For the last 18 months, the American Press Institute has conducted extensive research on who subscribes to newspapers and why. The work includes a general-population survey of subscribers and non-subscribers, human-centered design research that identified different subscriber personas and, just released, a survey of people who had subscribed in the last 90 days to one of 90 newspaper partners. This unique sample allowed API to dive deeply into their decision-making, the specific triggers that caused them to subscribe and the background factors they had in mind. The report identifies nine distinct "paths to subscriptions" that people take. API Executive Director Tom Rosenstiel will talk about the groups' findings and walk through what is working for publishers now to identify potential subscribers and move them through the funnel. You can read the
full report ahead of time to get more from the discussion.