The event brought together representatives from some of the main media organizations and audience measurers in Spain, including La Razón, El Español, Unidad Editorial, Libertad Digital, Prensa Ibérica, Mediaset, Cordópolis, Grupo Serra, OJD and Alayans.
It is estimated that Spanish editors They are losing 30% to 34% of their traffic because AI systems extract and play multimedia content without redirecting readers to the original websites. This trend is undermining the traditional media business model, which relies heavily on search traffic and advertising revenue.
At the same time, the AI market in the Spanish media sector is expected to grow to reach 11.4 billion euros in 2030which will mean both new opportunities and new challenges for publishers. As AI adoption accelerates, many media companies are now looking for ways to protect their content and adapt their business models to the new ecosystem.
But audience behavior continues to change. More than half of users now access news through social and video platforms, while almost 49% of younger audiences rely on social media as their primary source of news.
In this context, the traditional business model of digital media is experiencing one of the most significant transformations in recent years. Search traffic is declining, audiences are increasingly consuming news across platforms rather than directly on publishers’ websites, and artificial intelligence is beginning to reshape the way information is distributed and monetized.
This shift is gradually weakening the traditional model in which readers come to news sites directly or through search.
An industry in permanent beta
According to Raúl Castillo Herrero, national director of Membrana Media in Spain, media consumption is becoming increasingly fragmented.
“Today, users don’t ‘read a single post,’ but instead consume snippets of content across the digital ecosystem, across social media, video platforms, and recommendation feeds,” he said.
In this environment, publishers compete not only with each other, but also with technology platforms that increasingly control access to audiences.
The digital advertising consultant and current commercial director for Spain of Fluzo, Javier Valbuena Balbas summed up the current situation in the publishing sector very well: basically, the industry operates in permanent beta mode. Business models and editorial strategies are constantly tested, adjusted and rebuilt.
Because?
Today’s editors are under pressure from several fronts at once.
There is more content online than ever, making stories from different media increasingly similar to each other. At the same time, people’s attention is dispersed between social networks, video platforms, newsletters and messaging applications. In addition, publishers are increasingly dependent on platforms’ algorithms, which decide what content is seen. And traditional banner ads simply don’t work as well as they used to.
«Adaptation allows you to survive. Innovation allows you to change the rules of the game», noted Valbuena.
How publishers are rebuilding their revenue models
As traffic declines, publishers are increasingly experimenting with new revenue streams and hybrid monetization models.
Among the strategies discussed during the event are:
- Hybrid revenue models that combine subscriptions, memberships, rewarded and advertising;
- A deeper use of your own data (first-party data) to personalize content and advertising;
- The community creation around media brands;
- The narration multiformatincluding text, video, audio and interactive formats;
- The use of the artificial intelligence as an editorial and commercial tool to improve efficiency and personalization.
Publishers are also exploring new ad formats designed to balance user experience with monetization. One of these models is the access through services rewardedin which users can unlock content by watching a short advertisement.
Tools like AdWalldeveloped by Membrana Media, allow publishers to offer users temporary access to premium content in exchange for a few seconds of attention, turning engagement into an additional source of income.
A turning point for the media industry
In this context, many publishers are rethinking their strategies. On the one hand, the industry is looking for ways to respond to large-scale scraping by combining technical protections, legal initiatives and licensing negotiations with AI companies. These measures are increasingly seen as necessary to limit traffic losses and protect the value of original journalism.
On the other hand, editors are also exploring closer partnerships with ad tech companies offering tools to help them better monetize their existing audiences, while maintaining a positive user experience and reader loyalty.