Global Transition to the Subscription Economy: Literature Review on Business Model Changes in the Media Landscape

The business models of media corporations and organisations have undergone a pronounced transition that has resulted in significant change in the last decade, shifting from a model based on advertising revenue and printed copy circulation to a subscription-based model. As this article shows, legacy media is currently experimenting with ‘various mixes of paywalls.’ Among the models that media companies are switching to is the subscription economy model, i.e. the practice of charging audiences for access to online content which, until recently, was unlocked and/or freely available. Incidentally, the collapse of the ‘advertiser model,’ together with the consequences of the global recession, has brought about significant economic uncertainty for traditional media, pushing it to seek new business strategies for sustainable journalism, while also triggering a reflection on the overall future of media. The aim of this article is to delineate and present the actual changes in the media landscape in relation to subscription economy based on a literature review. Thus, we conducted a systematic literature review including terms as follows: ‘subscription economy,’ ‘digital media,’ ‘theory of decision’ and ‘motivation theory,’ which yielded 145 results of relevant scientific and research articles published in the last 15 years. The main findings revealed that the media landscape is changing rapidly, in particular in terms of the new digital tools being developed and implemented, and accordingly there is rapid growth in the ‘non-conventional’ competition to the conventional media, new generations’ needs and their behaviour, and the urgent need for various new business models.