Which raises a pressing question: Can online magazines survive when ads have plateaued and digital subscriptions still don't cover the cost of producing quality journalism? Maybe the answer is ... AI. Condé has content and data licensing deals with OpenAI, Perplexity and Amazon. But those deals could have steep half-lives, especially when a publisher's value is primarily tied to its library of content.
Legacy news media has long competed for audience with social media sites, video platforms, and streaming services. But a newer competitor - news creators - is pulling and retaining audiences in countries where mainstream media is struggling to keep them. A report published Tuesday by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) identified geographical and generational differences in how much attention is paid to news creators compared to traditional media outlets and journalists on social and video platforms.