Transformación Digital en El Washington Post

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Rev. Jan. 27, 2022
Digital Transformation at The Washington Post:

Innovating for the Next Generation
After joining The Washington Post (The Post) in 2014 as publisher and CEO, Fred Ryan worked with owner
Jeff Bezos to bring about an extraordinary digital transformation at the global news organization.1 As a result
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of Ryan and Bezos’s efforts, The Post was on track to finish 2021 as a profitable and growing company, as it had
been for the past six years. The turnaround had been nothing short of miraculous, leading Fast Company to
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recognize The Post as one of the “World’s Most Innovative Companies” … “for bringing Amazonian ambition
to news.”2
Yet, despite all its success, The Post continued to face several significant business challenges, including new
competitors, a growing number of channels through which readers consumed news, and rapidly changing
consumer behavior. While The Post was transforming itself, the share of Americans using social media to access
news had nearly doubled to 48%. Underscoring this trend, Gen Z individuals (those born after 1996) were far
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more likely than those in earlier generations to use social media and news aggregators instead of direct methods
(e.g., https://www.washingtonpost.com/) to access news, hurting both subscriptions and ad revenues, and
posing challenges to the future profitability of The Post.
On August 4, 2021, The Post announced the creation of Next Generation (Next Gen)—a new initiative to
accelerate the acquisition of younger and more diverse audiences through new products, practices, and
partnerships.3 As part of the announcement, Ryan made the following statement:
Over the past few years, The Post has boldly experimented in developing new ways to reach readers and
expand our subscription base. We have delivered The Washington Post journalism to the broadest
national and global audience in our history with many younger readers enjoying Post content on sites
and in formats that didn’t exist a few years ago, and we are eager to build upon this success and
accelerate our progress.
To execute the Next Gen initiative, a cross-company task force was formed to develop The Post’s strategic
roadmap for emerging audiences, which it would present to Ryan and his executive team. The future of the
143-year-old institution would depend on its ability to continue its organizational transformation and innovate
for the next generation.
1 This is a field-based case. All information and quotations, unless otherwise noted, derive from interviews with company representatives.
2 “The Washington Post,” Fast Company, https://www.fastcompany.com/company/the-washington-post (accessed Nov. 8, 2021).
3 “The Washington Post to Launch ‘Next Generation’ Initiative,” The Washington Post, August 4, 2021,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/pr/2021/08/04/washington-post-launch-next-generation-initiative/ (accessed Nov. 8, 2021).
This field-based case was prepared by Ryan Nelson, Professor of Commerce, and Kevin Miner, Research Assistant. It was written as a basis for class
discussion rather than to illustrate effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright © 2021 by the University of Virginia McIntire
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A Brief History of the American Newspaper Industry and The Washington Post
The first newspapers in the newly formed United States had been crucial to inspiring civic unrest across
the Thirteen Colonies by spreading radical ideas on personal liberties. Their vast influence during the
Revolutionary Period was plainly understood by the authors of the US Constitution when they designed the
First Amendment to cement the role of newspapers as a bulwark of democracy, capable of holding the powerful
to account. Historian and Continental Congress delegate David Ramsay observed, “In establishing American
independence, the pen and the press had merit equal to that of the sword.”4
Despite the legal protections of the First Amendment, newspapers of the late 18th century struggled with
a business model based on feeble circulation capacities (only several hundred readers per paper), content lag
times ranging from weeks to months, and particularly high operating costs.5 On the demand side, low literacy
rates, a largely nonexistent middle class, and a highly rural agrarian society constrained expansion. These

business pressures would linger for nearly a century before giving way to a period of enormous growth in the
late 1800s for the newspaper industry6 (Exhibit 1).
During this period of growth, Stilson Hutchins, founder of the Saint Louis Times, moved to Washington,
DC, and began publishing at 914 Pennsylvania Avenue under the title of The Washington Post on Thursday,
December 6, 1877.7 The first published papers focused chiefly on government affairs and were circulated to
around 10,000 readers, mainly residents of Washington, DC.
In the late 19th century, American newspapers, including The Post, continued to be constrained by two
stubbornly high costs—printing and circulation (transportation). Several advancements during the era
improved the viability of papers in less populated and more competitive environments: the telegraph (which
decreased story lead times), railroad networks (which enabled wider circulation), and the Linotype printer
(which decreased printing costs). Created by German immigrant Ottmar Mergenthaler in Baltimore, Maryland,
the Linotype printer was said to have been described by Thomas Edison as the Eighth Wonder of the World.8
When Mergenthaler unveiled his new machine in January 1883, Hutchins was an eager spectator. Of the first
102 machines produced for commercial use, several went to The Post. The Linotype allowed The Post to swell
production and develop longer and more complex segments (the first newspapers printed at The Post were
limited to just four pages due to high costs). Aided by rising demand and technical innovation, many publishers
reorganized themselves to focus on large commercial advertising deals and mass subscription revenues.
After The Post was hit hard by both scandal9 and the Great Depression, Eugene Meyer bought the
organization at a public bankruptcy auction for $825,000 in 1933. He returned The Post to financial stability and
greatly improved its reputation among Washingtonians. Meyer gave the paper to his son-in-law, Philip Graham,
who led the paper from 1946 to 1963. Upon his death, Katharine Meyer Graham became the first 20th century
female publisher of a major American newspaper. She would inspire a new generation of journalism dedicated
4 David Ramsay, “The Advantages & Disadvantages of the American Revolution and Its Influence on the Minds & Morals of the Citizens,” from
David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution (1789).

5 Todd Andrlik, “Reporting the Revolutionary War,” George Washington’s Mount Vernon, https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/the-
revolutionary-war/reporting-the-revolutionary-war-an-interview-with-todd-andrlik/ (accessed Nov. 8, 2021).

6 In 1870, there were approximately 500 US daily newspapers circulating one paper per day for every 20 people in the country; 50 years later, in 1920,
nearly 2,500 daily newspapers were printing enough copies per day for 1 out of every 4 people. See Matthew Gentzkow, Edward L. Glaeser, and Claudia
Goldin, “The Rise of the Fourth Estate: How Newspapers Became Informative and Why It Mattered,”
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/goldin/files/the_rise_of_the_fourth_estate_how_newspapers_became_informative_and_why_it_mattered.pdf
(accessed Nov. 8, 2021).
7 “Washington Post Company History,” The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/company-history/ (accessed Nov. 8, 2021).
8 John Hendel, “Celebrating Linotype, 125 Years since Its Debut,” Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/05/celebrating-
linotype-125-years-since-its-debut/238968/ (accessed Nov. 8, 2021).

9 In the early 1920s, Edward McLean, the publisher of The Post at the time, became involved in the Teapot Dome Scandal after lying to Congressional
investigators in an attempt to cover up the criminal actions of the Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall.
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to truth and courage above all else. Despite personal threats from the White House, she oversaw The Post’s
commitment to uncovering the secrets of the Watergate scandal, leading to President Richard Nixon’s
resignation, and also oversaw the publishing of the Pentagon Papers, which contributed to the end of the Vietnam
War. In 1979, Katharine Meyer Graham passed the paper over to her son, Donald. Donald Graham led The
Post for nearly three decades before handing the CEO and publisher titles over to his niece, Katharine
Weymouth, in 2008. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would buy The Post five years later, in 2013. As a clear
representation of its mission and a historical connection to the first American newspapers, “Democracy Dies
in Darkness” became the first official slogan of The Post in 2017, and appeared at the end of its first Super Bowl
commercial in 2019.
The Washington Post’s Digital Transformation Journey

For over a century, The Post was well positioned in the profitable Washington, DC, metro area; it held a
dominant share of the market, produced unique content for devoted subscribers, and was financially supported
by a robust combination of local advertising and subscription revenues. As a watchdog in the federal
government’s own backyard, The Post earned a reputation for hard-hitting investigative journalism that extended
its brand around the world.
Unfortunately, industry disruption caused by the internet and the 2008 financial crisis proved disastrous
for newspapers. After The Washington Post Company had faced six straight years of declining revenue,10
Katharine Weymouth and Donald Graham made the difficult decision to personally approach Bezos and ask
that he lead The Post into the digital age. Despite his initial reservations, Bezos agreed to buy The Post for
$250 million, ending four generations of Graham family ownership and 42 years of public trading. In the deal,
Nash Holdings LLC, Bezos’s personal holding company, bought The Post as well as some related ventures.11
Many industry analysts at the time believed that there were no easy fixes Bezos could use to return The Post to
profitability.12
Bezos, determined to save the storied institution, brought in digitally savvy industry veteran Fred Ryan to
serve as CEO and publisher. Following his service as chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan, Ryan had
served as vice-chair of the television, cable, and internet company Allbritton Communications. While at
Allbritton, Ryan cofounded Politico, a politically focused website and newspaper. Ryan reflected on his first
meeting with Bezos:
In the very first meeting we had when we were talking about this job, I asked him, “Jeff, why did you
buy The Washington Post?” He said, “I bought The Washington Post because I believe that a free,
independent, and strong press is essential for the health of our democracy.” And I thought, that’s the
right answer…the answer I was hoping for.13
Soon after joining The Post, Ryan worked with his executive team (Exhibit 2) to reinvent the organization’s
business and operating model to become much nimbler and risk tolerant. Ryan characterized it this way: “The
10 In the period between 2004 and 2014, US paid daily circulation of the Post was down 33% and between 2005 and 2014, advertising revenue was
down 60 percent. Source: Getting to Nimble: How to transform your company into a digital leader, by Peter A. High (2021).
11 The purchase deal included the Express, Gazette newspapers and Southern Maryland newspapers, El Tiempo Latino, and specialty publications, New
Homes Guide and Apartment Showcase. The deal did not include the subsidiary that owns local television affiliates and the education company Kaplan, which
were considered to be cash cow businesses at the time.
12 Neil Irwin and Ylan Q. Mui, “Washington Post Sale: Details of Bezos Deal,” The Washington Post, August 5, 2013,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/details-of-bezos-deal-to-buy-washington-post/2013/08/05/968a2bc4-fe1b-11e2-9711-
3708310f6f4d_story.html (accessed Nov. 8, 2021).
13 Fred Ryan, “What Bezos Brings,” Global Mentor Network, https://www.globalmentornetwork.net/insights/what-bezos-brings (accessed Jan. 19,
2022).
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Post, like many large, successful institutions, can become the proverbial battleship that is very slow to turn.”
Recognizing the role that culture played in organizational change, The Post redefined how employees were
reviewed, placing an emphasis on three criteria, called catalysts, to convey that “something is happening”:
shaping ideas, taking ownership, and speed of execution. Ryan described the importance of the three catalysts:
We continue to ensure that our speed of execution becomes an asset for us rather than a liability. When
there is a competitive environment, we want to be able to execute faster than our competitors, so that
we can do the deal, launch the product, and be the first.
It was clear that the three catalysts were designed to create an organizational culture that would help turn
the organization in a new direction and be capable of making additional turns as demanded by the environment.
Leveraging the three catalysts, several strategic initiatives helped steer the “battleship” in a new direction:
developing a digital-product mindset, rebuilding the newsroom, redesigning core business processes, and

achieving excellence in both technology and journalism.
Developing a Digital-Product Mindset
Prior to joining The Post, Ryan and Bezos had seen firsthand what a digital-product mindset could do to
make an organization nimbler, more innovative, and ultimately more competitive. Ryan described the early
work this way:

It was important that we quickly build a digital mindset across the organization, particularly in the
newsroom, where page A1 of the newspaper had traditionally been considered the most important
item we produced. We were able to accelerate our growth by staying focused on our digital product
and the ways we could extend the reach our journalism.
Fortunately, when they got to The Post, Ryan and Bezos discovered that Shailesh Prakash, The Post’s chief
information officer (CIO), had created a solid foundation on which to build digital products. Before joining
The Post in 2011, Prakash had held engineering leadership roles at Motorola, Sun Microsystems, Netscape, and
Microsoft, and was responsible for product development and engineering for e-commerce operations at Sears.
Prakash recalled his first days at The Post:
There was a lot that needed fixing. Product development had slowed to almost a standstill and the
newsroom had very little confidence in the systems they used to do their jobs and in IT’s ability to ship
digital products. I needed to roll up my sleeves and get into the trenches, and that is what I focused on
initially. I also needed to move the organization from an IT mindset of babysitting systems into a
product development mindset of building and inventing digital products.
Early on, Prakash encountered different levels of acceptance for his initiatives, with the organization falling
into three groups: one group embraced the changes, saying “This is exactly what we need! We will finally make
some progress”; another group that was very resistant, saying “Oh my God, this guy is going to tank the ship”;
and “the big middle,” whose members simply watched and waited to see what would happen. With top
management’s support, Prakash brought in new engineering talent and got some early wins on the board to
help convince “the big middle” that The Post was headed in the right direction.
In the new model, engineers were empowered to be more hands-on, co-located to work directly with their
internal partners in the newsroom and build, rather than buy, digital solutions. They were also expected to ship
quickly and ship often. Kat Downs Mulder, managing editor for digital (and formerly head of product),
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described the changes this way: “I think it was good for us because we just so badly needed a metabolism shift
toward more creation, more invention, and more embracing of new ideas and new technology.”
One pivotal moment came during a change-requirement meeting when the project-management group
presented a comprehensive spreadsheet with red, yellow, and green used to represent the status of stakeholder
requests. At the end of the one-hour meeting with more than 60 participants, it was still not clear what was
needed. After months of debate, it turned out that the changes that the newsroom wanted could be achieved
with minimal engineering effort. Prakash described “a revelation in terms of how much the bureaucracy of
constant debate had stifled both stakeholders and product developers.” Regarding the massive spreadsheet for
tracking requirements, he smiled and said, “It’s great for status reports, but it’s not good for productivity.”
Mulder agreed:
What doesn’t work is just having people execute on an assembly line. You need the team to be engaged

with formulating the roadmap and prioritizing things; otherwise, you just end up doing the stuff on a
list. It’s outcomes, not outputs.
Prakash was adamant that this was the best way to work:
Every day of the week, and twice on Sunday, I’d prefer a model where the engineers are directly
engaged with their newsroom partners rather than having a layer of project managers in the middle
who kind of, sort of think they know what’s going on, while the actual doers are twiddling their thumbs
saying, “I’m sorry, what am I supposed to do again? I’m waiting for the order. What should I do?”
To help put the product-development mindset into action, The Post adopted agile methodologies and scrum
practices. The result was that teams (“squads”) worked together more efficiently on the things that mattered.
Over time, roughly a dozen different product teams were formed, each consisting of 5 to 10 members with the
following roles: lead product manager, one or more designers (user experience [UX] designer, visual designer,
or design technologist), one or more engineers (front end, back end, or hybrid), a scrum master (typically shared
across multiple teams), and subject-matter experts as appropriate (e.g., analytics or A/B testing). Mulder added:
“One of our goals is to give them more autonomy and give them more power to experiment.”
At an organizational level, there were two main components to the product group: one focused on reader
revenue (including purchasing a subscription, managing all the paywalls and registration, subscriber engagement,
and retention), and one focused on the core user experience (including all manifestations of journalism on every
platform, as well as the features that made it easy for readers to find what they were interested in consuming).
Seamless product integration demanded that the two units worked closely together and quarterly alignment
exercises were used to review the product organization’s objectives and key results (OKRs).
Product vision was communicated from the top using a vision statement containing high-level objectives
and how they would be measured (key results). Each product team would then set out to execute those
objectives by drafting OKRs for the team, which were then reviewed for alignment with the company vision
every two weeks. Periodically, multi-team communication meetings were held to track progress against
objectives and get visibility into what the product organization was doing. In addition, product roadmap reviews
occurred once a month with the executive team. Mulder explained:
The tricky part is that you really want empowered teams, but there are higher-level business and
financial decisions that depend on what the product teams are doing…and so there are moments in
which it has to be escalated a level, and so forth…I do think that it’s really important to facilitate
prioritization in order for people to have a really clear understanding of why you’re choosing to do
certain things.
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Although he didn’t get involved in editorial content or the day-to-day business at The Post, every two weeks,
Bezos met via phone with the leadership team to review process, product, and technical issues, such as
subscription flow and load time for the website. Prakash highlighted some of the benefits of having Bezos as
the owner of The Post:
Here’s a man who understands and believes in product development. He’s always encouraged us to
innovate and invent and not worry too much about having the full business plan figured out before we
start building. He wants to see us constantly make our site faster, lower the cognitive dissonance of the
news-reading experience…you name it, and Jeff pushes on it, and he’s excited about it. My developers
talk to him, my product managers talk to him, and my designers talk to him. We love the fact that he
is a product guy.
The frequent engagement with Bezos also proved to be instrumental in recruiting and retaining hundreds

of top technologists—many of whom would have otherwise taken jobs with technology companies like
Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Utilizing this talent, The Post released a variety of industry-leading products
in the years leading up to 2021 (see representative examples in Exhibit 3).
Rebuilding the Newsroom

Staying above water during the downturn had required aggressive cost cutting that reduced newsroom staff
by a third in the decade preceding 2012.14 Ryan and his team had been determined to rebuild what was core to
the business—the newsroom. To this end, they provided the tools and resources necessary for the news creators
to grow with the rest of the business. As a point of reference for the speed with which The Post had hired, when
Bezos bought The Post in 2013, the newsroom had 580 employees. In 2021, The Post was on track to add 150 new
positions, which would expand the newsroom to 1,010 employees—the largest newsroom in the history of The
Post. Many of these new roles emphasized a forward-looking approach to covering the news. Data scientists,
graphic and data designers, and software engineers aided The Post in using data visualizations to communicate
complex topics in simple and powerful ways. Ryan explained:
The Post’s newsroom had been cut so deep before its sale that it had made a significant impact on the
company’s ability to attract readers and advertisers alike. It was a top priority to me to rebuild our core
reporting centers like politics, national security, foreign policy, and investigative, and expand into areas
like technology, climate, food, and travel. That strategy was proven to be the right one, with meteoric
subscription growth and record advertising revenue.
The added human capital also supported The Post’s political journalism. The largest political news team ever
assembled at The Post comprised additional journalists, engineers, and data scientists. The diverse team
developed one-of-a-kind data visualizations and political models widely adopted by eager readers (e.g., complex
voting models were successfully deployed during the 2020 US presidential election to much fanfare).
Utilizing the larger, modernized workforce, The Post widened its news content by adding new channels of
content dissemination. To capitalize on a growing domestic interest in foreign affairs and capture digital
audiences abroad, The Post invested in expanding its world content by adding foreign staff in 26 locations—the
largest corps of foreign correspondents in The Post’s history. To approach new customers, The Post powered its
apps with augmented-reality storytelling features and invested in audio storytelling and live news events,
14 Steven Mufson, “Washington Post Offers Buyouts to Newsroom Staff in Effort to Reduce Costs,” The Washington Post, February 8, 2012,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/washington-post-offers-buyouts-to-newsroom-staff-in-effort-to-reduce-
costs/2012/02/08/gIQA1o2NzQ_story.html (accessed Nov. 8, 2021).
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constructing three studios to air The Post journalists on channels like the Cable News Network (CNN) and
MSNBC as well as produce original video content.
Redesigning Core Business Processes
There were two principal ways to monetize news, regardless of whether it was digital or printed: advertising
and subscriptions. For most of The Post’s history and that of its competitors, advertising had played the leading
role in the form of a multisided platform business model—bringing together their two distinct but
interdependent groups of customers: advertisers and subscribers.15 Yet, more recently, the internet put pressure
on advertising revenues (Exhibit 4) because ad space became ubiquitous online (Exhibit 5). The extreme
decline in print advertising happened without an equally offsetting rise in digital advertising for many
companies, underscoring a grim industry situation.

To counteract industry trends, The Post attempted to differentiate its offering by promising advertisers an
end-to-end collaborative partnership and best-in-class ad technology. Led by Joy Robins, chief revenue officer
(CRO), teams at The Post provided advertising clients proprietary audience insights and research, helped brands
connect with The Post readers, and hosted live virtual leadership masterclasses on topics like privacy, storytelling,
and emerging platforms. For example, The Post went beyond basic ad transactions by forging premium
relationships with companies like Rolex and AT&T that focused on issues of importance to their customers.
In addition, the Research, Experimentation, and Development (RED) team at The Post ideated, created,
and patented ad technology that simultaneously benefited the marketer and reader. The team developed several
revenue-generating products including Feed Builder, which scanned all available personal content information
and then used proprietary personalization technology to align ads with what users were currently reading or
viewing on the site. The tool was developed with thorough subscriber testing and feedback. The Post’s goal was
to bring the most relevant ads to subscribers while boosting ad engagement for its partners.
The Post’s approach to digital subscriptions evolved through a process of experiment-test-learn-adapt. Like
other newspapers, The Post had entered the digital world with free content underwritten by print subscriptions
and advertising. Paywalls emerged when that model failed (Exhibit 6). First, The Post had a 20-story paywall,
then it reduced the limit to 10 stories, and then 5. Later, with the help of technology, The Post transitioned to
dynamic paywalls. Using this approach, if a reader viewed George Will’s column repeatedly over a specified period,
it would suggest that the reader saw utility that they may be willing to pay for, and an offer to subscribe would
follow. Regardless of the method, powerful storytelling presented in engaging ways and utility for the reader
drove subscriptions. Ryan explained it this way: “It’s this idea of commitment to utility. Making something that
someone sees value in, and then you have to get the price right, and that’s something we are constantly
experimenting with.”
As a positive sign that its experiments were leading The Post in the right direction, the organization recorded
111.6 million unique visitors to its website in January 2021 (3 million more than the New York Times for the
same month) (Exhibit 7). Later that year, The Post reported the second-highest number of paying digital news
subscribers in the world, at 3 million (Exhibit 8).
The Post credited much of this incredible success to a unique partnership between its engineering and
marketing personnel. The combined team leveraged a culture of testing and experimentation—at any given
time, The Post was running about half a dozen experiments—designed to create an outstanding user experience.
15 Such platforms were of value to one group of customers only if the other group(s) of customers were also present. The platform created value by
facilitating interactions among the different groups. See Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries,
Game Changers, and Challengers (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2010).
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In a 2020 survey, 23% of US consumers listed website/app experience as a reason to subscribe to online news,
30% listed simple payment systems, 32% listed good deal or trial offers, and 50% listed convenient digital news
packaging (Exhibits 9 and 10).16
In 2021, The Post offered three types of subscriptions plans:
All-Access Digital: Unlimited web and app access (normally $100 per year, or $10 every four weeks, but
the promotional price was $40 per year, or $4 every four weeks)
Premium Digital: Unlimited web and app access, bonus subscription to share, unlimited e-book downloads
written by Post journalists (normally $150 per year, or $15 every four weeks)
Academic: Unlimited access for college students, faculty, and staff as well as active K–12 teachers

(normally $10 every four weeks, but the promotional price was $1 every four weeks)
Furthermore, The Post experimented on a wide variety of platforms. For example, it was an early Facebook
Journalism Project partner and closely collaborated on subscription strategy, data analysis, and news credibility
on the platform; The Post became Snapchat’s first editorial partner to provide breaking news; it was the first
publisher to announce breaking news on Alexa-enabled devices, and published the Daily 202, Retropod, and Post
Reports podcasts on the platform; it created custom, media-rich content on Apple News; and it launched on
Google Home, providing daily political analysis, and was the first national publisher to test Subscribe with
Google on it its site.
Achieving Excellence in Technology and Journalism
As a by-product of investing in its core business and processes, as well as embracing a digital-product
mindset, The Post became as much a tech company as it was a media company—achieving excellence in
technology as well as journalism. About this, Ryan said:
We talk about this intersection of journalism and technology; today, you have to be excellent in both.
If the journalism is not excellent, it doesn’t matter how good the technology is; and if the journalism
is fantastic, but the technology is not getting it out, you’re out of luck. So, we hired and expanded our
engineering team.
As noted by Ryan, achieving engineering excellence meant hiring talented engineers, developing them
through technical training programs, and compensating them at commensurate rates. In addition, with Bezos’s
encouragement, The Post cultivated a culture of experimentation and rapid innovation, all with both the
newsroom and the reader experience in mind; linked to a technology strategy that emphasized build versus buy,
omnichannel with a strong emphasis on mobile, and the early adoption of emerging technologies.
The strategic intersection of journalism and technology produced another form of digital transformation
at The Post—one typically only seen in “digital native” companies based on the West Coast. Just as Amazon
leveraged its engineering excellence to take advantage of cloud computing when it created Amazon Web
Services (AWS), The Post followed the same playbook to build a technology platform that became known as
Arc XP (Arc because it spanned the arc of a publisher’s needs and XP for “experience platform”). Fast Company
wrote of Arc XP: “The newspaper created a platform to tackle its own challenges. Then, with Amazon-like
16 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, 2020.

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spirit, it realized there was a business in helping other publishers do the same.”17 Prakash remembered an off-
site meeting in which management discussed forming a “blue ocean strategy”18 by focusing on an adjacency
that The Post could develop so that it could win, as opposed to going head-to-head with the competition in its
existing space. In this case, as Prakash said, “To build technology for The Post and then ‘Arc-ify’ it for other
publishers.”
Following that meeting, Prakash gained support to test the idea first with a group of college newspapers,
offering for them to use it for free. As a proof of concept, a small team of engineers ran experiments to see if
it could do multi-tenant systems, how to size the hardware and at what cost, what kind of complications would
occur if it integrated video, and so on. These experiments allowed the team to learn a great deal about a variety
of relevant use cases and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
As depicted in Exhibit 11, Arc XP evolved into a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business used to manage

content, omnichannel experiences, and commerce (e.g., subscriptions and ad monetization). Its SaaS products
were designed to increase efficiency and productivity by streamlining workflow, allowing newsrooms to focus
less on navigating systems and more on producing content while growing readership. Given that the templates
built for The Post went into the suite of Arc XP products, clients were not just buying a more efficient software
solution—they were essentially getting a subscription to the roadmap of The Post. Scot Gillespie, VP and general
manager of Arc Publishing, put it this way: “If it works here, most likely it’s going to work for other large
newsrooms.” Prakash added: “And there are benefits both ways, [for example] sites that are heavy users of
video have helped our own video platform evolve.”
Arc XP’s first paying customers were Willamette Week in September 2015 and then the Alaska Dispatch News
the following month. Its next big break came when the Toronto Globe and Mail decided that it “[wasn’t] looking
for a shrink-wrapped product that would void the warranty if they tinkered with it”—it was more interested in
partnering with The Post to build a modern digital experience platform (DXP). Arc XP quickly amassed an
impressive list of national and international clients, powering sites across five continents, including a large
number of brand-name publications and broadcasters such as the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Daily
News, Philadelphia Enquirer, and Boston Globe in the United States, and numerous international clients including
El País (in Spain), Le Parisien (in France), New Zealand Herald, and Infobae (in Argentina; Infobae was the largest
Spanish-language news source in the world). By 2021, virtually every large publisher in the world was either on
or considering Arc XP.
Utilizing the same multi-tenant platform, Arc XP was beginning to be used across several other verticals,
such as broadcasting and e-commerce facilitation for clients who wanted to engage more with their customers.
After all, these clients had the same basic problem as publishers: the video system, blogging system, planning
system, and distribution system were all built by different vendors—an amalgamation of black boxes, creating
a nightmare for the engineers who needed to make all the black boxes work together. Arc XP gave these sites
that wanted to do both content and commerce a loosely coupled stack that worked well together. In 2021, Arc
XP announced that the Golden State Warriors planned to use Arc XP not only to do the content and marketing
of the team’s site but also to sell seats in team suites. Other enterprise clients included BP, Avalon Bay, and
Morningstar.
By 2021, Arc XP had become an extremely successful business, powering more than 1,500 sites for
hundreds of clients in over 25 countries, generating over 1.5 billion unique visitors to the platform per month,
17 Harry McCracken, “The Washington Post Is a Software Company Now,” Fast Company, November 17, 2017,
https://www.fastcompany.com/40495770/the-washington-post-is-a-software-company-now (accessed Nov. 8, 2021).
18 The term “blue ocean” was created by W. Chan Kim and Renée A. Mauborgne in their book Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market
Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant; it described a market with little to no existing competition. W. Chan Kim and Renée A. Mauborgne, Blue Ocean
Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, 2015).
Page 10 UVA-S-0368
tens of billions of page views per month, and on track to yield $100 million in annual revenue for The Post.
Going forward, Arc Commerce was projected to triple Arc XP’s revenue in three years.
In order to fuel this tremendous growth, The Post had built a staff of more than 250 engineers in the first
five years after Bezos bought the organization, and planned to add 150 hires in the two years after 2021. The
pace of hiring created an internal debate about whether this collection of talented engineers was being used
properly in the service of either a perceived competitor or an adjacent industry (like broadcast) when the
newsroom had plenty of needs of its own. Open questions included: Is Arc XP operating in enough of an
adjacency? Is Arc XP on path, or off path? From Prakash’s viewpoint, “We need to figure out the ultimate
steady state for Arc…and today, I’m glad somebody like Fred is at the helm, because he trusts and he believes
in it.”
Notwithstanding the internal debate over the future of Arc XP as a “business within a business,” the value

of the platform to internal customers was undeniable. Arc XP represented a tremendous resource to The Post,
enabling digital capabilities that few other news-media organizations could match. The newsroom used Arc XP
to create content for all demographic segments of the market, while product teams used the platform to build
digital products across a variety of devices and channels, as well as e-commerce solutions like digital
subscriptions, dynamic paywalls, and ad optimization. Arc XP was a major step forward in The Post’s digital
transformation journey.
The Transformation Journey Continued—Innovating for the Next Generation
When discussing The Post’s progress as a company, Ryan was often asked by his colleagues, “Are we there
yet? Are we out of the woods?” Ryan’s response was always simple and to the point: “The woods are endless;
we will never be out because the woods are growing. As soon as we get to the edge, new trees keep growing!”
It was clear that the Next Gen task force was formed with this viewpoint in mind, and there were a lot of
questions that it needed to answer while developing its strategic roadmap for emerging audiences:
• With reference to the digital subscription funnel (Exhibit 12), what would it take for younger audiences
to engage with and eventually subscribe to The Post?
• Did younger audiences value what The Post had always been known for—objective, fact-based
reporting?
• What about younger audiences’ willingness to pay for quality journalism—and more broadly, how
could The Post best monetize this segment of the market?
• When, where, and in what format did younger audiences prefer to consume news?
• Could The Post leverage the power of Arc XP to rapidly develop and test one or more new digital
products geared to younger and more diverse audiences? If so, which ones?
Uncovering the answers to these questions was critical if The Post was to survive another century as one of the
world’s most respected news-media organizations. Ryan and his executive team looked forward to constantly
evolving and innovating for the next generation.
Page 11 UVA-S-0368
Exhibit 1
Daily Newspapers and Circulation per Capita in the United States, 1790–2020
Daily Newspapers and Circulation per Capita in the United States

3,000 0.4
0.35
2,500 Sum of Number of Daily Publications
Circulation per Capita

0.3
Number of Daily Newspapers
2,000
Circulation per Capita

0.25
1,500 0.2
0.15
1,000
0.1
500
0.05
Linotype Printer First Commercial First Regular TV First Internet
Invented Radio Broadcast News Broadcast Website
0 0
1790 1810 1830 1850 1870 1890 1910 1930 1954 1974 1994 2014
Year
Data sources: Dailies, 1790–1925: William A. Dill, “Growth of Newspapers in the United States,” March 15, 1928, tables V and VI,
https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/21361/dill_1928_3425151.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y; Pew Research
Center, “Newspaper Fact Sheet,” June 29, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/newspapers/; and Amy Watson,
“Number of Daily Newspapers in the U.S. 1970–2018,” June 10, 2021, https://www.statista.com/statistics/183408/number-of-us-daily-
newspapers-since-1975 (all accessed Nov. 8, 2021). Chart adapted from Matthew Gentzkow, Edward L. Glaeser, and Claudia Goldin,
“The Rise of the Fourth Estate: How Newspapers Became Informative and Why It Mattered,”
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/goldin/files/the_rise_of_the_fourth_estate_how_newspapers_became_informative_and_why_it_m
attered.pdf (accessed Nov. 8, 2021).
Page 12
Source: Created by authors. Company photographs are used with permission.

Exhibit 2
The Washington Post Executive Team

UVA-S-0368
Page 13 UVA-S-0368
Exhibit 3
The Washington Post’s Digital Product Launch Timeline, Representative Examples (2015–21)
Arc XP (Arc Publishing): Modern digital experience

platform (DXP) that provides an end-to-end solution for
media and entertainment organizations and enterprise
businesses across industries 2016
Bandito: Real-time content testing tool
Carta: Newsletter delivery platform

2017 Heliograf: Artificial intelligence system that helped
The Post cover nationwide election races in 2016 and
Own: Artificial intelligence (AI) that lets brands use
2018
their own content for ads and improves chances of ads
being seen and read
BreakFast: Improves the speed of breaking-news
email alerts
Today’s WorldView: Daily newsletter; first product
created for an international audience
Zeus Technology Platform: Media-monetization
platform that levels the playing field for publishers and
advertisers
Fuse: Consumer-first ad experience built for the high-

2019 speed mobile era
Feedbuilder: Tool that automatically builds multiple Re-engage: Aims to get distracted or inactive users to
creative assets, scans all available content, and then re-engage further with The Post content
utilizes proprietary personalization technology to align 2018
ad units with what users are reading at the time or
read in their current visit Post Reports: First daily flagship podcast
By The Way: Highly visual digital destination for showcasing The Post’s wide-ranging journalism
travelers who want to experience cities around the SwitchPlay: User-friendly video experience that
world like a local seamlessly combines pre-roll and in-article video
Zeus Performance: Industry-leading advertising Augmented Reality Experience: AR stories using
framework and revenue technology stack Apple’s latest AR Quicklook technology
Zeus Insights: Context targeting with first-party data
Zeus Prime: Premium ad network 2020
Audio Stories: Audio versions of all stories available
on mobile devices
2021 Heliograph Elections: AI-powered audio updates
for 2020 election results
Zeus Video - improves the efficiency of advertising by
reducing latency and driving viewability
Arc Commerce - equips brand marketers with the
tools and capabilities to grow ecommerce
Data source: The Washington Post PR blog, 2015–2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/pr/ (accessed Nov. 8, 2021).
Ad Spend ($Bn, 2019 Dollars) Page 14
Year
Exhibit 4
US Ad Spend, 1935–2019
evans.com/benedictevans/2020/6/14/75-years-of-us-advertising (accessed Nov. 8, 2021). Used with permission.

Data source: Benedict Evans, “News by the Ton: 75 Years of US Advertising,” Benedict Evans (blog), June 15, 2020, https://www.ben-
UVA-S-0368
Page 15
(accessed Nov. 8, 2021).

Exhibit 5

Advertising and Circulation Revenue of Public US Newspapers (Combined), 1956–2019
Data source: Pew Research Center, “Newspaper Fact Sheet,” June 29, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/newspapers/
UVA-S-0368
Page 16 UVA-S-0368
Exhibit 6
The Washington Post’s Print and Digital Readership, 2009–2020
The Washington Post’s Print and Digital Readership (2009-20)

120,000,000 900,000
Monthly Website V isitors (September)
Sunday Pr int Circulation (52-Week Average) 800,000
100,000,000
Sunday Print Circulation (52-Week Average)

Monthly Unique Website Visitors (September)
700,000

80,000,000 600,000
500,000
60,000,000
400,000
40,000,000 300,000
200,000
20,000,000
100,000
0 0
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Year
Data source: The Alliance for Audited Media, Annual Audit Reports, 2010–2020.
Page 17
Source: Company document, used with permission.

Exhibit 7

Total Digital Population, Unique Visitors (in Millions), January 2021

UVA-S-0368
Page 18 UVA-S-0368
Exhibit 8
The Most Popular Paid Subscription News Websites, 2021
Source: Carmen Ang and Raul Amoros, “Ranked: The Most Popular Paid Subscription News Websites,” Visual Capitalist,
April 26, 2021, https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-most-popular-paid-subscription-news-websites/ (accessed
Nov. 17, 2021). Used with permission.
Page 19
Institute, 2020; used with permission.

Exhibit 9

Digital News Country and Market Data, United States
Source: Nic Newman, Richard Fletcher, Anne Schulz, Simge Andı, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, “Digital News Report 2020,” Reuters
UVA-S-0368
Page 20
2020,” Reuters Institute, 2020; used with permission..

Exhibit 10

Global Digital News Survey Results, 2020
Source: Nic Newman, Richard Fletcher, Anne Schulz, Simge Andı, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, “Digital News Report
UVA-S-0368
Page 21 UVA-S-0368
Exhibit 11
Arc XP Service Map
Source: Company document, used with permission.
Page 22 UVA-S-0368
Exhibit 12
The Washington Post’s Digital Subscription Funnel
Key Performance Indicators

• Off-platform interactions (social
media views, comments, and so on)
Attract
• Total unique visitors to owned and
operated platforms

• Average number of page views
Activate • Newsletter sign-ups
• App downloads
Convert • Subscriptions starts
• Daily active users

Retain • Terminations
• Churn rate
Source: Created by authors.

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UVA-S-0368

Rev. Jan. 27, 2022

Digital Transformation at The Washington Post:

Taught by Inma Rodriguez-Ardura, from 18-Oct-2023 to 18-Apr-2024. Order ref F489818.

Taught by Inma Rodriguez-Ardura, from 18-Oct-2023 to 18-Apr-2024. Order ref F489818.

David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution (1789).

revolutionary-war/reporting-the-revolutionary-war-an-interview-with-todd-andrlik/ (accessed Nov. 8, 2021).

linotype-125-years-since-its-debut/238968/ (accessed Nov. 8, 2021).

Taught by Inma Rodriguez-Ardura, from 18-Oct-2023 to 18-Apr-2024. Order ref F489818.

Taught by Inma Rodriguez-Ardura, from 18-Oct-2023 to 18-Apr-2024. Order ref F489818.

Developing a Digital-Product Mindset

work this way:

Taught by Inma Rodriguez-Ardura, from 18-Oct-2023 to 18-Apr-2024. Order ref F489818.

Taught by Inma Rodriguez-Ardura, from 18-Oct-2023 to 18-Apr-2024. Order ref F489818.

Rebuilding the Newsroom

Redesigning Core Business Processes

Taught by Inma Rodriguez-Ardura, from 18-Oct-2023 to 18-Apr-2024. Order ref F489818.

In 2021, The Post offered three types of subscriptions plans:

Taught by Inma Rodriguez-Ardura, from 18-Oct-2023 to 18-Apr-2024. Order ref F489818.

Google on it its site.

Achieving Excellence in Technology and Journalism

16 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, 2020.

Taught by Inma Rodriguez-Ardura, from 18-Oct-2023 to 18-Apr-2024. Order ref F489818.

video have helped our own video platform evolve.”

Taught by Inma Rodriguez-Ardura, from 18-Oct-2023 to 18-Apr-2024. Order ref F489818.

The Transformation Journey Continued—Innovating for the Next Generation

Daily Newspapers and Circulation per Capita in the United States

Taught by Inma Rodriguez-Ardura, from 18-Oct-2023 to 18-Apr-2024. Order ref F489818.

Circulation per Capita

Source: Created by authors. Company photographs are used with permission.

The Washington Post Executive Team

Arc XP (Arc Publishing): Modern digital experience

Taught by Inma Rodriguez-Ardura, from 18-Oct-2023 to 18-Apr-2024. Order ref F489818.

Fuse: Consumer-first ad experience built for the high-

Ad Spend ($Bn, 2019 Dollars) Page 14

evans.com/benedictevans/2020/6/14/75-years-of-us-advertising (accessed Nov. 8, 2021). Used with permission.

(accessed Nov. 8, 2021).

Innovating for the Next Generation

Advertising and Circulation Revenue of Public US Newspapers (Combined), 1956–2019

The Washington Post’s Print and Digital Readership (2009-20)

Monthly Website V isitors (September)

Sunday Pr int Circulation (52-Week Average) 800,000

Sunday Print Circulation (52-Week Average)

Taught by Inma Rodriguez-Ardura, from 18-Oct-2023 to 18-Apr-2024. Order ref F489818.

Source: Company document, used with permission.

Innovating for the Next Generation

Total Digital Population, Unique Visitors (in Millions), January 2021

Institute, 2020; used with permission.

Innovating for the Next Generation

Digital News Country and Market Data, United States

2020,” Reuters Institute, 2020; used with permission..

Innovating for the Next Generation

Source: Company document, used with permission.

Key Performance Indicators

Taught by Inma Rodriguez-Ardura, from 18-Oct-2023 to 18-Apr-2024. Order ref F489818.

Convert • Subscriptions starts

• Daily active users

Source: Created by authors.

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