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Apple News shares revenue with news publishers and — as a preinstalled app on Apple products — reaches an astounding number of users. Should publishers share their journalism on the app? Or focus on growing their own garden with first-party data and direct subscriptions?
The U.K.-based subscription research company Enders Analysis investigated the question in a new cheekily titled report, “A big apple, uneven bites.”
Apple News is fairly opaque but the report estimates that the paid version (Apple News+) has more subscribers than any other individual news brand in the U.K. with 1.7 million subscribers. About half of the subscription revenue generated — roughly $136 million — is distributed to partner publications.
Those rewards are “unevenly shared,” however, as Bron Maher summarizes in a useful write-up for A Media Operator.
Apple provides the revenue “proportionate to the share of clicks they generate within the platform.” Maher explains who stands to benefit the most:
Brands like The Times (of London) and The Daily Telegraph, which are regarded by Apple as safe, quality newsbrands, appear more frequently in the app’s most visible “Top Stories” section and account for the lion’s share of attention. Per Enders, UK national newspapers “account for 55% of time spent on Apple News, despite representing just 5% of titles,” versus 22% and 68%, respectively, for magazines and “digital native” brands.
But ironically, those publishers who are the biggest winners on the Top Stories have reason to hold back: they tend to have their own owned-and-operated paywalls, so must weigh “incremental revenue against potential trade-offs with their core subscription propositions.”
The New York Times and Financial Times — both with bustling subscription businesses — are notably absent from Apple News. Apple News+ subscriptions are “straightforwardly additive” for news businesses that don’t already have “large, mature owned-and-operated subscription businesses,” the Enders report argues.
For more traffic-dependent publishers, Apple News can provide “a rare buffer in a volatile environment,” the report says. “As discovery via search becomes less reliable, millions of users now encounter premium journalism through a service they already pay for, lowering friction and reinforcing Apple News as a default entry point.”
The report forecasts that the influence of Apple News will grow as AI usage increases.
“In a ‘Google Zero’ environment — where search and AI-driven discovery increasingly resolve user intent without referral traffic — strategic reliance on platforms like Apple News is likely to intensify, particularly as publishers push audiences towards apps and controlled environments,” the report says.
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