DIGIDAY – 27/02/2020
Kayleigh Barber
For nearly two years, Google attempted to used its Google News Initiative to help newspaper publishers create sustainable, digital businesses.
The Google News Initiative Subscriptions Lab, led by Ben Monnie, director of global partnerships solutions for news at Google, took a group of 10 local newspaper publishers of various sizes through a 10-month-long program that provided them with newly built benchmarking tools, one-on-one consulting with FTI Consulting and open communication with the other members to learn about the best and worst practices they’ve tested. The group was selected with the help of FTI and the Local Media Association as well as an in-depth survey about the publishers’ existing digital subscriptions businesses.