What Kind Of Stories Are Best At Turning Local News Readers Into Subscribers?

What kind of stories are best at turning local news readers into subscribers? It’s hard news, not the soft stuff

Let’s start with the good news. What types of news stories are most likely to make a reader subscribe on a local newspaper’s website? Is it celebrity news, horoscopes, sports scores, the gardening column? Nope — it’s hard news. Local government, public health, politics — the sort of stuff that makes for a healthy democracy. Those stories are much more likely to turn a reader into a subscriber than the softer stuff. The bad news? Even those hard …

What Kind Of Stories Are Best At Turning Local News Readers Into Subscribers?

An analysis of billions of visits to a metro newspaper’s website finds that entertainment and sports stories might generate lots of pageviews, but it’s topics like government, transportation, and health that get people to pull out their credit cards.

A study of 600M+ article visits to a major US metro newspaper site from Jan. 2020 to Dec. 2023 finds hard news stories are most likely to drive subscriptions (Joshua Benton/Nieman Lab)

Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab: A study of 600M+ article visits to a major US metro newspaper site from Jan. 2020 to Dec. 2023 finds hard news stories are most likely to drive subscriptions  —  An analysis of billions of visits to a metro newspaper's website finds that entertainment and sports stories might generate lots of pageviews …