Gannett Taps 'Accidental Disruptor' Renn Turiano to Boost Subscriptions

Gannett is aiming to attract 10 million subscribers to its local news content across the U.S. and U.K. within the next five years, and Renn Turiano has been charged as the person to do it. The hiring of Turiano as svp of new subscription products and revenue comes as Gannett's strategy to drive growth has already begun to take shape. In addition to putting puzzles and other content behind the paywall at its USA Today flagship, earlier this month Gannett reported that digital-only subscriptions jumped 41% year over year to 1.4 million by the end of the second quarter. The shift to subscriptions happening at most publishers comes as online advertising revenues continue to decline. And pressure from privacy regulators and the often-mentioned death of the third-party cookie have forced publishers to derive revenue from other streams. Turiano joins Gannett from NBCUniversal Media, where he served as vp of product and design. At the end of his four-year tenure with NBCUniversal, Turiano led content subscription services for its streaming platform Peacock. Before that, he was a creative director for Amazon. In a Sign of the Times, The Washington Post Hires its First Chief Subscriptions Officer Over the course of a 20-year career, Turiano has held product and design roles at Rapp, HTC, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, among other major brands. A passion for journalism His success at growing Peacock's subscriber base—in April, the streamer said it gained 42 million sign-ups—should serve him well in his new post is as senior vice president of new subscription products and revenue at Gannett. Turiano will take lead on the company’s quest to design and launch new content subscription products across various Gannett platforms, calling the opportunity irresistible. “The idea that you can make some kind of contribution, even in a small way, to help preserve traditional journalism, and to reinvigorate the news and bring news to new people in more ways, that's really a once in a lifetime opportunity for a product person like myself,” Turiano told Adweek. [News subscribers] have very, very high expectations for what they're going to get.Renn Turiano Turiano brings a wealth of experience to the Gannett role, including includes end-to-end product development, UX design, communications, commerce, growth marketing, management and leadership. "The kind of background that I have is suited to this role, having worked in a really broad range of sectors and being exposed to lots of different ways in which consumers engage with digital products," Turiano said. "I find myself very often trying to push change within an organization in order to be able to deliver some kind of product that I think—and the data shows me—is the right kind of product to deliver." Turiano sees himself as an "accidental disruptor," finding ways to change the way people think about digital products in order to be able to deliver them. The shift to a subscription model Turiano envisions great opportunities at Gannett, but acknowledged there are some challenges as well. "The market is still somewhat undefined," Turiano noted. "Consumers have grown accustomed to not paying for news products online, and when they do pay for news products they have very, very high expectations for what they're going to get. And they want it to follow a particular product type." But Turiano welcomes the task ahead of him. He's excited about potential hack days, where his team can collaborate on software projects together. Many media publishers have shifted to an online subscription model. Gannett was no different, making its goal to establish a strong subscription base public in 2019 after a merger with GateHouse Media. One step toward that goal was hiring Mayur Gupta as CMSO last year. Another was reaching 1 million subscribers in Q3 of last year. In turn, Gupta hired Turiano to take Gannett to the next level on that front. Gannett's current portfolio of publishers and digital marketing businesses includes the USA Today Network, local media organizations in 46 states and Guam, Newsquest, ReachLocal, ThriveHive and WordStream. The New York Times Tops 8 Million Subscribers, but Growth Stutters