Digital Publishers Prioritising Enterprise Fundamentals as ESG Efforts Wane, Reveals AOP Survey
Readership development is the highest precedence for digital publishers, which many plan to realize via elevated content material output
London, UK: The Affiliation of On-line Publishers (AOP) has launched the ‘Digital Publishing: Outlook and Priorities for 2025’ report, summarising findings from its annual survey of digital publishers and options suppliers. The report exhibits a robust emphasis on readership and income development, gradual rest round AI, and a de-prioritisation of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives.
Commercial
The survey, carried out by AOP and sponsored by The Commerce Desk, was accomplished by 120 individuals throughout digital publishing and options suppliers, principally from senior positions, between December 2024 and January 2025. When options suppliers responded to a query, they gave solutions they believed mirrored their writer purchasers’ attitudes and priorities.
Strategic priorities
When publishers had been requested about which of their strategic priorities are most necessary, “rising our readership” was primary, with 85% agreeing or strongly agreeing; adopted by “growing new income streams via product innovation” at 80%; and rising promoting revenues at 79%. Options suppliers’ responses returned the identical prime three.
High priorities from final yr’s survey that fell considerably had been “information privateness and compliance”, “recruiting and retaining expertise”, and “guaranteeing a various and inclusive workforce” — suggesting the onerous day-to-day of enterprise is presently prime of thoughts.
Income development
Drilling deeper into how publishers plan to develop their revenues, 66% agreed or strongly agreed that rising revenues from advertisers — reminiscent of via sharing viewers insights — described their strategy. Complementing this strategy had been elevated content material output (52%) and altering the character of this output to draw extra readers/viewers (40%). Briefly, publishers wish to enhance the content-to-readership-to-revenue funnel.
The introduction of subscription and “freemium” fashions had been every chosen by round a 3rd (34% and 32%) of publishers as their strategy to income development, although with half of respondents seeing subscriptions as having essentially the most development potential, these comparatively low numbers are probably as a result of many have already launched such fashions. Branded content material and first-party information gross sales are additionally seen as having excessive development potential, with each chosen by 45% of respondents.
Information and identifiers
information and identifiers, first-party information scored 4.2 out of 5 as a business focus, whereas zero-party information scored 2.8, suggesting that the latter is a comparatively untapped useful resource. Momentum can also be shifting in the direction of new id options, with 58% of respondents stating they’re both trailing or have carried out new id options and are seeing advantages. 54% additionally strongly disagreed when requested if they’d return to utilizing cookies, suggesting a decisive shift away from the expertise amidst ongoing confusion round Google’s technique.
AI exploration and insurance policies
Attitudes in the direction of AI has softened in each enthusiasm and concern, with across the similar proportion of publishers exploring generative AI efficiencies as final yr (from 76% to 77%), whereas the exploration of AI product improvements fell barely (70% to 63%), as did AI coaching and coverage growth (55% to 47%). A notable change is that final yr round 1 / 4 (26%) of respondents prohibited generative AI, whereas solely round a tenth (11%) do as we speak.
ESG and DE&I
Lastly, ESG priorities noticed a precipitous decline throughout the board. ESG’s significance to workers fell from 70% to 51%; significance to traders from 51% to 44%; significance to enterprise values from 62% to 44%, and significance to advertisers from 58% to 39%. Specializing in variety, fairness, and inclusion (DE&I) noticed extra constructive responses, with 37% feeling they’ve an efficient DE&I technique versus 26% final yr, whereas the quantity that felt there was room for enchancment fell from 48% final yr to 36% as we speak.
“Readers are the wellspring from which all different revenues stream, so it’s no shock to see publishers prioritise development on this space,” stated Richard Reeves, Managing Director at AOP. “Going again to the fundamentals of constructing an viewers and successfully monetising this viewers is the important thing to survival in an period of countless distraction. Nevertheless, strengthening publishing fundamentals should not come at the price of progress in the direction of a fairer, extra sustainable, and equitable trade, so I hope the waning ESG focus on this yr’s survey is a blip within the information and never a pattern.”
“This survey affords an unrivalled cross-section of the UK digital publishing trade, and it was a pleasure to companion with AOP to collect this yr’s responses,” stated Theo Luke, Senior Director Stock Improvement at The Commerce Desk. “The trade has clearly discovered efficient options to handle the frustrations brought on by shifting third-party cookie insurance policies, with rising numbers of publishers adopting new id instruments and already seeing the advantages. By utilizing different identifiers, on-line retailers are laying the foundations for larger revenues, improved accuracy for advertisers, and a greater, extra streamlined expertise for audiences.
The total report will be downloaded right here.
In regards to the ‘Digital Publishing: Outlook and Priorities for 2025’ survey
This analysis, carried out between December 2024 and January 2025, surveyed 120 stakeholders within the publishing trade, 77.5% of whom had been from publishers and 22.5% from organisations offering options to the publishing sector. Its intention was to seize how digital publishing corporations within the UK are responding to present trade challenges.
About Affiliation of On-line Publishers
Affiliation of On-line Publishers (AOP) is an trade physique representing digital publishing corporations that create unique, branded, high quality content material. AOP champions the pursuits of media homeowners from numerous backgrounds together with newspaper and journal publishing, TV and radio broadcasting, and pure on-line media. For extra data, please go to
