newsroom find the next era of growth for The Post. This is difficult terrain, but we are in a prime position to seize this moment of rapid transformation.
Legacy and traditional media outlets need to continue to adapt and evolve to the fragmented landscape and continue to meet people where they are. Let’s give them the information they want how they want it. While reader behaviour and consumption habits are evolving, the need for responsible, fact-based journalism remains constant and critical. We know our journalism is unparalleled – and we will position our talented journalists to reach new audiences wherever they are.
Kyle Vinansky, Forbes
SVP global sales
To thrive in 2025, publishers must be indispensable to both their readers and advertising partners. The competition for attention and ad dollars has never been greater. Nearly every major company now offers advertising solutions to monetise their platforms, every individual has the tools to be a creator or podcaster, and AI-generated content presents an entirely new layer of competition—all capable of targeting and delivering ads at scale.
Delivering deeply reported, trusted, exclusive, and human-created content remains central to the Forbes brand. At the same time, we are investing in personalised experiences across platforms, incorporating AI-assisted tools to enhance reading, and developing predictive recommendations to improve content discoverability and drive deeper engagement. Our core community-building pillars – unparalleled 1:1 editorial access to the world’s most influential leaders, convening them through Forbes Live events, and engagement via newsletters – are continuously evolving to remain dynamic and indispensable to our audiences.
For our advertising partners, we analyse this engagement through our proprietary first-party data platform, Forbes One, to enable refined targeting as well as inform pre-sale strategies and post-campaign reporting. In parallel, our Forbes Research team aims to build deeper insights by producing a comprehensive calendar of surveys uncovering the priorities of cohorts such as CxOs, Small Business Owners, and Ultra-High Net Worth Individual now and in the future.
In a saturated market, the biggest revenue opportunity lies in truly understanding and serving your core audiences. This ensures your brand’s relevance and trust, while building the credibility to deliver exceptional value for your partners and command premium rates. For Forbes, this means doubling down on our unique ability to connect with the world’s most influential audiences, transforming insights into impact, and partnerships into essential business solutions.
Sherry Weiss, Dow Jones
Chief marketing officer
The strategies that drove revenue ten years ago, or even five years ago, will not be the strategies that drive growth in today’s fragmented media environment. At Dow Jones, we’re doubling down on what sets us apart—our ability to deliver premium journalism and first-class data solutions that meet the unique needs of business professionals. This is not about simply reaching a wider audience, it’s about reaching the right audience and serving our customers and subscribers in more meaningful ways.
Scale alone is no longer the differentiator it once was. The value lies in cultivating relationships with audiences who rely on our expertise to power their decision-making. These audiences come to us not by chance but by necessity. As the digital referral ecosystem continues to evolve, this organic engagement is a powerful asset, and nurturing it will be crucial in future-proofing success in 2025 and beyond.
We’re leaning into our subject matter expertise to support professionals across industries and roles. Whether it’s a CEO preparing for a board meeting, a compliance officer analysing risk trends, or a policy leader shaping the future—we’re there with tools, data, and expertise to help them succeed. We’re also focused on meeting our growth audience of professionals where they are—through innovative pricing models, dynamic bundles, and customised solutions that reinforce our value.
Ultimately, success will belong to those who prioritise depth over breadth. By removing barriers and increasing the ways professionals can interact with our ecosystem, we’re creating lasting value and driving the next era of growth.
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Senior editorial and commercial leaders at 22 news publishers share their expectations and challenges for 2025.
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