Background
The West Australian is a 190-year-old newspaper and the flagship daily masthead of the Seven West Media group. With a combined print and digital reach of 4.3 million people each month, it holds the highest state-wide audience of any metro publication in Australia — serving as the definitive news source for Western Australians. Despite its strong readership, The West faced a common challenge: deciding which articles to place behind the paywall and which to leave open. These decisions were traditionally made by newsroom editors, often relying on instinct and experience rather than data. While the team saw some success, it was clear that opportunities to maximize both subscription and advertising revenue were being missed.
The West Australian sought out Sophi to bring greater precision and automation to these decisions. What followed was a transformative shift in how content was evaluated and monetized.
Objectives with Sophi
Sophi’s Dynamic Paywall Engine was implemented in November 2021 with a clear goal: to help The West Australian optimize both subscription growth and advertising revenue through smarter, data-driven decisions. Using natural language processing, Sophi analyzed each article at the moment of publication, predicting whether it was more likely to drive subscription conversions or attract ad revenue. Based on these real-time insights, the system recommended whether content should be placed behind the paywall or kept open — allowing editors to better balance reach and revenue without relying solely on instinct.
“I could see that with all we were doing in terms of digital transformation, we were pushing people to their limits — so many new tools, so many platforms to think about, so many hours of the day to cover,” said Bethany Chismark, Editorial Systems Manager.
“I just wanted subscription conversion to be one less thing a producer or editor had to think about, to take a little bit of pressure off staff.”
Path to Success
By August 2022, The West Australian’s editorial team fully entrusted Sophi with paywall decision-making. It had become clear that the AI was consistently making smart, effective choices — boosting subscription conversions without compromising the integrity of their journalism.
“Newsrooms have this myth, this idea that we know better than algorithms,” said Editor-in-Chief Anthony De Ceglie. “The truth is, Sophi is a beautiful tool and another lever that we can pull to get the best results for our audience.”
Delegating these decisions to Sophi also allowed the newsroom to focus more fully on journalism. “If Sophi is making these decisions for us, then our producers can make other decisions — and those decisions are journalistic ones,” said De Ceglie. “Should we go and chase this? Have we called this person? Is there an FOI we could be doing right now?”
– Anthony De Ceglie, Editor-in-Chief, The West Australian
Impact and Results
The impact of Sophi’s implementation at The West Australian was both immediate and significant. The newsroom saw a sharp rise in subscriber acquisitions, providing clear evidence of the tool’s effectiveness. “One example really stood out,” said David Johns, Online Editor at The West. “Of the nearly 3,900 stories Sophi recommended we lock, we went ahead with about 2,500 — and those stories generated 40 new subscriptions in just 10 days.”
In contrast, when the team chose to override Sophi’s recommendations, the results were telling. “Of the 1,800 stories Sophi suggested we leave open, we decided to keep almost 800 behind the paywall. Only one of those stories converted a subscription,” he added. Sophi also surfaced value in unexpected places. Wire content — typically not seen as subscription drivers — began showing strong performance when Sophi identified and paywalled select articles. “What Sophi did was take the guesswork out of which stories to lock or unlock,” said Johns.
The clear performance advantage led the team to embrace full algorithmic decision-making. “It’s not that staff never made the right call,” said Bethany Chismark, Editorial Systems Manager. “But it became evident that we could rely on AI more than we initially thought. Once we switched to full automation, the strong early results continued.”
Despite initial concerns around automation and its impact on jobs, the outcome proved reassuring. “There was some fear about job losses,” said Editor-in-Chief Anthony De Ceglie. “But the flip side is that it freed up newsroom capacity — and newsrooms have never been busier.”
Supercharge your Subscription Growth with Sophi’s AI-driven Suite
Read More Insights
