Saunders joined an opening session of the Media Leaders Summit track at WAN-IFRA’s World News Media Congress in Krakow, sharing how the Globe has approached a challenging media landscape in Canada.
The Globe and Mail is the leading national daily title in the country, often referred to as “The New York Times” of Canada. But even that comparison might seem a bit troubling these days, as brands like the NYT and others are gaining a footprint in the country when it comes to digital subscriptions.
Fortunately, for The Globe and Mail, Saunders said the brand’s reputation – and strategy – has helped stem the tide on that front, but that is just a small slice of the dynamics shaping this competitive market.
Canada’s unique dilemmas – look familiar?
The six disruptions to the Canadian media landscape outlined by Saunders above are likely familiar to news publishers globally. But on the geopolitical/economic volatility front, many countries may share Canada’s concerns about Donald Trump’s second term and the uncertainty it brings, yet few are as directly affected as the United States’ northern neighbour.
“We all collectively have probably been able to navigate the economic instability over the years, but the last four months in the Canadian market it really has been at an unprecedented level.
“And the reason why I’m saying that is because, quite clearly, since there’s been a new US administration, the repeated suggestions about turning Canada into the 51st state has obviously put a shiver down our country’s back. And especially given that the trade relationship with the US is worth about $1 trillion per year, the consequences are rather significant.”
Saunders said Canada is also facing intense competition in the attention market. Naturally, social media and the creative economy are playing a large role in that, but with big brands in the United States and Europe increasing their digital footprint in the region, he said “many traditional companies are losing their relevance.”
Canada is one country that passed legislation to have tech platforms compensate news publishers for using their content – in this case Bill C-18, otherwise known as the Online News Act. “Google embraced it and has set up a $100 million fund for Canadian publishers and, Meta on the other hand, has banned news in the Canadian market, impacting distribution across the board.”
5 focus areas to thrive in the face of relentless change
Amid all the disruptions, Saunders said The Globe and Mail has focused on five key areas – not just to weather the storm but to thrive and even grow.
The North Star: It all starts with the brand’s reputation for producing high-quality journalism, the backbone of its business model. “First and foremost is we’re big believers in independent news. It’s our differentiator. It’s our North star. And we believe there’s a long-term viable business opportunity to deliver reliable, accurate, independent journalism that’s original and authentic. So we are continuing to lean in and hire new journalists as the rest of the sector in the Canadian market has unfortunately contracted.”
AI-driven data: The Globe and Mail were relatively early adopters when it comes to data science and analytics, both for its newsroom and consumer marketing efforts. In 2015, it launched the AI-backed platform Sophie for automation, optimisation and prediction of how its content is consumed, as well as a dynamic paywall in 2012. “Both gave both our organization a lot more intelligence to be able to respond and accelerate our digital subscription business.”
Direct relationship engagement: Much of that, again, has to do with investing in the Globe’s infrastructure and product development to help deepen engagement and make the user experience as immersive as possible. This includes putting readers more in the loop of their storytelling but also giving them a voice on the Globe’s platforms.
Leveraging a trusted brand: “We believe in telling our story. We’ve been a pillar of high-quality, trusted, independent journalism in Canada. And I think at the heart of our organization really is a social contract, we believe, between our readers and our journalists that’s built on trust. … we have earned the status of being Canada’s newspaper of record.” With 56% of Canada’s news brands corporately owned, the Globe and Mail stands out as a privately owned company – by the Thomson family. “We’re very fortunate to have a very stable, committed ownership base. The Thomson family has supported independent journalism, free from management interference for three generations.”
Relying on reader revenue and smart diversification: “We are big believers in the reader pay model. Advertising is very important. But first and foremost, at the Globe, it’s about reader pay. We still believe in print. But we are doubling down on digital and we’re smartly diversifying into events, conferences, premium travel excursions and the education market as a whole. And we still feel that there’s a lot more room to go
The 10-year turnaround
The Globe and Mail’s ongoing audience-focused transformation has equated with a more diversified, sustainable financial result as well.
“I am happy to say we are profitable,” Saunders said. “We’ve pretty much transformed all parts of the organization, from our newsroom to digital media to our technology stack to our commercial practices. And obviously, we’ve added and adjusted our talent quite considerably. Print advertising, which used to be a driving force of our business, now represents less than 15% of our revenue.”
Despite that, Saunders said print still plays an important role and affords the Globe the opportunity to raise prices there 8-10% annually.
And although much of the Globe’s revenue comes from reader revenue (63 percent), especially on the digital side, advertising still plays an important role on the bottomline. Saunders said the Globe established the Global Alliance Network, which has helped to support and sustain a robust ad business. It is a representation agreement where the Globe represents companies like CNN, the Guardian and Hearst, and it reaches close to 20 million Canadians on a monthly basis.
Room for growth
When asked where he sees real opportunity for growth, Saunders said the Globe is confident that digital subscriptions still offer a good upside.
“Our number one priority is digital subscriptions. In Canada, they say about 50% are actually either ready to acquire or have a willingness to acquire digital subscriptions.”
Saunders said the Globe has typically grown digital subscriptions between 10 to 15% a year, and as much as 20% to 24% on quarterly basis at times. “We think there’s still a tremendous amount of room based on that, as long as we continue to deliver relevant, high-value content.”
The Globe, he said, tends to cater its content to an influential, affluent market that has a significant disposable income – willing to pay the nearly $400 annual subscription ($32 per month). But that demographic, and other potential market segments, also have changing expectations and especially want a top-notch product, he said.
“So we’re really redefining our product set to be able to become more relevant to that audience. I think you got your journalism (to deliver) on the one hand, but on the other, it’s all about: what your user experience is like, and how deep are you going to go into the community front. And then on your commercialization side, maybe one product doesn’t serve you well these days, so you’re going to need an accessory catered to micro audience segments with different entry points from a subscription standpoint.”
Digital acceleration program
To reach some of that growth, the Globe launched a digital acceleration program this past fall. Leading that charge was rethinking how the Globe could broaden the appeal of its already highly reputable content – hard news, business and finance, global affairs and public opinion – by focusing on individual “passion points” at the same time.
“So a life-plus strategy; bringing a lot more service-based journalism into the equation, which for us, not necessarily from an acquisition perspective, but it drives a huge amount of retention,” Saunders said.
Another area that also involves broadening that appeal comes back to creating a more immersive digital experience from a premium readership perspective – with a big assist from AI.
“So we’re leveraging generative AI to try and drive far more levels of personalization, using audio and bringing a more multi-dimensional experience so we can kind of cater to different audience segments in a bigger and broader way.”
Saunders said he cannot overstate how much time and effort the Globe has put into cultivating a culture that enables such innovation – and the ability to accelerate or pivot. Agility.
“We’ve been spending a lot of time on changing the culture of the organization. So clearly there’s still a respect for the commercial side and the journalism side, but the ability of having the two working closer together towards a common goal has been essential. … For example, our Editor-in-Chief will work very closely with our business team, our marketing team and our digital media team to ensure we build in the right level of product and services to take to market. That’s been a massive cultural evolution that the Globe has been on for quite a while, and we’re starting to see dividends from that.”
