Brainstorming the bundle

The New York Times this week announced a new four-user subscription bundle for families or friends. Each user has their own login, allowing them to have individual customer experiences.

As Nieman Lab’s Sarah Scire put it, “separate Wordles for everyone.” 

As is often the case when national media companies announce innovations, we wondered whether this approach would work on the local level for smaller news publishers who don’t quite operate on the scale of The New York Times.

So, we put that question to API’s new vice president of product strategy, Yoni Greenbaum, who has worked at the intersection of product and journalism for the past couple decades.

His view: Family bundles might not work for smaller publishers, but they can devise enticing subscription plays by transforming their product into a must-have tool that gives members the “local insider” advantage.

“The most effective ‘bundle’ a local newsroom can create isn’t about more content, it’s about better access and intelligence,” he said. “It’s a subscriber-only ‘City Hall Insider’ newsletter that decodes the jargon of an upcoming council meeting, an interactive map that tracks every major real estate development in town, or an ‘ask the expert’ feature with the reporter who has covered local schools for 20 years.”

“The Times is demonstrating value through scale,” Greenbaum added. “Local news needs to win through insider utility, becoming the essential tool for navigating life in their community.”

Indeed, community is again the common denominator of various approaches to engagement. And that appears to be true at the Times as well.

As the company’s head of subscription growth Ben Cotton told Axios’ Sara Fischer: “We’ve talked for many years about how the Times in print has long been a shared ritual. We want to create a version of that communal experience in the digital world.”

News In Focus
Headlines, resources and events aligned with API’s four areas of focus.

Civic Discourse & Democracy

>>  Civil Beat builds on steady momentum with strategic new plans (Honolulu Civil Beat)

Civil Beat is launching a new tool called “Digital Democracy” in collaboration with CalMatters, executive editor-in-chief Amy Pyle writes in a note to readers, explaining that the platform will allow people to look up information related to Hawaiʻi’s legislature.

>> Florida radio station borrows Trump to be its face and name (CBS News)

A radio station in Fort Myers, Fla., is using “Trump Country” as its branding. WHEL’s president and general manager, Jim Schwartzel, is also seeking the GOP nomination for a U.S. House seat. He tells CBS the branding was inspired by Trump-themed boat parades.

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Culture & Inclusion

>> Inside the Boston Globe’s high-stakes investigation of the Boston Globe (Semafor)

Max Tani takes a look at the Globe’s investigation of the behavior of its ‘Spotlight’ team editor, who has been the subject of complaints to HR. The Globe has found no wrongdoing, which Tani suggests may be a reflection of the times.

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Community Engagement & Trust

>> The 11 types of relationships that journalists have with audiences (RQ1)

There is no “unidimensional” relationship between journalists and their audiences, write Mark Coddington and Seth Lewis. They dissect a study from Germany that identifies “eleven distinct ideal-typical relationship forms.”

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Revenue & Resilience

>> We took our paywall down one year ago. Here’s what happened. (Civil Eats)

Civil Eats, which covers food, farming, climate and health policy, took down its paywall 12 months ago. Since then, its editors write, “traffic shot up, we gained new members, and we are now delivering our vital reporting to more readers than ever.”

>> Some French publishers are giving AI revenue directly to journalists. Could that ever happen in the U.S.? (Nieman Lab)

Andrew Deck spoke to news leaders in France to better understand agreements in which publishers give journalists a cut of revenue from AI licensing deals and whether it could work here.

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What else you need to know

🤝 The Current joins Deep South Today (Deep South Today)

🙌 Knight Foundation appoints Amalie Nash as vice president of journalism (Knight Foundation)

😡 ‘Be Quiet!’: Trump throws a fit, calls reporter ‘darling’ during off-the-rails tirade (HuffPost)

🐝 Chris Fusco named executive editor of The Sacramento Bee, California newsrooms (The Sacramento Bee)