Interview
Euractiv's new subscription strategy to expand its audience
Specialised in EU affairs, Euractiv, has just announced a new strategy model based on subscriptions to expand its audience. Different subscription options are available. The first one is called Euractiv+, designed for private individuals. Monthly and yearly subscriptions are available and will grant access to EU affairs news from Brussels and EU capitals and cross-country analyses.
The other subscription option, called Euractiv Pro is mainly aimed at EU policy and affairs professionals working in the EU bubble. It will give access to news via Pro website articles and newsletter briefs, as well as access to Euractiv’s policy monitoring tool, Euractiv Intelligence (a policy monitoring platform where it’s possible to explore EU legislative documents and monitor the work of EU policy makers). Euractiv will also at the same time maintain free access to content.
Born in 1999, Euractiv prides itself on being a reliable reference in reporting on all European issues. In 2023, Euractiv was acquired by the European media group Mediahuis, with the mandate of advancing its editorial production and “raising its presence amid the highly competitive and rapidly changing media landscape.”
Added to this new subscription model, Euractiv also launched a new website at the end of September and appointed a new editor-in-chief, Matthew Karnitschnig, who will start next year.
We talked about new changes with René Moerland, Euractiv’s publisher.
What are the goals with all these new features announced?
Euractiv had a very long history of broad and index coverage of European policymaking. Now we decided to make it more accessible for a specific audience who might be interested in some specific policymaking like health, agriculture, or energy, for instance. We will be writing more granulated, curated content links with the subscription package. At the same time, we also have a broad overview of anything EU-related to Europe in general subscription packages. We also launched a new website to make it easily accessible to a large audience.
Do you have an estimation of how many subscribers you are hoping to attract?
We have about 1 million visits per month and 2 million pageviews on Euractiv.com. Besides the Brussels EU professionals, the website reaches a global audience interested in EU affairs. We see significant opportunities for growth here. The Pro subscription is for professionals, which is a relatively small market in numbers but highly targeted: industry associations, consultancies, and public institutions. The Plus subscription is for private use and caters to a wider audience of EU-interested readers in and beyond Europe.
So, one of the goals is to reach a wider audience who may not necessarily know you?
In the long term, yes, we have the goal to reach a larger European audience and expand the number of languages available on our website. We do it step by step. We build it up with the expansion of our coverage and, at the end, publishing in different languages but also feeding different content from different capitals and countries.
Is the subscription model also a way to get more income?
Well, every media needs solid revenue. Media needs to establish this intimate relationship with their membership by being relevant to the right audiences in this digital environment, and this comes with subscriptions. Making good journalism is expensive. You need good journalists and experts, you need to build up the knowledge inside the newsroom to make relevant content, which also has value and has subscribers that relate to your journalism because it’s relevant to them. In my view, it’s healthier and good for a long-term engagement of the relationship between you and your audience.
How will you integrate these subscriptions into your business model?
Good journalism on European politics and policymaking requires a diversified business model that enables a strong newsroom and savvy media technology to focus on the needs of audiences. Subscriptions generate extra revenue streams next to existing ones, such as advocacy content and events.
We are talking more and more about AI in the media industry and in the work of journalists. Do you follow closely or even use it?
Honestly, I don’t think there are many media that don’t use any form of AI. Mostly it’s not generative, it’s mostly data monitoring, to make the delivery of our journalism more efficient and make sure that we really get information to our readers in the best way. When it comes to data monitoring and policy-making, of course, AI tools give you a quick insight into large amounts of data, but it really relies on the expert eyes of the journalist to determine the end result with the unique human reporting things. Humans are crucial in the future of journalism.
And what about the several languages options available on your website?
Of course, there you need to use an automatic translation, but they never go without a human in the loop and also an ideal sense of subscription, you make it useful for a specific audience, and a context story might be different for the German or Bulgarian audience. That is something that you need to add, this is mostly a human activity. If you make your story in another language without human correction, you need to be transparent about it.
Several countries that you cover do not always respect press freedom, and certain cases of attacks on the work of journalists are reported. How does this affect your coverage?
It’s a very important question. As a whole, we can report freely on anything, but it is absolutely more difficult in certain countries for certain journalists that are based there to collect the right information and then to make sure that you are not attacked because of these sensitive stories. This will never stop us from making a story, but you need to be resilient, and being part of pan-European media is a good thing that helps.
Source of the cover photo: Christian LueHire via Unsplash
[subscribeform]
