Moderating the day’s last session, titled “The game changers,” at WAN-IFRA’s World Newspaper Congress in Torino, Italy, Doctor notes several trends he sees in the newspaper industry, including:
- New money is moving into the news business, as evidenced by large-scale investments by Warren Buffett buying up dozens of newspapers and also Jeff Bezos’s purchase of the Washington Post. “What does Bezos see?” asked Doctor: “The future, not the past.” What might he do? It’s all about data and analysis, he says.
- Revolution of reader revenue has arrived.
- Paywalls 2.0 are here, the best example being The New York Times’ NYT Now, a new, paid product unlike a conventional subscription. Says Doctor, “This is new, paid and mobile.”
- Mobile is the next crossover.
- Convergence has arrived.
- Real-world events are a part of the digital future.
- Users are transitioning from readers, to subscribers, to members.
- We are going to a new virtuous circle: “What do readers want? Your best stuff and others’ best stuff,” Doctor says.