Local news publishers may appear to be holding steady, but the forces shaping their business models are changing quickly. Fran Wills, CEO of the Local Media Consortium (LMC), says the latest industry data in their latest “Local Media Insights” 2025 industry survey reflects a moment of cautious stability on the digital revenue side of the business, even as long-standing assumptions about audience and revenue continue to shift.
“I think that there is, as you said, a little stability, at least on the digital side of publishers’ businesses,” Wills explained, noting that the experience varies widely across the industry. “Based on conversations we’ve had with members — which we meet with multiple times a month — that’s kind of inconsistent depending on whether they’re broadcast or newspaper, whether they’re in a small market or a large market.”
Even so, the broader takeaway from the survey was encouraging. “The fact that overall digital revenue seems to be at least holding steady is a pretty big surprise,” Wills said, suggesting that many publishers are managing to maintain digital revenue despite ongoing structural disruption across the media economy.
At the same time, she emphasized that the numbers should be interpreted carefully. The local media landscape remains highly fragmented. “The results are totally dependent on the actual news organization,” Wills said, reinforcing that business conditions can differ significantly depending on market size, ownership structure and platform mix.
The subscription ceiling
One of the more striking signals in the data involves subscription pressure. The survey showed a dramatic increase in the number of publishers identifying subscriber retention as a top challenge. The findings come from a Local Media Consortium survey conducted between September 22 and October 17, 2025, that gathered responses from executives and managers across 170 local media companies representing roughly 5,000 newspaper, radio, television and digital-only news outlets across the United States and Canada. For Wills, however, the explanation may be less alarming than the raw numbers suggest.
“Well, a couple of things,” she said. “If you look back into the glory days of newspapers, when we had a very large subscriber base, it was still only 20 to maybe 30% of the population in a market that was willing to subscribe. Everybody else bought single copies or read pass-along copies.”
That historical context matters because it suggests the industry may simply be rediscovering an old reality in a new digital environment. “It’s not surprising that we have reached a plateau because there has always been only a certain percentage of people in a market willing to pay for a subscription to news,” Wills said.
Today’s subscription pressures are also amplified by a broader consumer trend. “You layer on top of that the overall subscription fatigue that’s going on because of subscriptions to streaming channels and Uber and Amazon,” Wills said. “Subscription fatigue is not only happening with media companies, but it’s happening across the board.”
Consumers are reevaluating recurring expenses across the digital economy. “People are looking, with the economic conditions as they are, at what they’re subscribing to and making decisions about what is most important to them, canceling and terminating some of the other ones,” she said.
Diversifying revenue in a changing ecosystem
If subscription growth is slowing, publishers are increasingly exploring new ways to diversify their revenue streams. Wills says many local media companies are already experimenting with alternative models.
“I think we constantly need to be exploring new revenue streams,” she said. “A lot of our publishers are having success with newsletters and monetizing through subscriptions and also through advertising.”
Cross-platform monetization is also gaining traction as publishers expand distribution beyond traditional digital channels. “Cross-platform monetization is also a big priority — looking at how we maximize social, streaming and CTV so that we can make sure we have multiple revenue streams,” Wills said.
One of the most actively explored opportunities involves licensing and monetizing news content in the emerging AI ecosystem. As large language models increasingly rely on news content for training and responses, publishers are pushing for compensation.
“We’re also exploring content licensing,” Wills said. “In this world of AI, where our content is getting scraped and used without attribution or monetization, we are looking at commercial ways to make sure our publishers are getting a fair value exchange for the use of their content.”
The industry is still determining what that exchange might look like. “The million-dollar question is what our content is worth and what LLMs are willing to pay,” Wills said. “That is still being contemplated not only by publishers but also by the LLMs.”
For now, the strategy is to engage broadly across the evolving ecosystem. “We’re placing our bets and talking with a lot of people to try to figure out what that next model looks like,” she said, adding that conversations are underway with major technology platforms as well as new third-party providers entering the market.
Revaluing the news audience
Another initiative gaining momentum involves efforts to better monetize the value of news audiences themselves. The Local Media Consortium has been working on a programmatic advertising initiative designed to distinguish credible news environments from lower-quality digital inventory.
“We are working diligently on a project called NewsPass ID that is, most plainly put, a local news ad network in the programmatic world,” Wills explained. The effort is based on the belief that news content offers advertisers a distinct value proposition. “We believe that there’s a difference in content because right now news content and all other forms of content are kind of seen as the same in programmatic channels.”
For Wills, that equivalence ignores the audience characteristics that have long defined local journalism. “There is a differentiation between credible news content and all the rest of the information that is available to monetize through programmatic channels,” she said.
The goal is to create a premium environment within the automated advertising marketplace. “We believe we can build a quality audience channel within programmatic that is going to be appealing to advertisers,” Wills said.
Early signals suggest advertisers are paying attention. “We are starting to go to market and we’re seeing quite a bit of interest from brands and agencies and advertisers,” she said, noting that marketers are beginning to recognize the difference between low-value inventory and high-quality news audiences.
“An impression on a site that is made for advertising is far different than an impression on a site that’s reaching an actual local news audience,” Wills said. “Local news audiences, which to your point are usually a higher, more valued demographic.”
The cross-platform newsroom
At the same time, local media companies are rapidly expanding how they produce and distribute content. According to Wills, one of the most significant industry trends is the growing convergence of formats.
“I think the trend that is really interesting among all of our members is that everybody is experimenting in every form of media,” she said. “Broadcasters are starting to do podcasts, which is audio, and newspapers are starting to do video.”
This shift reflects the reality that audiences now consume news across multiple platforms. “Cross-platform content creation and distribution is really high on the priority list of all of our publishers, regardless of what their legacy business is,” Wills said.
Many organizations are building workflows that allow a single piece of journalism to travel across formats and platforms. “We’re seeing every local media company experimenting with how they can create content in a certain format and then easily adapt it into other formats for distribution on different platforms,” she said.
As a result, newsroom innovation is increasingly focused on flexibility and adaptability. “This whole idea about cross-platform content creation and distribution is a trend to watch,” Wills said.
Returning to local roots
Despite all the technological and economic experimentation underway, Wills believes the most important strategy for local publishers may ultimately be the most traditional one: reconnecting with their communities.
“The first thing that I would do is get involved in the community, talk to community leaders, talk to local businesses and get back involved in grassroots communication with the community that I’m in,” she said.
That local engagement has always been journalism’s core advantage. “Who knows our community better than the local newspaper, the local TV or radio station?” Wills asked.
For Wills, strengthening that connection remains essential to the future of local media. “We need to get back to connecting with our communities, being that source of news and information for our communities,” she said. “And raising the level of awareness and importance with everybody in our community.”
If the industry can pair that mission with new revenue models, she believes local journalism still has a viable path forward. “I do have some optimism that there could be a better and more fair value exchange for our content,” Wills said, noting that stronger monetization alongside advertising and subscriptions could offer “the best shot at building a sustainable model than we’ve had in years.”
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