There are two prevailing narratives in print-to-digital media right now: the unstoppable VC-fuelled ascent of digital publishers like BuzzFeed and the inevitable decline of ink-stained legacy publishers like the New York Times. Both stories are wrong.

They assume digital media companies operate in some magical overhead-free universe with infinitely ascending online advertising rates, and that newspapers are permanently anchored to declining print revenues.

They also conflate content with form. Newspapers are intellectual assets, not physical ones. Their core product consists of making smart editorial decisions and publishing sharp voices. Whether you choose to read those voices on a phone or on a broadsheet makes no difference.



Take a look at the UK, which is currently seeing a huge amount of creative entrepreneurialism in print-to-digital media. News UK, the Financial Times and the Guardian are each defining what it means to be a “company formerly known as a newspaper.” While their business models vary with their audiences, they share some common approaches.



First, they create non-commodified content. This doesn’t mean having a consistent political slant. They recognise that they can’t compete with social networks in terms of aggregation, so they make sure to offer informed perspectives, strong arguments and compelling entertainment that readers can’t find anywhere else.

Secondly, they study online behaviour with relentless curiosity: what time of day people read, how they browse (“lean back” versus “lean in”), which content consistently surfaces and why. As a result they can accommodate a broad spectrum of online reading habits and significantly improve conversion rates. John O’Donovan, CTO of the FT, told an audience in London last month that the newspaper has doubled some of their sales funnels with relatively minor adjustments to its user flow. Data scientists are the new publishers.

Thirdly, they bundle additional services sensibly. Whether its mobile sports video highlights or free music streams, they make smart choices about which additional services actually enhance the reader experience, as opposed to being simple perks. News UK made a considered decision to partner with Spotify because lots of people like to listen to music while they read, and most journalists love music and are happy to contribute playlists. It was a natural fit.



Fourthly, they are tilting their revenue balance away from advertising and towards content. The FT actually makes most of its money from content, essentially flipping the modern newspaper business model on its head. But this has benefits on the advertising side as well. The greater behavioural and demographic insight that comes with membership plans and paywalls helps newspapers move away from empty calories like slideshow page views towards more valuable engagement metrics like time spent.



Finally, along with dozens of other industries, they recognise the increasing importance of live events. The Guardian is a pioneer in this category – or at least it will be when its event space opens in 2016. Membership access to TED-style forums, celebrity speakers, music concerts and Mediterranean cruises is one way to broaden the subscription experience and connect like-minded readers.

So let’s get over the whole “newspapers are dying” thing. They’re certainly moving in lots of creative new directions (and eventually they may ascend out of physical world altogether - holograms, maybe?), but they’re definitely not going gently into that good night.



What’s more, all sorts of industries (including mine in particular – software) are looking at subscription-based business models for guidance and inspiration. Why? Because we’re in the midst of a broad shift from a manufacturing economy where companies sell products to strangers in isolated transactions, to a subscription-based economy where companies engage in ongoing relationships with their consumers. And newspapers have been at it this for a very long time.



This isn’t just a personal opinion. Forrester Research, which keeps tabs on roughly 85% of the global GDP, thinks we’re at the beginning of a new 20 year business that they call “The Age of the Customer.” They see a broad, systemic shift in capital models pivoting towards serving a newly empowered generation of customers that have the ability to price, critique and purchase anytime, anywhere.



Yes, this has a lot to do with smart phones, but believe it or not, Generation Y actually spends 38% more time reading newspapers (online and off) than my own, Generation X. So as long as papers continue to create great content, hire quality journalists and come up with inventive new ways to bring their readers into the fold, they’ll do just fine.



An alternative edition of this blogpost was first published by Tien here.

Tien Tzuo is founder and chief-executive of Zuora. You can follow him on Twitter @tientzuo

More like this:

• From BBC to BuzzFeed: lessons in mobile publishing

• Local TV: the demand is there but will it survive?

• Advice from Vice: six lessons from a publishing outsider

• i100 and Quartz prove homepages are increasingly irrelevant

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