A conversation with the Boston Globe and Le Parisien - how have they managed to outperform other city focused publishers in London, New York or Berlin, and why they are positive about the transition to digital.
As Digiday reported in May, “it took Boston Globe Media 7 years to get to 100,000 subscribers. Then it took 47 weeks to get to 200,000.” In the first 10 weeks after Covid, digital subscriptions grew by 35%.
They’ve also aggressively grown ARPU in that time with digital subs now costing around $25 per month.
Le Parisien is a huge player in the news industry in France with a newsroom of 440 journalists,. While print is still a major revenue generator, they have now set course to match the Globe by reaching 200k digital subscribers. First indications are good: in October 2019 they had 25k subs, but in the last few months this number has grown by 60%, working together with the coaches on our Table Stakes Europe programme.
Sophie Gourmelen
Managing Director - Publisher
Le Parisien - Aujourd’hui en France
France
Sophie Gourmelen is Managing Director and Publisher of news brand Le Parisien - Aujourd' hui en France (a division of LVMH Group). She is a former Head of Sales and Circulation, Digital Marketing and Communication at Groupe Les Echos (business news), where she contributed to the digital transformation of the business and developed its digital subscriptions. Before Groupe Les Echos, she was Marketing Director at Prisma Media (the magazine's subsidiary of Grüner and Jahr in France), contributing to the active development of digital sales and the implementation of their CRM strategy. She worked for IMP direct marketing for 15 years as the senior manager for the south of Europe.
Dan Krockmalnic
General Counsel
Boston Globe Media Partners
USA
Dan Krockmalnic is the General Counsel of Boston Globe Media Partners. He oversees all legal matters for the company, including the newsroom, labor, and intellectual property, privacy, and litigation. Dan was born in Bucharest, Romania, and emigrated to the USA as an infant on a refugee visa. His family settled in Boston, where he later attended college at Harvard, followed by law school at Columbia. He previously worked at the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office and the law firm of Ropes & Gray. Dan now lives outside of Boston with his wife and two sons.
