Life is local

On St David’s Day (that’s 1st March for anyone not living in Wales), The National celebrates its first birthday and publishers Newsquest get to see how many of the first cohort of digital subscribers liked its mix of Welsh-focused news, culture and politics enough to renew.

Editor Gavin Thompson is the guest on our latest podcast and in a wide-ranging chat, he reflected on learnings from their first year, some of which I’ve taken the liberty of paraphrasing below:

1. Be as local as you can. Part of the raison d'être of The National was that London-based national news media was mis/under-reporting Welsh matters. Devolution meant that local nuances and variations, especially relating to Covid, were being missed. Reporting from afar lacks insight.
2. Don’t put up a hard paywall too soon. The National is pursuing a digital subs model, but in a numbers game, you need to create enough reach to give yourself a chance of converting prospects in sufficient numbers. You need a mix of shareable, freely accessible content to build awareness and give prospects a flavour of what you’re offering.
3. Be clear on the role of print. The National was conceived as a digital proposition, but the publishers decided to launch with a weekly print offering too. This, Gavin said, helped build awareness and momentum, but over time, became a distraction. Being the “thing that had to happen” each week, meant that the demands of print was skewing resources. They “paused” the print edition in November, though Gavin doesn’t rule out a partial, targeted (subscriber-only perhaps) return one day.

Other year one learnings include, “we need to get better at talking about ourselves”, and the need to constantly add value to the subscriber proposition and remind them of that.

Dipping into The National from my vantage point 200 miles away, I was impressed by its substance and tone. I hope the first batch of up-for-renewal subscribers feel the same way.