By Morten Suhr Hansen
Center for News Research at Roskilde University and the Reuters Institute have, as in previous years, mapped Danes’ media habits, and have just published the report “Danes’ Use of News Media 2026”. As always, I read it wearing my subscription glasses. One number catches my eye immediately: 20%. That is how many Danes pay for news online, and the figure has now stood still for years.
Internationally, the picture is the same. Willingness to pay has hit the ceiling. In most of the countries Reuters measures, the numbers barely move, and the swings amount to a single percentage point up or down. Denmark is actually doing quite well: sixth out of twenty countries and above the European average. But the party, where new payers simply pour in, is over. If it ever really started at all.
For a news publisher, this is easy to read as bad news. I would argue the opposite. Once the easy payers are already home, the battle shifts from acquiring customers to retaining and developing them. And that is exactly where the strongest subscription businesses win.
It is not about getting many in, but about getting many to stay
Look at why Danes pay in the first place. The clearly most important reason is getting content they cannot find anywhere else. 47% point to this. Next comes the wish for an ad-free experience, 29%. Notice what is not at the top: price. Customers are not paying for the cheapest subscription. They are paying for something they cannot do without. That is a gift to anyone working with subscriptions, because it means value decides whether the customer stays, not the discount.
That is why the energy should shift. Far too many publishers still spend most of their effort driving traffic in through campaigns and offers: three months for one krone. It works in the short term, but most of those payers disappear again just as fast as they arrived. The harder and far more valuable discipline is getting them to stay. Onboarding them properly, quickly showing them the content they came for, and turning reading into a habit rather than a one-off purchase.
Three key takeaways from the report
The report also carries a warning for anyone who assumes things will keep looking the way they always have. Younger readers pay differently. Under 35s are markedly more likely to buy news as a one-off payment rather than a fixed subscription, and they pay more often to purely digital outlets and to individual creators they follow on Substack and Patreon. Among the very youngest, four out of ten say they pay for news as a pastime, on a par with films and music. Zetland is a good example here at home of a membership built on connection to people and a cause, not just access to articles.
And there is an overlooked growth area right in front of us. In Norway and Sweden, almost half of subscribers pay for local news. In Denmark, that figure is 21%. Norway and Sweden also lead on willingness to pay overall, at 40% and 32%. Proximity sells when the content covers something the reader cannot simply google elsewhere.
One last thing is worth noting. The paywall has a cost too. Politiken, Berlingske and Jyllands-Posten today reach between 8 and 12 percentage points fewer readers online than ten years ago, as free readers hit the wall and drop off. The wall is necessary, but it is not free. The art lies in letting people in, in a way that makes them want to pay rather than click away.
What do you do when willingness to pay has hit the ceiling?
You stop measuring yourself on how many new payers you can lure in, and start measuring yourself on how many you can get to stay. The winners of the coming years will not be the ones shouting loudest in their marketing. They will be the ones who master three things: giving a good reason to start, an even better reason to stay, and continuously developing the relationship so the customer gets more out of it over time.
The 20% is a base, not a ceiling. And a base has to be earned, month after month.
The report is worth an afternoon of your time if you make a living from subscribers. And once you have read it, ask yourself the question everything else ultimately comes down to. Are we earning the customer’s next payment?
