This episode of Perspectives features Lou Grasser, Chief Digital Operations Officer at Le Monde, who leads digital strategy, subscriptions, and product innovation at one of France’s most respected news organizations. Lou traces Le Monde’s transformation from a traditional print outlet to a thriving digital subscription business, growing from 225,000 subscribers in 2015 to over 665,000 today, with strong revenue growth.
They discuss how editorial diversification—such as the introduction of popular sections like intimacy, investigative video content, and real-time “Live at Le Monde” coverage—has fueled engagement and conversion. Lou details Le Monde’s international expansion through an English-language edition tailored for global audiences, emphasizing curated content rather than direct translation.
The conversation highlights Le Monde’s partnership with the French streaming platform Max to offer bundled subscriptions, a novel approach in the French market aimed at acquisition and retention. Lou also shares lessons from their dynamic pricing strategies powered by machine learning, stressing the need for transparency and flexibility.
On innovation, Lou explains Le Monde’s collaboration with OpenAI to responsibly integrate AI into editorial workflows and subscriber management, enhancing efficiency without compromising quality. Finally, Lou underscores the critical importance of listening to reader feedback, protecting content value, and building trust around journalists to succeed in the evolving media landscape.
Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Transcript
Ruairi Doyle
[00:00]
Hi everyone and welcome to a new episode of the PressPectives Podcast. I am your host Ruairi Doyle and I'm here to help us dive into the latest trends and ideas in technology and publishing together with incredible guests. So whether you are an industry pro, a curious learner or just looking for some inspiration, you are in the right place.
Today's guest is Lou Grasser, Chief Digital Operations Officer at Le Monde, one of the world's most respected newspapers and the cornerstone of French journalism since it was founded in 1944. Since joining Le Monde in 2015, Lou has held a range of senior roles across marketing, product and operations, and today oversees everything from subscription strategy and audience growth to UX and product innovation. Under Lou's leadership, Le Monde has become a digital success story.
The publication has significantly grown its subscriber base, refined its pricing strategy, introduced major UX improvements and launched groundbreaking initiatives including bundling with Max, the digital streaming platform from Warner Brothers Discovery and a partnership with OpenAI, making Le Monde the first French media outlet to strike such a deal.
Today we'll talk about all of this along with how to cultivate first mover advantage, sustain subscription growth and make smart data-informed decisions. Lou, welcome to PressPectives – bienvenue! It’s great to have you here. Are you joining us today from Le Monde's newsroom in Paris, that beautiful building that you guys have?
Lou Grasser
[01:32] Thank you so much for having me. I'm really glad to be part of this podcast. And yes, I'm joining you today from Le Monde offices in Paris.
Ruairi Doyle
[01:42] Great to be connecting all the way from Vancouver to Paris. So let's talk about your career, your trajectory. You started at Le Monde as an intern more than a decade ago and today you're leading digital operations. That is quite the arc. What is it about Le Monde that's kept you not just engaged but evolving with the brand?
Lou Grasser
[02:08] Yes, I do often think back to my internship at Le Monde back in 2015 and that's when I discovered what an incredible place this is, both Le Monde, the wider group and even more broadly, how fascinating the industry can be. I feel really lucky to have grown here and to be where I am today.
To answer your question, what kept me engaged and even what's made me evolve with the brand, would say that the pace and energy of the organization. Things move really fast and that's incredibly stimulating. When I started, Le Monde was still operating in a free traffic driven model and since then, we have fully transitioned to a subscription-based strategy, reinventing everything along the way. Actually, we've been changing the way we work, the tools, the team culture, the marketing practices – it wasn't always easy, especially when you have deep roots in print – but I think we handled it with care and what we define as the best, the ability to evolve deeply and steadily without losing sight of innovation.
I can say that we've grown from 225,000 subscribers in 2015 to over 665,000 subscribers today. And from 53 million euros in revenue to more than 90 million euros today. And I think that the journey is far from over. With AI transforming the industry again, it's really both challenging and exciting. I'm really glad to be living that moment here, in that place that meets change, I think, with both intelligence and courage.
Ruairi Doyle
[04:32] And you guys have certainly fulfilled that promise to evolve deeply, fast and stimulating. I saw some other numbers out there about producing a hundred articles per day, seven days a week, and not only transforming to the revenue number that you mentioned, but also going from, I think it was a loss of something like 10 million euros in 2010 or something like that to 25 million in EBITDA most recently so very, very impressive story. I want to ask you more about it.
Let's start by diving into the subscriptions side of things which you talked about, the growth to where you're at today. It underpins everything, subscriptions, you set yourselves this goal of one million subscribers you mentioned how you're tracking towards that do you believe you're going to hit it soon and what do you see as the next wave of growth in getting you from where you're at to one million subscribers?
Lou Grasser
[05:36] I think that setting a goal of 1 million subscribers was an important milestone for us because it gave us a focus and a momentum. So honestly, I believe that we are getting close. I told you we currently at around 665 subscribers and 90% of them are digital only. So we made the digital shift really early on and this ambition still guides much of what we do. So now to reach the 300,000 left, we are, think that the best way is to continue is investing in editorial diversification. Over the past decade, as you say, the last 10 years, the newsroom, even starting in 2010 to today so more over the last 15 years, the newsroom has doubled in size from 300 to almost 600 journalists today. And we are expanding into new areas since then. Personal stories, women's rights, climate change, identity. Our weekend magazine, M Le Mag, performs strongly online and it offers in-depth content that really sustains engagement beyond peak news cycles.
And within this, maybe a standout example is the intimacy section that was launched in 2023. This section is now one of our top performing sections. It's really mentioning all subjects about how human people live, subjects about parentality. And it's now one of our top performing sections both in traffic and conversion, with 3.5 million visits each month and almost 10 conversions per article on average.
I would say that video will be maybe another important growth lever. On YouTube now we have more than 2 million subscribers and we really focus on high quality investigative formats. We have the really visual investigations unit now that has produced more than 100 videos since 2019. And recently we have been launching a really new documentary about Northern European military readiness that has generated more than 100 conversions within a few hours. I think we have a lot of, there is a lot of future with video.
I would say as well that maybe the international growth will be a major priority for us. We have been launching Le Monde in English in 2022. We now translate 40% of our articles each day. As you said, we have 100 articles each day, so it means 40 articles each day for Le Monde in English. And we have been reaching over five million monthly visits and 12,000 paying subscribers abroad. So we think that this can be a great opportunity for us to grow. And I would say that looking ahead, maybe in terms of growth opportunity as well, we are maybe as well exploring bundled offer, whether within Le Monde Group, maybe, or with external partners.
I think that for this, the New York Times is really clearly ahead in that space and a good example. For me, it's still unclear whether their success is a unique exception or a model that can be truly followed or replicated. It's not easy because many media try to do the same, but never with the same success. But that said, I really truly believe that there is room for creative and add-value combinations especially when partnering with brands that share editorial standards.
Ruairi Doyle
[10:01] It's fascinating to hear the approach, particularly around the diversification of editorial from the different sections that you have. I want to dive into that maybe just a little bit. You launched a direct Live or “en direct”, if I'm pronouncing it correctly, where journalists update readers on topical developing stories and answer reader questions in real time. Earlier today, I was taking another look at it and there's three or four live at the moment. If I can say, for me, it feels like a newsroom, a WhatsApp group chat and a live show kind of all at once. Can you tell us where the idea for that came from and what sort of editorial workflow and technology or infrastructure considerations there was in making something like that happen every day?
Lou Grasser
[10:59] Yeah, I think it's a great way to describe it, how you say it. It's a Live. Live at Le Monde is really a part newsroom, part group chat and part real-time editorial space. So to scale it, we built both a robust editorial workflow and a custom infrastructure tailored to live journalism. Actually, this format was launched initially in 2011 during major breaking news like the Arab Spring or Fukushima disaster. And it quickly became central to how we cover fast-moving stories. But doing that with Le Monde's standards requires more than speed. It takes structure and coordination because we want to do Live, but with the same editorial standards that what we do with articles. So it's especially challenging.
Each Live is led by a dedicated editor and powered by contribution from multiple desks via a custom real-time publishing interface. And what is important from a user experience is that any reader, subscriber or not, can submit a question – no login or no subscription needed, which fuels really engagement and helps to surface new angles.
With Live, we really want to cover information for everyone. If people want to deep dive into articles that are more detailed, there will be subscriber-only articles for this. But really Lives answer to a need of maybe a bit demanding information that need to be answered now. Actually, the impact of Live is major for Le Monde. Last summer, remember that live during the Olympic Games, course, but made up more than 25% of total traffic, over 50 million visits, and lives can reach to 30 or 40% of the traffic on really big news days. So it's really important. Really people, they trust Le Monde Live when the audience speaks. And it's one of the most reader engaging formats. And I would say that we have since added product features, we have been adding product features like embedded article section, better recirculation, subscriber segmentation to be able to speak, to show different pages to subscriber or not. But always while preserving editorial quality.
And for instance, more recently, we have been fully redesigned the live experience on the mobile app. The old version was copying the web, but actually that did not fit really how people who were using it in the app. So especially almost loyal subscribers that are really all in the app. So we rebuilt it faster and more intuitively for the live application usage. It was really a strategic decision for us, especially as we have a leading news app in France both in the reach and engagement, and we have to make sure that the live experience was meeting the expectations of the most dedicated readers' device.
Ruairi Doyle
[14:39] So with all the audience and traffic that come to Live direct, is it a channel and a funnel for subscription as well, an acquisition channel for the business in some ways?
Lou Grasser
[14:55] You mean on the Live, right? Actually, so we incite people. We understood that on Live there are a lot of regular people that are not subscribers that come every day. The Live is the same for subscriber or not. But of course the advertising experience will be different between subscriber or not. But one of the goals is to make people understand, that are not subscribers, to understand that they need to support us because they see the Live, I think they understand that there is a lot of work behind but they maybe do not understand how much involvement of the newsroom there is. So we have a lot of, we created recently marketing spaces that we are evolving all the time to make people understand, that not subscribers, that there is an economic model behind, and that if they want to still read our Lives, they need to support us. So actually you can see this kind of what we call pop-in in the Live, where we explain them by saying, okay, you want to read this Live forever, okay, we tell you that there is a team behind, and maybe you should help us by subscribing or donate, you can donate as well, it's still a help for us.
Ruairi Doyle
[16:17] Nice. I like the way it's been humanized and the brand is speaking and it also can form a channel of acquisition.
You mentioned earlier expanding internationally with Le Monde and English, the M International newsletter. I think you mentioned up to 40 of those 100 stories per day are English orientated. I'd love to know what's the thinking behind the English formats? Do you see yourself competing against other English language publications and how is it forming as part of your strategy now that you're investing in it, you're producing this content, you mentioned you're seeing the traffic, is it achieving what you wanted it to achieve?
Lou Grasser
[17:03] So we do have, as you say, Le Monde in English and the M International. As I mentioned earlier, Le in English was launched in 2022. And more than anything, Le Monde in English has been a great learning experience in how to build something meaningful for an international audience. What we have learned is that you can't just export a national product as it is. Really global readers, they have different habits, different expectations. So actually we had to adapt and rethink the pricing because of course we could not price at the same price that what we have in France. We had to take into account the competition abroad. We had to accept as well international payment, build customer service in English to be able to answer – we don't think of it now, but of course it's part of the process, and to design a dedicated editorial workflow. So not just to translate, but to really curate and contextualize the content. It's really translation, but you have to pick the good articles that will appeal to the good audience abroad. Of course, all the articles in French, all the French articles that we produce may not interest French audience. So we need to pick the more relevant.
And what set us apart, I would say, and what works is a, I think, distinctive voice. It's really a European perspective on the world affairs, a newsroom of 550 journalists, and really deep, fact-based reporting. So we are not trying to replicate what they do in the US or UK model. That's not it. We are just offering something different. And I think that's Le Monde in English trends. So to expand that reach, have been launching as well international this year. It's a bi-annual magazine and as well a bi-weekly newsletter and it has an editorial digital presence on both Instagram and Le Monde in English.
The print edition is available in more than 350 points of sales across 20 countries and cities from New York to Tokyo. And I think it helped us to reach a very culturally engaged cosmopolitan audience, but always with editorial values. So I said just overall that international strategy is just not about translation. It's about really relevance and building trust with a new audience.
We are still at the beginning of the journey, but we really believe in it. Not to compete head-to-head with other major English language brands, that would not make sense, but really to offer something complimentary, rigorous, and true to who we are.
Ruairi Doyle
[20:08] Yeah, I think providing readers, consumers, users, however we refer to them with perspectives from different parts of the world on the same topics, be it an election in the US or an election in France or a conflict somewhere is critical to kind of an informed society. And we have those values here at PressReader too. So fascinating to hear how you're doing it on the English side of Le Monde.
Let's talk a little bit about partnerships. We've mentioned briefly the bundled offer that you had with the streaming platform or that you have with the streaming platform Max. It's quite a unique move for a newspaper brand or a newspaper group and perhaps even a sign of where the industry may be heading. And you mentioned, you know, it's been working for other flagship publications like the New York Times.
What is the overall strategy behind it from Le Monde's point of view and how did it come to be and if you're able to tell us how has it been performing for you to date?
Lou Grasser
[21:15] Yeah, so actually what we believe is that with so many subscription services, media, streaming, music, even food, people really are looking for smarter, more convenient offers, especially the ones that make financial sense for them. And we saw an opportunity to create something new in France. So a bundle subscription that combined trusted journalism and premium entertainment. Of course it's a bet because I think that just really a few media have done it before. I remember of course the New York Times and Spotify was maybe in 2018 or something like this. It did not last a lot. It was available for a few weeks, I believe, or months, but after we, I did not see it again.
And for us, so just for 15 euros a month, users get access to Le Monde and Max streaming catalog. So the first offer of Max which is four euros cheaper than the, if you take the subscription separately. This kind of offer does not exist today on the French market and we wanted to try and launch it.
For us, what is interesting, I mean, I think the choice of Max, for us, it was more natural partner because it's a brand that's like Le Monde, stands for quality, really high-quality video, strong editorial identity. I think there is a real current between the two and really a shared ambition to reach curious and demanding audience. So I'd say that we have two goals behind it to reach a wider, more maybe digital native audience, maybe including people that I would have never subscribed to Le Monde without Max. And the second, of course, is the nature of bundle, is to improve retention. I think that bundle model, really, they have proven to boost really loyalty, retention of subscriber. So we believe this one can do the same. We have to see it on the long term.
And I said that more broadly, it's also about staying ahead of the curve. In the US, know that nearly 70% of American subscribers already pay for at least one bundle service. So the majority of service are already bundled. In France, I think it still needs to emerge, and we want to be part of it.
Ruairi Doyle
[24:09] I understand that Le Monde has done a lot of work on pricing strategy, that you run extensive experiments with things like predictive models, adjusting subscription tiers. I've heard you guys talking about smart pricing. I imagine a lot of other publishers would love to peek inside your testing dashboard. And if I was putting myself in the shoes of another publisher thinking about it, where should I start in this realm? What are some of the most surprising or valuable lessons that you've learned from this process in this world?
Lou Grasser
[24:45] Yes, that's a great question and you're right. We have done a lot of work on pricing the past few years. And I would say that for pricing, there are three surprising maybe lessons, like there are different surprising lessons that we stand out.
So first, I think we honestly didn't expect that price segmentation would have such a strong impact on our RPU. But as we have been introducing a lot of heterogeneity within our offer, special offer to students, family bundles, and some geo-based pricing, we have been seeing a clear uplift. So the data shows that it's not just about increasing the average price, it's really about charging more to those who can and offering smart alternatives to those who can't.
Second, I think that was really important in this pricing strategy was the fraud detection system that we put in place internally five years ago that is called capping and that prevents people, subscribers to share their account and access content simultaneously from multiple devices. It's like Spotify actually. And it was a total game changer. Actually, it really protected us from people to share their subscription and to be able to take family bundle, either duo or family bundle.
And third, one of the surprising lessons, I think, is that we realized that heavily discounted annual plans were really actually at risk. So thanks to a data analyst on pricing strategy, it's a data analyst but he has now been really focusing only on pricing strategy, we discovered that some highly engaged users were choosing annual offers that were too cheap compared to what they would have paid monthly. So we adjusted that.
But if you're asking, where should I start? My honest answer is really just get help on the pricing strategy. Because pricing, my point of view, is a real expertise, and be ready to challenge everything you think you know about pricing strategy. Because I think we would not have achieved any of this without working closely with real data experts. And in particularly, the analyst was being really truly instrumental for this. So I think he had the ability, for instance. for us to bring a long-term vision and totally counter-intuitive thinking, while most of us at the time were focused on short-term performance. And I think to his analysis, really deep analysis and simulation, we are able to push our price differentiation much further than one we ever imagined. So honestly, without that outside perspective, we might have missed some of the biggest growth levels.
So yes, experiment, but with solid data and the right people around the table.
Ruairi Doyle
[28:08] Great advice. Maybe leaning into your responsibilities and experience in managing the user experience and the product innovation side of the business. When we work with these experts, be it on data, be it on pricing, gathering signals, gathering insights, I'm curious how much of how you make decisions is purely based on the data or how much maybe comes from other qualitative signals like feedback from customer service, surveys, or interviews with users, or just a leader or a person relying on that gut instinct in the face of all of this data. Where do you find the balance yourself and your team?
Lou Grasser
[28:56] Actually, when it comes to pricing, ad data is absolutely essential. In fact, on pricing subjects, we actively avoid relying on instinct. Dangerous, because we are too often biased or emotional on pricing strategy. For example, I remember as well on pricing strategy that we thought that certain digital subscription offers were really successful. And actually the data analyst told us, no, no, no, it's not successful at all. You have a lot of cannibalization from really faithful subscribers that are here for a long time. So actually you're losing money.
So that said, qualitative feedback also play a critical role at Le Monde. So especially from customer service. I would say that at scale feedback is both qualitative and quantitative because we have a lot of subscribers. We have built a dedicated system around it, especially on online cancellations. I mean, every day we receive live input from people that exit, that cancel their subscription to Le Monde. And with the subscription team and customer team service, we read all subscription reasons to unsubscribe every day, at every moment of the day. We read them and actually we don't miss anyone. And our goal even at the end is really to answer to all of them. Okay, so one of my, I think that one of my missions is to read each of these unsubscription reasons to understand why people leave and to make Le Monde evolve.
So I would say that as a digital operations, more broadly, are really driven by data. But we also of course value ideas, intuition and really constant curiosity. That's I think our innovation happened. So yes, on the digital side, we are really driven by data. On the editorial though, I think it's a bit different. I would say that the instinct plays a much bigger role. Every morning, it's the newsroom leaders that decide manually which articles go behind the payroll or not. There is no algorithm, it's just editorial judgment or context. And that's really their secret sauce. So of course, the newsroom really looks at data and readers insights, but when it comes to launching a new section or betting on a theme, intuition often really leads for them.
I remember in 2018, so there was Luc Bronner, the former editorial director at that time. He decided to place all articles on love and sexuality behind the payroll. At that time, it was for free. And it was really a bold move for Le Monde. And he told me, I'm making this decision with my nose. So in French, it really means that I feel it. And I think that journalism remains a deeply human craft and I really believe that there's a big part of what makes Le Monde so successful is that it's both led by instinct and readers' feedbacks.
Ruairi Doyle
[32:31] Yeah, it's a balance and it's refreshing to hear that so much is driven by the nose or driven by editorial judgment. It's refreshing and important in the age of algorithms. And the topic that I want to talk about next, is AI. So I believe you guys have recently launched a strategic partnership with Perplexity, but you're also the first French publisher to sign a partnership with OpenAI.
Can you share a little bit more with us about the deal and collaboration specifically with OpenAI? Why did you guys feel it was important to be an early mover in this area?
Lou Grasser
[33:17] Le Monde was the first French media company to enter into a partnership with OpenAI and more recently with Perplexity. So for us it was important to engage early with these players, not just to observe how AI is reshaping the media industry, but to actively help define how journalist content will be used, valued and protected. Protected, I think, is the most important word for this. This partnership, they are part of a broader strategy, so making sure that rights are respected. So, a content is fairly referenced and they need a proper compensation in place for this. So, with OpenAI, for example, a content can be used to train their models but only under clearly defined contractual terms. And that guarantees the transparency and safeguard the intellectual property of Le Monde content.
With Perplexity, the approach is a bit different. Content is never used for model training. It's only access to generate answer to user queries. Indeed, a few weeks ago we have begin to roll out a new IHIP word search experience in partnership with Perplexity on a site and application. So it's a really natural language interface that gives user a clear, synthesized answer and drawn exclusively from Le Monde articles. So, and the links to the original articles of Le Monde. The goal is really to help readers to navigate the news source more easily to save time and to access our content. None of these deals are exclusive. We want to stay open to future partnerships because there is a broader issue at stake. It's building a fair and sustainable model between AI platforms and news publishers. I would say that media organizations need to be at the table from the very beginning because if they are not, they will be excluded.
Ruairi Doyle
[35:38] I think media organizations are learning the mistakes of the past in not engaging earlier with these kinds of technological shifts and AI is probably moving the publishing industry from digital transformation to digital being transformed overall.
I know that you have started to adopt AI internally, I mean, you've mentioned this new search experience powered by Perplexity, but internally in the newsroom, we understand they're using it for content translations, but if we are correct, there's a firm line that has been drawn under using AI for generative editorial content. So what parameters have you put in place and how are the teams internally navigating this new landscape and terrain?
Lou Grasser
[36:31] Le Monde and within the group, see AI as a powerful tool indeed to support our teams, but never to replace journalism, of course. That's why we've been drawing a clear line. We do not use generative AI to create editorial content. That said, we use AI in very targeted and responsible ways.
A good way, of course, is Le Monde in English, as I mentioned. To scale translations without compromising quality, we used AI. And I think that without AI, Le Monde in English would have never come to reality. So it's a two-step workflow. First, AI-powered translation using OpenAI tool, and followed by a final review and editing by a team of native English-speaking journalists. So it's all us to publish at scale while maintaining really our editorial integrity. We have been following the same thing with the audio strategy. We offer synthetic voice versions of articles based on real voice actors. So the result is quite strong and is now available for all users on the application, on subscribers only for articles that are for subscribers only, and for free readers for articles that are free. And we want to continue to refine this experience.
And of course, beyond the newsroom, of course like, other media supports several internal functions like from customer service and comment moderation to product feedback analysis, UX ideation, developer support, so of course it helps us, but more on the support function. Personally, I use it on a daily basis for low value-added tasks, and for me it's a real productivity boost.
But on the editorial side, which is interesting, it's to guide all of this. They've put in place an internal AI charter. So it really lays out where and how we can use AI within the Le Monde Group. And really it helped us with one guiding principle, protecting the integrity as well and credibility of journalism. And of course, we do a lot of monitoring on AI in general within my team to understand what's new, to have a close eyes on new tools, use cases and ecosystem shifts. So I think there is a deep need of AI monitoring on the media market to be sure not to miss something.
Ruairi Doyle
[39:25] So speaking about not missing anything as a digital leader, as a subscriptions product, AI digital transformation leader, I mean, how do you yourself keep up to date in this industry that's changing by the minute?
Lou Grasser
[39:42] So yes, actually AI is a really interesting tool for monitoring, actually. I could use it more, but I'm still maybe on the hold a bit on this. I would say that one of my most valuable sources would be the insight coming directly from the readers. Their feedback for me is a goldmine. It helps me understand how they live, what matters to them, and how they interact with the news.
So when you read everyday feedback, think it's really, it gives you a lot of input and it constantly shapes your thinking about how the world should evolve. Beyond that, of course, I read a lot of different articles, maybe at least maybe more than two or three per day on mostly media-focused piece, French and international on business models, audience trends, editorial strategies. I'm interested in what works and what does not work. I would say that I spend as well some time on the American media, can be the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, which often help to anticipate where the industry is heading. Last year, actually, what was interesting in terms of of new things that we were lucky to visit several US newsrooms with our editorial leadership and some other people from the Le Monde Group titles. And those exchanges with newsroom are incredibly enriching and they help us to reflect, to learn and to adapt with more clarity. And I think it's really important for media from all around the world to gather and to exchange on what changes in their industry within their country.
And I would say that finally maybe innovation is as well just not top down at Le Monde. We asked our team as well to bring insights through benchmarks, through reports, through peer monitorings to really nourish themselves and us as well. I think if it's really widespread, it's even better because we can share it. I think there is a, I truly believe that there is a great culture of innovation and shared expertise within the Monde.
Ruairi Doyle
[42:16] And if there was one thing you believe every publisher should be doing or thinking about right now for the next year ahead, what might that be?
Lou Grasser
[42:28] I would say that first, maybe there is a question of platforms, which represent an incredible opportunity, but also a real risk if we become too dependent on them. As publishers, we need to rethink how we acquire and retain our audiences and we need to make sure that we do not rely on an ecosystem that we do not control. Of course, that means doubling down on the direct relationships, developing newsletter apps on site. It's not of course a new idea, but I think it's more urgent than ever.
I would say that second is content protection, as I told you, especially with paywall journalism, we are entering now a moment where the risks of in-control reuse of a content, including by AI model, is really becoming real. It's already happening. So, publishers need to act fast, both technically and maybe collectively to protect the value of their work.
And for last point, I would say that something we should think right now is maybe embodiment because younger audiences today they connect more easily with people than with institutions. So if we want to reach them, really, especially through video or social platforms, I really truly believe, but it's my opinion that we need to rethink for traditional media how we present journalists to this audience in ways that they feel more direct and relatable, like, remaining fully consistent with our editorial identity and values. But it's a shift that needs to be, and many newsrooms should maybe consider, we should consider it.
Ruairi Doyle
[44:37] Yeah, I'm just back a couple of weeks from the IMA conference in New York where we heard from, I think, Nur Taghuri was somebody in particular who was talking about that trust, you know, that trust has not gone away. It's just shifting from news brands to people. And I think it's absolutely something news brands need to embrace is how to build trust around its journalists. It was always there just you know, how do we do it in different mediums and different formats?
And finally, just want to end with one question we always ask our guests and imagine a world where you're not looking at data insights, you're not reading customer feedback and churn subscriber feedback every other day and thinking about this world of subscriptions and bundles and news and media, you know, what might you be doing if you weren't in this world, Lou?
Lou Grasser
[45:33] So to be honest, I would say that my first love is theater. Before I even landed at Le Monde, the first real internship I did was in a national theater in Paris, and I really loved it. I loved Le Monde, of course, even better, but I really loved it as well. And I think that if I hadn't fallen into the world of media, and especially Le Monde, probably be working in a theatre or museum, maybe in France or abroad, it would have been amazing as well, and helping them figure out how to grow and thrive in the long term. Because those kinds of cultural places really matter to me and I think they need to exist and to grow.
Ruairi Doyle
[46:21] Yes, they do. And cultural places, whether it's theater or news, are central to our society. Fantastic to hear the story about Le Monde and how you guys are working to grow subscriptions in France and all of the editorial diversification, momentum, the fastness, the stimulating, the ability to evolve deeply. Really enjoyed the conversation, Lou. Thank you for making time for us. We will hear from you again sometime in the future.
Lou Grasser
[46:53] Thank you very much.
Ruairi Doyle
[46:56] Thanks, Lou. And that is a wrap on our latest episode of the Perspectives podcast. Thank you very much, Lou, again, for joining us and thank you all so much for tuning in. Be sure to check out our other episodes featuring publishing leaders from The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Harvard Business Review and more on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube.
