At the helm of all these projects is Héctor Aranda, Vice President of the Argentinian media company Grupo Clarín and CEO of AGEA S.A., the publisher of the Clarín newspaper. Clarín celebrated its 80th anniversary last week. 

An innovative leader in the Latin American market, Aranda is leading the company through a transition to reader‑funded digital revenue with dynamic paywalls, the expansion and commercialisation of tech and AI products to diversify income, and active efforts to protect and monetise journalistic rights amid the rise of AI.

We spoke to Aranda to learn how Clarín is navigating that transition.

WAN-IFRA: Could you give us an idea of how your business strategy has evolved over the years, and what it looks like today?

Héctor Aranda: Our strategy has five milestones, starting with the purchase of Radio Mitre and Artear and the creation of Multicanal in 1990, followed by a major shift towards reader revenue, which began in 2010 and culminated in 2017 with the launch of the paywall. All this would not have been possible without Clarín’s vision of investing only in businesses that are linked to the fundamental mission of media in society.

At Grupo Clarín, digital subscriptions and digital advertising currently represent 60 percent of the company’s revenue, a contribution that supports the company’s total payroll of approximately 1,000 employees.

20 percent of our audience comes from registered users and subscribers, but they contribute 70 percent of our digital revenue.

However, we are equally committed to our print edition. We believe that print has a role to play in the media landscape, and we are committed to maintaining it. While our digital platforms reach a wide readership, we also serve a loyal niche audience that purchases the print edition on weekends, particularly on Sundays, when sales regularly surpass 100,000 copies.

Could you share in more detail the key achievements and lessons learned that have been critical for subscription growth?

For subscriptions to survive, brands must be landmarks.

For us, it has been vital to capture the attention of many readers who registered for free. At Olé (Argentinian daily sports newspaper), we launched registration three years ago, analysed the results shortly thereafter, and saw that the data on frequency, reading intensity, and the days they consulted us were the same as those of Clarín subscribers, so we decided to launch the subscription.

Today, Olé has over 33,000 subscribers and 60,000 linked to subscriptions that come from Club 365 (a subscription-based loyalty and benefits program). One issue to highlight is pricing; you should not implement a standard, one-size-fits-all subscription. In the case of print, it is easy to charge a single price, but in digital, you cannot charge the same amount for a subscription.

You must implement a dynamic paywall that allows you to charge different prices to different people. At Clarín, this is complemented by Club 365, which provides subscribers with another tool that improves the value proposition. 

Through Club 365, our subscribers have access to discounts from 5,000 retailers in the market. I insist that it is essential to have a technological infrastructure that allows you to charge a dynamic price. We have turned this proprietary paywall system into a technological product with Hiberus (a technology and digital transformation consulting company), and have been marketing it since last year.

How has your subscription model evolved? 

A few years ago, Clarín introduced B2B subscriptions, opening new ways to connect with organisations and communities. A strong example is the partnership with River Plate (football club), where fans enjoy not only premium news access but also exclusive benefits through Club 365 and dedicated products designed for their identity.

Inspired by models such as that by The New York Times, Clarín later launched its Bundles, combining rigorous journalism with added value. It brings together the entire Clarín ecosystem, all verticals, Olé, games, and Club 365, creating a subscription that evolves from simple access to a complete, engaging experience.

In this way, Clarín is positioning its subscription model for the future, blending scale with personalisation, journalism with community, and content with services ensuring sustained growth and deeper connections with every audience it serves.

You mentioned advertising revenues. How do you foresee these developing? 

Advertising conditions are set by Google and other platforms, and we have to break away from that. In other words, knowing the audience and having 7 million registered users who browse daily is an important differentiator for selling advertising, and the key is for advertisers to see that result. This makes advertising difficult for us, unless we know how to provide advertisers with real value. We are currently developing some new ideas and have a lot to show in this area.

That is why we are investing in innovation and experimenting with new solutions. A recent example is the Fake Ads format, designed to transform a banner into a high-impact, interactive storytelling experience. This initiative has delivered strong engagement and conversion.

What are you focusing on now in terms of revenue diversification?

We have developed products as an additional source of income alongside advertising and subscriptions. We only develop products where we believe we have a competitive advantage: tools for subscriptions, measurement, or editing.

Together with Hiberus, we have set up an Argentine company called Hiberus Argentina, in which we hold a 45% stake, and we have transferred part of our human resources to Hiberus because we believe that in order to be world-class and make the technological products we discussed, it is important to have the best quality.

In addition to the alliance with Hiberus, we have created a new company jointly with Julián Gallo: Perplex, dedicated to the development of proprietary AI tools to commercialise.

The media business is an unpredictable and vulnerable one. Do you have any advice on how to stay relevant and financially sustainable?

I believe we are experiencing a disruption that society has not yet fully grasped. It is going to change us, and it is a rapid disruption. Clarín launched its digital version in 1996, but it took us 15 years to see the effect of how platforms were going after advertising revenue. Now it will be much quicker, and that future is complex, but not impossible for us. We have to find a sustainable model, because we can only fulfill our role in democracy if we have economic independence.

I believe that, in the long term, it should be the reader who sustains the model, along with quality advertising. 

In addition, we must seek other sources of income. We believe that technology can be relevant and can generate a lot of revenue. Other than that, I have no other formula than to produce quality journalism, which is vital.

If AI depends on original journalism to function, what role should media organisations play in defining that relationship?

There is an important issue here regarding copyright, and the lawsuit filed by The New York Times is a reminder of what is at stake. Artificial intelligence is disruptive, and the media must negotiate with AI companies because they are using our content. The media must certainly negotiate, or litigate if negotiation is not possible. What we as the media can’t afford is to do nothing. I believe that the way forward is to make the most of this situation. 

LLMs have clear limitations: they rely on original content, and no AI system can hold those in power accountable, investigate wrongdoing, or question a mercenary or a mobster. That role belongs to journalism. Yet these companies are already using our work, and that must be compensated.

These companies are in a position to bring about progress, but they have taken over all content creation, and we in the media have a fundamental role to play there… Well, that’s an issue we’ll have to see how it plays out, but my idea is not to stand still, I think that’s the worst remedy.