Spotlight Revenue: Growth through loyalty and the power of acting as a collective
| WAN-IFRA | 3 min read
Let’s take a closer look at a couple of the sessions in this track, which examine how sustainable revenue comes from serving audiences well – and from the strength that comes from acting together:
What revenue follows when you serve your audiences well?
This Wednesday morning Revenue session brings together three organisations that have found a path to the same truth: when you know exactly who you’re serving and deliver real utility to that community, the business follows.
We’ll meet three leaders who are building sustainable audience growth across very different domains: local, community-based and niche media.
Delano Massey is Managing Editor at Axios Local, a publisher that has proven that a newsletter-first model built around reporters who are embedded in their communities can work in major cities – and is now pushing that model into smaller markets and news deserts, using AI to reduce costs and enable single reporters to cover what once required full teams.
Anika Palm is Editorial and Audience Director at URL Media, a network of 46 news outlets deeply embedded in the Black and Brown communities they serve across the US. The network is actively expanding, looking to reach 100 news organisations by the end of 2027. They are also building a network of creators for video platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
The third speaker in this session is Tomáš Bella, well-known co-founder of journalist-owned publisher Denník N in Slovakia and creator of Piano, the paywall software used by hundreds of publishers worldwide. Earlier this year, Denník N acquired EUobserver, an independent watchdog covering EU institutions. As CEO, Bella is transforming the publication from an NGO into a commercial company, serving EU politicians, executives, and bureaucrats in Brussels and beyond.
What the session will deliver:
- Proven approaches to scaling a niche brand while preserving community trust and identity
- Discoverability strategies that work as platforms and search behaviours keep shifting.
- A conversion roadmap: how to move audiences from engagement to revenue across subscriptions, memberships and events.
Wednesday June 3 | 9:00
Digital advertising in 2026: the power of acting as a collective
When France’s regional press publishers created 366 in 2014 – consolidating what had been five separate ad sales operations into a single national house – it was a bet on collective strength at a moment when the platforms were really beginning to take over digital ad budgets. A decade on, the bet has paid off: 366 has grown revenues above €100m, added 20 Minutes to its portfolio, and as of January 2026, ranks as France’s largest digital ad sales house outside the US platforms, with over 11.5 million unique visitors each day. It is a European success story in publisher-side ad infrastructure – testing what collective action can and cannot achieve against platform dominance.
The session also looks at the wider picture in 2026: how are agencies splitting budgets, where do platforms and creators fit, and the impact as the advertising industry enters the agentic era, where AI agents can independently discover, plan and trade media.
Speakers in this Tuesday morning session are, from 366, Line Gasparini, who took over as CEO in early 2025 and Antoine Saglier, Director of Technology and Innovation; Danny Spears, COO at Ozone, the digital advertising audience platform founded by News UK, The Guardian, The Telegraph and Reach.
You will take away:
- Lessons from 366’s decade of collective selling – what works, and what the model demands of its members.
- Where digital ad budgets are flowing in 2026 and what that means for legacy publishers.
- How to maintain transparency and control in an era of AI-powered agents
Tuesday June 2 | 11:00
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