Condé Nast plans to put all its titles behind a paywall

Condé Nast is going to put all its titles behind a paywall in the US by the end of this year. Internationally, however, the magazine publisher is taking smaller, more cautious steps towards reader revenue. According to a source, it has been said the publisher has run experiments with paywalls in India. The company chose India because paywalls need scale, a potentially huge audience. Once Condé Nast has migrated all their websites on the same platform, they will be in the position to run these experiments centrally. They will test various forms of hybrid paywalls.

The company is looking at centralisation of Condé Nast International, taking a Vogue-first approach in the international market and how to balance the imperative to centralise with maintaining the uniqueness of brands on the local level. Around four years ago, the company organized themselves primarily around countries. They have shifted towards an operational model of organising around brands. It requires a shared agreement on what the brand stands for. They had to prioritise brands and sequence investments. That’s how they arrived at the principle of Vogue-first.