FTI Consulting Partners with Google News Initiative and Local Media Association to Launch Digital Subscriptions Lab

Program Aims to Develop Sustainable Business Model for the Newspaper Industry

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE: FCN) today announced the creation of the Digital Subscriptions Lab in partnership with the Google News Initiative and Local Media Association (“LMA”), a joint effort to help develop a sustainable and thriving business model for the newspaper industry.

A select group of publishers from a cross-section of small, medium and large newspapers across North America will be chosen to participate in the six-month program. The publishers will undergo a mix of quantitative and qualitative market research, examining existing and potential reader segments to better understand the addressable market, readers' willingness to pay and more. 

FTI Consulting’s efforts in the partnership will be led by Senior Managing Director Ken Harding and Managing Director Peter Doucette from the Publishing group of the Telecommunications, Media & Technology practice. Mr. Doucette previously was Chief Consumer Revenue Officer at The Boston Globe and helped develop that newspaper’s paid subscription model and dual-website strategy.

“Some of the largest national news organizations are experiencing early success with digital subscription models, with several crossing 1 million subscribers,” Mr. Doucette said. “However, at the local and metro levels, attaining a transformative digital model is more elusive, with a less clearly defined path to success. Independent publishers face a unique set of challenges, requiring both a strategy and a subscription model playbook tailored to their audience. This unique, strategic partnership will provide publishers with the opportunity to learn from each other and enable us to develop a new digital subscription model blueprint for the entire industry.”

FTI Consulting will perform a full diagnostic evaluation of each participating publisher across multiple dimensions — including people, process, technology, marketing and content — to benchmark current performance, identify short-term optimization opportunities and recommend longer-term transformation roadmaps. This includes providing a detailed scorecard to show how each publisher sizes up, and a dashboard for measuring ongoing progress. 

The publishers will have support from Google teams that bring expertise in data, technology, product, subscriptions and more. LMA, which serves more than 3,000 newspapers, television stations, radio stations, directories, pure plays and research and development partners, will convene in-person and virtual meetings for the publishers to share learnings and best practices.

The outcomes of the Digital Subscriptions Lab will be shared with the industry at large through playbooks, experiential learning opportunities and in-person sessions and will be revealed at Elevate, a joint conference produced by LMA and the Local Media Consortium on September 18 in Chicago.

About FTI Consulting
FTI Consulting, Inc. is a global business advisory firm dedicated to helping organizations manage change, mitigate risk and resolve disputes: financial, legal, operational, political & regulatory, reputational and transactional. With more than 4,700 employees located in 28 countries, FTI Consulting professionals work closely with clients to anticipate, illuminate and overcome complex business challenges and make the most of opportunities. The Company generated $2.03 billion in revenues during fiscal year 2018. For more information, visit www.fticonsulting.com and connect with us on Twitter (@FTIConsulting), Facebook and LinkedIn.

About the Google News Initiative
The Google News Initiative is Google's effort to work with the news industry to help journalism thrive in the digital age. We work with thousands of news organizations to meet their business needs and industry challenges. Through our partnerships, programs and products, we aim to meet the needs of journalists and news organizations so they can succeed on the web. The Google News Initiative also conducts research on topics critical to the future of journalism and fosters innovation in the industry.

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Investor Contact:
Mollie Hawkes
+1.617.747.1791
mollie.hawkes@fticonsulting.com

Media Contact:
Matthew Bashalany
+1.617.897.1545
matthew.bashalany@fticonsulting.com

FTI Consulting, Inc.