Sailing against the headwinds of publishing

Let’s face it: 2025 was a tough year for the publishing industry.  Newsrooms around the globe confronted unprecedented threats, from flat digital subscription growth to search engines and AI tools siphoning audience attention away from original reporting.

In 2026, newspaper publishers will be sailing against the same headwinds that challenged them in 2025. So, a simple question arises: in such a turbulent environment, how do publishers stay afloat? In this article, we’ll take a closer look at some of the main challenges newspaper publishers face in the coming year, as well as potential solutions that have led to success.

Politics, billionaires and the press  

One of the biggest challenges publishers will continue to face in 2026 is a political environment that is increasingly hostile toward journalism and publishing.

• No “Trump Bump,” Just a Trade War: Donald Trump’s 2025 return to the White House has disrupted geopolitics — and publishing. Yet unlike 2017, his comeback didn’t produce another “Trump Bump.” Instead, Trump’s tariff wars raised U.S. paper prices and complicated cross-border e-commerce, and news subscriptions have remained flat. 
• The Billionaire Owner Illusion: Optimists once believed billionaire owners would protect journalism. In reality, their business interests often outweigh editorial independence. Jeff Bezos, for example, blocked The Washington Post’s political endorsements amid federal contract concerns, prompting 250,000 subscriber cancellations. Across Europe, similar conflicts of interest are reshaping media control. 

• The End of Journalistic Hegemony:  Influencers now rival journalists in reach and impact. Among 18-35 year olds, social platforms (not news outlets!) are the primary source of information. Moderation has loosened on Facebook and X, further eroding journalistic authority.

Platforms and technologies in flux

Along with a challenging political environment, publishers worldwide will continue to face the headwinds of rapidly changing technologies and platforms.

• AI Disruption: AI remains both opportunity and threat. Market volatility, exemplified by Deepseek’s disruption, hints at a tech bubble. Meanwhile, Google’s dominance is slipping, Apple lags behind and Microsoft’s Copilot is carving out space. 
• The Copyright Battle: Legal pressures are mounting: lawsuits over AI training data led to record settlements, including Anthropic’s $1.5B deal with publishers. Yet piracy and AI-driven content scraping are new frontiers in the copyright battle. 

• The Risk of Website Invisibility: Traffic declines — once tied to social media changes — now stem from AI “no-click” searches. ChatGPT and similar tools summarize information without linking to original sources, threatening both ad revenue and discoverability. 

• The Shift to Video: Audio podcasts are giving way to video. YouTube now leads, followed by Spotify and Netflix, all merging formats across music, film and talk content.

Strategies that work for newspaper publishers

The question remains: facing all these headwinds, what can publishers do to stay afloat? While the following shouldn’t be regarded as fix-all solutions, three winning tactics were presented at the 2025 INMA Subscription Summit: 

• Target new audiences: Schibsted’s Aftonbladet is adapting journalism to attract younger, non-urban readers. 
• Flexible paywalls: AI-driven dynamic paywalls are replacing rigid models; some publishers even scale back or remove them. 
• Bundling: Multi-brand and cross-title bundles are expanding reach, like The Wall Street Journal’s four-brand offer or The New York Times partnering with De Standaard and The Economist. 

Along with these strategies, many publishers have also found varying degrees of success by:

• Prioritizing Video: In an increasingly video-centric media landscape, publishers like Ouest France and The New York Times have made moves to expand their video-based offerings.
• Deciding Between Credibility or Influence: One of the defining factors that separates newspaper publishers from social media influencers is credibility. Some publishers like Le Monde and Axios are leaning into this to attract audiences. However, other publishers have taken an inverse approach: partner with influencers whose personalities attract and retain loyal audiences. This strategy is riskier long term — when an influencer leaves an organization, they very well may take their audience with them.

The challenge of AI disruption remains unsolved, but two strategies have emerged that can lead to success:

• Protecting the content: Either by restricting it from being used to train AI, or allowing it while earning copyright revenue on a per-issue basis.
• Focusing on a direct relationship with readers: via emails, apps or even print, compensating for the loss of external traffic to AI.

Conclusion: The triple invisibility threat 

In 2026, publishers will continue to face many of the same headwinds that challenged them in 2025. Dubbed “the triple invisibility threat” by industry experts, publishers must confront:

1. The invisibility of journalism, which is rapidly becoming overshadowed by influencers. 
2. The invisibility of content, which is now buried under AI summaries. 
3. The invisibility of the written word, which is now dominated by video.

How publishers respond in 2025 will shape the industry’s visibility — and viability — for years to come.

How Advantage helps publishers in 2026

To address these challenges in the publishing industry, organizations need a subscription management platform that allows them to adapt and adopt winning strategies to their unique business model. Advantage is designed with publishers in mind:

• Support for numerous product types and configurations: whether it’s print or digital, recurring or standalone, Advantage has you covered! Our platform has the flexibility to power your publications, products and unique business model.
• All your business operations in one place: Manage products, inventory, customers, marketing campaigns, billing and other core business processes from a single, vertically integrated product ecosystem that supports subscriber needs, strengthens retention, encourages upgrades and maximizes long-term revenue for our clients. All without the hassle of complex third-party integrations!
• Industry leading client support: While many software companies adopt AI support agents, AdvantageCS is committed to providing our clients with high quality, human-first support. Our experienced and knowledgeable analysts and engineers are ready to answer questions, implement changes, fix issues and find solutions to help our clients thrive.

So, are you looking to improve your organization’s subscription management solution? Advantage provides the capability and flexibility publishers need to sail against the headwinds of the publishing industry. Click here to learn more, or contact us to schedule a demo!