Publishers are sitting on valuable audience data — many just aren’t using it well
Omeda CEO James Capo explained how media companies can increase subscriptions and reduce churn.
For years, publishers have treated audience data like a byproduct of the business instead of one of its core assets. Newsrooms invested heavily in content management systems, analytics dashboards, newsletter tools, paywall vendors, ad tech platforms, and marketing software — but often without tying those systems together in any coherent way. The result is that many media companies now sit on enormous amounts of valuable first-party data while still struggling to understand their readers, reduce churn, improve monetization, or build deeper relationships with audiences.
That disconnect is becoming harder to ignore as publishers search for new growth. The easy gains from digital subscriptions have largely been captured, social traffic has become less reliable, and advertising remains volatile. Increasingly, the publishers that are thriving are the ones finding ways to extract more value from the audiences they already have — whether through niche verticals, events, memberships, newsletters, ecommerce, or smarter personalization strategies.
Few people have spent more time thinking about this problem than Omeda CEO James Capo. Omeda powers subscription management, audience databases, paywalls, and email systems for many large media organizations, giving the company a unique view into how publishers collect and use audience data. In a recent interview, Capo argued that many publishers have overcomplicated audience management, underestimated the strategic value of first-party data, and failed to create cohesive audience experiences across their products.
At the center of Capo’s argument is the deceptively simple idea that publishers only really have two core assets: content and audience.
The problem, in his view, is that publishers learned long ago how to centralize and manage content — but never did the same for audience data.
The Industry Built Unified CMSs — But Fragmented Audience Systems
Omeda’s origins date back to the early 1980s as a print subscription fulfillment company. Back then, publishers relied heavily on physical subscriber cards that readers mailed in alongside checks to start magazine subscriptions. Omeda’s original business was managing those subscriber databases and processing payments.
That legacy matters because it gave the company an unusually early focus on first-party audience relationships long before the term “first-party data” became fashionable.
“That has been the foundation and the heartbeat of our business,” Capo said.
When Capo joined Omeda in 2016 after stints at the Associated Press and publisher Access Intelligence, he was struck by how fragmented publisher technology stacks had become. Media companies often had separate systems for email marketing, paywalls, customer data, subscriptions, events, and analytics — all storing duplicate versions of the same user.
“I was paying for audience data five times,” he said, describing his prior experience managing publishing technology. “Paying for it in my email provider, paying for it in my paywall provider, paying for it in my CDP.”
That fragmentation creates a surprisingly fundamental problem: publishers cannot build a coherent understanding of readers because their audience data lives in disconnected systems.
“If someone on the editorial side had to log into 17 different CMSs, your head would have exploded years ago,” Capo said. “We solved that for editorial … We never solved that for audience data.”
That issue becomes increasingly important as publishers try to move beyond simplistic subscription models. A reader today may interact with a publisher through newsletters, podcasts, webinars, events, premium subscriptions, free registration, ecommerce products, or communities. Yet many publishers still treat those interactions as separate customer relationships rather than part of a unified audience profile.
“A reader doesn’t see themselves as the newsletter person or the website person,” Capo said. “They’re reading the brand.”
Why Subscription Growth Is Getting Harder
Part of the urgency around audience data stems from the reality that the subscription business is becoming more difficult.
The biggest news subscription success story in the industry remains The New York Times, which has grown to more than 13 million subscribers through a combination of news, games, recipes, product reviews, and sports coverage. But Capo believes many publishers misread what that success actually represents.
“There is probably a limit to what people will pay for general news,” he said.
That reality helps explain why so many publishers are diversifying into adjacent products. The New York Times acquired The Athletic and Wirecutter because those products appeal to narrower but highly engaged audiences. In many ways, the company is no longer simply selling “news subscriptions.” It is selling bundles of specialized consumer products.
Capo believes more publishers should follow that approach by identifying niches within their audiences and building vertical products around them.
“If you can peel off some niche within what you’re doing, can you sell that as a separate product? Absolutely,” he said.
He specifically pointed to the missed opportunity at The Washington Post, arguing the company could have launched far more premium B2B verticals tied to politics and policy.
“You’ve got Punchbowl, Axios, Semafor, all these players in the D.C. market,” he said. “The Washington Post could own that.”
This shift toward verticalization is one reason audience data matters so much. The more products a publisher offers, the more important it becomes to understand which users are likely to buy what.
A reader who originally subscribes for political reporting might also become a customer for events, white papers, webinars, niche newsletters, or premium research products. But publishers cannot identify those opportunities if audience behavior remains siloed across disconnected systems.
“The top of the funnel, just growing traffic for the sake of growing traffic — I just don’t think we’re ever going to win that game,” Capo said.
The Real Opportunity Isn’t More Traffic — It’s Better Audience Relationships
One of the more interesting themes throughout the conversation was Capo’s skepticism toward mass-scale traffic strategies.
For years, digital publishers pursued audience growth through SEO, social distribution, and viral content. But many are now realizing that massive traffic numbers do not necessarily translate into sustainable businesses. Instead, the strongest media businesses increasingly revolve around smaller groups of highly engaged users.
Capo repeatedly returned to the idea that publishers need deeper relationships with audiences rather than larger anonymous audiences.
That shift has major implications for how publishers think about data. Instead of merely optimizing for pageviews, audience data can be used to identify what products readers care about, which topics drive conversions, what behaviors predict churn, and how readers move between different offerings.
For example, a reader who subscribes to a free newsletter about media industry news might later attend a conference, buy an ebook, purchase access to a research product, or subscribe to a premium vertical. Those actions collectively create a much richer audience profile than a simple pageview count.
Capo believes many publishers still fail to connect those dots.
“We sometimes make it harder than it needs to be,” he said.