In Atlanta, the push for digital subscriptions hasn’t taken off as much as hoped

For American newspapers, the past decade-plus has been all about seeking digital subscribers. The print business is shot. Digital advertising is shot. And while not everyone can be The New York Times — now the proud provider of 13 million subscriptions — even most local and regional newspapers have made digital subs Priority No. 1.

But even those who don’t have an unpopular billionaire owner to blame can still see disappointing results. America’s largest chain USA Today Co. (née Gannett) has seen total subscriber count decline 28% in the past year (even as digital subscription revenue has increased thanks to less discounting). And today’s leadership change at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution — which has been one of the biggest talkers about the importance of digital subs — shows the strains as well. Here’s NPR’s David Folkenflik:

Andrew Morse had helped usher ABC, Bloomberg and CNN into the digital age. In January 2023, he turned his sights on Atlanta, with a $150 million plan to reinvent its leading daily newspaper.

In taking the reins of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Morse set an ambitious goal: to grow the number of digital subscribers from 53,000 to a half-million by the end of 2026. He laid out a new strategy, with new content and an infusion of new energy. The paper abandoned print at the end of last year to go all-in on digital innovation. The plan so far has achieved modest results: 101,000 digital subscribers.

Morse acknowledges falling short, but says the paper ultimately will reach what he calls its “North Star.” Morse won’t be there when it happens. After nearly three and a half years, he says it’s time for him to step aside.

Morse had previously led an earlier Atlanta-tied digital subscription disappointment: the short-lived and ill-fated CNN+, which lasted all of 32 days in 2022. The AJC is one of only two newspapers still owned by the Cox family, which has made many billions in other businesses but has not been known as a digital innovator in news.

On one hand, the AJC has the advantages of being in a massive market (about 6.5 million people) and being the state’s unquestioned dominant newspaper. Killing print entirely, as the paper did on Jan. 1, should have also been a major pivot point for remaining print subscribers to move to digital.

But modern Atlanta has a reputation as a weak market for newspapers, with a population heavy on recent transplants. (It’s sort of the opposite of the Advance Local markets — places like Flint, Syracuse, and Cleveland — where the economy might not be booming, but the residents are much more likely to be long-term local news readers.) Atlanta’s the seventh-largest media market in the United States, but in the time we’ve been tracking local newspaper web traffic since last summer, the AJC has never cracked the top 30 nationally. And its print circulation before shutting off the presses was only around 40,000 — which, for comparison’s sake, was already below peers in much smaller markets like Hartford (DMA No. 32), Milwaukee (No. 38), Little Rock (No. 58), Albany (No. 62), and Syracuse (No. 88).

Photo of the Peachtree Center MARTA station in downtown Atlanta by Dogancan Ozturan.