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Conference Overview + What are your learning goals and hopeful takeaways? Share a pivotal learning moment so far in 2026: successes AND failures most welcome.
Tent-pole events like elections and global sporting events such as the World Cup & the Olympics provide an opportunity for publishers to leverage the attention provided into awareness of their brands. WAN-IFRA is kicking off the conference with a morning dedicated to subscriber conversion and retention strategies with a focus on the World Cup 2026.
A Chief Data Officer will share how data & analytics underpinned their subscription growth on World Cup coverage.
We’re showcasing some of America and Europe’s best revenue models on how to win readers and keep them paying – long after the world’s biggest sporting event concludes. This session will review tactics publishers use to capitalise on major sporting events to introduce themselves to new audiences and then quickly build loyalty.
The Athletic will present the key takeaways from their recent launch of specialized World Cup offerings. Discover how they strategically opened access to their journalism during this period of unprecedented global viewership to drive audience expansion. The Guardian will showcase how it leveraged its “most ambitious sporting coverage yet” for the 2026 World Cup to convert readers to members.
For decades, the Daily Mail built one of the world’s largest digital news audiences around free access and advertising. Now, subscriptions have become a major strategic priority, with DailyMail+ growing rapidly and dmg media targeting one million digital subscribers.
Tor Jacobsen, Group Managing Director, Subscriptions at dmg media, will explore how the company is building a subscriber-first business without abandoning the reach that underpins its advertising model. What journalism converts readers into subscribers? How does the Mail decide what remains free and what becomes premium? And once someone subscribes, what creates the habits that keep them coming back? Drawing on Tor’s long experience growing Schibsted’s reader revenue business, the session will also examine what lessons are transferable to the Daily Mail and what is fundamentally different when applying them to a global, advertising-led news brand.
Actu.fr, one of France’s most visited news websites, is moving from a fully free digital model to subscriptions across a network of around 100 titles and 400 journalists.
Amandine will share how Groupe Actu approached this shift from the newsroom out, training every editorial team, redefining each title’s value proposition, and giving journalists a direct role in deciding what content should sit behind the paywall. She will explain the methods used to move towards a more reader-first approach, from the “Compass of Expectations” to new writing techniques designed to create greater value for subscribers, and what the group has learned from recruiting more than 1,500 new subscribers a month.
The central lesson: subscription growth works better when monetisation is treated not as a technical or marketing exercise, but as a shared editorial ambition.
Three WAN-IFRA Digital Media Award Winners across Europe and Africa showcase their industry-recognized projects on Best Marketing Campaign for a News Brand, Best Reader Revenue Strategy and Best in Audience Engagement. Get inspired by their peer-reviewed projects and bring home actionable takeaways.
We’ll celebrate the award winners and toast to their success! Cocktails and Canapés await!
Take home research from Ringier that proves the commercial uplift you can achieve by leveraging your first-party data to optimise both pillars of your business.
We are bringing two European digital challengers founded in the 2010s together to share their diverse revenue streams.
With its geopolitics focus, Spanish publisher El Orden Mundial has leveraged their niche content and built over the years a tight-knit community comprised of surprisingly young readership + listenership – who are funding their independent journalism with journalist-led international excursions, branded content podcasts, and a soon-to-be-opened brick & mortar bookstore to host events. These profitable revenue streams combined with a growing percentage of digital subscribers (with over 50% under the age of 44 yo) have positioned the company for growth and investment.
Il Post has taken a remarkably different approach to digital subscriptions. Since its inception in 2010, Il Post has – and always will – keep their content free. They boast 100k+ paying members who receive their exclusive products: i.e. paid newsletters & podcasts and their sustainable business model is also supported by an e-commerce site filled with topical, special-edition printed magazines, merchandise, and more.
Earlier this year, Independent Media announced that it had doubled its revenue in the past seven years. The company has grown revenue every year since it shut off the presses 10 years ago. Diversification is driving this growth. Philippa Jenkins, publishing director at The Independent, will discuss the role that AI projects, the group’s creator studio and e-commerce have played in this unparalleled story of digital publishing success.
Thank you for joining us!
