Editor’s note: The Fix is piloting Media Insider, a podcast series looking at the changing world of media product, business and organization. You can find it on Anchor.FM, Spotify, and coming soon to Google and Apple Podcast. To receive updates on upcoming episodes, register here.

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The Fix’s new podcast series, Media Insider, aims to dive into the nuts and bolts of what makes media organizations tick – and what keeps media managers awake at night. 

How do you reorganize a new organization? What are the practical implications of a product-first mindset? How do you attract, grow and retain the right talent?

The Fix talked with Alan Hunter, Sonali Verma, Abhishek Dadoo, Matej Borko about what’s next for reader revenue, how paywall models will evolve, and how to monetise the majority of readers already suffering from subscription fatigue.

Our first, pilot episode, looks at one of the biggest trends in the media monetization space – namely the rise of reader revenue. After years of scepticism and half-hearted attempts, reader revenue is now mainstream. Paywalls and membership models are going up everywhere we look.

More about our guests:

  • Sonali Verma is a Director, Customer Success at Sophi.io at The Globe and Mail, Canada’s biggest newspaper. She is one of the architects behind Sophi.io, The Globe and Mail‘s personalized paywall solution that helps dynamically show the right subscription offers to the right person at the right time.
    • What they discussed:  how personalization can help improve subscription conversions, The Globe & Mail surprising findings about what content is more effective for conversions
    • Where to find:  Sonali’s LinkedIn and Twitter; 
  • Abhishek Dadoo is a serial entrepreneur, co-founder & CEO of Fewcents, a Singapore-based fintech for publishers that is focused on monetizing “never-subscribers” by offering a distributed paywall technology. Fewcents helps micro-monetize text, audio and video in 50+ currencies.
    • What Abhishek discussed: how content unbundling and micro-monetization can create personalized offerings and reduce subscription fatigue; how paying for individual articles can help publishers understand the value of their content
    • Where to find: Abhishek’s LinkedIn and Twitter; 
  • Matej Borko is Head of Innovation & Marketing Technology at Fatchilli for Publishers, REMP 2030. Together with the team from Denník N, they developed a series of open-source tools to help publishers to better monetize their audience. It’s called REMP 2030 (Readers’ Engagement and Monetization Platform) and is open-source.
    • What Matej discussed: how e-commerce experience can be useful for publishers’  monetization efforts; what are the tactics for increasing readers’ loyalty  and converting users into payers; the importance of personalization for growing reader revenue. 
    • Where to find: Matej’s LinkedIn
  • Alan Hunter, formerly Head of Digital at The Times group, is a digital expert and editor working at the intersection of journalism and product. In 2017, Alan was named one of 50 people “making media and marketing more modern” by Digiday.
    • What Alan discussed: focus on overall market growth vs competition for existing subscribers, how The Times group experienced a growth plateau and changed their approach to find new digital-only subscribers
    • Where to find: Alan’s LinkedIn