The Economist Is Selling Courses

The Economist is selling its stamp of approval to education-hungry executives. This week, the publisher launched Economist Education, a separate business for online courses managed by a dedicated team of roughly five staffers. The first six-week training course, titled The New Global Order: How Politics, Business and Technology Are Changing, contains six modules and has a time commitment of between six and eight hours per week. So far, nearly 200 people from nearly 40 countries have signed up for the course, which costs $1,875. The participants are mostly from the U.S. and U.K. At least 20% of the course members are existing Economist subscribers. The publisher has 1.6 million global print and digital subscribers but this education wing isn’t strictly a way to acquire or retain subscribers. Rather, it's a play to grow adjacent businesses and diversify revenue. “This is a good fit for a brand extension at The Economist,” said president Bob Cohn. “The value of our journalism—our rigor, analytical and fact-based journalism—makes it a great fit for classroom and education values.” Read More: The Institute for Brand Marketing, Explained The university-based executive education market was worth close to $2 billion in 2019, according to Unicon, a consortium of 113 business schools providing such courses. Naturally, the pandemic has moved in-person learning online and, in a battered job market, made professional development a real selling point. Publishers' existing skills make online learning a fertile opportunity. Others, like NYU professor Scott Galloway, whose company, Section4, has $750 group “sprint” courses, are getting into the business. The Economist anticipates demand will increase. This marks an ambition for the company to be more innovative and entrepreneurial, looking for growth opportunities in areas adjacent to journalism The Economist has partnered with online education firm GetSmarter, which guides elements that could be unfamiliar to publishers, like price and technology. The publisher plans to run this six-week course on geopolitics four times in its first year. Another course on business writing and professional communication, with a September launch, is underway and there are discussions about a third course. A small business with big ambitions Cohn wouldn’t share how much revenue he expects the new venture to bring in, adding that it’s a small business for the publisher right now but aims to be profitable in its first year. “We have high ambitions but want to be guided by market and course attendees," he said, adding, "by 2023 we could do eight of these per year.” The course will deliver actionable insights, practical skills and networking opportunities to help participants advance in their careers and shape the future of their organizations, according to the course material. Roughly 20 Economist correspondents helped design the course. Being able to draw on this expertise means the overheads are low, the new division has a separate profit and loss line to the Economist’s core media business. The modules can be viewed on-demand and include text, audio and video presentations as well as interactive activities, 10-person group discussions, tutoring and writing exercises between sessions. Participants receive a certificate of completion online from The Economist. “Our impression is that taking a rigorous course from The Economist should be a mark of some distinction and have some value in the marketplace," said Cohn. In the Biden era, politics-heavy subscription publishers are searching for creative ways to continue growing subscriber numbers. The New York Times experienced its slowest subscriber growth this quarter and is pushing deeper into lifestyle verticals like gaming and cooking. Cohn said that overall traffic and visitors from Google Search has tempered since the Trump era but pulling on levers like marketing, partnerships, new products and how it packages content for subscribers will keep it buoyant. “We still expect the same growth in subscribers this year," he said, "just not off the tailwinds of a news cycle that was kind of on steroids.” Editor's note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the course cost $2,090.

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The Economist Is Selling Courses

The separate business aims to be profitable in the first year

Lucinda Southern

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