Mike Klingensmith: The Exit Interview | Twin Cities Business

Publisher of our local paper is retiring. Local news is a tough but important business.

Print subscriber attrition has “quickened nationwide,” he says. “In the pandemic, people were afraid of print papers and so they traded them out for digital subscriptions.” Single-copy sales also took a hit. The problem is that there’s roughly $200 more profit in an annual print subscription ($400) than in a digital one ($200). For every thousand print subscribers who convert, that’s $200,000 in lost profit.

Isn't that a kicker? When you "succeed" in making that jump from print to digital, you lose 50% of the margin.

News and media is still a very difficult place to build a business, unless you are one of the handful of huge, national brands.