How to build audiences with single-subject news products

Topic, not demographics or habits, is now the biggest factor determining where people turn for news. Convenience also matters. These are among the most important findings from the Personal News Cycle research API has conducted along with AP-NORC in an ongoing collaboration called the Media Insight Project.

Readers can now find global, dispersed communities for their passions, which creates new markets for news and media organisations to cover these narrow interests and passions in depth. By creating deep communities around topics that extend beyond geography, publishers can find new business opportunities.

There are many reasons a publisher would want to create a single-subject news site. Among them, single-subject sites can:

  • Attract a new audience and deepen the loyalty of an existing audience
  • Expand upon your existing strengths in a cost-effective way
  • Build a new, innovative product under your company’s brand, but with the flexibility of an independent sub-brand

The single-subject strategy can work well even for relatively small or local publishers. Developing a single-subject news product isn’t just for established brands with endless editorial, technical and sales resources. In this study we specifically sought examples of a wide range of news organisations — from big to small, newspapers and magazines, and examples from around the world.

Source: American Press Institute

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