CLIENT:
Large U.S. Newspaper
OBJECTIVE:
To complete a strategic review of print delivery day reduction modeling, validate the client’s models using our industry insights from similar projects, and develop custom subscription and advertising revenue forecasting tools.
APPROACH:
- Completed market research to estimate impacts of COVID-19 on various markets as well as the impact of print delivery day reductions on subscription and advertising revenue.
- Developed multipliers, based on market research, to adjust trajectory of revenue figures for subscription, advertising and dynamic pricing scenarios
RESULT:
- For subscription revenue, delivery day cuts result in an initial spike in attrition that diminishes to pre-cut levels over the course of 6-8 weeks. A slight transitory effect of print to digital subscriptions was assumed as a product of reducing print days.
- Mather predicts a modest drop in advertising revenue when dropping just one day, but impacts accelerate as more days are cut as fewer print days become substitutable.
- Our revenue forecasting tools overlaid with expense estimates indicated retaining 3-5 print days would result net positive operation profit with an optimal case of retaining 4 print days.
