After visiting publishers across the world, they started to realise that there were publishers successfully doing what they wanted to do: a newsroom that focuses totally on audience revenue, made up of Mini Publishing Teams (MPT's) with data and insights driving content-making decisions.

MPT’s

The Apollo Programme has restructured its newsroom into 25 MPTS, each of which is a self-contained unit focusing on the whole publishing process:

• Writing
• Marketing
• Distributing
• Responsibility of output

These MPT’s are driven by data and insights, ensuring that the specialist content they are creating is meeting the needs of their specialist audience. As a result, Apollo has introduced new skills into the DC Thomson newsroom: data journalism, audience management and audience development.

How will they know it has worked?

• Since the pandemic hit in March 2020, DC Thomson newspapers have taken on 5-6,000 subscribers.
• Subs are growing by 200 a week, which proves they have maintained their subs base throughout this tumultuous period.

Richard Neville said: “We are just setting off on our journey and we have an incredible amount of work to still do to increase that subscriber number.”

The results so far?

• Quality has improved in their output.
• Training is a weekly activity.
• They talk about what to leave out in print, rather than put in.
• Data is part of their daily language.
• Journalism is back at the heart of their business!

What’s next?

• Continue to roll out plans and expand MPT team system.
• More data to improve user experience.
• Further engage with communities and really get under the skin of what they want.
• Keep great and trusted journalism at the heart of the newsroom.