The Rebooting Show Publishers need to go back to basics
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Sep 30, 2025 Trevor Kaufman, CEO of Piano and expert in audience and revenue platforms, discusses the urgent need for publishers to refocus on their core audience relationships. He highlights the pitfalls of giving away content to giant platforms and the complex nature of publishing today. Trevor advocates for stronger homepages, cohesive subscription strategies, and measuring success through ARPU. He also addresses subscription fatigue, the resilience of the open web, and the renewed interest in micropayments despite previous failures.
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Treat Publishing As A Customer Journey
- Publishing is a long customer journey from discovery to retention that needs unified data and experience design.
- Trevor Kaufman argues Piano built tools to manage identity, segmentation, recirculation, paywalls and retention across that journey.
High Complexity, Low Revenue Ratio
- Publishing ranks high on 'complexity per dollar' because editorial, product and finance needs intertwine.
- Trevor says simplifying operations reduces unnecessary roles and software fees while improving outcomes.
Giving Away Distribution Broke Value
- The original sins include giving content and ad relationships to intermediaries like Google and Facebook.
- Losing control of distribution and advertiser relationships weakened publishers' business power.