Author Archives: Ben Monnie

Powering digital transformation for global publishers

Since the Google News Initiative was created in 2018, we have strived to meet publishers wherever they are in their digital evolution. We’ve worked with thousands of publishers on specific business challenges, like digital subscriptions and advertising revenue, and provided tools like News Consumer Insights to help publishers grow their online audiences. In 2020, we launched the GNI Digital Growth Program, a free initiative aimed at empowering small and mid-sized global news publishers to grow their businesses online. 


We’ve learned over the years that the shift to digital doesn’t happen overnight, so we shaped the Digital Growth Program to provide multiple entry points to support publishers' digital transformation, wherever they may be in the process. This includes live workshops and expert panels where participants can learn from various subject-matter experts and ask questions, interactive exercises that provide personalized recommendations, playbooks that dive deep into business topics relevant to news organizations, and collaborative Labs that tackle specific business problems with like-minded participants and experts. 


To date, more than 8,600 participants from more than 130 countries have been trained through the Digital Growth Program, across topics like reader revenue and audience development. This spans live and on-demand sessions in English, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, French, German, Polish, Italian and Czech. 


We’re continuing to expand the program to new topics and regions, including on June 1, launching the advertising revenue workshops and playbook(register here).  To date, the program has resulted in publishers all over the world showing measurable growth in their digital businesses. 


La Prensa in Panama took part in our Subscriptions Lab and increased digital subscribers fivefold. A core pillar of their strategy was to make their subscription product more accurately reflect their brand, ultimately moving business-related content behind their paywall to increase revenue. The publisher’s participation in the Lab gave them more confidence to make strategic decisions based on sound analysis and effective tools. 


The Telegraph Herald in the United States ran a number of experiments as part of our Subscriptions Lab, including launching targeted email pushes, implementing a new pricing model and testing higher rates. As a result of the Lab, they experienced a 25% increase in digital subscriptions, a 28% increase in newsletter subscribers and a 19% increase in subscriptions conversion rate. The Telegraph Herald gained a newfound confidence and ability to advance experimentation and revenue growth as a result of their participation.


The Vermont Digger leveraged the GNI Sponsorships Lab to understand the power of virtual events. The Digger team ran a lively, three month virtual event series that successfully brought in one large sponsor to support the full series. As a result of their participation in the Lab, Vermont Digger grew their annual sponsorships revenue by 71% and increased average client revenue by 61%. They did all of that despite the impact and stress of the COVID-19 pandemic.


Attending the GNI Digital Growth Program workshops helped Italian publishersIVG.it and Genova24.it refine their offering to readers and increase the number of paying members. Through participation in the same program, La Cronica in Spain was able to better analyze reader engagement and grow revenue. 

Business Insider Japan, a participant in the GNI Subscriptions Lab in Asia Pacific, aligned its organization’s thinking around digital subscriptions, using new benchmarks and key metrics that the business had not previously considered.  Due to the program, the organization was able to grow digital subscription revenue and month-end digital subscribers by nearly 25% each. 


In the past two weeks, we have kicked off newAudience Development Labs in North America and South America in partnership with INMA and News Revenue Hub, with another set to launch in Asia in July 2021. And in Europe, we will be launching new programs throughout the year in partnership with FT Strategies.

A road map to guide digital news startups

Over the past nine months, we’ve been working with LION Publishers and UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media to study the choices news startups face in establishing and growing their companies. Through our research with nearly 300 digital journalism entrepreneurs in North America, we’ve learned that many wrestle with the same questions, but lack reliable support systems to overcome these obstacles. 

Even when emerging outlets are successful in building a quality product and community of readers, they often face a stumbling block when it comes to monetizing their journalism. In fact, just one in five of the news founders we surveyed consider their company to be financially sustainable. And for many digital news startups, financial footing remains precarious for years, as they delay long-term planning and view survival as success.

With this in mind, the Google News Initiative is launching a global program to help guide independent entrepreneurs as they build digital news startups. Today we’re opening applications for the GNI Startups Lab in North America, a six-month experience that will provide a group of news founders with coaching and capital to evolve their news products and accelerate their companies on the path to sustainability. 

This program builds on our GNI Startups Lab in Brazil, which is currently contributing to the growth of 10 early stage digital news businesses through training, mentorship and peer learning. Next year, we will introduce global extensions of the program available to news entrepreneurs in Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Developed in partnership with LION, the GNI Startups Lab in North America will address the common questions news startups navigate when evolving their companies, as well as each participant’s individual path to growth. Founders will develop a deeper understanding of their audience, create short- and long-term strategy and budget plans, evolve team structures and strengthen business models, with the goal of building loyal readers and recurring revenue over time.

The lab will accept up to 12 news entrepreneurs in the U.S. and Canada, who have been producing original journalism for at least six months and want guidance on how to further develop their recently launched news product. Applicants should be focused on producing journalism for a geographically based community, or covering a single topic area. We are especially interested in entrepreneurs who have identified a need to better serve or elevate voices in underrepresented communities.

During the application process, news founders will be asked to outline the challenges they face, and what they believe is required in order for their company to become sustainable. This could range from establishing a new revenue stream, such as a membership model, to implementing a technology solution, like a content management system, to increase newsroom efficiency. Throughout the program, participants will receive coaching and financial support to make progress toward their specific goal and start on a path to long-term growth.

The GNI Startups Lab follows our eight-week bootcamp with LION, which recently guided 24 news entrepreneurs as they turned their starting idea into a publicly available news product, or evolved their existing offering. From an outlet seeking to provide deep investigative reporting on the criminal justice system, to a publication looking to unearth the inequities in the news industry itself, these projects shine a light on the range of possibilities for founders to meet the information needs of readers in new ways.

News entrepreneurs, who care deeply about serving their communities, play an important role in shaping the future of digital journalism. Alongside our global partners, we aim to share what is learned in the form of playbooks, tools and webinars, so those lessons can serve as a road map for future news founders to build sustainable businesses.

If you’re a news founder interested in the GNI Startups Lab in North America, please apply via the application form by January 21, 2021.


Helping global publishers accelerate business growth

Since launching the Google News Initiative in 2018, we’ve worked with news organizations of all sizes as they’ve adapted to the challenges of an increasingly digital world, which has impacted their business models and consumer behavior. Programs like our GNI Labs have helped publishers tackle specific business challenges, like digital subscriptions, advertising and data, while tools like News Consumer Insights have helped thousands of newsrooms grow their audiences online. 

During this time, we’ve learned from our partners that the shift to digital doesn’t happen overnight. It takes months and even years of hard work to attract and develop digitally-minded talent, adopt data-driven thinking and build an audience-first culture. Through the GNI, we want to support publishers with this transition. 

That’s why today, we’re introducing a global program to help news publishers navigate the complexity of digital transformation. The GNI Digital Growth Program is a free program aimed at helping small and mid-sized news publishers around the world develop the capabilities required to accelerate the growth of their businesses online. The program is informed by the lessons learned from GNI projects and programs, and was built in collaboration with industry experts including FT Strategies, FTI Consulting and Mather Economics, plus news industry associations including INMA, Local Media Association and WAN-IFRA. 

The GNI Digital Growth Program will initially focus on five topic areas: Reader Revenue, Audience Development, Advertising Revenue, Data and Product. Our curriculum includes playbooks full of real-world examples, interactive exercises to help solve business problems, workshops to bring these lessons to life and Labs to provide hands-on advisory support. At first, we’re focusing on our Reader Revenue pillar, with other topic areas coming over the next few months. Participating publishers can anticipate access to:


  • A comprehensive playbook that offers publishers strategies and real-world examples to help with building and optimizing a reader revenue model 

  • A set of interactive exercises, including an Opportunity Sizing exercise to help publishers estimate their potential reader revenue opportunity, a User Funnel diagnostic to identify areas for improvement across key reader revenue performance metrics and a Goal Setting exercise to build a plan for long-term reader revenue growth

  • Workshops led by top industry experts offering business recommendations

  • GNI Labs which provide a group of publishers with personalized support and one-on-one coaching from our industry partners

Publishers can access the free playbooks and exercises at any time on our online hub. The workshops are available on a first-come-first-served basis, while Labs will be available upon application. To sign up for our first series of workshops, please visit our GNI Digital Growth Program page. 

This program builds on our recently launched edition in Europe. We’ve now expanded to ten languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Polish, German, Korean, Japanese and Bahasa Indonesia. And as the curriculum evolves over time, we will introduce specialty sessions for publishers, such as Print-to-Digital Transformation and Digital Startups.

Google has long invested in supporting news organizations as they adapt their business models in an evolving media landscape. That’s why widely sharing our findings with the news industry has always been a cornerstone of the Google News Initiative’s approach. Through the GNI Digital Growth Program, we look forward to working with more news companies to think differently about their digital business, unlock new revenue opportunities and build sustainable growth online.