3 Ways For Publishers To Start Winning Back Their Audiences

You don’t need to dispatch a roving reporter to find out where they are, or where they’re looking for news. They’re right there, like that guy in the coffee shop scrolling through X for the latest happenings in Washington. Or that woman standing on the subway, poring over a Substack newsletter that analyzes current events. And of course, videos—everyone’s watching videos, everywhere you look.

Seasoned media industry professionals have been hearing people talk about the death knell of traditional publishers for at least the last 30 years. That’s when the rise of internet culture began to emerge and threatened existing business models. The term “legacy media” now has a negative connotation, suggesting a publisher whose audience will inevitably fade away.

The bleak outlook was best captured in an op-ed on Fortune this past February, where media consultant Evan Leatherwood compared newspapers and magazines to the opera—not completely wiped out, but an option geared more towards the elite few:

“Even in their diminished state, our legacy media still matter,” Leatherwood writes. “The richer someone is, the likelier they are to get news from a legacy brand. Americans with more education are likelier to trust the legacy media. Like a taste for the fine arts, those who read and trust legacy media are likely to pass such habits on to their children.”

Maybe so, but is that really the best publishers can hope for? Just because there’s more competition in audience development doesn’t mean they should stop competing. And there is evidence to suggest that savvy media organizations are already attracting readers and subscribers despite all the other options.

Proof that audiences need (and want) quality media coverage

Research from Gallup and the Knight Foundation, for example, shows 61% of Americans find it harder to be well-informed despite the increase in information available to them. More recently, the Center for News, Technology and Innovation (CNTI) surveyed more than 4,000 individuals across four countries, and three out of four people said news organizations that employ reporters are a critical part of an informed society.

Based on data from March 2025, meanwhile, Press Gazette found three in five of the top 50 news websites in the U.S. recorded year-on-year web traffic growth.

There’s no reason news sites shouldn’t aspire to similar success and reboot their audience development strategies. Let’s replace some of the media industry hand-wringing with an effort to get more hands-on with audience development. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

1. Focus on audiences that are coming to you directly

Publishers spent years developing social media strategies, only to find that those platforms put in rules or changed algorithms to discourage sharing article links. There have been similar challenges in relying on traffic coming from search engines.

It’s better to invest into your own site, which you can control, and the traffic that is coming there directly. That was a key takeaway from a recent survey from The Rebooting in which 57% of publishers say direct traffic has become a key audience driver.  

Make sure your site is ready with a CMS that stabilizes, secures, and improves your infrastructure. That’s what CNN Brazil did when they chose WordPress VIP. Since migrating—and by improving cache and easing the rollout of new features—CNN Brazil has doubled their audience.

And make sure you have a way to monitor direct traffic to your site so you can spot patterns and capitalize on spikes.

2. Combine first-party data with analytics to build trust and relevance

Only 31% of Americans trust mass media, according to a poll released in October 2024. That’s been a steady drop since a high of 72% in the early 1970s. The only way to combat that is by making sure you understand what audiences want, and tailor your coverage to deliver on it.

This requires collecting more first-party data that gives you intent signals about what’s working and what’s not. You can do that by putting up a registration page only after visitors have returned to read multiple articles or by simply run your own surveys and polls. There’s also a wealth of data you can study on a visit-by visit basis.

Depending on what you see, you may need to rethink how you prioritize and place stories on the homepage or in your newsletters. You might also find emergent audience segments that reflect local interests. This is what tools like Parse.ly Analytics’ geo-segmentation feature was designed to do, and it can make your coverage more relevant and encourage long-term loyalty.

3. Balance AI with human-centered editorial expertise

Some journalists may look at generative artificial intelligence (AI) as an existential threat to the storytelling techniques they’ve practiced throughout their careers. Others will see it as an invaluable way to summarize interviews and conduct research. The bigger question, however, is in how publishers can use the technology to serve up the right stories at the right times to the right audience.

Nieman Lab profiled a great example of how this is being done at the New York Times. Obviously, only a small number of the many stories their teams produce can run on the homepage, and AI can help recommend them. However the NYT has set up a team to develop ‘editorially-driven algorithms’ based on its staff’s expertise, and the same team can override what AI suggests.

More publishers will have to determine where they need a “human in the loop” to manage AI-driven processes. They’ll have more time to do that if they simplify publishing workflows with tools like the Content Helper that automate and accelerate tasks required for story optimization and discoverability.

The long game of audience development

Winning back audiences obviously won’t happen overnight. It also won’t be a once-and-done exercise. Instead, it’s going to depend on media organizations taking nothing for granted, innovating as quickly as possible while keeping costs low.A headline on Poynter summed it up well: the media landscape is changing, but audiences still want news. There’s no reason traditional publishers can’t fight to be the place more of them find their news. Legacy media have a lot left to add to their legacy.