Christian Broughton on news subs: there’s no excuse for cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all models

Why custom AI and bespoke subscriptions are the future of news

After recording eight consecutive years of profit and landmark revenues, The Independent is past merely discussing digital sustainability. CEO, Christian Broughton tells me why a 'cookie-cutter' approach to AI is the biggest threat to differentiation, and how their four-pillar growth strategy is turning passion points into high-margin revenue.

After hitting a landmark annual revenue of more than £50m, The Independent is leveraging that stability to chase down four high-margin growth pillars designed to define its next decade.

These aren’t minor experiments. They are the blueprint for a future news publisher: 1. Independent Studio (talent-led IP across verticals like sport and food), 2. Independent AI (proprietary tech development), 3. US Expansion, and 4. a relentless focus on e-Commerce (led by IndyBest and social commerce).

Our talk immediately turns to AI, which Broughton calls “transformational.” But this isn’t about simple cost-cutting; The Independent views AI as a product engine. The launch of Bulletin, a new news brand built on proprietary tech developed with Gemini, demonstrates this perfectly. Bulletin, which provides high-quality, trusted briefings for “seriously busy people,” was an idea that Broughton says “would have been impossible just a year earlier.” The site, bulletin.news, launched in April, already bringing in “millions in revenue,” and has led to job creation, with the team using the tools, doubling in size. The learning from this project is now being deployed across the wider Independent newsroom, unlocking time for core, exclusive journalism.

The problem with the cookie cutter

For Broughton, the core lesson in the AI space is simple: don’t restrict yourself to third-party tools. He warns against two critical pitfalls of relying solely on external vendors.

First is responsibility: “If you don’t know exactly how they have been engineered, how can you take responsibility for the content they generate?” By building its own proprietary tech, with journalists “calling the shots”, the output is assured and every piece is signed off by a human, empowering staff, not replacing them.

Second is the business opportunity. Broughton warns that third-party tools often force a “cookie-cutter approach,” making everyone’s output look and sound the same. Publishers, he argues, need to be confident enough to dictate their own AI future in ways that make them more distinctive. This philosophy of differentiation underpins all four growth pillars, focusing squarely on high-margin, unique intellectual property.

Beyond the subscription panacea

So, are subscriptions the panacea for future reader monetisation? Broughton pushes back on the idea of a single, one-size-fits-all product. “The idea of having one core subscription plan you push to everyone feels like it belongs to a legacy era.”

Instead, the focus has shifted to deep audience knowledge and delivering bespoke products “worth paying for.” Independent Studio exemplifies this diversification. Fans of their ACFC (football analysis) YouTube channel pay for access to the creator and discounts on merchandise, while loyal readers pay for specific columnists’ newsletters or bonus podcast episodes.

The goal is clear: innovate to serve increasingly segmented audiences, backed by better use of data to understand exactly what they want.

The evolving news business

Looking ahead, Broughton positions the current media disruption—from changes to search, the rise of AI, and creator-led platforms—as “far more profound than the switch from print to digital” a decade ago. But crucially, he sees “even greater opportunities.”

His vision for the evolving news business is one built on foundation and focus: a truly independent brand that directly counters societal division and media manipulation, backed by aggressive global growth led by those four pillars (Studio, AI, US, e-Commerce). The essential takeaway for the sector, he concludes, is to identify the opportunity while others “only saw the threat.”

Challinor’s summary

Christian Broughton's strategy for The Independent is built on leveraging sustained profitability to fund aggressive, differentiated global growth. The company is actively moving past mere digital sustainability, driven by those four high-margin growth pillars as described above.

The most critical observation concerns A.I., which Broughton views as a transformative product engine and a source of new revenue, not just an efficiency tool. He strongly advises against a "cookie-cutter" approach, emphasising that publishers must build their own proprietary AI tools (like the Bulletin news brand) to maintain responsibility for content and ensure their output remains distinctive, rather than homogenised by third-party vendors.

Regarding monetisation, Broughton believes the single core subscription is a "legacy era" concept. The future requires moving “beyond the panacea” by utilising deep audience data to create bespoke revenue streams. This means developing diverse, talent-led products through the Independent Studio that audiences are willing to pay for, catering to increasingly segmented interests.

Ultimately, he sees the current media disruption (AI, changes to search) as an even greater opportunity than the switch from print to digital, provided the brand remains rooted in its unique, independent journalistic foundation.

The last issue saw Mark sit down with WAN-IFRA’s Thomas Jacob on balancing tech adoption with journalistic integrity.