Editorial coverage of amateur football is of interest to those who play it as well as their families, friends and sponsors: people who are loyal to their local teams in their victories and defeats. These engaged communities represent a significant potential for a regional daily newspaper. La Voix du Nord has long been aware of their importance and, since the end of 2021, has been saying it loud and clear to fans.

Aiming to reach younger audiences, the Czech publisher conducted an experiment that used TikTok as a primary channel to distribute its sports journalism targeted at young audiences. Having exceeded their initial goal on the social network, the experiment is now inspiring other newsrooms within the company to set up their own TikTok channels.

The Spanish newspaper used the Table Stakes methodology to identify a new focus audience, the Spanish Legion and the broader community around the military unit. La Voz de Almería has since launched a dedicated website section, newsletter and a YouTube channel to serve this target audience.

In the beginning of 2022, the newspaper based in Tübingen in southwest Germany launched its first audio product, a podcast called “Am Gericht” (“At the courthouse”). The show looks at issues related to crime and justice, and it has been particularly successful among women, young audiences, and current and future legal professionals in the region.

Nederlands Dagblad is a national news outlet with Christian roots in the Netherlands, writing about Protestant and Catholic news. But in the Netherlands, there is also an evangelical group of Christians – about 200,000 of them – with no media outlet focussing on this group. ND saw an opportunity, and jumped right in: in the fall of 2021 it started to create content about and for Dutch evangelicals.

The Spanish publisher has created new dashboards that give insights about the performance of its online content and help inform its newsroom’s editorial planning. The company has also conducted a website and app redesign, which has produced higher reader engagement while also reducing churn.

During its participation in Table Stakes Europe in 2019–2020, the German newspaper made significant progress in establishing a new digital-first, audience-focused workflow. Since then, the publisher has continued to innovate on how it covers local news, and it has created a new product – an evening news summary – that matches its readers’ interests and habits.

The Austrian publisher had already made the strategic decision to focus on digital subscriptions when it joined Table Stakes Europe, and this year they launched a freemium paywall. In this interview they discuss how the TSE experience helped them engage their audience and increase their digital subscriptions.

The daily 24heures has a real presence across the canton of Vaud and its capital, Lausanne. One of the things that set this area apart is the diversity of the foreigners who call it home. Although these people number close to 260,000, articles about their lives, interests and concerns are few and far between. As part of its Table Stakes Europe challenge, the 24heures team went out to find out more about Portuguese expats, who make up the largest foreign community in the area.

Nordkurier, a news publisher based in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the country’s northeast, created a weekly newsletter that aims to strengthen the bonds between people who used to live in the region with the area’s present and its future. By autumn 2021, the newsletter had just over 3,500 subscribers, and apart from advertising it has also enabled other business opportunities for the publisher.