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.

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 French-language publisher has recently overhauled its website and updated its newsroom operations to support its digital transformation process. The renewed digital channels and streamlined newsroom workflows gave them a huge push with digital subscriptions.

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 the past year, the staff of Diario de Navarra (DN), a regional news publisher based in Pamplona, Spain, have been intensifying their efforts to drive digital subscriptions. The publisher is also targeting two specific audiences (families and professionals) as part of an effort to move from a generalist audience approach to segmented audiences.

To support its ambitious goal for increasing digital subscriptions, the publisher, as you might expect, based in the far north-west of Germany, launched a newsletter in June targeted at families. Over 3000 people have subscribed to the newsletter since then, and it is also driving digital subscriptions on nwzonline.de.

Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (KStA) is a daily print newspaper and web publication, owned by DuMont, a regional publisher based in Cologne, Germany. During the past year, KStA made significant headway with the aim of focusing on specific audiences rather than general ones. The publisher used data analysis to identify the topics that engage its audience – and those that it could stop covering – with impressive results.

Barcelona-based news brand ARA launched in 2010. They publish a print newspaper and have a digital presence (website and apps) with ara. cat. ARA has editions in Catalonia, Andorra, Girona, Tarragona, Lleida, Balearic Islands and Valencia. There is also ARA in Spanish and a selection of articles in English.