Can the Globe Keep Its $1 Subscribers?

Introductory offers are fine and good until you get thousands of new subscribers for $1 for six months because of a viral story about a western Massachusetts lesbian bar. Now the Boston Globe—which normally charges $360 a year—has until the spring to convince those subscribers to stick around.

Also today, two takeaways from the AMO Summit. Fortune’s event sponsor revenue is up 30% year over year, even though attendance hasn’t moved. And the FT admitted to a lapse it called “unforgivable”: 93% of subscribers to its B2B FT Specialist titles don’t subscribe to the FT itself. That’s a big gap, which also makes it a massive opportunity.

Subscriptions
The Viral Boston Globe Story Brought In Thousands of $1 Subscribers. It Has Six Months to Make Them Want to Pay Full Price.

A viral Boston Globe story about a small lesbian bar generated thousands of new digital subscribers paying just $1 for six months. We look at whether deeply discounted subscriptions are becoming the new top of the funnel—and the challenge of retaining those readers when the price jumps to about $360 a year.

Read full story here.

Events
Fortune’s Event Sponsor Revenue Is Up 30% Even as Attendance Unchanged

Paid attendance at Fortune’s events has been flat for a year, but sponsors are spending more. Fortune Live’s Kristin Stoller on the new event franchises the brand is building around audiences its journalism already reaches.

Read full story here.

Subscriptions
93% of FT Specialist Subscribers Don’t Buy the FT. ‘It Sounds Unforgivable’

The FT publishes more than a dozen B2B titles under FT Specialist, and almost none of their readers pay for the FT itself. Matt Fottrell, the FT’s chief reader revenue officer, calls that an enormous opportunity. So are younger readers: FT Edit, its cheaper, tightly curated subscription, now has about 18,000 subscribers.

Read full story here.

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