Report: World Press Trends Outlook 2022-2023

2023-03-09. The latest World Press Trends report shows that business sentiment in the industry has taken a downturn, in a context where multiple challenges face news publishers around the world. Yet there are causes for optimism, as revenue diversification progresses and publishers double down on new revenue sources and editorial products.

by Dean Roper dean.roper@wan-ifra.org | March 9, 2023

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Download Slide Show (Congress 2022)

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This year’s World Press Trends study makes for a sobering read after the optimism of our previous report. The mood in the industry has changed, and publishers find themselves in a more unpredictable business environment due to a number of challenges, including high levels of inflation, rising paper and print costs, as well as ongoing changes to advertising markets.

The change in business sentiment is one of the main findings of the new World Press Trends Outlook report. As in the previous years, the analysis is based on an online survey distributed to industry leaders. 167 news executives from 62 countries took part in the survey in Fall 2022 – a big thank you to them for sharing their insights, results and strategies.

WAN-IFRA also works with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Zenith for key performance indicators (global revenues and circulation). For audience insights, we work with analytics specialist Chartbeat. World Press Trends is supported by Protecmedia, the content management provider.

Damian Radcliffe, longtime industry analyst, journalist and academic, authored most of the report, offering his analysis and context to the survey and emerging trends. Dr. Francois Nel, also a longtime analyst, well-known academic within our industry and longtime contributor to WPT, provided his analysis, contribution and data analysis of all our collected data. WAN-IFRA’s Andrew Heslop shared his analysis on our Press Freedom data, and WAN-IFRA’s Teemu Henriksson helped to coordinate the project along with Dean Roper.

Here is what makes up the core of the report:

Executive Summary

Methodology and Profile of Respondents

Chapter 1: Global snapshot of performance indicators

Chapter 2: Business Outlook

  • Tougher times ahead
  • Priming the profit pump
  • Relationships with Platforms
  • Digital Transformation

Chapter 3: Revenues

  • Back in black
  • Print’s continued importance
  • Revenue diversification in practice
  • A bumpier revenue road in 2023
  • Ad advice Publishers, it’s all about controlling what you can control

Chapter 4: Investment and Expenditure

  • Investing in Revenues
  • Tech spending
  • AI and publishers
  • Costs and Outgoings

Report partner: How AI and automation solutions can impact newsrooms

Chapter 5: Media Freedom