At the end of the 19th century, editors such as Joseph Pulitzer or Rudolf Hertz managed the great American publications as they pleased. Not only did they monopolize information, but they directed the course of events, created wars and overthrew presidents at their convenience. Much of their business was in the hands of advertisers who offered copies on the street and needed more spectacular headlines every day to sell their product. So little by little the newspapers became more and more flashy and sensational and trust in the newspapers little by little deteriorated without the reader knowing how much truth there was and how much spectacle there was in each headline. It was then that Adolph Ochs had the idea of applying something to newspapers that he already did with books in England: subscriptions. His goal was for readers to be able to find the newspaper on their doorstep regardless of how spectacular the day’s headlines were. This allowed journalists to concentrate on writing important stories and ignore unproven ones or the interests of advertisers. The subscription model invented by Ochs allowed the newspaper to move away from sensationalism and thus gave way to the takeoff of one of the best newspapers in the world: . More than a century later, EL PAÍS has reached 400,000 subscribers from you and from us for understanding journalism.
The origin of the subscription model was described by Ryan Holiday in his book “Believe me, I’m lying to you”, from the publisher Penguin, which the author wrote to explain how manipulation works “because I am tired of a world in which trolls hijack debates, marketers help write the news, opinions are disguised as facts, algorithms They take everything to extremes and no one is responsible for any of it. It’s time for the public to understand how things really work. What you choose to do with this information is up to you,” Holiday summarized on the back cover. The irony of the matter is that the book was written more than a decade ago.
Since EL PAÍS launched the newspaper in May 2020, an average of 240 people a day subscribe to the newspaper you are reading. With data from December, almost digital, some of whom are part of the 29,000 subscribers to the printed edition, and nearly 5,000 pay for the PDF version of the paper copy. They are all subscribers who choose one of the offers, take out the card, enter the numbers and decide to pay for reports, stories and opinions from the five continents. In an era in which anyone who moves their finger on the screen of social network 240 people every day
Natale La Roca, 18, is one of the youngest subscribers of EL PAÍS and one of the last to help round out the figure of 400,000. Young people like him are the segment that pays the most to read news. The group between 18 and 24 years old is the one that has grown the most in subscriptions according to the Digital News Report, which indicates that among generation Z there are 27% of press subscribers in 2023 compared to 12% on average.
When talking about the media context we live in, La Roca, a journalism student at the University of La Laguna, is clearer than adults about the ground he is stepping on. “Hoaxes? Hoaxes have been part of the Internet since its origin and I suppose that 90% of what we receive through social networks is false, but I believe in reliable journalistic information and that is why I subscribe,” he argues from Tenerife. “EL PAÍS doesn’t do everything well, but it is the most prestigious and professional newspaper, and it is the closest there is to the truth,” he explains. “Because it is no longer about knowing the truth but about, at least, getting closer to it,” he clarifies.
Spain is not one of the countries most accustomed to paying for information. We are the 23rd country in GDP in the world, 25th in the human development index and 32nd in online press reading rates on the international scene, four points below the average among developed countries. A world ranking led by Norway (40%), Sweden (31%) and the United States (22%).
But the late incorporation into the subscription model undertaken by EL PAÍS has grown brutally to reach 400,000 subscribers in just over four and a half years, one ahead of schedule, exceeding the most optimistic calculations. In France, a more mature market in paying for digital journalism, the leader, Le Monde, reached 465,000 subscribers in its first decade and closed last year with 600,000.
But although Spain joined the habit of paying for quality information late, interesting things have happened. One of them is the very high number (52%) of people subscribing to two newspapers. Another is the fact that subscribers who do not ideologically identify with the newspaper pay to read it. “I don’t agree with many of their approaches or editorials, but I am very interested in the national and economics sections, in addition to the fact that they provide me with interesting information for university work,” says Natale. This is a phenomenon unthinkable decades ago.
In a newspaper there are words with tradition that seems to sit on a wingback sofa located in the center of a wooden library and green lamps. Words like “editorial”, “column” or “deputy director” that weigh in each letter. There are others, however, with a stingy appearance and a stingy air, such as “errata”, “cintillo” or “separata”. Since the appearance of EL PAÍS in 1976, subscribers belong to the first group. It is a word inherited from other times of the newspaper, when 400,000 copies of paper were sold in the newsstands. When letters were still signed, people paid with checks, Raúl scored goals for Real Madrid and 1.5 million newspapers were sold daily in Spain. The 400,000 of EL PAÍS, the more than 300,000 of The World,the 200,000 of the ABC y The Vanguard, the more than 100,000 of The reason y The Catalan Newspaper or the 75,000 of Public. Today EL PAÍS has reached a figure stuck in the collective imagination of the old newsstands but with more than double the number of subscribers than the following Spanish newspapers, a common dynamic in the digital world of the press where the leader tends to take most of the market. .
Until the emergence of the digital world, newspapers like EL PAÍS enjoyed three types of readers: everyday buyers, weekend readers and a third group made up of subscribers. They were the elite of the readers and the most pampered group of the newspaper. An irreducible niche that for the company guaranteed a fixed income and for the editorial staff they were a kind of soul that flew over from the letters to the editor to the opinion columns. A small group of people to whom the newspaper arrived punctually at their doorstep, who did not exceed 20% of the circulation, who had decided that whatever happened, EL PAÍS was their newspaper. Now, that happens every month and 400,000 people decide each month that this is their newspaper. The dream of any director and of all of us who are editorial staff.
Miguel Pérez is one of the oldest subscribers of EL PAÍS. At 91 years old, he kindly answers a random call among the oldest. Why do you subscribe to a newspaper? “I have always been a reader of paper newspapers and we live in a strange moment where Artificial Intelligence will pose risks in the face of which it is good to expand what is true or what is a lie,” he says with open-mouthed lucidity. “I started reading Pueblo since I arrived in Madrid in 1961 and then I started buying EL PAÍS every day.” Don Miguel no longer buys paper newspapers and says that it has not been difficult for him to read exclusively digital newspapers. “It hasn’t been difficult to get used to it because I have always been in contact with computers since the first ones began to arrive in Spain to Campsa, Renfe, and Banco Español de Crédito companies,” he explains. He was in charge of something that at that time was not even called computing, but rather electronic brains,” he recalls with humor. How has the newspaper changed? “I don’t dare make a diagnosis. “It would be pretentious,” he responds. “You have evolved as you can, but I do notice that before the writing of the news was more rhetorical and now it is more concise and precise.”
With more oiled channels than before, EL PAÍS is no longer the property of its owners, nor its journalists nor that small group of subscribers, but of its principles and a much broader community.
Jesús Fumaral, from Zaragoza, is one of the oldest subscribers. of the digital age. He subscribed within a few days of the paywall appearing. “I am very digital, no paper. “Everything on mobile and iPad.” I like opinion, ElPaísExpress and the cover, some News letters,” he describes, and describes himself as a big fan of Kiko Llaneras and data information. “I listen to Podcasts a lot when I travel,” but my wife likes the Sunday paper newspaper and the magazine,” he adds.
At an international level, EL PAÍS is the child of the Spanish language, from which an important part of the subscribers come. Mexico is the jewel in the crown and the second country with the most subscribers after Spain, a figure equal to the sum of France, Germany and England. In Latin America, Colombia and Chile are growing every day, but it is in the United States where the increase is most noticeable, doubling the number of subscribers in the last two years. In Europe, France is the country where we are read and listened to the most. In Italy, EL PAÍS has doubled the number of subscribers in the last two years.
Among reading habits, 64% consult the newspaper on their mobile phone, 25% on the computer and 10% on the tablet. The day that most people are reading EL PAÍS are Sunday and Monday first thing in the morning, but the peak is reached on Saturdays at 9am. The day when people read the most newspapers is Thursday and the time when the least people are online is on Saturdays and Sundays at 4 am.
But after several random calls among subscribers, the conclusion is that paying to read EL PAÍS in times of hoaxes and misinformation is not exclusively a commitment to a way of doing journalism. Each call confirms that militancy is not necessary, championing truthfulness before the fake news, nor fight “against evil and capital”, as La Bruja Avería said. Sometimes it’s the mere fact of enjoying some lines that catch us off guard. At the end of Director Pepa Bueno celebrating the historic figure, many readers added their comments, always a swampy terrain. Among them, the one that accumulated the most reactions on Wednesday was one from Mar Martínez that said: “I have read EL PAÍS since he was born. Last year I became a subscriber. Today, when I finished reading a column, I repeated this phrase again: just being able to read this column is worth having subscribed. And I have the rest left. Thank you”.
